Is This Real?

Sometimes I get these feelings, and I don't know what to say...

Greetings, friends, and welcome to my new newsletter venture. You may remember from my previous newsletter ventures and my time working as a freelancer for everyone from Rolling Stone, SPIN, Pitchfork, Bandcamp, Village Voice, and many others. But some of my best work has been done for Portland publications. My byline has been featured frequently in our two alt-weeklies and the paper of record, as well as a little bit in the pages of Portland Monthly, Oregon Arts Watch, and the long-defunct PDX Magazine.

All that is to say that I love this city I call home and cherish its music community. So much so that my frustration continues to boil over about how little it gets recognized in those above local publications these days. Don't get me wrong: they are all doing important work covering local news and holding those in power to account, but there's holes in the arts and culture section that can't be patched up with their meager freelance budgets and editors who stretched incredibly thin. I could try and seek out assignments from those outlets yet again, but I don't relish working for anyone else right now. And this way I can move at my own pace without fretting over when pieces will get published and how/if they will reach their intended audience. With this newsletter, the goods will be sent directly to the people who subscribe.

The focus will be on the Portland music scene writ large featuring stories both long and short about the folks making the noise in town or propping up those that are making the art, previews of artists coming to Portland to play live or be part of a local event, as well as some reviews of live shows and records that have my interest. They won't always be positive reviews, mind you, but I will approach my criticism with the same care and thoughtfulness as I do with my journalistic efforts.

I truly hope you enjoy this newsletter and that you'll get something out of it. I'm certainly looking forward to seeing where this goes. We'll get underway properly sometime in June. See you then.