While every other newspaper and magazine in town are popping out “Best of Portland” issues like a Gresham teen makes babies, let’s be honest: How many times
The Best of Estacada
Zac Pennington
Posted inMusic
Return of the POP!
Your Guide to PDX POP NOW! 2005
All Shows are Free and at Loveland, 320 SE 2nd Ave “Right now the festival is in… what? Four weeks?” asks Jennifer Cox, promotions director for the second annual PDX POP NOW! festival. “No, two,” snaps Cori Taratoot, co-founder of last year’s festival, and one of this year’s organizers. “It’s in two weeks.” “Two?” asks […]
Posted inMusic
It’s Who You Know
Bruce Springsteen
When precisely did it become socially tolerable for hipsters to openly embrace The Boss? As a generation perhaps best defined by its seemingly limitless reclamation of the desperately “uncool” as cultural compass, Bruce Springsteen has somehow felt like an island of insurmountable unhipness–the last bastion, along with country music of the 1980s, that the Winger-T’ed […]
Posted inMusic
Beautiful/Boring
The Pernice Brothers’ Teflon Pop
Pernice Brothers Thurs July 28 Doug Fir Lounge 830 E Burnside There seems to be very little in this world less in vogue at present than plain, pretty, cleanly produced, independent pop music. Apparently no one clued in Joe Pernice–leader of Scud Mountain Boys, Chappaquiddick Skyline, and, most famously, Pernice Brothers–who recently dropped his ninth […]
Posted inMusic
Critical Thinking
The Unfortunate Case of Get Him Eat Him
Get Him Eat Him Thurs July 28 Holocene 1001 SE Morrison Though it’s not entirely a hard-and-fast rule, there seems to be an unspoken understanding between musicians and music critics that the two are inherently on opposing fronts. Though they may be forced to fraternize with one another, rarely do the two cross over in […]
Posted inMusic
It’s Who You Know
Rupert Murdoch totally owns your friends. Or at least, your friends list. I mean, what’s the difference, anyway? As you may have already read, as of July 18, Fox Interactive Media acquired Intermix Media–the parent company of MySpace–to the tune of $580 million dollars. MySpace.com, a “social-networking” site that you should so be over already, […]
Posted inMovies & TV
Something in the Way
Gus Van Sant and Kurt Cobain (Sort Of)
Last Days dir. Van Sant Opens Fri July 22 Cinema 21 For fans of the music of Nirvana–and more importantly, for followers of the mythos of Kurt Cobain–the 21st century has, at times, been a little hard to stomach. Over the past three years, we’ve contended with a painfully reductive “Best Of” compilation, been suckered […]
Posted inMusic
Viva Italia!
Dada Swing’s Punk Rock Exchange Program
Dada Swing Tues July 26 The Know 2026 NE Alberta Were I given the editorial luxury of summarizing every band I write about in a single, incredibly vague sentence I would trivially summarize Dada Swing thusly: Undoubtedly the greatest Bay Area punk band Italy has ever produced. See why they don’t let me do that? […]
Posted inMusic
It’s Who You Know
Manu Berelli
As many of you have already graciously noted, we here at the Mercury have a habit of shamelessly flaunting our conflicts of interest with all of the charming discretion of a cheap Italian gigolo. Which is, of course, why I jumped at the chance to interview Manu Berelli, former Mercury contributor, and brand new booker […]
Posted inMusic
It’s Who You Know
Bowling for Lawsuits
Coming off of a slow news week, and faced with another empty-headed go at this column, I’ve again been miraculously rescued by a new round in my on-going row with Bowling For Soup–this time in the form of a poly-cotton blend. Late last week I received another of my occasional hate letters from the extended […]
Posted inMusic
I Just Threw Up In My Mouth
The Uphill Battle of Pit Er Pat
Pit Er Pat Wed July 20 Loveland 320 SE 2nd Ave Despite the fact that it very well may be the most journalistic jerk-off description of a record I’ve ever written, I ask you to kindly bear with me through the sentence that follows, as I can’t seem to find a better way to put […]
Posted inMusic
It’s Who You Know
Closing Conan’s
Less than a year since splitting from his two-year tenure at Ash Street Saloon for a go at Conan’s–taking with him Thorn City Improv, the popular weekly hiphop night that regularly features representatives from Boom Bap Project and Oldominion–Runaway Productions booker Anthony Sanchez recently saw the club’s sudden close. It’s Who You Know recently chatted […]