How Foureveryoung’s family ties allow it to cut the crap.
When Foureveryoung—the musical project of Loch Lomond’s Ritchie Young and his three younger brothers—first booked a show at Mississippi Studios, owner Jim Brunberg said, “I’m not gonna check this out.” He thought Foureveryoung was a Rod Stewart cover band; he was quite wrong.
Foureveryoung is the amalgamation […]

Living history and moving on with Modest Mouse.
On “Spitting Venom,” perhaps the awesomest track on Modest Mouse’s latest, We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank, Isaac Brock sings, “We’ve got a knack for fucked-up history.” You can say that again, Isaac.
Sometime during 2002, I found myself watching mud drip down white plaster walls—mind-fucked […]

According to its online bio, local record label Love Harder “started out as a slogan after the demise of the American Electoral System.” But, over beers at the label’s two-year anniversary show this past Saturday at the Red & Black Cafe, founder John Barrios cleared up the implication that Love Harder has a political agenda: […]

Portland’s prime noise-folk up-and-comers, the crazy-talented kids in Norfolk & Western, are currently touring the States—not by locomotive (as the band’s biography once claimed), but in a 15-person van. Adam Selzer and company—drummer Rachel Blumberg, bassist Dave Depper and multi-instrumentalist Peter Broderick—are supporting the band’s recent Hush Records release, The Unsung Colony. Selzer took a […]

The first words you’ll hear upon a visit to local indie-rock band the Wherewithals’ MySpace page are ‘Pack up your shit/ Pack up your shit and get out of here.’ It’s a fitting introduction to the band’s oft-bitter, melancholic oeuvre of failed-love songs—and certainly not unfamiliar ground in the realm of songwriting.
Heartache and those who […]

At 3 years old this week, Atlas is the longest-running dance party in the history of Holocene, a club that’s historically limited itself to the musical oeuvre of the Western hemisphere. But a couple of years ago, I stumbled into the Southeast Portland club to discover Atlas’ DJ trio, E3, DJ Anjali and the Incredible […]

The first four lines that Colin Meloy released as a Decemberist, on 2002’s Castaways and Cutouts, are perhaps his most powerful. “My name is Leslie Ann Levine,” he sang over a simple guitar strum. “My mother birthed me down a dry ravine/ My mother birthed me far too soon/ Born at nine and dead at […]

“The Setup,” the first track on Heroes and Villains’ debut, Turn Your Swords, introduces the listener to a character by way of the midrange harmonies of vocalists Adam Raitano and Maranda Dabel. “He’s a man/ He’s a man/ And he seems to understand what it’s for/ All is fair in love and war.” Raitano and […]