All Authors >

SAM PFEIFLE

Latest Articles

This Way's new tack for album number two

No, actually, This Way
Theoretically, Goodbye Forever is This Way's sophomore album, but you'd have a hard time identifying this as the same crew that produced 2008's We Could All Make History .

By SAM PFEIFLE | May 12, 2011

Frank Hopkins finds an inner peace (and jam)

Graceland
After three albums of stern lecture, it would seem that Frank Hopkins and his Line of Force have decided to just roll with the punches and turn out a nice dance jam.

By SAM PFEIFLE | May 12, 2011

Steve Martin to give Portland the Bird

Steep and deep
Things that are important to understand going into Steve Martin's bluegrass performance, backed by the Steep Canyon Rangers, at Merrill Auditorium: 1) The music is dead serious. 2) So is the comedy.

By SAM PFEIFLE | May 12, 2011

Moving out

88 keys, 2 songwriters, 1 grand plan
At the heart of the cover-band craze that's recently swept Portland is a very simple concept: musicians getting paid.

By SAM PFEIFLE | May 04, 2011

Getting down and dirty with Joe Walsh

Mole hunting
Seeing Joe Walsh for the first time, down with Jerks of Grass in some of the final days of the Bramhall Pub, he was immediately "the Android".

By SAM PFEIFLE | May 04, 2011

Sparks fly on Worst Thing I've Been Cursed With

Rescue me
If there were those who thought Sparks the Rescue got a little too saccharine on their label debut, Eyes to the Sun , they may be somewhat mollified by the brand-new Worst Thing I've Been Cursed With .

By SAM PFEIFLE | April 27, 2011

Music Seen: Spose

Though it was Spose's first big show locally since the "I'm Awesome" craze died down, Saturday night was as much about showcasing Spose's P.Dank label as it was debuting songs from his new We Smoked It All, Vol. 2.

By SAM PFEIFLE | April 27, 2011

The feel-good prog rock of By Blood Alone

Thunderstruck
If there's one thing for certain, it's that no one will feel cheated by By Blood Alone.

By SAM PFEIFLE | April 20, 2011

Arborea sail across a fossil sea

Hearing Red
When critics say a band have a timelessness about them, people generally mean the band's music is sort of universally appealing, outside of trends or genres.

By SAM PFEIFLE | April 25, 2011

Port City now 18+, all the time

Venue Watch
After something of a long, strange trip, Port City Music Hall's quest to be an 18+ venue has come to fruition.

By SAM PFEIFLE | April 20, 2011

Foam Castles invite you to Come Over to My House

Digital domicile
Bitch all you want about the firehose of new music nowadays, but the lowered barriers to recording and distribution certainly do make it easier for artists to be a lot more playful in their releases.

By SAM PFEIFLE | April 13, 2011

Sophomore Beat Party Like a Lobster — no, really

Believe it or not
If you thought the Sophomore Beat's Hi, Technology was a sneering bundle of sarcasm, wait till you get a load of their new EP, the four-song Party Like a Lobster .

By SAM PFEIFLE | April 13, 2011

Tree by Leaf return, and depart, with Amen & Amen

Postcard from Belfast
Maybe it's fitting, considering the supernatural nature of much of their lyrics, that Tree by Leaf's newest album seems to have dropped from the heavens.

By SAM PFEIFLE | April 06, 2011

Playing Trial & Error by the Bonfire

Pilgrim's progress
Jesse Pilgrim and the Bonfire do a couple things pretty well on their debut record, Trial & Error , that are hard to do well: create an album with a sense of place, and create an album with something to say.

By SAM PFEIFLE | March 30, 2011

Spending time with Custardpaws and Mr. Freezy

Spending time with Custardpaws and Mr. Freezy
Jeff Badger is a bit of a Renaissance man-about-town — visual artist of all stripes; musician of all stripes with the Hot Dogs/Transmission Drop — with a reputation for dabbling in the absurd and ridiculous.

By SAM PFEIFLE | March 30, 2011

Whitcomb's legacy

Feel the poetry rattling your bones
It is unlikely that James Whitcomb Riley, a turn-of-the-century poet for a short time considered the heir to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ever envisioned his work accompanied by music quite like this.

By SAM PFEIFLE | March 23, 2011

The smooth pop-rock of Zach Jones's Broken Record

Don't fix it
For an album to be more than just a collection of songs, it's more important that the songs all feel the same than sound the same. No one wants 10 tracks all in the same style — that gets old unless everything is terrific — but there should be an aesthetic that carries through ballad and banger both.

By SAM PFEIFLE | March 16, 2011

WCYY/WBLM parent company to be bought

Radio daze
A long-rumored deal appears to have come to fruition this week: The second-largest radio station owner in the country, Cumulus Media, has agreed to acquire the third-largest, Citadel Media, owner of Portland's prominent radio stations WCYY, WBLM, WJBQ, and WHOM, in a $2.4 billion transaction.

By SAM PFEIFLE | March 16, 2011

Dean Ford is Deaf. Dumb. In Love.

Say, say, say
Dean Ford renews, this week, his membership in the cult of pop with the release of Deaf. Dumb. In Love. , a six-song EP filled with love songs and general guy-girl drama in the classic poodle skirt tradition.

By SAM PFEIFLE | March 09, 2011

After All, the Nebs debut a disc

Out of the dark
Just about two years into their life as a trio, the Nebs deliver their first release this week, a four-song EP, After All . Therein, frontman Matt Grassi announces himself as a bit of a songwriter.

By SAM PFEIFLE | March 09, 2011

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | next >... last >>

1 of 19 (results 374)

Friends' Activity

Popular