Lynn Twiss

Let the influx of new music begin!

I’ve always tried very hard to keep on the edge of the musical curve, even while I was in Montana. I’ve found, since moving to Portland, that I didn’t do too bad keeping up. If anything, it’s been disparaging in Portland seeing how many people here are so shamelessly rooted in a single era of their particular genre. They criticize both new music they are aware of and heard, and music they haven’t heard but aren’t willing to. Progressive DJs that play the latest tunes from European labels are criticized for not playing what the customers know, which means: what they have already been exposed to via radio. (The local radio is far superior from what I can tell [KPSU is great], but most channels are controlled by the ever present Clear Channel and of the three times I’ve turned on the radio – it was what I expected.) A successful night is measured simply by how many people get out and dance. (I fully understand the joy a DJ feels seeing an actual physical response to the tones they are choosing to play. However, sometimes a successful night for me, is a night where I go home with a song in my head I hadn’t heard before and am dying to get my hands on first thing the next day; yet I had never left my position of belly-up-to-the-bar. Compensatory, I tend to praise DJs vocally when I haven’t danced, just so they know: it has been a great night.)

I’ve yet to goto a true Industrial night. I’ve yet to goto a true Goth night. I’ve yet to goto a true Industrial-Rock venue. I’ve however been to quite a few fabulous venues that mix it up by playing across the genres. The crowds tend to have many familiar faces, which is good. I hear and see far more vocal lovers of the Goth genre, but they seem unwilling to progress past the 80-90s era of the scene (The Cure and Siouxsie/Creatures are as over played here as AC/DC and Manfred Mann are in Montana) I had expected more moving from a town of 14,223 to a city of 545,140. I figured the scenes I enjoyed would have had a specific club dedicated to the appeasement of said followers, not just one-two night events that bar owners allow so they can fill dead nights.

Over all, lots of fun – with frustrations mixed in. Nothing is ever perfect and there are exceptions to everything.

On a side note – I’ve been working on an online resource I’m going to call: Strudelmärz!. Hopefully I’ll have it complete in a few weeks.

Here’s a small list of new stand-out tunes I’ve bought since I moved here to Portland that I either had the pleasure of hearing via a DJ or through the typical rooting-through-the-internet-for-new-shit I’ve been doing for years:

Rotersand – Welcome to Goodbye
Melotron – Cliche
Editors – The Back Room
Death From Above 1979 – Your A Woman, I’m A Machine
5x – 5x
Pow[d]er Pussy – Six Ways From Sunday
Project Pitchfork – Kaskade
Unter Null – Sick Fuck
Stark – Brave New Desire
Xlover – Pleasure & Romance
Dope – American Apathy
Noise Unit – Vouyer
Belladonnakillz – Kill Belladonna
Combichrist – Everyone Hates You
Kill Memory Crash – American Automatic
Stromkern – Light It Up