WEDNESDAY, APRIL 8
MUSIC—This month's installment of Ear Candy (your best ticket to free local music, brought to you by the Merc and Mississippi Studios!) features bands with women that bring the volume: Palo Verde plays heavy deconstructed-reconstructed post-rock, Polst wields ferocious hardcore like a chainsaw, and Sei Hexe delivers crust-punk metal that sounds like it's emitting from the underworld itself. NED LANNAMANN
Mississippi Studios, 3939 N Mississippi, 9 pm, FREE
BOOKS—Fascinating Welsh journalist Jon Ronson has tagged along with conspiracy theorists for Them, dug into the minds of psychopaths for The Psychopath Test, and revealed the new age-y experiments of the military for The Men Who Stare at Goats. Tonight, he visits Powell's to talk about So You've Been Publicly Shamed, which delves into one of modern society's less admirable hobbies. I will shame you if you don't go. ERIK HENRIKSEN
Powell's City of Books, 1005 W Burnside 7:30 pm, FREE
THURSDAY, APRIL 9
MUSIC—Belle and Sebastian time! The wistful Scots bring their sensitive souls to our rainy city tonight. Wear a pastel jumper, open your heart, and prepare to have it cracked into slivers by lovely tunes filled with pain, humor, and upended storytelling. Touring on latest album Girls in Peacetime Want to Dance, they'll be playing new tunes alongside the sugar-sweet sadness of their classics. COURTNEY FERGUSON
w/Perfume Genius; Roseland, 8 NW 6th, 8 pm, $42.50, all ages
COMEDY—Hari Kondabolu's sociopolitical stand-up will make you smarter, THROUGH LAUGHTER. The former immigrant-rights activist delivers whip-smart jokes with a light touch. From his Kill Rock Stars release, Waiting for 2042, to his feminist dick jokes, he's not afraid to call people on their shit. Comedy could use like 4,000 more Hari Kondabolus—let's
encourage this! MEGAN BURBANK
Agnes Flanagan Chapel at Lewis & Clark College, 0615 SW Palatine Hill, 7 pm, $5, all ages
FRIDAY, APRIL 10
COMEDY—Picture This! is a hilarious and sometimes messy monthly mash-up of stand-up comedy and live illustration: Comics do their thang and also-funny artists depict it as they go. Wonder if it works? Take this, their one-year anniversary event, as evidence that it does. Tonight, host Andie Main stacked the lineup with funny ladies like Caitlin Weierhauser and JoAnn Schinderle. MARJORIE SKINNER
Curious Comedy Theater, 5225 NE MLK, 9:30 pm, $7-10
MUSIC—Portland's Ezza Rose and her four-piece band just got back from a 21-date New Zealand tour promoting their latest album, When the Water's Hot. The album, released in January, is a departure from Rose's acoustic folksy singing and songwriting into the world of the electric guitar. Welcome her back! SHELBY R. KING
w/Balto, White Glove; Bunk Bar, 1028 SE Water, 9:30 pm, $10
SATURDAY, APRIL 11
BEYONCÉ!—I would call this the next best thing to seeing Beyoncé live, but it's probably even better! With The Beyoncé Project, 12 of the hottest local drag performers (including Topaz Crawford, Saturn, and more) will perform Beyoncé's self-titled album from beginning to end. If you're not already sold on this concept, there's something terribly wrong with you. WM. STEVEN HUMPHREY
Rotture, 315 SE 3rd, 9 pm, $6
RECORDS—Forget Record Store Day. Spend those pennies at the excellent, recurring Night Owl Record Show, where Pacific Northwest record hounds ply their vinyl wares and you stand a very good chance of bringing home some terrific discs. Just keep away from that near-mint copy of Black Sabbath with the swirl Vertigo label. It's mine. NED LANNAMANN
Eagles Lodge, 4904 SE Hawthorne, 5-9 pm, $2 ($15 early admission at 3 pm)
SUNDAY, APRIL 12
BOOKS—In 1957, America's original indie press, City Lights, overcame an obscenity trial to get Allen Ginsberg's Howl into the hands of readers everywhere—they were that hardcore about free speech. Tonight, they celebrate their first kids' book, Rad American Women A-Z, a long overdue, cool-lady-filled supplement to your average history textbook. Get a copy for every child (and adult) you know! MEGAN BURBANK
Reading Frenzy, 3628 N Mississippi, 3 pm, FREE
MUSIC—You can get the "Garth Experience" twice today, if you can handle THAT MUCH Garth Brooks. It's the first time in nearly 19 years that Oregon will have a good dose of Garth, and he's coming on strong. The stamina! If you miss both those shows, Garth and his opening act/wife, Trisha Yearwood, will be playing through Thursday. Consider those "Unanswered Prayers," answered! SHELBY R. KING
Moda Center, 1 Center Court, Sun 4 & 8 pm, Mon, Wed, Thurs 7:30 pm, $68 & up, all ages
MONDAY, APRIL 13
DRANK—Viewed a certain way, Portland is nothing more than a border town, and the Columbia's an arbitrary line beyond which Safeways sell tequila. Portland author Niki Ganong's new The Field Guide to Drinking in America painstakingly explains each state's drinking laws, so you won't get confused. And its booze-friendly launch is in booze-happy Oregon. DIRK VANDERHART
White Owl Social Club, 1305 SE 8th, 6-9 pm, FREE
FILM—From Kicking and Screaming to The Squid and the Whale to Greenberg to Frances Ha—not to mention his collaborations with Wes Anderson—Noah Baumbach is one of the best filmmakers working today. His latest, While We're Young, stars Ben Stiller, Naomi Watts, Adam Driver, and former Beastie Boy Adam Horovitz in a story about the weirdness of middle age. ERIK HENRIKSEN
Various Theaters, see Movie Times and our review
TUESDAY, APRIL 14
MUSIC—Charles Bradley, that scream-weeping redemption tale of our lucid dreams, graces Portland yet again this evening. Oldish soul singers with youngish backing bands are a thing these days (see: Lee Fields and Ural Thomas), but Bradley's in a class all his own. DIRK VANDERHART
w/BadBadNotGood; Roseland, 8 NW 6th, 8 pm, $25-38.50
MUSIC—Best known for her soaring, plaintive vocals in Gotye's "Somebody That I Used to Know," Kimbra is so much more. Mixing jazz with R&B/funk stylings and ladling on dollops of hiphop, disco, and experimental pop, Kimbra's expansive sound will surely inspire asses to shake, and mouths to gape. WM. STEVEN HUMPHREY
w/Radiation City, Mikky Echo; Crystal Ballroom, 1332 W Burnside, 8 pm, $25, all ages
