Pullout: Mercury Music Issue
Julianne Shepherd
Posted inMusic
Pure Id (At What Cost?)
Ying Yang Twins Seek Freak
Couple months ago, I was walking up my block, where a man in an SUV was bumping Ying Yang Twins’ “Wait (The Whisper Song),” one of the summer’s top hits for its boingy bass and whispered lyrics (giving it the illusion, so sayeth
Posted inMusic
Hands Across Cascadia
Caro Rides His Pony into Portland
Michael Mayer, Caro Sat March 5 Holocene 1001 SE Morrison One of my favorite techno singles of ’04-’05, Caro’s “My Little Pony,” begins with a playful clomp of horse hooves and a come hither chorus rendered in breathy vocodor: “My Little Pony/Dance all night, Pony/I love the way you shake your head/I love the way […]
Posted inMusic
Christina Aguilera, Riot Grrl
How a Pop Princess Became a New Voice for Feminism
Pop music’s rules are strict and strident for the ladies in the house. Socialized through the language of the radio, the dudes are out booty-calling hos in different area codes, putting keys in ignitions, and instructing us to shake it like a dog. Still, amid this gender-script minefield, one of pop’s biggest stars has found […]
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Primal Scream
Neo-Hippie Animals Say “Let Me Out”
Animal Collective Tues Aug 24 Berbati’s 10 SW 3rd Can “meow”ing loudly be a form of protest? It feels that way with Animal Collective, a Brooklyn-based, electro-acoustic folk-pop band consisting of four childhood friends who go by the monikers Avey Tare (David Portner), Panda Bear (Noah Lennox), Geologist (Brian Wentz), and Deaken. The band, making […]
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America’s Sweetheart
Fantasia Barrino Saved TV
American Idol LIVE! Fri July 16 Rose Garden 1 Center Ct. American Idol began in the post-Springer era of Weakest Link, at a very specific time in television when audiences were just beginning to realize how much we revel in the pain of others. (To paraphrase Dominick Dunne, “You couldn’t cut the schadenfreude with a […]
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Don’t Bitch, Organize
PDX Pop Grows from Listserv to Local Music Festival… by General Consensus
PDX POP NOW! Meow Meow 320 SE 2nd July 9-11, Free! This is the story of how one email became a music festival. It’s the story of how the PDX Pop List–a long-running listserv on which local music fans post everything from show announcements to meta-critiques of “the scene”–turned enthusiasm, gripes, and superior organizational skills […]
Posted inMovies & TV
Thou Shall Not Freebase
Lost Boys‘ Moral: Stay Off Cocaine
The Lost Boys dir. Schumacher Opens Fri July 9 Clinton Street Theater In The Lost Boys, an entertaining ’80s vampire film, brothers Michael (Jason Patric) and Sam (Corey Haim) move with their mother (Dianne Wiest) to Santa Carla, CA, only to find the place is crawling with blood-sucking, skater-mulletted ne’er-do-wells (i.e. Kiefer Sutherland). Half the […]
Posted inMusic
Power and Peace
Melissa Auf Der Maur Pulls No Punches
Auf Der Maur Tues June 29 Dante’s 1 SW 3rd Melissa Auf Der Maur’s debut record, Auf Der Maur (Capitol), combines the elegant strength of her lyrics and voice–a velvety high alto with a bit of grit–with muscled but polished hard rock, tending toward new Queens of the Stone Age-style power-riffage. It is, as she […]
Posted inMusic
This Is Love
Trauma Le Tron Dances into Beauty
Trauma Le Tron Fri June 25 Sabala’s Mt Tabor 4811 SE Hawthorne “East German carnival surf music,” is how Trauma Le Tron guitarist Jason Sands jokingly describes his band, and listening to the calliope-like lope and whorl of songs like “Invisible Thunder,” which executes delicate pirouettes of viola and guitar around drum machines, you can […]
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I’ll Show You Retarded
M.O.P. Bleeds Adrenalin
M.O.P. Sat June 19 The Sea 318 SW 3rd Feeling retarded? Blame the NBA and ESPN, who chose Black Eyed Peas as the official voice of The Finals 2004–the sole atrocity marring a near-perfect playoffs, which includes four BEP promo spots and the flaccid, yuppie-funk campfire singalong “Let’s Get it Started” (nee “Let’s Get Retarded”). […]
Posted inNews
The Feminine Complex
Your Pet and STDs: Nature’s Silent Killer
Because STDs are slowly siphoning away the lifespan of a pet somewhere right this very minute–strangling our furry comrades’ each and every breath with the ache of discharge, the terror of unrest, and the emotional trauma that accompanies contracting a disease in one’s most private, personal Netherlands from a trusted and possibly loved counterpart–I shan’t […]