NATALIE BEHRING [Happy pre-Halloween! All week long the Mercury has been publishing classic tales of local Halloween horror from our archives, as well as brand spankin’ new (and creeeeepy) pieces… in this one, writer Santi Elijah Holley tags along on an actual local exorcism.—eds] On an unseasonably warm Saturday morning, Archbishop James Cloud and I […]
Santi Elijah Holley
Posted inCops
“Burn the Town Down”: Portland’s 1967 Race Riot and Our City’s Current Relationship with People of Color
Portland police chase a Black protester during the 1967 Irving Park riot. OREGON HISTORICAL SOCIETY NO. BB005805 [The following is a reprint of a 2017 Mercury feature by the great Santi Elijah Holley that aptly compares the striking similarities between the Portland race riots of the late ’60s with the political climate of 2017—and especially […]
Posted inMovies & TV
An Interview with Ken Burns About His Must-See Country Music
Ken Burns discusses his latest must-see documentary.
Posted inMusic
Today Is Music Millennium’s 50th Birthday
Terry Currier MEG NANNA Terry Currier first discovered Music Millennium in 1972, when he was a 16-year-old living in Vancouver, Washington. He’d recently gotten a job at the Jantzen Beach location of regional record store chain DJ’s Sound City and was dating a fellow clerk. One evening, the girl told him she had a surprise […]
Posted inMusic
Music Millennium Celebrates 50 Years of Hawking Records, Hosting Shows, and Charbroiling Garth Brooks CDs
Music Millennium celebrates 50 Years of hawking records, hosting shows, and charbroiling Garth Brooks CDs.
Posted inFeature
Remembering 2018: A Ride-Along with an Exorcist
Natalie Behring [Wow. The Mercury wrote A LOT of stuff in 2018, and here’s a feature story that we think is worth remembering from February 21, 2018.—eds] On an unseasonably warm Saturday morning, Archbishop James Cloud and I meet at a Starbucks in Bethany, a small suburb north of Beaverton. Bishop Cloud wears a clerical […]
Posted inMusic
Record Review: Hillstomp, Monster Receiver
Over the past 17 years, Hillstomp hasn’t changed much about their brand. The Portland duo—Henry Hill Kammerer on vocals, guitar, and banjo, with John Johnson on vocals and ramshackle drums—is still committed to hill country blues, still preaching the gospel of R.L. Burnside, and still banging away on overturned buckets and trashcan lids. But even […]
Posted inRecord Reviews
Record Review: Hillstomp, Monster Receiver
The Portland duo solidifies their status as one of the Northwest’s most durable and reliably exciting acts
Posted inMusic
Blood Orange’s Negro Swan Is Beautiful, Haunting, and Brutally Honest
BLOOD ORANGE Sun 9/16 Roseland Nick Harwood Though Dev Hynes has written and produced hits for the likes of Solange, Florence and the Machine, Kylie Minogue, and Carly Rae Jepsen, his solo work as Blood Orange has never been all that concerned with chart-topping singles. Over seven years and three albums, Hynes used the Blood […]
Posted inTheater & Performance
TBA: Legendary Isn’t Shown the Love it Deserves
Santi Elijah Holley It wouldn’t be TBA without late-night dance parties. After spending hours taking in such tragicomic shows as Kaneza Schaal’s JACK &, or the hyper-intimate modern dance performance of Milka Djordjevich’s ANTHEM, it can be restorative to step out onto the dance floor and shake off any built-up tension, pressed against other sweaty […]
Posted inTheater & Performance
TBA: Waxing Philosophical with Robin Deacon’s Vinyl Equations
Photo by Lisa Alexander, Courtesy of PICA Part coming-of-age story, part ruminative homily on the phonographic record, Robin Deacon’s Vinyl Equations is an obsessive and frequently deviating discourse on finding meaning and identity in a record’s hidden grooves. Deacon stood for the majority of the performance on one side of the stage, behind a cluttered […]
Posted inFeature
The Wild and True Story of Oregon’s Other Sex Cult
An immigrant establishes residence in rural Oregon, preaching an unfamiliar and controversial religious doctrine. He’s accused of advocating free love and leading marathon orgies. His loyal group of followers quickly attracts the ire of the townspeople and the suspicion of surrounding areas, and soon the entire state is implicated. The religious sect and its scandals […]