Cajun Tomato Playlist — February 2012 Edition

February 19, 2012 By Leave a Comment

The great Kendrick Lamar

The Mayan Year of Apocalypse is seven weeks in, and has yet to produce its first GREAT album. No worries. There are still 300 days until the world goes kablooey.

What is a GREAT album? The kind of album that makes me shun all other albums for a week straight or more.

Absent a GREAT album to obsess over, I have listened to several new and new-ish songs on repeat to pass the time in these dreary Portland winter months.

I encourage you to check out the songs below, as they hold something different for everyone.

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Filed Under: Dig This Tomato, Yo!, Music Tagged With: , , , , , ,

On Chris Paul’s Quiet Excellence

February 18, 2012 By Leave a Comment

As Chris Paul goes so do the Clippers.

The NBA’s slogan “Where Amazing Happens” summarizes the electric, skywalking game of Los Angeles Clippers forward Blake Griffin. On a nightly basis, he does something that makes fans shake their heads in awe, even if they are rooting against him.

Yet, Thursday night’s Clippers game against the Portland Trail Blazers in the Rose Garden reminded me that sometimes amazing is a more subtle occurrence. Sometimes it sneaks up on you. Sometimes it is an event you have seen unfold before, yet you marvel at its ending anyway.

While I lived near New Orleans, I witnessed point guard Chris Paul will the Hornets to victories in games they should have lost on several occasions. On Thursday night, I watched him do the same for his new team, the Clippers, in their 74-71 victory over the Blazers in Portland. (NOTE: The Hornets, who are owned by the NBA, traded Paul this offseason to the Clippers for players and a 2012 first-round draft pick.)

Paul’s fourth quarter performance against the Blazers, while not as Sportscenter-worthy as Griffin’s best dunks, was no less amazing in its ruthless execution and final result.

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Filed Under: Portland, Sports Tagged With: , , , , , ,

YACHT Answers Questions, Fails To Make Me Dance in PDX

February 11, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Claire Evans, a ghostly vision

Space dance group YACHT’s Thursday night performance at Wonder Ballroom in Portland doubled as a Q&A session, of sorts. The band’s two principal members — Jona Bechtolt and Claire Evans — often paused in between songs to take audience questions.

Occasionally, Bechtolt and Evens asked questions too. Evans, for instance, polled the audience on their belief in extraterrestrials. A sizable portion of the crowd raised their hands to indicate they did, leading the singer to announce the next song was about “aliens.”

My former roommate Scottie the Genius, formerly known as Scottie the Chef, turned to me and asked if Evans had said what he thought she said — that the song was about AIDS. I shook my head.

That exchange summed up my first concert experience of 2012.
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Filed Under: Concert Reviews, Live Music, Music, Portland Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Rockets’ Reserves Help Sink Trail Blazers, 103-96

February 9, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Blaze the Trail Cat.

The Rockets will struggle to score easy points, I told my friend Wastro three minutes into the Portland Trail Blazers’ home game against Houston Wednesday. I had seen enough of The Chandler Parsons Show to know it was headed for cancellation.

Two nights earlier, I watched Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook, and James Harden score at will in Oklahoma City’s overtime win over Portland. Yet, the Blazers matched the Thunder basket-for-basket, and should have won, save for a phantom goaltending call in the final 10 seconds.

Houston, by contrast, had no one in its starting lineup capable of striking fear in Blazers fans’ hearts. They started Parsons, a rookie drafted in the second round, for cripe’s sake.

In hindsight, I should have waited till the Houston’s subs entered the game before declaring their offense impotent. Or at least until the first timeout.

The Rockets bench scored 66 points and hit eight 3′s en route to a 103-96 road win over Portland. The Rockets led by as many as 19 in the third quarter, before the Trail Blazers rallied to seize a slim fourth quarter lead. Then, Houston coach Kevin McHale wisely put his bench back in. D’uh, coach!

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Filed Under: Portland, Sports Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Treefort Music Fest: Finally A Reason To Visit Boise in March?

February 9, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Click the poster for a better look at Treefort Music Fest’s lineup. As Willamette Week noted, the Boise, Idaho, festival has a sweet mix of Portland bands, in addition to headliners Of Montreal, Built to Spill and Why?

Is that enough to warrant a trip to the Land of the Smurf Turf? A Mapquest inquiry reveals Portland is 431 miles away from Boise. Perhaps, you might want to bike that distance for charity, eh? Naked bike ride? Even better.

Click below for my list of bands I would most want to see at Treefort Music Fest. Yes, I left out Boise’s own Built to Spill. I just have never gotten into them.

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Filed Under: Dig This Tomato, Yo!, Live Music, Music Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Refs The True Sixth Man As Thunder Edge Blazers

February 7, 2012 By 1 Comment

The scene before Monday's tip-off

“Fuck you, refs!” was the chorus Portland Trail Blazers fans screamed as they dejectedly exited the Rose Garden Monday night following a 111-107 overtime loss to the league-leading Oklahoma City Thunder.

I even heard a child who could not have been older than 3 years old attempt to say the words, only to fail miserably. Her mouth sounded like it was filled with cotton balls.

The adults’ furor I understood. The refs made two highly questionable calls in the final minute of regulation — a goaltending call against the Blazers that tied the game and then a no-call when the Blazers had possession with a chance to win the game.

The Sixth Man, it turned out Monday, was not the Blazers’ faithful, as advertised, but rather the three men prancing around in zebra costumes. Yes, the Blazers blew a six-point lead late in the game, but that would not have mattered had they received a friendly call, at some point. And thus, obscenities rained from the rafters in a fashion that reminded me of RIP City’s unrelenting winters.

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Filed Under: Portland, Sports Tagged With: , , , , , ,

ON BLAST: “July” by Youth Lagoon

February 5, 2012 By 1 Comment

Trevor Powers

NOTE: This is my third installment of On Blast. Also check out my write-ups on Frank Ocean and Twin Shadow.

From the song’s initial whispered verse to its bold, nostalgia-driven climax, a sense of wonder underlines Youth Lagoon’s “July.” It is the sound of a person coming of age, and it is exhilirating.

The person coming of age is none other than Trevor Powers, who was 20 when his album, The Year of Hibernation, released in 2011. Powers is a bedroom pop artist from Boise, Idaho.

Powers’ album received sterling reviews but I avoided listening to it until earlier this week. The bedroom pop label diminished my interest. His age and locale also made me, unfairly, question the hype.

Which, I now know, is ridiculous. “July” is one of my favorite songs released in 2011. It would have probably pushed its way into the top five of my favorite songs list had I heard it last year.

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On Softball, Illness And The Day’s Greatest Victory

February 5, 2012 By 1 Comment

Roadside Attraction Summer 2011

My right shoulder is communicating to me today in a surly, unspoken language. As best I can translate, it is saying, “you idiot, you didn’t stretch me enough before throwing the softball yesterday.”

So it goes. My right arm is tight. Plus, the nail on my right big toe is gone. Those are small sacrifices to make in exchange for playing softball in February, which I did yesterday in sun-drenched Irving Park.

A year ago at this time the ideas of hitting, fielding, or throwing a softball, or merely being outside, were as distant, for me, as setting foot on the moon.

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Filed Under: Musings, Portland, Sports Tagged With: , , , , ,

Cajun Tomato’s Top Posts Of January 2012

February 1, 2012 By Leave a Comment

The Mighty Pacific

My January in a nutshell: LSU lost, “Jersey Shore” returned, and I bought Coachella tickets. Oh, and I survived Snowpocalypse 2012 and watched truckloads of “Dexter” episodes.

Yep, that’s it. I am looking forward to spring. I want it to be T-Shirt Time RIGHT. THIS. SECOND!

Here are my five top posts for January 2012. Shoutout to Jordy Pujol, the author of my No. 1 post of this month.

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Filed Under: Breaking Bad, Dig This Tomato, Yo!, LSU, Music, Television Tagged With: , , , , ,