the ascetic junkies grow, whiskey stomping their ‘urge to rock’

Matt Harmon and Kali Giaritta are original Junkies. These two Junkies are connected at the hip. They do everything together and now they’re engaged.

But as the two Junkies have grown closer together, they’ve also allowed others to sneak into The Ascetic Junkies–a band that started as two in Boston but has organically swelled to five in Portland.

Matt and Kali arrived in Portland two years ago with an indie-folk album written and recorded in Kali’s bedroom. Two thousand eight’s One Shoe Over the Cuckoo’s Nest was “almost entirely Kali and I,” says Matt, adding that they often had to coax friends to fill in the instrumental gaps on stage as there was no fixed line up for the East Coast Junkies.

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Read the rest on OMN.

the dimes play free music millennium in-store

As December rolls in, it's time to cozy up in your neighborhood record store and enjoy warm, acoustic strumming and whimsical, historical narratives.

On their second album, The King Can Drink the Harbor Dry, The Dimes added some instruments and doubled in size while singer/songwriter Johnny Clay began buffing up on his history of Boston.

Inspired by stories of our founding fathers, specifically strong women, he name drops Susan B. Anthony, Abigail Adams, Clara Barton, and Mary Dyer like calling defendants at a witch trial.

With sunny melodies and floating rhythms, I thought they wouldn't be back so soon after their album release party at Mississippi Studios on November 14th. Yet, The Dimes are playing a free acoustic show at Music Millennium on Tuesday, December 1st at 7 PM and also announced a NYE extravaganza at the Mission Theater with Weinland.

So come soak up the stories inside while The Dimes sow the seeds of history.

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Read this article on The Deli Portland.

the dimes historify indie rock

Beantown, Red Sox, Harvard, Irish immigrants, and Paul Revere. What does any of this have to do with Portland indie-rock outfit The Dimes.

Everything, my friend. Everything.

On their sophomore release The King Can Drink The Harbor Dry, the quartet (recently multiplied to an octet) tackles the theme of Boston conjuring up images of Susan B. Anthony, Abigail Adams, Red Cross founder Clara Barton, Mary Dyer, and the great fire of 1872.

With crafty ingenuity and cleverness, the band accomplished to create love songs and story-telling tales rather than history lessons, a la Sufjan Stevens' poignant tributes to Michigan and Illinois.

Powerful females dominate the personalized odes, and the tunes are lovely gentle and full-spirited. Plus you getta sail through the Boston Harbor discovering the details behind the tracks.

The album came out this week and if you missed their listening party at Mississippi Studios you can still catch release parties in Eugene and Ashland in mid-December.

And while we're at it, why not watch The Dimes perform in a cupcakery.

The Dimes at St. Cupcake from The Penny Jam on Vimeo.

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Read this article on The Deli Portland.

playing portland's workshops, retail + grocery outlets

The Penny Jam makes awesome videos of PDX artists playing under bridges and on overpasses, in empty museums and cupcakeries. They've got a whole host of stuff including The Dimes, Explode Into Colors, Mattress, The Ascetic Junkies, Celilo and more.

They're up to 26 videos that you can download while checking out photos from the shoots. (Some of them even did that sweet May Ling video I posted yesterday although it wasn't meant to be that public, yet.)

A year ago, Starfucker (now PYRAMIDDD) performed "Dance Face" at Rudy's Barbershop.