All year round, we dig through Portland’s best music to find MP3s for our Cut of the Day feature. We’ve done 433 such “cuts” since the site began. And 31 (of 49) of our COTD artists just happen to be playing this year’s PDX Pop Now! fest (July 25-27 at Rotture). We were already late in posting this year’s schedule, so we figured why not just be really late and provide MP3s for those 31 artists whom our radars have focused on in the last couple of years. I mean, if MTV is covering PDX Pop, we best step up our game a bit, right?

So here it is, a not-quite-comprehensive audio guide to each day of this year’s PDX Pop Now! fest. Keep in mind that some of these songs are outdated, some of them are demos and some of them still haven’t been released. But they’re also pretty much all songs we have fallen in love with for one reason or another (and if you want to learn more, you’ll have to search the site for the artist and song title. Sorry, we’re not THAT good):

The safe money tonight might be the Builders and the Butchers (and “When it Rains” is a fine early example of that group), whose success has largely been built on the back of its transcendent live shows, but any one of these artists could steal the show. My money is on Sleep.

Emily Katz (Love Menu), “The Dance”

Download audio file (the dance.mp3)

Rainy States, “Suddenly Electric”

Download audio file (suddenlyelectric.mp3)

Sleep, “Love it to Death”

Download audio file (loveittodeath.mp3)

Tu Fawning, “Out Like Bats”

Download audio file (OutLikeBats.mp3)

Guidance Counselor, “Culture Junkies”

Download audio file (Culture Junkies.mp3)

Dykeritz, “Big Drapes”

Download audio file (bigdrapes.mp3)

Panther, “Puerto Rican Jukebox”

Download audio file (Puerto_Rican_Jukebox.mp3)

Nick Jaina, “Maryanne”

Download audio file (Maryanne.mp3)

The Builders and the Butchers, “When it Rains”

Download audio file (whenitrains.mp3)

Saturday is punk as fuck! It also features the chill Blind Pilot, my favorite recent PDX discovery, and the ever-dancetacular Starfucker, perhaps LocalCut’s most agreed-upon band (search that band title and the result is a little overwhelming).

The Revisions, “Where I Stay”

Download audio file (whereistay.mp3)

Andy Combs and the Moth, “Service Station”

Download audio file (servicestation.mp3)

Bodhi, “Nadine”

Download audio file (nadine.mp3)

Eskimo and Sons, “Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown!”

Download audio file (charliebrown.mp3)

Reporter, “Lo Pan”

Download audio file (lopan.mp3)

Blind Pilot, “I Buried a Bone”

Download audio file (buriedabone.mp3)

Living Proof, “Build it Up”

Download audio file (builditup.mp3)

Portland Cello Project (feat. Horse Feathers), “Mother’s Sick”

Download audio file (mothers.mp3)

Loch Lomond, “The Trumpet Song”

Download audio file (thetrumpetsong.mp3)

Atole, “Tacuba”

Download audio file (atole.mp3)

Starfucker, “German Love”

Download audio file (germanlove.mp3)

Don’t be surprise if Liv Warfield gets the biggest applause of the entire day today. Kind of unfair of us to run this entirely outdated Dragging an Ox song, but that’s the nature of this particular beast. Looks like we owe DAOTW a new Cut of the Day for his excellent upcoming effort The Tropics of Phenomenon. But then, we also never ran a Cut of the Day for punkers Cower or Eat Skull. So many stones left unturned! Let this be a lesson to us!

World’s Greatest Ghosts, “Sleepwalkers”

Download audio file (sleepwalkers.mp3)

Mattress, “Forbidden Fruit”

Download audio file (forbiddenfruit2.mp3)

Bark Hide and Horn, “Grandfather”

Download audio file (Grandfather.mp3)

A Weather, “Oh My Stars”

Download audio file (Ohmystars.mp3)

Draggin an Ox Through Water, “Hill of Dirt”

Download audio file (Hill of Dirt.mp3)

Pure Country Gold, “You Got to Bro Up to Bro Down”

Download audio file (bro up.mp3)

Eat Skull, “Dead Families”

Download audio file (deadfamilies.mp3)

White Fang, “Breakfast”

Download audio file (WhiteFangBreakfast.mp3)

Sandpeople, “It’s True”

Download audio file (itstrue.mp3)

Norfolk & Western, “Sue and the Short Order Cook in Chesterfield, SC”

Download audio file (chesterfield.mp3)

New Bloods, “Ritual”

Download audio file (newbloods-aritual.mp3)

That’s that! But look for more PDX Pop Now! coverage in next Wednesday’s issue of Willamette Week and here at LocalCut. If PDX Pop Now! artists not covered here want to send MP3s our way, they can hit me up directly at cjarman at wweek dot com. I’ll update as quick as I can.

Feel free to put these tracks on your Muxtapes. Which one would make the best intro and outro? I think I’d go with

Links:
PDX Pop Now!

Photo and schedules courtesy of PDX Pop. Special thanks to Michael Mannheimer for digging these tracks out of the LC archives!