The first episode of IFC’s Portlandia airs this Friday at 10:30.  Fortunately, because networks are getting better and better at airing their programs on the internet (and following what IFC did last year with The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret), Portlandia is available to watch,...

(Editor’s Note: Dolorean’s latest album, The Unfazed, is out today.  Go and get it NOW.) After I decided I wanted to write for a living, the first piece I wrote was a review for Violence in Snowy Fields, an Americana-tinged album by Dolorean, a band based in Portland.  When we launched...

Last April, on the newly christened holiday known as Record Store Day, a Portland music store called Jackpot Records rented out a launderette-turned-performance-space to continue the celebration of independent music into the wee hours of a Saturday night. Posters advertising the event were stapled...

I have a confession to make  — I’m a Brownie drop-out. It’s true. Not one of my more shining moments of life, it ranks right up there with the time I got caught stealing blue eye-shadow from the local five-and-dime. Blue eye-shadow. It’s humiliating to admit that I’m a quitter but that’s...

Okay, okay…not a fight per se.  More like a terse discussion. Before we go any further, I should point out that we here at Burnside are generally big fans of William P. Young (we published one of the first reviews of The Shack years ago and Mr. Young graciously joined a book project we worked...

Portland Monthly recently ran “Jesus’s Favorite City“, a cover story that touched on the unique nature of Christianity in Portland by speaking to prominent Portland pastors.  “A group of emerging liberal Christian leaders is rethinking GOD—in Portland’s image” the...

Shortly before we moved to Phoenix, we went out with some friends to Rontoms, a bar/restaurant on lower East Burnside. “Part of me is glad we’re moving for a while,” I told my friend Steve on the back patio, between puffs on American Spirit mediums.  I pointed at the tables packed...

[Music Editor's note:  Sometimes it's interesting what albums resonate among our writers.  Of course, any album with a heavy Portland connection is likely to be featured in the virtual pages of Burnside, but the new album from Menomena's Brent Knopf (as Ramona Falls) managed to be the subject of two...

The intersection of Burnside and SW Stark in downtown Portland. In 2005, I Googled Don Miller’s name after reading Blue Like Jazz. This led me to BWC. Ten minutes later, I knew I’d found a home. Big names like Donald Miller, Lauren Winner, and Derek Webb drew me in, but I stayed because of Jordan...

Americans need room to buy stuff Americans don’t need. I read an article in last week’s New York Times Magazine about the movement to convert vacant retail space into churches, museums, libraries, schools, and other community spaces. The article’s author, Rob Walker, quoted some statistics...