PORTLAND HAS HAD a love affair with arty indierock bands for a long time. The Geraldine Fibbers, Deerhoof, Sonic Youth, Liars, etc., all have boasted some of their best crowd responses in our fertile town. So it has pained me to watch Oneida struggle to get in front of the right audience in a city […]
Nathan Carson
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Down With Sheet Music
Brooklyn’s Zs Bring Prog to the Punk Scene
“THERE USED TO BE this ‘us against the world’ vibe because we were really worried that people wouldn’t be down with us because we play from sheet music and we were out there on the punk scene, which doesn’t really embrace that,” explains Zs co-founder and saxophonist Sam Hillmer. Along with guitarist Matt Hough, Zs […]
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Faeries Wear Boots
The Psychedelic Side of Heavy Metal
Pullout: Mercury Music Issue
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Move Over Metallica
Opeth Are The Best Metal Band in the World
Stockholm, Sweden’s Opeth have released one gorgeous metal masterpiece after another, without a hint of flagging quality
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Pumping Fists And Iron
Three Decades of Thor
I don’t believe people actually listen to Thor. But plenty of people still want to see him. Since a mid-’70s breakout appearance on
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Skyward in Triumph
Post-Rock Bliss for the Metal Kids
With members of Isis, Neurosis, Angel Hair, and Pleasure Forever, it’s more than fair to assume Red Sparowes will deliver an earth-crushing onslaught of post-metal heaviness. Debut disc
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We Are the Groad Crew
PC Heshers Debut Album–Finally!
Jonny X & The Groadies Sat July 23 Food Hole 20 NW 3rd “We are lazy,” confides Jeremy “Professor” Romagna, the mad scientist who engineered the self-titled Jonny X and the Groadies. “We are very lazy,” concurs DJInvisibleTouch, the band’s oft-spandexed bassist. If the old adage is true, that you have your whole life to […]
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Whalers of Metal
The Mythological Rise of Mastodon
Mastodon Fri April 8 Dante’s 1 SW 3rd “We’re in the same boat as our fans,” explains Troy Sanders, vocalist and bassist of Mastodon, one of the fastest rising extreme acts on the planet. “It’s not like we’re on a pedestal. This [growth] has been an absolute whirlwind.” In a few short years, the band […]
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Still Going
Doom Metal’s Other Elder Statesman
Thanks in part to Dave Grohl’s recent Probot metal project and Southern Lord Records, doom metal godfather Wino is finally receiving the attention he’s due. His face appears on the cover of this month’s Arthur and Terrorizer magazines–not to mention the MTV video. But there’s another lost prodigy spoken of in hoary stoner circles whose […]
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Up on the Down Side
Yob’s Doomy Catharsis
Yob CD Release Sat Dec 6 Berbati’s Pan “Wherever there is an up, there must be a down. Eugene is filled with peace loving, time-warp style hippie activists and ’60s relics. YOB is the down.” Mike Scheidt should know. He’s the singer, guitarist, and founder of Oregon’s most important metal export since Poison Idea. YOB […]
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Champion of Sound
The Many Hats of the Hydra Head
Hydra Head Showcase Wed August 13 Blackbird The most extreme music is often made by the nicest people. Case in point: Aaron Turner, lead screamer of the elementally pulverizing hypnotic metal band Isis. He’s also founder of the “it” label of underground art metal, Hydra Head Industries, which makes him responsible for disseminating some of […]