The Shins

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Photos: James Mercer of the Shins at the MFA

Hosted by WFNX | January 26, 2012
James Mercer of the Shins performs at a WFNX Acoustic session at the Museum of Fine Arts on January 26, 2012.
By SAM LIANG | February 03, 2012

By | January 01, 0001

Tiny Showcase grapples with a market gone big

Print It
Jon Buonaccorsi stands alongside a large, rectangular table and plays with a series of flat, wooden pieces that, when assembled, make for an arty little pizza shop that might look sharp on your mantle.
By DAVID SCHARFENBERG | March 23, 2011

Oranjuly | Oranjuly

Self-released (2010)
Three years is a long time to make an album. A band could either neuter every nuance that might have existed on the tape or patiently polish their songs like little gemstones.
By JONATHAN DONALDSON | July 01, 2010

Photos: Broken Bells at Ames

Broken Bells, WFNX Ames Acoustic Session | June 4, 2010
Broken Bells, live at the WFNX Ames Acoustic Session, on June 4, 2010
By MELISSA OSTROW | June 14, 2010

Avi Buffalo | Avi Buffalo

Sub Pop (2010)
Look, I get it: the last thing we need right now is yet another band who can be described as “sun-baked,” “reverb-soaked,” or even just “psychedelic.” But Avi Buffalo (I know! An animal name to boot!) are worth your attention for a few reasons.
By RYAN STEWART | May 26, 2010

Prog wild

The controlled chaos of Bear in Heaven
Let me just assure you, right off, that after this, I promise never, ever, to talk to you about this year’s SXSW again, but check it out: we passed by a tossed-up tent-and-chain-link venue with a long line jutting into the street, and from between the portajohns came one of the lowest frequencies I’d ever heard — you could hear their plastic locks rattle and feel it on the surface of your shirt.
By MICHAEL BRODEUR | March 31, 2010

Broken Bells | Broken Bells

Columbia (2010)
Danger Mouse ( né Brian Burton) had a pretty good run through the '00s, a decade that saw him go from a mash-up nobody to producer du jour for a motley assortment of artists.
By ZETH LUNDY | March 09, 2010

Ride that wave

Are Surfer Blood the only band from Florida?
Like a killer wave or a lousy metaphor, success can really sneak up on you.
By MICHAEL BRODEUR | February 23, 2010

WFNX's top 101 songs of the decade

The top 101 songs of the decade from WFNX 101.7 FM
Video of WFNX's top 101 songs of the decade
By WFNX AND PHOENIX STAFF | January 06, 2010

WFNX's top 101 songs in 2009

WFNX's most popular songs in 2009
Videos of the 101 most requested songs on WFNX in 2009
By WFNX AND PHOENIX STAFF | January 03, 2011

How it feels to be something (back) on

The return of Sunny Day Real Estate
Sub Pop co-founder Jonathan Poneman still sounds amazed by the band he saw at Seattle’s Crocodile Café back in 1993.
By LEOR GALIL | September 22, 2009

Fly by night?

Fruit Bats aren't a Shins side project
For a decade, Eric Johnson's primary songwriting vehicle has been Fruit Bats, but the Portland-via-Chicago singer and multi-instrumentalist has always dipped in and out of other projects — Califone, Vetiver, Ugly Casanova among them.
By MICHAEL ALAN GOLDBERG | September 08, 2009

By | January 01, 0001

Media misfits

News from waaay outside the mainstream
The series grew out of an excellent 1999 documentary directed by author Arthur Bradford ( Dogwalker ) and produced by South Park 's Trey Parker and Matt Stone.
By MIKE MILIARD | February 09, 2009

Daro + Why Hello

Music seen at Slainte, July 12, 2008
With side projects, you always learn a thing or two about the scope of the musician’s interests and influences.
By CHAD CHAMBERLAIN | July 16, 2008

Funny business

As the AltCom Festival arrives at the Somerville Theatre, we look at the roots of the indie comedy boom.
“Ashlee Simpson’s new album sold so poorly,” snorted the headline on Yahoo! this past week, that “it was beaten by a comedy album.”
By MIKE MILIARD | May 08, 2008

Let’s talk numbers

Cult Maze move well beyond Ice Arena with 35, 36
There’s some talk that Cult Maze are the best rock band in Portland right now.
By SAM PFEIFLE | November 07, 2007

Beirut’s French kiss

Escaping the Gulag, with romance and accordions
Beirut’s role in the Gypsy reappropriation wave is more whimsical than their more aggressive counterparts in Gogol Bordello, in both form and function.
By CHRISTOPHER GRAY | October 10, 2007

Easy, tiger

Reconsidering hipsterism, sensitivity, and Ryan Adams’s legacy
It’s been interesting to, however briefly, listen to songs I’ll likely still enjoy in twenty years.
By CHRISTOPHER GRAY | September 12, 2007

Hollywood hit

Grace Potter makes a major-label smash
Grace Potter is going to be a star.
By TED DROZDOWSKI | September 04, 2007

iPhone home

Could be verse: poetry ripped from the headlines
Lines upon the Multimedia and Internet-enabled Mobile Phone Newly Produced by the Apple Corporation
By JAMES PARKER | July 06, 2007

Readers' picks 2007: Arts and Entertainment

Best bar, best gallery, best jukebox, best happy hour, and more
SPACE Gallery, Dock Fore, the White Heart, and more.
By PORTLAND PHOENIX STAFF | February 23, 2010

Going on sale: February 23, 2007

Breaking news from the concert ticket trade
Shins, Three Day Threshold, Norah Jones, and more.
By GOING ON SALE | February 20, 2007

What’s the story?

Sorting through the ruins of Oasis
‘Liam Gallagher should have stayed in England,’ opined Newsday after a show on Long Island.
By JAMES PARKER | February 06, 2007

Size matters

The Shins tend to a growing fan base
The Shins’ third album, Wincing the Night Away (Sub Pop), is as good as any rational mortal should expect an indie-pop album to be in the winter of 2007. The Shins, "Phantom Limb" (mp3)
By FRANKLIN SOULTS | February 06, 2007

Sub Pop video bin

The singles club
Once upon a time, Sub Pop had a singles club.
By MATT ASHARE | January 30, 2007

Wincing the blogs away

Indie rockers try selling out for a change
In the first quarter of 2007, more than a dozen bands who made very big names for themselves via the Internet hype machine face a compelling and dangerous question: what does it take to maintain your cred and succeed commercially in such a dynamic environment?
By CHRISTOPHER GRAY | January 17, 2007

The House that Headstart built

It’s more Amityville Horror than Victoria Mansion
How did that CSN song go? “Our house/ Is a very, very, very fine house/ With two cats in the yard/ Life used to be so hard/ Now everything is easy, cuz of you.” That’s it.
By SAM PFEIFLE | October 11, 2006

Hunting the wild Klosterman

Things about the pop-culture writer that are true, things that might be true, and something that isn’t true at all
He is Charles John “Chuck” Klosterman: pop-culture critic, four-time author, celebrity profiler, Esquire columnist, ESPN Page 2 sportswriter, former Spin senior editor, unrepentant Billy Joel fan. And he makes girls spit. Chuck Klosterman reads from Chuck Klosterman IV: A Decade of Curious People and Dangerous Ideas (mp3)
By CAMILLE DODERO | October 05, 2006