A+E Blog

Music Tonight: Thursday, May 23

By Collin Yeo on May 23, 2024 at 8:43AM

It’s the warm-up to one of the most cherished long weekends of the year, and depending on your personal calendar, this evening might even be considered a tailgating countdown to kickoff. If you are looking for some easy fun, go check out Low Class Jazz at the Basement at 8 p.m.

Music Tonight: Sunday, May 19

By Collin Yeo on May 19, 2024 at 7:14AM

Australia has a way of cutting out all the bullshit from American culture and leaving in all the greasy and gory fun bits. There are many examples of its righteous offerings since the days of AC/DC and The Road Warrior, but lately there have been a lot of great garage bands breaking containment from the continent, and we are lucky to have one such group in town tonight at the Siren’s Song Tavern.

Music Tonight: Friday, May 17

By Collin Yeo on May 17, 2024 at 8:57AM

Anybody remember Whomp Wednesdays? That celebration of electronic dance music and its various micro-genres that was usually posted-up at the Jam might not be around in the weekly institutional sense, but its spirit (and production company) lives on tonight at 9 p.m. at the same venue ($15).

Music Tonight: Thursday, May 16

By Collin Yeo on May 16, 2024 at 4:00AM

With the summer heat coming early, our evenings are warm and fragrant, especially near one of our rivers. Few places boast that night perfume like the Logger Bar, where the back patio sits a stone’s slingshot (almost) from the Mad.

Music Tonight: Wednesday, May 15

By Collin Yeo on May 15, 2024 at 4:00AM

Portland’s Fruition features trio-vocal harmonies generally led by singer/guitarist Jay Cobb Anderson, who you may recognize as having passed through this way as a solo act not so long ago. The music is electro-folk, country and modern blues with a confessional quality to the lyrics, which does nothing to dampen the instrumental bombast of the group’s sound.

Music Tonight: Tuesday, May 14

By Collin Yeo on May 14, 2024 at 4:00AM

Speaking of our local all-ages, sober gem the Outer Space, there’s an evening of dream pop awaiting you there at 8 p.m. tonight for a suggested door price of $10. Lane Lines hails from Seattle and Phoenix, two very different places, and has, I imagine, harnessed the contradictions of such into a personal songbook of expression.

Nighttime plays the Outer Space at 7 p.m. on Monday, May 13.

Music Tonight: Monday, May 13

By Collin Yeo on May 13, 2024 at 4:00AM

Ethiopian jazz, roots and funk music has enjoyed a well-deserved appreciation in the West for the last two decades, due in part to several reissues and compilations from the ’60s and ’70s making their way to the right record collectors and tastemakers. Qwanqwa is a quintet from the nation’s capital of Addis Ababa, and represents the new generation of Ethiopian musicians building on the fantastic sounds of the past and creating new tunes for those of us lucky enough to catch an earful.

Music Tonight: Sunday, May 12

By Collin Yeo on May 12, 2024 at 4:00AM

Portland’s best fruit-flavored funk trio Sweet N’ Juicy is back at it again, stopping at the Siren’s Song Tavern tonight at 8 p.m. to make some hot jam. For the uninitiated, or for those who may have forgotten, these fellas dress up as a banana, a strawberry and a pineapple, and play tight and funky dance grooves exceptionally well.

Music Tonight: Saturday, May 11

By Collin Yeo on May 11, 2024 at 4:00AM

John Ludington is generally known in the area as one of our more versatile bassists and singers, providing rhythm and back-up for Canary and the Vamp, or holding it down as one quarter of Absynth Quartet, our beloved oddball jam act, so you know right from the jump here he’s got chops. However, what you might not know is that he’s recorded a solo album, MinuteHand, and is throwing an album release party for it at the Miniplex tonight at 8 p.m.

Music Tonight: Friday, May 10

By Collin Yeo on May 10, 2024 at 4:00AM

Bass-heavy electronic dance music comes with nearly as many subgenre titles as it does artists, and I’ve never been very interested in getting too far out there in terms of cataloging, preferring instead to go by my own impressions of the sounds pasted together with a little artist info gleaned from my research. Tsuruda and Onhell are two DJs on a tour called “sushirrito,” a nod to the half-Asian background of the former and the half-Mexican background of the latter.

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