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Sunday, December 9 Slow Week (Or Is It)?
Blame it on the winter chill perhaps, if not on a soggy, soggy Northwest corridor, but the live schedule for the week ahead is suspiciously slim (for Portland, anyway). What to do? Enter the heavyweights! The Shins play the Crystal Ballroom this Wednesday night, in what is technically a hometown gig, but a big deal nonetheless. Their Wincing the Night Away, out early in 2007, has been re-entering the conversation a lot lately, mostly in the form of a mention on the Best of the Year lists bloggers and print are churning out this time of year (yeah, we'll be guilty, too, eventually). In case you missed it, Wincing changed up the band's formula a bit, incorporating elements of Smithsian new wave, while not entirely leaving behind the sound that has changed the lives of so many so far. And what about the voice of James Mercer-- how did it get so high? One wonders if he speaks like an ordinary guy (but I digress).
MP3: The Shins- "Australia"
But that's not all! Spoon, too, plays the Crystal Ballroom this week! Much like The Shins, the men of Spoon faced big expectations based on past releases with this year's Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga. Much like The Shins, the musical have minions determined that those expectations were more or less met (see "The Underdog," and "You Got Yr Cherry Bomb," among others), also resulting in a lot of best of the year talk. Spoon plays with openers The Shaky Hands on Saturday night.
Also tonight, we look ahead to performances this week from locals The Dimes (Friday, Kelly's Olympian), Damien Jurado (Saturday, Mississippi Studios), The Blow and Swan Island (Saturday, Doug Fir), and Chris Walla (Friday, LiveWire! taping, Aladdin Theater).
Had a chance to test out our new digs yet? What do you think? If you haven't had the chance yet, sign up now to rate and review songs. I'm told it's fun AND addictive (not to mention socially beneficial).
Comments:
On Sunday, December 9 at 10:55pm, Nicole said:
Hi again!
Keep playing the good stuff so I can put off working on the presentation I have to give tomorrow that I haven't started. Other than that, I have nothing cool to say!
On Sunday, December 9 at 11:05pm, jpetersen said:
Yeah! Glad to play a part in your success! Maybe I can dig up some working songs...
On Sunday, December 9 at 11:55pm, Nicole said:
OOOoooooo.....
Tell me more about this Damien Jurado guy. I really liked Honey Baby.
On Monday, December 10 at 0:04am, jpetersen said:
That's a great song from a really good album (Rehearsals for Departure, came out in 1999).
He lives in Seattle and has released several albums over the past decade or so, each with a slightly different sound than the other. He played in your town once upon a time, believe it or not, and played this at the campus radio station:
"Lottery"
Happy presentation.
On Monday, December 10 at 4:05pm, whiffleball said:
may I humbly suggest a Portland artist: Marie Schumacher. She's a local singer/songwriter type, and her latest CD can be enjoyed here: http://www.sometimesatnight.com.
full disclosure: I'm the bass player.
Loren
On Monday, December 10 at 9:48pm, gunky said:
I'm enjoying the music, but wondering about the identity of your original shows now with 24 hr music. Is Eclecticity still eclecticity? In House still In House? I always enjoyed the progression David would make during a night, or during the week. Since I still haven't had a chance to listen during the day (no HD radio yet -- maybe santa will bring one -- and can't stream at work), I'm not hearing who the DJ is then and what the flavor of the show is at different times. It all seems to have blended a bit. Do you expect to have shows with specific time slots and different focuses (foci?)? Or does it now and I'm just missing it with my schedule? (By the way, I do like the studio interviews and music, including during Eclecticity.
On Monday, December 10 at 10:02pm, adam shearer said:
Hey Ya'll,
thanks so much for dedicating so many resources to our lovely music community. we very much appreciate you.
best-
weinland
On Monday, December 10 at 10:08pm, dchristensen said:
Chauncey, glad to hear you're enjoying it. And a good question. Eclecticity finished up its run the last week of November, and all energies are in the music channel we're putting together here, for online, HD, and FM. (Jeremy and I switch off hosting the channel at different times.) In House will stay In House, but otherwise we're just calling what we do opbmusic. And weeknights, it's opbmusic through the middle of January. I hope Santa is good to you this year. In addition to HD radios, there are some nice standalone wireless internet radios.
On Monday, December 10 at 11:15pm, dchristensen said:
Adam, gracias! And Loren, thanks for the heads-up; I will check it out!
On Tuesday, December 11 at 9:15am, chaunceys brother said:
Thanks to the Opbmusic team for the quick response and troubleshooting with stream content. For those Squeezebox and SqueezeNetwork listeners, the working url to plug into your SN is http://stream1.opb.org/opbumic.pls account.
Additional info at http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?p=248345&posted=1#post248345
-cb
On Tuesday, December 11 at 9:17am, chaunceys brother said:
sorry that is:
http://stream1.opb.org/opbumic.pls
On Tuesday, December 11 at 10:10pm, Junehog said:
David,
I knew Eclecticity was doomed, but I find that I miss it very much. The fact is, this "new" music (which is ok although nothing that's gonna make me forget Fela Kuti, or Solas, or Bach, or Miles) starts to sound pretty much the same after 20 or 30 hours. I've been listening to the website and it's pretty disappointing--a rather "hip" top 40, but nothing much else. Maybe a Kelly Joe Phelps song, but only if he's touring here. I guess the blues guys aren't really cool enough for opbmusicorg. And I can almost guarantee Greg Brown won't be heard here.
I guess I just don't understand why your management can't just accept that eclectic music (ala Christensen-Cantor) is a treasure, and we'are again being robbed of something very special.
So yeah, it's a good thing we've still got Steven Cantor on KMHD on Sunday nights.
June.
On Tuesday, December 11 at 11:32pm, dchristensen said:
June, thanks for checking it out and giving it such a long listen. Sorry it doesn't seem to be the mix you're looking for. As for Brown and Phelps, we do and we do a lot, so maybe you just missed it. But I'm glad you've got choices, and you can find what you're looking for, even if it's not always here.
On Wednesday, December 12 at 3:24pm, jeffreyadamyoung said:
CB,
my squeezebox (SB) doesn't recognize that URL.
that's a typo, right? should "opbumic" be "opbmusic"?
but even when I plug in the URL you listed and spell opbmusic correctly, it doesn't work with my SB. is it working for you?
what works with my SB is the url that you posted on that forum: http://stream1.opb.org:8000/opbmusic.mp3
thanks!!
-Jeff
On Thursday, December 13 at 8:27am, chaunceys brother said:
Jeff -
thats been my experience as well. In the interest of keeping the conversation in this blog on topics of interest to general opbmusic users, I will continue to update you and other SN users in that thread in the SN forum. For now, its nice to have a working URL even though it may change!
Cheers
-CB
On Thursday, December 13 at 10:38am, glorenzow said:
I didn't catch In House last Sunday and keep hoping the archived show will show up ... is it coming soon? Thanks!
On Thursday, December 13 at 5:33pm, bak said:
Coming soon? It's coming now. Go to the In House page and grab the PLS file or the M3U file and bask in 6 hours of archives.
On Friday, December 14 at 5:05am, erstwhile said:
Actually, the Sunday show listed as Dec9th seems to correspond to Dec2nd's playlist.
On Friday, December 14 at 5:30am, erstwhile said:
Nevermind- it doesn't match either playlist