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SAM PFEIFLE

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Filling up with Putnam Smith

Kitchen, Love, and Emily Dickinson
Putnam Smith wishes he could trade places with Emily Dickinson.

By: SAM PFEIFLE | May 16, 2013

Tricky Britches are in Good Company

Don’t call it a throwback
Tricky Britches lean pretty heavily toward the old-timey end of the spectrum, with a deep and abiding respect for the body of American stringband work, manifesting itself in original songs that are instantly familiar.

By: SAM PFEIFLE | May 10, 2013

Four new works from Whitcomb

The free Conqueror
Part of Whitcomb's appeal is that the material and the performance are of a piece, everything placed just so and meticulously machined.

By: SAM PFEIFLE | May 10, 2013

A vibrant and forward Worried Well

Baroque me, Amadeus
There's something baroque, something emotional and primal, vivid and stark about Luck, the band's first proper full-length release.

By: SAM PFEIFLE | May 03, 2013

Dancing? You'll need a license

Papers, Please
Papers, Please

By: SAM PFEIFLE | April 24, 2013

The Malletts know the lay of the Land

Rub some mud on it
On their new and third full-length release, Land , the Mallett Brothers Band alternate between boozy and anthemic ballads and boozy and anthemic sing-along stomps, always providing plenty of opportunity for just about anybody to find a personal touchpoint.

By: SAM PFEIFLE | April 24, 2013

Bangers and mish-mash

First thing with the English Breakfast
The order of operations used to be you played a bunch of shows, then you released an album. Now it's often the other way around. When the English Breakfast played Slainte last weekend, it was their Portland live debut. Yet their debut album, Shifting Seas , has been marinating on Bandcamp since March 1 — a 15-track affair, no less.

By: SAM PFEIFLE | April 19, 2013

Arborea erect fortifications of light and darkness

And the horse they rode in on
"After the Flood only Love Remains" is stop-in-your-tracks beautiful, and what passes for a single for them. If you can slow yourself down to their pace, see the world in half-time for a bit (which is almost impossible when you try to keep up with the pace of things like the Internet), it becomes incredibly catchy, a sing-along.

By: SAM PFEIFLE | April 10, 2013

Do you take requests?

You better, or you just might get punched in the head
You better, or you just might get punched in the head

By: SAM PFEIFLE | April 04, 2013

Surviving winter with Max Garcia Conover

Gone to ground
Max García Conover's debut full-length, Burrow , has a starkness, like listening to music through an Instagram filter, that conveys a feeling of going to ground.

By: SAM PFEIFLE | April 04, 2013

Nigel Hall goes Big Easy to Big Easy

Home and away
Nigel Hall, the pride of Bangor and one of the original Monday night soul players at Portland's Big Easy, was the featured attraction at one of the actual Big Easy's most respected local spots.

By: SAM PFEIFLE | March 27, 2013

Wisdom gets fired up on Flannabis

Smells like smoke
With so many odes to weed already out there, it's pretty hard distinguishing yourself this way, b ut Wisdom doesn't beat around the bush

By: SAM PFEIFLE | March 27, 2013

Just Duquette This Time

Playful solo work from half of Cactus Highway
The best thing about Rob Duquette's kid-oriented work is that it's not always obviously kids' music.

By: SAM PFEIFLE | March 20, 2013

Endless Interstate gas up and get going

Reading the Roadsigns
You might expect '50s-style sock-hop fare, or maybe Highway 61 folk tunes for the American dream, but the band's sound is actually more in the '80s/'90s pocket.

By: SAM PFEIFLE | March 20, 2013

As spring arrives, so do the Sun Gods

Returning from Exile
There's something in rock and roll that's tied up with those hetero-stereo male traits of bravado, carnal sexuality, and toughness, from Elvis's hips to Jimmy Page's tight pants to Lemmy Kilmister's grizzled face.

By: SAM PFEIFLE | March 13, 2013

This is why we can have Nice Places

Caught in their traps
Nice Places would have been the perfect local opener for the Minus the Bear/Circa Survive show at the State Theatre coming up on March 16.

By: SAM PFEIFLE | March 06, 2013

3D revolution: It’s early, but real creativity is coming back to manufacturing

Galen Richmond had a problem.

By: SAM PFEIFLE | February 27, 2013

Want to get into 3D printing?

Here’s what you need:
Don't try this on your Windows 97 machine.

By: SAM PFEIFLE | February 27, 2013

Sam Shain and the Scolded Dogs won’t mind

You can dance if you want to
No, seriously, have you been up to Hallowell?

By: SAM PFEIFLE | February 27, 2013

A first sampler from the new Lorem Ipsum label

Call it a placeholder
It's been a while since Portland had itself a bona fide new label, something more than just a vanity title for a band's self-released album. It makes sense, considering the fracturing nature of the music industry in general and the ease with which independent artists can record and release music nowadays.

By: SAM PFEIFLE | February 27, 2013

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