TJO has been one of Portland's (well, the world's) darling creatives for years, beginning as part of the legendary post-hardcore Rodan, as well as Retsin, the Sonora Pine, and King Cobra. She's worked with Come, Mirah and Ida and is a modern day renaissance woman. She plays guitar and bass, sings, paints, travels, works in the darkness of folk and the open-endedness of ambient sound play and her latest offering, A Ways Away is a brilliant amalgamation of all her previous experience and ongoing talent. more ›

Mirah surely still has that stunning voice: alternately coy and seductive, delightfully expressive, and always captivating. And it works very, very well here when she’s not cribbing melodies from her earlier albums, and is utilizing the strengths—bombast, playfulness, youthful energy, a variety of influences, and big production—that made her other albums so eminently replayable. If only those strengths weren’t so often forgotten here, only to be replaced with something a little too coffee shop to satisfy. more ›

One of the many options for festival fans on SXSW's first day of music is the recently announced Cool for Cats revue hosted by Tomlab, Asthmatic Kitty and K Records. Beauty Bar is set to host No Kids, LAKE, Parenthetical Girls, Fol Chen, Rafter, Desolation Wilderness and Casiotone for the Painfully Alone among others. more ›

What’s the Deal: There’s one main, overwhelming reason why The Blow made it into this week’s Le Diamant, and that’s because of their song “Parenthesis.” It’s the kind of cute and quirky pop tune that made the songs off the Juno soundtrack so viral. The Blow is the devious and rascally spawn from the mind of musician, visual artist and performer Khaela Maricich. The other half of the creative team that is The Blow is (or was) Jona Bechtolt. According to the group’s MySpace, Bechtolt has left the band, most likely to further his singing and programming in his solo project, YACHT. The Blow have this whole middle school crush ‘Do you like me? Check yes, no or maybe’ thing going on that sinks its teeth in all the way to the gums with a swirling mixture of video game-style electronics and poppy folk. more ›

Image from MySpace Love as Laughter at Emo’s (inside)Monday, November 19Emos (603 Red River St)Doors at 8:00, Show at 10:00[info] Today, Emo’s inside stage will be graced by Sam Jayne and his band Love as Laughter, his artistic outlet for a little under ten years after his former, very influential group Lync disbanded. Payne is best known for his work within the K Records, Olympia, WA scene, where he staked his claim for strange indie... more ›

M O N D A Y [ 9 ] [film/music] End of an Ear Presents "Shield Around the K," which "profiles the birth and growth of influential Olympia-based punk rock DIY record label K Records," at The Drafthouse Downtown (9:45pm) [info] [film] Super Happy Fun Monkeybash DX Gaiden (Vol. 2) at The Drafthouse Downtown (7pm) [info] [art] Check out the new gallery exhibit, Liz Ward's Aqueous, at Women and Their Work (All Day) [info] [music]... more ›