he's a come back kid...

no seriously folks, COMING SOON: the return of our star-studded contributors!

Keep Your Eyes Peeled: Summer Releases

Artist: Elvis Costello Album: Secret, Profane & Sugarcane Release Date: June 2

Artist: Black Meteoric Star Album: Black Meteoric Star Release Date: June 9 Label: DFA

Artist: Sonic Youth Album: The Eternal Release Date: June 9

Artist: Anti-Flag Album: People Or The Gun Release Date: June 9

Artist: Dinosaur Jr. Album: Farm Release Date: June 23

Artist: The Mars Volta Album: Octahedron Release Date: June 23

Artist: Wilco Album: Wilco (The Album) Release Date: June 30

Artist: The Cave Singers Album: Welcome Joy Release Date: August 18 Label: Matador

Artist: Arctic Monkeys Album: ? Release August 25 in the U.S. Date: August 18 Label: Domino

Artist: Yo La Tengo Album: Popular Songs Release Date: September 8 Label: Matador

and dont forget to check out the feast spring left for us to chow on...

Iron&Wine: Around the Well
Ben Folds: Ben Folds Presents University A Cappella!
Dirty Projectors: Bitte Orca
White Rabbits: It's Frightening
Jane's Addiction: A Cabinet of Curiosities
Bob Dylan: Together Trough Life

-mh

Coffee House Crawl

Imagine bar hopping without the hang over. Sounds glourious right? Well, this past Saturday a-COFFEE SHOP a-hoppin' I did a-go. Portland has a gargantuan plethora of quality coffee joints, all of which I wanted to take advantage of. Ergo, in a single morning I hit elven different coffee shops and one cupcake bakery (didn't even know PDX had one of thoes)! While in each shop, I observed the good, the bad, the ugly, and the kind of music playing. Most of the shops I stopped in were hip and with it, but a few were just plain bizarre or worse, bland as grape nuts. My coffee house crawl went a little something like this:

1. Portland Coffee House (SW Alder and Broadway)- Good: free sample of biscotti, super comfy chairs. Bad: busy, could use more staff and space, music volume was too loud, had to shout to in order to hold a conversation. Ugly: had to elbow through a crowd of bums to get inside Music: odd assortment of Kings of Leon, Mos Def, They Must be Giants, Tapes N Tapes, and Willie Nelson Best For: Mexican Mocha and people watching
2. Pete's Coffee and Tea (SW Washington St. and Broadway) Good: spacious, anniversary tea Bad: small chairs, music was too soft. Ugly: it's a commercial cookie cutter chain, staff was grumpy. Music: always Classical, romantic/classic era Mozart and Beethoven. Best For: people watching (you can sit at one window bar and and watch the people seated outside's entire conversation)
3. Bikini Coffee (SW 5th Ave. and Alder) Good: baristas in bikinis!? Bad: customers were both creep men. Ugly: hole-in-the-wall small. Music: none, the barista answered in response to my question "What sort of music do you play here?" with "Music? What do you mean, like people? No we don't really do that." Best For: oogling if you're into girls. (watch this)
4. Java Man Coffee (Chinatown) Good: fast service. Bad: everything else, opens to the street and is drafty. Ugly: airport coffee stand feel. Music: Doris Day and 50's Atlantic City Lounge music. Best For: if you're on the go.
5. StumpTown Coffee Roasters! (SW 3rd Ave. just past Oak St.) Good: local art, chic furniture, quality selection of magazines to buy (Adbusters, Paste, Vice), best dark roast, bike parking, turn tables! Bad: if you're not an inoculated hipster, you may not fit in here. Ugly: nothing, it's a beautiful place for beautiful people (just ask Colin Meloy). Music: vinyl baby! space for performance, Paul Simon, Tears for Fears, Patsy Cline, Quite Riot, Elliot Smith, Bob Seger, Duran Duran, Ratatat. Best For: hipsters.
6. World Cup Coffee & Tea (inside Powell's Books) it was silent here...very fitting for a book store. Music: none. Best For: reading whatever you just bought.
7. Sip & Kranz (the pearl NW 10th just past Johnson St.) Good: breakfast- the works oatmeal, apple cider, warmth and sunshine, across from a park if you'd like too oogle other people's dogs. Bad: the occasional screaming child. Ugly: there weren't actually any crayons damn it, I wanted to color. Music: Teddy Geiger Pop and last year's top 100 hits. Best For: Pearl district families and eating with your dog on the patio.
8. Via Delizia (NW Marshall St. and 11th) Good: friendly staff, faux Italian themed. Bad: faux Italian themed, doubles as a bistro. Ugly: nothing too bad. Best For: cheap n yummy gelato.
9. URBAN GRIND (NW 14th Ave. and Kearney St.) Good: EVERYTHING!, buckets of comfy chairs and ample seating, cheap and delicious coffee and baked goods, thousands of electrical plugs, free wifi, great meeting space, bodacious green walls, friendly staff, free magazines to read, quality, class, comfort. Bad: location, it's a trek from downtown. Ugly: nothing. Music: Classic Rock, beBop jazz, Led Zeppelin, Blizin Trapper, Miles Davis Best. For: Studying and getting shit done.
10. Pio Square Starbucks (Broadway and Morrison) Good: quick service but... Bad: long lines, it's a space to be moved through. Ugly: it's a commercial cookie cutter chain. Music: Pre-selected Starbucks Compilations, which are usually inaudible. Best For: waiting for the Raz out of the rain.
11. Grendel's Coffee House (NE Burnside and 8th Ave.) Good: steamed soy milk and cinnamon, perky staff, cheap eats, free wifi and free computers (if you forget yours). Bad: on a busy street. Ugly: nothing. Best For: posting event flyers, someone on a budget.
12. CupCakeJones (NW 10th and Evertt St.) $1.50 gourmet mini cupcakes...need I say more.

There you have it, my coffee shop hop. My head was a buzz and my feat were beat, but at least I can now give the thumbs up to Urban Grind, StumpTown, and Grendel's with some confidence. You could take my word for it or try these shops on for size yourself, find which one is your golden atmosphere. Go forth and coffee shop crawl my friends!

-mh

Spring, 2009

This is a picture of my dad, skiing.

I’m getting some new hair. I gotta change my identity; protect myself from the evil that crawls the water-fountain lined streets of downtown Portland. I’m like the queen of stupid, the go-to-girl-to-heckle, the chick with the big brown hair. Round’n’round Chinatown, they know me, aint never goin back- without a new do.

It was a good day when it happened. The sky was pale with clouds, all ribbed like scrunched pieces of binder paper trying to unfold. We were all on our third slice of tender pizza and just chucking runts at people in front of the Roseland. It seemed like a cool idea to suck off all the sugary aspirin coating and then fake-punch each other- you know, to make it look like we just got 6 molars fucking blown out of our mouth, all from just one of Haley’s monstrous punches. We were living like pigs, like dogs, living in the world, eating pizza and runts, and shoulder tapping people who looked cool enough. Crumpled down into a gutter, we leaned back and tried to digest the sticky ball of shit that had grown into a horrible mess in our stomachs. Things started to get weird. Haley and I closed our eyes, humming Ave Maria, breathing slowly and harnessing our voices. We laughed like mad men after, all warm and cozy at six pm on a Saturday. We turn around and there’s this guy, what’s his name? “Joshie, his name’s Joshie. Oh dat? Dats Joshie!” All right.

“Hay, you girls look like you be needin something”

“What, you need a hotel room of something, I can get that”

“Oh, you girls need some booze, eh, shit I can get you that right o’er here.”

“Ya, I saw that Asian’ lookin chick eyen’ me, she’s all like, scopin people out an stuff, looking at me.”

“You from Madison, Shit I’m from Milwaukee,”

“Ya, I like it over there, Wisconsin’s where shits at”

“Yeah grew up there, “

“Well, I’m here now, ya, Now I write screen plays”

“You know, movies and stuff, screen plays, like that”

“So four forties then, an what I get in return man, I aint doin this for free”

“Naw I get something”

“Three dollars isn’t good, girl, weak”

“What’s your deal now huh”

“Alright she’s got some type of funk n shit”

“This girl means business, she knows what she wants”

“That shit wack, ya’ll be talking too much”

“Theres like a puddle over there, and she’s all like noooo, don’t talk to me, and the Asian lookin chick is the one who was checking me out. We gonna do this o what”

“Hey y aim AbulaDouchey, want summa this”

“Naw I don’t do that stuff, wife wouldn’t like it, got some kids, to think bout”

“Oh, him? He Joshie!”

“Dats Lil Prince Billy, he’s got the money”

“Here take this, ya know”

“Why not, what you think this be a good idea, Ill do it better, free”

“Hay, Lil Prince Billy!”

“Faith in humanity, you say you got faith in humanity?”

“She says she got faith in humanity”

“Joshie gun come back, faith in humanity!”

“Didn’t have it, all out, c’mon lets go oer here”

“Lets go oer here, now”

“Luts go now here”

“Jus right there, now”

“No, I ain’t givin nothing back”

“no”

“No.”

“No!”

“NO!”

“Hay! And she’d got all this faith in humanity! Faith in humanity! NO! Faith in humanity! Faith in humanity! NO! Faith in Humanity!

“No, not getting anything back, gave it to me, see.”

“Wahtchu do is you go now and chu call 9-1-1, see that’s what chu do.”

“FAITH IN HUMANITY!”

And then we ran. We just ran. For about seven blocks, until the pizza and runts almost escaped. I trusted Joshie, some fucking creep in a Rastafarian yamika and scuffed Airwalks with my fifteen bucks.  And Abuladouchey, the one with the small outline of a tear drop tattoo nestled in the right cornea. Like Lil Wayne, Birdman, that one guy in Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, he’s been in the clinker. And Little Prince Billy, the bald one in a faded Rip Curl long sleeve t-shirt, with wrinkled palms cupping six one dollar bills and a baby afro hairbrush; disregarding his apparent lack of hair. And then everyone else, the homeless day walkers of Portland proper. Half dead, half blind, half fried, crusty people, trundling along in whirring motorized scooters, shitting in their pants, scraping their one ambulatory leg along the cement, dragging the ghost of another leg a couple feet behind. I hate these people. I hate my hair too, Harajuku; I need new hair.

I got heckled, left without my dignity, and money, and now scared and slapped with a streak of sour vulnerability. But I still had my good’ ol, goddamn, god forsaken FAITH IN HUMANITY. I should have flashed my t-shirt; it said “Leave Me Alone” in confrontational Helvetica font. I want to repeatedly spit out millions of sweet tiny runt teeth into Joshie’s poisonous yellow eyes; I also kind of want to kill him. I felt like a puddle of fear and shame, a puddle of curdled milk and chilled clam chowder. No more will I fork over a quarter for an independent homeless publication, “Street Sheet” or “Street Spirit.” I hate the Portland day walkers: Joshie, Abuladouchey, and Little Prince Billy. “Leave Me Alone.”

We did rediscover the spirit of resiliency within us and hobble over to Dekum manor, only to sit and sulk in the linoleum tiled kitchen while watching two pudgy, Mervyns-wearing, Reebok-lacing, squishy girls eat each others faces whilst gyrating to this shitty New Orleans gumbo band with a fucking saxophone. Life sucks. But then this guy with a big red beard who we met earlier in the day came to the party and bought us an eighteen-pack of PBR for free and that’s all folks. Happy Saturday in FartLand Oregon! The End!

 By Lauren Fischer

 

Dan Deacon- Bromst (2009)

colorful-crayon music, dance till your feet fall off, one heck of a good time! These are all accurate descriptions of electronic musician, Dan Deacon's newest album. Most of the album was recorded live with a full sized ensemble, a delightfully new and kickin' contrast to Deacon's single handed power of effect pedals and wave function generators on past work. BROMST, as it's titled, is a step in the right maturing direction for Deacon. Since 2007's SPIDER MAN OF THE RINGS, Deacon has bee a busy bee both inside the studio and out. He states, "[Spiderman of the Rings] was very carefree and youthful -- sort of partying for the sake of partying. This record is less about a party and more about a celebration" on NPR's Talk of the Nation. Indeed, Bromst is one gargantuan and energetic celebration. So, turn on the beats and celebrate!

rating: 9

Track picks: "Ref F" "Wet Wings"

M. Ward- Hold Time (2009)

Typically after listening to any of M. Ward's past studio albums, I will swoon, I will admire, I will even Google his name to try and find where he hides in Portland making his old-soul music, hoping that he'll invite me to join in. But when I gave M. Ward's most recent release a listen, no such reactions were inspired. It may be that Ward is moving on, taking a slightly more performer pace in today's rapid momentum that is music. As a follow up to both 2006's POSTWAR and 2007's TO GO HOME EP, HOLD TIME just does not hold the same time as Ward's past lyrical motifs and nostalgic melodies. For this album, Ward collaborated with such artists as Tom Hagerman of Devotchka, Peter Broderick from Horse Feathers, Zooey Deschanle of She and Him, and Lucinda Williams. Paradoxically, most of Ward's collaborations pick him up when he sings of being down. On track "Oh Lonesome Me," Lucinda William's man-haggard honky-tonk voice is a glaringly shrill comparison to Ward's swimmingly lush and soothingly sorrowful vocals. The combination makes for the worst track of the album. As critical as my word's have been, amazing and enjoyable still are Ward's tantalizing guitar skills and groovy timpani beats. Just simply being touched by M. Ward makes HOLD TIME a cut above the rest, but for my own M. Ward expectations this album falls short.

rating: 7

track picks: "Never Had Nobody Like You" "To Save Me" "Shangri-La"

so You thiNk YOu CaN DJ?

The other afternoon I scrambled to the KLC studio after class, punched in the door code wicked fast, and fell face first on the studio's dilapidated forest green couch. It had been a super long day. I was bone tired, and desperately need to stop, drop, and no I wasn't on fire...just needed to sleep. Thereafter, I decided to browse the CAVE (our gigantic Music Library) while I waited for my time slot to come up for my show (Dear Audio Abby every Thurs 12-2pm). This was a bad idea. With what started out as pulling two maybe three cds for listening rapidly grew into a small mountain of albums piled high in the corner for burning (for FREE!). Once I gathered the music I was going to play for that day's show, I sat reading all the profound hieroglyphics scrawled across the cave walls. One such statement reads, "this is a fucking profound statement ." I went on to play some tunes, answer some questions from an impromptu interview with a passing by Templeton friend, rant about bureaucratic 21+ venues, and answer some advice letters MUSICALLY. After my show was over and it was time to go back into the "world outside KLC," I realized that I was rested, rejuvenated, revitalized, and most importantly, sane again. KLC, my Prozac! What a wonderful place to be a part of.

for more reading about being a radio dj click here

-monique halgat