Josh Hinton and Erin Morgan (formerly of Maryland; dating; obsessively making music together in semi-seclusion) are Nire. My Father’s Record Player (Ought Implies Can Records; slow and whispery folk) is their new EP. Let’s catch up. MERCURY: I’ve been running into more and more music makers that surf. How often do you get out to […]
Adam Gnade
Posted inMusic
Freakpunkmetapop?
Tractor Operator’s Good Deed
WHAT IS IT about people that makes us scramble like great big idiots to define music? Why do we invent gimpy genre quantifiers like “freak-folk” or “posi-core”? Whatever it is, we do it—I do it—and it’s lazy and reductive. Tractor Operator, then, could be called folk or Americana or even grunge, but that only puts […]
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The Scene Report
Exclusive: Awesome Festival Announced
Let’s just jump on this one: Mike McGonigal (Yeti Magazine) and Chantelle Hylton (Blackbird Presents) have announced they’re curating what looks to be the greatest festival of all time. It’s called Halleluwah and it goes down September 1-2 at Disjecta with Deerhoof, Michael Hurley, Tara Jane O’Neil, Trumans Water, Arrington de Dionyso, Nice Nice, Grails, […]
Posted inMusic
Mystical Boogie
The Get Hustle Up the Energy and Let Go
SO YOU’RE STUCK in a rut. Shit’s been a monotonous drag and too even keeled, and you can’t tell one day from the next; it’s all tedious flatlands and no peaks and valleys. “Am I, what, emotionally dead now?” “Is this how it feels to get boring?” These are all questions you ask yourself, questions […]
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Island Style!
Anacortes’ What the Heck Fest
THERE ARE a lot of reasons to make the drive out to Anacortes this week. First, it’s on Fidalgo Island, and island life—especially in the San Juan chain—moves at a nice, mellow crawl. Then there’s the sublime weather; situated in the Olympic Mountains’ rain shadow, it gets half the rain of Seattle and 4,187,080 percent […]
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The Scene Report
Local Music News
So you didn’t get Sleater-Kinney tickets. So it sold out in 24 seconds. So everywhere you read told you the wrong info and Ticketmaster is a punk and the Crystal Ballroom is a punk. It’s cool. Don’t worry. Go see Janet Weiss with Sam Coomes (as Quasi) on Wednesday, July 19, at Portland City Hall. […]
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The Scene Report
Local Music News
I continue to be impressed by the Better to See You With. They have a new record out on Silentists’ label, Celestial Gang Records, and it’s a 12-track beat down of smart, smart punk rock remade as reptilian attack noise. The production, instrumentation, and dynamics are fucking complicated, cliché-free, and full of bursts of napalmic […]
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Thar She Blows!
Peter and the Wolf Hunt the White Whale
MAKING MUSIC under the name Peter and the Wolf, Austin’s Red Hunter plays rickety, intense, gothic folk backed by an orchestra of kids on scrap-metal percussion. It’s haunted and weird, and not the kind of music big media generally latches onto. Still, Red was recently thrust into the mainstream limelight after the plans for his […]
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Beautiful Life
Danava’s Magic Metal Peyote Trip
THERE’S A KIND OF PRIDE you can take when one of your favorite bands does well. It’s the same pride as when your little brother gets his first girlfriend, or when your sister is accepted on a team or into a school, or gets married to an awesome guy. The sideline, vicarious pride in an […]
Posted inMovies & TV
I’m Staying Home
Transformers and Friends
I was in jail (don’t ask) the last time Transformers: The Movie played the Clinton St. Theater, but I’ll be front and center when it plays again this Friday (see Movie Times, pg.45), waiting with bated breath for the scene where one of the robots in disguise says “shit”—a moment that fucking upturned my world […]
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The Scene Report
Local Music News
Sleater-Kinney is no more. Direct from Sub Pop, “After 11 years as a band, Sleater-Kinney have decided to go on indefinite hiatus. The upcoming summer shows will be our last. As of now, there are no plans for future tours or recordings. We feel lucky to have had the support of many wonderful people over […]
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This is Psychedelia
Lose Yourself in Portland’s Plants
WHEN I FIRST started working at the Mercury last year I spent a good part of my hours talking psychedelic music with Josh Blanchard, who—at the time—was our accounting clerk. The man knew his shit, so much so that I decided to do our last Music Issue on psychedelic music. This was partially because I […]