OPB's State of Wonder

State Of Wonder To Amplify Tin House's 'Plotto' Flash Fiction Contest

Malia Jensen "Ground Effects"

One of Portland's top contemporary artists talks to us about new work on view at Elizabeth Leach Gallery in Portland and Marion Goodman Gallery in London, and her move back from New York.

Oct. 8: Drive-By Truckers Live, Art Museum Expansion, Tin House Fiction Contest, Malia Jensen & More

Doing the hard work never sounded so good. We turn to some veteran creatives this week for the antidotes to antic times. Drive-By Truckers' "American Band" Takes On A Mad World - 1:48 Ever since coming together in Athens, Georgia, in 1996, The Drive-By Truckers have reinvented southern rock and its assumptions about identity and tradition. While the band has seen plenty of personnel changes over the years, the heart of the Truckers' sound is the musical partnership between Mike Cooley and Patter...

Uroboros To Close Operations In Early 2017

Portland art glass manufacturer Uroboros just announced that the company plans to close the plant that it has operated on North Kerby Ave. in Portland for over 43 years.

Oct. 1 - Ursula K. Le Guin | Pete Krebs | U.S. PTO v. The Slants | Portlandia v. Bookstore

This week’s show: curveballs and home runs. New developments are on deck in the saga of Oregon’s art glass makers, and for one act trying to get recognition for its entirely ironic band name. Plus we bring back a favorite from last year, to get you primed for Wordstock. Hope you’ve got your helmet on — all the best bombs are dropping! Thanks for helping us make this listener-supported show every week. Give a gift, before you do anything else this weekend. Supreme Court Will Hear The Slants Trade...

Pete Krebs' Autumn Trifecta

Pete Kreb’s career can be read as an index marker for Portland’s musical identity. He came up a scruffy kid when the city was a dark, dank proving ground for punk. He got his musical passport stamped at all the legendary clubs playing in bands like Thrillhammer and Hazel. Pete Krebs has a big trifecta in October - he just released a career retrospective of songs called, “Hey Pete Krebs”. He’s also getting back together with Hazel bandmates to celebrate the release of a recently-unearthed 1993 li...

Kahlief Adams On Gaming For Change

Podcaster extraordinaire Kahlief Adams of "Spawn On Me" gives us a preview of his upcoming talk at AffectConf — while playing, of course. He and his co-hosts hosted a Twitch session in January 2014 that raised $5000 in one weekend for Black Lives Matter and other causes.

Maria Bamford Blows Up With Lady Dynamite

Maria Bamford delivers the deets on her hit Netflix series, "Lady Dynamite", rebooting after a breakdown, and her magnificent range of voicings. Bamford headlines the All Jane Comedy Festival Oct 5-9.

Maria Bamford WEB EXTRA - Extended interview

The All Jane Comedy Festival scored big this year, landing Maria Bamford as headliner for the final night of the festival next month. Bamford has carved out a space as one of the most innovative voices in comedy. Her stand-up is a master-class in subversion, with a mild-mannered wide-eyed midwestern-ness is a great foil for just about anything she wants to talk about. But Bamford’s kicked it into fifth gear with her marvelously goofy Netflix series, “Lady Dynamite”. In it, she plays a fictionali...

Alternative Justice In Portland Music Communities

The gut-wrenching conversation over safety and sexual assault continued this week in Portland’s music community. As police investigate claims against a local musician, deep dissatisfaction with the criminal justice response to sexual assault has some looking for workarounds.

Sept. 24 | Maria Bamford | Loch Lomond | Kahlief Adams | Carla Rossi | Alternative Justice + more

When life gives you mental breakdowns and dysfunctional justice, use them to make something new. Settle in; we’re spinning tales of artists digging into the toolkit to delve identity and community. Sometimes these things can be found only a few levels up. Maria Bamford — 00:59 Maria Bamford is headed to Oregon next month to headline the All Jane Comedy Festival. She’s easily one of the most innovative voices in comedy today, mashing wide-eyed midwestern-ness with pure subversion. Bamford’s Netfl...

Drag Queens & Indians: Or What Cher & Peter Pan Have In Common

The multimedia artist Anthony Hudson is best known around Portland for his drag queen persona, Carla Rossi — a white-faced clown of a queen who bills herself as the "ghost of white privilege." But now Hudson is going to drop the make up, or, at least the wig, for a full-length performance exploring his own identity as a half-white, half-Native American kid that's called "Looking for Tiger Lily," at the Hollywood Theater Sept. 30 and Oct. 1. "I'm German on my mom's side and Grand Ronde tribal mem...

Loch Lomond on Its New Album, 'Pens from Spain'

One thing we love about the Portland band Loch Lomond is that, ever since Ritchie Young started it 13 years ago, it has operated as a revolving collective of musicians, depending on who’s available to tour and record. That means that every time they release a new album, they have to update the count. With “Pens from Spain,” out this month on Hush Records, it has grown to a whopping 75 musicians. “It is really a big, rotating family,” says Young — a fact reflected in the refrain of the title trac...

Will Future Skyscrapers Be Built of Wood?

Among all the buildings going up in the biggest boom in Portland history, only one of them can be called the first of its kind in the nation. It’s a simple four-story building called Albina Yard on North Albina Street. On the ground floor is Tanner Goods and a new bar, Wayback. The top three floors are office. But it’s the material stretching in between them that is the big deal. Instead of steel and concrete, the floors, ceilings and columns are made of cross-laminated timber, or CLT for short....

Sept. 17: Where Art and Science Collide, High-Rises Made of Wood, The Minders and Sharita Towne

Will Future High-Rises be Made of Wood? Among all the buildings going up in the biggest boom in Portland history, only one of them can be called the first of its kind in the nation. Instead of relying on steel and concrete, the four-story Albina Yard is built entirely of cross-laminated timber, or CLT for short. Randy Gragg, State of Wonder's architecture columnist in residence, stops by to discusses how CLT stands to revolutionize construction, offering a pre-fabricated material that is faster ...

Sharita Towne Sees Our City In Stereo

Sharita Towne’s photo exhibition on view this month at Newspace Center for Photography is designed to help people to see the gentrification of Portland in a new way. “Our City in Stereo” evolved through a residency at North Portland’s c3:initiative with research and a series of community events. This weekend Towne and Newspace are inviting everyone to get in on the action, with an event for sharing photos and stories about Portland’s gentrification. The Cascade Stereoscopic Club will present som...

Oregon Playwright Shoots True With 'The Gun Show'

E.M. Lewis tells five stories from her life that capture every side of the debate, from growing up with guns to being held at gunpoint. Read the full story: http://www.opb.org/radio/article/em-lewis-the-gun-show-coho-theater

Safer Altogether | Women In Portland Music Scene Confront Sexual Assault

Last weekend, a Portland musician who plays in several bands made a shocking admission on his Facebook page. Joel Magid described in graphic terms how he’d tried to rape a woman, until, he says, a friend intervened. The response from women — and some men — in Portland music circles was swift and staggering. We spoke with some women who had had strong reactions.

Sarah Clarke

This is one of a collection of interviews this week reacting to the very public revelation of a sexual assault by Portland musician Joel Magid. Listen to this week's show for more. Sarah Clarke is the lead singer of the band Dirty Revival. “What I’m struck by is there’s a lot of silence. It’s important for us to say, “Tell me what you think and let’s talk about this’.”

Elizabeth Elder

This is one of a collection of interviews this week reacting to the very public revelation of a sexual assault by Portland musician Joel Magid. Listen to this week's show for more. Liz Elder is half of the creative team for the music podcast Party Boyz. She books talent for the Portland bar, The Liquor Store, founded the Lose Yr Mind Music Festival, and hosts a weekly radio show on XRAY FM. “I think the first thing is the trauma. It’s something that’s so intimate — you don’t feel like sharing it...

Ali Clarys

This is one of a collection of interviews this week reacting to the very public revelation of a sexual assault by Portland musician Joel Magid. Listen to this week's show for more. Ali Clarys is a singer and synth player, and performs with several bands: Tiburones, the Secret Drum Band, and Death Songs. “We trust our peers to the utmost extent. That level of trust combined plus vulnerability from drugs and alcohol is a dangerous thing.”

Jeni Wren Stottrup

This is one of a collection of interviews this week reacting to the very public revelation of a sexual assault by Portland musician Joel Magid. Listen to this week's show for more. Jeni Wren Stottrup is a music journalist, producer of the Gritty Birds podcast, and host on the community radio station XRAY-FM. She’s performed her own original material and sung with Shy Girls. “I was in a band that was all dudes. I was the only girl. They were lovely to me. I know that my experience has been differ...

Sept. 10: The Gun Show, Remembering Bob Ross & Rick Bartow, Rock'n'Roll and Sexual Violence & More

Oregon Playwright Shoots True With 'The Gun Show' - 1:15 “The Gun Show” tells five stories about guns drawn from the life of the award-winning playwright E.M. Lewis. She grew up in rural Oregon, where she was surrounded by guns, and she learned to shoot on a date with her husband-to-be. But then she found herself on the other end of a barrel during a robbery, followed by two other deeply troubling experiences, one of which ended in the death of her husband. Suffice it to say, she knows firsthand...

PMOMA Becomes Houseguest At The Square

This weekend, Portland’s Pioneer Courthouse Square transforms into a weekend-long art party. Libby Werbel of the Portland Museum of Modern Art (PMOMA) will take over the Square through a cool new residency series called Houseguest. She’s also programming one night of The Works — that’s the raucous nightly afterparty for PICA’s Time Based Art Festival — with some of her Houseguest performers and a few choice Portland artists. Werbel grew up in Portland, but left after High School to study and wor...

Sept. 3: Image Moves to PDX, Rose City Comic Con Preview, Kelly Sue DeConnick on Bitch Planet & More

Gather ‘round, True Believers. We’re getting all geeked up for the Rose City Comic Con, Sept 10–11. It’s always a hot ticket, given the critical mass of comics creators making their home around these parts now, but we were especially charmed by this year’s crop. Image Comics Moving to Portland - 1:10 We start things off with some breaking news. Rumors have been flying that we were the first to confirm: Image Comics is moving to Portland. Image is the third largest publisher in the industry with ...

Image Comics to Move to Portland

For a week, rumors have been circulating that Image Comics, the nation's third largest comic book publisher, is moving to Portland. OPB can now officially confirm the rumor. Image plans to relocate its staff of more than 20 people to the Montgomery Park Building in northwest Portland by early next year, adding its $50 million in annual sales to Portland’s already booming comics industry. State of Wonder explores what sets Image apart and makes it a dream team-up with Portland, before sitting dow...

Bandette Steals Hearts, Jewels, Eisners

The husband and wife creative team of Paul Tobin and Colleen Coover are getting ready to publish “The House of the Green Mask”, the third volume of their effervescent creation, that Audrey Hepburn of master thieves, “Bandette”. The series won two Eisner awards for best digital comics series in 2013 and this year. Bandette is a pert, teen-aged thief living a barely-closeted life of crime. She steals to delight herself, leaping across the rooftops of the city to tweak the noses and egos of the rea...

PICA Kicks Off TBA Festival With Horn Extraordinaire Kelly Pratt And A Sea Of Horn Players

Imagine hundreds of horn players — trumpets, trombones, tubas, French horns — surrounding you in a warehouse, their notes surging, diverging, and sloshing from side to side, wall to wall, like whiskey in a barrel on the back of a bucking bull covered in glitter. And you are a small clown fish in that barrel, drunk on music. Yes, it’s an outrageous metaphor. But it is, after all, the opening night event for this year’s Time-Based Art Festival on Sept. 8, where outrageousness is served in spades. ...

Can Ages and Ages Make Songs About Earthquakes and the End of Civilization Fun? Yes, They Can.

Can Ages and Ages make songs about earthquakes and the end of civilization fun? Yes, yes they can. No one can deny that the band Ages and Ages is infectious. All those hand claps and group harmonies have made songs like "No Nostalgia" and "Do the Right Thing" total NPR ear worms. But the band has changed tack on their new album, “Something to Ruin.” The music is just as infectious, but the subject matter has become much more topical, dealing with issues of booming real estate, mass consumerism, ...

Aug. 27: LAIKA's Kubo, End of XOXO Festival, PICA TBA Preview, Ages and Ages & More

XOXO's Pulls Plug on the Festival, But Plugs in a New Workspace - 1:15 Over the last four years, the XOXO Festival has become a premier destination for the intersection of creativity and technology, drawing blog stars, DJ sensations and creators like the folks behind Cards Against Humanity, while regularly turning away hundreds of would-be attendees each year. Yet co-founders Andy Baio and Andy McMillan are hitting the brakes. There will not be a XOXO festival in 2017. That’s not to say they wil...