Though Thanksgiving has traditionally stood a holiday where we give thanks to the harvest, for many its original meaning is lost. Anyone with a smart phone or an internet connection has been privy to what mass media is attempting to mask so greatly – the tragedy of the North Dakota Access Pipeline at the Standing Rock Indian Reservation.

Without getting into tearful details of this travesty (and appreciating the veterans who are stepping up to serve as a human shield to the protestors), the Deli Portland is fully endorsing attending a benefit show for the Standing Rock Medic and Healer Council, happening this Friday at the Haight House. 

Half the halcyon calmness of folk and half the excitable nature of garage rock, Friday’s bill, booked in conjunction with local volunteer collective Portland Artist Coalition for Progressive Acts and Causes, will have the droney folk of Cave Cricket and the soothing acoustics of Galen Ballinger with two of Portland’s most favorite rockin’ af bands Dim Wit and Ah God bringing it home.

A donation of $5 is asked, but no one will be turned away for lack of funds. All that’s asked is the audience respect the house, respect each other, and respect the cause.

Alien Boy was marked a loud favorite of ours with last year’s debut Never Getting Over It, and a roaring cover of "Hand In Glove" by the Smiths that came along with it. The album showed Alien Boy as a rambunctious callback to late 90’s emo laced pop punk and with the release of their newest EP Stay Alive, we find ourselves still enjoying their clamor, with a more settled down maturity.

Though Stay Alive was digitially released in early October, its coinciding show celebrating the physical 7" takes place this Thursday at Blackwater. Beloved Deli Portland picks Little Star will be joining Alien Boy, along with horror glam punks Sweeping Exits and some hardcore from Naux.

All proceeds from money collected at the door of this all-ages show will go to Planned Parenthood and for just a $5 cover, it’d be kind of silly not to come support.

Stay Alive is available on vinyl via Good Cheer Records and on cassette tape through Olympia’s Reflective Tapes.

Our favorite funky, R&B pop act the Fur Coats recently announced that they are going on a European tour this Spring! We applaud any and everyone that makes it out of the confines of the Pacific Northwest for a period time and we’re definitely jealous we can’t come with.

Since touring through Europe (or really anywhere, for that matter) is far from cheap, the Fur Coats have taken their part freaky, part dreamy talents to the canvas by creating some original art to help fund the tour. Most of these original pieces will be available for purchase, but prints may be available and have potential to be ordered.

Their art show will be this Wednesday, November 30 at the Turn Turn Turn from 8pm-11pm, but their art will be up for viewing all throughout December. A little DJ party will happen the first two hours to allow for everyone to properly take in the artistic creations, followed by a 45 minute set by the Fur Coats featuring some new songs.

It’s 21+ and $6, so come out and help the Fur Coats get their show on the road.

There’s something strangely soothing about watching a cigarette burn its way out of existence. Even more, zoning out on the burn to the tune of some crisp hip hop sets the perfect mood for the situation. We spoke on the first two installments of BCxLD‘s four-part project series My, How Time Flies back in June and we’re pleased to say part three is even more promising.

Featuring guest appearances from members of Fruition, Another Exoneration and more, My, How Time Flies III touches on smoking addictions, technological dependence, seasonal love, hard work going unnoticed and many other pertinent topics. Emcee Lucas Dix (of Jellyfish Brigade and Hives Inquiry Squad) engages these topics with arrant lyricism packaged with producer Brass Clouds‘ hip hop, R&B and electronic instrumentation, for an undertaking leaving us baited for the next episode.

My, How Time Flies III is out now for a pay-what-you-want download on their Bandcamp and is also available on iTunes and Spotify. Watch and listen to one of the first visual releases from the album, "Smokes," below. Harmonies from Fruition’s Jay Cobb Anderson will definitely aid the perpetual zone out.

 This evening marks the possibly temporary, possibly permanent exit for Portland’s long standing, vegan loves Young Turks. After the last almost 7 years of supplying locals with unapologetic, true to the roots hardcore, the Turks will enter an official hibernation…for a time unknown.

News of the hiatus dropped on Halloween, where a post on the band’s Facebook page revealed some quite unfortunate news for fans:

"This will be the last one for a while. By ‘last one,’ I don’t mean forever. By ‘for a while’ I mean I don’t know how long. It’s been an incredible journey from our demo recording to now, and we’re looking forward to closing this chapter of YT on a high note with all of our associated side projects and closest friends playing along side us. See you there."

It was an obvious bummer to read, but the Turks won’t be leaving us without a lasting impression. Hardcore is taking over Alberta St.’s Post 134 this evening, where Unrestrained, Climate, Black Communion, Carrion Spring and the new project from Matt of Young Turks, Longclaw, will be playing some early sets in support of domestic violence agency the Raphael House of Portland.

This $10, all-ages show (bar with ID) sees doors opening at 5pm and music ending promptly at 9pm so hustle on down there and see Young Turks for the last time. 

One of the city’s biggest pride and joys, Sallie Ford, has been relatively low key following her split with the Sound Outside and the release of 2014’s Slap Back. Over these last couple of years we knew deep down Ford wasn’t laying her musical abilities to rest and this month, along with the release of a new single, she announced more new material coming our way through an upcoming album.

February will see the deliverance of Soul Sick, an album of emotive reflection featuring a slew of talented Portlanders that helped bring it to life. Ford found herself at Type Foundry Studio where she solicited the help of Mike Coykendall along with his brother John, Kirk Hamilton, Garth Klippert of Old Light, Ben Nugen of Dolorean, Kris Doty of Modern Kin and helping hand to Tom Waits and the B-52’s Ralph Carney in bringing instrumental talent and production smarts to the process. 

On what Soul Sick is all about, Ford said:

This is a confessional album about struggling with my issues — some that I’ve overcome and some that I still carry around. This is an album about insecurity, anxiety and depression; it’s an album about band breakups, major life changes, and what it took to deal with those things. Growing up, I was a middle child and a homeschooler, so I’ve always felt like an outsider. In making this record, I explored what my music means to me, and how I’ve always struggled with feeling the pressure of not being good enough and wanting to quit. On these new songs, it felt good to write on one theme and from one place. All in all, Soul Sick has taught me a lot about myself and helped me to heal.

Soul Sick will be out via Vanguard Records on February 10. Give the first track from the album, "Get Out," a listen below.

One of our current Artist of the Month nominees, Floating Room, dropped their debut album Sunless last week. The album’s release show is tomorrow and we couldn’t think of a better way to set the tone of this rainy night and prep for tomorrow than running through the album on repeat.

Floating Room is made up of drowse‘s Kyle Bates, Maya Stoner of Sabonis and bassist Alec van Staveren, who when brought together manifest experimental existentialism rife with emotive intricacies that become evermore realized with each listen. 

Tomorrow’s show is at Mississippi Studios, free and 21+ with additional sets by drowse and Hex Vision. You can listen to all of Sunless below, but why not come out and see it performed live?

Many Portlanders end up spending Thanksgiving in town as our friends gallivant off to their home states for unwanted family time. Instead of going into the upcoming holiday feeling sad and lonely, give a little thanks to this special night the Doug Fir is putting together tomorrow.

For their holiday party, skilled mothman King Black Acid will be playing some of our favorite ambient rock scores, while the sheer power that emanates from each member of Skull Diver‘s instruments will slowly take over you. Lubec rounds out this bill, making it an overall mellow night of Portland legends offering pre-Thanksgiving enjoyment befitting of Doug Fir’s mood lit ambiance.

Music’s at 9pm and tickets will run from $10-15. It’s low-key also a birthday celebration for 1/3 of Skull Diver, Ally Payne, so come with an extra bit of party pep in your step.

The holiday season can be a string of joyous occasions sprinkled with gifts and seasonal flavored drinks. Most of the time, it’s quite the opposite, where only terrible times are had when you’re forced to deal with people you have no interest in spending time with. Fall and winter festivities always mark the approaching end of the year and while 99% of us are ready for 2016 to be all sorts of over, let’s spend one of the more fatty holidays of the year with some freaks.

Noisey instrumentals will come at you from all directions during the Freaksgiving Bash this Wednesday, where enjoyably mesmerizing solo acts Consumer and Dolphin Midwives will join experimental duo Gooo and Baronic Wall‘s space pop as they play the space at Turn Turn Turn. It’ll be a fairly unconventional way to kick off a day of gluttonous mouth stuffing, but it’ll be a bomb bash nonetheless. 

It’s 21+ and starts at 8pm.

There couldn’t be a better name for a genre than "toilet rock." Kicking out jams freshly from the depths of the white hole of the toilet bowl are the Sweatpants, whose self proclaimed designation as such serves them well.

Nix the association of toilets and boo boo in this instance, since there’s no negative connotation to be affiliated with what the Sweatpants do. Pulling aspects of garage, punk, metal and grunge, the Pants have essentially created a divine concoction of sludgy rock that falls somewhere between Fugazi and Rudementary Peni with a Pacific Northwest twist.

As far as we know, we’ll have to wait until mid-December to see the Sweatpants again. They’ll be sweat rockin’ alongside Frenz and Tiger Touch at the Liquor Store for free on December 14. Until then, congrats to the Sweatpants being our nexts Artists of the Month and enjoy their self titled No Faith Records debut, released in May of this year.

The Know End in Sight Series has featured some pretty good shows so far, and Saturday’s will definitely be one of the best ways to both end this shitty year on and see off the Know from its northeast Alberta home.

We never miss a chance to see to heavy hitters Danava, who still manage to hold such a special place in our hearts even without having released any new material in a long time. Party rockers Mean Jeans will hopefully play almost all of this year’s Tight New Dimension which, of course, has had us in a whole other dimension of rowdy punkness since April.

With the coolness of Andy Place and the Coolheads and NYC’s Dirty Fences touring through to round out the bill, there’s no doubt shit won’t get crazy. 

Tickets are only $12, so it’d be smart to get there early and snag one before the night sells out.

Out today, the newest record from Bud Wilson’s full fledged music baby Aan is perhaps one of if not its strongest release yet. Dada Distractions served as just that – a means to somewhat distract Wilson from all the bullshit that occurred to him last year. 

Amid the loss of two friends and the ending of a six year relationship, Wilson also saw the known incarnation of his band and his home of Portland quickly changing. Like most with creative outlets to deal with the darker feelings, Wilson channeled his ills into Dada Distractions, where songs bounce between droning heavy hitters and softly scuzzed out pop. 

The current embodiment of Aan sees the band’s touring sound engineer turned member Gabriel Nardin, Dana Valatka and former Deli Portlander Travis Leipzig aiding in expressing Wilson’s musical journey through lost love and the acceptance of death. Dada Distractions is definitely an album of expression, that can be witnessed live during the album release show this weekend for Rontoms’ Sunday Sessions. Helping Aan celebrate the album’s release will be Minden and Kelli Schaefer. It’ll be Papi Fimbres’ last show as Minden’s drummer, giving even more of an incentive to turn out.

Stream Dada Distractions in its entirety below.