“The musical lineup has gotten better and more impressive each year!”— Bart Blasengame, owner, The Fixin-To.
“Portland has plenty of spring festivals, but few are as cheap (free!) and jam-packed with talent as the St. Johns Bizarre.” — Portland Mercury.
“You hear a lot about the faux weirdness of Alberta’s Last Thursday — but it pales in comparison to the real deal, the annual St. Johns Bizarre, in the heart of the realest neighborhood in Portland. Tons of vendors, kid crafts and activities, a beer garden, and insanely good music from actually awesome local bands. It does not get any realer.” — True Parent.
This land runs through Katherine Paul’s blood. And it called to her. In dreams she saw the river, her ancestors, and her home.When the land calls, you listen. And KP found herself far from her ancestral lands during a time of collective trauma, when the world was wounded and in need of healing. In 2020 she made the journey from Portland back to the Skagit River, back to the cedar trees that stand tall and shrouded in fog, back to the tide flats and the mountains, back to Swinomish.
It is a powerful thing to return to our ancestral lands and oftentimes the journey is not easy. Like the salmon through the currents, like the tide as it crawls to shore this is a story of return. It is the call and response. It is the outstretched arms of the people who came before, welcoming her home. Her 2023 album “The Land, The Water, The Sky” is a celebration of lineage and strength. Even in its deepest moments of loneliness and grief, of frustration over a world wrought with colonial violence and pain, the songs remind us that if we slow down, if we listen to the waves and the wind through the trees, we will remember to breathe.
There is a throughline of story in every song, a remembrance of knowledge and teachings, a gratitude of wisdom passed down and carried. There is a reimagining of Sedna who was offered to the sea, and a beautiful rumination on sacrifice and humanity, and what it means to hold the stories that work to teach us something.
Chord progressions born out of moments of sadness and solitude transform into the islands that sit blue along the horizon. The Salish Sea curves along her homelands, and when the singer is close to this water she is reminded of her grandmother, how she looked out at these same islands, and she’s held by spirit and memory.
SHABAZZ PALACES
PING.
She looked up. A rectangular notification had popped into view, obscuring the view of the road.
>Stellify Subscriber alert: new album from Shabazz Palaces: Exotic Birds of Prey.
“Oh.” Her eyebrows arched, her fingers lightly drummed her tablet. “Play,” she said, voice softening.
>Shabazz Palaces’ latest is a foreboding foray into final-days funk. Cold-forged synths cut like steel underneath paranoiac playerisms and science-faction set pieces. What will you do when the robots don’t recognize your face?
“Pour more bass on my mids.”
“Mmm.” The bio-reactive seat gently reclined as the whole vehicle body, composed of recycled marine plastics and seaweed, throbbed with deep, monstrous tones. Her eyes closed.
>BrainBroom Subscriber: your weekly ketamine session is ready to transmit. Initiate?
She opened her eyes. Hers was the only vehicle in sight. Rain sheeted across the windscreen. In the corner, the heads-up relayed a leisurely 160 km/h and fully charged hydrogen cells. The road ahead was lit in a deep violet; the ancient LED’s on this stretch of highway had delaminated over time.
“..Sure.”
She laid back. As the corners of her sensory perception started to curl up, she heard different voices, new and old to the Shabazz cinematic universe. Stas the Boss, Irene Barber. OCnotes, Jahpreme Magnetic. Purple Tape Nate, Lavarr the Starr.
“Many among them…traded in myths.”
As she submerged into innerspace, the soundtrack repeated, undermining her sense of time. The softly rocking motion of the vehicle, bee-lining it’s way home, did the same to her sense of space. Swirling in her mind’s eye, she saw ancient bones dancing underneath the solar-powered roadway; empty eye sockets turned and locked on her own.“
Going back to the essence is not a bad thing.”
FEDERALE
“Reverb & Seduction” is the legendary Portland band’s most immersive and varied album to date.
“A tour de force road trip from psych rock to country duets that never strays too far from the spaghetti western roots that inspired the band so many blood moons ago… equal parts Ennio Morricone, Lee Hazelwood, and Nick Cave with a touch of Chris Isaak’s less romantic side… few if any artists are brave and/or creative enough to channel this ghostly, often ominous vibe into moving, sensual and stirring music.”
— Hal Horowitz, American Songwriter
RHODODENDRON
Rhododendron is a band from Portland formed in early 2019 by a trio of Portland School of Rock students “with shared interests in jazz and left-field prog rock,” according to Willamette Week.
They take sonic cues from old-school math rock and post-hardcore along with a healthy dose of post-rock, drone, jazz and whatever music they might be listening to.
“Of the young guitar bands popping up in Portland, Rhododendron is one of the most ambitious and eccentric — and one of the tightest,” says Willamette Week.
FAMILY WORSHIP CENTER
Feeling spiritually and artistically aimless, Family Worship Center’s shamanistic figurehead Andy Krissberg took a brief hiatus from creating music. He embarked on a freewheeling, soul-searching journey inspired by the late ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax. Krissberg visited remote places across the country, creating field recordings of musicians he met straight to vinyl on a 1940s record lathe.
His adventures led him to fleabag motels, sketchy back alleys, lonely restaurants and dive bars. His crusade had him rummaging through old record stores, antique stores, swap meets for long forgotten albums, singles, artwork and books. On one of his expeditions, in a now-defunct record store in Nashville, Krissberg stumbled upon a 21-page bible for a strange cult-like collective that billed themselves as Family Worship Center.
Leafing through the yellowed pages, he felt a strange resonance with the Family’s communal quest for Groove enlightenment. Family Worship Center proposed a simple prescription to achieve a utopian existence: Surrender material possessions. Walk to the beat. Never hurt another Family Member. In a private mystical moment, Krissberg vowed to adhere to these beliefs, and is now eager to share the message with others through song as the band, Family Worship Center.
Family Worship Center specializes in a strain of redemptive, 1970s-styled rock n’ roll that recalls the Rolling Stones, Leon Russell, The Band, and Delaney & Bonnie. The band formed in 2017 in Nashville but has since relocated to Portland. In 2020, Family Worship Center released the EP “Sunday A.M.,” recorded by Grammy-winning producer Eddie Spear (Rival Sons, Blackberry Smoke, Lukas Nelson), and featuring musicians associated/who have played with The Band, Deer Tick, Ringo Starr, James Brown, Keith Richards and Foxygen, among others. The Family’s 2023 “Kicked Out Of The Garden” features a core band of devoted musicians, and was produced by Portland go-to producer Cameron Spies (Spoon Benders, Shivas) who specializes in what he calls “mid-fi.”
CLUB DELUXE
Club Deluxe was formed by Riley McLaughlin in 2018 as a rowdy three-piece featuring members of YUVEES. Inspired by bands both from the 1960s like Captain Beefheart, the Stooges and Blue Cheer, and contemporary rock bands like King Khan, Ty Segall and Deerhoof, Club Deluxe blends dissonant and distorted guitar with a bombastic rhythm section, underneath vocals that range from lethargic talk-sing to authoritative and manic hollering.
JAKKI AND THE PINK SMUDGE
Jakki and the Pink Smudge, lovingly referred to as “Smudge,” are an indie-rock firecracker making waves in the Portland scene. The band’s multifaceted nature has cultivated a strong presence in the Portland, Los Angeles, and Houston music scenes, playing alongside artists such as Mavi, the Aquadolls, and Never Ending Fall. The band gets its charming name from the inevitable smudging of Jakki’s lipstick while performing. With every smear, Jakki and ghe Pink Smudge continue to emote their own distinctive, moving and peachy sound.
The band blends indie-punk-funk and fuzz rock with a peachy, vibrant edge. Their sound is a dynamic fusion of gritty riffs, punchy grooves, and dreamy textures, echoing their strong influences in the bold energy of No Doubt, the atmospheric depth of Radiohead, and the lo-fi charm of Galaxie 500 and PACKS.
@TLAS
The year was 2015. In anticipation of some delicious curry stew, a three-hour jam occurred on the porch of reggae/afrobeat singer Simba Tirima in Moscow, Idaho, the proggy jazzy, folksy three-piece “@tlas,” was formed by Ben Walden, Machado Mijiga, and Ben Swanson — an off-shoot of the then-popular local reggae/afrobeat band: Simba and the Exception Africans (where Mijiga and Swanson played sax and trombone, respectively.)
Fast-forward nine years, three bassists and two albums later, and @tlas has since relocated to Portland and gained the eclectic and wildly talented Matthew Holmes on bass and vocals.
@tlas is an opportunity to explore the sonic possibilities of a “garage band” — DIY collaborative songwriting covering a wide range of genres, modes of expressivity, and varying degrees of improvisation/structure across all songs.
@tlas is named thusly because they take the listener many places; @tlas is a collection of musical souls, waiting to be picked up off of the listener’s bookshelf, discovering uncharted territory, and putting language and meaning to the abstract and unknown.
TWINGLE
Twingle is the moniker of songstress and multi-instrumentalist Anna Sabatino, based right here in Portland. Raised in a one room cabin in the small Colorado town of Evergreen, she began writing songs at a young age featuring guitar and banjo.
Her roots are in old-timey folk and bluegrass, but later went on to realms of experimental/psychedelic/prench pop — which all work to cultivate her sound and melodic patterns. Her songs live somewhere in the realm of familiar but entirely unexpected. Twingle’s debut 2024 album, Future Caviar, is a can of worms focusing on the personal lives of female writers of the 19th and 20th centuries. The album was recorded to tape in the garage of Anna and Eric Sabatino (also a St. Johns stalwart) and produced by their dear friend Tommy Hollywood.
WILLIAM DELEE
William DeLee is one of the most proficient pickers in Portland. His three-track cassette “Improvisations for Guitar and Charango,” released last year via Bud Tapes, is an enchanting listen that explodes the sepia-toned American primitive finger-picked approach to his chosen instrument into spectacular, colorful explosions of notes and drones.
PATRICK MCCULLEY/GRANT PIERCE DUO
Patrick McCulley is a Portland-based saxophonist, educator, composer and creator who seeks to transform the saxophone from a purely melodic instrument into an undefinable and unstoppable force of nature.
McCulley’s solo compositions and improvisations sculpt the saxophone’s sound into transcendent metaphors for emotions not often expressed in music: the inescapable vagaries of change, the ecstatic joy of flight, and the yearning search for renewal amidst destruction. His music uses an array of extended techniques to defy conventional idioms in favor of raw, provocative, honest and unusual sounds without abandoning the listener to the chaos of pure noise.
Grant Pierce is a drummer and songwriter from Portland. His music explores jazz, folk song, and heavier noise. He is a member of Halfbird, Young Hunter, June Rose, Stalwart Young, SPCJMRZ and Not Bitter.
PETE KREBS
Pete Krebs has been a member of the Portland musical community since 1988.
His bands Hazel, Golden Delicious, the Stolen Sweets, the Portland Playboys and the Catnip Brothers have explored genres as diverse as punk rock, gypsy jazz, western swing and vintage jazz, traditional folk and country. His discography contains dozens of releases on a variety of labels including Cavity Search, Rough Trade and Sub Pop.
He has toured extensively both domestically and abroad, sharing the stage with a diverse mix of musicians including Nirvana, Elliott Smith, Dead Moon, Peter Rowan, Patrick Saussois, the Hot Club of Cowtown, Sleater-Kinney, the Holy Modal Rounders, Michael Hurley. The Freak Mountain Ramblers and hundreds of others. He has performed at Lollapalooza, the Portland Jazz Festival, CMJ, Pickathon, Bumpershoot, and SXSW, and at legendary venues including Preservation Hall, CBGB’s, the Troubadour and the Knitting Factory.
He has played extensively in Oregon’s wine country at wineries large and small, including Archery Summit, Domaine Serene, Stoller, Sokol Blosser and Rex Hill. He is a two-time inductee into the Oregon Music Hall of Fame. An in-demand performer, teacher and session musician, he lives in Portland.
FARNELL NEWTON
Trumpeter Farnell Newton is one of the Northwest’s most versatile musicians, playing straight-ahead jazz, smooth jazz, Latin music, soul, hip hop, funk and more.
In the last few years, Farnell has toured with three-time Grammy winning singer/songwriter Jill Scott and with the Legendary Rhinestone Rockstar Bassist Bootsy Collins. In previous years, Farnell has performed with great musical artists, including George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic Dumpstaphunk, the Nth Power, Lettuce, Karl Denson, Fred Wesley, Stevie Wonder and many others.
OPERA ON TAP
Bio and photo coming soon!
ANTS ANTS ANTS
Ants Ants Ants is an Oregon-based family music band with original songs that evoke vivid imagery of childhood at its best.
With stylistic nods to 1970s-era Sesame Street, School House Rock, and “The Point” by Harry Nilsson, Ants Ants Ants recalls the best elements of a fun and fanciful childhood!
Between them, these music-makers have released many albums over the years (Johnny with the Dimes, and Dave and Nat with Derby), each enjoying a run of regional and national buzz, radio play, and critical reviews (Spin Magazine, NPR Song of the Day, etc). After more than 10 years relentless touring, recording and pursuing the traditional indie path, these Ants eventually got off the road and began tunneling their way deeper into the recording studio. With this newfound creative freedom came opportunities to write songs in different styles and genres, which brought them into the world of writing for film and television.
KCPUPPETREE
Kelly Campbell (KCPuppetree) is a nationally recognized puppeteer and performer, known for presenting exemplary environmental education through the art of puppetry. Kelly has trained in theatre her entire life and has a deep love for art, the environment, and the magical world around us!
Since a young age, Kelly has had a passion for theatre and the puppet arts, and trained in puppetry with Lunatique Fantasique (San Francisco), Joy Puppet Theatre (Portland), and The Eugene O’Neill Theatre Center (Waterford, CT).
As a company member of Tears of Joy Puppet Theatre for eight years, Kelly toured with several productions throughout the Pacific Northwest and taught week-long puppet-making residencies in Portland area schools. Harnessing her deep love of puppetry, Kelly has attended the Eugene O’Neill Puppetry Conference multiple times; performed at The Center for Puppetry Arts (Atlanta); led puppetry workshops at Atlanta’s DragonCon; regularly collaborates with puppeteer peers around the country; and is an active member of The Puppetry Guild of Portland and Puppeteers of America.
Since it’s creation in 2013, KCPuppetree has produced numerous successful puppet shows, and has toured throughout CA, OR, WA, MT, SD, ND, and MN. With environmental stewardship as a central focus of most productions, KCPuppetree contracted with the Portland Bureau to present Water Conservation puppet show assemblies to Portland Elementary students.
Kelly continues to offer weeklong puppet-making and performance residencies through Young Audiences and the Columbia Gorge Institute of Arts.
MR. BEN
Mr. Ben (Ben Thompson) is a Portland-based children’s musician and singer-songwriter. A veteran of the music industry, Mr. Ben has been teaching music full-time for more than a decade and playing music for 30 years. He also owns Singers and Stompers LLC, a company dedicated to enriching the lives of children through exposure to live music and music education, and has been known to play at local Portland venues as well as private events (like kid’s birthday parties!).
MO PHILLIPS
What is Mo-Fi? A TERRIBLY UNSOPHISTICATED WAY TO HAVE A GREAT TIME!
Mo Phillips is a teaching artist and fun-time maker in Portland. He writes and records songs, makes oddball videos, and produces choose-your-own-adventure musicals, all in Mo-Fi. Mo-Fi is a way of making art centered on joy and exploration, primarily of inexpensive apps that do silly stuff.
When not teaching song writing in schools or shredding ukulele for the people, Mo is a dad. That’s his favorite job; the rest is just gravy.
Entertainment
“The musical lineup has gotten better and more impressive each year!” — Bart Blasengame, owner, The Fixin-To.
“Portland has plenty of spring festivals, but few are as cheap (free!) and jam-packed with talent as the St. Johns Bizarre.” — Portland Mercury.
“You hear a lot about the faux weirdness of Alberta’s Last Thursday — but it pales in comparison to the real deal, the annual St. Johns Bizarre, in the heart of the realest neighborhood in Portland. Tons of vendors, kid crafts and activities, a beer garden, and insanely good music from actually awesome local bands. It does not get any realer.” — True Parent.
Check out our lineup for 2025!
Plaza Stage
(N. Philadelphia between Lombard and Ivanhoe)
John Street Stage
(N. John between Lombard and Kellogg)
Chicago Avenue/Wonderwood Stage (in partnership with Havalina and Wonderwood Springs)
(N. Chicago Avenue between Lombard and Kellogg/Leonard)
BLACK BELT EAGLE SCOUT
This land runs through Katherine Paul’s blood. And it called to her. In dreams she saw the river, her ancestors, and her home.When the land calls, you listen. And KP found herself far from her ancestral lands during a time of collective trauma, when the world was wounded and in need of healing. In 2020 she made the journey from Portland back to the Skagit River, back to the cedar trees that stand tall and shrouded in fog, back to the tide flats and the mountains, back to Swinomish.
It is a powerful thing to return to our ancestral lands and oftentimes the journey is not easy. Like the salmon through the currents, like the tide as it crawls to shore this is a story of return. It is the call and response. It is the outstretched arms of the people who came before, welcoming her home. Her 2023 album “The Land, The Water, The Sky” is a celebration of lineage and strength. Even in its deepest moments of loneliness and grief, of frustration over a world wrought with colonial violence and pain, the songs remind us that if we slow down, if we listen to the waves and the wind through the trees, we will remember to breathe.
There is a throughline of story in every song, a remembrance of knowledge and teachings, a gratitude of wisdom passed down and carried. There is a reimagining of Sedna who was offered to the sea, and a beautiful rumination on sacrifice and humanity, and what it means to hold the stories that work to teach us something.
Chord progressions born out of moments of sadness and solitude transform into the islands that sit blue along the horizon. The Salish Sea curves along her homelands, and when the singer is close to this water she is reminded of her grandmother, how she looked out at these same islands, and she’s held by spirit and memory.
SHABAZZ PALACES
PING.
She looked up. A rectangular notification had popped into view, obscuring the view of the road.
>Stellify Subscriber alert: new album from Shabazz Palaces: Exotic Birds of Prey.
“Oh.” Her eyebrows arched, her fingers lightly drummed her tablet. “Play,” she said, voice softening.
>Shabazz Palaces’ latest is a foreboding foray into final-days funk. Cold-forged synths cut like steel underneath paranoiac playerisms and science-faction set pieces. What will you do when the robots don’t recognize your face?
“Pour more bass on my mids.”
“Mmm.” The bio-reactive seat gently reclined as the whole vehicle body, composed of recycled marine plastics and seaweed, throbbed with deep, monstrous tones. Her eyes closed.
>BrainBroom Subscriber: your weekly ketamine session is ready to transmit. Initiate?
She opened her eyes. Hers was the only vehicle in sight. Rain sheeted across the windscreen. In the corner, the heads-up relayed a leisurely 160 km/h and fully charged hydrogen cells. The road ahead was lit in a deep violet; the ancient LED’s on this stretch of highway had delaminated over time.
“..Sure.”
She laid back. As the corners of her sensory perception started to curl up, she heard different voices, new and old to the Shabazz cinematic universe. Stas the Boss, Irene Barber. OCnotes, Jahpreme Magnetic. Purple Tape Nate, Lavarr the Starr.
“Many among them…traded in myths.”
As she submerged into innerspace, the soundtrack repeated, undermining her sense of time. The softly rocking motion of the vehicle, bee-lining it’s way home, did the same to her sense of space. Swirling in her mind’s eye, she saw ancient bones dancing underneath the solar-powered roadway; empty eye sockets turned and locked on her own.“
Going back to the essence is not a bad thing.”
FEDERALE
“Reverb & Seduction” is the legendary Portland band’s most immersive and varied album to date.
“A tour de force road trip from psych rock to country duets that never strays too far from the spaghetti western roots that inspired the band so many blood moons ago… equal parts Ennio Morricone, Lee Hazelwood, and Nick Cave with a touch of Chris Isaak’s less romantic side… few if any artists are brave and/or creative enough to channel this ghostly, often ominous vibe into moving, sensual and stirring music.”
— Hal Horowitz, American Songwriter
RHODODENDRON
Rhododendron is a band from Portland formed in early 2019 by a trio of Portland School of Rock students “with shared interests in jazz and left-field prog rock,” according to Willamette Week.
They take sonic cues from old-school math rock and post-hardcore along with a healthy dose of post-rock, drone, jazz and whatever music they might be listening to.
“Of the young guitar bands popping up in Portland, Rhododendron is one of the most ambitious and eccentric — and one of the tightest,” says Willamette Week.
FAMILY WORSHIP CENTER
Feeling spiritually and artistically aimless, Family Worship Center’s shamanistic figurehead Andy Krissberg took a brief hiatus from creating music. He embarked on a freewheeling, soul-searching journey inspired by the late ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax. Krissberg visited remote places across the country, creating field recordings of musicians he met straight to vinyl on a 1940s record lathe.
His adventures led him to fleabag motels, sketchy back alleys, lonely restaurants and dive bars. His crusade had him rummaging through old record stores, antique stores, swap meets for long forgotten albums, singles, artwork and books. On one of his expeditions, in a now-defunct record store in Nashville, Krissberg stumbled upon a 21-page bible for a strange cult-like collective that billed themselves as Family Worship Center.
Leafing through the yellowed pages, he felt a strange resonance with the Family’s communal quest for Groove enlightenment. Family Worship Center proposed a simple prescription to achieve a utopian existence: Surrender material possessions. Walk to the beat. Never hurt another Family Member. In a private mystical moment, Krissberg vowed to adhere to these beliefs, and is now eager to share the message with others through song as the band, Family Worship Center.
Family Worship Center specializes in a strain of redemptive, 1970s-styled rock n’ roll that recalls the Rolling Stones, Leon Russell, The Band, and Delaney & Bonnie. The band formed in 2017 in Nashville but has since relocated to Portland. In 2020, Family Worship Center released the EP “Sunday A.M.,” recorded by Grammy-winning producer Eddie Spear (Rival Sons, Blackberry Smoke, Lukas Nelson), and featuring musicians associated/who have played with The Band, Deer Tick, Ringo Starr, James Brown, Keith Richards and Foxygen, among others. The Family’s 2023 “Kicked Out Of The Garden” features a core band of devoted musicians, and was produced by Portland go-to producer Cameron Spies (Spoon Benders, Shivas) who specializes in what he calls “mid-fi.”
CLUB DELUXE
Club Deluxe was formed by Riley McLaughlin in 2018 as a rowdy three-piece featuring members of YUVEES. Inspired by bands both from the 1960s like Captain Beefheart, the Stooges and Blue Cheer, and contemporary rock bands like King Khan, Ty Segall and Deerhoof, Club Deluxe blends dissonant and distorted guitar with a bombastic rhythm section, underneath vocals that range from lethargic talk-sing to authoritative and manic hollering.
JAKKI AND THE PINK SMUDGE
Jakki and the Pink Smudge, lovingly referred to as “Smudge,” are an indie-rock firecracker making waves in the Portland scene. The band’s multifaceted nature has cultivated a strong presence in the Portland, Los Angeles, and Houston music scenes, playing alongside artists such as Mavi, the Aquadolls, and Never Ending Fall. The band gets its charming name from the inevitable smudging of Jakki’s lipstick while performing. With every smear, Jakki and ghe Pink Smudge continue to emote their own distinctive, moving and peachy sound.
The band blends indie-punk-funk and fuzz rock with a peachy, vibrant edge. Their sound is a dynamic fusion of gritty riffs, punchy grooves, and dreamy textures, echoing their strong influences in the bold energy of No Doubt, the atmospheric depth of Radiohead, and the lo-fi charm of Galaxie 500 and PACKS.
@TLAS
The year was 2015. In anticipation of some delicious curry stew, a three-hour jam occurred on the porch of reggae/afrobeat singer Simba Tirima in Moscow, Idaho, the proggy jazzy, folksy three-piece “@tlas,” was formed by Ben Walden, Machado Mijiga, and Ben Swanson — an off-shoot of the then-popular local reggae/afrobeat band: Simba and the Exception Africans (where Mijiga and Swanson played sax and trombone, respectively.)
Fast-forward nine years, three bassists and two albums later, and @tlas has since relocated to Portland and gained the eclectic and wildly talented Matthew Holmes on bass and vocals.
@tlas is an opportunity to explore the sonic possibilities of a “garage band” — DIY collaborative songwriting covering a wide range of genres, modes of expressivity, and varying degrees of improvisation/structure across all songs.
@tlas is named thusly because they take the listener many places; @tlas is a collection of musical souls, waiting to be picked up off of the listener’s bookshelf, discovering uncharted territory, and putting language and meaning to the abstract and unknown.
TWINGLE
Twingle is the moniker of songstress and multi-instrumentalist Anna Sabatino, based right here in Portland. Raised in a one room cabin in the small Colorado town of Evergreen, she began writing songs at a young age featuring guitar and banjo.
Her roots are in old-timey folk and bluegrass, but later went on to realms of experimental/psychedelic/prench pop — which all work to cultivate her sound and melodic patterns. Her songs live somewhere in the realm of familiar but entirely unexpected. Twingle’s debut 2024 album, Future Caviar, is a can of worms focusing on the personal lives of female writers of the 19th and 20th centuries. The album was recorded to tape in the garage of Anna and Eric Sabatino (also a St. Johns stalwart) and produced by their dear friend Tommy Hollywood.
WILLIAM DELEE
William DeLee is one of the most proficient pickers in Portland. His three-track cassette “Improvisations for Guitar and Charango,” released last year via Bud Tapes, is an enchanting listen that explodes the sepia-toned American primitive finger-picked approach to his chosen instrument into spectacular, colorful explosions of notes and drones.
PATRICK MCCULLEY/GRANT PIERCE DUO
Patrick McCulley is a Portland-based saxophonist, educator, composer and creator who seeks to transform the saxophone from a purely melodic instrument into an undefinable and unstoppable force of nature.
McCulley’s solo compositions and improvisations sculpt the saxophone’s sound into transcendent metaphors for emotions not often expressed in music: the inescapable vagaries of change, the ecstatic joy of flight, and the yearning search for renewal amidst destruction. His music uses an array of extended techniques to defy conventional idioms in favor of raw, provocative, honest and unusual sounds without abandoning the listener to the chaos of pure noise.
Grant Pierce is a drummer and songwriter from Portland. His music explores jazz, folk song, and heavier noise. He is a member of Halfbird, Young Hunter, June Rose, Stalwart Young, SPCJMRZ and Not Bitter.
PETE KREBS
Pete Krebs has been a member of the Portland musical community since 1988.
His bands Hazel, Golden Delicious, the Stolen Sweets, the Portland Playboys and the Catnip Brothers have explored genres as diverse as punk rock, gypsy jazz, western swing and vintage jazz, traditional folk and country. His discography contains dozens of releases on a variety of labels including Cavity Search, Rough Trade and Sub Pop.
He has toured extensively both domestically and abroad, sharing the stage with a diverse mix of musicians including Nirvana, Elliott Smith, Dead Moon, Peter Rowan, Patrick Saussois, the Hot Club of Cowtown, Sleater-Kinney, the Holy Modal Rounders, Michael Hurley. The Freak Mountain Ramblers and hundreds of others. He has performed at Lollapalooza, the Portland Jazz Festival, CMJ, Pickathon, Bumpershoot, and SXSW, and at legendary venues including Preservation Hall, CBGB’s, the Troubadour and the Knitting Factory.
He has played extensively in Oregon’s wine country at wineries large and small, including Archery Summit, Domaine Serene, Stoller, Sokol Blosser and Rex Hill. He is a two-time inductee into the Oregon Music Hall of Fame. An in-demand performer, teacher and session musician, he lives in Portland.
FARNELL NEWTON
Trumpeter Farnell Newton is one of the Northwest’s most versatile musicians, playing straight-ahead jazz, smooth jazz, Latin music, soul, hip hop, funk and more.
In the last few years, Farnell has toured with three-time Grammy winning singer/songwriter Jill Scott and with the Legendary Rhinestone Rockstar Bassist Bootsy Collins. In previous years, Farnell has performed with great musical artists, including George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic Dumpstaphunk, the Nth Power, Lettuce, Karl Denson, Fred Wesley, Stevie Wonder and many others.
OPERA ON TAP
Bio and photo coming soon!
ANTS ANTS ANTS
Ants Ants Ants is an Oregon-based family music band with original songs that evoke vivid imagery of childhood at its best.
With stylistic nods to 1970s-era Sesame Street, School House Rock, and “The Point” by Harry Nilsson, Ants Ants Ants recalls the best elements of a fun and fanciful childhood!
Between them, these music-makers have released many albums over the years (Johnny with the Dimes, and Dave and Nat with Derby), each enjoying a run of regional and national buzz, radio play, and critical reviews (Spin Magazine, NPR Song of the Day, etc). After more than 10 years relentless touring, recording and pursuing the traditional indie path, these Ants eventually got off the road and began tunneling their way deeper into the recording studio. With this newfound creative freedom came opportunities to write songs in different styles and genres, which brought them into the world of writing for film and television.
KCPUPPETREE
Kelly Campbell (KCPuppetree) is a nationally recognized puppeteer and performer, known for presenting exemplary environmental education through the art of puppetry. Kelly has trained in theatre her entire life and has a deep love for art, the environment, and the magical world around us!
Since a young age, Kelly has had a passion for theatre and the puppet arts, and trained in puppetry with Lunatique Fantasique (San Francisco), Joy Puppet Theatre (Portland), and The Eugene O’Neill Theatre Center (Waterford, CT).
As a company member of Tears of Joy Puppet Theatre for eight years, Kelly toured with several productions throughout the Pacific Northwest and taught week-long puppet-making residencies in Portland area schools. Harnessing her deep love of puppetry, Kelly has attended the Eugene O’Neill Puppetry Conference multiple times; performed at The Center for Puppetry Arts (Atlanta); led puppetry workshops at Atlanta’s DragonCon; regularly collaborates with puppeteer peers around the country; and is an active member of The Puppetry Guild of Portland and Puppeteers of America.
Since it’s creation in 2013, KCPuppetree has produced numerous successful puppet shows, and has toured throughout CA, OR, WA, MT, SD, ND, and MN. With environmental stewardship as a central focus of most productions, KCPuppetree contracted with the Portland Bureau to present Water Conservation puppet show assemblies to Portland Elementary students.
Kelly continues to offer weeklong puppet-making and performance residencies through Young Audiences and the Columbia Gorge Institute of Arts.
MR. BEN
Mr. Ben (Ben Thompson) is a Portland-based children’s musician and singer-songwriter. A veteran of the music industry, Mr. Ben has been teaching music full-time for more than a decade and playing music for 30 years. He also owns Singers and Stompers LLC, a company dedicated to enriching the lives of children through exposure to live music and music education, and has been known to play at local Portland venues as well as private events (like kid’s birthday parties!).
MO PHILLIPS
What is Mo-Fi? A TERRIBLY UNSOPHISTICATED WAY TO HAVE A GREAT TIME!
Mo Phillips is a teaching artist and fun-time maker in Portland. He writes and records songs, makes oddball videos, and produces choose-your-own-adventure musicals, all in Mo-Fi. Mo-Fi is a way of making art centered on joy and exploration, primarily of inexpensive apps that do silly stuff.
When not teaching song writing in schools or shredding ukulele for the people, Mo is a dad. That’s his favorite job; the rest is just gravy.