From the power duo who brought you (and continue to bring you) Soap Collectors and Spesus Christ comes a new destination called Radiation City. Warmly caressed guitar and and whirling Wurlitzer will wrap around you like a tune from yesteryear, when tubes were in amps and televisions, not just online. There’s something aged that warbles about from Radiation City that will take you away on nostalgia wiser than your years while thoughtfully reminiscing in something you’ve yet to hear. Mellowed harmonies and fading keys pressed between pages of staccato’d heartbeat-drums guarantee yet another calmly addicting set of sounds from these fantastic cats. Visit the smiling warmth Radiation City in February at Mississippi Studios and look forward to new songs from this radiant three-piece soon on Apes Tapes. -Mike Harper

Radiation City – Summer Is Not Act I

Results! Results! They come in waves! The jurors votes for our Best of Portland Emerging Artists 2010 poll are in, and a few of your favourites are moving up to the next and most gruesome level: your very votes. The definitely qualified and musically sexy jurors have laid down the cards and so top few read: the album machine, And And And, the wet and dripping Aan, the ever swooning Y La Bamba, Apes Tapes newest bestest, Radiation City, the event that we call Housfire, the Russian excursion, Chervona, and a handful or so more! Let the guillotines of your clicking fingers drop swiftly and surely! The poll is soon to be open. Fire away!

Here’s the full list of bands that qualified to the next phase of the poll from our Open Submissions:

1. Radiation City
2. AgesandAges
3. And And And
4. Chervona
5. Guantanamo Baywatch
5. Wax Fingers
7. Harlowe and the Great North
7. Archers
9. Housefire
9. Priory
9. Reverse Dotty
9. Black Prairie

The Deli Staff

Heading up our Sonic Bids pick for the 2010 Year End Emerging Artists Poll is The Woodlands. This duo’s musing lull will calm your spirits into a wondrous sway of a forested breeze. Joining The Woodlands for the top three picks from Sonic Bids are Crown Point and the avant-garde duo Deklun & Pace. Vote for your favourite (amongst the many local juror-picked bands) on the poll to the right!

Here it is friendly Portlanders! Now you can all vote for your favorite Emerging Portland artist of 2010 from the list just to the right! And what a list it is!

Thanks to the bands that made it on from SonicBids and the lovely votes of our jury of scene makers (see the list below), we’ve a list for you (yes you!) to pass your rainy judgement on. The artist from this list that will win the poll’s composite chart (i.e. jurors + Deli writers + fans’ votes) wins the illustrious title of Best Emerging Artist of 2010. Right now all the artists in the list have accumulated some points from the votes cast by jurors and writers, now it’s the fans and readers’ turn!

Have at it, cats and kittens!

Jurors: Megan Welling, Joel Sommer, Theo Craig, Matthew McLean, DJ Gustav, Alex Wideman, Matt King, Katrina Nattress, Chris Young, Nick Mattos, Terry Currier

The Deli Staff

P.S. Wondering how The Deli’s Year End polls work? Rules are explained here.

Jiving away from the heavy tones buried in the measures of their earlier EPs, Spesus Christ’s latest releases prove to resurrect gladly with ghosts of their early cynical notes while bearing a new spirit of silliness. The hopping lyrical jaunt of Cameron Spies intertwining with the effortless catch of Lizzy Ellison’s pristine vocals barrel above frolicking synthesizers and candidly computed beats. Find the latest dance-to-it-hip-hop-electronic goodness from these two on Apes Tapes latest Mixed Ape compilation series.

The Head and the Heart – Rivers And Roads from bar bar apartment sessions on Vimeo.

How I’ve been wasting/gleefully spending my time today: watching the Bar Bar Apartment sessions from Mississippi Studios. This venue just keeps getting more awesome.

One thing I love about Portland’s music community is that it’s a real community. When the good times rain, they pour, and we all get in on the party. When the bad things come around, we help each other out. Sadly, it seems that the worst things happen to the best people. A couple of days ago, Drew Grow of Drew Grow and The Pastors’ Wives was in a very serious car accident, that left him broken, and with his upcoming hospital bills, probably heading towards broke. Thankfully, Drew will be alright in time, but pocketbooks don’t heal quite so quickly. A few benefit shows are coming up to help Drew out, including a show at the Doug Fir March 2nd. and if you’re in a place where you can help him out in any way, you can donate to the Paypal now! Our thoughts are with you Drew!

You might expect just another garage band by the look ‘em, but the windingly calm psychedelia of YOURS will move you so much further than the grunge of a half-stack on a summer’s day. The incredibly homespun warmth of weeping guitars arrested by hints of driving beats beside subtle vocal harmonies sweeping across songs like “Transformer Dream” will take you under a comforting wave of something to remember. It’s the kind of music that hugs your surroundings and sneaks that much closer to you. Yours recently finished recording their album, so keep your eyes on the presses for that to drop in the next couple months. Catch YOURS tonight at Holocene with Monarques and Arch Cape!

Monarques call to mind some sort of nostalgia that you wish you were there for. The new seven-piece bounces out irrefutable pop from a bygone era that sure as all get out shouldn’t be gone. It’s part sock hop, part garage band, picking up echoes of all your favourite Motown and hints of The Beach Boys. Songs like “Angel Eyes” bring to mind the golden age of dancing grandparents (when they were still young, that is). The gleefully reminiscent tunes of Monarques will be on display and aching to be danced to this Thursday (tomorrow!) at Holocene (not to mention it’s front man Josh Spacek’s birthday) with YOURS and Arch Cape. Make sure to leave a slow spot on your dance card for “I Can’t Be Saved”. – Mike Harper

Give a listen to "Angel Eyes"

Conjunctionally cacophonous indie channeling some sort of surf rock with a sleight punk wave, And And And, like their name, just keep it coming. If there ever was a group of album bleeding rapscallions to make you forget the snow-worthy-yet-still-snowless winds as of late, it’s these guys with their EP after EP after album after album of &&&-branded energy. You can’t help but dance to it, yell and scream along with it, and kick up the dust of their summertime-nostalgia sounds. A new album due sometime in March is in the works at this very moment (do they ever run out of material??), as well as a split vinyl on Eggy Records coming this summer with Archers, Woolen Men, and Charts. And And And is playing the Into The Woods One Year Anniversary extravaganza at Holocene on January 27th, where you’ll be able to catch their video for "Blast 2" from Into The Woods’s Feels Like Home series. – Mike Harper

After weeks on weeks of recording and releasing two songs monthly in Amigo/Amiga’s A-side /B-side, old 45 style song-release series, Kelli Schaefer’s new album is soon to be wholly formed and ready to hit your digital shelves. Kelli’s overpoweringly genuine anthems belay the idea of the common Portland singer-songstress, with the blaring sincerity of calm folk crooning marked against her captivating vocal style that builds, bends, and grows with her at times weeping/at times booming guitar. On the wave of her recent Kickstarter, Kelli’s newest project is off to the presses and will be available March 1st, and don’t dare miss her at the Doug Fir January 19th! – Mike Harper

Wax Fingers, local practitioners of musical precision, will be executing their harmonious arrangements tomorrow night at Doug Fir. The news feed on their website enlightens us to their excitement in being able to open for Clinic and how they were specifically requested to be able to play this show. The description reads, “We’re opening for Clinic and couldn’t be happier."

Their self-titled new album was released just about a month ago and received a glowing reviewed by our own Ryan Prado here. The threesome put on a brilliant live show that would be a shame to miss. They have also posted up their album from last year, titled, Ones and Threes as a free download on their blog section of their Myspace. Doors at 8 p.m., show starts at 9 p.m. Tickets are $13 in advance and $15 day of.

– Joel Sommer