The cases keep climbing, the temperature's climbing right along with it, and if you look at the news, there's about five metric tons of WTF constantly churning at 500 mph. It's probably impossible to really escape any of this, but that's not to say you can't still tryâand we've got plenty of things to do in Portland this weekend, including live music, live comedy (really!), livestreams, and more. And as our Editor-In-Chief likes to say: If you're going to go out, Wash Ya Damn Hands, Wear Ya Damn Mask, hit the links below, and plan your weekend accordingly!
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All Weekend
Portland Art Museum Re-Opening
A big part of many Portlander's weekend rituals pre-COVID involved stopping by the Portland Art Museum and soaking in all the thought-provoking beauty on display. Well, PAM is back. Of course, proper social distancing guidelines and safey protocols are being put in place, and if you're thinking of heading outside, you better be safe and mask upâbut if you're ready to head downtown and enjoy the works of Robert Colescott in the Art and Race Matters exhibition, you can do that this weekend for free.
Zoigl-Lot Brew 'n' Q
For summer 2020, you can now make good use of the Zoiglhaus parking lot, which has been converted into a safely socially distanced dining area. Order up some beers, down some BBQ grub, and enjoy live music all weekend long from 4pm-8pm.
Tom Papa
The Joe Rogan Experience regular (he balances it out by being a frequent guest and sometimes guest-host on NPR's Wait Wait Don't Tell Me) comes to Portland for a special (and heavily regulated thanks to the Coronavirus) weekend stand at the Helium, fresh off the back-to-back triumphs of his Netflix special You're Doing Great! and his book of the same name.
Virtual Northwest String Summit
Live from Out There helps this edition of the annual Horning's Hideout shindig move online for 2020. You can still camp out all weekend if you want, it'll just be in your living room, or in your backyard. But the bands will still be serving up that fine singer/songwriter stuff, some in the form of live performances, some in the form of unique, never-before-seen footage. Performers include Yonder Mountain String Band, Greensky Bluegrass, Railroad Earth, The Infamous Stringdusters, Cascade Crescendo, Fruition, Pete Kartsounes, and many more.
WoodyFest 2020
The Woody Guthrie Coalition's annual festival celebrating folk music and the tremendous impact Guthrie had on the form moves online for 2020 with this weekend's worth of live music, panel discussions, and more with guests including Glen Hansard, Crys Matthews, Monica Taylor, Red Dirt Rangers, Butch Hancock, Arlo Guthrie, and more.
Friday, July 17
Tahirah Memory
Portland jazz vocalist Tahirah Memory comes back - like, really back - to perform live (but still safely socially distanced) on Amalfi's converted patio for a sorely-needed hit of homegrown goodness.
Sarah Moon & Friends
The World Famous Kenton Club hosts this blues-fueled evening of music starring local belter Sarah Moon on the Kenton Club's parking lot, specifically converted to enable the enjoying of live music while still observing safe social distancing.
Tremors w/ Kelly Sue DeConnick
Seattle's Museum of Pop Culture continues its livestreamed "It's Coming From Inside the House!" horror appreciation series with this Tremors watch-party featuring a pre-film introduction from Captain Marvel and Bitch Planet writer Kelly Sue DeConnick. Hosted by Robert Rutherford.
It's a Disaster
Oscilloscope presents a special livestream screening of 2013's black-comedy of conversation and bad manners, It's a Disaster, which starts as an awkward collection of quietly-seething people at an uncomfortable dinner partyâand that's before they discover they're stuck inside as the world is ending. Not prescient or relatable at all, right? Certainly this aspect of the film won't be brought up and examined at the post-film Q&A with the full cast, including America Ferreira, Julia Stiles, Rachel Boston, Erinn Hayes, and David Cross. Proceeds from each ticket sold benefits the Hollywood Theatre.
Pam Ann Does Miami
Pam Ann promises an abundance of cheeky musical numbers, inappropriate comedy, celebrity gossip, and all manner of entertainment that goes down well with "a big glass of I don't give a fuck."
Weekly Beat: Kool DJ Red Alert
An opportunity to catch a legitimate hip-hop legend doing his thing live courtesy of the SummerStage Anywhere livestream series. Oh, and his special guests for this performance are Main Source. So, yeah, a free livestream where one of the single best DJs in the artform's history teams up with one of the single best producers working during the '90s golden days.
Guided by Voices
Guided by Voicesâ shows will consistently give you the most bang for your buck. Of the 2,000-plus cuts that Robert Pollard has penned throughout his prolific career, few creep far past the three-minute mark, and many fan favorites clock in closer to a minute and a half. As a result, the indie rock heroes will likely feature dozens upon dozens of tracks spanning their roughly 30-year existenceâevery song, of course, being an attempt to fulfill Pollardâs chief goal of fitting as many hooks into as little time as possible. BEN WEINSTEIN
Live from the Rose City: Swiggle Mandela
The latest installment of the Roseland + DoubleTee livestream collab shining a spotlight on local artists features up-and-coming wordslinger Swiggle Mandela, who is also the founder of Shop La Familia & Co-Op, and who once recorded a whole diss track about a certain other Portland alt-weekly. Which we have no comment on, but boy this cup of tea is so flavorful, mmm.
Flume
Flume usually hits up Red Rocks around this time of year to put on one big sweaty mess of a show. He can't do that this year obviously, but for fans of big sweaty messes, you can catch last year's Flume & Friends show from Red Rocks with guest appearances from Slowthai, Vera Blue, Reo Cragun, and JPEGMAFIA. And if you're extra-futuristic, you can watch in VR via Littlstar on PS4.
Spend The Night (At Home): A Tribute to the Dancers
Portland Freestyle Dancers take over the Holocene Twitch and YouTube Channels, with sounds provided by local all-stars Decimus, DJ Nathan Detroit, Ben Tactic, and Floyd Vader.
Pickathon Presents a Concert-a-Day: DakhaBrakha
With their matching red-and-black outfits and tall wool hats, DakhaBrakha hypnotized the crowds at Pickathon last year with bewitching sets centered around the chants of Olena Tsybulska, Iryna Kovalenko, and Nina Harenetska. Though theyâve got roots in Ukranian folk, DakhaBrakha draws from a hodge-podge of styles thatâs anchored by warbling melodies and percussive elements like goblet drum and table, along with the dissonant sounds of didgeridoo and cajĂłn. The groupâs avant-garde aesthetic and self-described âethno-chaosâ sound have attracted curious audiences the world over. RYAN J. PRADO
Saturday, July 18
Protest for Vanessa Guillen
A peaceful protest action starting at noon in front of the Justice Center, asking for justice in the case of Vanessa Guillen. Attendees are asked to wear masks and observe safe social distancing.
Pavement: Pop-Up Performances in a Public Parking Spot
This arts event uses the drive-in as inspiration for a collaboration between Risk/Reward and Boom Arts, with XRAY.FM's sound engineers facilitating the streaming of sound straight into your car after you arrive at a secret location (sent to attendees hours before the shows) to enjoy live dance performance from local artists Suba Ganesan (Portland Creative Laureate), KT Kusmaul (Body Home Fat Dance), Oluyinka Akinjiola (Rejoice! Diaspora Dance Theater); music by Kenji Bunch & Monica Ohuchi, Portland Opera, and Amenta Abioto; a theater piece by Gerrin Mitchell; and spoken word by Anya Pearson.
The Hopefuls: Citywide Scavenger Hunt
Local artist Mike Bennett (that clever, creative dude who paints plywood characters and hides them all over the city) is back with another city-spanning adventure for his characters The Hopefuls, representing the natural world: Flora the Flower, Fawna the Deer, Sol the Sunshine, Bo the Rainbow, and Drizzy the Raindrop. Starting at 10 am, families can go on a hunt to find up to 20 Hopefuls DIY kits so kids can make the five friends at home, and if the scavengers are really good, they can find the five original prototypes out there, too.
The Side Yard Farm Collaborative Market
A Farmers market for BIPOC vendors around the city, including farmers, artisans, and makers, offering up goods ranging from food, arts, flowers, medicinal herbs, sauces, desserts, and so much more. No mask? No entry.
Artigiano's Pugliese Dinner
Artigiano invokes the aesthetic loveliness of the Puglia peninsula for this family-style dinner that doesn't just strive to replicate the atmosphere of the countryside, but also serves up food and wine from the region.
The Sportin Lifers
The Blue Diamond presents a (safely socially distanced) set from the Sportin' Lifers, who specialize in reviving the era of Cab Calloway and Etta James, and adding a few old-timey originals of their own to the playlist.
DJ Greg Lemix
The Kenton Club's new outdoor stage gets a workout thanks to DJ Greg spinning all the best stuff in his collection, starting at 7 pm.
kNOw Justice! kNOw Peace! Stream for Equality
The first in a series of online music and cultural education fundraisers produced via a collaboration between Jamcast, The Common Wealth Collective, and Take Blaction, focused on racial equality and furthering the justice movement, with performances from Zion I, Ghost-Note, Doom Flamingo, and more.
City and Colour, Leon Bridges
When he's not helping front the Ontario-based post-hardcore band Alexisonfire, Canadian singer-songwriter Dallas Green can be found performing blues rock and folk with his solo project, City and Colour. He'll be doing just that alongside Grammy-winning R&B star Leon Bridges (Good Thing, Coming Home) as part of Budweiser At Home's latest livestream concert, hosted by Tara Sloane.
Musician Treatment Foundation Benefit Concert
The MTF's first-ever benefit concert certainly isn't aiming small, hoping to raise funds for their cause with performances from luminaries including Elvis Costello, Joan Jett & the Blackhearts, the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, Bill Evans, and many more. Hosted by Sirius XM's Seth Rudetsky.
Michael Franti
The Oakland-hailing rapper, musician, poet, and singer-songwriter presents this special "Live from Soulshine Bali" streaming event as part of his "Stay At Home Concert World Tour."
East Forest
Portland-based artist and musician Trevor Oswalt brings his experimental blend of ambient, electronic, indie pop, and contemporary classical music to this livestreamed "ceremony" promising to take listeners on a "Sound meditation journey."
Electric Sunset Music Festival 2020
Seattle's EDM fest, which began thumping, bass-heavy life on the roof of the Sunset Electric building as Electroluxx in 2016, moves online for 2020, using house, techno, and trance music to celebrate the city's warm summer nights, and how good it is to fill those nights with big-ass beats.
Battles & Lamar
These two local legends have spent years feeding Portland some of the finest funk, disco, and freestyle jams ever created, and tonight they're bringing that experience to this Holocene livestream and into your living room.
Sunday, July 19
Alonzo Bodden
The Nowhere Comedy Club presents this evening of livestreamed stand-up from Alonzo Bodden, the former Lockheed Martin jet mechanic-turned-stand-up comedian whose credits include winning Season 3 of NBC's Last Comic Standing and having his own Comedy Central Presents special.
Who Sampled? A Hip-Hop Trivia Game
Finally, a pub-quiz for you crate-diggers and beat-fiends who won't let any of your friends just enjoy a song without chiming in to tell them that it's just a sample from so-and-so mixed with an interpolation from this-and-that. If you think you have the skills to take home the Who Sampled crown, hosts Ren the Vinyl Archaeologist and DJ Platurn are here to test you.
The Zoom Where it Happens: Hamilton Trivia!
Do not throw away your shot to rock into Portland pub-quiz queen ShanRock's online trivia lair (the Zoom where it happens, if you will) and be the one who gets to tell your story, especially the story that goes "My young scrappy and hungry trivia team took the title at Hamilton trivia night!"
Bob James
When Andre 3000 once bragged about how he "steady moved them keys like Bob James," people might have been confused as to who this Bob James was. Was he a kingpin? A legend in the game? In a way, yes: Bob James, one of Quincy Jones' proteges, is in fact a kingpin of the keyboard, and a legend in the realm of jazz-funk, whose songs have become the foundation for too many hip-hop classics. Oh, and he also created the theme song to the TV show Taxi, which is legend status enough on its own.
La Rhonda Steele
A special performance from local legend La Rhonda Steele, serving up a set full of blues, soul, passion, and fire as part of the Alberta Rose Theatre's ongoing Portland Music Stream series.
Pickathon Presents a Concert a Day: La Luz
The musical touchstones of La Luz are relatively easy to diagramâCambodian pop, the Shirelles, Dick Dale, and so onâbut the LA-by-way-of-Seattle group braids these elements into something uncommon and great. Their latest, Floating Features, is their most stylistically diverse and confident record to date, and their consistently stellar live show is groovy as all get-out. NED LANNAMANN
Grant Lee-Phillips
An evening of singer-songwriter tunes headlined by Grant-Lee Phillips (Sun July 19, 7 pm), the voice behind the Los Angeles-based roots-pop trio, Grant Lee Buffalo, and a real musical rarity: a prolific songwriter who maintains an amazingly high level of quality on virtually every song. He's also got a pretty interesting musical style, though it may not appeal to everyone. Somehow, the guy manages to combine U2-style vocalizations with Americana-style twang. He's like the love child of Bono and Gillian Welch.
