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• Ask anyone in town and they'll tell you the same thing: the Portland Buy Local campaign has been a resounding success. By banishing the corporate behemoths to a desert in SoPo and forswearing their laughable goods and services, the city's forward-thinking citizens now comfortably turn to their neighbors to obtain the dog collars, cupcakes, and legal advice essential to their lives. But just a minute — why do retailers get to have all the fun? If it's so rewarding to order a burrito from Tu Casa instead of Chipotle — and doubly so now that the latter's mired in class-action lawsuits for stock fraud and failure to pay overtime wages — imagine the joys we might discover applying the buy-local principle to feelings, emotions, or experiences. This may seem a fanciful proposition to you now, but it's exactly the reality being made possible by local production company FACTORY PORTLAND, who debuted a karaoke playlist of exclusively local acts earlier this month. No longer do Portlanders have to import their musical fantasies from some remote Autotuned icon manufactured in Nashville, LA, or Sayreville, New Jersey, when they want to perform a pop song. Now, they can sip their whiskey-gingers, grab the mic, and tap into the same muse their neighbor did when they wrote it. Why suffer the inelegant babble of "Paradise By the Dashboard Light" when you could vamp along to A SEVERE JOY's "(Meet Me in Your) Helicopter?" Why fire up Weezer's insipid "Hash Pipe" when you could take the high road with FOAM CASTLES' "Horticulture Friends?" And there's gotta be more dust on your version of "Shoop" than on SONTIAGO's hot new "Muscle Car." Factory launched their modest local karaoke two weeks ago at a Portland Music Foundation event (see their growing list, with tracks by SUNSET HEARTS, SPOUSE, and DILLY DILLY, at factoryportland.com), but we suppose they'll radicalize the music fantasy market in local clubs soon enough.• This week's magic group is the WHISKEY SOUR BAND, a hard-drivin' country act from Sanford who play pubs, parties, or whatever. These five dudes have been doing their thang a few years now, playing such hardscrabble stages as Bentley's Saloon, Skip's Lounge, and hometown City Limits, but despite the tough exteriors, their hearts are soft: they just want people to dance. Look 'em up on the ol' FB.
• With a tumbler of rye in hand is the best way to confront a set from a local roots act, so be sure you've got one for this potentially unsettling news. Effective next week, the five-piece Americana group THIS WAY will go on hiatus while band members Jay Basiner and Andrew Martelle shift their energies into their outlaw country act NORTH OF NASHVILLE, who finish up their debut live record this week (northofnashville.bandcamp.com). The boys do double duty one last time this Saturday at the Big Easy, as both acts play with the GHOST OF PAUL REVERE at 9 pm.
Topics:
New England Music News
, This Way, This Way, Dilly Dilly, More 
, This Way, This Way, Dilly Dilly, Dilly Dilly, Sontiago, Sontiago, Spouse, Spouse, Foam Castles, Foam Castles, Less 
