As if you didn’t know, the only thing anybody seems to care about today is the King Of Pop passing away. RIP MJ indeed.

• Arootsakoostic Festival is this weekend and hosts a pretty eclectic lineup, including many of the Portland scene’s finest acts! Someone report back to us with photos!
• The fantastically done crowdfunded documentary project, The Sunday Best, has a great feature on Galen Richmond (Computer At Sea) up now.
• The Press Herald is apparently (mostly) free now. Interesting move. Maybe now I’ll read an issue.
• On Thursday, Feel It Robot played their final show (though I’ve already heard about a new project on the way from some of the members that sounds promising) with the newly solo Aly Spaltro/Lady Lamb The Beekeeper. Word is it was an interesting show.
• Tonight is the Sun Gods In Exile CD release show at SPACE, which also happens to be the debut of new local band Murciélago.
• The Saint Lawrence is hosting their annual yard sale starting on Saturday at 10am. Get there early to score those killer finds. Keep an eye out for a Luau Lulu lamp for me, I want to make a matching set.
• Zombie Kickball is happening this Sunday at 2pm on the Eastern Prom. Afterparty at SPACE with Covered In Bees and more. BRAINS!
• If you’re feeling extra ambitious (and East End-centric) you could even try to squeeze in a bit of the Society Of East End Arts open studio tour around your brain-eating escapes, 10am-4pm.
• Check out this live video of Spencer And The School Spirit Mafia doing their song “A Sheep In Wolf’s Clothing.” I got to hear their upcoming record last week and this is definitely a standout track on it, though the rest of them aren’t too bad either. I imagine the album will go over really well. We’ll find out in a few weeks!
• Next Friday: A super special announcement from HillyTown Presents. Get ready for August.
• Pssst. Thanks for the mention.

Check out the new Portland Pins site (it’s still making its way through the internet, but should be fully functional by the mid-afternoon). We’ve got new drop boxes around town to help you get your designs submitted. We’ll be debuting more new pins and even a new machine next Friday!

We spent a marathon pin-making night with Kris Johnsen of Emblem Studio (and additional help from Jess from SPACE) getting ready for the debut of the Portland Pins project this weekend. Stop by Eli-Phant (253 Congress St., Portland) tonight on the First Friday Art Walk for the opening of their Unkle Thirsty exhibit and check out the results of the project. With all of the great contributions we received, you stand to get some amazing one-of-a-kind artwork on a pin for just 25 cents (which can actually get you up to 3 pins sometimes). This weekend marks Eli-Phant’s one year anniversary, so the excitement continues with a party tomorrow!

On to the listage:

• The Point is posting much more frequently now, apparently fueled by the local music scene controversies they started recently. They even got a response from Chris Gray in this week’s Phoenix.
• Speaking of our city’s weekly paper, their music awards show on Wednesday was quite a spectacle. The Asylum was crowded with the whole spectrum of Portland’s music scene, along with a fancifully decked out newspaper staff (men in white jackets, ladies in red dresses) who were all packed elbow to elbow to chow down on free pizza, wings, salty crab balls (catchphrase of the event, for sure), and an assortment of cheeses. Oh, and there were performers and some sort of prizes given out. Many of the winners were about as predicted (both for good and bad), but some of the surprises (and overdue victories) made the night even more exciting.
• Last night we, and just about everybody else in town who goes out to see live music, headed to the Nickelodeon to catch the 48 Hour Music Festival documentary. Director David Camlin took on a huge project and put it all together masterfully. Following the process of organizing the project and putting the bands together was much more compelling than the final sequence with the live show footage (the afterparty footage was probably best left out, thankfully), but fans of the bands (or friends) will enjoy the DVD, which includes the entire concert. When you’re done Artwalking tonight, get to Geno’s to see some of the bands born out of this project, while helping the guys raise some funds for this great project!
• Our friends at the Pine Haven Collective have an art show – Revival – opening down at ellO Gallery in Portsmouth, in case you’re the state border-crossing type.
• Apparently the Blink-182/Fall Out Boy show at the Civic center is being postponed from the previously announced August 8th date. Don’t cry too much.

Since this isn’t actually Portland related at all (oh wait, there was that awesome Sonic Youth/Pixies Clash Of The Titans this week, right), it goes outside the list. Next week is Sonic Youth week on Pitchfork TV. Yes, please.

This is a reminder that today is the deadline for getting your Portland Pins designs turned in to us for them to be included in the debut of the project this weekend at Eli-Phant! If you’ve filled out a template sheet, you can drop it off at the box in the lobby of SPACE Gallery (538 Congress) – you may be headed there tonight for the Pink Mountaintops show anyway – or at Eli-Phant (253 Congress).

If you didn’t get your pin designs finished up yet, that’s ok. The project is ongoing, and we will continue to take submissions and add them to the collection periodically.