More than any single show, the most significant happening in live
music in Portland this year was, to my mind, the door to shows being
opened a bit further, a bit more often, to people under 21 thanks to
long-overdue Oregon Liquor Control Commission Minor Postings rule
changes. Set against that triumphant backdrop, here are six of my
favorite local shows of 2008.
1. Chromatics at Rotture (3/14/08)
Night Drive, the Chromatics’ 2007 album of spacious doom
disco, is the fictitious soundtrack to a nonexistent 1980s highway noir
film of the same name. The first track is a skit in which singer Ruth
Radelet calls her boyfriend after leaving an all-night dance party
whose bass still booms, blocks away, in the background. Well, in my
mind this was that party, so fully did it inhabit the
Chromatics’ dance-the-dreary-night-away aesthetic of 107-BPM elegant
despair. Surrounded by admirers in a room that beatmaker Johnny Jewel
decorated with balloons and blue-and-pink wall tiles, the Chromatics’
energetic, four-piece live incarnation let a smile crack the
unwaveringly sexy, sulky expression they wear on record, turning a
memorable dance party into the best show of the year.
2. Starfucker at the Doug Fir (9/18/08)
Starfucker was the most consistently enjoyable and life-affirming
Portland band in concert this year. This show stands out not only for
the performance, but also for two circumstantial reasons: First, it was
Starfucker’s highly anticipated album release show, a milestone by
which one could measure and marvel at how far this little indie-pop
band had come in just over a year. Second, Starfucker’s most devout
fans—Portland music lovers under 21—were able to see a
local band at the Doug Fir for the first time.
3. Third Angle at Keller Fountain, Pettygrove Park, Lovejoy
Fountain, and Source Fountain (9/14/08)
While the logic linking the postmodern dance, landscape
architecture, and contemporary classical music featured in Third
Angle’s itinerant, interdisciplinary contribution to this year’s TBA
Festival may have been complex, it was anything but contrived. With
this outdoor, site-specific, collaborative ode to downtown Portland’s
archipelago of pioneering public spaces designed by Lawrence Halprin,
our city’s premier new music chamber ensemble demonstrated the vitality
and under-acknowledged accessibility of 1960s Bay Area composers Riley,
Subotnick, and Oliveros, and of Third Angle itself.
4. Explode into Colors at Rotture (9/5/08)
Even with major names lending their glow to MusicfestNW this year,
the highlight of my festival experience was happening upon this
rhythm-driven, all-female, neo-primitivist trio that connects the dots
between Confusion Is Sex and Arular. Playing off her
bandmates’ minimal melodica, vocals, keyboards, percussion, and guitar,
Lisa Schonberg struck me as Portland’s most inventive drummer.
5. Eskimo and Sons at Hotel deLuxe rooftop (8/7/08)
Opening for an outdoor screening of Flight of the Navigator on a downtown rooftop at dusk, orchestral twee tribe Eskimo and Sons
played what everyone singing along knew would be one of their last
shows. Eskimo and Sons had a knack for covers, and riveting vocalist
Danielle Sullivan never sounded finer than she did this evening on “Let
‘Em In” and “Man on the Frontier.” It was a fraught but gorgeous thing
to watch the sun set on a beloved city and band simultaneously.
6. Bob Jones Ensemble, Grandfather Claws, Portland, Nick Delffs at
Witch’s Castle in Forest Park (9/7/08)
A late summer field trip to a crumbling stone building in Forest
Park, and an instrumental piece for six acoustic guitars and e-bow in
the front niche; a noisy tape loop set sourced from Portland street
sounds in the little black cavern; a piece of Jodorowsky-worthy musical
theater featuring twins, gongs, and toy piano up top; a solo set of
roots rock ‘n’ roll down below. I like to believe that something like
this happens every day in Portland and I’m just not aware of it.