The time has come once again, boys and girls. After the success of our first local showcase back in June, we decided to join forces with good ole Mark Lore and his good ole blog, The Days of Lore, for another night of ingesting far too much whiskey and PBR, making far too many regrettable life choices, probably waking up face (and pants) down in an alley somewhere, oh yeah, and watching some good old-fashioned rock ‘n’ roll.

We are pleased to announce that the ever so kind Mississippi Studios will be hosting this alcohol-soaked Northwest rock extravaganza (It’s funny how far a little blackmail can getcha these days.), and equally as pleased about the bands who (foolishly) agreed to play a show with our name attached to it.

Portland-based lo-fi folk rockers Nucular Aminals will start the mood with their static saturated, tambourine slappin’ Sixties jam band vibe. Next to hit the stage will be fellow Rose City residents, Ravishers, to up the tempo just a tad with their guitar-driven indie-alternative-rock (that can be heard if you’re on hold to any city organization as part of Mayor Sam Adams’ ingenious Listen Local program). Seattleites Black Whales (I know this is breaking our “local music only” law, but every rule is made to be broken, right?) will end the night with their pleasantly calm Northwest indie-folk-rock.

Our glorious show starts at 9 pm and costs a measly $7, but we love you guys, and we want you, or at least two of you, to get in for free! That’s right, kids, we’re having a ticket give away! Share your most epically embarrassing Mississippi Studios drunken debauchery story in the comment box, along with your email address, and our panel of judges (Ryan and I) will determine what story is worthy of a pair of tickets and notify the winner via email August 9th. And remember, the more embarrassing, the better, because chances are Ryan’s probably done something much, much worse.

-Katrina Nattress

Few things get me hotter than a hen in Hades; even fewer set me to cluckin’ like a rooster in Riverside. Pickathon, happening this Friday August 6 – Sunday August 8 at Pendarvis Farms (16581 SE Hagen Rd. Happy Valley, OR), is one of those few things, and I’ve been sweating and squaking for over three months in anticipation of the 2010 version. Armed with an arsenal of under-the-radar bluegrass greenhorns, along with returning acts and Pickathon newbies, this year’s festival is poised to be perhaps the best yet.

Headlined this year by the enigmatic Bonnie "Prince" Billy and the Cairo Gang, Dr. Dog (now a festival hit after last year’s blistering mainstage set) and Heartless Bastards, and fortified with Portland-bred power from the likes of Richmond Fontaine, Typhoon, Sallie Ford, Black Prairie, and Weinland, Pickathon scintillates even the sourest of music connoisseurs (full lineup can be found here). Of course, there are many more bands to digest, to dosey-do to and so forth, and you probably won’t miss any of them due to Pickathon organizers’ ingenious method of rotating artists to play at different times of the day at different stages. So if you’re so unfortunate as to miss, say, Fruit Bats at the Galaxy Barn at 7 p.m. on Friday, August 6, you can catch them again when they play the main Mountain View Stage on Saturday at 6 p.m. They’ve got you covered, in more ways than one.

The Deli Portland will be there all weekend long, reporting the strange, the uplifting, the blasphemous, the smells of the hay from between our tired toes, and of course on the music – mostly of the Portland variety. We’ll even be there to report on how totally amazing the festival’s commitment to sustainability is!

If you haven’t purchased your tickets yet, time is running out! Advanced Weekend and Single Day tickets will be shut-off starting Thursday at Midnight. Weekend, Single Day Tickets, and Parking Passes will be available at the gate if capacity allows (depending on sales over the next 48 hours). Tickets are more at the gate ($15 more for weekend, $10 more for single days), so it would behoove you to purchase in advance and save yourself some bread for when you’re exhausted by rock. Tickets are only available online, and run thusly:

Weekend Tickets $155, Friday Only $80, Saturday Only $85, Sunday Only $85.

To push those indecisive digits into action, might we suggest checking out this amazing All-Night Mix provided by the good people at Pickathon?

Now you see it don’t you? This will be a weekend for the books.

Remember to check back daily for photo uploads, reviews, rants, insights, festival highlights and more at the Deli Portland!

– Ryan J. Prado

Fortunately for our faithful Deli Portland readership, your humble Associate Editor did not snap thousands of photos of this year’s weekend mega-pop fest at Rotture. Truth be told, he prefers to let the camera do most of the work anyway. His skills are, on the high end, derivative of the cogs employed within the black plastics and gears of his lady-friend’s Nikon D-40.

It’s with that kind of frame of mind that he took real, actual photos of only four or so acts. Well, to be fair, he did take more, but he didn’t know how to use this goddamn digi-monstrosity (he prefers the FX Camera app for his Smartphone above all other technological profundity), and consequently his indoor stage shots looked like Ansel Adams had been taking snifters of Jonestown Kool-Aid.

So here is what we do have:

O Bruxo live on Saturday, July 31, providing a much needed Latin-rock shuffle to the purveying masses of over-easy dance and experimental hoopla.

A personal favorite, Da’Rel Junior, along with his DJ Dr. Adam, regaled stories of nerd-dom against heady beats to an appreciative afternoon crowd on Saturday. Hip-hoppers take note: Da’Rel brings it with more than an ample dose of humility slathering his potent rhymes.

Mike D and the rest of I Can Lick Any Sonofabitch in the House pretty much scared the shit out of every person in attendance who hadn’t seen them before, despite their god-fearing sentimentalism and appropriately Care Bear-esque dispositions. The band only had time enough to blaze through five songs or so before the weight of their bar-room cow punk would take a bow. If I find more worthwhile shots, I’ll post them here for sure.

You’re welcome…

– Ryan J. Prado

The experimental three-piece Rollerball molded tight melodies into somewhat funky drones. For a band 15 years down the line, I shit myself to ask, where was I?

The female-fronted trio flirted with chamber-pop sounds before being fully deconstructed into energetic, effect-laden bursts of noise that shone perfectly under Rotture’s blue-stage lights.

– Nick Walker

The third evening of PDX Pop Now! featured the long-running (though not Portland-exclusive) Get Hustle. Joining the normally three-piece machine was the bass-wielding living-history of thudding-doom, Joe Preston of Salem, OR’s Thrones. With a consistent low-end, Get Hustle’s chaotic psychic energies were well-delivered.

The blistering organ/keyboards of Mac Mann blasted aural epithets against the cymbal-crashing, skin-pounding brutality of Maxamillion Avila. Not a word is lost on Valentine Falcon. The singer exuded a Plant-like sexual presence while controlling the tiny Rotture stage with something all her own.

Some sets you just need to go sans ear plugs, and Get Hustle provided PPN! with such a set. Not bad for a band 13-plus years in the making.

– Nick Walker

…go to this instead.

If you do get to PDX Pop Now! today, prepare for another barn-shakin’ great time. Check back with the Deli Portland for photos, coverage and more!

– Ryan J. Prado

Day one has come to an end at PDX Pop Now!, with scores of rad bands being introduced to a hungry listenership. Friday night’s lineup included dallops of dance, a few minutes of metal with Witch Mountain, and current leader in the running for Best Band of the festival, AndAndAnd.

This wily five-piece thumped oddly new-wave progressions, Television-like, into danceable indie-rock inertia. The crowd inside Branx were teeming, but did little to match the energy coming from the spectacle in front of them. Armed with your standard two guitarists, bassist, singer and an incredible drummer, AndAndAnd (pictured above) have unveiled a simplistic, though no less practical mode for their craft. If you play it, they will come. Luckily "it" is a revival-busting thrust of spastic rock ‘n’ roll that left me grinning like a Cheshire.

Tu Fawning commanded the outside stage at 11:35 p.m., the decibels of the audio peaking at a level a little south of inviting (goddamn noise laws, goddamn PO-lice). But Tu Fawning’s Shamanistic shivers need not the bump of the mains to endear them to an audience. Vocalist/guitarist Corrina Repp morphed and fluttered before our eyes, swaying with invisible suitors to the trance of Joe Haege’s mystical polyrhythms and puckish guitar.

However, to save energy for today’s lineup – one that features O Bruxo at 3:25, Wampire at 8:20 and Hockey at 12:25 a.m. – we decided to saunter home abreast the spokes, frames and oily gears of our bicycles; visions of pop ‘n’ roll dancing in our heads. Will we see you there today?

Stay tuned for additional coverage, insight, thoughts, poop, etc. at the Deli Portland!

– Ryan J. Prado

The debut EP by brand new Portland power trio Sunnyside has successfully ransacked the laundry piles in my late-’90s emo dorm room. They flitter in the kind of emotive rock ‘n’ roll that gave heightened awareness to a genre that would later be defiled by that dirty three-letter word, but where Sunnyside excels is in ensuring that their rapid-fire regimen trumps the valleys of that bumpy terrain.

They’re so new they don’t even really have band photos. So new no one I’ve talked to yet has even heard of them in passing. So new it’s not even apparent whether or not they’ll stay together long enough for anyone to hear them. But they should. Awash in pretty keys, three-chord choruses, peppy drums and powerfully affecting lyrics, the band would probably have been right at home in the booming indie rock eruption of the late half of the last century. As it stands, we’re lucky to have them now, however long that will last.

Download the band’s debut EP here and see for yourself. "Maybe I Will" is making me want to move out of my house to live inside my head again.

– Ryan J. Prado

“Into the Woods” lived up to its namesake with video features of Explode into Colors and Wampire. However, the Portland-music-centric Internet series has expanded its love into the confines of Burgerville.

A fan of both, I took much enjoyment in the four musical features within the Hawthrone B-ville (‘natch). White Fang, Wampire, Juiceboxxx and the 70-odd members of Typhoon all contributed their efforts to annoy anyone whose interest in milkshakes surpasses their interest in our local music scene. See for yourself here.

– Nick Walker

Seriously, when did mayor Sam Adams get so damned hip? First he adorned his office with a portrait of Modest Mouse’s Isaac Brock, then he switched all of the city phone on-hold music to local artists with his Listen Local campaign, now he’s teaming up with PDX Pop Now! to host a concert featuring all local bands on the steps of City Hall(1221 SW 4th Avenue).

Andrew Oliver Quartet, Atole, Kelli Schaefer and Nick Jaina Band are the acts that will be rockin’ outside the mayor’s office tomorrow evening. The show is FREE and ALL AGES, so you have no valid excuse not to be there!

5:45: Andrew Oliver Quartet

6:35: Kelli Schaefer

7:25: Atole

8:15: Nick Jaina Band

And don’t forget, the PDX Pop Now! music festival is a mere week away! In case you forgot, here are the deets:

FREE and ALL AGES. July 30, 31 and August 1st at Rotture. The festival will feature indoor and outdoor performances from Aan, AgesandAges, And And And, ASSS, Atriarch, Au, Autistic Youth, Ben Darwish, Billygoat, Blue Cranes, Blue Horns, Brainstorm, Cloudy October, Da’Rel Junior, Defect Defect, Eternal Tapestry, Fear No Music, Get Hustle, Grey Anne, Guantanamo Baywatch, Hockey, Hosannas, I Can Lick Any Sonofabitch In The House, Jackie-O Motherfucker, Joey Casio, Joggers, Krebsic Orkestar, Kung Pao Chickens, Kusikia, Lewi Longmire, Luck One, Michael The Blind, Operative, Parenthetical Girls, Please Step Out of The Vehicle, Reporter, Rollerball, Shoeshine Blue, Skeletron, Soup Purse, SubArachnoid Space, Tiny Knives, Tu Fawning, The Tumblers, Typhoon, Wampire, Why I Must Be Careful, and Ylang Ylang. The 2010 Festival schedule is available here.

Hope to see you all there!

-Katrina Nattress

Come one! Come all! Bastille Day is here!!

This Saturday, July 17, Pix Patisserie is hosting the 2010 Pix Bastille Day Celebration Block Party at their North Williams location! This event is free, so there’s no excuse to miss out on this year’s amazing music lineup, food, drink, scavenger hunts…and a four-foot tower made entirely of cream puffs? We’re there…

2 p.m. – AgesandAges

3 p.m. – Dirty Mittens

4 p.m. – ioa

6 p.m. – Alan Singley and Pants Machine

7 p.m. – Jared Mees and the Grown Children

8:30 p.m. – Typhoon

9:30 p.m. – Nice Nice

10:30 p.m. – 12 a.m. – Dance Party with DJ Erik Beats

This event is in support of the Oregon Food Bank, so remember to bring donations of canned food! For each item donated, guests will receive a raffle ticket for a chance to win one of 100 gift certificates to Portland’s best restaurants. The more items you bring, the more chances you have to win and the more mouths Pix can feed.

More goodness:

"Just in case you get hungry or thirsty at the party, don’t worry! In addition to our daily offerings of tasty French pastries, partake in the Champagne & Oyster Bar, 60-pound Carlton Farms roasted pig, Lompoc beer garden, and ice cream stand featuring beer floats and house-made novelty bars, and more!"

– Stirling Myles

If we lived in a perfect world, every day we would shut down a giant street and fill it with music and food and performers of all types and drink all day. Sadly we live on Earth, and for some reason, Earthlings only do this on special occasions.

The 9th Annual Mississippi Street Fair – held Saturday, July 10 – was crowded, hot, bright and absolutely fun. For the drinker of alcoholic beverages, all the local spots along the street barricaded the section of the sidewalk in front of their businesses, so we patrons could enjoy the weather and the smoking of fine tobacco products with our drinks in hand, never having to step away from the atmosphere being provided by the collective kiosk vendor chain that ran the expanse of the street.

While walking from one end to the other, various volumes of multiple audio stimulation came pouring out of every nook and cranny. At one point, three musical gypsies were playing street-style over the beat coming from the adjacent art gallery, using the four-on-the-floor thump of electronic drum-and-bass to accompany their fiddle, banjo and upright bass playing without being drowned out. It was an advantageous thing for anyone in ear shot.

The Proust Bar and Grill patio, along with the food cart enclave proved to be my favorite spot. There was plenty of shade and the patio drinking was in full effect. The northernmost musical stage, The Parlour on the Hill, could be viewed and heard very well from that location on North Mississippi and Skidmore. That particular stage featured a lot of around-town folk acts.

Local klezmer folk band Shicky Gnarowitz & The Transparent Wings of Joy took the stage and started their three-piece violin-driven eastern European sound. If you’ve ever seen Everything is Illuminated, you might have a good idea of what that music sounds like. If not, expand your horizons and go check some out – it’s one of my favorite kinds of world music.

Next up was Fenbi International Superstars, a five-piece conglomeration of folk-y zydeco blues, accented by accordian, violin and guitar-based melody structures. They had a stompy feel, with a pseudo-pirate/polka vibe going on and a lot of shanty sing-along lyrical threads.

Finally, I checked out one of my favorite Portland songwriters, Adam Shearer – lead singer/songwriter for Weinland. What can I say? I like what he does, a lot. He has a great voice and prescence, his lyrics are awesome and he writes very well-put-together folk songs. I’ve been a fan since his band came through my hometown and stayed at my house. If you haven’t seen them play yet, I strongly suggest going to a show. They sound really amazing live and provide really good folk tunes that are catchy and thoughtful, with very attentive arrangements. They know what they’re doing; it always feels nice to be in good hands.

All in all the fair was an ultimate success, and I am definitely going again next year. Hope to see you there.

– Paul Valladon