Oregon Music News

April 23, 2015 Welcome to another Oregon Music News Coffeeshop Conversation…the coffeeshop being World Cup Coffee and Tea at NW 18th and Glisan. With me today is Blues guitarist/singer Mary Flower, known for her Piedmont and her Delta Blues playing and her slide guitar and her singing. She's a multiple Blues Music and Muddy Awards winner. She’s always on the road, so it’s nice to get her in one place for an hour. I had run into her the previous night at Blackwell’s where she was sitting in for Lloyd Jones. She talks about that and her life and travels as an internationally recognized artist.

April 16, 2015 Tony Ozier is the King of Doo Doo Funk, the Monarch of the Dookie Jam, and is also known as Dookie Green. And he is one of the busiest music producers in Oregon -- about to unleash a new album of Funk-related material on us (due in May) called Speed of Sound, in addition to working on a new album from Janice Scroggins’ daughter, Arietta Ward, among others, and producing tunes on Farnell Newton’s new album. Listen to one below. I wrote the first story on the Dookie Jam in 2007…it’s still going strong every month. And here he is again!

April 9 2015 Welcome to World Cup coffee and tea at 18th and Glisan to be specific. Time for another Oregon Music News Coffeeshop Conversation. This time we’ve got someone you may know better as Miz Kitty of Miz Kitty’s Parlour, the long-running vaudeville show, these days at Alberta Rose Theatre. But you might know her by her real name, Lisa Marsicek, a fiddler and player of other stringed instruments…from the Flat Mountain Girls and other bands she’s been in. It started as a goofy little vaudeville show at the Back Gate Stage at Artichoke Music in 2002 starring Lisa Marsicek as Miz Kitty, a naughty lady in a flamboyant costume a dance hall queen would have worn in the 1875. After moving to Mississippi Pizza and then to Imbibe, she took the plunge and brought Miz Kitty's Parlor to the Mission Theater. At the time it seemed risky. Then she started selling out the place.

April 2, 2015 It’s another Oregon Music News Coffeeshop Conversation and, as always, it happens at World Cup Coffee and Tea at NW 18th & Glisan in Portland. I’ve got drummer Carlton Jackson with me, one of the most versatile drummers around…Soul, Funk, Blues, Jazz, Rock…you name it, he’s played it. He's a member of the Oregon Music Hall of Fame and co-leader of the Jackson-Mills Big Band. A native Portlander, a fellow KMHD DJ and one of my favorite people. He's played with Leroy Vinnegar and many many other of our best. He's one of our best!

March 26, 2015 This time it’s Dennise Kowalczyk, who you remember as being, pretty much, the face of the late great all-local music radio station KZME. You may remember her from her days at KBOO too. We'll find out what she's up to these days and a little about the demise of KZME. Also, we finally reveal to the world just exactly what the cupping room is here at world cup. It’s where we record these things and nobody who has come here has been able to figure out what the hell a cupping room is. Me neither. So I asked World Cup’s Cameran Heger…and he told us.

March 19, 2015 It's another Oregon Music News Coffeeshop Conversation coming to you, as always from World Cup Coffee and Tea at NW 18th and Gliasan in Portand, Oregon. Today we’re with singer/songwriter/guitarist/actor/comedian Andrew Paul Woodworth, who also use to write for OMN when he was of a mind to. This will be the first official not safe for work edition of Coffeeshop Conversations…nothing gross, just two guys talking like normal people. Andrew was in the middle of a John Paul Jones story when I turned on the recorder….yes, the Led Zeppelin John Paul Jones.

March 12, 2015 You’ve heard the voice of Inessa on radio for a long time. She’s worked at a lot of stations, including a lot of years at KINK. Currently she’s music director at the Portland Radio Project. I’m an old radio guy, I’m also old and a radio guy. I’ve been looking forward to talking radio with one of the great radio voices in Oregon. As usual, we sat in the cupping room of World Cup Coffee and Tea at NW 18th & Glisan.

March 5, 2015 Joining me today at World Cup Coffee and Tea at NW 18th and Glisan is a splendid fellow. He is a founding member of what he used to call a third world party band which you know as 3 Leg Torso. He may still call it by that name...it still is. His name is Courtney Von Drehle. I’ve known him and his 3 leg compatriot Bela Balogh since 1997 when I wrote the Oregonian piece on their first album and caused a ruckus at their CD release gig. We’ll talk about that.

February 26, 2015 Today's CC is with Rebecca Sanborn is a keyboardist and vocalist. She is a member of Portland’s beloved Indie/Jazz/Punk/Intellectual (I could go on a naming spree) band the Blue Cranes. She is also a member of Swansea, a trio which she started as a duo with her husband, percussionist Ji Tanzer, also the drummer in the Cranes. I had an absolutely rivetingly delightful hour talk we had which was wide-ranging: from her childhood, to the joys of being married to Tanzer and having him play in both bands (no irony, she means it), to Millennial behavior and a lot of other things.

February 19, 2015 With me in the coffeeshop today is guitarist, composer and educator Dan Balmer who has had a long and interesting career playing all kinds of Jazz and some Jazz the Jazz Police didn’t want you to think was Jazz. This week’s Coffeeshop Conversation, coming to you, as usual, from World Cup Coffee and Tea at NW 18th and Glisan in Portland. It went up on Thursday, February 19, 2015, the first day of the Portland Jazz Festival. He's always engaging and opinionated and fun to talk with.

February 12, 2015 Jessica Black in 2012, singer/songwriter Pilar French described herself thus: I guess I'm just somebody... a thoughtful, philosophical person. I think about life a lot. Life is kind of a struggle, but [there are] joyful experiences as well, and we just adapt to the changing environments. nyone who has heard her songs or talked with her knows how true that is. The 2012 interview was around her last album Deliver. She's not quite ready to release her new album. She'll tell you why in our conversation. She brought a new friend with her to World Cup Coffee and Tea at NW 18th and Glisan, where we do these things. It's a guitanjo. Kind of the Prius of musical instruments. A banjo body with a guitar neck. When she told me about it, I thought we had to hear it. And that's what we did. She kicked off our Conversation with a song which will end up on her next album.

February 5, 2015 Joining me today in the cupping room of World Cup Coffee and Tea at NW 18th and Glisan is Pink Martini percussionist, co-founder of Portland’s Lions of Batucada Brazilian marching band…and teacher of percussion the world over…literally...Brian Davis. We were lucky to snag him while he was making a stop back in Portland and just before he lit out for who knows where on earth. He’s a ball of positive fire and I have had much fun talking with him over the years but not as much fun as I had when I did a TV piece on the Lions and I got to march in the Starlight Parade It's a fast hour! Listen:

January 29, 2015 This Coffeeshop Conversation is special. For what Reggie Houston has to say for himself, but what he really says for all of us. Once again we were in the Cupping Room at World Cup Coffee and Tea at NW 18th and Glisan in Portland. Not that all of these conversations aren’t revealing, they’re designed to be, but today's was unexpectedly so. Saxophonist Reggie Houston, a New Orleans native, who moved to Portland the year before Katrina, and who played in Fat’s Domino’s band for twenty years became a very close friend and collaborator with the late Janice Scroggins. Her death affected many folks but I didn’t know how close they had become and how her death affected him until he sat down to talk with me. I thought we were just going to have fun and bullshit as friends like we usually do. Not today. Listen to what happened when I punched record.

January 22, 2015 In December of 2010, she unveiled a completely new side to her music. At the time I wrote: Laura Ivancie has a confession to make. She's not apologizing for all those sets she did with her acoustic guitar or for being mostly known as a singer/songwriter. She still does them. But her confession is that deep-down she's an Electronic music diva. A little background provided by OMN's Ana Ammann in a preview she wrote on Lilith Fair 2010. With a famous Portland last name, Laura Ivancie, whose grandfather served as Portland’s Mayor in the 1980s, is setting out to make a name for herself. Music has been in her blood for as long as she can remember, yet she is a relative newcomer to the Portland music scene. After a successful college basketball career, Ivancie spent 14 months backpacking across South America with nothing but her guitar in 2005. When she returned, she became a firefighter for the US Forestry Service and in 2008, after much pleading from her friends, finally took to the stage to shar

January 15, 2015 Skip VonKuske helped found Portland Cello Project, he's an original member of Vagabond Opera, he's in Groovy Wallpaper, he is cellotronik, He likes the way it looks capitalized and with a "k" on the end. This month he is celebrating his tenth anniversary of playing in weekly residency every Monday 7-9pm (free) at McMenamin's Edgefield. How is Skip regarded in the Portland music community? When he hurt his back and had to walk with a cane, people rallied around and held a benefit to help pay for his medical bills. He recovered from that. He seemingly never stops. His life is like his live samples, they just keep playing and adding to each other as he adds new layers.f This post is under the "Melting Pot" category. When OMN first started we held a contest to name it so we'd have a place for bands like PCP. Skip named it and won the contest. As always, our Coffeeshop Conversation took place at World Cup Coffee and Tea at NW 18th and Glisan in the cupping room:

January 8, 2015 The Winding Stream, Beth Harrington's documentary on the Carter Family tells a great story about American music. But the story of the making of the film ranks right up there. It's formal title is The Winding Stream: The Carters, the Cashes & the course of Country music. OMN's Ana Ammann wrote about her: Beth Harrington is a story teller. The stories she tells are about those people, places and things in our culture that need to be remembered, shared and passed on. As a documentary filmmaker for the past 30 years, Harrington has produced, directed and written her own films, as well as researched and developed shows for PBS, WGBH, and Oregon Public Broadcasting. The story she is currently documenting is one for the history books – it is the chronicle of a family and the music they made that sits in the heart of American culture, and you have an opportunity to help bring it to life. I've known her since 1998 or 9. We're not exactly sure how we met but I think it had something to do with Harpo

January 1, 2015 Robert Ham is the top music journalist in the state of Oregon and one of the best in the US of A. Now, I could be saying that to curry favor and get him to write more for us, but I'm not, although that would be a goal. Hell, I'd hand over the keys to the store, if I could afford it and he'd make a better OMN editor than me. One thing I've always liked about our relationship is that even though we've been in competition for the same dollars from various publications (the Oregonian, for instance), I have never felt a shred of competitiveness between us. That's a rare thing in journalism, especially given the shrinking marketplace and minuscule amount of money to be made compared to ten years ago. He's a splendid fella. We talked at World Cup Coffee and Tea at NW 18th and Glisan, where all of our Coffeeshop Conversations take place. Listen:

12/25/2014 He has always been a serious journalist, but let's face it, he may be best known for his coverage of visiting celebs, local celebs and who's who and what's what among the Portland glitterati. He covers the parties and events that most of us don't get invited to. Beck has written for The Downtowner, The Oregonian, Willamette Week and now for golocalpdx.com, where he's also an editor. While at WW he had the massive task of being "the gay writer" in the "straight media." It was not a unique position in the wider sense, but it was totally unique to be so identified and have the responsibility on your shoulders. He spent a half-hour with me in the Cupping Room at the World Cup Coffee and Tea at NW 18th and Glisan, where we do all of our weekly Coffeeshop Conversations. He's one of the busiest guys in town and one of the most prolific.

December 17, 2014 I met Art Levine when he was on summer break from Johns Hopkins University. We were roommates in 1970 in the two floor apartment leased by the Baltimore Underground paper of record, HARRY. I was a gritty city hippie with hair down to my ass and crabs and he was....he had an air conditioner. Nevertheless we became friends and remain so today. He became one of the top investigative reporters in America, still a Contributing Editor to the Washington Monthly. He is also a life-long music journalist and has contributed many splendid pieces to Oregon Music News. He was on Skype from Washington, D.C. and I was in the cupping room of Word Cup Coffee and Tea at NW 18th and Glisan in Portland, which is where do these things. His new book (2017) is called "Mental Health, Inc.: How Corruption, Lax Oversight, and Failed Reforms Endanger Our Most Vulnerable Citizens," which we did not discuss when this was recorded. Listen to Art Levine and me:

December 11, 2014 It’s another episode of Coffeeshop Conversations. We’re in World Cup Coffee and Tea at Northwest 18th and Glisan, where we do all of these. This episode with Noah Mickens the impresario of Wanderlust Circus whom I have known since 1997. One thing I’ve never really asked him about is the period of time when he would publicly hang from hooks as part of his performance. Stay tuned for that! Let’s talk with Noah Mickens!