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Dharma Beatdown: July 2008

Sunday, July 27, 2008

Lo-fi Americana warning

So, after a crushing cancellation of a visit with my kids, and a hellacious migraine, I decided to tag along with my little bro and his friend Mia to see some friends of his at PDX Pop Now!

Now, I'm not crazy about indie music, but this turned out to be quite a nice scene. A section of street, roughly located between Office Depot, the porno shop, some industrial food warehouses and the music venue Rotture, was closed off and a bunch of scrappy-looking indie kids had congregated for the ultra-short sets of various local bands. And by kids, I mean kids- there was a cute little two-year-old dancing about.

The band we were there to see, Wooden Indian Burial Ground, surprised me by being pretty darn good. The promo material had this to say about them: "With music made for waltzing in the kitchen or stomping barefoot in the grass, this boy/girl band presents lo-fi Americana tunes without cute boy/girl vocals." Blah blah blahblah... I'm sorry, that just screams pretentious. I was pleasantly surprised by a minimalist stage setup scattered with functional random percussion. They added a drummer for this set and some of the rhythmic constructions were just phenomenal for how little was actuall going on, and I really grooved on their next to last song, which was about as edgy as a song with a banjo can get. However....

I cannot say enough about how bad the frontman sucked. Doughy and clad in the worst flannel hipster garb, he warbled and screeched and wrapped his petulant lips around an overly processed SM-57 like it was Jack White's diseased cock. Seriously, I think we've all had enough with this Tiny Tim vocal fad. He was a competent guitarist, but should have shut the hell up and let his hot bass-playing girlfriend sing more.

So that was that. It was nice to hang out with my bro and have fun before he returns to Humboldt. I would also recommend that everyone come out Wednesday night to the Fez to see the Bears and the Bees. Faith is out from Arizona and we should all come check it out.

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Friday, July 25, 2008

And a good goddam morning to you

So, after a meeting of the Portland Literary Offensive, I've decided to get back on the ol' blogging horse. I'm pretty new to it, as I had started a Zen philosophy blog on myspace but it kind of fizzled out. I'd like to pick up where I left off, and add more of a literary bent. It makes sense, since if you didn't know, I do have a book coming out this winter from Evil Nerd Empire and should probably promote the hell out of it anyway.

That's it for the moment. I promise not to blog just for blogging's sake...

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