THURSDAY, APRIL 3
King Mountain Petrol w/Sioux Falls; Vincente’s Gourmet Pizza, 1935 SE Hawthorne
Pedal-happy youngsters whose debut EP, Tusk, is thoroughly solid and stylistically diverse, although their parents probably should have told them there’s a Fleetwood Mac record with the same name.
FRIDAY, APRIL 4
Weed w/Modern Marriage; Discourage Records, 1737 SE Morrison
The appropriately named Vancouver, BC, band Weed’s latest record, Deserve, begins with approximately a minute of doom-y noise before unexpectedly metamorphosing into a glorious pop butterfly. Highly recommended for anyone who has ever wondered what Neil Young would sound like with Kyuss as his backing band.
SATURDAY, APRIL 5
Dumpster Burger w/With the Shades Drawn, Moi$T Money, Wormbag; Slabtown, 1033 NW 16th (early show, 3 pm)
Incredibly abrasive and otherworldly noise-rock and a great addition to anyone’s workout mix.
SUNDAY, APRIL 6 & MONDAY, APRIL 7
Neutral Milk Hotel w/Elf Power, the Minders; Crystal Ballroom, 1332 W Burnside
Neutral Milk Hotel ruined everything. Yes, In the Aeroplane Over the Sea is a flawless masterpiece. But it changed the face of “indie rock,” arguably for the worse—a genre that was once imbued with heavy DIY and punk implications is now associated with bookish beardcore groups like the Decemberists and Bon Iver, and we have Jeff Mangum & Co. to thank for that. Neutral Milk Hotel helped cultivate and popularize a bucolic, borderline steampunk aesthetic that we are still reeling from. Like Nirvana, they were a Halley’s Comet of a band, one that recorded beautiful music and unwittingly left nothing but musical tragedy in their wake. And like Nirvana, their records made it all worth it. Almost.
TUESDAY, APRIL 8
Suffer Along w/Years of Lead; Laughing Horse Books, 12 NE 10th
Grimy and vaguely technical hardcore from Los Angeles. The vocals are really loud in the mix. I think it’s an LA thing.