PORTLANDIA

From Season 1, in which Fred Armisen takes a bike ride through the streets of Portland, Oregon. Besides being a funny parody of the bicycle culture, it is a nice slice of Portland street life.

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The Parson Red Heads

The Parson Red Heads seem to have a nice idea and the musical integrity to express it, witness this charming travel video from their recently released LP, Yearling, on Arena Rock Recording Company. A vinyl version is available on Parson Farm / Timber Carnival Records. The Portland-based group began touring the northwest after the LP release and is now branching into a national run, which began September 16 with a show at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. Watch for them in your home town. Or, cheat and visit their Websites - The Parson Red Heads Facebook, The Parson Red Heads Site, or The Parson Red Heads MySpace - where they probably post things like tour schedules.

Paradise

Portland's Paradise debut the black & white, Small Faces '60s homage video for the title track off their upcoming LP Diary of An Old Soul.

"Part garage, part psych pop and all pure energy, Diary of An Old Soul is a collection of catchy, '60s fuzz-soaked fully-formed jams that explode out of speakers. Propelled by a rowdy and infectious enthusiasm and driven by an unhinged howl and chuggingly clever Farfisa lines..." So goes the press release issued with the Paradise video above.

To our eyes and ears, this video is interesting in a few ways. The best part is that it looks great and it has an idea about what it wants to portray. The down side is that this same super-conscience feels a little turned inward on itself relative to the song, leading one to wonder if Paradise is selling a song, which would be the assumption, or an object of art, which is more what it feels like: a work that must be taken as a whole.

Paradise is working the sound pretty hard in what feels like an effort to replicate a sonic imprint that may have been picked up from some '60s influence but sounds to us a lot more like Elvis Costello and the Imposters. They may have been '60s hackers, but Paradise feels more like Costello's presaging of Modern Rock. One hears all the familiar sounds of the petulant young Elvis Costello, which tells the listener that Paradise is an artful cover band, which is probably not the message they would have preferred to send.

The other significant problem with "Diary of An Old Soul", however catchy the performance - which we at RARWRITER like quite a lot  - is that it is just not a very strong song. Still, there is a lot of intelligence and style at work in Paradise - more than you see in most bands these days - and it gives you the sense that they may pull it altogether in short order, given better material. - RAR

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Paradise out of Portland
This is going to sound an awful lot like Elvis Costello and the Imposters

Use this link to hear Paradise' "Diary of an Old Soul"

And then there is the political edge, described in a mythologically-inspired recitation, as if someone in this quartet found a ring while diving for fish one day...

"Their eyes burnt by the glowing landscapes of the electronic revolution. Their teeth sharpened to the sounds of a youthful uprising. Hating the Beatles before they loved them. Blood brothers to their instruments, idols of procreation and pro-creation. Aged by the sun. Singing the sounds of a now-nameless generation.

Raised in the cornfields of the Bible Belt, the industrial wasteland of Cleveland, OH, the rolling hills of the Lake Michigan coast and the burnt desert of the Golden State. The four members now emerge from the dark hollows of Portland, OR.

It is the sound of flux. The response to a United Federation of States run by the few. A response to growing up tormented by idols and enemies. Their sound is a refuge from data, meetings and humans. In a world of mindless pop culture, we offer you an escape from the masses. Mass media is no longer the cure. What we offer you is our cure. A sound we call Paradise."