Author: Anita Kinney

Formed in 1998 following a spirited barroom discussion in a over the merits of digital versus analog recording, Seattle band Kinski have spent the past 11 years perfecting their textural, expansive post-rock.

Many 8-year-old boys spend their time playing with Legos and action figures. Growing up in Los Angeles, Ariel Pink preferred to play with tape recorders. By high school, he had recorded hundreds of his own cassette tapes filled with thousands of original songs.

At the Fourth Annual Holocene Mini-golf Art Invitational, Holocene’s physical space is front and center. A 12-hole putt-putt course inside Holocene plays to the space’s architectural strengths and says as much about the venue as any show.

Strength’s MySpace profile claims that the Portland disco trio sounds like “the Rolling Stones remixed by Daft Punk.” This combination may be difficult to imagine at first, but after listening to the band, it seems an apt description. 

The culinary world is a veritable minefield of artery-hardening junk and even with best intentions and intestinal fortitude in tow it’s more than possible to wander down the sordid road of empty calories.

Most moviegoers became familiar with the term “grindhouse” after Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez released their tribute to the genre in 2007.  But before grindhouse became a household term, local film buff Dan Halsted was already hosting an annual film festival devoted to showcasing these forgotten films.

Jason Leivian divides his life as a comics fan into three distinct “waves.”

1. Ganges 2–Kevin Huizenga
A short story that probes the deeper meaning of video games, deals with Internet addiction and chronicles how secrets can destroy a relationship, Ganges 2 pushes the boundaries of comics in every way possible.

Like the members of local bands Southern Belle and The Hugs, singer-songwriter Nick Caceres is an alumnus of Portland’s public high schools. Caceres started playing guitar at age 15, in part encouraged by his older brother. Soon, Caceres was writing songs and posting them on MySpace.

Jared and Brianne Mees could easily be poster children for Portland’s vaunted “creative class.” Their business venture, Tender Loving Empire, can likewise be held up as a model of Portland entrepreneurship.

Since their inception in 1990, The Breeders have gone from side project to main attraction. Conceived as a venture for Pixies bassist Kim Deal and Throwing Muses guitarist Tanya Donnelly, the band has since evolved to be Kim Deal’s main focus. Their debut album, Pod, stole the thunder from both the Pixies’ Bossa Nova and Throwing Muses’ Hunkpapa (the albums their “main” bands released around the same time). In 1992, the band opened for Nirvana on their tour of Europe.