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Archive for music
March 27, 2007 at 10:26 am · Filed under art, design, development, music, video
Adobe has finally announced the release of their updated and re-branded version of their Creative Suite line of products. Now go buy that new MacBook Pro you’ve been putting off, because the whole suite runs natively on Intel-based Macs, unlike it’s predecessors. This from Adobe’s website:
The Adobe® Creative® Suite 3 family offers you choice — in the combination of creative tools you master, the design disciplines you explore, and the richness and scope of content you create. This revolutionary new release includes six editions, each combining tightly integrated, industry-leading components that enable you to handle virtually any creative task.
Together these six editions of Creative Suite 3 address virtually every creative discipline and empower you to work more efficiently with your creative team; collaborate more closely with developers to produce engaging experiences; and serve your clients, your business, and your creative vision more easily and effectively than ever before.
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March 26, 2007 at 12:13 pm · Filed under music, portland
Jona Bechtolt of The Blow, is the one man band YACHT. He is kicking 
off his mini-tour this Friday at Berbati’s Pan, which is leading up to “THE MOST EPIC CD RELEASE PARTY OF ALL TIME. ON AN ACTUAL YACHT.” on 5/05, also here in Portland. I can’t tell you how excited I am for this party, and even more so, his new CD, I Believe in You. Your Magic is Real. If you haven’t heard YACHT yet, check out this new track from the aforementioned upcoming album. Jona is entering a whole new world.
If that’s not enough to convince you to pre-order his new album, check out his MySpace page for another cut from the new album as well as a couple of remix tracks from other works. While the album isnt set to release until May, I heard a little rumor that if you pre-order now, the album may be shipping as early as this week.
March 24, 2007 at 11:51 am · Filed under music, portland, video
Subterranean Blog, those somewhat lovable ‘MTV in an indie-blog disguise’ cats, have posted a video of some live Shins material. I didn’t notice at first, but the video is them playing inside the Crystal Ballroom to a crowd of zero, during the day. Perhaps sound checking before their show here? Or maybe just getting some footage for the sake of having some video to toss around. What do you think? Either way, we’re damn lucky to have some of the world’s greatest bands living here in our big little city. Looks like the video footage for A Comet Appears is at the Crystal as well, except at night with all the fancy lights going, yet still without an audience. I’d post the videos here, but since they are MTV, they have some sort of confounded, evil, embedded player that I don’t really care to try to steal from. Call me crazy but I just hate getting sued. Ruins my day, every time. Did anyone here in Portland or anywhere else around the world get the chance to see them? Here tickets sold out at an incredible rate, and scalpers were selling them for as much as 75 bucks a pop.
March 23, 2007 at 2:48 pm · Filed under music, portland
Bridging the Distance: A Portland, Or Covers 
Compilation, being released on April 17th, is a great reason to actually BUY a cd this year. This 19-track compilation features Portland bands such as Dandy Warhols
, The Thermals
, The Joggers
and Chris Walla
(of Death Cab fame) covering classic bands like Yes, Led Zeppelin, Fleetwood Mac, Heart, Skynard and The Boss. Not only do you get 19 never before released tracks of Portland goodness, but it all goes to benefit p:ear, a non-profit group here in PDX that “builds positive relationships with homeless and transitional youth through education, art and recreation to affirm personal worth and create more meaningful and healthier lives”. Get this album the day it comes out. You won’t regret it, and someone else other than a fat CEO will benefit from it. Tracklisting after the jump…
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March 21, 2007 at 7:58 am · Filed under music, portland
The Decemberists are kicking off another national tour starting tonight with two nights in a row at Loew’s Theater in Jersey 
City. Quite unlike them not to play a kickoff show here in Portland. This doesn’t surprise me one bit though. Before their first Capitol Records release, they were certainly a favorite here in town. However, with the increasing glossy, made-for-the-radio sound that began to unfurl in their last Kill Rock Starts release, Picaresque
and their major label debut The Crane Wife
, they have lost a large portion of their fans here, and an even larger portion of their respect. While Portland seems to wholly embrace all that is local, original, and independent, it takes just one release that sounds like its a move towards writing for mass consumption to fall out of favor. Perhaps that is the reason behind The Decemberists
move to entirely skip Portland on this tour. Sure, they are playing Edgefield Winery, which is tactfully billed as being a Portland show. Edgefield Winery is not in, or really all that near Portland. Nearly an hours drive. Way to stick it to your old pals, Decemberists. Stick to places where you can earn the love of your rock radio listeners, advertisers, and corporate sponsors, and absolutely, by all means, stay the hell away from anywhere that might earn you some respect from the people who sent you from basement shows to billboards. You’ll be playing the House of Blues
in no time.
March 11, 2007 at 4:19 pm · Filed under music, portland
When Menomena’s new album Friend and Foe came out, I didn’t like it. 
I didn’t like it because I loved the first album so much, all I was looking for in a follow-up, was more of I am the Fun Blame Monster!. I immediately discarded it and never came back to give the album a fair analysis. That all changed today, when I saw Menomena’s new video for Wet & Rusting over at Subterranean. A cool video, directed by Lance Bangs, who has done videos for band such as Sonic Youth, Belle & Sebastian, Pavement, and The Shins. Watching this video really got me into the song, and the song really got me into the album, which is actually quite enjoyable, by the way. I owe a big apology to Menomena for auto-trashing their album when it wasn’t just what I wanted from them. Sorry Menomena.
