After seven years touring the forgotten towns of the northwest, the Dry County Crooks found a proper label and enlisted the production talents of living legend Jeremy (Dharma Bums) Wilson for third album When Hearts Break. Not exactly a new direction, but their indiefied country-rock’s certainly been enlivened - lightly-twanged riffage suggesting garage rockabilly […]

Well, whadya know? Two of this year’s Best New Bands—The Builders and the Butchers and Loch Lomond—like each other so darn much that they recorded a split 12-inch together last fall. Which makes it pretty easy for us to give you, dear LocalCut readers, a Best New Band Cut of the Day Twofer. Lucky you!
First […]

Our newest alt-country label, Stumptown Records, continues to expand their roster—recently bringing damaged Brooklyn troubadour Mishka Shubaly into the fold. His debut full-length, produced by Jay Braun (Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Fiery Furnaces), arrives stocked with fitfully self-deprecating boozer’s anthems—vicious, manful lyrics spat above staggering slide guitar—and first track “The Only One Drinking Tonight” should […]

When I received this brand new track from Oh Captain, My Captain guitarist Josh Spacek, it came with a note saying the song, a recent demo sent to him by OCMC frontman Jesse Bettis, “kind of took [him] by surprise.” And it’s not hard to see why: The tunes on OCMC’s self-titled ‘07 EP (released […]

Mantis’ aesthetic is sorta all-encompassing, and manifests itself in laid back electronic sonatas to sample-packed sensory overloaders. “Feels Good,” the opening track, has hip-hop spirit with some dreamy trance minimalism on top and plenty of room left to breathe. But over the course of the album, Travis Smith (the man in this Man-tis) moves more […]

This Thursday’s cut of the Day is “Twilight’s Last Hour” by local guitar/drum duo Swallows. I asked member Em Brownlowe to give me the lowdown on the lush track:
Both Jon and I agree that “Twilight’s Last Hour” is our favorite track on Cloud Machines. Twilight’s Last Hour was written in spring of 2006 in a […]

We are all about creating ridiculous genre-tags here at Willamette Week. So it’s always fun to find someone else who takes the time to describe something as more than the so bland it makes my balding uncle look hip “indie rock” blanket. The website for KBC studios, where Southern Belle has been recording its debut […]

Banner night for the East End this Sunday. Birthday for Patrick of Pure Country Gold, belated bachelor party for Fireballs Of Freedom’s Kelly “Gator” Gately and a welcome home benefit for David “Roach” Simmons of Fireballs, Starantula, Divining Rods, Thee Headliners, the Weaklings, Add-X and…pretty much every band ’round town deserving keyboard wizardry and […]

The last time I checked in with Alan Singley (back in November for this edition of my weekly column), he was super-stoked about the direction his new songs were taking. Singley, whose known for high energy psych-rock as much as introspective folk, had just completed his “first fancy, fancy arrangement [with] horns and viola,” and […]

Portland trio the Taxpayers has a group of friends/fans that sings along to nearly every word of every song in the band’s repertoire, and it’s not hard to see why on a track like “All Conflict, All the Time.” Not only does frontman (and I say “frontman” in the most punk sense of the word, […]