For those of you in the Portland Metro Area, pick up a copy! The LL story is on PAGE 49! For the rest of you, you can check out the story online here or you can download the pdf version here: http://www.justout.com/archives/issues/06_12_09/ or you can just read it right here, right now…

🙂

“ROCK BOTTOM YOUR WAY TO THE TOP”

Logan Lynn: Making Music That Matters

by Ryan J. Prado

By the time you read this, musician Logan Lynn will have undoubtedly dazzled a sold-out crowd at The Crown Room’s PDX Pride Kickoff event, alongside New York City’s Street Hero and a cast of DJ’s. There’s a good and simple reason for confidence in what is as of press time a foregone conclusion: Logan Lynn is one of Portland’s best original artists.

There. Borrowing a well-worn queer rallying cry, “It’s Official.”

The story of Logan Lynn’s music has its origins in his frequenting the warehouse party/techno din of the Midwest as a teenager.

“I was drawn to electronic music first because I stumbled upon the synthetic freedom that came with the drugs and dancing at the giant warehouse parties I was attending,” explained Lynn.

After beginning his journey in the realm of the working DJ, Lynn experienced an epiphany of sorts that would help guide him into what is currently a bona fide creative avalanche.

“At some point the techno crossed wires with all the years of listening to indie bands with female singer/songwriters, and I was left with sort of a combination of the two genres, but from a dude’s perspective,” said Lynn.

Almost 10 years passed before a friend of Lynn’s convinced him to share his music on Myspace. Within a year of his 2006 web debut, Lynn took the stage for his first real show, in front of 400,000 people at the Folsom Street Fair in San Francisco—all because the director of the event had come across his music online.

“I guess I was out of touch or something,” Lynn said. “Up to that point I had never really made the connection that there were MILLIONS of listeners at my fingertips and all I really had to do was get their attention.”

Now that he’s got it, Lynn has been steeped in a whirlwind of songwriting, beat-making and self-analysis, yielding the fruits for his new album, “From Pillar To Post”. The disc is due for release this fall on The Dandy Warhols’ Beat The World Records. Lynn has also hosted and been featured on MTV’s Logo network as part of the NewNowNext segment, and his video for the song “Feed Me To The Wolves” was honored by the channel among its Top Ten of 2008.

Lynn’s new album resonates in a lyrical web of sticky sentimentalism and salty resolve, accompanied by spookily catchy electronic sheen; the tandem creates an uneasy but addictive listen, and considering the events occurring during the two years Lynn spent making the record, thos assessments aren’t just journalistic cake frosting.

“Halfway into the process, my life fell apart…” explained Lynn. “I sort of broke it apart, but at any rate, it wasn’t good.”

Lynn ditched the city for a couple of months to clean up a chemical dependency and get his head straight. During this time, he planned what would be the beginning of his new path.

“When I got back to Portland, I threw out everything we had recorded and started over,” Lynn said. “I had taken the time away to sort things out, but the only way I knew how to do that was by writing songs, so that’s what I did. I came back feeling like a new man and proceeded to make an even newer record.”

“From Pillar To Post” is a musical conundrum in essence—both an electro touchstone for the club kids and a somber lyrical experience for connoisseurs of heady melodies.

“It’s a bit Mary Poppins,” said Lynn, “but I think when you are working with rough medicine, sometimes the spoonful of sugar is imperative to the process—both in me writing (the songs) and in (them) eventually being heard by others. I choose not to candy-coat the message, but instead try my best to keep the delivery on the sweet side.”

The general inability to apply an appropriate tagS—assuming one exists—to Lynn’s music coincides with his acknowledgement of the doors opened for him as a gay artist.

“Were it not for my having been so embraced by Logo and the gay press overall, the straight world wouldn’t have caught on,” Lynn said.

“My songs are about love and loss and feeling alone, which resonates particularly well with folks in the gay community. I think this is because we have a shared human experience, though, not just a shared gay experience. Pain is an across-the-board thing. I am a gay artist and am happy being one.”

-“Just Out” Weekly Newsmagazine
Issue 6/12/09

(Logan Lynn performs with Deastro and Wampire at 8PM Tuesday, June 23rd at Holocene, 1001 SE Morrison, $8. Visit blogout.justout.com for a full transcript of Lynn’s interview.)