THURSDAY 4/14
SOUL'D OUT: DR. LONNIE SMITH
(Mississippi Studios, 3939 N Mississippi) See My, What a Busy Week!
ÓLÖF ARNALDS, THE OCEAN FLOOR, JORDAN O'JORDAN
(The Woods, 6637 SE Milwaukie) When describing the painfully intimate sounds of multi-instrumental folkstress Ólöf Arnalds it's tempting to be distracted by her Icelandic homeland. But if you can expand your musical horizons past lazy comparisons to another Iceland-based female singer with an "ö" in her name (who, coincidentally, Arnalds has collaborated with), you'll quickly find yourself lost in the visceral sounds of a singer with a lovely voice that will haunt you long after the houselights come on. Last year's Innundir Skinni was critically adored, but wildly slept-on here in the States. Don't make that mistake: Bring your finest handholding partner and prepare yourself to be mesmerized by your new favorite umlauted singer. EZRA ACE CARAEFF
FRIDAY 4/15
SOUL'D OUT: TRENTEMØLLER, DORIT CHRYSLER, BRYAN ZENTZ, RENA JONES, ANDROID, PIPEDREAM
(Refuge, 116 SE Yamhill) Trentemøller (Anders Trentemøller) had immediate success with his first few releases as part of Steve Bug's Poker Flat/Audiomatique empire. Loved by brainy minimal techno fans for his intricate attention to detail and by club-goers for his epic, accessible remixes for artists like the Knife, Booka Shade, Royksopp, and Moby, Trentemøller could have easily taken a comfortable place among the predictable yet respectable club music royalty and called it good. Instead he turned his first full-length album into a live performance with a band and continued to move in a more analog direction. His new album Into the Great Wide Yonder shares all the same dramatic emotion of past work, with a new focus on live instrumentation and vocal collaborations. Don't expect the club bangers of his early days—Trentemøller is on tour with a full band, including the amazingly talented theremin player Dorit Chrysler, who will also perform solo. AVA HEGEDUS
DEFTONES, DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN, FUNERAL PARTY
(Crystal Ballroom, 1332 W Burnside) I'm still baffled as to how the Deftones have managed to stay relevant all the way into 2011 while most of their peers have gone the way of the dollar bin—especially considering how the band's formula has hardly budged over the last decade-plus. It's been an interesting few years for the Sacto band. Their bassist Chi Chang continues to lie bedridden after a car accident left him in a coma in 2008. The tragedy led to the band shelving their Eros album and instead recording Diamond Eyes, a record met with an inexplicably glowing reception. What leaves me really scratching my head is the fact that the Deftones—in 20-goddamn-11—are selling out dates all over the country... including one of their two nights at the Crystal Ballroom. As much as I'm tempted to listen to Diamond Eyes to see what the fuss is all about, I think I'm going to instead put on Around the Fur (their best), close my eyes, and pretend it's 19-goddamn-97 again. MARK LORE
ADVENTURES! WITH MIGHT, SPESUS CHRIST, POCKETKNIFE
(Backspace, 115 NW 5th) The debut full-length from Adventures! With Might receives a cassette release tonight on Portland tape label Apes Tapes, and it's a slick, neo-noir synth pop album that could almost be considered goth if it didn't sound so horny. The two Adventurers who make up the band are Isaac Medina and Marc Aaron Swart, and if their press materials are to be believed, they met in a life drawing class in which Swart was modeling, then started the band as a "release for their sexual tension toward one another." Bands have surely been started for less, and that sexual tension seems to be the gasoline that this new cassette runs on. With drugged-out, after-hours club beats and Swart's drowsy, pouting falsetto, Adventures! With Might pose their way through a series of provocative positions. NED LANNAMANN
DAVID LINDLEY
(Mississippi Studios, 3939 N Mississippi) It's likely you would recognize David Lindley for his gratuitous stringed accompaniments on some rather seminal albums—Graham Nash's Songs for Beginners, Jackson Browne's For Everyman, and most recently, Bruce Springsteen's The Promise, to name just a few. The more liner notes you peruse, the more likely you are to stumble upon his name. However, his extensive solo discography is not nearly as heralded as his session work, and beneath those well-executed classic-rock guitar licks is an "eclectic" (read: overachieving with a unwelcome affinity for reggae) songwriter with a lot of bad jokes. It's perhaps indicative of why Lindley is best known for his arsenal of unusual instruments, though I suppose a legend is a legend regardless of his peculiar habits. Just hope he divulges a good story or two about the glory days of Topanga Canyon (and doesn't play the idiotic blues number "When a Man Gets Boobs"). RAQUEL NASSER
GAYTHEIST, WAX EDISON, CHAIR PROJECT
(Mudai Lounge, 801 NE Broadway) With two dueling bassists (and not a single guitar to speak of), Portland trio Wax Edison creates a fearsomely bottom-heavy sound, but there's more going on than just low-end groaning. Their brand-new release, the six-song Fires Rabbits, is a thick but quick-moving slab of heaviness, with the vocals taking the form of muffled screaming. Despite all that—and even with lyrics like "I woke up and I dry heaved myself out of bed"—Wax Edison have made a propulsive, fun record that's not quite punk, not quite metal; it really is best described by the band's self-coined phrase "thunder rock." Tonight's the release show for Fires Rabbits on thick vinyl (it's also available as a download on their website, in exchange for a mere buck and your email address) and the show should be a ferociously fun time. Tying the bill together with more bass, the Chair Project is Chairman from Drats!!! offering virtuosic, crazed vocals with solo bass guitar accompaniment. NL
SHEARING PINX, GHOST MOM, ONONOS, TRANS FAT, ILL CAMINO
(East End, 203 SE Grand) Seattle's Ononos are a strange trio of processed, angular, and minimalist synth-punks who upturn your musical world and drop you smack-dab in the middle of an underground club on a Gaspar Noé movie set. The synth/drum rhythm section looks like uniformed widows, whose faces are draped with square black veils hanging from white headbands. Meanwhile, Ononos singer Ursula Android wears shapely, design-oriented outfits, from a hermaphroditic dominatrix priest in a black pantyhose mask and white cock ring for an eyeball to a sleek long-tailed jacket, zigzag-patterned pants, and top hat. His movements embody a sort of mechanical alien bride spawn of Edward Scissorhands and Beetlejuice, and the songs are sadistic post-punk soundtracks to some movie about black leather-clad killer clowns that prowl brightly colored metropolitan downtowns at night. Or maybe that was the setting to a weird dream I had after I saw them play recently. TRAVIS RITTER
RANDY NEWMAN
(Aladdin Theater, 3017 SE Milwaukie) The mush-mouthed songwriter rolls through town to sing a bunch of songs about cartoons (and, hopefully, something from 1972's Sail Away). NL
SATURDAY 4/16
SOUL'D OUT: MOS DEF, HOT 8 BRASS BAND
(Roseland, 8 NW 6th) See My, What a Busy Week!
DEFTONES, DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN, FUNERAL PARTY
(Crystal Ballroom, 1332 W Burnside) See Friday's listing above.
RECORD STORE DAY: WHITE HINTERLAND, HOSANNAS, SALLIE FORD AND THE SOUND OUTSIDE, BRUSH PRAIRIE, NURSES, ANCIENT HEAT, ZIA MCCABE
(Everyday Music, 1313 W Burnside) With another year comes another third Saturday in April—the celebrated Record Store Day—and along with it, a slew of releases, both specially curated and otherwise, to be thumbed through and held in your hot little hands. It is recommended you propel your music-loving feet to Everyday Music, to pay homage to one of Portland's sprawling independent record shops; they would like to show their gratitude for another year's worth of your business with a free (!) in-store performance featuring a fantastic local lineup to be enjoyed while you languish over rows and rows of vinyl, tangible as ever, both old and new. Surely Sallie Ford's brazen Americana and DJ sets from White Hinterland and Nurses are enough to discourage mindless clicking through those severed iTunes song samplings for at least a day. Your heightened senses will thank you. RN Read our Record Store Day article.
SINÉAD O'COVERS, SWEET FLOWIN' LOVE,
LEZ PHAIR
(The Woods, 6637 SE Milwaukie) It's covers night at the Woods: The one-off supergroup Sinéad O'Covers is made up of Kaia Wilson, her Team Dresch bandmate Jody Bleyle, Gossip drummer Hannah Blilie, Rachel Blumberg from Norfolk and Western, guitarist Marisa Anderson, plus a backing string ensemble. They're doing songs exclusively from Sinéad O'Connor's classic 1987 debut The Lion and the Cobra and 1990's monstrously popular I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got—presumably, no tearing of pope photos, as O'Connor legendarily did on Saturday Night Live in 1992. Meanwhile, Sweet Flowin' Love performs Heart covers, and Lez Phair is Erase Errata's Jenny Hoyston in the guise of Liz Phair—presumably running through the still-stunning highlights of Exile in Guyville and hopefully staying far away from Phair's 2003 self-titled debacle or last year's Funstyle. NL
RICH LANDAR AND SONIC JELLY,
(Biddy McGraw's, 6000 NE Glisan) Rich Landar has played in a ton of bands, including King Black Acid and Jesus Presley, and he's assembled a new record called It's About Time from recordings done at home and in various hotel rooms. With appearances from Tahoe Jackson, Paul Brainard, and other local guests, the record is a pleasant excursion through a variety of roots-flecked musical styles. There's a touch of countrified acid rock underneath the gospel choir in "My City Is Burning," there's a gentle piano ballad in the form of "Quote Unquote," and a moody art piece in the seven-minute "White Curtain." It's all well crafted, and performed with a looseness and bonhomie that's impossible to fake, and if none of the songs stick out as masterpieces, the record shows a successful transition from Landar's role as sideman to that of frontman. NL
TANGO ALPHA TANGO, TIGER HOUSE
(White Eagle, 836 N Russell) The new, self-titled release from Portland band Tango Alpha Tango sits in that uncomfortable place between EP and full-length—it runs seven songs, just under half an hour—but everything else about the record fits perfectly. Starting with the laidback country swoon of "Oh Mama," the quartet then launches into a slow-building motorik guitar riff in "Mona Lisa's Death." Elsewhere, the band continues that expert and surprising balance of folk noir and space rock, even finding room for a glossy pop chorus in "Give of the Summer." There isn't a single wrong move on Tango Alpha Tango; "This City" rears an angry, stoner blues riff in the middle of a tightly knotted funk strut, and as clunky as that sounds, it works brilliantly. On record, Tango Alpha Tango continues to make some confoundingly good work, following up 2008's Rebel Sons of Cowboys with a collection of adventurous and admirable rock and roll. NL
SUNDAY 4/17
HOLY GRAIL, CAULDRON, DARK BLACK
(Dante's, 1 SW 3rd) Read about Cauldron.
SHELLEY SHORT, DARREN HANLON, WHITE LIGHTER
(Mississippi Studios, 3939 N Mississippi) Perhaps you have heard Shelley Short's honeyed croon creep out through the doors of your favorite haunt in days past. She is certainly a Portland staple, though the past month has found her too far from home, traversing the country with Aussie friend and songwriter Darren Hanlon. And since 2009's meandering A Cave, a Canoo, Short has been fashioning a new record, Then Came the After, whose first track—a single called "Right Away," also featured on a recently released split 7-inch with the Gold Coats—exhibits Short dressing her spare, rustling folk in a jazzier swagger. Head to this show to see what's to come, and to welcome a beloved local songwriter back home. It's doubtful you'll be disappointed. RN
MONDAY 4/18
RABBITS, GONE TO CROATOAN, DJ NATE C
(East End, 203 SE Grand) See My, What a Busy Week!
MASERATI, WE'RE FROM JAPAN, VANIMAL
(Mississippi Studios) Losing a drummer of Jerry Fuchs' magnitude—he died in a tragic elevator accident in 2009—would cripple a lot of bands. Athens, Georgia's Maserati, though, have bounced back from that awful setback with 2010's Pyramid of the Sun (which contains some of Fuchs' last musical contributions). The album further strengthens Maserati's status as an instrumental group of exceptional cinematic grandeur, atmospheric creepitude, and rhythmic vigor. Their sound's blossomed into a panoramic extension of Goblin's vibrantly morbid disco, Neu!'s motorik fever dreams, and the heroic prog pyrotechnics of Zombi, whose bassist/keyboardist, Steve Moore, plays on two tracks here. (That group's drummer, A.E. Paterra, joins Maserati on this tour.) Maserati, aptly enough, make you want to get in one and speed down highways for hours (sorry, environment!). DAVE SEGAL Also see My, What a Busy Week!
JOHN VANDERSLICE, IVAN AND ALYOSHA
(Doug Fir, 830 E Burnside) The new record from Bay Area songwriter John Vanderslice was recorded in a mere three days—live, with a 19-piece orchestra to boot. This is an about-face for Vanderslice, a compulsive craftsman whose career thus far has been an enjoyable series of excursions down the layered and overdubbed rabbit holes he's carefully concocted in the studio. But White Wilderness—a collaboration with the Magik*Magik Orchestra, arranged and conducted by Minna Choi, who also provides backing vocals—is a buoyant listen, full of involving textures and a striking musical palette. Choi and the Magik*Magik Orchestra won't be present at tonight's show (a full-fledged orchestra show is scheduled for San Francisco in June); instead, Vanderslice will front a trio that will reinterpret some of the White Wilderness tunes plus cuts from Vanderslice's impressive back catalog. NL
MOVITS!, ALICIA MCDAID, JESSE MALMED, SARAH JOHNSON
(Holocene, 1001 SE Morrison) Movits! pretty much have the Swedish swing/hiphop niche all to themselves. Yes, they make novelty music, which is notorious for its frightfully brief shelf life, but while it's fresh, it packs a serious punch (line)—Stephen Colbert's a fan, too. As gimmicks go, Movits!'s is ingenious: Three Scandinavian dudes in somber black suits, bowties, and Malcolm X specs blending '30s jazz with banging, bulbous beats and Norse rapping is an idea whose time has come. Sure, it will go sooner rather than later, but in the meantime revel in Movits!'s charmingly clunky and jaunty hybrid. You're gonna laugh long and hard about it in 2013. DS
TUESDAY 4/19
HAUSCHKA, GOODNIGHT BILLYGOAT,
DJ COMMITTEE
(Holocene, 1001 SE Morrison) Read our article on Hauschka.
WEDNESDAY 4/20
TAME IMPALA, YUCK
(Wonder Ballroom, 128 NE Russell) For a band as young as the members of Perth, Australia's Tame Impala, these astral travelers sound like seasoned, developed songwriters, creating an arena-ready sound that has drawn comparisons to Dungen as well as John Lennon, who shares an eerily similar timbre in the voice of singer/guitarist Kevin Parker. But what's often not said is how directly they sound like the Australian counterpart to midwest American-produced power pop from the '70s (especially on "I Don't Really Mind," the song that closes the band's 2010 debut full-length, Innerspeaker). The album itself presents a litany of isolated vibes that both relax and rock, where questions at the beginning of the songs seem to make answers for themselves by the time the last note hits. Sometimes ideas from young minds can be superior to the ideas of elders. TR Also see My, What a Busy Week!, and read our article on Yuck.
