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Friday, Jan 11

And And And, The Woolen Men, Help
Portland punk and indie rock stalwarts And And And The Woolen Men head up a hometown benefit show at the Doug Fir, with proceedings going to the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), a Santa Cruz-based non-profit working to raise awareness and understanding of psychedelic substances. (9 pm, Doug Fir< $10-13)

Secret Drum Band, IE, Sunbathe
Lovers of rhythmic noise and sonic daring, take note: This three-band bill is for you. First up is Sunbathe, the downcast surf-pop project of Maggie Morris of Genders. Next comes IE, a five-piece from Minneapolis whose celestial electronic music is melodic, effervescent, hypnotic, and droning. Last but not least is Secret Drum Band, the local experimental percussion combo that features members of Explode into Colors, !!!, and Unwound, among others. Their sound is sometimes meditative, sometimes ecstatic, and always interesting. The group’s most recent album, Dynamics, was one of the best to come out of Portland in 2017, and founder Lisa Schonberg’s most recent release is based around her recordings of ants and their habitats in the Brazilian Amazon. (9 pm, Mississippi Studios, $10-12) BEN SALMON

August McLaughlin, Mona Darling
In Girl Boner, health and sexuality writer and podcaster August McLaughlin combines elements of personal narrative, reporting, and practical tips to offer women an inclusive and sex-positive guide to empowerment. McLaughlin will be joined in conversation by Mona Darling, blogger and sex educator. (7:30 pm, Powell's City of Books, free)

Sebastian Maniscalco
The star of the Comedy Central special Sebastian Live! and one of the comedians featured in Vince Vaughn's Wild West Comedy Show brings the "Stay Hungry" Tour through the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall. (7 pm, Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, $39.75-59.75)

Blossom, R.Ariel, Kafari, VNPRT
Experimental electronic artist and writer R.Ariel swings through Beacon Sound to kick off her tour and celebrate the release of her second book, No One Likes Us, and her latest album, Droves. Likeminded local musicians Blossom, Kafari, and VNPRT round out the proceedings. (7:30 pm, Beacon Sound, $10)

BoomBox
The Alabama-based duo headed up by singer/songwriter Zion Godchaux and producer Russ Randolph bring their blues- and funk-inflicted electronic rock to the Wonder for an all-ages show supporting their latest album, Western Voodoo. (9 pm, Wonder Ballroom, $17-20, all ages)

Gabby Holt, The Stubborn Lovers, Kool Stuff Katie
Gabby Holt cannot be contained, and the King Black Acid alumni debuts her new band at the Secret Society, with help from Kool Stuff Katie and the Stubborn Lovers. (8:45 pm, The Secret Society, $8)

Kongos
The alternative rock act out of Scottsdale, Arizona comprised of brothers Dylan, Daniel, Jesse, Johnny Kongos make their way to town for an all-ages show at the Hawthorne Theatre. (8 pm, Hawthorne Theatre, $25-30, all ages)


Saturday, Jan 12

Portland Metro Reptile Expo
Hi! You look like you’d enjoy being UTTERLY TERRIFIED. So by all means, get to the Portland Metro Reptile Expo, which promises to fill the Portland Airport Holiday Inn with even more reptiles than usual! Boasting “the largest selection of reptile vendors in the northwest” (including “Geckos Unlimited,” “Ivy’s Axolotls,” and “R&D Quality Constrictors”), the expo also offers “a venomous reptile display” and a chance to adopt your very own cold-blooded creature, so reptiles can haunt both your nightmares and your home! Children five and under get in for free, probably because they will be eaten. (10 am, Holiday Inn Airport, $5-10, all ages, FINISH HIM!!) ERIK HENRIKSEN

Elton John
If your primary frame of reference is “Hakuna Matata,” you maybe don’t realize that, for a few years in the ’70s, Elton John was MASSIVE—the biggest thing in music since the Beatles. And if a balding, bespectacled piano player seems an unlikely superstar, keep in mind that this was the fellow behind tunes like “Levon,” “The Bitch Is Back,” “All the Girls Love Alice,” and “Someone Saved My Life Tonight.” So don’t let the sun go down on your last chance ever to see the legend in concert: John’s farewell tour hits Portland tonight, and every song’ll be a smash. (8 pm, Moda Center) NED LANNAMANN

Rose City Rollers: Double Header Season Opener
The Hangar hosts a season opening double header, with the High Rollers taking on Guns N Rollers and the Heartless Heathers going up against the Break Neck Betties. (6 pm, The Hangar at Oaks Park, $20-26, all ages)

Howlin' Rain, Garcia Peoples, Pushy
Ethan Miller is a modern guitar hero. From his way-out-there work with Bay Area noise freaks Comets on Fire to his primitive punk thunder in Feral Ohms to his expansive psych with Heron Oblivion, the guy has been a leading light of the West Coast underground for many years. Howlin Rain is Miller’s outlet for swaggering classic rock jams, and the band’s new album The Alligator Bride is an absolute blast, packed front to back with swampy blues, ’70s vibes, eternal guitar solos, and head-to-toe denim. If you’ve got a friend who says they like “real rock ’n’ roll” (not that weak stuff from today’s bands), bring ’em to see Howlin Rain. And be sure to get there in time to see East Coast jam-band revivalists Garcia Peoples. (9 pm, Doug Fir, $12-15) BEN SALMON

Animaniacs in Concert
Randy Rogel (music) and Rob Paulsen (narf!) somehow manage to translate the madness of Animaniacs to the live stage, with music, comedy, and an opportunity to meet the men behind the sounds of a formative cartoon experience. (7:30 pm, Newmark Theatre, $32.50-60, all ages)

Mae, Matthew Thiessen
The Norfolk, Virginia-hailing trio headed up by Dave Elkins, Zach Gehring, and Jacob Marshall bring their emo-tinged power pop and indie rock through town for an early matinee performance at the Doug Fir Lounge. (5:30 pm, Doug Fir, $20)

Miz Kitty's Parlour
Another year, another season of variety show wonderfulness! Miz Kitty resurrects the spirit of real old-timey vaudeville as she transforms the Mission into her own parlor, with song, dance, burlesque, and other alluring entertainments from unique Portland performers. (7 pm, Mission Theater, $17-20)

Rose City Unification: The PDX FGC Fighting Game Tournament
It seems counterintuitive that something called "unification" could come from a whole mess of gamers gathering together for mutual asswhippings and popoffs for a whole day, but amazingly, that's how the fighting game community works. Pros, semi-pros, amateurs, and spectators will bring their sticks, their pads, their brains, and their finely-honed reflexes to showcase skills at the intricate blend of chess, rock-paper-scissors, puzzles, and pugilism that is fighting games, with titles including Tekken 7, DragonBall FighterZ, Street Fighter V, and more. (2 pm, Epic Gaming PDX)

Born Sick, Curtains, Equalize, Velvet Merkin
Virginia-hailing hardcore crew Born Sick put Twilight through the wringer, and Velvet Merkin is around to soak up the squeezings. (8:30 pm, Twilight Cafe & Bar, $7)


Sunday, Jan 13

True Detective: Season Three
It's been over three years since the very not good second season of HBO's True Detective, and hopefully that's enough distance to make returning to writer/creator Nic Pizzolato's verbosely brooding underworld of crime seem enticing again. Even more enticing? This season is centered around Mahershala Ali. Oh, and Pizzolatto got Deadwood's David Milch to help him write it. And Jeremy Saulnier (Green Room, Hold the Dark) helped direct it. Now, I'm not saying you should be hopeful—Saulnier walked away from the project halfway through, for example. But it sure as hell sounds better than watching Vince Vaughn dribble syllables all over his chest like an overgrown baby spitting up a thesaurus. (9 pm, HBO)

No Pants MAX Ride
For 364 days a year, the MAX provides reliable, efficient public transportation, dramatically improving Portland's livability and sustainability. But then, for one day a year, the MAX is held hostage by the No Pants MAX Ride, in which MAX trains are filled with people who refuse to uphold literally the last remaining requirement of modern civilization. Good for them? Everybody else: Uh, take a Lyft or something? Hey, try taking your pants off in the Lyft! See how well that goes for you. (2 pm, Various Locations, $2.50-5) ERIK HENRIKSEN

Melt, Scott Yoder
Melt serve up garage-pop swirling in the fuzzy headspace occupying the mind of frontman Jeff Boyardee. Seattle's Scott Yoder rounds out the free show with his blend of indie folk, glam, and power-pop. (8 pm, Rontoms, free)

Sumac, Divide & Dissolve, Tashi Dorji
Sumac is the type of post-metal juggernaut that sets the heavy bar so ear-piercingly high, it’s a wonder they’ve even got ears left to work with. Forged from the lingering heaviness of Aaron Turner’s post-Isis output, the band’s third record, Love in Shadow, is a dynamic slice of noise-meets-sludge, replete with Turner’s guttural yowls and contemplative guitar eruptions. Rounded out by drummer Nick Yacyshyn (Baptists) and bassist Brian Cook (Botch), the album’s progressive onslaught is an impressive pastiche of metal subgenres that has the ability to enrage or enlighten you, depending on your mood. (9 pm, Mississippi Studios, $13-15) RYAN J. PRADO

Benjamin Appl, James Baillieu
Internationally renowned baritone Benjamin Appl teams up with keyboardist James Baillieu for an intimate, unplugged concert framed around songs about homeland and belonging. This multilingual program features more than a dozen composers, anchored by the always enchanting Franz Schubert and concluding with an exquisite collection of tunes from Norwegian marvel Edvard Grieg. If one of your resolutions for the new year happens to involve getting your heart melted and your mind blown by a pair of brilliant musicians of the highest caliber, this is undoubtedly the show for you. (3 pm, PSU Lincoln Performance Hall, $30-55, all ages) BRIAN HORAY

Thursday, Vein
Over its initial 15-year run, the New Jersey band Thursday evolved from screamo upstarts into sparkling post-hardcore adventurers who forever altered the DNA of emo. Thursday split up in 2011, but now they’re back and playing some old favorites—Sunday’s Portland show will feature songs from the band’s influential 2001 album Full Collapse, and Monday will focus on their big breakthrough, 2003’s War All the Time. If that sounds like a lot of looking backward to you, don’t worry: Opening band Vein, a math-y metalcore band from Boston, put out one of the most brutal (and best) punk albums of 2018, Errorzone. (8:30 pm, Doug Fir, $32-35) BEN SALMON

Matthew Perryman Jones
Nashville-based singer/songwriter Matthew Perryman Jones blesses the Old Church with a set of pop-tinged rock and folk pulled from his 2018 full-length, The Waking Hours. (8 pm, The Old Church, $15)

Super Unison, Slow Mass, U Sco
As the singer for Bay Area hardcore greats Punch, Meghan O’Neil shredded her throat over minute-long blasts that devoured breathing room. Super Unison gives O’Neil more time and texture with which to work. Her voice is still all sorts of torn and devastating, but on this year’s Steve Albini-recorded Stella, it is accompanied by a thorny post-hardcore sound that brings Heroin and Universal Order of Armageddon up to speed on the punk scene’s love affair with shoegaze. The cumulative effect is beautiful and brutal, like a storm of fiery arrows falling from the sky. (8:30 pm, High Water Mark, $13) CHRIS STAMM

Johannes Moser, The Oregon Symphony
This concert finds two pleasing, flavorful overtures bookending two more strident, confrontational pieces, indicating the Oregon Symphony’s dedication to showcasing modern composers while also keeping patrons happy with the established classics. Rossini’s intoxicating overture for Tancredi—one of his loveliest operas—is an example of a pop smash circa 200 years ago, taking dead aim at your brain’s pleasure zone. Next, Zimmermann’s raucous ballet score for Music for the Suppers of King Ubu “samples” famous classical works like Beethoven’s “Pastoral” Symphony, Bach’s Brandenberg Concerto No. 1, Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries,” and others, to disturbing and disorienting effect. Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto No. 1 is petulant, morose, and beautiful, requiring utmost concentration and physicality from its soloist—in this case, guest cellist Johannes Moser. But you’ll be sent into the night with Rimsky-Korsakov’s Russian Easter Festival Overture ringing in your ears, a gorgeously orchestrated piece that goes from doleful to exuberant over the course of 15 crackerjack minutes. (7:30 pm, Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall) BRIAN HORAY

Don't forget to check out our Things To Do calendar for even more things to do!