Oregon Music News

May 18, 2016 We;re in the coffeshop again. As always, it’s World Cup Coffee and Tea at NW 18th and Glisan for another OMN Coffeeshop Conversation. With me today is an Oregon Music Hall of Fame member…known to all as the Boogie Cat, the best dressed man in town…Norman Sylvester. An Oregonian since 1957, he’s been playing music for almost as long as he’s lived here. He’s a Blues and Soul guitarist, singer, composer and ambassador to the world for Northwest music. But how much do you know about him? He’s got a great life story, inspiring and worth spending the whole hour with us. I ran into him at last Sunday’s memorial for Sweet Baby James Benton, a friend of his. He played there and when I was talking to him, invited him to the coffeeshop today. And he said yes.

May 12, 2016 Back in World Cup Coffee and Tea at NW 18th and Glisan in Portland Oregon. This is another OMN Coffeeshop Conversation. Today it’s…well I suppose we should call him a keyboard player because he can play them all but I think Louis Pain would rather be known as an organist because we’ve seen him so many times sitting behind the mighty, mighty Hammond B3 and playing with people like Paul deLay, Mel Brown, LaRhonda Steele, Sweet Baby James Benton, Soul Vaccination, Lloyd Jones…shall I go on? I could. He’s got a new album called Rock Me Baby with LaRhonda Steele which has gotten national recognition and airplay. We’ll find out how he got to be named “King Louie.” He’s one of the busiest musicians in the state. Glad he took some time out to talk with us. P.S. Just to clarify......During the conversation, I asked Louis about the bands he's currently in. Somehow the conversation took some left and right turns and we never got back to the fact that he plays with Lloyd Jones and, when he's in town, Ty Curt

May 5, 2016 We’re not at our usual stand, World Cup Coffee and Tea for this OMN Coffeeshop Conversation. Because he’s so busy, we came to the temple of records to meet the Grand Vizier of music in Portland, Music Millennium’s owner Terry Currier. If there’s a more central figure in the music industry around here, I’ve never met him. Most of the time, when he’s interviewed, everybody always asks him how the store is doing and will the record store business survive. I don’t want to do that. If you’ve ever sat with Terry, the most fun is to talk about music. Thing is, his taste is so broad, he can be talking about the Kinks one minute and thrash metal the next. Let’s talk to the person who has done more for music and musicians in Oregon than anybody else.

April 28, 2016 An apology to Ms. Day and the rest of you. The author of this piece made a stupid mistake when recording and it sounds like we're in the bottom of a large metal cylinder. The author of this article feels like an idiot. Sorry. --The Author of this Article Welcome to World Cup Coffee and Tea at NW 18th and Glisan for another Oregon Music News Coffeeshop Conversation. In the coffeeshop with me today is Valerie Day, who with her husband John Smith are Nu Shooz, the Oregon Music Hall of Fame band who’s tune, “I Can’t Wait” is still, after thirty years, still one of those tunes that can easily get stuck in your head all day. And it does all over the world, every single day. I’ll ask her how she feels about being responsible for that. They have a new album called Bagtown coming out in May. There’s more than one story behind that. Coffeshop Conversations are always one-on-one…even this one. I told her that if Kate Power would do one with the Steve Einhorn, than she could too. And she did.

April 21, 2016 Welcome back to World Cup Coffee and Tea at NW 18th and Glisan for another OMN Coffeeshop Conversation. Today we’ve got a true renaissance man with us. I know that term gets thrown around, but in this case it fits well. Composer/multi-instrumentalist David Ornette Cherry comes back to Portland to write but when he’s not here he’s constantly in motion, travelling coast-to-coast and world-wide and playing very diverse musics. He is, as you may know the son of beloved Jazz and World Music composer/trumpeter Don Cherry, one of the most influential musicians of his era. Don is gone, but the spirit of his music is being advanced by his son. Of course David has his own voice and is involved in a wide variety of performance, including theater. It’s always engaging to talk with him.

April 8, 2016 Here we are once again at World Cup Coffee and Tea at NW 18th and Glisan for another OMN Coffeeshop Conversation. I’ve interviewed thousands of people and I’ve never met one more gracious than the guy who joins us today. You have heard Eddie Martinez guitar on dozens upon dozens of big hits. From Mick Jagger to Robert Palmer…yes that was him crunching “Addicted to Love.” He was one of the premier session guitarists when he lived in New York. He still gets calls but he’s been a Portlander for a long time now. Ever wonder what goes on in those sessions? And how session players have to be part chameleon and part singular artists? He has a new album in the works, too. We’ll find out.

March 30, 2016 Welcome back to World Cup Coffee and Tea at NW 18th and Gilsan in Portland for another OMN Coffeeshop Conversation. I’m Tom D’Antoni and this time I’ve got with me J. Michael Kearsey of the Brothers of Baladi, a band celebrating forty years of making their own special brand of Middle Eastern music. Their new album is called Gravity of Love…we’ll find out what that means. It has been eight years since the last Brothers of Baladi album and this one is crafted with much care and patience over a four-year period. It also has a new twist. There are electronics on this one. A new step which we’ll also find out about. Michael is also Secretary of the Oregon Music Hall of Fame and we’ll find out the latest from them.

March 24, 2016 Welcome back to World Cup Coffee and Tea at NW 18th and Glisan in Portland for another OMN Coffeeshop Conversation. We took a couple weeks off while I had some R&R. I’m OMN’s Tom D’Antoni. I’ve been looking forward to sitting down and talking with Curtis Salgado around the time his new album The Beautiful Lowdown is coming out. It’s always fun to talk with Curtis, he’s a brilliant guy, a great singer, and the world has been waiting for his follow up to Soul Shot his last album. He and I have very similar taste when it comes to music, he returned an Otis Blackwell LP that I had loaned him about three years ago. He could have kept it longer,I knew it was I good hands. I had just handed him the new album, which he had never seen in it's final form ;and we just jumped on in from there.

February 24, 2016 Joining me today at World Cup Coffee and Tea at NW 18th and Glisan is the man who is pretty much responsible for several generations of Jazz musicians in Oregon. I’m not exaggerating. Most of our greatest players have come out of Portland State University’s Jazz program. Charlie Gray invented it and was in charge for twenty-seven years until he retired last spring. He was named a PDX Jazz Festival Jazz Master this year and he’s going to tell us all about how he did all that, and maybe about directing the Ice Capades orchestra before he came here.

February 11, 2016 Welcome to World Cup Coffee and Tea for another OMN Coffeeshop Conversation. With me today is author and former Oregonian film critic Shawn Levy. Shawn’s 2014 book De Niro: A Life was an exhaustive, revealing portrait. It was his eighth book, others including Rat Pack, and Paul Newman: A Life. We’ll find out what he’s working on next, if he misses the daily grind of reviewing movies and how he found that topless photo of Sophia Loren for his next book. Is that tease enough for you to line up at the front door when it comes out in October? Maybe I’m just speaking for myself…I don't think so.

February 2, 2016 We’ve got a percussionist and a poet in the coffeeshop this week…all in the person of Heidi Shuler. The coffeeshop is World Cup Coffee and Tea at NW 18th and Glisan in Portland...and we'rewell into our second year of Coffeeshop Conversations. I met Heidi at the very first Mysti Krewe of Nimbus’ Mardi Gras Ball. She was the percussionist in Steve Kerin’s band. The 2016 Ball at the Wonder Ballroom on Saturday, February 6 is the 6th annual. OMN is a media sponsor again this year. She was a founding member of the Krewe. She’s more than an multi-percussionist. She’s also a poet and I’m going to ask her to read a couple for us.

January 28, 2016 Welcome back to World Cup Coffee and Tea, the coffeeshop home of OMN’s Coffeeshop Conversations. With me today is a gentleman who doesn’t do hardly any interviews. Of course this being a conversation, it isn’t really an interview. At least that’s what I told him. He is Keith Schreiner, you may know him as Auditory Sculpture, although he isn’t using that tag as much anymore. He was one-third of the legendary Portland electronic trio Dahlia. He was a member of the Hip Hop group Suckapunch. He is known for producing and helping to re-imagine talents like Stephanie Schneiderman and many more. He has pretty much dropped off the performing landscape and we’ll find out why and what he’s doing. I got to know him from doing stories on him over the years but moreso from working with him on the assisted suicide documentary directed by Greg Bond and me, for which he did the score. Time to talk to Keith.

January 22, 2016 In the coffeeshop with me today is guitarist, composer…and a lot more…Ryan Meagher. The coffeeshop, as usual is World Cup Coffee and Tea at Northwest 18th and Glisan in Portland. Ryan has just gotten back from New York and I’ll be asking about what he did there. He’s working on a new album, he’s one of the leaders of the Portland Jazz Composers Ensemble as well as its label PJCE Records, he’s one of the founders of the Montavilla Jazz Festival and he recently was named Editor of the Jazz Society of Oregon’s JazzScene Magazine. Although, over the years, our conversations always turn to baseball (he’s a Giants fan), I’m going to try to keep this one on music. I don’t think I’ll be completely successful but I’ll try. He’s been in Portland just a few years, but he has truly made his mark since he arrived and it’s safe to say he’s a major player these days.

We're at World Cup Coffee and Tea at Northwest 18th and Glisan for another OMN Coffeeshop Conversation…now in our second year. Today Pete Krebs is in the coffeeshop with me. Maybe you knew him as a Rock Star with the band Hazel and with Elliot Smith. Or maybe when he did a one-eighty and founded a Gypsy Jazz band in the late 1990s. The delicious Swing of Stolen Sweets followed that, followed by Honky-Tonk and country. His band the Earnest Lovers is tearing it up currently…Earnest as in Ernest Tubb, you know. Along with Pete Krebs and his Portland Playboys. He’s one of the most interesting people on earth and that’s not a beer commercial. It’s been quite a trip for Mr. Krebs. Let’s meet him.

January 7, 2016 It's time for another OMN coffeeshop conversation. And the coffeeshop is World Cup Coffee and Tea at NW 18th and Glisan. With me in the coffeeshop is Josh Malm Tree leader of Redwood Son. Sometimes he IS Redwood Son…he’ll explain. But I have something else to explain. After checking out the recording gear before we started and making sure it worked, I went ahead like I always do. My conversation with Josh was amazing, and certainly one-of-a-kind, not to be duplicated. When I played it back after we were finished I found audio problems which are not fixable. I was going to cancel using it but then I thought, hell…Josh was too good not to use it. So here it is...listen closely because the audio truly sucks. It’s worth the trouble.

December 17, 2015 Back in World Cup Coffee and Tea at Northwest 18th and Glisan today for another OMN Coffeeshop Conversation. I’m Tom D’Antoni and with me today is Darka Dusty who is singer, songwriter, pianist, accordionist, producer and with her husband Miri Stebivka run Mirifoto, a commercial photography company known for their photos of musicians. She was previously one half of Darka & Slavko (in Ukrainian Дарка й Славко), which was a duo known for performing Ukrainian music. She was one of the founders of the Vulva Underground, known around here for their name, first of all…and for their all-female musical tributes to people like Bob Dylan, Neil Young and Simon and Garfunkel. She’s brash and funny and talented. Before we started rolling she did an impression of both Rocky and Bullwinkle, at which point I turned on the recorder.

December 11, 2015 As usual, we’re at World Cup Coffee and Tea at Northwest 18th and Glisan in Portland. With me today is someone you’ve probably been reading for…well, decades. He’s best known as a Jazz Journalist but he’s also known for recording pieces he’s written to the accompaniment of some of our greatest Jazz musicians. He’s Lynn Darroch, he’s also a KMHD stablemate of mine, and for a while we were both in the hunt for assignments at the Oregonian. He has a new book on the way, it’s called Rhythm in the Rain - Jazz in the Pacific Northwest." We’ll hear him read from it.

December 2, 2015 Welcome back to World Cup Coffee and Tea at Northwest 18th and Glisan in Portland. That's where we do these Coffeeshop Conversations. With me today is Blues/Soul/Gospel singer LaRhonda Steele. She’s one of our best, having come up in Norman Sylvester’s band…as have so many singers…sung backup behind the best and now taken her place in the spotlight with a new album with keyboardist Louis (King Louie) Pain. They have a new album out called Rock Me Baby…we’ll hear some of that. We’ll also hear about the part of her career that keeps her the busiest, and one side of the Oregon music scene we hear about the least….Gospel music.

November 19, 2015 We are at World Cup Coffee and Tea at NW 18th and Glisan for another OMN Coffeeshop Conversation, constantly raining edition. This time we’ve got singer Monica Nelson here. She was in the historic 80’s punk band The Obituaries here in Portland. She left Portland destroyed and in ruins and moved to New York where she lived for twenty years. She returned a few years ago and now leads Monica Nelson and the Highgates. I’m pretty sure we’re going to find out what she means by a “Punk Rock frame of mind.”

November 12, 2015 Hi there welcome back to World Cup Coffee and Tea at Northwest 18th and Glisan for another Oregon Music News Coffeeshop Conversation. With me today is photojournalist John Rudoff. You have seen his work in Oregon Music News pretty much since we started in 2009. He’s not only a music photojournalist, having come back recently from covering the Syrian refugee tragedy on the Isle of Lesbos. You have seen his photos of Storm Large. Everyone has. He has probably taken more shots of Storm than anyone else on earth. You’ve also probably seen him shooting photos at a concert you have attended. He did all this while maintaining a parallel career as a cardiologist. It’s fun to let you meet our OMN family once in a while.