THE PHILOSOPHY community calls him the “wild man of theory” and, in Astra Taylor’s new documentary, Slavoj Zizek is all that and a nuclear-mutated bag of chips. Zizek! shows the 57-year-old author/philosopher touring the international lecture circuit, spouting jittery, manic genius talk on belief systems, global capitalism, and pop culture, and getting balls deep into […]
Adam Gnade
Posted inMusic
Firestarter PDX
Brendan Canty’s Pyro Time Capsule
FUGAZI’S BRENDAN CANTY has a new project: Dude scouts out a town with a good music scene, buys a house set for demolition, has some local bands play live in its living room, then burns it to the ground the next day. All this is filmed for his Burn to Shine DVD series, and the […]
Posted inMusic
Neptune Blues
Scout Niblett and the Playful Rage
FULL DISCLOSURE is important here: Because I’m a new Scout Niblett fan and haven’t spent much time with her older music, I’m only going to tell you what I know. Which is her live show and her new record, Kidnapped by Neptune, which I’ve played through thick and thin, hard days and better ones. I’m […]
Posted inMusic
It’s Who You Know
Interesting Shit about Portland
Yes, I’m looking for a new column name. No, I haven’t found one that sticks. Yes, I’m asking for readers’ suggestions. Yes, I have a big, absurd box of prizes for the winner. No, there’s no use rhyming my last name with “Plaid” or “Laid.” (It’s pronounced “Guh-Nah-Dee.”) Please keep sending submissions. The prize box […]
Posted inBooks
Take a Look, It’s in a Book
Wordstock—Like Reading Rainbow… for Adults
Screw LeVar Burton. We don’t need that proto-Urkel anymore. We’ve got Wordstock now. Now in its second year, the first-class lit fest has slimmed down to a svelte three days of writerly awesomeness. This year’s event has more authors than we could possibly list here (for instance: Charles D’Ambrosio, Christopher Moore, Donald Hall, Ariel Gore, […]
Posted inMusic
It’s Who You Know
“Local Music News”? “Loco” Music News.
This’s a damn fine week for shows but consider this one before anything: Series_ at Reed Chapel with Yellow Swans, Ghosting, Valet, Ilyas Ahmed, and …Worms. Says Zachary Reno, of the noise-drone project Ghosting, “Series_ started in 2003 at Dunes as a monthly night to showcase local and traveling artists working with improvised/freeform electronics/noise/psyche/and other […]
Posted inMusic
Heavenly Fever Dreams
At the Jackpot Records/Clinton Street Video Film Festival
BEFORE ANYTHING, I am going to squawk at you like a bird. I’m going to yelp out this harsh, weird name, a strange and exotic word for a strange and exotic festival: Jandek. JANDEK! Some backstory: Jandek has been self-releasing these amazing, discordant, lonely sounding, spooky folk records since 1978. Up until 2004 he’d never […]
Posted inMusic
High Plains Drifting
Big Charisma for Little Blacksmiths
I CAN BE A COLD, ill-tempered bastard sometimes, but there is a very easy way to my heart. (A) Be Jolie Holland (whom I am in love with and call the “country Billie Holiday.”) (B) Sound like Jolie Holland. (C) Get Jolie Holland on your record. San Francisco’s Last of the Blacksmiths did the latter. […]
Posted inMovies & TV
I’m Staying Home
Video Saved the Radio Star
There’s a lot of amazing music footage floating around, and the Jackpot Records/Clinton Street Video Film Fest (see pg. 19.) has shown a ton of it in the past few years. Here are two of the best rock films I’ve seen recently, as well as one I keep coming back to. • The Getty Address […]
Posted inMusic
It’s Who You Know
Local… Music… News?
As a misanthropic ex-hermit I’ve never had love for this column’s title. (Inherited after I took over this column from the last Mercury music editor, “It’s Who You Know” doesn’t hold much meaning when you don’t care fuck-all for schmoozing.) That being said, I’m looking for a new column name and I’d like to put […]
Posted inMusic
It’s Who You Know
Not Necessarily the Local Music News
I woke up this morning and my house was on fire. From outside my window, looking over the arch of the first story, smoke rose up from the shingles, which were black and wet and shiny. But seconds later, as my brain re-formed into human tissue, I realized I was just hungover and bent up […]
Posted inMusic
Welcome, Welcome
New Portlander Alela Diane and Her Pirate’s Gospel
ALELA DIANE SINGS folk songs about big-bellied whales and rocky ground and tatted lace. Her new record is The Pirate’s Gospel, a handmade, 15-track thing brimming with kiddy choirs, banjo, bare harp-like acoustic guitar, and Alela’s big, echoing voice, which fills up a room and makes her, a guitar, and two mics sound like a […]