Oregon Music News

For the first time since December, I am back at Artichoke Music in their Café. I had surgery in January…which worked and I did a few months in Skype prison. I have a new and different surgery in about a month and we’ll go back to Skype then until I heal, but for the next few weeks, it’s GREAT to be back and talking to people in person across a table, coffee in hand. Today I am very happy to have M...

Ever get the feeling that everyone you see has a podcast? Seems that way. Most of them last a few episodes and run out of steam. Some have been around long enough to re-imagine themselves and what they’re about. Gritty Birds is one like that. Our guest today makes that podcast. Her name is Jeni Wren Stottrup. You may also know her as a singer and composer Jeni Wren. She also operates the Podcast F...

Every year for years and years around this time, we’ve had the Waterfront Blues Festival Artistic Director Peter Dammann let us know who’s playing even though it’s April and the festival isn’t until the fourth of July weekend. The big news is that after not having a festival in 2020 and having a truncated festival held at Zidell Yards in 2021 the festival will return, all four stages of it, to it’...

You probably know Evan Shlaes one of two ways (or both); as a member of the New Iberians, a New Orleans Cajon/Zydeco band around here for decades. Or you know him as the proprietor of Real Good Stuff a store spectacularly full, and I mean FULL of musical things, furniture, curios…you know real good stuff. The store was destroyed in a fire late last year and because the Portland music community tak...

Shawn Levy is back on the podcast. Every time he’s got a new book out, he’s kind enough to stop by and talk to us about it. Last tine it was his book of poems based on New York Times obituaries. Before that his best seller on Chateau Marmont. And before that Dolce Vita Confidential. This one is called “In on the Joke.” It’s about female comedians, not today’s but the first female standups, from Mo...

Maria Muldaur is our guest on Coffeeshop Conversations this week. She will be in Oregon for two upcoming shows; in Eugene at WOW Hall on Friday, April 8 and a sold-out show in Nehalem the next night. Right now she’s in Mill Valley, California. Don’t you dare call her a one-hit-wonder because she has been lending her voice to her own band and dozens of other groups for a long long time. Next week,...

INESSA REPEAT #15 INTRO We’re taking a pause this week to remember an important and beloved part of Oregon’s music community. On March 9th Inessa Anderson passed away, three weeks after her husband Wayne also left us. She possessed the most beautiful radio voice I have ever heard. She was a kind and insightful interviewer. Her Inessablog was a staple for those who wanted in-depth conversations. We...

Pretty pretty pretty soon we’ll be back in the Artichoke Café…just not today. But that’s ok because on the other end of this digital connection is the great bass player and composer Phil Baker who has seen the world as a member of Pink Martini since 2003. They are back touring the world but Phil has put together a show called Common Tones. It’s a tribute to the great pianist McCoy Tyner on Saturda...

We try not to bring our guests back too often, but in the case of Jim Brunberg, co-owner of Mississippi Studios, Revolution Hall, Polaris hall and point person in the fight to get federal and state money to our music venues…well you can understand. This one is solely about music and Jim is joined by Ben Landsverk, the other half the band they call Wonderly. They’re having a CD release on Friday, M...

Regular consumers of this podcast probably know that I am a Twin Peaks fanatic. That subject has come up several times. So when I saw that singer, songwriter, pianist, guitarist Rachel Brashear was doing a concert of Twin Peaks music with her band, along with performances by Jenny Conlee and also Wisteria Lodge at Alberta Abbey on Saturday, March 5. Of course, Rachel does more than Twin Peaks musi...

Still a few weeks away from returning to the Café at Artichoke Music so we have to put up with other means. Lucky for us I’ve got Blues harmonica player and writer Kim Field on the line. He was with us a few years ago and he’s back now because he has a new book, “The Blues Dream of Billy Boy Arnold" on the legendary Chicago Blues Harmonica player. It's in first person because he spent a long time...

We’re getting closer to going back to the Artichoke Café. I mean I am. You don’t need details, but I wish we were there so I could see our podcast guest, whom I have never met. His name is Joey Prude and he does a whole of things. He’s a drummer, a DJ and he books bands into what we lovingly call Dive Bars….like the Lay Low Tavern. He’s booked lots of others including the iconic Club 21 and the Ve...

One of these days I’ll talk about why we’ve been away from the Coffeeshop for a while. Right now I’m happy this is a new Coffeeshop Conversations episode, and hopefully it won’t be long until we’re back in the friendly confines of Artichoke Music. Our returning champion is Andrew Paul Woodworth. When we need some good cheer, he’s my first call. Little did I know that he has lost a little of the sa...

It’s Another Coffeeshop Conversations episode on an OMN family member. The holidays are all about friends and family and Marti Mendenhall who’s Marti’s Music Kitchen podcast comes to you via OMN among other choice spots on the internet is both friend and family. Her third season is on the way. What does she have in store for the future. The answer is a lot. Best of 2021 for the next two weeks. Com...

It has been much too long since Courtney Von Drehle of Three leg Torso has been on the podcast so we’re fixing that today. Always the clever gentleman, he’s here to tell us about their big holiday show The Elves of Frostland - Liberté par la Musique Featuring: Pepe Raphael, Jet Black Pearl, The Amazing Bubble Man, Eric Stern, Chervona and Varelse…Live at the Alberta Rose Theatre Saturday and Sunda...

Furlow intro Regular listeners to this podcast know that every once in a while we let you meet an OMN person who helps bring you our content. Today, Gary Furlow is in the Café. He’s not an OMN staffer, he works here at Artichoke Music but has worked with us on several projects, including the video episodes of Coffeeshop Conversations on which he did everything technical, recording, editing, lighti...

John Waters returns to Portland for his Christmas show on Tuesday, November 30 at the Aladdin Theatre after not doing the show in the evil 2020. It’s his annual “John Waters Christmas” full of holiday cheer, John Waters style. I’ve known John since 1970 when he was the outrageous underground film maker and I was the editor of the hippie newspaper in Baltimore Maryland. Matter of fact, near the end...

There are a couple of guys in Portland who have been playing together for a long time. They are both guitarists. They call themselves Moon and Bike mainly because their names are Boone and Mike. Boone Johnson plays acoustic guitar and Michael Robert Swanson plays electric guitar. It’s an interesting pairing and brought into high relief when they just play as a duo. They released their first album...

The Blue Cranes have a new album. That news is enough to make fans happy, but that’s not all… it is called Voices, individual collaborations with vocalists Holland Andrews, Edna Vasquez and Luz Elena Mendoza, Rebecca Sanborn, Laura Gibson, Peter Frederick, Gavin Castelton, Redray Frazier, Analisa Tornfelt and Laura Viers. It’s the best thing I’ve heard in years. Magnificent. A masterpiece. And if...

Shawn Levy has a new book, not one of his show biz blockbusters, but…get the concept, poems he wrote inspired by the obituary pages of the New York Times. That’s what it says on the cover. I am somewhat sympatico with him, although I’m not a poet, because I wrote all the obits on Oregon Music News for the first eight or nine years of our existence. Why did he do it? How has it affected him? What w...

Somehow, we’re getting closer to the holidays. Now in Oregon, one thing that always marked the holiday season was The Acoustic Guitar Summit holiday concerts. Terry Robb, Mark Hanson and our guest day, who has brought along his guitar, Doug Smith. Doug is one of the great fingerstye guitarists and of course, one of the founders of Acoustic Guitar Summit. They’ll be right here at Artichoke for two...

It’s another in the long line of OMN Coffeeshop Conversations. For some reason, I never introduce myself. Perhaps because there’s a byline. So let me tell you that I’m Tom D’Antoni, Editor-In-Chief and co-founder of Oregon Music News and I love doing these podcast episodes. I hope they are as much fun for ypu and that you learn as much as I do about our guests. Today, She calls herself Stephanie S...

Jim Brunberg is back with us in the Artichoke Music Café for another OMN Coffeeshop Conversation. His club, Mississippi Studios and concert venues, Revolution Hall and Polaris Hall are all open for live music. He’s been a lynchpin for organizations launched during the Pandemic to get federal money in order to survive. He has kept us all informed along the way and that’s why he’s here today, to giv...

On Thursday, December 4, 2014, seven years ago today, we launched this podcast, spending time with Mary-Sue Tobin on our first episode. Today she is back on episode three hundred thirteen. Why? Because we like her, she’s always fun to talk to, she is very smart and knows her shit. She’s here to talk about the state of the Quadraponnes that fabulous saxophone quartet she helped found, about an upco...

In the Artichoke Music Café with me is the co-founder of a new label which she and her co-founder Damon Bucher have launched. She goes by the name of Sappho. Her other name is Megan Andricos. She’s a long-time Portland club DJ and party promoter. The label is called Koritsi Komma which is Greek for Party Girl and they say it is “a dance music record label to raise the visibility of queer party mus...