MFNW Thursday: Portlanders & Scotsmen

You know what’s hard to come by during Musicfest NW? Time. Time to do anything like, say, blog. There’s plenty of time to stand around impatiently as the band before your favorite band seems to play forever and you’re stuck sweating and trying to sip a beer slowly, but when Frightened Rabbit goes on at 12:30 in the morning (in theory) and you, as a result, sleep in so late you almost miss lunch, well, shit, my friends, you run out of time. Continue reading 

Missives from Pickathon, Part 2

The circus is gone. The kids that remain are crawling the ground under the apple trees for green fruit, which they toss up onto the shading, stretched fabric. It’s at an angle, so the fruit always bounces back down. Every so often, a cry of “APPLE!” goes up. I haven’t figured out the rules of the game. Continue reading 

Finding the Right Clues

Because I still have the tabs open: In this Thursday’s paper, you’ll find a wee tiny last minute preview of a show at Sam Bond’s by a band called The Clues. The Clues, assuming it’s the right Clues, include former members of Arcade Fire and the short-lived but beloved and awesome Unicorns. (There’s another The Clues in Colorado, apparently.) The Clues are kind of a pain to Google unless you include the band members’ former bands. But there’s some good stuff out there: Continue reading 

Spring 2009: Get your established indie rock here

Yesterday, I got one of those makes-your-heart-skip-with-joy press releases: a new And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead album, Century of Self, comes out in just over a month! They’re independent again! MTV News says they’ve “amped up the guitars!” And they’re coming! To Portland! Well, you can’t have it all. (You apparently can’t have anything, if you’re me: Mates of State are passing us by again, too. What gives?) Continue reading