WEDNESDAY 10/16

METRIC, BATTLEME
(Roseland, 8 NW 6th) See My, What a Busy Week!

PALMA VIOLETS, SKATERS
(Crystal Ballroom, 1332 W Burnside) London-based Palma Violets make the kind of down-to-earth garage-rock that is so well loved in Portland. Guitar anthems and booming drums set the stage for melody-laced vocals, all coming together in their boozy, sweaty, welcoming debut album, 180. Frontmen Samuel Fryer and Chilli Jesson complement each other's shredding, singing, and thrashing to create dynamic and fiery songs that take direct cues from the Clash and Iggy Pop. Their music is uproarious and rambunctious—and for a relatively new band, they own a combination of sounds that immediately sparks an energy inside that tells you to engage. RACHEL MILBAUER

THURSDAY 10/17

THE BODY, THE NEW TRUST, LOW SKY
(The Know, 2026 NE Alberta) "An Altar or a Grave," from the Body's Thrill Jockey debut Christs, Redeemers, sums up pretty well what they're all about: Listen to it through headphones with the lights out, and you're sure to have dreams of nuclear annihilation, or at least, think you've gone insane (doesn't that sound like fun?). The two-piece of guitarist/vocalist Chip King and drummer/programmer Lee Buford have just relocated to the metal safe-haven of Portland, bringing with them their nightmarish soundscapes. Any respite—angelic choirs and string interludes—is typically obliterated by bludgeoning guitars and King screaming as if he's on fire. This may sound like heaven to some—as commandeered by Lucifer. MARK LORE

CLUB CHEMTRAIL: VJUAN ALLURE, SUGAR SHANE, MASSACOORAMAAN, SPF666, COMMUNE
(The Rose, 111 SW Ash) Club Chemtrail is infusing downtown nightlife with dance music that serves those who veer away from fist-pumping and the obligatory wobble bass. Portland is burning tonight with the deep house of NYC's Vjuan Allure. Allure is represented by Diplo's Mad Decent label, proving that underground club music and the regional culture it signifies can be reappropriated in style and substance for the masses. In this case, the see-and-be-scene voyeurism and tongue-in-chic drag-glamour of vogueing will be both installation and performance tonight at the Rose Bar. Learn to read, drop to shack, and maybe even throw some shade in this primer to the East Coast's vibrant ballroom-nightclub life. WYATT SCHAFFNER

CRYSTAL STILTS, ZACHARY CALE, PICTORIALS
(Mississippi Studios, 3939 N Mississippi) Crystal Stilts released their 2008 full-length debut Alight of Night at what could be seen as the crest of the music blogosphere. Needless to say, they became one of those bands whose names were tossed from one website to another, and who seemingly could do no wrong. Don't get me wrong, the Brooklyn four-piece deserved it—they are a great band—but sometimes that flavor-of-the-week status can spell doom. But Crystal Stilts are still around. And they're still good, blending Velvet Underground darkness with the shimmer of the Dunedin Sound. And their live shows are mesmerizing—supremely dark and jangly. ML

FRIDAY 10/18

PHANTOGRAM, GIRAFFAGE
(Crystal Ballroom, 1332 W Burnside) See My, What a Busy Week!

YOUR RIVAL, LEE COREY OSWALD, OUR FIRST BRAINS, SOFT SKILLS
(Anna Bannanas, 2403 NE Alberta) Let's get the tricky part out of the way first: Your Rival's Mo Troper is a frequent and valuable contributor to this section. You may have noticed that he really, really, really likes power pop and emo. These affections are plainly evident on the snap-and-crackle songs he's written for Here's to Me, the new full-length from his sometimes-solo-act, sometimes-a-band project Your Rival. Released on nascent local label Party Damage (home to Wild Ones), it crams a discography's worth of Big Star-spangled melody into its 31 brief minutes, with further echoes of Superchunk, Badfinger, and Teenage Fanclub happily gumming up the sidewalk. Interspersed are some tender, Ben Folds-y moments (opening track "Autobiography," the beginning of "Sydney") and one soaring mini-epic ("What I Look for in a Man"), all of which add to Here's to Me's air of splendid, full-volume melancholy. It's a flat-out great album, and while it deserves to send Troper to the next level of the pro-musicianship stratosphere (and all the tour dates and opportunities that come with it), I don't want too many of you to buy it—good music writers are hard to find. NED LANNAMANN

MELT-BANANA, KINSKI, NASALROD
(Dante's, 350 W Burnside) Tonight, Japanese noise-rock veterans Melt-Banana return to Portland for the first time in two years, touring off Fetch, their first studio album since 2007. This time, vocalist Yasuko "Yako" Onuki and guitarist Ichirou Agata are hitting the road as a duo, opting to flesh out their sugar-rush aural attack with computer-controlled synths and samples. Melt-Banana continue to create music that only they could make work. Over the years they've been adding more pop and experimental elements on top of the speedy, playful, half-minute grindcore bursts that they became known for two decades ago, and everything falls right into place on Fetch. "Candy Gun" opens the album with waves lapping up on the shore, and before long it's off to the races as Agata begins to scrape and scratch all over his palette, and Yako's trademark barks and chirps manage to keep pace with the workout. CHIPP TERWILLIGER

PDX-ANTICS: VINCE CLARKE, MARTIN REV, AUTHOR AND PUNISHER, & MORE
(Alhambra Theatre, 4811 SE Hawthorne) Ranging from industrial noise to electro-pop, the wide swathe of synthesized sounds at PDX-Antics covers many corners of electronic music. Headlining the mini-fest is Vince Clarke, best known as the mastermind behind Erasure and a former member of Depeche Mode. Also on the docket is Martin Rev, the synthesizing and beat-making half of the proto-punk legends Suicide. But be sure to show up early to catch Author and Punisher, the one-man industrial/drone-metal project of Tristan Shone and his array of custom-built noisemaking machinery. Imagine the soundtrack for a hostile robot takeover, and you've got a pretty good idea of what to expect. MATTHEW W. SULLIVAN

SAN FERMIN, US LIGHTS
(Bunk Bar, 1028 SE Water) The pedigree of Brooklyn outfit San Fermin sounds highbrow to the point of hoity-toityness: Yale graduate Ellis Ludwig-Leone composed what is described in the press materials as "a pastiche of post-rock, chamber-pop, and contemporary classical composition." Ludwig-Leone wrote San Fermin's self-titled album in six weeks in a cabin in the mountains of Canada, drawing inspiration from Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises. The result is an elegant, almost starched-stiff affair with strings, horns, and the album's various roles portrayed by a number of guest singers (including members of fellow Brooklyn band Lucius, who burned up Bunk Bar last week in their phenomenal Portland debut). Still, the sheer skill on display is impressive, and if the album occasionally sounds like a thesis for some history-of-musical-theater course that you would never take in a million years, more often it's a fascinating, involving record that effortlessly bounds over typical constraints of creativity. Fans of Dirty Projectors and those bereft by Sufjan Stevens' abandonment of his 50 states project will find much to cherish on San Fermin. NL

SATURDAY 10/19

PORTLAND'S INDIES: BLACK PRAIRIE, MIRAH, HOLCOMBE WALLER, OREGON SYMPHONY
(Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, 1037 SW Broadway) See My, What a Busy Week!

HUNX AND HIS PUNX, THERAPISTS, THE HUNDREDS AND THOUSANDS
(Backspace, 115 NW 5th) See My, What a Busy Week!

GOBLIN, SECRET CHIEFS 3
(Hawthorne Theatre, 1507 SE César E. Chávez) Read our article on Goblin.

JOHN VANDERSLICE, PRISM TATS
(Bunk Bar, 1028 SE Water) John Vanderslice shook things up a bit in 2013. First, he started his own record label to release album number nine, Dagger Beach. The record came out after a successful Kickstarter campaign that also helped bankroll the release of Vanderslice Plays Diamond Dogs, a covers album in which he put his own spin on David Bowie's 1974 classic. But after a decade and a half of solo records, you pretty much know what to expect from a new Vanderslice album at this point. While most of Dagger Beach doesn't find the songwriter at his most playful, there's still plenty of heart-on-sleeve confessions cloaked in clever wordplay and bedroom-pop sensibilities. MWS

RED YARN, LAND BETWEEN THE LAKES
(The Waypost, 3120 N Williams) Andy Furgeson—formerly of Bark Hide and Horn, and currently of Scrimshander—moonlights, or make that daylights, as Red Yarn, in which he performs animal-themed adaptations of folk songs for children while wearing a beard made out of, you guessed it, red yarn. Puppets are involved, and it's altogether entirely delightful, as evidenced on Red Yarn's really good first album, The Deep Woods, the kind of kids' album to which mom and dad find themselves sneaking a listen on the sly. With a seven-piece band and guest puppeteers, Red Yarn celebrates the record's release for grownups tonight at the Waypost; meanwhile, families can go to the kid-friendly afternoon release show on Sunday at the Village Ballroom. NL

TWIN FORKS, MATRIMONY, BIKE THIEF
(Star Theater, 13 NW 6th) Ever wonder what Dashboard Confessional's Chris Carrabba is up to these days (if you even consider his existence in the first place)? Stop right now or you'll regret it: That middling worm has a new band called Twin Forks, and their debut EP contains some of the worst music I've heard all year. It's hardly a surprise—Carrabba's "good" material has always been cloying and melodramatic at best and impossibly inane at worst. This is the worst. Fame and a disassociation from his punk roots allegedly played a large part in contributing to Carrabba's disenchantment with Dashboard Confessional—good thing he started over and went all Mumford and Sons, then. It's a wonder anyone ever took him so, so seriously. MORGAN TROPER

DUSTIN WONG AND TAKAKO MINEKAWA, JASON URICK, RAUELSSON
(Mississippi Studios, 3939 N Mississippi) When Baltimore art-rock band Ponytail called it quits in 2011, the band's swansong, Do Whatever You Want All The Time, put a bittersweet end-cap on an excellent run. Since then, Ponytail's guitarist Dustin Wong has kept the band's playful spirit alive using loop and delay effects to an amazing degree. In layering arrangements, Wong is able to create stunning and hypnotic live compositions, able to tell profound stories without the need for words. After relocating back to his childhood home of Japan, Wong began to collaborate with Takako Minekawa. Minekawa, who was involved in Tokyo's Shibuya-kei pop scene throughout the '90s, lends her whimsical pop sensibilities to Wong's bright Lego-brick song structuring. The recent resulting effort, Toropical Circle, has the two worlds combining with a refreshing jovial ease. Opening act Rauelsson, the Spanish composer and sometimes Oregon native, combed influences from both locations and combines them to great effect on his grandiose 2013 release, Vora. CT

SUNDAY 10/20

THE BLOW, KISSES
(Doug Fir, 830 E Burnside) See My, What a Busy Week!

RED YARN, WILL HORNYAK, MAGGIE AND PATRICK LIND
(Village Ballroom, 700 NE Dekum) See Saturday's listing.

APPENDIXES, THE COMETTES, VICE DEVICE, INDUSTRIAL PARK
(Mississippi Studios, 3939 N Mississippi) The two dream whorls on Portland band Appendixes' new 7-inch are a study in contrasts: A-side "Four Leaf Clover" is a minor-key funeral procession, as stinging guitar notes pierce a cloudy veil before getting buried in a nebula of sound. Meanwhile, the major-key B-side and title track, "Neon Green Fear," is an absolute tsunami of beauty, like a sunset that shifts into various staggering arrangements of color, even as you can't actually see the changes occur. Appendixes celebrate the 7-inch's release with Seattle's Comettes, who have a glorious two-song release of their own: The Golden Blue EP is a tranquilly thumping potbelly stove of heartwarming melody, as guitars and one-two drumbeats wrap themselves around your ears like a knit cap. Industrial Park, meanwhile, are playing their last Portland show for the time being, as their drummer Nick Makanna is moving to the Bay Area later this month—catch them while you can. NL

WAVVES, KING TUFF, JACUZZI BOYS
(Wonder Ballroom, 128 NE Russell) King Tuff, AKA Kyle Thomas, is the epitome of the garage-rock, stoney vibe that Burger Records has become known for. His three-piece band will always look like they're having more fun than you; it is apparent that they are truly doing what they love on stage. At one of their Pickathon performances this past summer, Tuff successfully got the crowd to call and respond, "Out! House!"—a reference to the fact that everyone was going to be using Honey Buckets all weekend. His antics are the cherry on top of a genuinely righteous performance that will remind you why you like rock 'n' roll in the first place. RM

MONDAY 10/21

THE MOODY BLUES
(Keller Auditorium, 222 SW Clay) See My, What a Busy Week!

TUESDAY 10/22

MACKLEMORE AND RYAN LEWIS
(Moda Center, 1 Center Ct) See My, What a Busy Week!

HAIM, IO ECHO
(Mississippi Studios, 3939 N Mississippi) Read our article on Haim.

EARTHLESS, JOY, BILLIONS AND BILLIONS
(Rotture, 315 SE 3rd) On their first studio LP since 2007's Rhythms from a Cosmic Sky, San Diego psych-metal shredders Earthless have reemerged with a four-song scorcher. From the Ages is dominated by wah-wah guitar aerobics, spotlighting guitarist Isaiah Mitchell's inimitable chops, while simmering within the sort of long-form instrumental mania that's garnered the band a loyal following. When I say long-form, I mean it: The shortest song on the LP clocks in at 5:43, and the album ends with the unrealistically lengthy title track, which runs over 30 minutes. That's a tall order for even the most ardent showgoer, but within the brick bosom of Rotture, time can sometimes stand still. Just go easy on the hair-whips. RYAN J. PRADO