Cary Clarke

Five business days is not enough lead time to schedule a dentist’s appointment, or even to get your show listed in this paper, let alone to inform the entire population of the Pacific Northwest of their only opportunity to publicly sound off on the most sweeping media ownership rule changes proposed in a decade. Yet […]

Although I can confirm that the first three quarters of Owen Pallett’s solo set as Final Fantasy at Someday Lounge the other week were truly breathtaking—filled with gorgeous violin and vocal melodies, rich textures, sharp humor, and the most virtuosic live loop work I have ever witnessed—I cannot vouch for the final quarter. This is […]

If all goes well, by the end of 2007 the Oregon Liquor Control Commission will amend its rules to allow music venues to both admit people under 21 and sell alcohol, provided they can keep the one out of the hands of the other. By greatly increasing local teenagers’ and college students’ access to live […]

As steward of the legendary community-oriented music venue Meow Meow, Todd Fadel did more than anyone else in the early 2000s to keep all-ages music alive in Portland. But after five years of tireless involvement in local culture, Fadel bowed out of the business when his volunteer-run, famously hospitable club closed in February of 2005. […]

On the occasion of the Cherry City Music Festival, which showcases Salem-bred bands in venues around our state’s capital the weekend of October 12-13, I asked several Portland musicians who spent their formative years in our statehouse-hosting neighbor to the south (most of whom are playing the festival as part of a sizeable ex-pat contingent) […]

Portland musicians tend to learn very quickly when out-of-state musicians with any kind of notoriety or reputation are planning to move to our city. The news is usually met, as in the case of, say, Chris Walla or Britt Daniel, with a mixture of excitement and canine territorial defensiveness. Whether this phenomenon is a vestige […]

Ninth Grade Spoiler Alert: Remember when your high school history teacher blew your mind by deconstructing communism and fascism, explaining how these opposed totalitarian ideologies are actually similar? I’m experiencing a similar realization lately regarding tradition-rooted folk music and experimental music in Portland, watching how these two styles and subcultures have increasingly come to resemble […]

Ever since a copy of Adrian Orange and Her Band showed up in my mailbox last month, toeing its infectious Nigeria-via-Olympia horn lines, I’ve spent a significant amount of time trying to puzzle out the meaning of the album’s title. Though it is by no means the only perplexing choice that Mr. Orange—a startlingly prodigious […]

What is the opposite of protest? Acceptance? Affirmation? Whatever the case, Awareness Is Free, a two-day all-ages festival of Portland-bred experimental music taking place on the PSU Park Blocks from noon to 9 pm on Thursday, September 13 and Friday, September 14, is a celebration of it. Funded by KPSU, and organized by Rhenne Miles, […]

Confused as I am about who exactly Musicfest NW is for—it’s too expensive for casual showgoers, yet it lacks the clout of an industry showcase like CMJ or SXSW—I must admit that this year’s installment of the four-day music festival features a humdinger of a lineup. In addition to the national acts I’m excited to […]

The Northwest 23rd location of venerable, locally owned, independent record store Music Millennium is shuffling off this commercial coil—its clerks making their last recommendations, its cash registers ringing their final sales this Friday night, August 31st, as local alt-rockers Floater sound the concluding chords of the closing in-store performance, and summer turns to fall. The […]

Local Music News Maybe it’s the time I spent living in Russia, but there’s nothing I like better than a government-supported, free, all-ages concert. Whether you have similar socialist instincts, need a live primer on contemporary Portland music, want to improve your cool quotient with your kids, or are simply a light-in-the-pocketbook, fixed-gear-wound-having hipster, you […]