Portland bands deserve Portland pomp and ceremony, so to write this piece, I made a quick transformation from Arcata Indier-Than-Thou to PDX Hipster. I've put aside my tight black pants for a pair of tight gray ones, donned a diagonal striped American Apparel t-shirt, and a black pea coat. You can see the outline of my ipod nano through my skin tight back pocket, and I'm wearing mirrored aviator glasses though it's overcast. My fixie is in the living room, and there's a single American Spirit cigarette sticking out from behind my ear, held in place by my blue beanie. Welcome to Portland. Let's commence:
Oh snap! Talkdemonic, that post-rock duo from PDX (PAUSE TO CHORUS, "Brigdetown! Bridgetown!" WITH ANYONE ELSE IN THE ROOM) are hella dank. I don't know if you herd their first album, Mutiny Sunshine (TMT Review), but dude, it was like, fuckin', best ever. They released it in 2004, and it's all folktronic hop -- I don't know, they play at Doug Fir Lounge a lot. A lot, a lot. Dude, they played at Doug Fir Lounge so often that Willamette Weekly ("Dude, I love the Willamette." "Oh, I know dude, it's tops.") called them the Best New Band of 2005, and then their shows started getting hella swamped with crazy fools who were like, "Oh yeah, Talkdemonic -- I've always loved Talkdemonic," and it's like, "Yeah right, dude, fuckin' poseur." But anyway, I still go to the shows because Kevin O'Connor does those totally mad beats and Lisa Molinaro is totally babest babe.
(CRACK OPEN PABST, SIP. LIGHT AMERICAN SPIRIT, STARE OUT THOUGHTFULLY FOR A MINUTE. COME BACK SLOWLY.) Anyway... they signed with Arena Rock Recording Co. and released their second album, Beat Romantic (TMT Review), in 2006 -- I haven't heard it though. Hey, will you send it to me? Sick dude, thanks. But they're releasing this new album called Eyes At Half Mast that they've been working on for a couple years and took like three months to mix. It's gonna be so sweet. They're going on tour with it, exclusively performing the new material at like six different places before they release it in June. I'm hella going, dude; it's gonna be so fierce, and they're playing Doug Fir when they come through, so yeah... (PAUSE, SMOKE.) Fuck man, I'm so hungover. Let's ride to Stumptown.
Dude, but really. Hella sweet dates:
