WEDNESDAY 6/18

DAWN OF MIDI, BIG SCARY
(Doug Fir, 830 E Burnside) Read our article on Dawn of Midi.

KING BUZZO, STEVE TURNER
(Hawthorne Theatre, 1507 SE César E. Chávez) It's long past due for Buzz Osborne to go soft, so if you heard he's put out an acoustic record after more than three decades of fronting sludge-metal titans the Melvins, you'd be forgiven for thinking the time for King Buzzo to mellow had finally arrived. But take away the distortion and subtract Dale Crover's pulverizing drums, and you've got the basic template for This Machine Kills Artists, King Buzzo's first solo record. The riffing here isn't a huge departure from the Melvins, other than some busier strumming here and there, and Osborne definitely hasn't penned any ballads. I don't think this is what people had in mind when they used to toss around the phrase "freak folk," but it's a pretty freaky folk record. MATTHEW W. SULLIVAN Also see My, What a Busy Week!

THE MENZINGERS, LEMURIA, PUP, CAYETANA
(Branx, 320 SE 2nd) Perhaps the less you know about the Menzingers, the better. Ignore the cookie-cutter suburban upbringing, the ghosts of rude boys past rattling in their closets (specifically, a ska band unforgivably named Bob and the Sagets), or how the Philadelphia quartet somehow emerged unscathed from the murky, heavily chummed depths of modern emo. Instead, all you need to hear is this year's Rented World, a spectacular rock 'n' roll recording from a young band that's just hitting its stride. While you can check off the usual symptoms on display—youthful malaise ("Bad Things"), crippling anxiety ("Transient Love"), a willingness to not be an asshole anymore ("I Don't Want to Be an Asshole Anymore")—the Menzingers have rightfully tended to the emotional hemorrhaging of previous recordings, pushing them light years beyond their peers. This newfound maturity suits them quite well, and it's more than enough to overlook whatever lurks in their past. EZRA ACE CARAEFF Also see All-Ages Action!

CHASMA, CONTEMPT, SATANIC MECHANIC
(The Know, 2026 NE Alberta) There are no rules or taboos in extreme music. You can basically do, say, or play whatever you want—as long as it's loud, and guaranteed to furrow the brow of any squares who don't have the ear for it. Portland's Contempt combines elements of crust, melodic death, black metal, atmospheric doom, and grind to create a ripping tornado that has nothing but scorn for pigeonholes. Despite the subgenre soup that Contempt cooks, they do have one element that's consistent from track to track: complete and total confidence. As the band jumps from genre to genre, whether they splice acoustic interludes into emotional, 12-minute epics or rip through tremolo riffage and growling terror, they know exactly what they're doing, and have the talent to execute it. ARIS WALES

LEE BAINS III AND THE GLORY FIRES, TANGO ALPHA TANGO, KAYLEE ROB
(Mississippi Studios, 3939 N Mississippi) The 2013 documentary Muscle Shoals, which profiled the Allman Brothers and Lynyrd Skynyrd alongside an array of R&B legends, served as a reminder that Southern rock emerged more as a mix of races and cultures—black and white, church and juke joint—than Confederate flags and the other markers of hate and ignorance that have tarnished its rep over the years. So, Birmingham-bred quartet Lee Bains III and the Glory Fires have their work cut out for them. Fortunately, the new Tim Kerr-produced album Dereconstructed proves they're the ideal outfit to spur some serious reconsideration. With potent lyrics about social injustice and the weight of history, these Sub Pop signees infuse their rock with punk and protest, a surefire recipe for an incendiary live show. KATHY FENNESSY

THURSDAY 6/19

LILY AND MADELEINE, SHANNON HAYDEN
(Doug Fir, 830 E Burnside) As far as young-ass singer/songwriter sister duos go, Lily and Madeleine have their shit together. Lily and Madeleine Jurkiewicz garnered fame early in their career, accruing a larger-than-average number of YouTube hits shortly after exiting high school. Rich with harmonies and angst, the sisters could easily be the soundtrack to your graduation, your first real breakup, or any number of daily existential crises. Hailing from Indianapolis, the duo are signed to Sufjan Stevens' record label, Asthmatic Kitty, and though they're young, their sound is surprisingly mature and clean. Catch them now before they become old and jaded. ROSE FINN

SCALPED, SPERM, CRIME ZONE, INVERSION
(The Know, 2026 NE Alberta) Prolific Bay Area rocker Tony Molina just wrapped up a huge national tour supporting Against Me! and Big Eyes. While that may seem like the type of excursion that warrants some much-needed R&R, Molina shows no sign of slowing down. In addition to the Pinkerton-era-Weezer-meets-Robert-Pollard take on revved-up pop-rock displayed in his fantastic solo material and with long-running band Ovens, Molina currently plays in no fewer than four hardcore projects. As one fifth of the band Scalped, Molina forgoes frontman duty, wielding only his guitar. Scalped just wrapped up recording a debut 7-inch, and if their recent four-song demo tape is any indication, their live show should bear some resemblance to a hot-wing-eating competition. It's fast, fiery, and sure to leave very little meat on the bone when it's all over. CHIPP TERWILLIGER

THE RENDERERS, ARTEMIS
(Turn! Turn! Turn!, 8 NE Killingsworth) For reasons unknown, the Renderers never achieved the same cultural cachet as their New Zealand peers the Verlaines, the Clean, and the Chills. No major labels came a-calling for them in the heat of the '90s alt-rock explosion. It was quite an oversight, too, considering the band's ability to turn a Loaded-era Velvet Underground sound into something far more sinister and sexy. Though the group took a break around '99, co-leaders Maryrose and Brian Crook have been stoking their creative flames since 2006 with a series of albums—including the Measured Strychnine Invitations compilation, released last year on local imprint Exiled Records—that shimmer like a heat mirage just over the horizon. ROBERT HAM

FRIDAY 6/20

PULLA MUSCLE: NATHAN DETROIT,FREAKY OUTTY, COOKY PARKER
(Tonic Lounge, 3100 NE Sandy) See My, What a Busy Week!

POPPET, PREGNANT, PWRHAUS, GOOD NIGHT BILLYGOAT
(Alhambra Theatre, 4811 SE Hawthorne) Read our article on Poppet.

THE MINDERS, EYELIDS, SPOOKIES
(The Know, 2026 NE Alberta) For such a legendary band, the Minders keep a relatively low profile. However, the Portland-based indie luminaries recently soft-released a brand-new, two-song 7-inch on local label Space Cassette, in conjunction with Elephant 6 and Minders frontman Martyn Leaper's own imprint, Dirigeable Records. The single features one of the best tunes the group has ever cut (and that's saying something): "It's Gonna Break Out" is a Victorian-pop mini-masterpiece replete with symphonic flourishes and an indelible chorus ripped straight out of McCartney's book o' hooks. The B-side, "I Know Where D.B. Cooper Lives," is a delectably bizarre, fully instrumental surf pastiche that proves the Minders haven't abandoned their quintessentially E6-brand of rock-dork weirdness. Thank god for that. Pop songs this charming are few and far between. MORGAN TROPER

SASSPARILLA, CASEY NEILL AND THE NORWAY RATS, McDOUGALL
(Doug Fir, 830 E Burnside) The first reaction to hearing the news that longtime Portland jug-band Sassparilla is releasing not one but two albums tonight is that it's simply too much of anything, good or bad. But a listen to the pair of platters—Pasajero and Hullabaloo—reveals two very different approaches. Pasajero is a studio-driven, atmospheric record with rock flourishes and careful craft; Hullabaloo is rawer, rootsier, and rustier, bearing the traits of the band's boisterous live show. Music-critic logic would hold, then, that Hullabaloo is the better of the two—the Lucky Town to Pasajero's Human Touch—but it turns out that each record has its own worthwhile strengths. In fact, the only crime Sassparilla commits is displaying an abundance of stylistic interest. It's a fair amount to swallow, but taken together, the two albums run just over an hour, so it's not as if Sassparilla has ventured into Use Your Illusion territory or anything. NED LANNAMANN

BROTHERS FROM ANOTHER, TOPE, SPAC3MAN, DRE C, WES GUY
(Hawthorne Theatre Lounge, 1507 SE César E. Chávez) Anyone with even the most cursory knowledge of Portland hiphop has already heard of Tope. The local emcee/producer has lately been touring the Northwest promoting his Trouble Man EP, which was recently released on a limited-edition vinyl run. Tonight, on the heels of a brand-new release—the Chicken Wings and Ice Cream Cones EP—Tope puts his networking connections to good use, bringing Seattle's Spac3man and Brothers from Another to rock with him in an intimate venue. Brothers from Another are the young trio of DJ Nick Beeba and emcees Tiglo and Cole. All three graduated from different colleges this spring, a good sign for fans who have been anticipating a more frequent live-show schedule. Their breezy songs about tacos, biking around town, and kicking it with friends are the perfect soundtrack for your next summer barbecue/house party. RYAN FEIGH

FRIGHTWIG, IT'S OK!, LKN, COCKEYE
(Slabtown, 1033 NW 16th) When Frightwig first entered my consciousness in the mid-'80s, they struck me as a female Butthole Surfers—which is a fine thing to be struck by. The San Francisco band's 1984 debut album, Cat Farm Faboo, flared into rude action with a feral, blown-out blues-rock that flashed plenty of middle fingers to decorum and male chauvinism. Faster, Frightwig, Kill! Kill! built upon the band's bravura rock insubordination, and the Russ Meyer allusion reinforced their badass attitude. Frightwig reformed in 2012 after an 18-year hiatus, and the current lineup features Deanna Mitchell, Mia d'Bruzzi, Cecilia Kuhn, Rebecca Sevrin, and... former Captain Beefheart's Magic Band/Residents/Pere Ubu member Eric Drew Feldman. Very interesting. Go and let Frightwig get your panties into a righteous twist. DAVE SEGAL

SATURDAY 6/21

WUSSY, BUCKLE RASH
(Alhambra Theatre, 4811 SE Hawthorne) See My, What a Busy Week!

LAURA VEIRS, YESWAY
(Doug Fir, 830 E Burnside) Seeing Yesway live is a reminder that some of the most mind-altering music can still come from two people singing. One of the Bay Area's best-kept secrets, Yesway is the collaboration of friends Emily Ritz (Devotionals, DRMS) and Kacey Johansing, whose sibling-like harmonies baffle and astound audiences. Their self-titled full-length debut takes their intimate folk to new heights, with its own universe of tasteful textural layers. It's an album sure to spread their magic further into the world—which might mean this is your last chance to see them before the secret gets out. With Yesway serving as opener for Portland favorite Laura Veirs, this will be a night of elastic vocals and unconventional arrangements of folk and pop. JOSHUA JAMES AMBERSON

MYSTIC BRAVES, CORNERS, BURNING PALMS, THE ELECTRIC MAGPIE
(Mississippi Studios, 3939 N Mississippi) Los Angeles-based Lolipop Records has been cranking out garage rock by the truckload for four years. Tonight's label "revue" gives only a taste... but a pretty tasty one. Mystic Braves don't fool around, bringing back moptops and sock hops. Corners and the Electric Magpie add a little more punk rawness to their dirty, danceable sounds. But the highlight of the pack is Burning Palms, led by witchy woman Simone Stopford, who brings a little mysticism to her band's desert soundtrack. Put it all together, and it's a high-timed night of rock 'n' roll fantasy from another time and dimension. MARK LORE

TROUBLED BY INSECTS, PLANNING FOR BURIAL, THE BINARY MARKETING SHOW
(Slabtown, 1033 NW 16th) Over the past few years, bands like Deafheaven, Alcest, and Woods of Desolation have stretched the boundaries of metal by brightening their blackness with soaring passages of radiant shoegaze or post-rock. On the flip side of that coin, you'll find Planning for Burial's Thom Wasluck, a New Jersey home-recording stalwart whose new album Desideratum is a gloomy, glacially paced slab of drone-rock that's as dark and deliberate as it is beautiful. Its highlights are its bookend tracks: Nine minutes of dead-eyed fuzz-rock called "Where You Rest Your Head at Night" begin the album, and the 16-plus-minute closer, "Golden," may be the slowest crescendo any musician makes this year. It's glorious—as you'll discover at today's all-ages afternoon show. BEN SALMON

SUNDAY 6/22

VERUCA SALT, THE ECHO FRIENDLY
(Mississippi Studios, 3939 N Mississippi) In most circumstances, the salvaged bounty from a breakup ranges from an ex's prized possessions (best-case scenario) to an itchy sexually transmitted disease (worst-case scenario). But seldom does any real fulfillment come from such a split—unless you are Jake Rabinbach and Shannon Esper, who molded the Echo Friendly from the fiery ashes of their failed union. The ex-couples-to-duos path is well trod—from Quasi to the candy-striped footsteps of the White Stripes—but this Brooklyn/Memphis pair wastes little time on their astonishingly polished debut album, Love Panic. With lyrics that read like stolen diary entries and breathy, intertwined vocals that recall the heyday of Kim and Thurston (speaking of exes), the Echo Friendly might be lousy at love, but that sounds just fine to us. EAC Also see My, What a Busy Week!

SPECTRAL TOMBS, SHROUD OF THE HERETIC
(The Know, 2026 NE Alberta) Ending an enviable run of devastating live shows and pitch-black metal mayhem, Portland's Spectral Tombs are calling it quits after tonight. During the last few years, the Tombs displayed a penchant for super-pissed screeching and alternately gorgeous and harrowing blankets of progressive, dark metal. Their most recent recording, 2012's Veins as Poisoned Streams, stretched fiery crust-punk and goopy gore across 18 minutes on the epic title track. But all heavy things must pass, and the departure of Spectral Tombs leaves a devil-horned void in the silhouette of the scene. On the flipside, Shroud of the Heretic have emerged as a formidable ultra-doom counterpart, and are possibly one of the scariest-sounding bands in Portland. Reference their 2013 LP Revelations in Alchemy for proof. RYAN J. PRADO

EMILY WELLS, YOU ARE PLURAL
(Doug Fir, 830 E Burnside) You Are Plural's lineup of cello, Wurlitzer, and drums might make them the most unlikely of all possible trios. Led by the impressive talents and angelic voices of Jen Grady and Ephriam Nagler, this entrancing band makes music as unexpected as their instrumentation. They're able to switch between quiet, lush harmonies and blast beat-driven chamber post-rock with ease, and are a manic joy to see live. Headlining the night is jaw-dropping loop-pedal composer Emily Wells, a passionate and playful performer with a wide range of influences. The unfortunate "hiphop classical" label she's been given doesn't do her justice, as Wells has collaborated with everyone from Clint Mansell to Deerhoof to Kid Koala. One day her brilliant cover of Haddaway's "What Is Love" will hopefully replace the original entirely. JJA

MONDAY 6/23

UH HUH HER, DJ KIM ANH
(Doug Fir 830 E Burnside) If the future of electronic pop music is anything like Uh Huh Her, then maybe we're not totally fucked. Named after a PJ Harvey album, Uh Huh Her has a vocal sound that could rival Garbage or Fiona Apple, but with catchy pop hooks, danceable beats, and electronic touches. UHH are based out of LA, and it shows; their 2011 Black and Blue EP sounds like the soundtrack to an evening out in Santa Monica, driving in a convertible along the coast with your friend Denny starting the night off with some coke bumps in the backseat. It's hard to say whether UHH will continue to gain momentum, but they certainly are easy to dance to, nicely coalescing a '90s rocker sensibility with an electronic backbone. ROSE FINN

TUESDAY 6/24

THE GREAT BIG FAIS DO DO: DIRK POWELL AND THE STUMPTOWN ACES, THE CACTUS BLOSSOMS
(The Spare Room, 4830 NE 42nd) See My, What a Busy Week!

SHANNON AND THE CLAMS
(Slabtown, 1033 NW 16th) See All-Ages Action!

MARY GAUTHIER, ELIZA GILKYSON, LYNN MILES
(Aladdin Theater, 3017 SE Milwaukie) Humongous fucking shoutout to Mary Gauthier. The Nashville-based troubadour is one of the realest in the game. I got turned on to Gauthier on while listening to WDVX, a marvelous community FM station from East Tennessee. The tune was a live rendition of "Last of the Hobo Kings," a wistful yarn depicting the American frontier's closing in on the noble drifter. Gauthier introduced it as a story song, and it is, with its verses talked, full of florid, rhythmic language. "Hobo" is backed by a pretty, barebones rock groove and a scraping violin, not unlike the Velvet Underground at their prettiest and most minimal. After Gauthier's name registered on my radar, it started blipping everywhere. She wrote songs with returning Iraq War veterans. Her treatise on songwriting, "A letter to a young songwriter," is inspiringly honest about the loneliness of a life in the arts. (My favorite bit—a tragic truth: "Solitude courts the muse.") Indeed, Gauthier is the real deal. And though at first glance the 52-year-old may not appear it, she's cooler than every hip, 20-something dilettante in this town put together. ANDREW R TONRY

WORLD PARTY, GABRIEL KELLY
(Doug Fir, 830 E Burnside) Celebrating the work of Karl Wallinger, who has released five LPs of material under the name World Party, would be easy enough, considering the fine pop gems that appear on those albums. But the Welsh singer/songwriter deserves mad respect for surviving a potentially fatal brain aneurysm that knocked out his peripheral vision and laid him up for five years. Since then, Wallinger has been touring in dribs and drabs, doing small runs of dates in the US and Europe and proving that time has not dulled the brilliance of pop songs like "Way Down Now" and "She's the One." RH

GABRIEL KAHANE
(Mississippi Studios, 3939 N Mississippi) Building on the promise of earlier studio efforts, New York songwriter Gabriel Kahane's new record, The Ambassador, breathes new life into the concept album. Kahane famously wrote a cycle of songs based on actual Craigslist ads in 2006, dubbed Craigslistlieder. With The Ambassador, Kahane pays homage to Los Angeles by spinning tales of decadence, love, and greed throughout the city over periods of time from the 1940s to the present, with each song titled after a specific address in LA. Kahane's chameleonic abilities suit the recording well, enabling him to duck in and out of character, creating a quilt-like warmth of stories that have the power to move you. RJP