ADVERSITY IS NOFUN when you're right in the middle of it. That's just a fact of life.
But once you get through tough times, there's usually good to be gained. Adversity makes you stronger, they say. It can illuminate the need for change, or remind you to appreciate what you have.
Adversity can fuel great art, too. That's the lesson of Soulboss, the new album from Portlander Sam Humans, a regular presence within the city's creative scene for the past 15 years.
Not long after moving to town in 2001, Humans started a pirate radio station called the Portland Radio Authority and broadcasted from his home for a couple of years. He formed rock 'n' roll bands—like Modernstate, ...worms, and O Bruxo—and recorded music with some of them while playing shows with others. As a hobby, he started building one-of-a-kind "creative noisemakers" of his own design, housing them in interesting packaging.
Things were going great. Humans, now 40, was living out his vision for an artist's existence in a town that valued such a thing.