Numbers Thurs Feb 5 Disjecta More than any band you’ll hear described as jittery, Numbers has got post-millennial neuroses on lock. The SF-based trio named their just-released record In My Mind All the Time. It’s not necessarily a touching paean to a lover, but a thesis statement of paranoia, on a record containing songs about […]
Julianne Shepherd
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Plug In and FIGHT!
Local Knobs in Battle Mode
Battle of the Knobs Wed Feb 11 Holocene With recent installments in Portland, Seattle, and Portland VERSUS Seattle, the Fourthcity Laptop Battle is coming up in a manner of the DMC DJ Championships (grassroots at first, but set to take over like a bamboo tree). And while it pits live laptop musicians against each other […]
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Do Cameras Lie?
Film Crew Gets Inside Chavez Coup
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised dir. Bartley & O’Briain Opens Fri Jan 23 Cinema 21 Even if you’re well versed in the events that occurred in Venezuela on April 12-13, 2002–the two-day failed coup d’etat against democratically elected President Hugo Chavez Frias–nothing will prepare you for the footage in The Revolution Will Not Be […]
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Wacky School
This Goofball Music is Good Music
Logan Whitehurst & the Jr. Science Club Sat Jan 24 Reed College The world of kooky novelty/kids music is a spotty thing, riddled with eye-rolling puns, oppressive wackiness, and one-liners that seem to condescend to kids before they entertain them. (And RAFFI.) So, if you feel skeptical about a guy like Logan Whitehurst, a guy […]
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Brother’s on Fire
Sibling Rivalry Means Great Music
Fiery Furnaces Thurs Jan 22 Nocturnal If navigating the twisted psychology of Playing in a Band With Others wasn’t already an arduous task, imagine playing in a band where the only other member is your little sister. A whole other set of rules applies, not to mention a whole lifetime of grudges. But Matthew Friedberger, […]
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Get Your Crazy Funk
Atlanta Smacks It Right in th’ Ass
Ying Yang Twins Sat Jan 17 Berbati’s Pan Last summer, King of Crunk Lil’ Jon told USA Today that the Southern rap stee is not about “being the best rapper. It’s all about saying something that’s going to get people crunk in the clubs.” While it’s fairly interesting that a purveyor of flossy/dirty mainstream rap […]
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Spatial Irony
Culture Clash is Funny!
Bollywood/ Hollywood dir. Mehta Opens Fri Jan 9 Hollywood Theater Bollywood/Hollywood hurls us right into its unabashedly campy humor, with a dying father speaking in golf analogy to impart final words to his only son: focus on a goal, and don’t get distracted by “the cheerleaders.” The film slaps us on the forehead with its […]
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Mass Models
Community Radio, Still Ours
KPSU Benefit Show Thurs Jan 8 Berbati’s “Somebody came in and broke the cords on the headphones, and jammed stuff inside the outlets, and cut the cords on the speakers and monitors in the booth. And a bunch of CDs got stolen. Just typical stuff that happens every year at Christmas time.” ETERNAL SHAME on […]
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Now is Right, Reunite
Back at Square One?
The Third Sex Sat Jan 10 Meow Meow The year-end lists have spoken. And, for another year in a row, the most widely covered women artists of 2003 were either at the center of some kind of non-music-related controversy (c.g. the Liz Phair, “Hot Mom” debacle), or splashed half-naked and baby-pink on the cover of […]
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The Audio to the Visual
A Selection of Reel Music Films, Reviewed
Reel Music Film Festival Starts Fri jan 9 Northwest Film Center Starting next week–Fri Jan 9–and running through Feb 8, the Northwest Film Center stages its annual Reel Music Film Festival, devoted to music captured on film. This year the selection ranges from documentaries about Shane McGowan and brilliant Edith Piaf interpreter Raquel Britton, to […]
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Wiggle It, That 8-Bit
Music for the Video Game Enthusiast
microPALOOZA Tues Dec 30 Ground Kontrol It’s not a festival of minimal techno, exactly. MicroPALOOZA, a daylong 8-bit party at Ground Kontrol Retrocade, celebrates micromusic, or “chip”: music created using similar instruments as the soundtracks in early video games. It’s micro in sound–pixilated compositions using a single pool of tones–but macro in size, coming from […]
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All Hands on Decks!
Local DJs on their Favorite Jam of 2003
It’s very possible you’ll spend the next two months with your face buried in “top ten” lists. But who better to sum up Portland 2003, than our DJs–the folks who spent the year with their faces in the crates? From East to Madame Butterfly, Holocene to Ohm, Level to Momo’s, here are the year’s absolute […]