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Ben Salmon
Posted inAlbum Review

Album Review: Michael Hurley Says Goodbye on Broken Homes and Gardens

The legendary Oregon-based outsider folk icon finished his final album just before his April 1 passing.
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“In A Dress” is the last song on Broken Homes and Gardens, the final album Michael Hurley made before he passed away on April 1. Making that particular track—future posthumous releases notwithstanding—the conclusion of one of the great recording careers of the past century. A strong argument for outsider folk and fierce independence, and the […]

Posted inMusic

Toody Cole and Friends Celebrate the Life, Music, and Birthday of Fred Cole

Crystal Ballroom hosts an evening honoring the Dead Moon frontman.
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Depending on which source you believe, we are either approaching or have just passed the official 30th anniversary of the release of Nervous Sooner Changes, the all-killer-no-filler seventh studio album from Portland punk legends Dead Moon. Crammed front to back with the band’s signature mix of wild-eyed garage-rock and desperatly doomed-folk ballads, the 10-track release […]

Posted inMusic

Name All the Punk and Metal Cameos in Nasalrod’s New Music Video—if You Can!

“The Maker” is a mini-epic and love letter to Portland.
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The new music video for Nasalrod’s “The Maker” is packed with famous cameos, iconic Portland locales, and some pretty goofy special effects. The rip-roarin’ track is featured on 2024’s In The Modern Meatspace—Nasalrod’s split EP with the California punks Victims Family. The video follows a hapless slob (played by Nasalrod’s mononymous lead singer Chairman) as […]

Posted inMusic

Darci Phenix Releases Her Dreamy New Album, Sable

Learn how the multi-disciplinary Portland artist uses her hands to get out of her head.
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Darci Phenix released her second album, Wishbone, in 2021 through long-running New York-based indie label, Team Love Records. “It was such an intense process. I was printing off Neil Young lyrics and reading them and trying to make ‘a great song,’ you know? I was really trying with that record,” Phenix reflects.  So when it […]

Posted inMusic

Gaytheist Return With Frenetic New Album, The Mustache Stays

It’s the first album in five years from the long-running Portland-based noise-rockers.
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After a dozen or so years with the pedal to the metal, all while hard-rockin’ with uncommon panache, Jason Rivera wasn’t so sure he wanted to keep Gaytheist going. The Portland-based trio had quit their jobs, acquired a van, and booked a 40-date tour across the continent when COVID-19 came along and squashed those plans. […]

Posted inCulture

The Mercury’s Favorite Culture Moments of 2024

Doing something stupid in Ladds, dressing up for the movies, and finding catharsis at live shows, et al.
Avatar photoAvatar photoAvatar photoAvatar photoAvatar photoAvatar photoAvatar photoAvatar photoAvatar photo Cameron Crowell, Andrea Damewood, Melissa Locker, Ben Salmon, Dom Sinacola, Corbin Smith, HR Smith, Suzette Smith, and Joe Streckert

We went out a lot this year. We saw bands, rode bikes, ate snacks—all the stuff of life. This list is a hodgepodge of experience, pulling from our culture writing team—who are drawing from both wider and ultra local scenes. This year, we saw PAM CUT join Hollywood Theatre and Clinton Street as a spot […]

Posted inMusic

Oregon Folk Singer Jeffrey Martin Captures Live Music Magic at Mississippi Studios

Martin’s heart-on-sleeve folk tunes are like walking past a graveyard of love and loss, light and dark, hurt, hope, faith, and uncertainty.
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A few years ago, Jeffrey Martin made a last-minute decision to record one of his concerts with the intention of possibly turning it into a live album. It didn’t turn out. “Listening back to it, the recording was unsalvageable because there was some ghost in the machine or something. But I was grateful that it […]

Posted inFall Arts 2024

St. Johns’ Shoegaze Revival

Members of Portland bands Ten Million Lights and Kallai worked together to organize two-day music fest Dreamgaze PDX.
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Shoegaze is having a moment. It’s not the first moment for the cult-fave genre—a hypnotic amalgam of gossamer vocals and distorted guitars played, often loudly, through an army of nifty effects pedals. Not long after Shoegaze emerged from the British Isles in the late 1980s, its first wave crested on the backs of fuzzed-out bands […]

Posted inMusic

In the Shadow of Writer’s Block, Blind Pilot Triumphantly Returns

Last summer, frontman Israel Nebeker suddenly found a path through his eight-year compositon drought.
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It has been almost exactly eight years since Oregon-based indie-folk band Blind Pilot released an album—but not for lack of trying. Frontman and songwriter Israel Nebeker spent much of that time battling a gnarly case of writer’s block. He didn’t compose so much as a verse for years. “It was an absolute struggle. It was […]

Posted inMusic

Three Country / Folk-Rock / Psych-Rock Acts That Stood Out at FairWell Festival’s Year Two

If you didn’t make it down to Deschutes County Fairgrounds last weekend, you should still hear Adeem the Artist, S.G. Goodman, and Black Opry Revue.
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There are other way to go country than listening to the new Macklemore. At FairWell Festival’s second year in Deschutes County we found a laud-worthy line-up of headliner jams and new country, folk, psych-rock acts worth a listen.

If you didn’t make it down to Deschutes County Fairgrounds last weekend, do your country-curious ears a favor and check out Adeem the Artist, S.G. Goodman, and Black Opry Revue.

Posted inMusic

New Solo Work From the Owner of Moon Glyph Records Is Reliably Enchanting

Steve Rosborough wants Omni Gardens’ music to feel like a lazy afternoon or your favorite sweater.
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As the one-man operation behind Portland-based Moon Glyph Records—a leading curator of ambient, new age, and “transportive psychedelia”—Steve Rosborough juggles different roles and responsibilities. He works with artists putting out their music and plans out the label’s busy release schedule. He handles distribution and production of cassettes and LPs, as well as marketing and promotional […]

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