Andrew Stern is the patron saint of all things screen-printed. Stern’s Portland based company, Diesel Fuel Prints, has screened stickers (about five million a year) and shirts for almost every single indie band over the past 15 years, with no sign of slowing down. Recent developments include opening a retail store/gallery at 726 SE 10th. […]
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.
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Once More with Feeling
In Praise of YouTube
The internet is at its best when it’s a Wild West of open-ended content, and although those days are most likely numbered, sites like YouTube are a perfect example of everything that is right about the web. YouTube is a hidden treasure trove of rare music videos, bootlegs, live performances, and other general oddities—all of […]
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Once More with Feeling
Worldwide Idol
By the time this column runs, we’ll have a new American Idol, and if you are an actual fan of music, you could probably give a fuck whom the winner is. Reason being is that everyone who actually likes music knows that the show is a terrible forum for plastic pop consumerism, over-singing, and a […]
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Once More with Feeling
Celebrity Band Roundup
Never content with the endless amount of fame and money that comes with being a Hollywood celebrity, many a famous actor/actress have turned to rock music in an attempt to hoard more attention for their narcissistic souls. Here at OMWF, we try to separate the Dogstars from the 30 Odd Foot of Grunts, in our […]
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Once More with Feeling
Planes Mistaken for Stars
There are few things more sobering—and horrifying—than flipping through the pages of Alternative Press. The magazine, a bible for all things emo/punk/screamo/whatever, is about as influential on today’s teens as MySpace, and contains just as many photos of bad screamo bands wearing girl jeans and guyliner (manscara?). Somewhere, in all the empty hype that magazines […]
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Once More with Feeling
School Shooting Mix Tape
I mentioned it last week, so I might as well put my music nerdiness up to the challenge and compile a list of the best (or at least the most interesting) songs about school shootings. Of course, much like last week’s collection of suicide tunes, I obviously do not condone school shootings in any form. […]
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Once More with Feeling
Songs to Die For
As morbid as it might be, songs about suicide are almost always universally great. Suicide is just one of the few topics that always fits well into songs, regardless of the genre, from Simon & Garfunkel’s “Richard Cory” to that one terrible-but-yet-sorta-good “Jumper” song from Third Eye Blind. While I don’t dare to cover them […]
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Once More with Feeling
In Praise of Jamie Lidell
Last year, among the Clap Your Hands and Sufjans of the world, the best album released—the one perched atop numerous top-10 lists, including mine—was a collection of raw funk and soul songs sung by a white dude from Cambridgeshire, England. Multiply (Warp Records) introduced Jamie Lidell (formerly of Super_Collider) to the masses as a one-man […]
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Once More with Feeling
Best of the Internet, Part 3
Once again I brave the perils of the web to gaze longingly at the penis of an emo bass player and shoot digital jump shots over the digitized bald head of that guy from Built to Spill all to bring you the latest in online time wasting. This column is killing me. Naked Photos of […]
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Once More with Feeling
HINT
Approximately 45 million Americans do not have health insurance, and while musicians are a small percentage of that group, they are definitely impacted by the lack of coverage. The Future of Music Coalition (FMC) wants to change that; the saintly nonprofit organization strives to help musicians stay healthy enough to keep performing. FMC’s Deputy Director […]
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Once More with Feeling
The Best of Music and the Internet, Part Two
Really people, I swore I was done with scouring the web for more handy (and bizarre) marriages of technology and music, but thanks to some useful reader tips, the following sites (and products) just cannot be ignored. iPod Vibrators Oh, ho-hum, an iPod vibrator… yawn, how 2005. But wait, what’s this? Not just one, but […]