Music Blog

Yeah, that's right. That's PJ Harvey and John Parish up there, the duo behind this year's A Woman a Man Walked By, the "difficult but beautiful" effort that found them collaborating together fo the first time since 1996's Dance Hall at Louse Point. Much like Harvey's stunning 2007 release, White Chalk (which was produced by Parish), the music is skeletal, almost stripped to bare minimums. This is in contrast to Harvey's previous two or three releases, which found her heading in a gradual direction toward more slickly-produced, standard forms of rock (though they were no less solid efforts). Something about Parish brings out Harvey's weird, you might say.

Why, though, are we telling you all of this? It seems the duo is coming to the Roseland Theater next Wednesday the 17th and we want you to win tickets from us. Again, that's right. We could sell them for a 1000% profit out on the street, but instead we want to give them to you for free and that's what we're going to do. How? Listen to this Sunday night's edition of In House (8pm on OPB radio and on our music stream) for your chance, which will require little more than email access and an elementary knowledge of the artist known as PJ Harvey. Good luck!

But that's not all! Next Friday night, northern California-based indie-roots-rockers Port O'Brien returns to Portland with San Francisco city-mates Papercuts for a show at the Doug Fir. You guessed it, we want you to go to that one on us, too! The same how-to details as above apply, though you won't need to know anything about PJ Harvey to win these.

Currently at work on their third album and follow-up to last year's All We Could Do Was Sing, it's Port O'Brien's first return to the Rose City since opening for M. Ward at the Aladdin this past March. While they were no doubt glad to be opening for an artist like Ward, something about the setting-- the seating, perhaps, or maybe the velvet curtains-- didn't seem to suit the band's often raucous stage show (the discomfort in the romm was palpable after frontman Van Pierszalowski dropped an F-bomb, although on the other hand if you were far enough back and squinted just right he was the spitting image of Kurt Cobain). Needless to say, a venue with some beer on the floor should be a little more their style.

MP3: Port O'Brien- "I Woke Up Today"

Happy weekend!

Tagged: mp3