Reviews

[rating=8.00] Looking back in retrospect, NRBQ’s eponymous debut seems like a remarkable feat even now. A stunningly uncommon collision of styles and sounds, it was amazingly adventurous, exploratory and wholly beyond definition when it was originally unleashed without warning in 1969. Even at a time when artists were given complete license to experiment and adapt […]

Umphrey’s McGee spent two nights at Portland, Oregon’s Crystal Ballroom on March 16 and 17, giving fans a big double dose of inspired jams. Friday night found Umphrey’s in top form, playing songs spanning their 20 year career, including “Whistle Kids” (which Brendan Bayliss dedicated to his brother) and “Piranhas” from their fresh 2018 release […]

Yonder Mountain String Band played Portland, Oregon’s Crystal Ballroom last Thursday, March 15 as part of their spring tour. Yonder brought along newgrass/Americana string band outfit Old Salt Union to get things warmed up. Bassist Ben Kaufmann started things off by announcing that they had “the pregnant-est fiddle player in all the land,” to which […]

[rating=7.00] With the third installment in their annual “Myths” series – a joint effort with the Marfa Myths festival in Texas – indie label Mexican Summer has finally realized the potential of the series’ concept. Putting two likeminded artists together in the desert conjures romantic visions of brilliant spontaneous creation, but the real-life nature of […]

[rating=6.00] Just to get it out of the way, Scott Weiland was always the best part of Stone Temple Pilots. His bombastic stage presence, soulful scratchy baritone, keen ear for catchy melody, and lyrics that shifted between introspective and enigmatic helped the San Diego quartet become more than the sum of its parts. New singer […]

Saturday at SXSW is usually the lightest day. A lot of brands are done with their showcases, a lot of bands travel back to where they came from other the weekend. But there is still a lot of focus on the smaller bands waiting to be discovered, which is what Saturday at SXSW 2018 turned […]

The messy realities of love are explored in this SXSW romance.

Wes Anderson fans will be pleased with Isle of Dogs. But what about everyone else?

I’m going to need a massage at the end of this week because my neck and back are seriously out of whack after seeing over 50 bands this week already. Action continued Friday as I was out another 13 hours before throwing in the towel. My first set of the day was Los Angeles singer-songwriter […]

[rating=8.00] The heist movie has been fundamental to American cinema as long as there’s been American cinema. Only the Western, which heist movies share much of its DNA with, is arguably more fundamental to the past century or so of the celluloid that makes up our shared cultural history. Though with anything archetypal, it can […]