I spent the day and night of December 22nd at the Columbia Gorge Hotel in Hood River, Oregon. The occasion was the wedding of the Dandy Warhols leader, Courtney Taylor and his sweetheart, Lockett Albritton. As you can see in the picture I took, Courtney and his male band mates were dressed in hand-tailored outfits reminiscent of 17th century French lieutenants replete with dazzling patent leather knee-high boots, while Dandys’ keyboard player Zia led us all from room to room as mistress of ceremonies. The fine Burgundy flowed by the case and kilos of lamb were consumed. There were literally hundreds of guests causing the rooms to overflow with people wherever the crowd surged. All in all it was a very fine and Dandy wedding.

Here’s a cut from one of Courtney’s favourite bands, The Black Angels - Black Grease [MP3]

It’s hard to describe how beautiful and atmospheric A Weather’s music is. It’s especially effective on headphones when you can feel fully submersed as the songs wash over you. They signed to Team Love and have a full length release coming in February. Check out the new video for their song Feather Test here.

A Weather - Oh My Stars [MP3]

Portland brother/sister team Heather and Nicholas Larimer, known to their fans as Eux Autres, released their new CD ‘Cold City’ on Happy Happy Birthday To Me Records on December 4th. There’s some good stuff over at their web site and if your French is lacking slightly let me help you with that pronunciation, it’s ooz-oh-tra. It means The Others. You’re welcome.

Eux Autres - The Deadball Era [MP3]

Lara Michell, McKinley and Stephanie Schneiderman of Dirty Martini.
Photos: Wendy Peyton

The folks over at Northwest Noise are presenting an evening with some popular female singer-songwriters. Portland favs Dirty Martini headline the night with up-and-comers Debra Arlyn and Jasmine Ash as support.

Thursday, Dec 13th
Dirty Martini
with Jasmine Ash & Debra Arlyn
Doug Fir Lounge, 830 E. Burnside-Portland
Doors at 8pm * 21 & Over

You can Buy tickets here via TicketsWest or the Doug Fir box office.

Dirty Martini was in the KINK radio performance lounge a few days ago. You can listen to a podcast of the interview / acoustic performance on the KINK web site (see the left hand column). . Click to listen

Quasi, nothing new from them in ‘07 or did I miss it?

Portland’s music community has kept up the creative pace this year. It’s amazing how many of the city’s bands have kept forging ahead while every week it seems a new band appears on the creative map. In terms of new and not so new bands turning out the good stuff it has been a banner year. Menomena dropped the follow up to the acclaimed The Fun Blame Monster with the equally acclaimed Friend and Foe, Loch Lomond came back with a heightened sense of purpose and delivered the well received album Paper The Walls and in the hip-hop world, Sandpeople gave us Honest Racket. Below is a smattering of MP3s from some of the bands grabbing attention this year, and yes I know I haven’t covered everything that came out this year but these all came across my desk as it were….. As always if you like what you hear you can buy music by these folks at iTunes, Amazon or Emusic or in some cases directly from the bands themselves. I’ve provided links to all the artists’ sites at the bottom of this post. In alphabetical order…

Adam Gnade Honey Slides
Blitzen Trapper Sci-Fi Kid (Recordist remix)
Boy Eats Drum Machine From An Oregon Shore
Eskimo and Sons Oh It’s Even More Crash
Ethan Rose Singing Tower
Horse Feathers Hardwood Pews
Lackthereof The Columbia
Little Hunks Came To Party
Loch Lomond Stripe II
Menomena Weird (Dekoder Remix)
Mirah and Spectratone International Credo Cigalia
Old Time Relijun Indestructible Life
Reporter Blaze
The Shins Gone For Good
Spoon The Ghost of You Lingers
Strategy Can’t Roll Back
White Rainbow Waves

Adam Gnade, Blitzen Trapper, Boy Eats Drum Machine, Eskimo & Sons, Ethan Rose, Horse Feathers, Lackthereof, Little Hunks, Loch Lomond, Menomena, Mirah, Old Time Relijun, Quasi, Reporter, Sandpeople, The Shins, Spoon, Strategy, White Rainbow