THURSDAY 1/20
CLIMBER, THE WANTEDS, WOKE UP FALLING
(Davey Jones' Locker, 5925 SE Foster) Woke Up Falling got really sad when I wrote that they were a mediocre emo band. In fact, they were so sad that they wrote me a tear stained hate letter and then, realizing that I'm a genius and they actually were a mediocre emo band, decided to transform themselves into a post-hardcore band (note: post-hardcore is the word journalists use to describe emo bands that are good). This was a brilliant idea, as their new self-titled album is a giant leap forward, showcasing significantly better songwriting that keeps the music expressive without being, well… emo. Less brilliant, however, is the album art, which looks like they took a picture of their hottest friend, drew some wings on her, and decided she was an angel. C'mon, Woke Up Falling--you have to admit that's a pretty emo thing to do. KIP BERMAN
DR. THEOPOLIS, STRIPKLUB
(Dante's, 1 SW 3rd) While I usually avoid music that is described as "funk" or "funky," Dr. Theopolis is actually a fun little outfit. They're like a cross between a cartoon drug trip soundtrack and the band 311. So, like emceed, psychedelic funk--but imagine that in the best way possible. No matter whether Dr. T blows your mind or not, they've got a sense of rhythm and a sense of humor--and there's a lot to be said for that. KATIE SHIMER
INAUGURATE THIS!
(Holocene, 1001 SE Morrison) See My, What a Busy Week! Pg 13
SCRAP THE REGIME FEATURING THE PHERAMONES, SHOW ME THE PINK, THE TRASH MOUNTAIN BOYS, THE SPROCKETTES
(Nocturnal, 1800 E Burnside) An anti-Inauguration party and benefit for everybody's favorite community recycling center/junkheap, Scrap the Regime features a load of local music (the Pheramones, Show Me the Pink, the Trash Mountain Boys, and Mudbone Orchestra), as well as a performance by the brilliantly named "precision little bike dance troupe" Sprockettes. ZAC PENNINGTON
SIXTH ANNUAL PORTLAND OLD-TIME MUSIC GATHERING
(Various venues, see www.bubbaguitar.com/festival for full details) A five-day event (from Wednesday January 19 through Sunday January 23) stretched between the Moon and Sixpence, Norse Hall, and Mississippi Rising Ballroom, the Sixth Annual Portland Old-Time Music Gathering features performances by folks with names like the Canote Brothers, Uncle Wiggily, Whiskey Puppy, the Flat Mountain Girls, and the Queen City Bulldogs. You know, if that's your sort of thing. ZP
VISQUEEN
(Berbati's Pan, 10 SW 3rd) The name Visqueen--it sounds dirty doesn't it? It sounds like a brand of lube or what they call lube in another country, or basically, lube. Visqueen in my mind equals lube, and maybe that's fucked, but there's nothing I can do about it. Anyway, regardless of the fact that the band's name makes me think about shopping at Spartacus, they've got a lot more going on than just a dirty name. Singer Rachel Flotard has a powerful, uplifting voice--the kind that makes you psyched to do dishes or dance around the apartment--and the band pulls it together into a peppy, pretty, poppy little package. KS
FRIDAY 1/21
ALICE IN WINTERLAND BALL FEATURING STARS OF TRACK & FIELD, BLITZEN TRAPPER, JOHN LARSEN
(Bossanova, 722 E Burnside) Even though everyone I work with would call me an art fag or a hippie or both, I'm in love with this concept: A surrealist inspired costume party where everyone dresses up like characters from Alice in Wonderland. Simple, but if you've seen the movie as many times as me and virtually every other middle class white chick, it burns something into your blood. Toss in some decent music, like the gentle, ponderous, and quirky Blitzen Trapper, and the quiet, good natured sincerity of John Larsen, and I'll sign up to "eat me" and "drink me" all night long, grinning like a goddamn chesire cat. MS
DAVE ALVIN & THE GUILTY MEN, LOS STRAITJACKETS
(Aladdin Theater, 3017 SE Milwaukie) 1981, Blasters singer Dave Alvin writes the band's definitive song, "American Music," telling the tale of a "US soldier boy on leave in West Berlin" and his search for American music. Throughout the track, he name-checks everything from Louisiana boogie to jazz. Since then, the song's acted as a self-fulfilling prophecy, with Alvin going from rockabilly with The Blasters, to country in The Knitters and everything else on his solo stuff. Alvin's latest is Ashgrove, his take on blues. It's textural stuff, mature, serious, though not always that soulful. Still, it's good to see him keeping the torch lit. ADAM GNADE
DISS CO FEATURING DJ TANT, BELLY, WILDING, GUZU AND SLEEPYHEAD
(Dunes, 1909 NE MLK) If you have the good fortune to live inside the Portland Radio Authority's broadcast range, you'll be familiar with regulars DJ Tant and Wilding, aka DJ GW. Tant spins IDM, electro, and hip-hop, and released a remix CD a few months back. Wilding, aka Gus Elg, plays a crazy mix of synth and drums, with enough distortion pedals to put Sonic Youth to shame. Come on out and support your local radio pirates, and keep your radios dialed to 95.1 fm. LYNN HIGHLAND
AMY FARRIS
(Mississippi Studios, 3939 N Mississippi) As a session-playing sidekick and road ringer, Amy Farris spent years sharing song and stage space with Kelly Willis, Ray Price, and Alejandro Escovedo. Though she earned accolades with her fiddle work, which ranges from traditional Texas swing to improvisational jazz-grass flourishes, Farris had itches her sidekick gigs weren't scratching. Her voice, a twang-tinged variation on pure-pop innocence, conjures images of Leslie Gore as a Dixie Chick. ANDREW MILLER
HUMAN TELEVISION, MINMAE, SOME BY SEA, UAI
(Tonic Lounge, 3100 NE Sandy Blvd) See My, What a Busy Week! Pg 13
MICHELLE MALONE, STEPHANIE SCHNEIDERMAN
(Doug Fir Lounge, 830 E Burnside) Though I imagine she's tired of hearing it, Michelle Malone is fairly Lucinda Williams-esque, with that familiar blend of jangly rock guitars and tough, raw vocals. Malone actually sounds like she's smoked less cigarettes in her day (perhaps a pack a day instead of two), but then she's also younger. And hotter. Tonight's show is a benefit for Habitat for Humanity. JUSTIN WESCOAT SANDERS
ANDREW NORSWORTHY, WATERY GRAVES, THANKSGIVING, A JOHN HENRY MEMORIAL, VIKING MOSES
(Artistery Gallery, 3769 SE Milwaukie) A very fine singer-songwriter worth checking out, Norsworthy's album Stateside is gorgeous, with lush instrumentation highlighted by his intricate interlacing of fretwork, pedal steel, and cello. Norsworthy upends folk-rock conventions with a plaintive voice, playful phrasing, and strange guitar tunings that hark back to folk forebears like Nick Drake (but are also infused with the pop sensibilities of Nick Lowe). NATE LIPPENS
SYSTEM AND STATION CD RELEASE, JR. PRIVATE DETECTIVE, PT. JUNCTURE, WA
(Nocturnal, 1800 E Burnside) It's a CD release party for System & Station, whose tuneless Yes-like prog rock on the new self-titled album sounds like it'd be a lot more fun to hear live. This isn't S & S's fault, really, it's just the nature of the musical style they've dedicated their lives to. JWS
TV:616, SUPERNAUT, TRI-POLAR
(Dante's, 1 SW 3rd) TV:616 plays some pleasantly catchy lite metal, like a sampling of the best things about 311 and Nine Inch Nails all rolled into one--even the occasional splashes of a Faith No More influence. Supernaut is composed of ex-blah blah blah (okay, Sweaty Nipples) personnel, and they're keeping it real on the heavy pop punk front. Real boring and generic to your average young, artistically searching folk, but just the stuff for aging punk rockers. MS
URSULA 1000, SEKSU ROBA, EVOLUTION CONTROL COMMITTEE, MARTINIBOMB
(Holocene, 1001 SE Morrison) Evolution Control Committee's Trademark, aka Mark Gunderson, has been doing cut up audio collage for the past decade, pre-dating the current fad of mashups that have blasted in and out of mainstream consciousness in the past three years. The grandpappy of the genre might be ECC's 1994 cassette mix "Rebel Without a Pause (Whipped Cream Mix)," layering Public Enemy a cappella over Herb Alpert's Tijuana Brass. Thankfully, Trademark and company have their eyes set on higher prizes than mocking the Strokes or Vanilla Ice: targets include ubiquitous food commercials, the fallen Dan Rather, and those bastards at NASA. Recently relocated to California from Columbus, OH, ECC performances have included video projections and a finger-triggered sampler called the Thimbletron. Wearing a mad scientist lab coat adorned with bastardized Nike and McDonald's logos, ECC mixes rockist sonic collage with an Adbusters-styled piss-take on the corporatization of everyday life that is funnier than that sounds. GEORGE CHEN
SATURDAY 1/22
BOWLING FOR SOUP, AMERICAN HIFI, RIDDLIN KIDS, MC LARS
(Bossanova, 722 E Burnside) Bowling For Soup is the worst band in the history of pop music. I know, I know… we say shit like this all of the time in the Mercury--ridiculous, inflammatory declarations designed to make you snort in disbelief, disgust, or amusement--but this is for real. THE. WORST. BAND. IN. THE. HISTORY. OF. POP. MUSIC. I swear on my life that before I ever christen another band with such an impossible title, I will be sure to compare said group to the band that did the theme song for the Real Gilligan's Island. And that band is Bowling For Soup. ZP
CALVIN JOHNSON, EMMA ZUNZ
(Red & Black, 2138 SE Division) Opening for the always interesting, and sometimes downright bizarre, Calvin Johnson is Emma Zunz, which is a band, not a person. Emma Zunz is named for the Borges tale, which first appeared in The Alpha and offers some pleasingly metaphysical mind-fucks--a description that suits this duo handily. Cristin Miller plays guitar and sings and Annie Lewandowski plays guitar and accordion and sings. Think Snakefarm with fewer mannerisms or Two Pale Boys without David Thomas' outsized ego, and you are on the right track. NATE LIPPENS
LHASA, CUCHATA
(Aladdin Theater, 3017 SE Milwaukie) Mexican American vocalist--excuse me, chanteuse--Lhasa de Sela possesses a voice invariably described as "smoky." Actually, words like "husky" and "understatedly lusty" are more accurate. She sounds like Nico or Lisa Germano with a heavier reliance on drama-school inflections. Whatever the case, Lhasa rivets you every time she opens her mouth to intone her trilingual (Spanish, French, English) songs. Her band teases out strangely formal-sounding art songs suffused in Old European melancholy and yearning. Lhasa's latest album, The Living Road (Nettwerk America), is powerfully emotional in a subdued way--and all the more effective for it. Even when she's singing in a language you don't comprehend, Lhasa & Co. induce a bittersweet pain that's almost too exquisite for mortals to bear (immortals will be able to handle it just fine). DAVE SEGAL
MISFATS, SNITCHES GET STITCHES, FECE
(Porky's, 835 N. Lombard) Snitches get Stitches should be the cheesiest pop-punk band in post-Blink-182 history. "Wacky" pop-vulture song-titles like "Release the Kraken," not to mention their silly, adolescent "sneering, punk" band name, all but WAIL "We're the new Bowling for Soooup! Prepare 105.1FM for our big, happy, ironic, novelty hit! Wheeee!" But their music couldn't be further from it. (Actually it could, but whatevs.) The band's upcoming debut, I Liked You Better When You Were a Corpse, is more the screamy, nu-hardcore kill-fest of bands like Some Girls or Dmonstrations. Very nice. AG
RTX, BLITZEN TRAPPER, VOLUMES
(Doug Fir Lounge, 830 E Burnside) See Music, Pg 17
SING BLUE SILVER! A DURAN DURAN TRIBUTE FEATURING KAITLYN NI DONOVAN, AMOREE LOVELL, HUMAN GENOME PROJECT, AND MANY MORE
(Fez, 316 SW 11th Ave) See My, What a Busy Week! Pg 13
CHURCH OF PSYCHEDELIA with, NUDGE, THE PLANTS, STEELE ST. REVOLUTIONARY JASS BAND
(Berbati's Pan, 10 SW 3rd) See My, What a Busy Week! Pg 13
SUNDAY 1/23
THE PSYCHEDELIC FURS, THE SHORE
(Roseland, 8 NW 6th) See My, What a Busy Week! Pg 13
MONDAY 1/24
EARLY DAY MINERS, CHRIS BROKAW
(Doug Fir Lounge, 830 E Burnside) Remember way back in the early '90s when you could form a band around a few brooding minor chords and change the world? Or when everybody and his brother over Eastward was, like, totally over rock music? Chris Brokaw does. And it seems that the former Come frontman (and drummer for Codeine, the greatest band of all time) has taught Bloomington's Early Day Miners a few things about those days as well, judging from All Harm Ends Here, the band's very familiar, soon-to-be released full length on Secretly Canadian. ZP
ELEFANT, RADIO 4
(Crystal Ballroom, 1332 W Burnside) So, we're all together on the pronunciation of this band, right? It's eh-leh-FAHN, with a silent, French "t" at the end. I don't know if that's how they pronounce it, but after I saw them play in their hometown of New York a few months back, at a show in which the lead singer preened and posed like a world-class phony throughout the set while his cohorts churned out a Xerox of all the fashionable influences that have been coming out of that part of the country for the past couple years, I resolved to insist on that pronunciation, sometimes even attaching an L-apostrophe to the front, for maximum bullshit. RANDY OCTOGENARIAN
JAY FARRAR, ANDERS PARKER
(Aladdin Theater, 3017 SE Milwaukie) While I was always a Son Volt fan and I'm pleased to hear that they are regrouped and recording, I've grown accustomed to the weirder meanderings of Jay Farrar solo. His Terroir Blues was a minor personal obsession when it came out and his excellent live album Stone, Steel & Bright Lights cemented that feeling. If at first I was disappointed that the set focused only on his solo material with no detours into Uncle Tupelo or Son Volt's catalogs, I see now what a great and strangely meandering thing that material is. The songs drawn from Sebastopol and Terroir Blues, with lap steel, maracas, and some subtle keyboards and well-placed percussion, are some of his finest. He's a giant talent. Farrar still has one of the best voices around, which would have been a classic country voice in a different era. But fortunately for us, he plays to a small, devoted, and lucky audience of fellow travelers and seekers. NATE LIPPENS
TUESDAY 1/25
JAPANTHER, WET CONFETTI, KICKBALL, SOUR GRAPES
(Meow Meow, 320 SE 2nd Ave) See My, What a Busy Week! Pg 13
WEDNESDAY 1/26
GOD, FOGUE MOPUS, BEHALF, MEDICAL MOTH, DJ STEREO OBSCURA
(Dunes, 1909 NE MLK) A minor showcase of sorts for Collective Jyrk, the imprint of former Portland sons the Yellow Swans, tonight's festivities celebrate the release of the debut cd-r from local stereo & circuitry duo God. Comprised of Super Unity polymaths Bryan Eubanks and Leif Sundstrom, God trickles out beaded and bejeweled birdsongs of electronic tone. Also of Jyrk affiliation, Olympian teenage trio Foque Mopus ply their ether from Samplers, French Horn, and Parabolic Microphone. Forget about the "new weird America"-here is the new cosmic wave of supersound. SAM MICKENS
HANGAR 18, ONEBELO, MAJESTIK LEGEND
(Berbati's Pan, 10 SW 3rd) See My, What a Busy Week! Pg 13; Music, Pg 19
KINGS OF LEON, THE FEATURES
(Aladdin Theater, 3017 SE Milwaukie) It's such a drag when your own indierock elitism bites you in the ass. My promo copy of the Features 2004 release, Exhibit A, sat on my desk for a full 3 months before I threw it in on a whim. Why? Simply because when I realized it was released by Universal Records, I lazily assumed it was going to be more flavor-of-the-moment dance-punk like their label mates the Rapture. Nothing could have been further from the truth. Matt Pelham's jittery, emotional vocals sound like Ray Davies or Elvis Costello at their most naked, careening wistfully through garage-pop terrain, while the passionate pulse of Parrish Yaw's dusty organ keys and water-tight percussion work of Rollum Haas create hard-edged punk tones that flirt with the Jam's greatest strengths. Even if you think Kings of Leon are pedestrian schlock, it's worth the cost of admission just to see this band open for them. HANNAH LEVIN
SCUFFLE & DUSTCOUGH, SICKIE SICKIE, THE BETTER TO SEE YOU WITH
(Meow Meow, 320 SE 2nd Ave) While I have somehow still avoided seeing Scuffle & Dustcough in the flesh (that is of course, until tonight), I feel entirely confident vouching for the stuttering instrumental trio on the strength of their relatively recent Megaphone Figment EP--a release that comfortably covers the far flung ground between Slint and latter-era Pixies without ever feeling staid or trite. In fact, forget that last bit about Slint and the Pixies--firstly, because it's fairly misleading, and second, because it makes them sound as though they're, you know, one of those bands that says they sound like the Pixies or Slint. Which they aren't. What they are is a compelling three piece composed of guitar, cello, and drums that have graced my crowded desk with the best CD-R I've heard all week. ZP