Great point, Gabe. How dare a newspaper focus on the most popular 10% of local music? They are ignoring their duty to you by not printing, at their own expense, pages and pages of information about bands nobody likes! Every week! Because papers make so much money nowadays, that they can afford to print stories that don't reflect local trends!

Kudos Reymont!! I agree that the Merc should put absolutely NO effort in mixing up their reviews. Gabe obviously meant what you said and wants the Merc to write .... "pages and pages of information about bands nobody likes!" I'm sure he wasn't just pointing out the OBVIOUS, INARGUABLE bias towards ONLY current trends.

These local prints all follow the same framework, city to city withe the exception of Portland music reviews (basically a copy and paste from a teenage emo mag). I think the point is that with very little effort the Merc COULD support local music and also represent the whole portland scene more accurately by expanding past emo/metal/punk/indie 3 chord songs with 80 synths and a mullet. But they won't.

@audioinjection - I'm suggesting that the magazines and newspapers that attempt to appeal to the kind of niche markets you're talking about fail. They are businesses, they have to make money. Just like network TV, they *have* to cater to the broadest demographic, no matter how distasteful, or they go bankrupt. If you don't believe that, you're free to prove me wrong! Start your own periodical that covers that shit - a lot of folks have tried, and none of them have succeeded, at least in Portland. The remains of one (PDXUnderground?) was just for sale on craigslist, pick it up and run with it, and I hope you make payroll.

Gabe is right. The blatant nepotism in Portland is gotten out of control. The Mercury seems to have been taken over by transient hipsters that moved here from somewhere else. So many local people are out of work. Yet douchebags that just moved here because they couldn't afford LA or San Fran, all seem to have numerous bartending and serving gigs. Oh, and a real shitty band that all there transient friends flock to see.YOU ARE NOT THE SCENE. Mike Nesmith (Former Monkee and D-bag sellout) was asked how he stayed on top of trends and knew what kids wanted to hear, he said "I don't, I tell them what they want to hear".
The Mercury abuses this same power. I know numerous great bands that can't get The Mercury to even list their shows because someone that works there hates them because he used to date so and so and so on it goes. PDX Pop Now is just as bad.
Their not promoting the top 10% of what good, they are promoting themselves and their friends. At least Adam Gnade doesn't write about himself anymore. In fact, it seems like when Kill Rock Stars label moved here, an army of Keytars followed. And it seems that these bands are the only ones being written up. Go back to Olympia! Oh wait, you ruined that towns scene already.

You KNOW Gabe plays in some terrible metalcore band. Keep up the pig squeals and gutterals, Gabe. You'll make it in the Merc's music section someday...

Reymont, could you stop being an idiot? Probably not if you tried.
The mercury is supposedly about Portland, and by writing a more diverse music column they would not be "appealing to a niche market". If you actually read what I've written instead of put words in my mouth you'd, well you'd show us that you could actually read and not just rant on your mommy's computer.
And Gabe is in a FUNK band, so you don't know shit Oregometry.