SAT MAR 12
Dark/Light w/the Lavender Flu, Public Eye; Black Water Bar, 835 NE Broadway
Portland punks Dark/Light released the "Dark/Light" single in 2014, placing them in the same category of bands that named songs after themselves: Bad Company, Belle and Sebastian, every metal band ever. Dark/Light's eponymous song is a frosted wedge of post-post-punk, and the accompanying video is everything a punk music video should be—a no-frills, fly-on-the-wall performance piece, presumably shot in the band's very real, very grimy basement practice space. Tonight the group celebrates the release of a new 12-inch, and will be joined by likeminded brooders Public Eye and Flying Nun adherents the Lavender Flu.
David Crosby; Aladdin Theater, 3017 SE Milwaukie
For most people under the age of 50, David Crosby is probably best recognized for reasons that are non-musical: his voracious drug-use, his run-ins with the law, that slightly weird Melissa Etheridge thing, the fact that he looks like your old school bus driver. If Crosby is emblematic of '60s counterculture, then his descent into Laurel Canyon debauchery is a great metaphor for that culture caving in on itself (dude wasn't kidding when he recorded an album called If I Could Only Remember My Name).
Crosby the musician, though, is relatively overlooked. He may have lacked the instrumental proficiency of Stephen Stills and Neil Young or the quaint Englishness of Graham Nash, but his high, honeyed tenor is one of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young's most distinctive and defining elements. Amid an array of efforts recorded both solo and with CSNY, Crosby's best and most enduring contributions to the rock canon are still the gorgeous and bizarre songs he penned while in the Byrds—in particular, the Younger Than Yesterday cuts "Renaissance Fair" and "Mind Gardens," and the 1967 non-album single "Lady Friend"—one of the best '60s pop songs that was never a massive hit. [Note: The Aladdin Theater's website states that those under 21 can attend this show with a parent or legal guardian.]
