We had lofty plans here at localcut to “live blog” our experiences at the 2006 PDX POP NOW! festival. Somehow, it turned out to have been a terrible, breakdown-inducing week prior to the fest for all of us, and no one felt much like writing anything. But between work and booze and sobbing fits, I [...]

Possibly the only noise track to make use of live handclaps, this is one of the more accessible tracks of D. Yellow Swans second and most recent studio album, Psychic Succession. Produced by White Rainbow’s Adam Forkner, it’s a hypnotizing ten minutes (still short by DYS standards) of heartbeat bass, live and sequenced percussion, Pete [...]

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Dan and Arcellus are swimming in a pool in Delafield, Wisconsin right now. (It’s 1:15am.) Eben’s reading. I’m getting eaten by mosquitoes while writing to Portland. Whiskey has been consumed. Tomorrow we are spending our slow Sunday playing a pool party and a retirement home.
Seriously – that’s not the whiskey talking. I actually didn’t drink [...]

Yesterday Gov. Ted Kulongoski announced 54 statewide grants being awarded through the Oregon Cultural Trust. Huzzah! Yay for culture and all that. But where is the support for the tennis-shoe wearing music community. Of all the recipients, shown below, only the Friends of Chamber Music, Portland Youth Philharmonic Association and Portland Taiko are wholly involved [...]

After the demise of the Observers and Plan R last November and February respectively, fans of those bands—characterized by their enjoyment of getting wet willies and other mid-song harassment by Colin Grigson (Plan R vocalist and Observers bass player)—were given a new hope: Defect Defect, a band that featured Grigson, as well as Observers guitarist [...]

Just a quick update about fucking Pitchfork beating us to the punch. I checked the site tonight while delaying my remaining, long overdue MusicfestNW assignments (bad case of writer’s block) and saw Portland’s own Thermals staring back at me. The occasion is a new leaked track running from the Sub Pop website. The Pitchfork kids [...]

Last night, the folks behind this weekend’s PDX Pop Now! Festival screened PDX Popped! at Holocene. Twenty or so showed up for the reveal of the Skratch Films production, which documents nine performances from last year’s pop fest. But we think more people need to see it, so we snagged almost all the footage from [...]

Nick Jaina, the singer-songwriter so good that yesterday I wrote a Cut of the Day begging someone to release his latest, The 7 Stations, is without a label no more. Jaina, who also fronts the Binary Dolls, sent this message:
Thanks for the kind words re: my album. It won’t be unreleased for long. My [...]

Are you ready to hear some magic?
Perhaps you’re one of the blind. THAT’S OK! You have the right to be amazed, bewitched, and, ahem, offended.
Portland’s Jona Bechtolt has teamed up with Jackson Anderson to bring all of us (vision blessed and deprived alike) Audio Magic.
Close your eyes (if you’re not already blind) [...]

The city commissioner heats up the city’s tepid support for local music.
[POLITICS] Last Wednesday City Commissioner Sam Adams helped introduce about 500 music fans and three local bands (Pseudosix, the Minders, Quasi) to City Hall during a late-afternoon concert in front of the municipal building. The concert, put on in conjunction with the PDX Pop [...]