Local Cut

These Are the Days: Winter is the New Summer

ARYA IMIG — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 01:00:59 +0000

I tell two fibs during the spoken introduction of this podcast. One is that the artists are all from Portland. That’s a lie, since Salem’s Massive Moth are on here. The other lie is that the artists are all performing in the next month. Bullshit. Unfortunately the next 30 odd days feature no (as of this typing) performances whatsoever from artists like the Caps, Spesus Christ or MuseMe. Luckily you can catch performances of brand new material by Purple Rhinestone Eagle, Spoon and the Martyrs before the holidays. Ain’t I a stinker?

Download audio file (TATDNov.mp3)

TATD logo by Nicole Perry

These Are the Days: 2009 PDX Pop Now! Preview If it
These Are the Days with Arya Imig: Springtime Come After an e
These Are the Days: Every Weekend in Portland Feels Like a Festival Superfest.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Peter Broderick’s a Busy Fellow

Michael Mannheimer — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 00:20:07 +0000

How does Peter Broderick do it? Most artists would be content releasing an album every year. Or touring the country with one band. Or making an eye-popping video. But Broderick just seems like the type of guy who constantly needs to work, and his output just this past 12 months is staggering: a cassette-only record called Ten Duets; a collaboration with friend Machinefabriek that’s coming out soon on Fang Bomb records; a 30-minute instrumental companion to a sculpture of his face titled Music for a Sleeping Sculpture of Peter Broderick; a seven section instrumental piece, Music for Falling From Trees. Plus working with Efterklang—the Danish band he joined in 2008—and way more projects that I have time to describe.

All of this is in addition to the lovely, fragile record, Home, Broderick released last autumn on Hush Records. It was one of my favorites of the year, and I’m happy that it now has a stunning video to remind people of its greatness. The clip for “Below It” is so simple and understated and, well, you should just watch it now. My descriptions won’t do it any justice:

Peter Broderick Below It from Ralph Etter on Vimeo.

Broderick doesn’t have any local shows on his docket just yet, but next time he visits from Europe we’ll let you know. One of the toughest things about this job is trying to stay on top of all the new music that’s constantly flooding my inbox, but sometimes you just want to turn off the lights and rely on an old standard.

Links:
Peter BroderickSpace
Efterklang
Hush Records

Screen cap taken from the “Below It” video

Peter Broderick, “With Notes In My Ears,” Home (Hush Records) Peter Brod
New Hush Goodies From Shelley Short, Peter Broderick There are
Loch Lomond Play New Songs…In HD! If you wer

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Quasi’s New Record Has a Silly Title

Michael Mannheimer — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 17:49:37 +0000

When it comes time to name its records, you know local indie rock trio Quasi must be smiling. Hot Shit!? When the Going Gets Dark? And my favorite, Featuring “Birds”? All kind of funny and punny. But nothing the band has done in its past comes close to conquering the name of its new record on the pure LOL scale. Yes, Quasi’s new one is called American Gong. I bet it’s laughing all the way to the bank.

Pitchfork’s got the scoop on Gong, which is Quasi’s seventh full-length and first recorded since Jicks bassist Joanna Bolme joined longtime duo Sam Coomes and Janet Weiss. ~~We still don’t have a release date, but expect American Gong sometime in early 2010~~ American Gong is out on Feb. 23 (only three months!) on new label Kill Rock Stars with these 11 tracks:

01 Repulsion
02 Little White Horse
03 Everything and Nothing at All
04 Bye Bye Blackbird
05 The Jig Is Up
06 Black Dogs and Bubbles
07 Death Is Not the End
08 Rockabilly Party
09 Now What
10 Laissez Les Bon Temps Rouler
11 Howler

How much you wanna bet that “Rockabilly Party” features just a little bit of Coome’s trademark rocksichord playing?

Links:
QuasiSpace
Kill Rock Stars

Photo courtesy of Quasi (and the state of Oregon)

LIVE REVIEW: Quasi, Eat Skull, at the Doug Fir, Saturday, Jan. 10 When you’r
Thao Recruits Tucker Martine, Laura Veirs, and More For New Record Quick, nam
The Shaky Hands Announce New Record Let It Die Summer in

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Live Review: Them Crooked Vultures, Sunday, Nov. 22 @ Roseland

Matthew Singer — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 00:43:34 +0000

One benefit of not selling your soul to Satan: Eventually, you’ll end up playing keytar while your 6-foot-something frontman shimmies across the stage like Neil Diamond on stilts.

If you don’t know, according to rock lore, in the late 1960s three-fourths of Led Zeppelin (allegedly) struck a deal with the devil in exchange for global mega-stardom. The only holdout was mild-mannered bassist John Paul Jones. As such, the others became, together and individually, the biggest rock icons of the ’70s, while Jones is mostly remembered as the guy who also happened to be with them in photo shoots (which would’ve happened anyway, considering he’s the bass player in Led fucking Zeppelin). Of course, their supernatural dabbling came back to bite them, hard: John Bonham died; Robert Plant lost his son to a viral infection; and Jimmy Page, to steal a joke from Chuck Klosterman, was forced to collaborate with David Coverdale in the 1980s. Meanwhile, Jones has spent his life post-Zep free of tragedy, doing session work with a shitload of artists and writing orchestral arrangements for other bands, most memorably for R.E.M.’s Automatic for the People. It’s been a respectable career for the 63-year-old, if a bit of a quiet one.

Well, quiet until now.

Now, Jones is doing something the surviving Zeppeliners haven’t done in decades: playing in a totally badass hard rock band. Technically, Them Crooked Vultures, who tore through the Roseland on last night, is a supergroup—Jones is joined by Dave Grohl and Queens of the Stone Age mastermind Josh Homme—but that term is something of a misnomer: With longtime Homme collaborator Alain Johannes helping out live, it’s basically the best of the ever-revolving QOTSA lineup augmented by a Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Famer, performing songs that sound like Songs for the Deaf outtakes. And that’s a good thing. Supergroups work best when one personality dominates; although the songwriting on Vultures’ self-titled debut is credited to the entire band, the crunching riffage, spurts of psychedelia and choirboy-gone-bad vocals identify this as a project navigated by Homme’s desert-fried vision.

Still, if the crowd who showed up for the four-piece’s sold-out Portland gig is any indication, the biggest draw of the three major names involved is Jones. Graying longhairs in Zeppelin shirts outnumbered younger hesher metalheads and Pitchfork readers; when Homme introduced the band (as if anyone outside Johannes needed an introduction), Jones received the loudest ovation. And yet, as in the past, Jones mostly stayed in the background. He served the music dutifully, switching from bass to guitar to the aforementioned keytar for the odd drug-rhumba “Interlude with Ludes” and, on the devastating opener “No One Loves Me, Neither Do I,” some sort of lap-steel variant. When he did get a solo, it was a fading keyboard outro for the spiraling psych-blues jam “Spinning in the Daffodils.” Other than that and when the frets on his bass lit up with blue lights, Jones appeared happy to remain the backbone rather than the face of the band.

Of course, he probably didn’t have much of a choice. As Jones is well aware, that’s what happens when you share space with a pair of beastly musicians. Grohl is the only legitimate heir to Bonham’s throne of rock’s most monstrous drummer; at the Roseland, he pounded through the classic-rock thump of “New Fang” and the band’s most propulsive track, the searing “Dead End Friends,” with such headbanging ferocity he must’ve given Jones flashbacks to Royal Albert Hall circa 1970. And Homme, while not exactly a guitar god, is a virtuoso in his own right. His distinctive, skuzzy playing style has always owed more to Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top’s roadhouse boogie than Page’s epic bombast, and while playing with Jones has brought out his Zeppelin influence a bit more, that hasn’t changed, as evidenced by the groovy solo that highlighted the set-closing “Warsaw or the First Breath You Take After You Wake Up.”

But Them Crooked Vultures is the rare all-star collaboration where all those superstar parts congeal into a truly powerful whole. Not everything clicks: the band lacks the dynamism of QOTSA and Led Zeppelin, preferring—with only a handful of exceptions—non-stop blunt force, and on less memorable tunes the incessant skull-crushing becomes mind numbing. But the group never aims higher than it should, and delivers in exactly the way fans hoped it would on paper. Like all supergroups, it’s a fun diversion for the individual members, so who knows how long it’ll last. One thing’s for sure, though: This is a lot more satisfying than a full-on, Bonham-less Zep reunion would’ve been. Trust me.

Links:
Them Crooked VultureSpace

Photo by Matthew Singer

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Laura Gibson/Ethan Rose Collaboration Due in February

Michael Mannheimer — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 18:33:52 +0000

I’ve probably said this here before, but no album has more excited for 2010 than Laura Gibson’s collaboration with sound sculptor Ethan Rose. Though we still don’t have too much concrete information on the release, we do know this: the record is called Bridge Carols, and it’s out on February 9 via Holocene Music.

A few months ago I spoke to Gibson about Bridge Carols (at the time she couldn’t reveal the title), and she mentioned that the basis of the project was to make each other uncomfortable. Rose’s music, until this point, has mostly been wordless, while Gibson has often fought to escape her tag as a folky singer-songwriter. Gibson said that many of the compositions were created almost on the spot, as she improved and sang over Rose’s clanging, elliptical backdrops. And judging from the first thing we’ve heard from the pair—the floating, almost weightless “Sun”—it’s also going to be a record of understated beauty. I wrote about “Sun” when it was included on the 2009 PDX Pop Now! compilation, but here’s another peak.

Download audio file (Sun.mp3)

From the duo’s MySpace page:

It began as a conversation of mutual appreciation and curiosity – a shared desire to challenge old ways of working. Ethan had mostly distanced his music from words, while Laura had often felt bound by them.

They began experimenting with different methods of collaboration. Inspired by Laura’s voice, Ethan began building soundscapes, while Laura looked through piles of notebooks, coming across old phrases that never found home in verses or rhymes. They began recording Laura singing these unused writings.

As the project developed, Laura began improvising lyrics and wordless vocalizations, stream of consciousness singing that tumbled out of her in long trailing waves. They recorded in the basement, the forest, and the field – each session having its own unique mood as Laura reflected from subject to subject.

Ethan then took the recorded words and vocalizations from these sessions – cutting them into bits and pieces – rearranging and juxtaposing them against each other to stretch them into new musical poems. These reconstructed lyrical fragments maintained the tone of Laura’s original improvisations while allowing new themes and meanings to emerge. With these vocal collages in place, Ethan would reshape tones and sounds around Laura’s words. The resulting pieces developed into songs. The songs developed into a record.

Links:
Laura Gibson & Ethan RoseSpace
Holocene Music

Photo courtesy of LG & ER

Ethan Rose & Laura Gibson, “Sun,” 2009 PDX Pop Now! Compilation I love son
Alela Diane and Laura Gibson Hit the UK Big Time Whoa dudes
Laura Gibson Shares “Beast Of Seasons” From Lone Fir Cemetery Inspiratio

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Tash of the Likwit Crew (and Friends) in Portland Tonight and Tomorrow

Casey Jarman — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 21:13:20 +0000

We didn’t have time to squeeze this into the paper, but there are two hip-hop shows of note tonight and tomorrow, both featuring Tash of the Alkaholiks and Prince Po. For this we can thank PDX hip-hop mogul My-G and his faithful companion DJ Wicked, who host tomorrow night’s big show at the Crown Room.

See the flier below for tomorrow’s show info. But if you’re under 21, or just have some free time this evening, howzabout checking out Prince Po, Tash, Black Silver, Main Flow, Kiew Nycon and Sleep at 7 pm tonight at Someone Clothing (2718 SW Kelli).

It’s quite a lineup. I even made a mixtape of ‘em, but it doesn’t seem to be working right now. So here’s a link to the new single from Prince Po and Black Silver. Good stuff.

And as a bonus (because I love you), here’s a new track from My-G. It’s called “We Need Change,” and it was inspired by the 2003 police shooting of Kendra James, a dark chapter in Portland history that gets rightfully mentioned a lot by local MCs and activists.

Download audio file (weneedchange.mp3)

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Rauelsson, “Debutantes,” La Siembra, la Espera y la Cosecha (Hush)

Michael Mannheimer — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 20:17:48 +0000

Raúl Pastor Medall didn’t grow up in Oregon. In fact, until recently, the Spanish singer—who records under the name Rauelsson—lived full-time in his native homeland. But the sounds of the Pacific Northwest, and Hush Records in particular, are all over Rauelsson’s latest, the gorgeous and very winter-y “Debutantes.”

Rauelsson recorded the core of his new record—everything but the vocals, really—at Type Foundry studios in the fall/winter last year with the help of friends and producers Adam Selzer and Dave Depper (Norfolk & Western), and you can hear the seasonal touch. La Siembra, la Espera y la Cosecha is a mostly acoustic album, and “Debutantes” even forgoes percussion (except for a little sleigh bells in the background) for atmosphere. The light touch, then, is supplied by Rauelsson’s expansive voice, one that’s so pretty that you don’t really care that he’s singing in a foreign language.

And how’s this for lore: Rauelsson retreated back to Spain to concentrate on his lyrics and record his vocals in an ancient stone-walled house in the Mediterranean countryside. Supposedly the the natural reverb seeped its way into the recordings, but maybe he just needed some solitary confinement to hit on something so wonderful. It’s his bold and fluttering voice that propels “Debutantes,” and, at least on this track, it reminds me of Sigur Ros singer Jónsi Birgisson. Not bad for someone who just moved to town.

Download audio file (Debutantes.mp3)

Download “Debutantes”

Links:
RauelssonSpace
Hush Records

Photo courtesy of Rauelsson

Hush Records Releases Loch Lomond Digital Sampler EP Last Frida
New Hush Goodies From Shelley Short, Peter Broderick There are
Loch Lomond, “Wax and Wire,” Night Bats EP (Hush Records) To say it

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Primer: Girls

Michael Mannheimer — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 14:07:03 +0000

Formed: 2007 in San Francisco

Members: Christopher Owens and Chet “JR” White.

Latest release: Girls’ debut, Album, came out this fall on True Panther records.

Why you care: Girls’ back story is almost too good to be true: Frontman and songwriter Christopher Owens grew up as a member of the Children of God cult in Florida (no, really) and spent much of his childhood as a vagabond, living for stints in Europe and Puerto Rico. It’s rumored his mother was among women followers used by the Children of God to bait potential converts with sex, a method of evangelism called “flirty fishing.” Around the age of 16, he escaped to the states and eventually settled in San Francisco, first joining the band Holy Shit with Ariel Pink and Matt Fishbeck before forming Girls. On Album, Owens spins heartbreaking tales of drugs, girls, and on the incredibly catchy breakthrough “Lust for Life,” a wish list of life’s simple pleasures: “I wish I had a suntan/ I wish I had a pizza and a bottle of wine.” Album is also just a pure joy to listen to, 12 songs of buoyant pop filtered through a hazy lens of old 45s and hungover afternoons.

Sounds like: Brian Wilson and Roy Orbison going on a crazy weekend bender—popping pills, writing love songs, and jamming with Big Star.

For fans of: Jonathan Richman; California pop; anyone who just wants to shake a leg or two.

SEE IT: Girls play Wednesday, Nov. 18, at Doug Fir, with Dominant Legs. 9 pm. $10. 21+.

Primer: The Avengers Born:1977
Primer Alejandro
Live Review: Indigo Girls, Friday, July 24 @ The Zoo Where do t

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

CD Reviews: MarchFourth Marching Band, Curious Hands

Local Cut — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 14:05:36 +0000

MarchFourth Marching Band Rise Up

(Self- Released)

[BRASS ’N’ BALLS] Some great live bands just can’t seem to capture their in-person energy on disc. “You have to see ’em live,” we tell friends, apologetically, when the CD doesn’t bring it. I was afraid that would happen with MarchFourth, whose joyous performances owe so much to the visual—and visceral—impact of so many big-horn toters and percussionists having so much fun, marching into the audience and throwing down. That ambience is notoriously hard to capture on a recording, as even masters like the Dirty Dozen Brass Band have discovered.

Of course, no CD could quite encode all of March’s costumed energy—much less its flag-twirlers, stilt-walkers, unicycles, fire eaters, puppets and other accomplices—in little digital bytes.

But Rise Up comes a lot closer than any of us had any right to expect. Sounding tighter than ever, the two- or three-dozen member collective has miraculously managed to channel its raucous sweat, swing and swagger for home and headphone. Newbies can enjoy this party-ready record for its own sake instead of just as a pale souvenir of a full color concert.

The disk presents almost the full range of M4’s diverse sounds—Mexican brass band (“Contada Ridiculata”), odd-meter Balkan party gypsies (“Simplon Cocek”), throwback Latin big-band jazz (“Dynomite”), classic funk (“Freestyle for Miles,” which owes as much to James Brown as to its namesake), New Orleans second line (“Ninth Ward Calling”), gospel rave up (“Gospel”) and unclassifiable hybrids. If Herb Alpert were still running the Tijuana Brass, “Happiness” would be the perfect cover.

Some proceeds from Rise Up go to Sweet Home New Orleans, a nonprofit organization that helps the damaged Crescent City’s music and cultural institutions recover from Katrina’s helluva Bush-whacking job. Fresh as Rise Up sounds, there’s no substitute for the full MarchFourth live experience—lucky for us, the band plays this week. BRETT CAMPBELL.

Curious Hands Bangin’ Like A Fox

(Self-Released)

[SHORT STORY] Brevity can go a long way in rock music. Of the 19 tracks on local spiky-punk quartet Curious Hands’ second full-length, Bangin’ Like a Fox, only one is longer than three minutes. Actually, hell, the whole thing breezes by in just over half an hour. I have three songs in my iTunes library longer than that.

The fun in listening to Bangin’ comes from its short run time. Instead of tacking on needless bridges or an extra chorus, Curious Hands’ two songwriters—guitarist Jack Tuftee and bassist Tyler Riggs—distill a serious dose of punk rock sneer into sharp pop nuggets that, if anything, almost resemble a garage-rock haiku. It’s tempting (and easy) to compare the band’s songs to Guided by Voices mid-’90s material, where Bob Pollard seemed terrified of letting anything get past the first verse. Those confines led to some incredible pop moments, though; 14 years on, and “Game of Pricks” is still the most perfect 93 seconds ever put to a crappy-sounding four-track.

In my mind, a more accurate comparison is to prolific Vermont project the Capstan Shafts, if leader Dean Wells were into video games instead of lengthy song titles. “Tuck Away Boys” and “Bleeding Heart” both bop along on jangly arrangements and choogly guitar playing, and “I Told You So,” with its stop-and-start beat and infectious hook, would fit well on any mixtape. Though it’s filled with a bit of clutter and silly moments (do they really need to sing about starfish?), Bangin’ proves that sometimes it kills to keep it simple. MICHAEL MANNHEIMER.

SEE IT: MarchFourth plays Wonder Ballroom on Thursday, Nov. 19. 6:30 pm. $13 advance, $15 day of show. All ages. Curious Hands play Langano Lounge on Saturday, Nov. 21. 9 pm. Free. 21+.

Live Reviews: Keith Casper at The Portland Jazz Festival Now that t
CD Reviews: Starfucker and Tara Jane Oneil Starfucke
CD Reviews: What’s Up?, DoublePlusGood What

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Sparkle And Fade

Local Cut — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 14:03:19 +0000

The rise and fall of Everclear and The Cherry Poppin’ Daddies.

by Michael Mannheimer and Casey Jarman

This week, as if by some strange cosmic alignment, two large-looming ghosts from Oregon music history return to Portland for encore performances. And it turns out, Everclear and the Cherry Poppin’ Daddies have more in common than their disparate music would suggest: Both flew impossibly high, both bands’ frontmen are mythicized and reviled and, as they plummeted back down to earth, both acts were unceremoniously butchered (or outright ignored) by ex-fans and critics. Here’s a bittersweet look back on two groups that ruled Oregon (and the world) in the late ’90s.

EVERCLEAR

Formed: 1992 in Portland.
Genre: Alternative rock or “melodic grunge.”
Fans would say: Portland would never be the mecca of indie rock if not for Everclear, which wasn’t just the biggest band in town for a six-year stretch from 1995 to 2001—it was one of the biggest alt-rock bands in the country. Singer Art Alexakis helped put Portland on the map at a time when our neighbors up north dominated the rock charts.
Haters would say: Alexakis is a smarmy prick, a guy who knew how to play three chords and was lucky enough to jump on the bandwagon when major labels were looking high and low for the next Nirvana. If he still lived in that “big house in the West Hills,” we would egg the shit out of that place.
Highest-selling record: 1997’s So Much For the Afterglow, with over 2 million copies sold.
Career high: Though the trio’s best-selling single is the maudlin 2000 ballad “Wonderful,” nothing comes close to 1995’s Sparkle and Fade. Drugs, sex and teenage catharsis.
Career low: “Volvo-Driving Soccer Mom” in 2003. Or the October-released In a Different Light, a covers record featuring Alexakis’ new hired-guns version of Everclear covering…Everclear.
Crowning artistic achievement: Those simple opening chords to “Santa Monica” are what every teenage boy in Oregon first learned to play on guitar in the ’90s.
Jumped the shark when… With the terrible Everclear cover of “Brown Eyed Girl”? Or maybe when former Godsmack and Fuel drummer Tommy Stewart joined the band’s third-generation lineup in 2008?
Best comeback attempt: At least 2008’s one-off single “Jesus Was a Democrat” had some backbone behind it. (MM)

CHERRY POPPIN’ DADDIES

Formed: 1988 in Eugene.
Genre: Funk, ska, swing, rock…everything but the kitchen sink.
Fans would say: The Daddies are a Northwest institution that broke the boundaries of genre and built a faithful fan base through relentless regional touring. Frontman Steve Perry is a dynamic performer and underrated songwriter. And most of Perry’s innuendo-driven wordplay is subtle enough that you can bring your kids to the show!
Haters would say: The Daddies began as an annoying white-boy funk-rock band and, upon seeing the opportunity, milked the swing revival for all it was worth. Now that the ska and swing fads have run their courses, the Daddies have returned to their rightful obscurity. And Steve Perry takes himself far too seriously.
Highest selling record: Zoot Suit Riot (1997), which went platinum in 1998 and double platinum in 2000.
Career high: Playing Dick Clark’s Rockin’ New Year’s Eve party (alongside the Backstreet Boys and Chicago) to ring in 1999.
Career low: “Swingin’ With Tiger Woods (The Big Swing),” a halfhearted, failed cash grab from the Daddies’ 2000 release, Soul Caddy. When you go topical with the lyrics (see Everclear’s career low at left), things almost inevitably take a turn for the worse.
Crowning artistic achievement: The victorious and emotionally resonant “Hi and Lo,” a longtime Daddies live favorite finally committed to tape for last year’s Susquehanna and also featured on new collection Skaboy JFK.
Jumped the shark when… The first time they played the Playboy Mansion.
Failed comeback attempt: Last year’s Susquehanna, a balanced, moody release that incorporates Latin flourishes into the Daddies’ already eclectic sound. (CJ)

SEE IT: Everclear plays a benefit at the Crystal Ballroom to support St. Francis Dining Hall on Thursday, Nov. 19. 8 pm. $20 advance, $25 day of show. All ages. The Cherry Poppin’ Daddies play Wonder Ballroom on Friday, Nov. 20. 8 pm. $16.50 advance, $20 day of show. All ages.

Miss Murgatroid & Petra Haden, “Fade Away,” Hearts And Daggers (File Under Music) Most faith
Fernando Friday, Feb. 13 A Portland
Mic Check: Frank Turner Though Fra

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.