For the uninitiated, James Pants plays “80’s Soul, Electro Boogie, Early Rap, New Wave, & Post-Punk Disco”, according to his Stones Throw bio. There’s enough beat and hook in his tunes for the dance crowd and enough noise and quirk for the indie kids, or whatever they’re calling themselves these days. The man crosses boundaries, OK? You’ll like him and your girlfriend who refers to the Garden State soundtrack as the “best album EVER” will also enjoy it. For you gamers out there, James Pants’ song “Rhythm Trax Vol. 1-7″ was included on Playstation 3′s exclusive platformer Little Big Planet. At any rate, it’s the best non-sports related excuse to get sweaty in a public place with a bunch of other people this Saturday.

Listen to James Pants here: www.myspace.com/jamespants

Will Thompson is way stoked to see James Pants and was unashamedly introduced to his music through a video game.

Weinland

Weinland gets both the Most Public-Spirited and the Cutest Best Friend of the Portland folk community yearbook.  They’re honest, they have a strong sense of community, all five of them “avid” chess players, and they always have good things to say.  The band emerged from the jamming sessions that Adam Shearer, a singer and song-writer who went by the name John Weinland, and his friend Aaron Pomerantz shared with kids at a mental health facility for at-risk youth.  These sessions were too much of a good thing for Shearer’s buddies to pass by.  Rory Brown brought in a bass – Ian Lyles added drums – Paul Christensen played the keyboard – and John Weinland became the quintet Weinland.  “Other than that, there are a lot of rotating cast,” Weinland explains, “We are tight with our Portland music scene pals.”  The result is an  airy batch of folk that smells like a walk through a pine forest – it’s woodsy but light, it very likely favors flannel, and it’s quite companionable for your own Saturday afternoon listening-pleasure.  “Our primary aim is to make records that are timeless, that you creep up on you, and in the end stay with you for the rest of your life.”  

Their own regular folk rigmarole is often joined by friends like Laura Gibson, Adam Selzer (Norfolk and Western, M.Ward) and Rachel Blumberg of the Decemberists, M. Ward, Bright Eyes and Julie Holland.  In a good neighborly exchange, Weinland hosts The Portland Cello Project – a commune for the gifted cello junkies of Portland.  Weinland recounts fondly that “after many nights watching Adam drink whisky and interact with the audience [Doug, the founder of the PCP] thought, ‘this is what PCP needs… a saucy front man!’”

“Portland has a good thing going right now, not just based on the number of musicians and artists that live here, but the spirit of growth and the willingness of everyone to be helpful to one another.  We have experienced so much support and friendship from fellow Portlanders [that] we couldn’t imagine trying to do this anywhere else.”  The glitz of the Portland scene is more than on the surface.  

WEINLAND – playing Moscow Saturday, 2nd May 2009, 8.00 pm at Mikey’s Gyros. 

Thanks to Pomerantz and Lyles for tag-teaming as Weinland spokesmen – they say that they are excited to come to Moscow, which should warm your heart.

Dickison started playing guitar when he was 13, and in highschool, he starred with the local bands Edward Bugg and The Cubes.  “Every time we played a show I felt like Jimmy Page,” Dickison remembers, “I’d say, more than anything, those bands made me realize how much fun it was to play music that people enjoyed and would come to hear.”  Dickison, now a sophomore at New St. Andrew’s, says that “right now, I’d like to just continue writing songs and playing them for and with my friends in Moscow and this area. We’ll see what happens after college, but right now I just want to keep playing locally.”  Dickison is playing tonight with Richard Buckner  at Mikey’s Gyros at 9 p.m. and you should definitely be there for the friendly vibe.  

Dickison’s roles as musician and writer, he says, are “definitely intertwined;” as such, we’ll let him speak for himself. 

Do you think of yourself as a musician or a writer first?

“I just read about these trees today that live in the rainforest and eat other trees. The seeds start high up in a bigger tree and send down little roots to the ground. Then the seed sends more roots up to where the sunlight is. Eventually, the big tree is completely covered in roots that are running up and down its trunk. The roots get bigger and bigger, and eventually form a trunk around the first tree. The first tree is strangled to death and rots inside the trunk of the new one. It’s the same way with music and writing.”

Hmm, any comments on Billy Collins?

“He’s been my favorite poet for a long time. I think he’s one of those people that is really interested in life and the world around him. He can see connections between things that have always been there, but once he points it out you see the world in a totally new light.  He’s the best.”

Who is your hero?

“Josh Ritter has definitely inspired me more than any other songwriter, and more recently, Super XX Man. I think [that] both of them, in different ways, realize the importance and power that lyrics and poetry wield. They’re both poets in their own right.  Ritter, especially, has a gift with words that I haven’t seen in a lot of other writers.  I feel like I can read his lyrics on their own and they still convey a ton of meaning even apart from the rest of the song.”

What are you trying to accomplish with your music?

“A lot of things, but probably the biggest one is that I want people to become more interested in everything after hearing one of my songs. I think that music is one of the most powerful tools for communicating that we have, and I think that the world and the stories it contains are so incredible that anything that is really good and beautiful should just inspire us to want to know more about creation, and, ultimately, about God.  Everything is connected, and so a good song should be able to bring up images and connotations and stories from a bunch of different places- people that you love, other songs, beautiful places, good books, good food, good smells. Music is so fundamental to humanity that I feel like a good song can communicate and bring together all the different blessings that a human can enjoy. There’s alot more to that, but I’ll stick with that answer for now.” 

Oooh, Moscow adventures – anything to say about MOSCOW?  

“Hahaha. I think in a small town you’re forced to be a lot more creative about having fun.  It’s funny how many things there are to climb here, too. I’m convinced [that] I found Josh Ritter’s initials spray painted on an old building here in town. I think he and his friends did a lot of the same things my friends do, only before us.  There’s definitely been some songs inspired by silos.” 

So, hopes, dreams?

“Definitely.  Lots of both.  I’m planning on traveling to as many places as I can, guitar in tow if possible. That’s a big hope. I want to meet a lot of the musicians that I love- Josh Ritter, Super XX Man, M. Ward, etc., and I’d like to see all of the places that I’ve read about, ever.