Somewhere—on their way through The Hills, The O.C., and that mythical Southern California mall where a certain genre of emo flourishes in a Hot Topic-spurned frenzy of unfortunate-haired teenagers—Weatherbox got really lost. On paper, this band seemed destined to claim their rightful home on the dorm room walls—and MySpace Top Eights—of an entire generation of […]
Ezra Ace Caraeff
Ezra Ace Caraeff is the former Music Editor for the Mercury, and spent nearly a third of his life working at the paper. More importantly, he is the owner of Olive, the Mercury’s unofficial office dog. His writing has appeared in The Fader, The Stranger, The Onion's A.V. Club, ESPN's TrueHoop network, and countless fanzines that are thankfully long out of print. He makes a mean tofu scramble and yes, Ace is really his middle name.
Posted inNews
So, You Want to be a Professional Sports Journalist
Or, Observations from the Worst Sports Reporter on Press Row
I am not a professional sports journalist—but I really look the part. I’m an unassuming white male in a dress shirt, laptop at the ready, and often times I even comb my hair. Oh, I also have one of those fancy digital recorder things. Yet still, why are all the other press-row reporters looking at […]
Posted inMusic
Once More With Feeling
Samiam
Poor Samiam. The Berkeley band has been playing the role of punk rock bridesmaid for far too long. Green Day, Blink-182, the Offspring, No Doubt, hell, even a younger Creed—long before they became the vile Christian rock beast they were at their godly apex—all played the role of opening band for Samiam. Yet while their […]
Posted inMovies & TV
You’ve Got MURDER!
The Internet and Portland Are Scary!
The internet is a scary place: There’s free nudity, that ominous Jeeves chap, one-night stands tracking you down on MySpace, and—according to the shrill hysteria of Untraceable—there’s also a maniacal, kitten-killing computer hacker who uses the web to murder people! Looks like it’s a case of murder.com! Actually, the killer names his “untraceable” website (eh? […]
Posted inMusic
Know Your Role
The Wisdom and Music of Chris Walla
Izzy Stradlin and the Ju Ju Hounds. The Joe Perry Project. Slash’s Snakepit. Johnny Marr and the Healers. The list don’t lie. It’s a perilous world out there for guitar players who embark on solo recordings and leave their bandmates in the wake. This being the case, why is Portland’s Chris Walla, the painstakingly polite […]
Posted inMusic
Once More With Feeling
Two Ton Sloth
No, not Two Ton Boa. There is, curiously enough, another local band with a moniker that describes a two-thousand-pound animal. But unlike the thumping dark cabaret of the Boa, the Sloth is a baffling assembly of found noises, junkyard hiphop beats, and the clenched-teeth flow of spoken-word frontman Brad Hamers. On their most recent release, […]
Posted inMusic
Once More with Feeling
Spindrift
With The Legend of God’s Gun, Los Angeles’ Spindrift have recorded one of the greatest film soundtracks ever set to tape. Of course, odds are you haven’t seen the film. It’s a small-budget feature of the same name that centers on the band’s thrilling score, which makes it the rarest of romances between cinema and […]
Posted inMusic
The Return of the Frog King
The Enigmatic Jeremy Enigk
It’s not supposed to be this way, but my copy of the liner notes from Diary, the 1994 debut from Sunny Day Real Estate, are held together in defiance of gravity with a delicately placed combination of tape and staples. To handle the lyric book without using the utmost level of cautious, gentle page turning […]
Posted inMusic
Cold Front
Carcrashlander Goes it Alone (Sort Of)
The name Cory Gray might not be familiar to you, but crack open the liner notes to recordings by some of Portland’s best local bands. There, in the credits, you’ll find him. Primarily a hired gun who lends his piano and trumpet skills to various acts, both local and global, Gray is finally striking out […]
Posted inMusic
Once More with Feeling
Midian vs. Middian
How much is a band name worth? More specifically, how much is one letter of that name worth? Recently, Eugene doom-metal act Middian was threatened with legal action by a Milwaukee, Wisconsin metal band that goes by the name Midian. Originally a cease and desist letter from the band’s attorney, the Milwaukee band later brought […]
Posted inMusic
Teacher and Student
Passing the Torch of the Northwest Passage b
You might know Ben Barnett as the raw-voiced singer of Kind of Like Spitting, the long-running Portland band with the tumultuous past. In fact, odds are, you might have actually been in the band at one point, since KOLS’ lineup has easily had over 50 members throughout the years. But this is not about Barnett […]