“This Is How We Do It In Fresno” - BKF
Jordan Dykstra reports:
We played in Merced, CA at the venue called The Partisan. The vibe was wooden on the outside and very mellow on the in. We got burritos across the street and then Sean and I walked for about half an hour to find some […]

Sorry, lots of Thermals stuff lately. But I love it, you love it.
The Thermals hired a new drummer named “JJ Binks”. I have at least two friends who really, really wanted to do some Thermals drummin’ (both of whom are quite capable on the skins), so this is sort of a “drummer bummer.” I […]

Talk about a crazy weekend—after taking pictures of nearly every band at the three day PDX Pop Now! festival, our newest photo contributor, Jordan Strong, somehow mustered up the energy to snap a few more at the Artistery on Monday night. Here’s his brief report and a slideshow:
Jordan says: The Artistery is my new favorite […]

[SINGER-SONGWRITER] Breanna Paletta is as humble as they come. Especially for a woman who began her career as a teenage lyricist for some of the city’s most well-respected artists, opened for the Cowboy Junkies and performed her perfect pop tunes at festivals alongside the likes of Tori Amos. Unlike other young, emerging artists, she’s none […]

[UNDERGROUND DANCE] “The Gossip thing is pretty all-consuming,” admits Nathan Howdeshell, known as Brace Paine when playing guitar with the soul-punk icons. “But there’s always time to take pictures, do parties and make movies. I can’t sit still for very long.”
Between continual continent-hopping, Howdeshell’s founded a new electronic music project with Gossip frontwoman Beth Ditto […]

Photos by Jordan Strong and Clara Ridabock
Well, here ya go. The third and final day of the 2008 PDX Pop Now! festival was also the most physically draining for me. Flying off too much caffeine and an average of four hours of sleep a night, I barely made it on Sunday afternoon. I also took […]

When your favorite band says they’re going on indefinite hiatus, you get this feeling like someone has stuck a fork in your stomach and is twirling it, very fast, like in a bowl of spaghetti. You’re heart might drop to your shoes. You might scream “what the fuck?” Or maybe you’ll just melt into a […]

While lately I’ve been favoring Facebook as a social networking service, MySpace is still tops due to its music players—especially when you stumble upon gems like Nurses’ “Technicolor.” Lyrically, the four-minute song is a yellow brick road to the past, and there’s some magic in the piano playing. “Technicolor” is a lot like a carnival—something […]

All photos by Jordan Strong unless otherwise noted (in which case they are by Clara Ridabock). Additional insights from KPSU’s Arya Imig and WW’s Casey Jarman can be found towards the bottom of this page.
True story: I didn’t attend the PDX Pop Now! festival last year. Or the year before, for that matter. […]

June 22
(Day 6)
It was bound to happen. And it did. Vehicle problems! We woke up this morning and Julius pointed out that our rear American driver’s side tire was pregnant. A massive bubble, the size of a fist, was poking out of the sidewall of our tire and we were supposed to already be […]