Portland musicians tend to learn very quickly when out-of-state musicians with any kind of notoriety or reputation are
planning to move to our city. The news is usually met, as in the case
of, say, Chris Walla or Britt Daniel, with a mixture of excitement and
canine territorial defensiveness.
Whether this phenomenon is a vestige
of the proudly provincial, quietly xenophobic, Tom McCall-era “Visit
but don’t stay” Oregonian mindset, or the product of the lingering
insecurity we all feel about actually being Californians ourselves,
word travels at the speed of gossip. But occasionally our early warning
systems and border-patrolling Minutemen let us down when it really
counts, because while we never fail to work ourselves into an elitist
tizzy when we get wind that someone like Gerard Way of My Chemical
Romance might be moving here, we somehow let a gem of a band like the
Double U move to Portland to live and create in our midst for five
years without really taking notice.
The Double U play a clean-toned,
jazzy, roller-rink-redolent, highly unpredictable brand of restrained
indierock full of the muted menace found in David Lynch films and
Ren and Stimpy cartoons. The fact that they play music this
unusual makes their relative local obscurity unfortunate. But the fact
that they do so with an impeccable independent music pedigree makes it
surprising. The Double U were pioneering comrades-in-arms in San
Francisco’s mid- to late-’90s weird rock renaissance with better-known
bands like Deerhoof, the Melvins and, especially, Thinking Fellers
Union Local 282, with whom they sometimes lived and collaborated. Over
the course of a decade in the Bay, the band’s lineup changed several
times, but husband-and-wife duo Matt Hall and Alex Behr remained
constant, forming the core of the band with the former’s technically
rigorous guitar playing and unintelligible whisper-soft vocal growl,
and the latter’s punchy bass work and languid keyboards.
The twosome
moved to Portland from San Francisco in 2003 because, according to
Behr, “It was getting too expensive down there, and Matt liked rain.”
Once here, they teamed up with a fellow transplant, drummer Geoff
Soule—a card-carrying member of the Cool Club himself, as a
member of San Franciscan indie outfit Fuck—played some shows, and
booked a few sessions at Jackpot! Recording Studio with Larry Crane and
Kendra Wright. The resultant album, entitled Hibou
Mécanique (French for “Mechanical Owl”), is the band’s fifth
release, and first with Soule, whose tasteful, intricate drumming
complements Behr and Hall’s styles well.
Hibou Mécanique takes flight from Mississippi Studios into the skies of Portland at 8
pm on Thursday, October 4, when the Double U play with Pan Tourismos
and Night Mechanic.