Music, Portland Mercury

Fall Out Boys to Men

Morgan Troper — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 04:00:00 -0700

Fall Out Boy is the hottest band in America—again. by Morgan Troper

ON NOVEMBER 20, 2009—less than four years ago—Fall Out Boy, at their commercial, critical, and sexual height, announced they were temporarily disbanding.

The group's reasoning behind the decision was fairly nebulous. Bassist, lyricist, narcissist, and resident pretty boy Pete Wentz laughably attributed the breakup to his now-defunct marriage to Ashlee Simpson, and the attendant tabloid attention, as a principal motivating factor (to be fair, it could have just been the Klonopin talking). Vocalist and guitarist Patrick Stump merely blamed the group's constant touring, writing, and recording schedule and the resultant lack of time each member had to focus on additional professional and personal endeavors (including Stump's deeply regrettable solo outing, Soul Punk)—an explanation which rings a little more realistic.

But it ultimately feels as if the hiatus was nothing more than a self-imposed, capitalist cryo-sleep, a strategic ploy intended to engender an unprecedented amount of hype for the inevitable fifth record. And Fall Out Boy has succeeded, like they always have and probably always will. The latest, Save Rock and Roll, debuted at number one in 27 countries—hardly a tepid comeback. Nobody can deny the group's marketing genius.

Not many people can deny their pop genius, either. Underneath the noxious, timeworn, mall-core veneer, early singles like "Sugar, We're Going Down," "Dance, Dance" (both off the group's major-label debut, From Under the Cork Tree), and "This Ain't a Scene, It's an Arms Race" (off the follow-up, Infinity on High) remain some of the best and most inspired guitar-pop songs penned in the last decade. The rest of those records aren't too shabby, either.

Barring some exceptions (including the first single, "My Songs Know What You Did in the Dark (Light 'Em Up)"), Save Rock and Roll is, sound-wise, markedly similar to the group's previous efforts, which isn't really surprising when you think about how insignificant a four-year hiatus really is. This is still the same band you've grown to love (or abhor). Patrick Stump may have lost some weight, and Pete Wentz certainly looks like less of an asshole, but these are essentially the same dudes. They're still comically histrionic, and value these gigantic ABBA-sized vocal hooks over everything else. And they're still the most artistically legitimate boy band since the Beatles. Or, at least, the Bay City Rollers.

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Destination Unknown

A.L. Adams — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 04:00:00 -0700

Marisa Anderson makes liquid compositions for guitar. by A.L. Adams

THREE THINGS will happen when you listen to Marisa Anderson's Mercury: you'll instantly get used to it, you'll never get tired of it, and you'll be flooded by your own personal filmstrip of dusty roads, rusty trains, craggy mountains, and weathered faces. This is by design.

"I want listeners to have visuals come up when they hear it," says Anderson of the (nearly) all-improvised series of solo electric tunes. The guitarist adds that she favors cinematic music that lacks vocals because, "for the genre I play—country blues—we already know what the words are anyway. They're part of our cultural vernacular to the extent that they don't need to be said again."

A former traveling activist and peace marcher, Anderson's played cowgirl pop (the Dolly Ranchers), improv jazz (Evolutionary Jass Band), and covers of classic bands like the Rolling Stones as literal "campfire songs" to sing with protestor buddies on the road. These days she plays, teaches, and records out of her Alberta home with a tight connection to Mississippi Records and plenty of booking contacts all over the US and Europe—and beyond that, nothing to prove. And the longer she's at it, the more the self-described "dinosaur" wings it.

"When I was playing with the Dolly Ranchers, I thought 'improv' was making up a solo during a composed song," she laughs. But taking jazz theory and arrangement at Portland Community College and joining the Evolutionary Jass Band—who improvised their live shows—"rearranged her brain." "Now I know that as long as I'm really present, really listening and aware of myself, my instrument, the audience, the room—then it's gonna happen how it needs to happen, in this moment."

That philosophy shines through Mercury in phrasing that flexes and patterns that switch midstream. Culled from hours of home-recorded live improvisations, the pieces—performed solo on guitar and lap steel—bear titles like "Mojave" and "Furnace Creek," evoking memories from Anderson's many travels. "This process is amorphous," she admits, "but you know when it feels right. It's like arranging furniture in a room, you know?"

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Information Overload

Ryan J. Prado — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 04:00:00 -0700

Kelli Schaefer's new EP draws outside the lines. by Ryan J. Prado

THE TITLE of Kelli Schaefer's new EP, 601, seems arbitrary until you spend a little time with her. The number's history as a computer error message—most notably in the 1971 sci-fi film The Andromeda Strain—indicates an information overload. The EP's cover shows Schaefer's head split into two directions while staying connected by a third eye. It drives home that, despite her respectable fanfare, the Portland artist's psyche is a fragile beast yet.

"I don't wanna talk about what the songs are about," says Schaefer, sitting across from me in the driver's seat of her white van. "Something I feel like we all struggle with, and maybe myself especially, is that fractured psyche of a million things happening all at once, and not being able to spend too much time on one thing long enough to get any results from it. It's just these little bits and pieces."

601 maneuvers through the random excesses of a wandering mind. Schaefer recorded its four tracks in her basement, mostly alone, dredging up stream-of-consciousness noises using percussive trinkets, vocal layering, and ambient soundscapes to craft an abstract art-pop listening experience. The opener, "Giants," is a vast, explosive sort of track that displays Schaefer's brilliantly expansive vocal acrobatics, and her ability for a kind of skewed perfection in terms of honest musical performance.

"I'm not going to release something unless I think it's really great," says Schaefer. "When I recorded the songs, I didn't really have any intention of releasing them; it was more just being creative. But it felt like I couldn't move forward until I put these songs out."

"Inside the House Where Nobody Lives," the EP's epilogue, pulses in a spiral of overlapping sounds and Schaefer's overdubbed harmonies. The song's super-extended, lone-note ending relishes in its repetition, providing a surreal bookend to the record.

Anyone who's seen Schaefer live can vouch for her willingness to let go, to become one with the room and the song. On her debut LP Ghost of the Beast, that resilience was relatively tame, though still notably tough. On 601, it's completely unsheathed and wild. Schaefer's nervous tension is palpable in her songs, made all the more topical, perhaps, due to the timing of our interview being the one-year anniversary of her sobriety from alcohol. Her day also consisted of stressfully trying to track down money for rent.

"A lot of time has gone by [since Ghost...] and I'm definitely in a completely different head space," says Schaefer, who admits that there's only been time enough to schedule two release shows—one of which already took place in Seattle—and no touring around the EP release. "I have so much social anxiety, sometimes I feel like the only place in the world I'm comfortable is on stage. I feel confident because it's something I'm good at, but then fucking everything I'm holding in just comes out, and gets crazier and crazier.

"What I would like in the future to be known as, music-wise, is that I create an experience for people," she continues. "I feel like I can get there sometimes, but getting people to step through the door with you is a challenge."

With Schaefer's transitional spirit intact on 601, perhaps that door is growing wider.

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Up & Coming

Wed, 12 Jun 2013 04:00:00 -0700

Music previews for the week of June 12-18.

WEDNESDAY 6/12

PARQUET COURTS, NAOMI PUNK, BLOOD BEACH
(Doug Fir, 830 E Burnside) See My, What a Busy Week!

XRAY FEST: 31KNOTS, MADE FOR TV MOVIE, E*ROCK, DJ CHAMPAGNE JAM, DJ SAFI
(Holocene, 1001 SE Morrison) See My, What a Busy Week!

THE RIVERA, LESSER BANGS
(The Goodfoot, 2845 SE Stark) Tonight songwriter Josh Rivera debuts the new lineup of his band the Rivera, which has recently completed work on a new album, recorded onto tape at Jackpot! Studio with John Askew. The album won't be out until later this summer, but the preview single, "Midnight Choir," is enough to get me incredibly excited about what the Rivera have in store. A soulful, Springsteen-esque rocker ingrained with shiny strands of power-pop, "Midnight Choir" is a humming, buzzing, flat-out terrific anthem that's half desperation and half joy. It's guided by a missile-like lead guitar that basically solos through the entire thing, Thin Lizzy style, while the male/female backing vocals on the chorus (by Hunter Paye and Amelia Thornton) echo Brill Building auteurs Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich. Even though I've just been streaming it on Soundcloud, I bet "Midnight Choir" has already become one of my most played songs of 2013, and I only became aware of it two weeks ago. NED LANNAMANN

THURSDAY 6/13

THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS, MOON HOOCH
(Crystal Ballroom, 1332 W Burnside) See My, What a Busy Week!

XRAY FEST: KELLI SCHAEFER, THE BEAUTY, VIN BLANC, GHOST TO FALCO, NO MORE TRAIN GHOSTS, DJ BILL PORTLAND
(Union/Pine, 525 SE Pine) Read our article on Kelli Schaefer.

ELEANOR FRIEDBERGER, TEEN
(Doug Fir, 830 E Burnside) An occupational hazard of being in a band with an exceptionally talented sibling—especially one as good as the Fiery Furnaces—is that folks will tend to perceive one of you as being the more gifted, the other as being the hanger-on. Matthew Friedberger has always been seen as the main Furnace, but Eleanor's solo career has proven that she is so much more than the lesser sibling in a buzz-worthy indie band. On 2011's Last Summer, and now with her just-released Personal Record, Friedberger's songwriting, instrumentation, and lyrics shine in new and unexpected ways. On this latest album, she collaborated with NPR darling John Wesley Harding, whose ironic worldview is perfectly tailored to Friedberger's self-aware subversion of singer/songwriter tropes. Meanwhile, Kristina Lieberson, formerly of Here We Go Magic, is responsible for the keyboard drones that serve as the backdrop for Teen's atmospheric vocals and complicated percussion. REBECCA WILSON

RICHMOND FONTAINE, IAN MOORE AND THE LOSSY COILS, THE GEODES
(Dante's, 350 W Burnside) Last month, Richmond Fontaine played a week's worth of stripped-down sets at Al's Den, but tonight they play their first full rock show in over a year and a half. Led by songwriter/author Willy Vlautin and with new bassist Freddy Trujillo in tow, Richmond Fontaine is nothing less than one of the greatest Portland bands of all time, and yes, I'm including the Wipers and Dead Moon. Traversing the wide, fascinating space between keening, melancholy country and shit-drunk bar rock, Richmond Fontaine hasn't turned in a dull record in more than 15 years of existence, and their last album, 2011's The High Country, was a fearlessly experimental radio play of sorts (don't let their laidback, drawling music fool you, it is one of the most ambitious records you'll hear). The possibility of hearing new Richmond Fontaine songs tonight is enough to get you in the door, but even if they don't play any, the old ones will do just fine. NL

AM AND SHAWN LEE, DON'T TALK TO THE COPS, ADVENTURE GALLEY
(Mississippi Studios, 3939 N Mississippi) Shawn Lee is a phenomenal multi-instrumentalist who can play a zillion instruments in a zillion different styles. Check out his ever-expanding catalog for ample proof. Miles of Styles might be an opportune place to start; Tabla Rock—a clever track-by-track reinterpretation of the Incredible Bongo Band's breakbeat bonanza Bongo Rock—might be a fortuitous spot to end... but only temporarily, as more Lee-conceived music is surely coming. With guitarist/vocalist AM, Lee focuses his songwriting within a more accessible funk/pop framework, with occasional forays into reggae/dub (check the Sleng Teng riddim of "Two Times"). Their two albums together, Celestial Electric and La Musique Numérique, are slick, pro-studio-dude works that abound with big, honkin' hooks and in-the-pocket beats. The duo's sparkling, devotional cover of "Steppin' Out" surely will make Joe Jackson—and probably you—ecstatic. DAVE SEGAL

PELICAN OSSMAN, MONTGOMERY WORD, DRAMADY
(The Know, 2026 NE Alberta) After a very long hiatus, Dan Currin and Virginia Currin of Pelican Ossman are back with Quarantine, their debut for local label Ewe of Now. The 10 tracks of anti-folk musings are tighter and less serious seeming than their songs from last decade. Pelican Ossman are unconcerned with folk rock that stands under a pristine and lush banner. Rather, they strive for lo-fi authenticity, a specific bedraggled mood that is totally lacking in preciousness. Frankly, it's a breath of fresh air. But with all its murky guitars and fuzzy samples, Quarantine doesn't eschew prettiness: "War" and "Come Along" are both surprisingly lovely. Ewe of Now labelmate Montgomery Word's druggy R&B pastiches will follow Amanda Mason Wiles and Zacery Quintin Stanley, the talented multi-instrumentalists in Dramady. Produced live, their layered pop songs are as much an exercise in impressive choreography (each person plays several instruments at once) as they are in songwriting. RW

FRIDAY 6/14

LOVERS, ATOLE, COINS
(Mississippi Studios, 3939 N Mississippi) See our Pride Guide.

GATHERING OF THE GOOFPUNX
(Various locations) See My, What a Busy Week!

PDX POP NOW! COMPILATION RELEASE: SAPIENT, SEAN FLINN AND THE ROYAL WE, SUMMER CANNIBALS, WISHYUNU
(Backspace, 115 NW 5th) PDX Pop Now!'s annual compilation is the best barometer of local music around, and this year's double-disc set is no exception. Featuring a staggeringly diverse 43 tracks from all walks of the Portland music scene, there are local hits, obscurities from unknown bands, and exclusive premieres of new tracks from big names. The only thing these astonishingly diverse songs have in common is that they're all great, and tonight's release party features four of the participants. Sapient—riding high on the artistic triumph of his recent, groundbreaking Slump album—headlines, but be sure to get there in time for Sean Flinn and the Royal We's stately, sun-flared folk-rock, Summer Cannibals' knife-sharp post-punk, and Wishyunu's sexy synth slow jams. NL

SPACE WAVES, SPIRIT LAKE, THOMAS MUDRICK AND (((BOING)))
(Doug Fir, 830 E Burnside) The ambitiously titled You Can Ride a Beam of Light Like a Musical Strum, the latest from workaholic dreamgazers Space Wave, offers chilled-out presence with an immediacy that's palpable when you're totally zoning out. That's most definitely a compliment. The band's coalescence has reached dizzying heights over the last year, having built their own studio, Mindwave, as well as minting their very own label, also called Mindwave. Whichever wave you want to apply to it is fine; You Can Ride... runs goopy, far-away guitars through the gauntlet of an eerie pre-dawn nightmare, scouring all the little essences of sonic mastery and head-down rock ambiance there may be available on earth to muster. RYAN J. PRADO

LIVE AND DIRECT: REV SHINES, SLIMKID3, DJ NATURE, STARCHILE
(Rotture, 315 SE 3rd) Those nostalgic for the days when tribes were called Qwest and clans were largely Wu-Tang can groove down to the smooth DJ stylings of the Pharcyde’s Slimkid3. Tre "Slimkid" Hardson, now on a solo mission and living in Portland, has been bringing us the monthly DJ remix set Live and Direct since 2009 along with conspirators Rev. Shines, DJ Nature, and Starchile, putting the “hip” back in hiphop. As they’ll be spinning everything from Kool and the Gang to the great MJ to Grandmaster Flash, one would be hard-pressed not to dance, or at the very least screech, “Oh my god, I love this song!” (This month features live painting by guest artist Keith Carter.) ROSE FINN

SATURDAY 6/15

SALUTE TO SUMMER: DJ COOKY PARKER, ELECTRIC ILL, ADVENTURE GALLEY
(Grand Central Bowl, 808 SE Morrison) See My, What a Busy Week!

BEASTIE BOYS TRIBUTE
(Wonder Ballroom, 128 NE Russell) See My, What a Busy Week!

GATHERING OF THE GOOFPUNX: THE TAXPAYERS, ARTISTIC CRISIS, HI HO SILVER AWAY, DETACHDOLLS, DANGER DEATH RAY, LIVING RHEUM
(PSU's Food for Thought Café, 1825 SW Broadway) The annual Gathering of the Goofpunx festival taking place all weekend (go to gatheringofthegoofpunx.tumblr.com for all shows and locations) was organized by local punk rock mainstays the Taxpayers. It's a celebration of DIY spirit and the community's acceptance of anyone willing to bring a positive attitude and embrace weirdness. It's fitting that the Taxpayers' headlining slot tonight also happens to be a record release for their latest LP, Cold Hearted Town. The nine-track album is layered with sax, trumpet, and piano, hooking you in with its dark jazzy swing and not letting go until the brilliant yet bleak acoustic closer "Evil Men." The vocals find a balance someplace between the deranged bark of Les Savy Fav's Tim Harrington and John Darnielle of the Mountain Goats at his most urgent. It's well worth a listen, and the material should make a nice translation into the band's frantic and energized live set. CHIPP TERWILLIGER Also see My, What a Busy Week!

DESTRO, TH3RDZ, RAFAEL VIGILANTICS, BAD TENANTS, BAD HABITAT, DJ WICKED
(Ash Street Saloon, 225 SW Ash) Destro Destructo is a founding member of Northwest hiphop collectives Oldominion and Boom Bap Project. He also stays busy as a solo artist, and tonight marks the release of his newest solo record, Day of the Dead. The origins of the hefty 17-track album date back to 2010 when Destro was approached by producer Cash Flow from Zaragoza, Spain. They soon worked out tentative plans to work together, with Cash Flow supplying the beats while Destro began writing and recording songs. Sadly, Cash Flow's life was tragically cut short when he passed away from leukemia in March 2011. The resulting effort is impressive both in size and scope, featuring numerous guest spots including local emcees Luck-One, L Pro, and Serge Severe. Seattle supergroup Th3rdz, a trio featuring JFK, Candidt, and XP, are also releasing a new album of their own tonight, This, That, & Th3rdz. RYAN FEIGH

VALKYRIE RODEO, BIG BLACK CLOUD, FIST FITE
(Club 21, 2035 NE Glisan) Ready, Set, Ruin!, the third release by Portland grindcore cluckers Valkyrie Rodeo, plays like a maelstrom. Thick thunderclaps of low end dominate, anchoring vocalist/drummer Tuviya Edelhart's no-care howls and screechy verses. Loaded with lots of caterwauling, buzzy bass, and tinny drums, the record's obvious allegiances to punk forefathers NoMeansNo (as on "Big Gulp") are tempered by similarly homage-worthy shout-outs to contemporary scumfuck noise brethren like Rabbits. Regardless of where the tones turn, Valkyrie Rodeo's levels of aural destruction are only a string-strum away from shaking the shit out of your head, assuming your head isn't shaking already. RJP

MOUNT KIMBIE, HOLY OTHER, VINYL WILLIAMS
(Doug Fir, 830 E Burnside) The album cover for Manchester producer Holy Other's latest release, Held, is a stark portrait of a lovers' bed left unmade—fittingly brooding without being melodramatic, just like the music it depicts. Within Held, minimal beats combine with chopped R&B vocals drenched in reverb, resulting in a very singular and cohesive album with a distinct down-tempo style. Dark-wave synths serve as the backdrop to the airy fore of emotion and unrequited promises in the sampled vocals, tinged with a warped romanticism and insatiable longing for human contact. With a rather maximal approach to a minimal production format of electronic music, Holy Other's excursions within the post-dubstep realm brings it closer to the genre-bending experimentalism of contemporary producers like Clams Casino or Balam Acab, rather than the lo-fi garage style of tonight's headliners, Mount Kimbie. WYATT SCHAFFNER

THE COUP, LUCK-ONE, CLOUDY OCTOBER
(Mississippi Studios, 3939 N Mississippi) Though some may have only just heard of the Coup from their latest video (featuring Patton Oswalt), the Coup has been slaying tracks since the golden age of hiphop. Their latest album, Sorry to Bother You, is a concept album, containing politically charged tracks that vary in sound from Daft Punk-y dance jams to psychedelic funk-rock. The Coup provides a beautiful blend of soulful, percussive music, with furious poetry that could keep anybody on their toes. Where the usual hiphop acts can get tiring after you've seen one too many rappers uttering gibberish against the usual squigidy-squigidy sounds from the DJ, the Coup's live band and dystopian Mod Squad look promise a compelling performance. ROSE FINN

SUNDAY 6/16

PRIDE NORTHWEST: ANDY BELL, THE CLIKS, GOD-DES AND SHE, AIDEN JAMES
(Waterfront Park) See our Pride Guide.

GATHERING OF THE GOOFPUNX
(Various locations) See My, What a Busy Week!

MARISA ANDERSON, DRAGGING AN OX THROUGH WATER
(Mississippi Studios, 3939 N Mississippi) Read our article on Marisa Anderson.

RADAR BROS., OLA PODRIDA
(Doug Fir, 830 E Burnside) LA-based Radar Bros. released their eighth album, Eight, at the beginning of this year. It is Jim Putnam's most psychedelic—and most sinister—work of country-shoegaze to date. The songs hint at a deep, dark emotional underbelly, but generally, layers of noisy good-naturedness outweigh the menacing flourishes. That's what makes the album better than good: It's a fun album on the first listen, but a profound one on the 10th. Also on the bill: Ola Podrida has seen a lot of personnel changes in between David Wingo's peripatetic ramblings between Austin and Brooklyn. But because his day job is as a film composer (Take Shelter is a recent standout), it's no surprise that the band has maintained a cinematic quality. Old Podrida's third album, Ghosts Go Blind, has a big robust sound, the product of a new (Austin-based) lineup. The shift may surprise longtime Ola Podrida fans, but the tiny profound moments remain. RW

XANDER HARRIS, STRATEGY, DESTINATION ELEVATION DJ CREW
(East End, 203 SE Grand) What better way to spend the evening of Dad's Day than by bathing yourself in the analog bubble bath of Xander Harris' (Justin Sweatt) electronic escapades. Like the beloved soundtrack to a long-lost sci-fi cult film, his music sets the mood for a dystopian dream reminiscent of the warbly VHS gems of our childhood. An amalgam of driving rhythms and arpeggiated synth lines under sweeping melodies lay the foundation for an homage to science fiction in all its forms. Prepare for glory by checking out Sweatt's massive catalog of releases so you'll be fully primed for the live experience in technicolor reality. CHRISTINA BROUSSARD

FOOD WARS 6
(Bossanova Ballroom, 722 E Burnside) Local community organizer Jessie Sponberg is a busy man. You may know him as the host of Fight Church Television, an internet variety show that combines local activism and education with music and comedy. He also organizes coat drives for the homeless in the winter and collects chalupa coupons for the homeless after Blazers games. One of his longest running projects is Food Wars, now in its sixth straight year, an event that combines local hiphop with a canned food drive aimed at children with food insecurities. With an event this size, 20 different acts performing 15-minute sets each, the quality of performances is bound to ebb and flow. But since the night has grown to become one of Portland's most diverse charity events, that seems a small price to pay for the cause. RYAN FEIGH

OLD JUNIOR, SLEEPTALKER, TERMINAL FUZZ TERROR, TINY LADY
(Langano Lounge, 1435 SE Hawthorne) Old Junior's drummer Ben Muha moved to Seattle earlier this year, which makes tonight's show a very special thing indeed. Rounded out by bassist Cory Decaire—who is recovering well from the serious injury he suffered at the Oregon Coast when a sneaker wave crushed a log into his leg—and the crunching guitar of Johnny Magnifico, Old Junior is a fuzzing, towering monolith of redwood-sized rock. It's the perfect accompaniment to beer or whiskey or bongloads of green, whatever your pleasure happens to be. The band—an offshoot of Old Growth, the just-as-great Portland band with Muha, Magnifico, and bassist Luke Clements—has delivered two excellent, fist-pumping EPs of distortion-pedal rock of the best kind, and while they're not all in the same city anymore, give thanks at the holy altar of Crazy Horse (the band) that we still get to see them play from time to time. NL

WARPED TOUR
(Portland Expo Center, 2060 N Marine) This is the year that summer festivals are finally getting called out on the pathetically low percentage of female-to-male performers (with Sasquatch/Bonnaroo/Coachella estimated to be 16 percent female.) Of course, in the case of Warped Tour's ultimate gathering of all the young dude-bro punks, the numbers are even worse—female artists appear in the festival at a shockingly low six percent! It often appears as though festival organizers view women in bands more as a footnote or subgenre, dismissively allowing an insignificant quota of "girl bands" to be filled in the same manner that they fill a quota of '90s third-wave ska relics (Reel Big Fish are headlining!). Yes, Gwen Stefani, at least according to the Warped Tour, you ARE just a girl. BREE MCKENNA

MONDAY 6/17

CAYUCAS, JBM
(Mississippi Studios, 3939 N Mississippi) Read our article on Cayucas.

TUESDAY 6/18

THE WOOLEN MEN, SAUNA, THE MEMORIES
(Record Room, 8 NE Killingsworth) See My, What a Busy Week!

FALL OUT BOY
(Roseland, 8 NW 6th) Read our article on Fall Out Boy.

THE FRONT BOTTOMS, WEATHERBOX, LEE COREY OSWALD
(Backspace, 115 NW 5th) The Mountain Goats are great, but unfortunately, most bands influenced by the Mountain Goats are considerably less so. There's more than a pinch of Mountain Goats frontman John Darnielle in the Front Bottoms' vocalist/songwriter Brian Sella, but not enough to qualify as desperate emulation. As a matter of fact, Sella might be one of the only blatant Mountain Goats enthusiasts whose own talent manages to shine through his most derivative moments: "Lone Star," off the group's new record Talon of the Hawk, is the first song in approximately three months to legitimately give me chills (and I was getting worried!); "The Feud" sounds vaguely like a lost Weakerthans track; and "Skeleton" is undeniably stupid, but it's also a contender for the catchiest thing I've heard this year. Rounding out the bill are Californian indie rockers Weatherbox and Lee Corey Oswald, whose side of a new 12-inch split with Scranton-based Three Man Cannon is a beautiful, heart-wrenching eulogy to '90s (post-)power pop bands like Knapsack and the Smoking Popes. MORGAN TROPER

RACHAEL YAMAGATA, SANDERS BOHLKE
(Wonder Ballroom, 128 NE Russell) Over the past decade, singer/songwriter Rachael Yamagata has been Rachael Yama-go-to, her vocals appearing on records from an impressive list of artists including Rhett Miller, Ryan Adams, Ray LaMontagne, and Bright Eyes. Yamagata's voice always brings depth to whatever she sings on. The unfortunate byproduct of contributing to high-profile records is that it tends to overshadow her own output. Yamagata has released a handful of her own records, and there's a good chance one of her songs has appeared on a television show you've watched. There's a good reason she's sought after. Take away the big names, and you're left with Yamagata's stunning voice, which is really where the focus should be. MARK LORE

WL, FAKE NAILS
(Bunk Bar, 1028 SE Water) My relationship with local shoegazing three-piece WL (pronounced Well) could play out through a series of missed connections: "Sorry I wasn't able to catch you perform your original live score for René Laloux's Gandahar the other night, maybe you can do it again sometime?" or "Got to the Metz show a bit late, I'm sure that your loud and dreamy opening set would have been lovely to see. Hang out soon?" Bandcamp and Facebook stalking has deepened the intimacy. The band's 7-inch on Death Party Records surrounds you with noise. On "Impermanent," gorgeous vocals and a wall of guitar swirl together over a drumbeat that somehow manages to keep it grounded. The band is putting the finishing touches on an upcoming record, so this headlining show should be just the opportunity I need to take my affair to the next level. CT

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A Summer Thing

Ben Salmon — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 04:00:00 -0700

Cayucas are your summer fling. by Ben Salmon

WHAT FACTORS came together for Bigfoot, the debut album from Santa Monica pop band Cayucas, to be the consensus sound of summer in 2013?

• The band name: borrowed (slightly modified) from a sleepy California surfing village nestled between coastal mountains and a scenic stretch of Pacific Ocean.

• The song titles: "A Summer Thing," "Deep Sea," "High School Lover," and even a B-side called "Swimsuit."

• The videos: a hazy parade of beach crowds and sun-dappled suburbs, deck shoes, white blazers, and pastel shirts.

• The sound: a snappy confection of killer pop melodies, tropical rhythms, and a sheen of reverb that reaches all the way to the horizon.

Frontman and principal songwriter Zach Yudin embraces the narrative. "It's great," he said in a recent interview, days after returning from the band's first European tour. "As an artist just starting, you need any sort of hook or praise you can get. If people are saying this is the album of the summer, that's awesome."

Never mind that Bigfoot was completed a year and a half ago, in Oregon's winter, with help from producer Richard Swift. "For me, it was less about summer and more about nostalgia," Yudin says. "But I guess nostalgic things for me are from the summertime."

Yudin, 30, first surfaced in 2011 under the name Oregon Bike Trails, a preternatural pop-craft wizard emerging from out of nowhere to upload his winsome tunes to the internet. They earned the attention of the Secretly Canadian record label, which signed Yudin and released Bigfoot on April 30.

The album's buoyant aesthetic has drawn Cayucas comparisons to Vampire Weekend, the Shins, and the Beach Boys, though Yudin says he listened to "strictly hiphop" in his formative years. And while he's pleased with his recent success, he recoils a bit when asked whether his next album will mine a similarly warm, radiant vein.

"I don't think I'm going to write another summery album, per se," he says. "It'll definitely have those elements... but it'll probably be toned down. I don't think I'll have (a song) called 'Swimsuit, Part 2' or something like that."

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Echo Chamber

Mark Lore — Wed, 05 Jun 2013 04:00:00 -0700

The Bats fly on their own frequency. by Mark Lore

WHEN FLYING NUN RECORDS celebrated its 30th anniversary in 2011, it reaffirmed not only the label's influence, but also its reach. It's uncanny, really: New Zealand—a rather small country of 4 million people—has produced a highly disproportionate amount of the greatest and most influential indie rock bands of the past three decades. Just ask any thinking human.

Bands like the Clean, the Verlaines, Straitjacket Fits, and even Portland-via-Auckland's beloved and defunct Mint Chicks have carried on the tradition of Flying Nun's spotless output. The label celebrated its 30th year by releasing the latest LP from another Flying Nun institution, the Bats.

For a band that's been around for almost as long as the label, Free All the Monsters—the Kiwi four-piece's eighth full-length—is also something to behold. It may very well be their best album to date, putting the Bats alongside Wire and Mission of Burma, bands that have hit their creative stride deep into their careers.

"It's just something I've always done," explains guitarist/vocalist Robert Scott. "It's kind of a mixture of wanting to create a body of work and getting spurred on by others' bodies of work."

Some of that healthy competition Scott is referring to has to do with the Clean, a band he's played bass in for just as long, and whose members Hamish Kilgour and David Kilgour helped defined the Dunedin Sound, which lovingly borrowed from bands like the Byrds and the Velvet Underground.

The Bats have never been ones to keep a schedule. They released their debut album five years after forming. And 2005's At the National Grid (released on Portland's own Magic Marker Records) came out a decade after their previous release. Essentially, the Bats occupy their own little corner of the musical map, and no matter how much time passes between releases, their music is always timeless.

Scott says the band took their time with Free All the Monsters, locking themselves away at Seacliff Asylum, a former psychiatric hospital located outside Dunedin. The album has a worn-in feel. Songs like "Spacejunk" and "In the Subway" sound lively despite their flickering reverb glow. It's a warm and elegant pop record that contains the familiar jangle and dissonance that fills classics like Daddy's Highway and Fear of God.

The Bats are on a roll, by Bats standards. Scott is set to release a solo album in August that he says is more experimental than anything he's done (Scott says he's been listening to Bill Callahan records of late), and he already has the skeletons of songs for the next Bats record. The band's leisurely approach to making music has made the past 30 years feel a little shorter.

Looking back, Scott says the Bats made records simply because they could. In fact, it was reaction outside New Zealand that pushed the band in the early days. "When we started out, we were like, 'Let's make a record,'" he says. "The reaction overseas was the impetus to do more work."

Not much has changed since then. The Bats have quietly made a career of it. Their approach is pretty similar to the easygoing cadence of Scott's voice and the music itself. "We're pretty relaxed about it," he says, "and we don't overthink things."

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Life Is Dirt

Aris Wales — Wed, 05 Jun 2013 04:00:00 -0700

Drunk Dad plays filth rock. by Aris Wales

SITTING AROUND a table littered with quickly vanishing beers and whiskey shots, the three present members of Drunk Dad, and the fourth on speaker phone in the center of said table, sum up their name and the live experience it often brings them.

"There are cosmic implications to having the word 'drunk' in your band name," explains bassist Adam Garcia, "It's either really great, or people are like, 'Oh, you want beer all over your amp.'"

Guitarist and vocalist Dane Herrin elaborates, "It's kind of to be expected when you foster this environment of drunkenness. You know, 'Yeah let's get out of control and be loud and brutal and shit.' People get this weird cathartic release [from it], and sometimes you get hit in the head with a glass. It happens..."

The blame for the chaos Drunk Dad creates in a live setting can't be placed squarely on their moniker alone. Their disjointed yet focused brand of rock could drive a sober man to drink with the hopes that a more unhinged mind could help him decipher what he was hearing. The band's forthcoming 12-inch—Morbid Reality, their first vinyl release out on Tuesday, June 11, from the recently resurrected label Eolian Empire—is a pretzel-like intersection of genre super-highways that go in all directions at once. One second you're hearing a crushing math-rock band, the next a noise-art camp complete with looping samples of squealing pigs, and somehow from behind that comes lumbering, doomy hardcore riffs. With all of this combined, and Herrin doing Moody Blues-esque spoken poetry and rancid screams over the top of it, the result is unique, heavy, and ugly.

Collectively, Drunk Dad is pleased with the monster they've created, and they all agree they're not out to paint any pretty pictures or vibes for anybody.

"We're trying to think of different ideas and different avenues to explore creatively and not trying to close anything off because it's too upsetting or too jarring," says Herrin. "Reality is sometimes really gross and depressing. Don't close those things off, open yourself up [to them]. I grew up on a farm in Eastern Washington. Sometimes you had to touch shit, but shit washes off. Life is dirt. Life is fun."

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Collegiate Rock

Ned Lannamann — Wed, 05 Jun 2013 04:00:00 -0700

Hausu's brilliant debut album defies genres. by Ned Lannamann

"WE DON'T HAVE a formula for songwriting, or a particular style," says Hausu guitarist/vocalist Ben Friars Funkhouser. "We don't have anything to fall back on. Every song has to come out of the ground, basically. None of the songs are going to just appear—they have to be worked out."

The members of Hausu are discussing their first album, Total, over beers at Reel M Inn, one of the last dive bars on SE Division. Even in these unpretentious surroundings, there's noticeable bulk to the collective brainpower amassed at the table (your narrator excluded). The four bandmates of Hausu, all born in the '90s, are in varying stages of their educations at Reed College—bassist Carl Hedman has just graduated, while guitarist Alex Maguire, drummer Santi Leyba, and Funkhouser each have one year of school left—and their conversation, while casual and full of the usual inter-band jokes, is a little more elevated than the typical rock-dude interview.

The academic origins of Hausu are worth noting, but their music is anything but bookish. Filled with exhilaration, frustration, and nervy energy, Total is a guitar-rock album that embraces many musical pasts while remaining defiantly original. There are clanging major chords alongside tiptoeing guitar interplay and fractured moments of dissonance. There are explosions of chaos with Funkhouser's ferocious roaring next to beautiful moments of ordered resolution. It's a brilliant record, a fully realized and surprisingly dark debut that transcends the band's early buzz when they formed a couple of years ago.

Of that growth, Maguire says, "We started playing different things, incorporating different elements that we wouldn't have done before—more noise rock, more atonal things. I think the record is gonna be pretty weird for some people."

"That was the nature of it," adds Hedman. "Some of those songs we wrote two years ago, although I would say the majority of the songs we wrote in the last year or half year. But there are some very distinct styles that we were playing; we used to play poppier stuff, and then we incorporated different elements. You get a longer-term picture—we didn't write this in two months."

Total comes out on June 25, although there will be pre-release copies at Hausu's tour kickoff show. The band secured a deal with Hardly Art—home to smart and often bizarre punk, art, and pop bands—and recorded the album in the basement of Portland's Yale Union building with engineer Dylan Wall.

"It's not a recording studio so much as a space with a computer and mixer and gear," says Maguire. "We were there for 12-hour days for six days. We got in two fights."

Over the week of recording, Hausu drank a lot of Rainier and, to Wall's dismay, filled the room with cigarette butts. "It was a really disgusting room at the end," Maguire laughs.

Opening track "Chrysanthemum" finds light and delicacy in the band's taut, nearly rigid interplay, while "Vasari Joust" stops and starts with gigantic slabs of ominous, almost prog-like chords. "Bleak" is hard rock done with taste and nimbleness, and "Gardenia" is a catchy radio anthem, despite lyrics about wanting to "move back home and see my parents and cats." Looked at individually, the diversity in the band's songs is easy to pick apart. But Total remains remarkably coherent, largely due to Hausu's fondness for rock's past incarnations and their simultaneous compulsion to make unconventional sounds.

"I don't have any real music education, and I will just write something that sounds cool, in weird tunings," says Funkhouser. "I feel like I piss Carl and Alex off all the time with the shit I bring in. Santi's always like, 'Uh huh, uh huh,' but Carl and Alex are like, 'What is this key change? You can't do that!'"

Leyba says, "As far as my drumming goes, like Ben, I'm not formally trained at all. Because of that, I feel like I need something to work off of. I don't necessarily think of rhythms in my head. I need to have something to be in dialogue with. It's usually Ben's riff. And then I'll have something really simple, and what's really interesting to me is once I get comfortable with that, the minute changes that come about within that structure are what makes the songs what they are."

Funkhouser adds that the happily hodgepodge nature of the music is a direct result of their rigorous academic schedule. "A condition of being as busy as we were, but listening to as much and as diverse music as we all do, is that we had a lot of stuff we wanted to see in the songs, and not that much time to write," he says. "So we couldn't just write a bunch of songs that sounded consistent throughout. We'd have to put together all our ideas into one song and try to make it cool."

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Up & Coming

Wed, 05 Jun 2013 04:00:00 -0700

Music previews for the week of June 5-11.

WEDNESDAY 6/5

HOLOCENE TURNS 10: SHY GIRLS, MAGIC MOUTH, MINDEN, & MORE
(Holocene, 1001 SE Morrison) See My, What a Busy Week!

HAUSU, INDUSTRIAL PARK, CELLMATE
(Mississippi Studios, 3939 N Mississippi) See My, What a Busy Week!, and read our article on Hausu.

BIKE THIEF, DE LA WARR, RARE MONK
(Doug Fir, 830 E Burnside) On Facebook, Bike Thief say they "officially formed" in January of this year, a claim that gives the enchanting impression that their debut release, the six-song Ghost of Providence, sprang forth spontaneously on January 1, a sonic New Year's miracle. Of course, music this good doesn't arise out of nowhere, or even in a hurry. With its five members and dozen auxiliary contributors, Bike Thief are no lo-fi garage band. The diversity of instruments and the eerie harmonies suggest the swelling chamber pop of more recent Loch Lomond albums. But there is something extra special and exciting here, because this is a first record, one that hints at any number of avenues for a follow-up: It could be an esoteric concept album, a noise rock opus, a folk opera. Ghost of Providence contains elements of all these things. In particular, the title tracks (pts. 1 and 2) hint at a darkness that could be taken to sinister depths. REBECCA WILSON

THURSDAY 6/6

PEDALPALOOZA KICKOFF PARTY: FEDERALE, GRANDPARENTS
(Branx, 320 SE 2nd) See My, What a Busy Week!

MIKAL CRONIN, SHANNON AND THE CLAMS, OLD LIGHT
(Mississippi Studios, 3939 N Mississippi) Read our article on Mikal Cronin.

BLANK REALM, COOL MEINERS, PACIFIC CITY NIGHTLIFE VISION, FOCUS TROUP, DJ SPENCER CLARK, DJ MIKE McGONIGAL
(Rotture, 315 SE 3rd) Tonight is a hallmark in the comings and goings of artistic talents in Portland, as Mike McGonigal, the creative force behind Yeti magazine and supporter of many innovations in art and music—locally and internationally—gives his last DJ set as a Portland resident (he's moving to Detroit later this year). The guests of honor are Australian band Blank Realm, who strike me as the ultimate incarnation of the thankfully abandoned "lo-fi" tag—embodying the aesthetic of forcibly relaxed yet viscerally scintillating pop music (which in this case, as with much of this alleged genre, is actually recorded with top-notch fidelity). Cool Meiners, a hybrid project of Eat Skull/Hunches talents, will also play tonight, as well as Focus Troup, the new project from prolific performer John Rau, whose early recordings bristle with the life-affirming qualities that hum in every Brian Eno song. MARANDA BISH

FRIDAY 6/7

MICHAEL JACKSON TRIBUTE: KENNY WIZZ
(Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, 1037 SW Broadway) See My, What a Busy Week!

DIESTO, DRUNK DAD, ROHIT, REDNECK
(Ash Street Saloon, 225 SW Ash) Read our article on Drunk Dad.

LAURA IVANCIE, SOLOVOX, MANOJ, LINDA BROWN, CELLOTRONIK
(Star Theater, 13 NW 6th) Spanning spectrums of musical terrain, Portland's Laura Ivancie stokes a sultry, soulful serenade on Marrow. The new EP spends time bridging gaps between R&B, electronica, and soul, with Ivancie's explicitly simple lyrics thankfully anchored by the sheer sexiness of her voice. Lines like "I wanna get fucked up with you" (on "Up with You") almost surely resonate better on the dance floor. Additionally, it's fun to note that the granddaughter of former Portland Mayor Frank Ivancie (1981-1985), a staunchly conservative Catholic politico, is brazen enough to utter such a line to tape. But Ivancie's no one-trick pony, getting into Eastern European gypsy-soul on "Mr. Dinosaur" and shoegazing slow jams on "Candy." RYAN J. PRADO

EYELIDS, HOUNDSTOOTH, DENIM WEDDING
(Doug Fir, 830 E Burnside) No one's heard Eyelids yet, but take a look at the Portland band's pedigree and you'll get a good idea of what's about to go down. Core members Jonathan Drews, John Moen, and Chris Slusarenko have had their paws in a number of noteworthy musical projects, including the Jicks and the Decemberists. They were also part of Robert Pollard's jangle-pop band Boston Spaceships. Eyelids have been working on a new record with Adam Selzer at Type Foundry Studios. The project looks to exploit the members' love of Kiwi pop and the paisley underground. Which is to say, this might be the best band you've never heard. Yet. MARK LORE

ANAMANAGUCHI, CHROME SPARKS, THE SHORTSLEEVES
(Backspace, 115 NW 5th) Premiere chiptune group Anamanaguchi make music that sounds like a convulsive, coked-out interpretation of the Dragon Warrior soundtrack. But it's the variety of pop influences that extend beyond standard nerd-dom to which the band's immense popularity can likely be attributed: Songwriter and guitarist Peter Berkman claims to be immensely influenced by Weezer and the Beach Boys, in addition to the classic videogame scores that obviously inform much of the band's sonic leanings—the grainy, 8-bit aspect of their music is programmed using the same hardware responsible for the music in old NES and Gameboy games. Their penchant for pop is evidenced on the band's new record, the ludicrously titled Endless Fantasy, specifically on the cut "SPF 420," which totally does sound like Weezer... in outer space! MORGAN TROPER

FRESH: CRYSTAL FIGHTERS, ALPINE, CHROME SPARKS
(Holocene, 1001 SE Morrison) It is possible to enjoy Crystal Fighters, the British-Spanish dance band, but a few key rules must be followed: (1) Most importantly, be among herds of the dancing, like the ones found at Holocene's monthly Fresh dance party. (2) Be in a place that is loud enough so that you can't discern the fatuously spiritual lyrics. (3) Drink enough so that you can't detect the singer's fake Spanish accent. And then you should be set! By no means should you listen to Crystal Fighters early in the morning, while reading poetry/the newspaper/celebrity gossip, or while driving in rush hour. The music is lush and bombastic, but the lyrics—and their self-serious delivery—will make you mad. They really are that bad. Take "Wave," the single from their just-released Cave Rave: "Get on the wave, universal suns/One thousand suns/With the power of one thousand universes from the mind of one." RW

RYAN BINGHAM, WILD FEATHERS
(Roseland, 8 NW 6th) Ryan Bingham's professional accolades read like someone who's been around a lot longer than his 32 years. But the Grammy Award-winning, Academy Award-winning, Golden Globe Award-winning singer/songwriter (he had quite the success with "The Weary Kind" from the 2009 film Crazy Heart) is probably only just reaching his prime. Bingham, who split with his ballyhooed Dead Horses in 2012, along with his longtime label, Lost Highway, returned late last year to release Tomorrowland, his fourth studio album, on his own Axster Bingham Records. The gravel-voiced singer's intuitively timeless songs continue to shape-shift and expand on traditional folk, roots rock, blues, and country. RJP

SATURDAY 6/8

CEREMONY, SURVIVAL KNIFE (EARLY SHOW)
(Doug Fir, 830 E Burnside) Looking for a way to pump yourself up for the Naked Bike Ride? Here is an all-ages hardcore-punk matinee show in one of the best sounding rooms in town. California's Ceremony seamlessly channel different eras of hardcore and punk into something totally fresh. They blend quick and raw powerviolence tracks with classic punk rock to create an end product that is always an engaging live spectacle. Don't miss this chance to see vocalist Ross Farrar, shirt pulled over his head and mic in mouth, bounce off the cabin walls of the Doug Fir. Olympia's Survival Knife includes members Justin Trosper and Brandt Sandeno, both of the Pacific Northwest noise-rock band Unwound. They have a 7-inch out on Sub Pop, and hearing the heavy, ripping, and amazingly catchy B-side "Name That Tune" should be just the thing to take your morning coffee buzz to the next level. CHIPP TERWILLIGER

BEAR & MOOSE, OLD AGE, A HAPPY DEATH, THE WE SHARED MILK (LATE SHOW)
(Doug Fir, 830 E Burnside) There are a lot of surprising things about Bear & Moose, but the most shocking is that there are only two people in the band. Eric Mueller, the singer and guitar player, and Simon Lucas, on drums and cell phone, manage to sound like three times that. On Inside the Eyewall, their second album, they use their robust superpowers to create some of the smartest, most expectation-thwarting music I've heard this year. At its most basic, the album is fun and noisy, thanks to big, bright Pavement-y stoner jams and tinges of psychedelic surf. "Days of the Week," one of the weirder tracks, combines a loop of frogs, a lilting guitar riff, and a vocal that sounds like a medieval chant. This kind of thing can easily be jokey at one end of the spectrum, or humorless at the other, and yet it's neither. In fact, the harmonies in the chorus are one of the vocal highlights of the album. RW

ALKALINE TRIO, BAYSIDE, OFF WITH THEIR HEADS
(Hawthorne Theatre, 1507 SE César E. Chávez) There's something inexplicably listless about the new Alkaline Trio album, My Shame Is True. It sounds like it has a cold. It doesn't mark any sort of dramatic departure for the band, stylistically; this is mostly everything those who still expect things from Alkaline Trio have come to expect from a new Alkaline Trio record. If that's you, it's definitely not a disappointing effort. Maybe it's Matt Skiba's vocals—always more or less the focal point of the band—which sound deliberate and detached here, an approach that hardly suits his signature bleeding-heart teenage (at age 37) poetry. Alkaline Trio have always been a little too calculating for their own good; My Shame Is True, however, signifies what could very possibly be a complete emotional plateau. At least they'll probably play "Hell Yes." MT

THE HOT LZs, BITCH SCHOOL, THE RANSOM
(Tonic Lounge, 3100 NE Sandy) Raised on Love Gun-era KISS, every Thin Lizzy record ever, and probably a copious amount of the Stooges, Portland's Bitch School doesn't exactly break new molds as much as it completely ignores them. The ladies' new 7-inch, Get Nasty on You, is a well-worn but ruggedly wailing crossroads of barroom metal that is best enjoyed with hands white-knuckled around a cratered Rainier. With references to drinking beer, getting nasty, and basically raising all kinds of hell (sample lyric: "Your love is hotter than Mexico"), Bitch School's sneering howls are the perfect antidote to the kind of heady, often ridiculous, self-flagellating realms that hard-rock bands attempt to traverse. This is fun, fuck-you, sing-along rock 'n' roll. RJP

ALMOST DARK, RAINSTICK COWBELL, TIME AND THE BELL, CLASS M PLANETS
(Foggy Notion, 3416 N Lombard) When Rainstick Cowbell—AKA Scott Arbogast—finished his third album, Damage Control Damage, he promptly dropped off something like nine copies at the Mercury office. And when he followed up with an email letting us know about tonight's record release show, he attached a photo of himself nude in the bathtub, penis floating freely in the water. So yeah, it's safe to say this guy is looking for some exposure in the press. Luckily, Damage Control Damage is worth mentioning—it's a bitter, dark descent into Arbogast's interior psychology. Songs wind and meander with the mostly minimal instrumentation of voice and guitar ("Please, don't call it folk for fuck's sake," writes Arbogast). It's punk-rock nihilism of the mind, and without the release that accompanies more physical music, it's oppressive—but often fascinating. So is Rainstick Cowbell needy for attention? Yeah, probably. Is he overlooked? Definitely. But no, we're not printing that dick pic. NED LANNAMANN

SUNDAY 6/9

METHOD MAN AND REDMAN, SERGE SEVERE, DJ WELS
(Crystal Ballroom, 1332 W Burnside) See My, What a Busy Week!

ROSE FESTIVAL: SHAGGY, CARLY RAE JEPSEN, SEAN KINGSTON, & MORE
(Waterfront Park, 1020 SW Naito) Pop music has always been about sex. But rarely has the subject been so brazenly penetrated as deeply as with Shaggy's smash ode to adultery, "It Wasn't Me." Sugary smooth guest vocalist Rikrok steals the show, extolling the ins-and-outs of getting caught. "Picture this," he croons, "we were both butt-naked, banging on the bathroom floor." While grinding alongside the porcelain, however, Rikrok's girlfriend suddenly appears. (It seems he forgot that he'd given her the extra key.) Seething, the girlfriend remains silent as he turns and resumes ravishing the neighbor. Rikrok is bouyed, however, by a denial stupefying in its simplicity: "It wasn't me." And here it is a quip that knows no bounds. Caught kissin' on the counter? "It wasn't me." Busted bangin' on the sofa? "It wasn't me." Even had her in the shower? "It wasn't me." All the while, wrapped in such a sunny, unshakeable melody (and perhaps whatever it is Shaggy's blathering on about), "It Wasn't Me" proves that ignorance can indeed be bliss. ANDREW R TONRY

UNCLE TUPELO TRIBUTE: COFFEE CREEK COLLECTIVE, HOOK AND ANCHOR, MBILLY, LEWI LONGMIRE, NATE WALLACE
(Mississippi Studios, 3939 N Mississippi) I've come to the realization that Uncle Tupelo is probably the one band I will never see take the now commonplace victory-lap style reunion tour. It's okay, though. Jeff Tweedy has Wilco, Jay Farrar has Son Volt, and Portland has the Coffee Creek Collective. The group, which takes their name from an Uncle Tupelo side project used by the band to play their favorite dive bar once they got too big, prides themselves on playing the music of Uncle Tupelo "pretty true to life." A whiskey-soaked night with these devotees and a few of Portland's finest roots rock and Americana musicians is a great way to celebrate the band that, embrace the term or not, paved the way for the alt-country genre over two decades ago. Plus, you know that "Black Eye" is going to hit harder here than it ever would at an overblown Coachella reunion show. CT

MONDAY 6/10

PHAROAHE MONCH, GRAY MATTERS, BAD HABITAT, DESTRO
(Hawthorne Theatre, 1507 SE César E. Chávez) Since cracking open hiphop's cerebellum with the dizzyingly dark, swirlingly complex, and intellectually sizzling Organized Konfusion in the early '90s, New York's Pharoahe Monch has remained many things: poignant, profound, political, punk as fuck, and even, perhaps, a bit picky. Over 20-plus years Monch has released precious little: three records with Organized Konfusion, and three solo outings (and relatively few guest spots). Part of this, it seems, is Monch's desire to complete whole albums rather than chase singles. Monch's LPs establish arc, flow, and narrative through-lines. Although he's always tugged at the threads of conspiracy and injustice—not to mention gleefully throwing wrenches at pop music's twisted hierarchy—in the Obama era, Monch has become increasingly appalled by the US's imperial warmongering abroad and ever-expanding threats to both privacy and equality at home. Monch's most recent record, 2010's W.A.R. (We Are Renegades), sounds prescient, as if written in response to the news of today. Which makes the long-awaited, soon-coming P.T.S.D. (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) all the more scintillating. Expect to catch a glimpse tonight. ART Also see My, What a Busy Week!

FULL OF HELL, HABITS, SEVEN SISTERS OF SLEEP, WORTHLESS EATERS
(The Know, 2026 NE Alberta) Personally, I'm not really a big fan of hardcore, or any band that even slightly peppers their music with elements from said genre. Everybody just seems all puffed-up and mad, and I just can't get behind music fueled by hate and fury alone. But the Pennsylvania/Maryland-based outfit Full of Hell I can get behind, because I sure don't want to be standing in front of them. On their new full-length Rudiments of Mutilation, Full of Hell sounds really, really, REALLY fucking pissed off. Rudiments is 10 tracks and 24 minutes of pure ferocity. You can almost hear the throbbing veins in their foreheads vibrating with wrath. Its grinding noise and blasting hardcore riffs induce total, eye-widening terror. Perhaps the main reason I enjoy Full of Hell so much is because I'm scared not to. ARIS WALES

FREE ENERGY, BATTLEME
(Doug Fir, 830 E Burnside) Exactly 64 seconds into its sophomore album Love Sign—self-released in January to avoid "perfect soundtrack for summer" buzz, I guess?—Free Energy provides plainspoken guidance on how to best enjoy its music: "Turn it on. Turn it up. Let the moment breathe!" As the internet splinters music into a million pieces, these Philly power-pop partisans recall a simpler time, when bands like Cheap Trick, the Cars, and T. Rex walked the earth and the cowbell wasn't a tired punchline from a TV show. Love Sign is a sweet, nostalgic record packed wall-to-wall with songs about girls: hanging out with 'em, dancing all night with 'em, falling in love with 'em before the sun comes up. Free Energy is a throwback band with a knack for massive hooks that aim straight for your heart and hips, but want little to do with your brain. BEN SALMON

TUESDAY 6/11

XRAY FEST: REV SHINES, DJ SAM ADAMS
(Produce Row, 204 SE Oak) See My, What a Busy Week!

WILD ONES READING: JON MOOALLEM, BLACK PRAIRIE
(Powell's, 1005 W Burnside) See My, What a Busy Week!, and read our review of Wild Ones.

THE BATS, EAT SKULL
(Bunk Bar, 1028 SE Water) Read our article on the Bats.

GENERATIONALS, YOUNG EMPIRES
(Doug Fir, 830 E Burnside) Generationals make timeless pop, mining the best practitioners from the past four decades. The New Orleans two-piece have a few records under their belts, but their latest, Heza, is easily their best. "Spinoza" is such an earworm you might actually need surgery to remove it. Not many bands can bring sounds from vastly different eras into a cohesive whole, but Generationals have managed to pull it off. Heza, their first for Polyvinyl, should attract a few more ears, and maybe put no-frills pop back in the spotlight. There's nothing flashy here. But a good hook is forever. ML

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MC Squared

Ryan J. Prado — Wed, 05 Jun 2013 04:00:00 -0700

On his second solo album, Mikal Cronin shouts it out loud. by Ryan J. Prado

THE QUASI-CATCHY, slightly askew songs collected on Mikal Cronin's 2011 solo debut elbowed their way through fogs of fuzz. Mikal Cronin merely hinted at the pop auteur hiding beneath all that reverb-y, beachside melody. Cronin—who spends a considerable portion of his time manning the low-end as bassist for the Ty Segall Band—knows his sophomore solo effort, MCII, is a much more clearly focused and fully realized album. It's evident within the first few notes of the opening track, "Weight," coming by way of a piano intro. Later, there are strings, and enough syrupy melodies to saturate a stack of hotcakes.

"I just heard all this stuff in my head and I didn't want to restrict myself from using it for fear of being too poppy," says Cronin. "I'm going with my instinct, which right now is to have that kind of ornate instrumentation and bigger arrangements."

That it works shouldn't come as a surprise. Songwriters of Cronin's ilk must hear these fissures of harmony, these synchronized crescendos in some sort of voodoo stupor. Despite the fact that he's got a veritable legion of musician friends he could have tapped to assist him in recording his slew of new tunes—Thee Oh Sees, White Fence, the aforementioned Mr. Segall—Cronin, with few exceptions (sure, Segall is on it), played every note of music on MCII.

"I have a clearer idea in my head what I want the different parts to be," explains Cronin. "It's easier for me to do it than to try and translate that for someone else and still get it exactly how I want."

The swinging garage-pop of Cronin's first album hangs around, but he amps up its presence with lots of layered guitars, more harmonies, and a distinctly timeless ear for addictive melodies. "Shout It Out," "Am I Wrong," and "See It My Way" are all but instant rock classics, trimming the fat of obtuse spacey-ness that his debut sometimes strayed into, and forging ahead with crisp, exciting, and alive-sounding tunes.

"Maybe a couple records down the line will just be a punk record," wonders Cronin, "but I kinda doubt it."

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Celebrate Good Times

Morgan Troper — Wed, 29 May 2013 04:00:00 -0700

Have one last hurrah with Tigers Jaw. by Morgan Troper

POP-PUNK sometimes feels like my generation's disco. It's our secret handshake. It's a guilty pleasure that we can all safely celebrate and laugh about now. And yes, a lot of it was horrible.

But some of it was actually great. Green Day didn't make a bad record until the turn of the century; Saves the Day's Through Being Cool is an utterly fantastic album, cover to cover; and if you strain hard enough, Brand New's Your Favorite Weapon sounds sort of like a bizarre version of Elvis Costello's Blood and Chocolate. (Comparatively, Donna Summer's Once Upon a Time—produced by the recently exhumed Giorgio Moroder—is also ready for critical reevaluation.)

Tigers Jaw formed in 2005 in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and were one of the few pop-punk bands capable of making the distinction between good and bad. As a result, they encapsulated all the best aspects of the genre and virtually none of the worst. This is not to say they were light on corn—it comes with the territory. But their execution eclipses the content: Vocalists Adam Mcilwee and Ben Walsh sang lines like, "I took the night off/became the dumbest thing ever" (in the song "Coil/Recoil," off of what I guess qualifies as their swan song now, 2010's Two Worlds) with so much heartbreaking conviction that they're immediately absolved of poetic transgression.

Tigers Jaw are now on their final tour—with a slightly castrated lineup that includes Walsh, keyboardist Brianna Collins, and an assortment of fill-in musicians. Absent is Mcilwee, a founding member and indispensable contributor to the band's songwriting and identity; also missing are bassist Dennis Mishko and drummer Pat Brier, although it wasn't intended that way. The band were in the process of gearing up for a comprehensive tour, including dates in the UK, until Brier, Mishko, and Mcilwee abruptly announced their departure from the group in March. Collins and Walsh, determined to persevere given the circumstances, announced a farewell tour, and although the group has certainly been in finer form, Collins and Welsh's intent doesn't appear to be a cash-in or capitalistic in nature. This is merely a celebration of a stellar band and the meaningful art it produced.

So go see Tigers Jaw one last time. Buy their records if you haven't already. Let your hair down and soak in the collective ecstasy that live pop-punk—and, sure, disco—can provide.

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The Secret World of Vinyl Mastering

Ned Lannamann — Wed, 29 May 2013 04:00:00 -0700

Telegraph Mastering's Adam Gonsalves operates one of Portland's only vinyl lathes. by Ned Lannamann

YOU CAN SAY vinyl is back; you can say vinyl never left. What's certain is that record collectors and bands alike continue to have an undying, perhaps unconditional love for the format. Having one's songs issue forth from spiraling grooves of vinyl instills pride like no other format, and while vinyl remains very old technology, it offers a warmth and humanness that many audiophiles insist is the purest method of reproducing music. Almost all anecdotal evidence suggests they're right.

Adam Gonsalves of Portland-based Telegraph Mastering (telegraphaudio.com) acquired a vinyl lathe a couple years ago, and his mastering studio is one of only two in Portland that can cut a stereo vinyl lacquer. (Sky Onion Mastering has the other; Fred and Toody Cole, meanwhile, famously own the 1954 mono lathe that originally cut the Kingsmen's "Louie Louie"—it sits in their Clackamas home, where they used it to cut their Dead Moon sides.) Lacquers are the master records that get sent to the pressing plant, and Telegraph's ability to make pro-quality stereo vinyl masters in the city limits have made it an indispensable service for bands and labels in a town where buying local has become part of the value system.

While the vinyl-mastering component of Telegraph's services is relatively new, Gonsalves has been mastering music for years. "When I was in bands as a teenager and in my early 20s," he says, "I was always the guy who was standing over the engineer's shoulder: 'What are you doing? What's that? What's going on?'" Gonsalves worked as a mix engineer before entering the music technology masters program at New York University, which is where he discovered the art and science of mastering. He fell in love with it almost immediately.

"This is the last creative step and the first technical step," he says. "It's the link between the creative process and the manufacturing process, or the distribution process and dissemination process. And I'm a creative guy and I play music, but I'm also technical in that way. It really was the perfect marriage for me."

The first incarnation of Telegraph was in Oakland, and when Gonsalves and his wife decided to move back to her hometown of Portland, Gonsalves built the one-room mastering studio in the garage next to his home in Southeast Portland. It's a small but state-of-the-art affair that he designed with acoustics being of paramount importance. Gonsalves' desk sits in the center of the room, surrounded by acoustically treated surfaces on the walls and ceiling. The lighting is low; the distractions are few. This is a room for listening.

Gonsalves spends many days entirely on his own, often only seeing others when he stops by UPS to ship his masters to the pressing plant. As far as music-biz jobs go, mastering isn't glamorous, but it is a rewarding one, requiring extreme attention to detail as well as the ability to see the broad picture. It also exposes Gonsalves to all types of music.

"The recording and mixing process can take weeks or months, whereas I can master a record in a day, or two days," he says. "That's one of the things I really like about it—the pace. Monday you can be working on a dance record, Tuesday you can be working on a metal record, Wednesday it's indie pop. I really like that, and I like shifting gears in that way. The only genre of music that I haven't done yet is opera."

The Scully lathe, on which Gonsalves makes the vinyl masters, is Telegraph's pride and joy. This particular lathe was one of roughly a dozen or so lathes that were in use around the clock at MCA Records' Los Angeles mastering facility in the 1960s. Gonsalves became aware of the machine as it was sitting dissembled in a storage facility in El Cajon. Over two years, he restored it with Len Horowitz, a former mastering engineer at MCA who'd worked on this particular machine and others like it. Under the careful tutelage of Horowitz (Gonsalves lovingly describes him as a "crotchety old taskmaster"), Gonsalves was able to learn the lathe and the lacquer-cutting process, inside and out.

"It's very, very rare to find one of these things that's not being used by somebody—because nobody makes them anymore, and nobody will. It's done," Gonsalves says. "But they're such robust machines that, as long as you haven't mistreated them, they'll last forever. It's metal on metal. All of this stuff is so well built, if you take care of it it's not going to break. It'll outlive five owners."

Gonsalves walks me through the vinyl-cutting process, as he makes lacquers for both a 7-inch single and a 12-inch album for a Greek metal band. It's a straightforward but detail-oriented process, with the ruby stylus cutting into the lacquer based on the music's vibrations. The stylus moves in a 360-degree matrix; grossly oversimplified, it cuts downward for bass frequencies, and laterally for high-end. As the record spins, tiny slivers of lacquer are kicked up by the stylus and get sucked into a vacuum; they're called "hot chips."

When Gonsalves is done, he sends the lacquers to whichever pressing plant his client is working with, where it's dropped into a huge tub of electrically charged fluid that has heavy balls of nickel in the bottom. The nickel electroplates to the lacquer, and when it's removed from the fluid, the metal version is peeled off, destroying the lacquer in the process. That metal imprint then becomes the stamper for the record's vinyl pressing.

With vinyl, the challenge becomes getting the best sound on a finite amount of space. "Vinyl is old technology," Gonsalves says. "There was no way for them to anticipate how bright records are these days. You can do anything in digital; you can make the hi-hat 60 decibels louder than anything else. With vinyl, because of the way the sound is transcribed, you can't do that. Grooves will crash into each other, and you might even smoke a cutter head—you'll break something."

It may be that necessary limitation of frequencies—a low bass frequency can cause the needle to jump, and sharp high-end frequencies get smeared and rounded—that keeps drawing listeners to the warm sound of vinyl. While it's firmly become a niche market, in the past decade vinyl has become more popular, and certainly more prestigious, than it's been since the advent of cassettes in the early '80s. With Gonsalves operating his vintage Scully lathe, Portland musicians have the option to get that last creative step of the record-making process completed close to home.

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Up & Coming

Wed, 29 May 2013 04:00:00 -0700

Music previews for the week of May 29-June 4.

WEDNESDAY 5/29

FOALS, SURFER BLOOD, BLONDFIRE
(Crystal Ballroom, 1332 W Burnside) It's been over a year since domestic battery charges were leveled against Surfer Blood vocalist/songwriter John Paul Pitts (charges that have since been dropped, I suppose it is worth mentioning), and the band—although no doubt having experienced a permanent and potentially deserved blow to its reputation—appear to have trudged through the resultant backlash unaffected, musically. The group's forthcoming LP, Python (which contains more than a few, eerie lyrical allusions to the aforementioned situation) is sonically no less sunny than its predecessor, 2010's Astro Coast. Actually, it's even sunnier: Sickeningly melodic opener "Demon Dance" sounds approximately like a Jeff Lynne-produced Pixies track, with its indelible chorus and thick, slick, AM-gold sheen. Python might be the least cool record you hear this year. It could also end up being one of the best. MORGAN TROPER Also see My, What a Busy Week!

WILLY MOON, MAGIC MOUTH
(Dante's, 350 W Burnside) Here's something original: Updating '50s rock 'n' roll to the modern age. Okay, maybe it's more novelty than anything else, but New Zealander Willy Moon has a little sumpin' for everyone. His reinterpretation of the past through hiphop beats and sleek, club-ready production might come off as a little arbitrary, but it works... some of the time. You can at least see the potential in this lanky Kiwi, who already has a song on an iTunes commercial and has appeared on The Tonight Show, for whatever that's worth. Tonight this pretty boy braves the dark environs of Dante's, which might be worth the price of admission alone. MARK LORE

ANCIENT HEAT, FOREIGN ORANGE, PHONE CALL, 1980SPRINCE
(Holocene, 1001 SE Morrison) Disco, apparently, is no longer a four-letter word, so to speak. Or maybe it is and Ancient Heat just doesn't care. In either case, the great big Portland group is releasing the first in a series of covers EPs, intended to pay homage to the halcyon days of yesteryear's large-collared, bare-chested rug-cutting. Under the Covers opens with the Loose Joints' jam "Is It All Over My Face?" which is performed admirably and with an obvious nod to the once-reviled genre's groovy-sexy core. There's also a kooky nod to camp with a cover of "Theme from Zombi 2," as well as Shirley Brown's addictive "Where, When, and What Time?" The band has 100 limited-edition cassette copies of the new EP, which will be available at their release at Holocene tonight. RYAN J. PRADO

ZIRAKZIGIL
(The Lovecraft, 421 SE Grand) Is "Tolkien metal" a genre? It is now. From the foot of the fires of Mt. Hood, from the hallowed battlefield where men and goblins and half-elves fought the Great Fluoride War of '13—from Portland, Oregon, comes Zirakzigil, a doomy new three-piece whose song titles are cribbed straight out of John Ronald Reuel's darkest nightmares. The group's roaring, white-wizardly sounds are smelted into 15-minute epics of mithril-hard metal. Nod your head to the never-ending heights of "The Endless Stair"; flee in terror from the fire-whip crack of "Durin's Bane." (Don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about.) And if that's not enough nerdery for you, Zirakzigil's debut cassette, Battle of the Peak—whose release on local label Anthem Records is celebrated at tonight's show—is designed to look exactly like a Super Nintendo game cartridge. NED LANNAMANN

MINDEN, SISTAFIST, IBQT
(Mississippi Studios, 3939 N Mississippi) Kansas City may have the fastest internet in the world, but it's lucky for Portland that it wasn't enough to keep Minden there. Since they relocated to Portland, the art-pop outfit released their excellent debut, Exotic Cakes, last September. The video for "Gold Standard," with its surprisingly high production value and an aesthetic reminiscent of Physical-era Olivia Newton-John, is indicative of the band's uncanny balance between highly creative arrangements and uninhibited melodies. But as far as inhibitions go, nobody has fewer than SistaFist. The synth-and-rap trio of ladies have embraced hiphop's aggressively sexual tropes and turned them on their heads. Meanwhile, not even a year old, Portland-based IBQT is a boy band's boy band whose repertoire is centered mostly on make-up sex, marijuana, and themselves. But the music is so beautiful that it makes my heart thump every time I hear it. REBECCA WILSON

DIVERS, BIG EYES, YOUR RIVAL
(The Know, 2026 NE Alberta) Just in time for summer comes Big Eyes' new LP, Almost Famous, a hot slab of big, shiny power pop that puts good-time hooks above everything else. The record is unabashedly hi-fi and the playing is spotless, which might make this the coolest uncool punk-rock record of the year. The Seattle power trio ups the power in their power pop from 2011's equally catchy Hard Life. Former Cheeky member and native New Yorker Kate Eldridge channels Joan Jett and Cheap Trick for a rock 'n' roll experience with no pretensions—which, if memory serves, is what rock 'n' roll is all about. MARK LORE

THURSDAY 5/30

PORTLAND MUSIC VIDEO FESTIVAL
(Hollywood Theatre, 4122 NE Sandy) See My, What a Busy Week!

HALO REFUSER, MELTING POT SOUNDSYSTEM, ASHER FULERO
(Doug Fir, 830 E Burnside) Liminal Rites, the second release by Portland pianist Asher Fulero, is full of the sort of sweeping improvisation that ignores traditional technique. That's to be taken somewhat literally; each piece was recorded in one take, without revisiting, re-editing, or any post-production band-aids whatsoever. The result is a fresh and vital-sounding collection of deeply meditative compositions, pitch-perfect for the contemplative soundtrack to the alternately dreary and dreamy days of a rainy spring. This evening's record release also includes a set by Fulero's electro alter ego, Halo Refuser. RJP

FRIDAY 5/31

QUIET MUSIC FESTIVAL: LORI GOLDSTON, MONEY MARK, HEIDI ALEXANDER, TARA JANE O'NEIL, DRAGGING AN OX THROUGH WATER, MICHAEL HENRICKSON
(Disjecta, 8371 N Interstate) See My, What a Busy Week!

PATTERSON HOOD, SANTI ELIJAH HOLLEY
(Mississippi Studios, 3939 N Mississippi) See My, What a Busy Week!

BLITZEN TRAPPER, DENVER
(Doug Fir, 830 E Burnside) The label "alternative country" is similar to "intelligent hiphop"—they're both stupid and judgmental, dangerously implying an ironic fetish for populist, "unsophisticated" genres. Garth Brooks might be a staple of the overhead speakers at Walmart, but "What She's Doing Now" is 100 times more heartbreaking than anything Rhett Miller ever produced. Ahem. Blitzen Trapper, though—those cats are all right. I'd even go so far as to say that 2008's Furr has plenty of truly transcendent moments worthy of rock 'n' roll's upper echelon, in particular the title track (which sounds like an Alex Chilton original with lyrics by Neil Peart) and the Hollies-as-hell "Sleepytime in the Western World." Tonight's sold-out show celebrates the group's 10th anniversary. MT

BIG K.R.I.T., SMOKE DZA
(Refuge, 116 SE Yamhill) Mississippi rapper Big K.R.I.T. appears torn. He relishes country's warm and calloused embrace while longing for creature comforts and city lights. His subjects are consequential, although a few cocktails from "conscious"—evocative but hardly "emo." And though he is no pitchman, K.R.I.T. fetishizes stacking cash while simultaneously shining light on poverty's wicked pulsations (not to mention wealth's ultimate impermanence). But such existential limbo is often sensationalized or imposed by critics. Like most, K.R.I.T. simply seems to be making things up as he goes along. Sometimes it's not where you aim, it's where you land. And with a bit of luck the rapper and producer will shed the oddly derisive label of "rap purist" and simply emerge pure. ANDREW R TONRY

SATURDAY 6/1

QUIET MUSIC FESTIVAL: WHITE MAGIC, VOLUNTEERS PARK, MEG BAIRD, PEGGY HONEYWELL, SUN FOOT, MICHAEL HENRICKSON
(Disjecta, 8371 N Interstate) See My, What a Busy Week!

TYPHOON, WILD ONES, DJ RFRC
(Mississippi Studios, 3939 N Mississippi) Typhoon recently announced their forthcoming album, White Lighter, will be out in August, and tonight they play their first Portland show of the year (they played Boise's Treefort Fest in March). Anticipation is obviously already running high, as tonight's "Cancer Sucks!" benefit—which is raising funds to help band pal Cristine Bowman fight cancer—is super sold out. Also on the bill are Wild Ones, who have their own 2013 album on the way; Keep It Safe comes out on July 9 as the inaugural release of new local label Party Damage Records. Expect great things. NL

MY GOODNESS, TANGO ALPHA TANGO
(Bunk Bar, 1028 SE Water) On their 2011 self-titled debut, Seattle-based My Goodness offered a welcome injection of aggressive rock 'n' roll that was totally free of both macho posturing and precious flourishes. The songs are thick and no-nonsense, with impressive guitar riffs and flashes of '70s garage rock. Since then, guitar player and singer Joel Schneider and drummer Andy Lum have shed their more obvious influences, developing a distinct sound of their own: heavier and darker and more robust. On certain songs, Schneider's wail reminds me pleasantly of Vancouver, BC's Black Mountain. Tango Alpha Tango aren't quite as loud or dark, but they excel at a particularly grimy variety of folk rock. Or maybe it's a glam version of blues. It doesn't really matter—their sonic fluctuations are as entertaining as all get out. RW

SUNDAY 6/2

JUNIP, ON AN ON, BARBAROSSA
(Doug Fir, 830 E Burnside) See My, What a Busy Week!

RAFAEL VIGILANTICS, B. DOLAN, GRAYSKUL, DAS LEUNE, DOC ADAM
(White Owl Social Club, 1305 SE 8th) Rap-rock has always tilted precariously toward the rock end of that equation, resulting in lots of awful music from what can really only be characterized as rock bands, despite the frat-boy flow and the presence of a "DJ" somewhere over on stage left. Rafael Vigilantics, on the other hand, is unmistakably an emcee, and he's unquestionably making hiphop, despite the razor-sharp guitars and melodic underpinnings of his new, third album, The Spade Tapes. Thankfully, the result is nothing at all like what we think of as rap-rock, whose unfortunate trajectory during the '90s went from Rage Against the Machine to rage against your girlfriend. Instead, Vigilantics makes hiphop—which he dubs "search-and-destroy hiphop"—that doesn't rely on the genre's oft-imitated tropes. The result is something original made out of familiar ingredients, and it's also really good; The Spade Tapes' "New Thing" in particular sounds like a gigantic hit in the making. NL

MICE PARADE, ALAMEDA
(Holocene, 1001 SE Morrison) Early Mice Parade albums like Ramda, The True Meaning of Boodleybaye, and Mokoondi featured an interesting array of tracks that blended minimalist IDM, neo-exotica, and downtempo post-rock. Over the last dozen or so years, Mice Parade leader and dexterous percussionist Adam Pierce has gravitated toward a more precious, cutely melodic sound that seems to be merging with that of the Icelandic group Múm (whose Gunnar Örn Tynes now plays with Mice Parade). The new full-length, Candela, finds Pierce & Co. keeping the rhythms bustling and the guitar surprisingly bristling while Gisellse Saad Assi adds delicate vocal embroidery. These new songs rock harder than much of Mice Parade's dozy '00s output; unexpected positive development! DAVE SEGAL

BATH PARTY, COOL GHOULS, CHARTS
(The Know, 2026 NE Alberta) There's a warm, yellowed, '60s-rock meets marijuana meets the echo-effect-on-vocals that washes over San Francisco four-piece Cool Ghouls' jangledelic rock 'n' roll. Their best songs mix scuzzy guitar and rambling harmonies with blaring horns and piano sprinklings, keeping things joyful and even a little classy, in a "bowtie at the bar fight" sort of way. EMILY NOKES

JUICY J, A$AP FERG
(Roseland, 8 NW 6th) Cloaked beneath a cloud of weed, Xanax, and codeine cough syrup are glimpses of two distinct rappers—one being re-born, the other hoping to be christened. Invigorated by last year's "Bands a Make Her Dance," a strip-club anthem that twerks alongside the very best, Juicy J is once again riding high—super high, like totally twisted. After scoring an Academy Award with Three 6 Mafia for Best Song in 2005 ("It's Hard Out There for a Pimp," from Hustle and Flow), Juicy J was suddenly set for life. But the party of those old songs never stopped. Ever since, J's been smoking, leaning, rapping, and tweeting (check @therealjuicyj for occasional bits of intoxicated Zen, or the song "Juicy J Can't," a catalog of similar exploits). Balancing the old pro is A$AP Ferg, a member of NYC's aspiringly ascendant crew, whose namesake has failed to demonstrate much real value. If nothing else, Ferg ought to be hungry—especially while supporting the established vet in Juicy J. Ferg should be ready to prove, as a cadre of East Coast journalists have been so often suggesting, that the A$AP crew, as well as much contemporary New York rap, are worthy of attention outside the boroughs. ART

MONDAY 6/3

K POP VIDEOS AND DISCUSSION PANEL
(Hollywood Theatre, 4122 NE Sandy) See My, What a Busy Week!

!!!, WHITE ARROWS
(Bunk Bar, 1028 SE Water) Multi-pronounceable dance-punks !!! ("chk chk chk" being the most widely used verbal rendering) have returned with a new album, and a refined vision of where they're willing to guide their addictive musical hybrid. Thr!!!er, the Sacramento-based group's fifth studio album, digs hard house grooves and disco-tinged bangers alongside its melding of new wave and pop, making for a surprisingly familiar listen. Lyrically, especially, the album is lacking, but does anyone care? Louden Up Now it is not, but you'll probably find fans of all stripes getting really loud within the confines of Bunk Bar. File under: They don't ever play venues this small, so go! RJP

ROBYN HITCHCOCK AND THE VENUS THREE, PETER BUCK
(Doug Fir, 830 E Burnside) Bedroom albums are all the rage among Brooklyn teenagers with synths and tape recorders, but the genre takes on an entirely different meaning when a 59-year-old Londoner undertakes it. That was Robyn Hitchcock's self-imposed constraint for his latest album, Love from London, released on March 5, just before his 60th birthday. Hitchcock spends a lot of time in the Northwest these days with the Venus Three (Peter Buck, Scott McCaughey, and Bill Rieflin), but the album sounds entirely British—lilting psych-pop and charming melodies suffused with warmth. It's altogether more robust than 2010's austere Propellor Time. The Venus Three are also the band on Peter Buck's solo debut (released only on limited-edition vinyl). Sharing the same core band and released in November, it provides a dark and dirty contrast to Love from London—if you can get your hands on it. RW

TUESDAY 6/4

SAM AMIDON, ALESSI'S ARK, BARNA HOWARD
(Holocene, 1001 SE Morrison) See My, What a Busy Week!

THE PARSON RED HEADS, DESERT NOISES, SAID THE WHALE
(Doug Fir, 830 E Burnside) See My, What a Busy Week!

TIGERS JAW, PIANOS BECOME THE TEETH, SAINTHOOD REPS, LEE COREY OSWALD
(Backspace, 115 NW 5th) Read our article on Tigers Jaw.

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And Sometimes V

Ned Lannamann — Wed, 22 May 2013 04:00:00 -0700

Chvrches emerge victorious into the internet age. by Ned Lannamann

CHVRCHES SEEM designed for the internet age, right down to their eminently Googleable name. There's no album yet—they're currently mixing one for a September release—but with a few (marvelous) singles posted on various blogs and tastemaking sites, the Scottish trio is already in the throes of skyrocketing success.

"We got a hint when Neon Gold put our [first] song online last May," says Iain Cook. "The response was quite overwhelming, and every time that we put another tune out it seems to take us by surprise again. I hope it's not something that we get used to. We're just trying to keep our heads in the music and in the live performance, and trying to focus on being a band and doing the things we need to do on a daily basis."

Cook did time in the bands Aereogramme and the Unwinding Hours prior to forming Chvrches in 2011 with fellow synth player Martin Doherty and vocalist Lauren Mayberry. It's Mayberry's voice that immediately grabs you—in the bangin' "Lies," which is what you always wished Sleigh Bells sounded like, and in the astonishing, succulent "Recover," whose blatant, wide-open hooks are like staring straight into a synthesized, digital sun.

For Cook, Chvrches is an antidote to some of the limitations his past bands have posed. "Trying not to make too many stereotypes or judgments, but the alt-rock fans tend to be kind of guys stroking their beards with their girlfriends, you know?" he says, adding that they were taken aback to see fans dancing and singing along at their first US shows earlier this year. "It's quite difficult to channel Prince and Michael Jackson and Madonna and stuff into a guitar-rock band. There's a freedom in this band to explore these outlandish pop references that were kind of taboo in certain other contexts."

The immediacy of Chvrches' music is due to their mixing candy-sweet melodies with cutting, forceful synth tones. "It's something we're quite conscious of doing, because Lauren has, self-admittedly, quite a sweet tone to her voice. That gives us quite a lot of freedom to push the production and the timbres in a really harsh direction—just distorting things and putting them through compressors and trying to get things to be quite aggressive to counter the sweetness," Cook says. "I think there's a harmony there that comes together with those two elements."

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Séance Rock

Aris Wales — Wed, 22 May 2013 04:00:00 -0700

Toronto's Blood Ceremony conjures the spirits of old. by Aris Wales

THE BOTTOMLESS CAULDRON of metal is bubbling over with female-fronted, '70s-worshipping bands these days. These are bands that don't necessarily fall into the metal category, but their bleak, bluesy riffs come directly from the bedrock beginnings of metal, so they're embraced by most of the community. If one wanted to be a genre geek about it—and most metal fans would—one could refer to them as post-proto-metal, or you could simply say they enjoy Black Sabbath's discography... a lot.

Toronto's Blood Ceremony is still at the forefront of the throwback movement. Their blend of folk and progressive hard rock plays alongside Alia O'Brien's buttery voice and flute and organ skills, making the band's sound tough to match. They've put two stellar full-lengths into the ether since their inception in 2006, and are set to release their third, The Eldritch Dark, later this month. Via email, guitar player Sean Kennedy has nothing to hide about the band's devotion to the sounds of old.

"Generally, while we're getting our songs ready, I'm not listening to very much new music at all. Leading up to recording The Eldritch Dark I was listening to a lot of Fairport Convention and Black Sabbath," he says.

Along with following the old guard's tonal cues, Blood Ceremony fills their songs with dark lyrical content. Subjects like witchcraft, paganism, and the occult drench every track and the band's aesthetic style. But not unlike most creepy hard-rock acts from the '70s, it's all for show—playing into the morbid curiosity of the fans.

"The pagan atmosphere in our songs come from a variety of sources and interests," Kennedy says. "Some of it's pop-occult stuff, other bits and pieces are from some of the more eccentric occult horror films of the late '60s and early '70s—a time when a lot of people had a serious interest in the occult."

Fun is fun, but according to Kennedy, just because Blood Ceremony isn't chanting and cutting themselves before each show doesn't mean they can't entrance their listeners. "With every performance we're trying to put our magic on the audience. If you can create a vibe with music that changes someone, even momentarily, then you've successfully cast a spell."

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Inner Space

Mark Lore — Wed, 22 May 2013 04:00:00 -0700

Tame Impala's timeless flight. by Mark Lore

LONERISM turned out to be a fitting title for Tame Impala's second record. Kevin Parker—the space cadet running the good ship Impala—recorded the entire album himself at his home studio in Perth, Australia, left to his own devices. It isn't a sparse bedroom project, either, which makes this particular space odyssey all the more impressive.

Tame Impala may sound otherworldly to some; at the very least, they don't sound like anything that's come out of Australia in the past few decades. There is zero trace of the Saints' R&B punk, AC/DC's arena stomp, or Wolfmother's Zep-meets-Sab heavy blues. But you will hear other influences—everything from pre-disco the Bee Gees to mid-'70s ELO—which are sprinkled throughout Lonerism at just the right times and in just the right places.

If anything, Parker reminds me of another brilliant loner: Gustav Ejstes, who fronts the Swedish psych band Dungen. Both artists sound so immediately captivating and familiar that you have to listen again to make sure they aren't simply cribbing from the past. But in the end, they've managed to make the old sound new again.

Parker has said that he keeps his mass of instruments and recording equipment within arm's reach, so he can immediately get something down when inspiration strikes. So what you're hearing are very much the songs floating around Parker's head. First single "Elephant" has that sense of immediacy, with a simple, fuzzy groove that could pair well with any number of psychedelics. And "Mind Mischief" is aptly named, phase-shifting its way through your gray matter.

Lonerism's title goes beyond the recording process. Themes of loneliness permeate the record, and Parker's hometown of Perth—on the western coast of Australia—is one of the most remote cities on Earth. Tracking down Parker for an interview proved difficult as well. Even the band's publicist hadn't heard from him in about a week.

By most accounts, Parker is always working. He began recording Lonerism practically the day he finished Tame Impala's debut Innerspeaker, both released on Modular Recordings. For Lonerism, Parker sought some outside help in Mercury Rev's Dave Fridmann, who's worked with the Flaming Lips and produced Sleater-Kinney's bombastic The Woods. It's an exciting voyage. And it's a safe bet we'll get a sequel sooner than we think.

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Up & Coming

Wed, 22 May 2013 04:00:00 -0700

Music previews for the week of May 22-28.

WEDNESDAY 5/22

YOUTH LAGOON, SWAHILI
(Wonder Ballroom, 128 NE Russell) Read our article on Youth Lagoon.

RED FANG, GAYTHEIST
(White Owl Social Club, 1305 SE 8th) The metal-tinged power rock of Gaytheist is one of those purely pleasurable things in life—like ice cream, or Lee Van Cleef. The Portland trio's latest album Hold Me... But Not So Tight was just released on Seattle-based label Good to Die Records, and it sees outspoken gay frontman Jason Rivera leading the stampede on another collection of roaring, heavy tunes that joyously bumps the levels into the red. It's a shame tonight's de facto record-release show is already sold out, since as many people as possible should be exposed to the earcrushing delight that is Gaytheist, but they remain one of Portland's most prolific and frequently performing bands; their next local show will be within your grasp. Headliners Red Fang have just announced their third album will come out later this year on Relapse, to be produced by the Decemberists' Chris Funk, who also helmed their last one, Murder the Mountains. NED LANNAMANN Also see My, What a Busy Week!

AKRON/FAMILY, AVI BUFFALO, M. GEDDES GENGRAS
(Mississippi Studios, 3939 N Mississippi) Akron/Family decided to throw restraint out the window when recording their sixth album, Sub Verses. Loud, untidy, and surprising, the album is experimental and masculine. The best thing about A/F has always been their ability to focus on not giving a shit about popular opinion. While many of their Brooklyn peers tailor albums to be cachet magnets, Akron/Family—some of whom live, or have lived, in Portland—continue to innovate, constantly changing the landscape behind their instantly recognizable three-part harmonies. Those thrilling vocals are still the heart of Sub Verses, but it makes good use of the big, propulsive drums and distorted guitars of less eccentric American rock bands. Avi Buffalo, the moniker/band of Avi Zahner-Isenberg, emerged several years ago with a charming self-titled album of lo-fi pop. Thanks to its low-key sincerity, it managed to ride the wave of whimsy that was happening at the time without coming across as the least bit annoying. REBECCA WILSON

THURSDAY 5/23

VAMPIRE WEEKEND, HIGH HIGHS
(Keller Auditorium, 222 SW Clay) See My, What a Busy Week!

DEVENDRA BANHART, RODRIGO AMARANTE
(Crystal Ballroom, 1332 W Burnside) Those that rock out to Andrew Bird, whisk their omelets to Vetiver, and bone all night to Fleet Foxes must also smoke joints in their beds to Devendra Banhart. His songwriting is sweet and melancholy, like the day your seventh-grade girlfriend broke up with you. While Banhart's style floats in between indie and folk, his years growing up in Venezuela paved the way for his Latin-inspired tracks (which still pepper his latest album, Mala). What makes him worthwhile aren't his collaborations with Vetiver, Megapuss, or ex-girlfriend Natalie Portman; it's that somewhere underneath all that hair (since shorn off) and quiet strumming is a very crazy, dynamic musician whose sound offers more complexity than all those other dudes with guitars. ROSE FINN

TRIO FLUX, TRIO SUBTONIC
(Secret Society, 116 NE Russell) As their name suggests, Trio Flux self-identifies as a jazz fusion trio. But they have a dirty little secret, one that I think they are beginning to come to terms with: They are actually a clandestine rock band. A prog rock band, to be sure, but a rock band nonetheless. Their second album, Möbius, was produced by Riley Geare, who has worked with Radiation City and drums for Unknown Mortal Orchestra. It's totally unfettered by pedestrian conventions regarding genre, structure, and length. Neil Mattson's guitar riffs range from the smoothest of smooth to gritty distortion, sometimes in the same song. Bassist Julio Appling and drummer Adam Ochshorn provide the cool heart of the album, playing seamlessly off each other regardless of what else is happening around them. And there's a lot: "For the Simple Reason Is" is a big, dusty, wordless country song; a few tracks later, they cover Miles Davis' "Nardis." RW

ARIEL PINK, PURPLE PILGRIMS
(Wonder Ballroom, 128 NE Russell) Prior to the release of 2010's Before Today, any mention of Ariel Pink being a "pop genius" was laughable. Lo-fi doesn't even begin to describe his early records, which are dense to the point of being impenetrable. Before Today, though, exposed Ariel Pink to the world for what he really is: a chameleonic, stylistically fickle pop almanac, cut from the same cloth as an artist like Prince, and whose immense, effusive talent had been constricted up to that point by a self-imposed cassette-for-the-sake-of-it servitude. Ariel Pink's newest record, Mature Themes, is an exquisite follow-up and companion to Before Today, with pop-of-the-past-pillaging that ranges from the Byrds ("Only in My Dreams") to Zappa ("Schnitzel Boogie") and everyone in between. MORGAN TROPER

FRIDAY 5/24

FLYING LOTUS, THUNDERCAT, TEEBS
(Roseland, 8 NW 6th) See My, What a Busy Week!

BLUE CRANES, BILLYGOAT, GOLDEN RETRIEVER
(Mississippi Studios, 3939 N Mississippi) Read our article on Blue Cranes.

HOLY GHOST!, CLASSIXX
(Doug Fir, 830 E Burnside) Gap is selling neon jeans, so it's official: '80s synth nostalgia has officially hit epidemic proportions (blame fluoride). Holy Ghost! got in on the action early and have helped to propel neo-synth pop to its current heights. With connections ranging from DFA and Moby to Michael McDonald, Holy Ghost! have had an easy road to fame. As much of a production force as a pop duo, Alex Frankel and Nick Millhiser seem to spend most of their time doing remixes for big names like MGMT and LCD Soundsystem. This might be their biggest strength. Their self-titled debut, with its accessibility and ebullience, became an immediate club staple, but just a few years later, with the benefit of hindsight and Flume, I find myself wishing it was a bit less faithful to the '80s and slightly more innovative. RW

DANNY BROWN, OVERDOZ, TxE
(Hawthorne Theatre, 1507 SE César E. Chávez) Danny Brown is a proud member of the newest generation of hiphop, a student of the genre who grew up listening to his parents' golden-era records and has since transmuted that history into a new thing entirely. Equally influenced by Bay Area street legend E-40 and left-field eccentrics MF Doom and Dizzee Rascal, Brown looks the part, with a David Bowie-inspired haircut and a funky thrift-store wardrobe which famously caused 50 Cent to reject him from the G-Unit family. It's telling that Brown once remarked that getting Aesop Rock's cosign on Twitter humbled him more than if Jay-Z had done the same. Local trio TxE recently did get the Jay-Z cosign on Hova's blog, which featured producer G_Force's remix of the Radiation City song "Zombies," with bars from Tope and Epp. RYAN FEIGH

KEEP YOUR FORK, THERE'S PIE
(Velo Cult, 1969 NE 42nd) It's pretty tough to dislike a band that cheerfully calls itself Keep Your Fork, There's Pie, and it's even tougher once you hear the Portland sextet's new album, the guileless, uplifting We Want You to Know. Marrying soul-pop and junk-folk sounds, the record sounds homespun in all the best ways—kind of like an impromptu backyard barbecue sing-along before your friends get too sloppy. (For good measure, there's a tune called "Monopolowa," showing that the Forkers have good taste in affordable vodka, as well.) The title track has a solid backbeat and a fuzz-guitar lead to accompany the band's ubiquitous banjo strum, offering the kind of harmony-laden pop confection that will appeal to fans of AgesandAges. Tonight's record release show at bar/bike shop Velo Cult will prove that We Want You to Know isn't simply as good as an extra slice of pie—it's better. NL

DAMIEN JURADO, TIBURON
(Holocene, 1001 SE Morrison) Beloved for his stark minimalism, found sounds, and subdued emotionality, it was surprising to say the least when Damien Jurado's ninth album, Saint Bartlett, took a decided turn toward the lush. This was the result of a brilliant collaboration with producer/Shins member/force of nature Richard Swift. Jurado's 10th album, Maraqopa, out last year, followed suit. The Jurado-Swift partnership is one of glimmering and moving atmospherics, less subdued and more risk-taking than the lion's share of Jurado's catalog. Maraqopa ranges easily among quiet folk, psychedelic doo-wop, and Neil Young-style acoustic anthems, but Jurado's strong sense of place and the warmth of his voice unifies the album. Like Jurado, Luz Elena Mendoza is drawn to religious imagery and geographical ties. As Y La Bamba's frontwoman, Mendoza explores intersections of cultures and languages through her thrilling voice; tonight she'll do so as half of Tiburon, her very promising collab with Death Songs' Nick Delffs. RW

LEWI LONGMIRE AND THE LEFT COAST ROASTERS, THE JAMES LOW WESTERN FRONT, MICHAEL HURLEY
(Star Theater, 13 NW 6th) Lewi Longmire is everywhere, and that's a really good thing. His sideman stints as a member of Michael Hurley's Portland outfit, the Croakers, plus recording and performance opportunities with the Minus 5, Blue Giant, AgesandAges, and countless others have cemented his status as a formidable man to have in the clutch. Longmire's own band, the Left Coast Roasters, is just as concrete, consisting of local luminaries Bill Rudolph, Ned Folkerth, and the new addition of Richmond Fontaine's Dan Eccles. "Live with Love" b/w "Remedy," the band's new 7-inch, shows the rock-solid roots and Americana sounds Longmire has spent a lot of time cultivating. And lucky us, the 7-inch is being released tonight! RYAN J. PRADO

HELEN CHAYA, THE SEA AND THE MOTHER, ST. EVEN
(The Waypost, 3120 N Williams) Tonight's dual CD release ushers new records from Helen Chaya and Dao Strom into the world. Chaya's new one, I Am Not Thinking of War Today, is a sparse, folk-inflected singer/songwriter effort with straightforward songs that sound like simple, melancholy raindrops. Strom's new one, released under the name the Sea and the Mother, is a conceptual piece titled We Were Meant to Be a Gentle People (East EP). It comes with an accompanying book, and it sees the author/songwriter exploring her Vietnamese heritage both conceptually and musically—Strom's songs make use of both typical American singer/songwriter folk traditions and the Vietnamese ca dao technique of sung poetry. NL

SATURDAY 5/25

EDWARD SHARPE AND THE MAGNETIC ZEROS, SONS OF FATHERS, WAKE OWL, FORT ATLANTIC
(Waterfront Park, 1020 SW Naito) See My, What a Busy Week!

FATHER JOHN MISTY, PURE BATHING CULTURE
(Wonder Ballroom, 128 NE Russell) See My, What a Busy Week!

COOL NUTZ, DJ FATBOY, BEEJAN, JUMA BLAQ, 5 LINE ENT, MANIAC LOK, DREA STEVES
(Ash Street Saloon, 225 SW Ash) Cool Nutz is considered the godfather of the Portland rap scene, a fitting title considering he basically created it from the ground up with childhood friend Bosko. It's an exercise in futility to introduce him to most, as he is to Portland hiphop what Sir Mix-a-Lot is to Seattle. Nutz alludes to this on the single "Young Mix-a-Lot," from his latest full-length, Bars. Speaking of Seattle, Nutz will visit there early next month as a featured speaker on a Grammy Academy panel explaining how to build a professional network. Tonight, however, finds him celebrating the release of the aforementioned Bars, which was mostly recorded in tour stops in Europe (Norway, Amsterdam, and Copenhagen) and the West Coast, featuring production from Norwegian producer Hi-Q and local track master Terminill. RYAN FEIGH

THE KIDS, MEAN JEANS, CHEMICALS, SEX CRIME
(Star Theater, 13 NW 6th) Nearly forgotten Belgian punk legends the Kids are something of a secret handshake band among punk/power-pop enthusiasts, for a few very good reasons; the first being that the group's records are some of the rarest and most coveted from the era. The second is that the band absolutely rips: Here is a band, more or less isolated from the rest of the first-wave punk movement, who released a 25-minute debut record in 1979 (featuring classics like "Fascist Cops" and "Do You Love the Nazis?") that's worlds snottier than their English and American counterparts. But it's on their fourth record, Blackout, where the Kids struck chiming, power-pop gold with the closest they got to a ubiquitous pop single, "There Will Be No Next Time"'—now that's a hook. MT

BEACHWOOD SPARKS, THE PARSON RED HEADS
(Doug Fir, 830 E Burnside) Beachwood Sparks have situated themselves at that fertile intersection where folk rock, pop, psychedelia, country, and Beach Boys-style harmonies all come together. The Byrds famously discovered this territory on 1968's classic The Notorious Byrd Brothers, but that fractious band was only able to stay put in that location for the half-hour of that album's runtime. Several decades later, Beachwood Sparks rediscovered the outpost and set up a permanent settlement, claiming it as their own, and breaking only for a hiatus between 2002's Make the Cowboy Robots Cry EP and 2012's full-length The Tarnished Gold. That most recent record is an infatuating slab of space-cowboy sunshine, as true a bit of California as anything from the Golden State. NL

PRIMUS 3D
(Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, 1037 SW Broadway) Regardless of whether you love or hate Primus—and for you of the latter category, what is your goddamn deal?—the fact remains that there are few bands who can claim to be more risk-taking, more adventurous, and more downright weird. Their most recent album, Green Naugahyde, was a return to the thwappy swamp-prog found on lesser collections such as The Brown Album, though it still packed a singular punch. But even what might be construed as a dud for Les Claypool is usually more original than half of the crappy pap I spend most of my time listening to. To augment my obviously objective position on the band's music, their current tour is in 3D (whatever that means) and will be heard through quad surround sound! Take that, Pink Floyd laser light show! RJP

BILLY MARTIN/WIL BLADES DUO
(The Goodfoot, 2845 NE Stark) Billy Martin you know as the drummer of Medeski Martin & Wood, one of the baddest avant-soul-jazz trios ever. His loose-limbed funkiness and percussive adventurousness rank highly among the all-time greats. Organist Wil Blades has played with Dr. Lonnie Smith, John Lee Hooker, Idris Muhammad, and other important figures. Together they're natural conspirators in unstoppable groove manufacturing. Martin and Blades find endless ways to boggle your mind with their provocative compositional brilliancies. YouTube their New York City performance of "Toe Thumb" for proof of the disciplined voodoo they conjure with the greatest of expertise. DAVE SEGAL

SUNDAY 5/26

FITZ AND THE TANTRUMS, LITTLE HURRICANE, MICHAEL KIWANUKA, MILO GREENE
(Waterfront Park, 1020 SW Naito) See My, What a Busy Week!

TAME IMPALA, JONATHAN WILSON
(Crystal Ballroom, 1332 W Burnside) Read our article on Tame Impala.

BOMBINO, LAST GOOD TOOTH, MBRASCATU
(Star Theater, 13 NW 6th) On the closing day of Pickathon last year, with both my body and mind little more than dried-up husks, Bombino offered a revitalizing oasis and a defibrillating shock. It was Sunday and the temperature was in the 90s, and after a weekend spent gorging on profound performances I was hardly left wanting for more. Still, the whispers were strong: Bombino was not to be missed. And hell, how many African pickers had had the pleasure of playing Pendarvis Farm? So I started hoofing up that dusty trail to the Woods once more. As I neared, I heard the sound of Stratocasters trickling through the trees—hammering on and off, wild, bent and stammering. Droning both irrepressive and hypnotic. Pulling me like a magnet. Suddenly, camera in my arms, I was dangling from the back of the stage, trying to snap something. More than anything now, I needed to be closer to these frantic, soothing polyrhythms in pentatonic. Guitars tilted back, drums sweating in the pocket, the whole group swayed as one. The stage, the crowd, the trees did, too. The whole forest buzzed before Bombino's electric sun. ANDREW R TONRY Also see My, What a Busy Week!

BOAT, TOWERING TREES, THE WOODCUTS
(Kelly's Olympian, 426 SW Washington) Hooray for BOAT! Over the course of five friendly albums, the Seattle band has become near and dear, making catchy, goofy, fun rock songs that have burrowed into our affections like litters of warm, wriggly puppies. BOAT's newest album, the marvelous Pretend to Be Brave, is perhaps their most realized and least silly to date, with songs about getting older, becoming a responsible adult, and embracing all the best things about not being a kid anymore. (Beer! Friends! Dogs! Eating nachos whenever you want!) The simple pleasures that BOAT espouses apply to their music as well—unlike a lot of current-day pop or rock songs, it's not boastful or angry or forlorn. It's nice music made by nice dudes. Pass the nachos. NL

MONARQUES, LATER DUDES, NEW MOVE
(Bunk Bar, 1028 SE Water) New Move, the new project forged by Oh Captain My Captain's Jesse Bettis, is the by-product of listening to lots of the best kinds of summertime pop. Pinches of Brian Wilson harmonies pervade tracks like "Vegetables," with Bettis' well-used penchant for melody flanking fun blasts of beach-party bombast. But the band gets raw, too. The driving urban malaise of "The City Life," one of a reported album's worth of songs waiting for release, hinges on bridging the baroque epics of Oh Captain and the throwback pop of Monarques (both highly incestuous and interrelated bands) with a grimier sonic aesthetic. The band is tracking with Jeff Bond at Clangor Den for a hopeful summer release. Get excited. RJP

SUUNS, ROSE WINDOWS
(Doug Fir, 830 E Burnside) You may remember the Montreal-based art rockers Suuns, whose 2010 debut, Zeroes QC, was a blatant homage to their favorites: Beck, Clinic, Deerhoof, and T. Rex. On their second album, Images du Futur, they have honed their sound, specifically to Deerhoof-meets-Clinic—so much so that Clinic fans have taken to the internet to register their disapproval. But assuming that Suuns are coming from a place of sincere fandom (which I think is the case), Images du Futur is easy to like in a dreamily electronic, possibly depressed kind of way. Not being a music-maker myself, I find it easy to relate to bands (Foxygen, Suuns) that wear their influences on their sleeves. Hey! I like those bands too! This is endearing to a certain extent. But Suuns are a talented, if emotionally distant band and now it's time they find a voice all their own. RW

MONDAY 5/27

KYLESA, BLOOD CEREMONY, WHITE HILLS, LAZUR/WULF
(Star Theater, 13 NW 6th) White Hills' space rock can take you to the moon, and it can level city blocks right here on Earth. Last year's Frying on This Rock was the closest the New York space cadets have come to bottling their propulsive live shows. The more you listen the more the standard forebears start to emerge—Hawkwind fuzz meets Velvet Underground artiness. In the live setting White Hills gives you the complete package of extraterrestrial rock 'n' roll, looking like a black-light poster come to life. Come to think if it, that's about what they sound like, too. MARK LORE Also read our article on Blood Ceremony.

THE XX, HUNDRED WATERS
(Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, 1037 SW Broadway) It remains a bit baffling to me that the xx is consistently able to pack big rooms, but I suppose there will always be a place for sad, goth-tinged, mistily boring English pop. Tonight's one of those cases, though, where special mind should be paid to the openers. Hundred Waters wield a tech-savvy variety of screwed-up folk and triphop, and the Gainesville, Florida, group is capable of breath-sucking sounds that are like being immersed in cold water. Their skeletal songs are passionately icy, if such a thing makes sense, and Hundred Waters recently signed to Skrillex's label, so it's possible that their future work will be more intent on moving the floor. Their self-titled debut, however, remains a willfully weird, low-key listen. NL

TUESDAY 5/28

MUSICFESTNW LAUNCH PARTY: CHVRCHES, STILL CORNERS
(Wonder Ballroom, 128 NE Russell) Read our article on Chvrches.

ETERNAL SUMMERS, DIRTY LOOKS, ATLAS AND THE ASTRONAUT
(Backspace, 115 NW 5th) Eternal Summers' 2012 sophomore album Correct Behavior is a blast of dreamy, punky pop with more than a few moments of absolute perfection. The best of these are album opener "Millions," which immediately hooks the listener with a speedy, tangled guitar riff, and the breathless "You Kill," which will surely be in the closing credits of every teen-romance comedy in a couple years, once the music licensers catch on. If any song deserves to get stuck in your head on the way out of a movie theater, it's "You Kill," the modern-day equivalent of INXS's "Don't Change." But the Virginia band isn't resting on their laurels; they're already raising funds via a Pledge Music campaign to finish up album number three, whose basic tracks were recorded in Austin in February. If this means we'll get another "You Kill," it's time to start smashing the piggy bank. NL

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A Swimmin' Affair

Ned Lannamann — Wed, 22 May 2013 04:00:00 -0700

Portland post-jazz five-piece Blue Cranes practice group therapy. by Ned Lannamann

"IF THERE IS a theme, it came about pretty organically among all of us," says alto saxophonist Reed Wallsmith. "A lot of amazing and a lot of really rough stuff has happened to us," he adds, referring to the time since Blue Cranes' 2010 album Observatories.

All five members of the band are discussing their latest album, Swim, in the back room of Peter's Bar on NE Fremont. Like Blue Cranes' other work, the new record bears some tenets of jazz (instrumental compositions, the presence of horns), but genre descriptors still fail to adequately encapsulate Blue Cranes. "Post-jazz" seems to be the tag the band begrudgingly agrees is the least inaccurate. But from Swim's opening seconds—a distorted electric piano riff from Rebecca Sanborn, closely followed by deep, thumping drums from Ji Tanzer—it's clear the band is omnivorous in its sound, defined by an embracing absorption of music in all forms.

Swim is an invigorating, moving listen that, while without lyrics, manages to convey pretty heady emotions. Its basic tracks were recorded live at Jackpot! Recording Studio with Decemberists bassist Nate Query in the producer's chair. The studio layout allowed the band to perform with everyone in each other's sightlines, and bassist Keith Brush was able to mic his upright bass in an isolation booth without the need for further amplification.

Tanzer says, "One of the reasons we got Nate on board was because he said, 'I want to have you guys recorded like your live shows. I want it to feel like a live show in the recording setting.'"

The album marks the first time Blue Cranes collaborated during the songwriting process, and the band made the most of a Regional Arts and Culture Council grant by retreating to the Oregon Coast for a couple intensive composition sessions. Discussing the difference between composition and improvisation, Brush says, "It's a very blurry line. The melody and the chord progression are usually composed. But the way they're internalized and embellished is improvised."

"The forms tend to be pretty concrete," says Tanzer. "But that also depends on the songs. If we're playing a punk-rock club, we're gonna play it a certain way, probably. If we're going to play at a sit-down house concert where there's seven people, then that will probably be different than the punk-rock club."

Tenor saxophonist Joe Cunningham adds, "Typically with jazz bands, they'll play a head and then they'll solo, and the soloists and the improvisations are the stars of the show. But with our thing, we sort of think of the songs as the stars."

"I think this album is a lot darker than our other albums," Wallsmith says of Swim. "Or maybe more complex or dense in certain ways. A lot of that came out of coping with some pretty rough stuff that was happening. Rebecca's best friend died of brain cancer, and my sister-in-law died of breast cancer. For me, part of the music has been trying to hang on and cope with everything that's going on and process that."

"With instrumental music, the emotion has to come out of the music," says Cunningham. "So it's important for us to show that emotion in our writing and playing, and especially the improvisation."

"We can't help it," says Sanborn. "We just know each other so well, and that's the way that we play together—because it's about the song, and a group dynamic, and about being connected, and not just blowing through changes. Anything that's happening in our lives is always going to be on the table. We all share it together."

Wallsmith adds, "It's a therapy group, really."

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Through Mind and Back

Ryan J. Prado — Wed, 22 May 2013 04:00:00 -0700

Youth Lagoon wades in wondrous waters. by Ryan J. Prado

ON YOUTH LAGOON'S debut, 2011's contemplative The Year of Hibernation, songwriter/auteur Trevor Powers spent a period of seclusion mapping the thoroughfares of his psyche—via shy and hypnotic synth noise, veiny guitar melodies, and deeply personal lyrics. That depth of privacy and sense of dysphoria aren't any less prevalent on Powers' follow-up, Youth Lagoon's Wondrous Bughouse.

It's certainly a smidge loopier though. "Bughouse is an older word used for an insane asylum," says Powers. "I'm fascinated by the way some people see the world. People who are deemed insane can see things I can't see, and things I wouldn't want to see. At times, I've really felt insane. That's probably why it interests me."

Powers' magical soundscapes come swathed in trance-like melodies. They can be delivered like broken lullabies (as found on "Sleep Paralysis") or trippy cartoon jingles (heard on "Attic Doctor"); they can be anchored by fractured, fragile yelps that seem to nearly collapse on themselves before carrying out their intended message.

"With this record, it was really about trying to destroy the filters my mind puts up, and just speak," Powers says. "People get used to doing something a certain way, and because of that, it makes you susceptible to feeling apathetic. I've been trying to tap into my subconscious more, and that's what a lot of this record is."

For Wondrous Bughouse, Powers' aural ship was steered by his fascination with the human psyche and where the spiritual meets the physical world. Metaphysics and pop music don't make obvious bedfellows, and the heavier overtones of Bughouse can be easily overlooked in favor of its sparkling patina. Still, there is a sense of doom on Bughouse that centers on mortality—a curious inspiration for someone who's so young.

"There's that spiritual dimension going on at all times around us," says Powers. "Sometimes when I'd go off alone working on this record, I'd really feel it. I wanted to capture a piece of that sort of mental state sonically, sometimes by having a plan for what I wanted to achieve and other times by experimenting. Sounds are completely endless, and each one carries a different sort of feeling. This record was me just beginning to explore that."

When you hear the repeated refrain "You'll never die" on the pensive chillwave track "Dropla," you're convinced of a delusional narrator, regardless of the context. Similarly, "Attic Doctor" projects a playful panorama with toy-piano cash register "chings!" along with creepily austere lines like, "'I won't die easily'/That's what you said after you watched the disease spread/The doctor conceals a grin to tell her she couldn't have babies."

"I'm into dark sounds musically," says Powers, "but those that can be interpreted two completely different ways. It's like when you hear a laugh. Laughter is obviously the 'happiest' expression, but if it's heard in the wrong context or even goes on too long, it can sound terrifying."

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Spazz Hands

Mark Lore — Wed, 15 May 2013 04:00:00 -0700

Black Pus' Brian Chippendale makes "mature spazzy." by Mark Lore

BRIAN CHIPPENDALE doesn't consider his full-time band Lightning Bolt to be "noise music." "We're more like a rock band that's noisy," the drummer says via phone.

He does like the word "spazzy," however, which could be used to describe his longtime side project, the one-man operation Black Pus. Or as Chippendale puts it: "mature spazzy." All My Relations, his latest release as Black Pus, is actually his most accessible to date, recorded in a proper studio instead of at home on a four-track. It's tempered with a poppier sensibility and a bigger sound, although it's still frenetic. "Black Pus is slower than Lightning Bolt," says Chippendale, adding, "but I'm a little too far gone to know how spazzy or manic the music is."

That's probably true. Chippendale has been making a go of it with his longtime Lighting Bolt co-conspirator Brian Gibson for almost two decades. He began doing Black Pus in 2005 as a way to fill his downtime, and to work on music at his own pace. In that time Chippendale has recorded a pile of LPs, CD-Rs, and songs on Bandcamp.

The project seems to line up with his visual art. "It does go more into the realm of art where I just space out," he explains of playing solo. "It's either a go, or it doesn't exist."

Those two worlds came together in an unlikely way recently with the video for the song "1000 Years," in which Chippendale assembled a string of old flipbook illustrations he'd drawn as a kid. I'm not sure which is more impressive—the fact he's held on to these crude drawings of stick-figure ninjas battling dragons for 30 years, or that he sifted through almost 1,000 pages of material to make the video.

The cover art for All My Relations—also done by Chippendale—is a squirrelly blast of pastels. Simply put, it looks just like Black Pus sounds. And Chippendale will be the first to tell you that his music carries over into his artwork. "The music and the art is a way to get me fully immersed in something," he says. "The more extreme, the more I get lost in it."

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Pitcher Plants and Pearls

A.L. Adams — Wed, 15 May 2013 04:00:00 -0700

Ben Darwish and the Shook Twins form Morning Ritual. by A.L. Adams

BEN DARWISH collects pitcher plants, keeping a terrarium at his Falcon Art Community studio. What are pitcher plants? They're almost orchids, sort of succulents, they're relatively rare, and they eat flies. Like Darwish's multi-genre musical efforts, they completely defy categorization.

The prolific local songwriter and pianist tapped Typhoon producer Paul Laxer, garnered a $10,000 budget from US Artists, and enlisted neo-bluegrass sister act the Shook Twins to sit in for The Clear Blue Pearl, a set of songs Darwish is comfortable calling a "concept album" but not a "rock opera." Though it's slated as the first of many releases from various Ben-and-friends groupings that will all come under the billing of Morning Ritual, visually and conceptually, Pearl may prove hard to outshine. He's flanked on both sides by musically acute Pre-Raphaelite beauties Laurie and Katelyn Shook, and draws from a decade of experiments in jazz combos and Afro-beat bands—Darwish has blazed a broad swath of sonic and thematic terrain.

Darwish became acquainted with the Shooks as his Alberta-area neighbors, and he jammed with them at a few house parties before approaching them about the project. Clearly wanting to stay out of trouble, he describes his twin collaborators carefully: "One is a little more instrumentally oriented and one is more vocal... one drives and one doesn't... one may or may not party more than the other." Which attributes apply to which, he diplomatically evades. "I'll just say it's invaluable to be able to perform with two vocalists who link up the way they do," he gushes, taking the treasure hunt his record references beyond a mere metaphor.

In Pearl's fanciful folk tale, a farming couple in the midst of a deadly drought sets off in search of a legendary aquifer called the Clear Blue Pearl. Their 10-song journey culminates when they discover an underground lake in a volcanic cave. "'Tunnel of Light' describes a light that comes down from the surface and brings them into the cave," Darwish explains, "and in 'Bad Air' they're having trouble breathing amid volcanic gasses. Finally, in 'Geyser,' they get shot out of a geyser back to the surface."

For a Northwest folk collab about agriculture, the record's imagery is oddly lush, oceanic, and tropical. Words like "obsidian" jut out from otherwise ambient vocals. And the references to "dolphins"? "Aha," says Darwish, admitting that a 2010 gig on a Caribbean cruise ship influenced his lyrics enough to inadvertently (but conveniently) parallel John Steinbeck's Baja-based novella, The Pearl.

The arrangements are similarly unpredictable, ranging well beyond the bounds of Northwest folk tradition. "There's a strong dubstep undertone that no one seems to hear," says Darwish—but it's easier to identify Morning Ritual's triumphal he/she harmonies à la Fleetwood Mac, or the wistful piano runs that nod to Bruce Hornsby, or syncopated jazz-pop in the style of Ben Folds, or a smooth R&B duet sound that Darwish says foreshadows his future projects. "I'm trying to push the envelope and incorporate some original ideas while maintaining a classic sound," he says, noting that live recording at Jackpot! Recording Studio without a click track helped the overall old-school prog-pop feel.

Since his 2011 Caldera Arts residency, Darwish has also refined his soaring falsetto voice, reaching the heights of Bon Iver, Sigur Rós, or even the Bee Gees. "That's one reason I wanted to work with women singers; they're always saying I can sing higher than them. I'm one of the girls now," he jokes.

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Burn, Baby, Burn!

Aris Wales — Wed, 15 May 2013 04:00:00 -0700

The hard-working Witchburn is going all the way. by Aris Wales

PERHAPS THE DREAM of becoming a big-shot, world-renowned rock star really isn't as distant as it seems. Sure, internet piracy and file sharing have strangled album sales down to their last gasp, but if a band is willing to sacrifice everything, tour like lunatics, be truly dedicated—and most importantly, if they don't suck—they can go as far as their will can take them. Seattle's Witchburn is currently climbing that mountain, and judging by guitar player Mischa Kianne's tone over the phone, the journey is a pleasure.

"We just employ the philosophy that nothing good can come if you're not working hard for it. We prefer to earn everything we achieve. We're doing anything and everything we can... with integrity of course, to take it as far as we can," she says.

That passion comes through clearly in Witchburn's hard, heavy rock 'n' roll. Equal parts doom and stoner rock are grooved up with some swagger and accessibility, making Witchburn's riffs tough to ignore. On any stage, big or small, the band exudes professionalism and comfort—they look like they were born in front of an audience.

It comes as no surprise that, collectively, the band has logged lots of time rocking and rolling. For example, vocalist Jamie Nova fronted the all-female AC/DC cover band Hell's Belles for six years, living off that revenue alone; Kianne is the assistant promotions director at Seattle's rock station KISW. They've got their fingers in lots of pies, but Kianne assures that Witchburn's achievements have not been due to their past or current endeavors.

"Honestly, we keep those very separate from what we do with Witchburn. Of course, we do end up working with and getting to know a lot of people that can help the band in certain ways, but just asking for favors is not our style."

The band's list of accomplishments grows daily. They've done small jaunts with bands like Orange Goblin, big tours with Crowbar and Dio Disciples, and they even made it to Europe for a month-long stretch, going from Spain to Sweden to Portugal. In that time they've also recorded and self-released two full-lengths with legendary producer Jack Endino.

All of this pushing, and still no record contract. Kianne claims the band has had offers, but nothing worth grabbing yet. "We're a hard-working band and we enjoy working hard, so it's not like we're looking for handouts. [We] know when a situation is right and when it's not."

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Up & Coming

Wed, 15 May 2013 04:00:00 -0700

Music previews the week of May 15-21.

WEDNESDAY 5/15

WHITE FANG, COLLEEN GREEN, HEAVY HAWAII, COMASERFS
(Star Theater, 13 NW 6th) See My, What a Busy Week!

THE BLACK ANGELS, HANNI EL KHATIB, WALL OF DEATH
(Wonder Ballroom, 128 NE Russell) Read our article on the Black Angels.

MILK CARTON KIDS, THE BAREFOOT MOVEMENT
(Aladdin Theater, 3017 SE Milwaukie) The most successful folk duos have been one of three things: emotionally earnest, politically earnest, or earnestly satirical. The Milk Carton Kids are all of these things or, possibly, none. (Their satirical tendencies are reserved for onstage banter.) For people overcome with crushing nostalgia for the likes of Simon and Garfunkel, but who can no longer take the lyrics to, say, "Bridge over Troubled Water" seriously, the Milk Carton Kids fill an important, albeit specific, niche. With close harmonies and lyrics that don't seem to have been written by Holden Caulfield, the Milk Carton Kids make music that is pleasant and lovely and could potentially trick a boomer into thinking a few songs are long-lost S&G B-sides. Their second album, The Ash and Clay, is folk music for the masses, tiptoeing around themes of love and politics, but not in a way you'd really notice if you aren't looking for it. REBECCA WILSON

THURSDAY 5/16

BLACK PUS, DEEP FRIED BOOGIE BAND
(Bunk Bar, 1028 SE Water) Read our article on Black Pus.

MORNING RITUAL, DE LA WARR
(Doug Fir, 830 E Burnside) Read our article on Morning Ritual.

YO LA TENGO
(Wonder Ballroom, 128 NE Russell) Yo La Tengo's latest release Fade—the band's 13th—has been universally well received, not because the band is breaking new ground necessarily, but because it's a perfect extension of what's come before. The record—whose cover shot was taken at Portland's Overlook Park—proves that, some 30 years later, Yo La Tengo can do no wrong. The band's music has always incorporated just the right amount of noise and beauty. And their leisurely observations have made an impression on a number of artists, including Jeff Tweedy and Barbara Manning. The term "indie" has been grossly overused, but as long as Yo La Tengo keeps putting out records, it will always mean something to somebody. MARK LORE Also see My, What a Busy Week!

EIDOLONS, BIKE THIEF, NOBLE FIRS
(Rotture, 315 SE 3rd) To say that Eidolons are influenced by Yo La Tengo [see above listing] is both an understatement and a generalization. Dan Byers' restrained, delicate vocals play off the band's cacophonously poppy instrumentation to form fully satisfying compositions. The band has had a busy year; they're getting ready to release a new album, did a live recording at Banana Stand, and have been consistently performing to growing crowds around Portland. Ferocious drums characterize the upbeat tracks, while slower ones boast dreamy slide guitar. They play with violin folk-rockers Bike Thief, and Noble Firs, a lively, surf rock-inspired project featuring members of Tigress. RACHEL MILBAUER

MOBB DEEP
(Alhambra Theatre, 4811 SE Hawthorne) To fans of classic '90s hiphop, the hardcore street duo of Albert "Prodigy" Johnson and Kejuan "Havoc" Muchita, together known as Mobb Deep, needs no introduction. They battled with Tupac, Snoop, and Jay-Z and collaborated with Q-Tip, Nas, and members of the Wu-Tang Clan. Their current tour coincides with the 20-year anniversary of their debut recording, Juvenile Hell, recorded when the two were still both in their teens. Even though that album didn't do well initially, the record paved the way for their second release, the golden-era classic The Infamous. This tour follows a very public and controversial falling out between the two founding members in spring of last year, so word of their reconciliation is a welcome one. RYAN FEIGH

FRIDAY 5/17

MAN OR ASTRO-MAN?, AUDACITY
(Doug Fir, 830 E Burnside) See My, What a Busy Week!

THE PAUL COLLINS BEAT, BLUE SKIES FOR BLACK HEARTS, THE CRY, THEE FOUR TEENS
(East End, 203 SE Grand) Paul Collins recorded an album in 2010 called The King of Power Pop, a title that might come off as a bit ostentatious if there weren't some truth to it. Collins formed the Nerves—the short-lived LA power trio—back in the late '70s with Peter Case and Jack Lee. From there he formed the Beat, whose 1979 debut is still one of the catchiest slabs of power pop around. That was a long time ago, but good pop songs never go out of style. Over the past few years Collins has been pushing to turn "power pop" into a movement. I can't imagine that involves much, except some good ol'-fashioned gripping and ripping. I mean, everyone's a sucker for a good pop song, right? ML

A SIMPLE COLONY, SWANSEA, RITCHIE YOUNG
(Mission Theater, 1624 NW Glisan) Michael Dodson and Lara Michell are A Simple Colony, and their first album Make It Start runs a wide gamut of styles, most falling into some category of careful, minor-key ballad. With acoustic and electronic textures and Dodson's pliable voice, the band escapes the trap of seeming scattered and unfocused—rather, A Simple Colony seem fully in command of all its various guises. The duo often performs acoustically on their own, but tonight's CD release show will likely see them in their full-band incarnation with bassist Nancy Hess, keyboardist Rebecca Sanborn, and drummer Ned Failing. NED LANNAMANN

SATURDAY 5/18

HARRY SMITH TRIBUTE
(Mission Theater, 1624 NW Glisan) See My, What a Busy Week!

BRAHMS' FIRST SYMPHONY: OREGON SYMPHONY
(Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, 1037 SW Broadway) Achtung, procrastinators: Did you promise yourself you'd finally catch at least one Oregon Symphony concert this classical season? If so, heads up that tonight, tomorrow, and Monday mark the very last shows of 2012/2013, so get your skinny-jeaned asses in gear and grab some tix before the band embarks on their richly deserved summer vacay. Maestro Carlos Kalmar and the gang kick off this glorious program with a rousing seven-minute overture from Franz von Suppé before turning things over to guest soloist Jennifer Koh—a globally acclaimed fiddler who I guarantee will dazzle the crowd with a brilliant Hungarian violin concerto by Béla Bartók. Following Ms. Koh's gypsy virtuosity, Stumplandia's ultimate cover band will soar with the old-school sounds of Brahms' massive Symphony No. 1. Jesus H. Christ, people, pass up the PlayStation and nix the Netflix for just one goddamn night. It's high time for some fucking culture... unplug and get you some at the Schnitz! ANGRY SYMPHONY GUY

I CAN LICK ANY SONOFABITCH IN THE HOUSE, SEPARATION OF SANITY, JACKRABBIT, MATT WOODS
(Dante's, 350 W Burnside) "They don't make men like Andy Griffith anymore," sings I Can Lick Any Sonofabitch in the House's grizzled frontman Mike Damron on his band's new LP, Mayberry. It could be argued that they don't make guys like Damron anymore either. The band's long been a staple of the Northwest's Southern-fried punk underground, sharing stages with such touring acts as Drag the River, Two Cow Garage, and more. On their new album, ICLASOBITH treads familiar territory: Mike D's ongoing fuck you to conformity, spliced with tender, anthemic diatribes on family values, government, and religion. The energy of the band's beginning stages remains very much alive, which you can chalk up to the consistency in their lineup, from the rhythm section of Mole Harris and Flapjack Texas, to the fantastic harpist Dave Lipkind, to lead guitarist Handsome Jon. This release show will be a rocker. RYAN J. PRADO

MIC CRENSHAW, REDRAY FRAZIER, FINGERPAINT AFRO JAZZ, DJ DEFF RO
(The Know, 2026 NE Alberta) Local emcee Mic Crenshaw may choose to call Portland home, but it's abundantly clear that his musical influence extends far beyond the borders of our town. A recent trip to six cities in Africa as part of the Afrikan Hiphop Caravan found him touring with the likes of political rappers Dead Prez, who then found time to record the track "Superheros" with Crenshaw, featuring production by Maestro of D-12. Tonight marks the release of a new EP for Crenshaw, titled Bionic Metal. The resulting effort is an ode to his Midwestern roots, with prominent shoutouts to Minneapolis. It also finds him in the precarious position of rapping over rock production, a move which thankfully ends up sounding more like the Judgment Night soundtrack than it does Limp Bizkit. RF

PAINTED PALMS, PHONE CALL, BEAT CONNECTION
(Bunk Bar, 1028 SE Water) Reese Donohue and Christopher Prudhomme grew up on the same block in Lafayette, Louisiana, but didn't start making music together until they were separated by a few thousand miles in college. That sweetly Southern origin story belies the brainy complexity of Painted Palms' two efforts so far—their Canopy EP and the more recent "Carousel" 7-inch. Resounding vocals set against transcendent electronic textures make their music as pleasurable as it is interesting and even, yes, uplifting. Phone Call, the improbably handsome offshoot of local dance outfit Strength, will likely strike a more decadent note as they nail the atmosphere of a sexually aggressive '80s disco. Both of these bands will benefit from a crowd primed by a DJ set from Seattle's lauded Beat Connection. They are that unicorn of a synth band that inspires uncontrollable dancing while resisting every temptation to be campy. RW

DON AND THE QUIXOTES, FRUIT OF THE LEGION OF LOOM, THEE HEADLINERS, GHOST TRAIN
(Kenton Club, 2025 N Kilpatrick) It took 10 years for Portland's own Fruit of the Legion of Loom to release its first album, but Humandatory Genocide is now an actual thing, and one that will surely burn up the hit parade. After all, nothing says chart success like "instrumental concept album," and Legion of Loom's zooming, gonzo shredding is the sort of thing that makes music writers type words that wouldn't otherwise exist in the English language, like "frenetic" and "skronk." There are three acts to the sci-fi themed Humandatory Genocide, and the story itself is all laid out inside the CD booklet, although I doubt it will help much to get your bearings. Instead, sit back and let the instru-mental (sorry, another bullshit music critic tactic) trio's mathy, metal-tinged, progressive delirium work you over. Tonight's CD release is also the release show for Teflon Don, album number two from surf-rockers Don and the Quixotes. NL

LITTLE SUE (3 PM); RADIATION CITY (7 PM)
(Music Millennium, 3158 E Burnside) New Light, the new album from longtime Portland songwriter Little Sue, summons an impressive lineup of collaborators to flesh out her equally impressive quiver of folky tunes. Produced and recorded by Mike Coykendall, Sue's saloon-steeped compositions bounce with peppy pianos, ukulele, and an especially unusual addition of clarinet, courtesy of Jill Coykendall. Guest musicians include Decemberists/Black Prairie accordionist Jenny Conlee-Drizos, as well as fellow Black Prairie member Annalisa Tornfelt on vocals/violin for the excellent "Energy: Love Song for West Virginia." This afternoon show at Music Millennium is totally free, as are downloads of Sue's album from Bandcamp. In lieu of charging for the record, Sue is requesting that people contribute to various Portland charitable organizations; a list of Sue's recommendations can be found on her Bandcamp page as well. RYAN J. PRADO Later this evening at Music Millennium, Radiation City also do an in-store performance, anticipating the Tuesday release of their excellent new Animals in the Median album.

CANNIBAL CORPSE, NAPALM DEATH, IMMOLATION, CRETIN, WORLD OF LIES
(Wonder Ballroom, 128 NE Russell) The first time I saw the cover of Cannibal Corpse's debut album Eaten Back to Life—which shows a zombie feasting on its own intestines—I thought it was a joke. Song titles like "Bloody Chunks" and "Scattered Remains, Splattered Brains" added to that notion. Of course I wanted to hear it. That was 23 years ago. Since then the band has successfully topped itself with each release, writing songs whose titles I'm even afraid to print here... in the Mercury... okay, they have a song called "I Cum Blood." It's silly stuff. But Cannibal Corpse's B-movie horror metal has outlived many of its contemporaries, proving they've probably eaten themselves back to life on more than one occasion. ML

SUNDAY 5/19

ALELA DIANE, VIKESH KAPOOR, BARNA HOWARD
(Portland Playhouse, 602 NE Prescott) See My, What a Busy Week!

HURT, WITCHBURN, CELLAR DOOR, ELEMENT 57, MOHAWK YARD
(Hawthorne Theatre, 1507 SE César E. Chávez) Read our article on Witchburn.

BRAHMS' FIRST SYMPHONY: OREGON SYMPHONY
(Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, 1037 SW Broadway) See Saturday's listing.

HUNGRY HUNGRY HIP-HOP: LUCAS DIX, EVVNFLOW, RUFUS SMALLTOWNZ
(Mississippi Pizza Pub, 3552 N Mississippi) Hungry Hungry Hip-Hop is a free monthly event created and hosted by Portland native Elan Eichler, AKA rapper Mighty Misc. That he's been doing this monthly since September 2011 speaks volumes in illustrating how much he cares about the local hiphop community. In addition to his infectious perseverance and tenacity, Eichler also has a great ear for talent, giving unproven up-and-coming artists the chance to perform alongside some hiphop heavyweights. Tonight's headliner is Lucas Dix, formerly of Hives Inquiry Squad and currently of Jellyfish Brigade. Dix's day job as an elementary school teacher prevents him from performing around town as often as he'd like, so this glimpse into his new project Diving Lessons is a rare treat. The fact that this month's show is part of the canned food drive Food Wars is all the more reason to attend. RF

SPECK MOUNTAIN, ANDREW GRAHAM AND THE SWARMING BRANCH, THE SLIDELLS
(Valentine's, 232 SW Ankeny) Fans of Opal, Kendra Smith, Mazzy Star, and Hope Sandoval should devote some quality headphone time to Speck Mountain. The Chicago band's lazed, glazed rock locks into the same time-stopping beauty-mongering of those artists' mellowest meanderings. On albums like Summer Above, Some Sweet Relief, and Badwater, Speck Mountain eke out gorgeous, laidback melodies marked by Marie-Claire Balabanian's consolingly downcast vocals and her and Karl Briedrick's dewy, bejeweled guitar textures. Easy does it, over and over, for Speck Mountain—who are promising a cover of Alex Chilton's jaunty "Hey! Little Child" on this tour. DAVE SEGAL

MONDAY 5/20

FABOLOUS, PUSHA T, PORTLAND EXPRESS, SUPANOVA, MR. C, CASPA
(Roseland, 8 NW 6th) See My, What a Busy Week!

BRAHMS' FIRST SYMPHONY: OREGON SYMPHONY
(Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, 1037 SW Broadway) See Saturday's listing.

STAY CALM, WEEK OF WONDERS, WL, SURFS DRUGS
(Rotture, 315 SE 3rd) A few years ago, Orca Team were among the best bands in Portland that not many people paid attention to. They garnered a smattering of local press and played at all the "right" bars, but something about the band just didn't seem to connect with Portland audiences. The band packed their things and relocated to Seattle, made a single record (2012's excellent Restraint, which almost blew up), and called it quits. But here's the good news: Former Orca Team bassist/ringleader Leif Anders' new band, Week of Wonders, is essentially a continuation of his previous project, and it's terrific in all the same ways. The group's debut EP Failures is a quintessentially Pacific Northwest take on beach pop that manages to be nostalgic and reminiscent of I-vi-IV-V shit without ever being too desperately "retro." But most importantly, stripped of their aesthetic, the songs are fundamentally great. If Failures isn't an indication we've been taking Anders for granted, I don't know what is. MORGAN TROPER

TUESDAY 5/21

BLACK MOTH SUPER RAINBOW, THE HOOD INTERNET, OSCILLATOR BUG
(Hawthorne Theatre, 1507 SE César E. Chávez) See My, What a Busy Week!

SHOUT OUT LOUDS, HAERTS
(Aladdin Theater, 3017 SE Milwaukie) Daft Punk's much anticipated album Random Access Memories is physically released in the US today, and it's one of the biggest musical disappointments in recent memory, in which the French EDM pioneers opt for a lightly disco-tinged, incredibly repetitive album of soft rock that would send Christopher Cross into snoozes of boredom. While it seems obvious Daft Punk is reaching for the sort of jetstream adult-contempo that likely filled their parents' record collection (Serge Gainsbourg, Air Supply, Alan Parsons Project, possibly Floyd), they approach it like EDM, locking in their programmed, quantized sequences and letting them play for minutes on end with absolutely no development and no drama. For a completely successful, absolutely lovely version of the kind of airbrushed, slick, easy-listening Europop that Daft Punk has utterly bungled, turn your ears instead to Shout Out Louds. The Stockholm quintet's fourth album, Optica, is a gorgeous, wide-eyed, perfectly posed collection of gentle rock with not a single mussed hair or note out of place. Eighties-gazing singles like "Illusions" and "Walking in Your Footsteps" continue Shout Out Louds' string of wistful, highly processed pop songs, done with absolute mastery. NL

WHITE RAINBOW, JORDAN DYKSTRA, CASPAR SONNET, DJ MUSIQUE PLASTIQUE
(Holocene, 1001 SE Morrison) The latest project of über-talented experimental composer D. Reuben Snyder is Caspar Sonnet, who will be celebrating his full-length album release, Identify, for Portland's own Marriage Records. With a powerful, gorgeous tenor he articulates haunting melodies over unusual song structures that draw influence from baroque, lo-fi tribal, dark rhumba, and experimental kabuki. Snyder's dangerously alluring lullabies could easily draw you into a silky web of bygone-era romanticism, where you might forget reality for a moment in favor of a sunset voyage from which you very well may not want to return. CHRISTINA BROUSSARD

AND AND AND, SAMA DAMS
(Bunk Bar, 1028 SE Water) Though some musicians sound undeniably better with the benefit of a production studio and engineers, And And And sound drastically different. This can be a good thing. For example, I sometimes enjoy hearing their songs played at a relatively soft level, and I think the arrangements on Lost glow with the warmth of 1,000 sunsets. The downside is that the recordings capture nothing of the depravity, the loudness, the punk-rock spirit of their live shows. Not until now. In a fortunate development for posterity, And And And are the latest installment of Live from the Banana Stand, that beloved local series of sonic time capsules in the form of live albums. Finally, I can fit the frenzied chaos of And And And right in my pocket. There are several new and unreleased songs here, but the real pleasure is the raw, unfiltered versions of songs that I've grown so used to hearing in their mixed-and-mastered state. RW

THE DETROIT COBRAS, PANGEA, NO GOOD LOVERS
(Dante's, 350 W Burnside) One of the biggest surprises from last year's random show-going was a happenstance set I attended at Angelo's bar on SE Hawthorne. A packed room swayed with raised tallboys-in-fists to some raucous noise in the corner of the joint from a lineup curated by local punks White Fang. Los Angeles garage-punkers Pangea ended up being the perpetrators of said noise, and played a set that provoked me to run across the street back to my house to steal cash from a savings jar to buy every record they brought along to sell, which included the excellent Killer Dreams EP and the Living Dummy LP. The band has since steadily generated some serious buzz, culminating in a rumored recording collaboration with Ryan Adams. This is poppy, smart, sometimes fuzzy, always fun songwriting that has wiggled its way deeply into the folds of my favor, for whatever that's worth. RJP

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Almost Blue

Ryan J. Prado — Wed, 15 May 2013 04:00:00 -0700

Get dosed with the Black Angels. by Ryan J. Prado

HERE'S THAT WORD again: "psychedelic."

It could very well be the most overused, misapplied, and misunderstood term used to identify music today. But that doesn't stop people like me from slapping it on almost anything with a fuzzy bass line, a buzzing organ, or any tune that meanders past the 10-plus-minute mark.

Austin quartet the Black Angels have been one of the most visible torchbearers of psychedelia since their formation in 2004. And guess what? Their self-awareness of whatever it is they do is just as nebulous as anyone else's. So it looks like we're all off the hook.

"If I hear a good band and it moves me in some emotional or spiritual way, it's 'psychedelic,'" explains vocalist Alex Maas. "If I dance to 'The Humpty Dance' in a Burger King bathroom in a nightgown, that, too, is psychedelic. Blurry lines are bountiful these days."

Whatever the qualifier, the Black Angels' new album, Indigo Meadow, balances Maas' quirky, tenor melodies and sophisticated cadences with an ear toward oft-referenced psych acts of the last 40 years (your Jefferson Airplanes, your Velvet Undergrounds, your Spacemen 3s). The Angels, though, dose their catalog with both the light and dark moments of heavy rock, stoking ample amounts of stoner grooves and heavy-lidded hooks out of tracks like the gloomy "Love Me Forever" or the bombastic garage-pop of "Don't Play with Guns."

"I'm most proud of our willingness to evolve and change," Maas says, "[to] blossom like a hibiscus. We are still like bamboo in its simplicity, but morphology is essential to survival."

The band headlined Austin's Psych Fest in April with Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and Deerhunter, and they're on a two-month-long US tour before heading to Australia and Europe, ostensibly to lull audiences into varying states of both catatonia and exultation. Their ability to progress from one to the next is among their biggest attributes as a band.

"We do like the contrast of lightness and darkness," says Maas. "One can't exist without the other. Put a child singing in a dark room and all of a sudden you have a scary movie."

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Curiouser and Curiouser

Ryan J. Prado — Wed, 08 May 2013 04:00:00 -0700

Wampire's debut album is better late than never. by Ryan J. Prado

ON THE EVE of the European release of Curiosity, the debut album by Portland's Wampire, Rocky Tinder has found his way to Laurelhurst Park from Renn Fayre about half an hour after our scheduled interview time. He's sporting an oversized black Boyz II Men T-shirt, and later admits he's a little hung over from the previous day's festivities at Reed College, where his girlfriend is graduating. His partner in Wampire, Eric Phipps, shows up about 10 minutes after that. It's auspicious timing to discuss the fact that although Wampire has been a lively part of Portland's music scene since 2007, it took them nearly five years to write and record an album together. By comparison, being 30 minutes tardy is totally forgivable.

Wampire started with just Tinder and Phipps, primarily flaunting a hybrid of danceable tribal punk with programmed beats, egg shakers, guitars, and sometimes matching outfits. "We were trying to be a party band," says Tinder. "After a while we just wanted to start playing cool songs that didn't necessarily need to make people dance."

They've abandoned most of those initial audio avenues, though the strength of some early recordings and Wampire's live show was enough for Champaign, Illinois-based Polyvinyl Records to sign the band early this year after they opened for now-labelmates STRFKR. Tinder and Phipps teamed up with Unknown Mortal Orchestra's Jacob Portrait to engineer and produce Curiosity at Portrait's Northeast warehouse studio space, the Wave Cave. (UMO's Ruban Nielson also did the cover design.)

The band entered the studio with little more than snippets of demos, wanting to allow the creative space and Portrait's collaborative spirit to work its way into the project. The result is a patchwork of diverse musical terrain that ranges from no-wave electro to Swedish dancehall pop to rambunctious garage rock, sometimes all within one song.

"A lot of the songs were written without a specific concept for them to be Wampire songs," explains Tinder. "We were just writing songs and we'd bring them to the table after the fact. The inspirations were kind of all over the place."

"In a way it was like writing songs for another band to play, to detach yourself from it so that when you're composing it, you're wondering if another band played it, if it'd be cool," adds Phipps.

Throughout Curiosity, Wampire's sonic partnership seems to be one of mutual respect, even when their respective songwriting strengths are fairly disparate. "We worked on some songs that were specifically Rocky songs or specifically Eric songs, but they're still collaborative during the production," says Phipps. "Then we just bounced ideas off each other. But pretty much Rocky likes to write about the darker stuff and I like to write more about the sunny side."

Whatever the process, and however long it may have taken, it's hard to delineate too much when a song as effortlessly fantastic as the Nick Lowe-meets-Julian Casablancas "I Can't See Why" revs up, or when the psych-club groove of "Orchards" spills into the mains. Patience is a virtue, after all. And besides, with Curiosity under their belts, Wampire are learning a thing or two about timing.

"The writing process went a whole lot quicker if you could say, 'This is just a demo,'" says Tinder. "'Don't worry about it. This song might not ever get worked on.'"

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