37 22 willamette week, april 6, 2011 by Willamette Week Newspaper

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NEWS SHOWDOWN IN OEA’S CORRAL. MUSIC THAT’S A LOT OF SOUL! MOVIES TODD HAYNES’ DEPRESSION.

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WWEEK.COM

VOL 37/22 04.06.2011

P. 51

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Willamette Week APRIL 6, 2011 wweek.com

CONTENT

Spring is a season for ﬂowers, romance and a private getaway with your sweetheart to Bonneville Hot Springs Resort and Spa. The scenic beauty and spring colors in the Columbia River Gorge, soothing Hot Springs Mineral Water, relaxing accommodations, over 40 relaxing body treatments and massages, locally crafted wines, and Northwest ingredients are just of few of the many reasons that make Bonneville Hot Springs Resort & Spa the top Gorge getaway.

April Showers Resort Package Includes: • TWO nights for two in a Deluxe Guest Room • Gourmet breakfast for two in the Paciﬁc Crest Dining Room on both mornings of your stay • Spring Tulip Bouquet • Full access to our award winning mineral pool and hot tubs

FOOD & DRINK

LEAD STORY

MUSIC

CULTURE

MOVIES

HEADOUT

CLASSIFIEDS

STAFF Editor-in-Chief Mark Zusman EDITORIAL Managing News Editor Henry Stern Arts & Culture Editor Kelly Clarke Staff Writers Nigel Jaquiss, James Pitkin, Beth Slovic Copy Chief Kat Merck Copy Editors Matt Buckingham, Peggy Perdue, Sarah Smith Special Sections Editor Ben Waterhouse Screen Editor Aaron Mesh Music Editor Casey Jarman Assistant Music Editor Michael Mannheimer Editorial Interns Ailin Darling, Kevin Davis, Rachael DeWitt, Nathan Gilles, Tiffany Stubbert CONTRIBUTORS Stage Ben Waterhouse Classical Brett Campbell Dance Heather Wisner Visual Arts Richard Speer

Erik Bader, Ruth Brown, Nathan Carson, Shane Danaher, Robert Ham, Whitney Hawke, Jay Horton, Matthew Korfhage, AP Kryza, Nilina Mason-Campbell, John Minervini, Katrina Nattress, Rebecca Raber, Alistair Rockoff, Jeff Rosenberg, Anika Sabin, Matt Singer, Chris Stamm, Mark Stock

DISTRIBUTION Circulation Director Robert Lehrkind

PRODUCTION Production Manager Kendra Clune Art Director Ben Mollica Graphic Designers Soma Honkanen, Adam Krueger, Carolyn Richardson, Dylan Serkin Production Interns Christa Connelly, Jessica Stambach

MUSICFESTNW Executive Director Trevor Solomon WINNING! Dan Winters

ADVERTISING Director of Advertising Jane Smith Display Account Executives Sara Backus, Maria Boyer, Michael Donhowe, Drew Harrison, Janet Norman, Kyle Owens Classifieds Account Executive Jennifer Lee, Corin Kuppler Advertising Assistant Ashley Grether Marketing and Events Manager Jess Sword Marketing and Promotions Coordinator Brittany McKeever

Our mission: Provide our audiences with an independent and irreverent understanding of how their worlds work so they can make a difference. Circulation: 90,000 (except during holidays and school vacations.) Though Willamette Week is free, please take just one copy. Anyone removing papers in bulk from our distribution points will be prosecuted, as they say, to the full extent of the law. Willamette Week is published weekly by City of Roses Newspaper Company 2220 NW Quimby St., Portland, OR 97210. Main line phone: (503) 243-2122 fax: (503) 243-1115 Classifieds phone: (503) 223-1500 fax: (503) 223-0388

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WWEEK.COM Web Production Brian Panganiban

OPERATIONS Accounting Manager Andrea Manning Credit & Collections Shawn Wolf Office Manager & Receptionist Nick Johnson Office Corgi Bruce Manager of Information Systems Brian Panganiban Publisher Richard H. Meeker

Willamette Week welcomes freelance submissions. Send material to either News Editor or Arts Editor. Manuscripts will be returned if you include a self-addressed, stamped envelope. To be considered for calendar listings, notice of events must be received in writing by noon Wednesday, two weeks before publication. Send to Calendar Editor. Photographs should be clearly labeled and will be returned if accompanied by a selfaddressed, stamped envelope. Questions concerning circulation or subscription inquiries should be directed to Robert Lehrkind at Willamette Week. postmaster: Send all address changes to Willamette Week, 2220 NW Quimby St., Portland, OR 97210. Subscription rates: One year $100, six months $50. Back issues $5 for walk-ins, $8 for mailed requests when available. Willamette Week is mailed at third-class rates. A.A.N. Association of ALTERNATIVE NEWSWEEKLIES

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Willamette Week APRIL 6, 2011 wweek.com

INBOX WHAT’S WRONG WITH IMPROVEMENT? I am shocked that the three letters printed in response to the idea of closing down a part of Southwest Ankeny Street—“Douchebags not allowed” [Inbox, March 30, 2011]—are so negative. Portland may not be the French Riviera, as one person said, but any place can benefit from creating pedestrian-only areas. Boulder’s pedestrian-only Pearl Street Mall is the most vibrant spot in the city. Many people have been to Europe and fallen in love with the quaint awesomeness of a few small pedestrian-only streets here and there. Should cars really rule every street, all the time? I thought this was Portland— why were there no letters printed in support of creating small pedestrian-only areas? Alex Bullen Southeast 45th Avenue

WWEEK.COM READERS COMMENT ON “JACK SHACK ATTACK” “Though I respect and appreciate the role of government in zoning, Commissioner Leonard chose a very poor and inappropriate comparison to make a point. Zoning a petroleum processing plant away from a school is a matter of public health and not free speech. We allow government to regulate businesses in that matter because we appreciate that the unfortunate but necessary pollutants are dangerous, especially to children, and we must do our best to limit exposure. Though some might find the nature of these clubs to be offensive, it is a far cry from being carcinogenic. Freedom of speech protects even those who wish to say things I do not agree with,

I recently saw a TriMet bus zooming up Southeast Powell Boulevard with the word “Police” where the route name and number usually are. Was the driver trying to signal that I should call the cops? Or had the bus been commandeered by the cops to chase crooks? —Nan Brakhage I’ve never seen the phenomenon you describe, Nan, and my first impulse was to dismiss it as just another piece of unsubstantiated hearsay, like UFOs or the female orgasm. Still, just to make sure, I contacted TriMet PIO Bekki Witt. While I didn’t get to know her quite well enough to ask about everything on my list, she confirmed the part about the buses—cops do requisition one occasionally. Not for crook-chasing, of course. The public purse may be pretty depleted these days, but we haven’t quite reached the point where an officer in hot pursuit has to hop on the No. 9 to run 4

Willamette Week APRIL 6, 2011 wweek.com

but it does not protect those who use words or actions to do physical harm. Perhaps if Leonard chose a better comparison he might have more luck convincing the public that the actions of these clubs should be considered outside the boundaries protected by free speech. In addition, I would appreciate it if Sen. Bonamici would also choose to avoid wild rhetoric and focus on the real issue. There are already a host of legal professions that would make taking your child to work a difficult or impossible task. I can’t imagine that those working at traditional strip clubs and adult stores do not face a similar issue. The issue here is not the seedy nature of the business but the potential that some of these businesses are operating outside the law and are encouraging the abuse of women. —Anonymous Free “I’m not really a fan of ostentatious adult businesses…but changing out landmark free speech laws will do nothing to protect the average Oregonian. I accept that my sensibilities can be tested as part of everyday life in order for my fellow Oregonians to live freely. If people are so concerned about “protecting” their children from having to learn about lap dancing, I hope they’re also rallying against the advertisement of fast food and snacks to their kids (which are a more pervasive threat) as well as the local news and ads about alcohol and prescription drugs, all of which might prompt very awkward questions.” —Sean G. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR must include the author’s street address and phone number for verification. Letters must be 250 or fewer words. Submit to: 2220 NW Quimby St., Portland, OR 97210. Fax: (503) 243-1115, Email: mzusman@wweek.com.

down a perp. (At least, not here; I understand Wisconsin is looking into it.) “The ‘Police’ message may be programmed on a bus when police or fire officials have requested TriMet buses for certain activities,” says Witt. Such activities might include busing evacuees from an unsafe area, transporting a boatload of witnesses, or parking for use as a warming shelter during dangerously cold weather. She didn’t mention anything about “spur-of-the-moment Vegas trips,” but I’d like to think it’s happened at least once. Witt also notes that “the ‘Police’ message can be programmed into the overhead display manually by an operator or other personnel with access to the system,” which suggests to me that you could put pretty much anything you wanted up there. Typically, it’s humdrum messages like “Not in Service” or “Blazer Shuttle.” Still, it’ll be hard not to admire the first hacker who can make one say “Bonerland.” QUESTIONS? Send them to dr.know@wweek.com

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An Urgent Appeal from Compassion & Choices of Oregon: STOP HOUSE BILL 2016 – IT UNDERMINES DEATH WITH DIGNITY ACT

Don’t place obstacles between dying patients and a peaceful death

Join Compassion & Choices of Oregon in OPPOSING this legislation.

Opponents of patient choice want to establish that terminally ill patients who request aid in dying are mentally impaired until proven otherwise. HB 2016 imposes costly, unnecessary burdens on dying Oregonians. Two doctors already certify every patient’s mental competence and ensure patient safety.

Add Your Name in Defense of Our Death with Dignity Act Call Compassion & Choices at (503) 525-1956 or Visit www.CompassionofOregon.org

Former Oregon Governor Barbara Roberts

“House Bill 2016 creates costly barriers to personal choice at the end of life. It burdens patients and physicians with needless procedures and bureaucratic paperwork. Our Death with Dignity law is working as intended, safely delivering choice and control to dying Oregonians.” - Former Oregon Governor Barbara Roberts

Paid for by Compassion & Choices Action Network

Or clip out and return the coupon below today.

I support Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act. I oppose making all dying patients undergo complex psychiatric examination to access aid in dying. Name: ________________________________________________ Address: _______________________________________________ City/State/Zip: _________________________________________ Phone: ________________________________________________ Email: ________________________________________________  Please Let the Legislature Know I Oppose this Bill. Mail to: Compassion & Choices of Oregon P.O. Box 6404 Portland, OR 97228 WW 4.6

www.CompassionofOregon.org Willamette Week APRIL 6, 2011 wweek.com

COURTS: Fighting for cop records. POLITICS: Creating a big donations loophole. ROGUE: HAND gives finger to Portlander. INTERNATIONAL: The man debunking Facebook revolutions.

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The history of Portland’s Water Bureau and the Bull Run Watershed will be the subjects of an updated version of the book Water: Portland’s Precious Heritage. There’s nothing extraordinary about the topic. But funding for the project comes from an unusual place. The Water Bureau is tapping ratepayer funds to get the update from the 1983 book’s author, Casey Short. He originally wrote the history at the request of then-Mayor Frank Ivancie. When Short retired in 2009, Commissioner Randy Leonard asked Short to expand the book at a rate of $50 an hour.

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A Portland Trail Blazers fan is suing the owners of the Rose Quarter for $105,000 after security guards allegedly confiscated his Nicolas Batum autograph and detained the plaintiff in a dark room. As first reported at wweek. com, Mark Chernobelsky of BATUM Southwest Portland says an arena employee took his ticket with Batum’s signature while Chernobelsky was backstage celebrating the Blazers’ victory over the Lakers on April 10, 2009. Chernobelsky’s attorney, Jason Kafoury, says Chernobelsky refused to leave without the ticket and was detained after threatening to call a lawyer. The Rose Quarter has already returned his autographed ticket on the suit filed March 29 in Multnomah County Circuit Court. A Rose Quarter spokesman declined to comment.

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Children are the future…of tax breaks? Mayor Sam Adams and Commissioner Dan Saltzman have teamed up on a proposal that would give $500 tax credits to Portland businesses that create job-shadowing experiences and internships for high-school students, with a focus as well on teenagers in foster care. If approved Wednesday, April 6, the resolution creating the tax credit would direct the city’s Revenue Bureau to draft an implementation plan for City Council to consider this summer. Adams and Saltzman plan to cap the program at $100,000 a year.

Bold Turbolite 4

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Tom Miller, the new director of Portland’s Bureau of Transportation, is in Madrid and Barcelona this week on a “study mission” with Greenlight Greater Portland, a business-backed economic development group. Miller, who was Mayor Sam Adams’ chief of staff before the mayor made him bureau director in January, skipped a City Council budget MILLER work session Tuesday about the transportation bureau’s financial needs in 2012 to travel to Spain. The bureau is paying for Miller’s Spain trip, estimated to cost about $5,000. A recent internal financial audit of Portland Public Schools found the school district isn’t always quick to record students who accumulate more than 10 days of unexcused absences. That’s a problem, because the state funds school districts based on the average number of students in their schools on any given day. Schools that don’t report students who drop out or move, for example, generate money for the district that the district is not eligible to receive. According to the audit, PPS overcounted its student population by 15 students in 2009-10—the equivalent of $90,000. This week, PPS implements a new alert system to make sure schools withdraw students when appropriate.

GOT A GOOD TIP? CALL 503.445.1542, OR EMAIL NEWSHOUND@WWEEK.COM

J O N AT H A N H I L L

NEWS

islature, which writes a budget every two years. School districts, however, negotiate labor contracts, typically lasting two to four years, on their own cycles. Those local district cycles are not connected to the Legislature’s budget cycle. After seeing a January Oregonian op-ed piece by human resources director Ken Bucchi of the Oregon Trail School District, Johnson and Harker decided to fix that disconnect. In practice, Bucchi says, what happens is that school districts often grant raises based on current economic conditions. Yet those economic conditions can decline dramatically before the contract is up, causing turmoil, pay cuts and layoffs. Under HB 3539, lawmakers would tell school districts how much they could increase total employee compensation (meaning salaries, healthcare costs and pension benefits), which accounts for the vast majority of school spending. The bill limits compensation increases to 5 percent annually but says compensation would never be reduced. Bucchi says his analysis of his own district in Sandy over the past 10 years shows teacher compensation would have actually risen more than it did if the measure had been in effect. And he says the Oregon Trail district, which endured a 2005 teacher strike, would have had far less strife. “The problem we have now is a timing issue,” Bucchi says. “The term of local contracts often puts us out of phase with the business cycle.” OEA spokeswoman Becca Uherbelau, however, says the bill would take away the local control that is a hallmark of Oregon K-12 education. She says districts in the Portland area, for example, often compete with each other for teachers and thus need flexibility to structure their compensation. Similarly, remote districts may need to pay up to attract teachers. “Applying a one-size-fits-all approach doesn’t make any sense,” she says. Uherbelau adds that aggregating all of the state’s teachers under one compensation system strips away one of the primary benefits of collective bargaining. OEA also worries the bill, which allows merit pay increases, is a backdoor approach to that controversial practice. She does not deny there’s a problem, but she says Johnson and Harker are looking at the wrong solution. “We would agree that the current system doesn’t work,” Uherbelau says. “They should be focusing on what really doesn’t work: the revenue system and the lack of a rainy-day fund.” Harker, a Democrat, is taking a political risk by crossing his party’s most reliable financial supporter. But he says he cannot watch the school-funding roller coaster any longer. “My primary reason for being in the Legislature is having had to watch the demise of public education,” Harker in local communities,” says Johnson, a rookie legislator and says. “I support teachers and think we should pay them current chairman of the Hood River School Board. more. But we should also pay them differently.” But his bipartisan proposal with Harker riles the Kitzhaber, who rolled out his educational vision in Oregon Education Association, the statelegislative testimony April 5, supports wide teachers union representing 48,000 the concept in HB 3539 because it targets FACT: Although HB 3539 members. And that means the measure is concerns K-12 education, it school funding instability, says his spokesshaping up as a litmus test for pledges both will get its first hearing in the man, Tim Raphael. by Gov. John Kitzhaber and lawmakers to union-friendly House Business “The governor is committed to finding Labor Committee rather reform education (see “Your Teacher Is and a solution this session to the post-Measure than House Education. F’d” WW, March 23, 2011). 5 disconnect between what is bargained “We’ve had multiple conversations for at the local level and the actual fiscal with OEA,” says Johnson. “They don’t like the bill. But it condition of the state,” Raphael says. “He thinks there resonates with [Kitzhaber].” needs to be a link and continues to discuss options with The proposal, House Bill 3539, tries to address a funda- legislators and stakeholders.” mental disconnect in school finance—which accounts for Proponents of HB 3539 say their bill is a start. about 38 percent of state spending. Oregon’s 197 school “I don’t want to say it’s a panacea,” Bucchi says, “but it districts get about 70 percent of their money from the Leg- would be a huge step in the right direction.”

BREAKING THE CYCLE SHOWDOWN IN THE OEA’S CORRAL: LAWMAKERS WANT TO LIMIT TEACHER COMP TO MONEY AVAILABLE. BY NIG E L JAQ UI SS

njaquiss@wweek.com

School districts across Oregon are preparing to lay off thousands of teachers next fall. Inevitably, those teachers and their supporters will march into rallies and meetings, wearing T-shirts and carrying placards with words like “trust” and “respect.” State Reps. Mark Johnson (R-Hood River) and Chris Harker (D-Beaverton) want to end the cycle of teacher hiring and pay raises in boom times followed by layoffs, pay cuts and chopping of instructional days when tax revenues fall short of forecasts. “It’s one of the most contentious discussions that exists

Willamette Week APRIL 6, 2011 wweek.com

COPS AND COURTS

LORD OF THE FILES AN OREGON LAWYER FIGHTS TO OPEN POLICE INTERNAL AFFAIRS RECORDS.

BY JA MES PITKIN

CAMPFIRECOLUMBIA.ORG 8

Willamette Week APRIL 6, 2011 wweek.com

jpitkin@wweek.com

When police raided William Traverso’s house last fall, it wasn’t the first time cops had come knocking. Traverso was caught up in a 2008 FBI sting in which he admitted selling steroids to a Canby cop. Officer Jason Deason and Chief Greg Kroeplin were forced to resign in a widely reported scandal. Traverso pleaded guilty to dealing a controlled substance and was sentenced to 15 days in jail. But now Traverso is at the center of a newer case that could have much broader impact in courtrooms across Oregon. On Oct. 1, 2010, Canby Police Officer James Murphy led another raid on Traverso’s home that uncovered a small amount of meth. Traverso now is fighting a possession rap in Clackamas County Circuit Court. A trial is set for May 10. His attorney, John Henry Hingson III, wants to use the case to ensure defense lawyers statewide greater access to secret police files. He says Oregon law enforcement is decades behind requirements for openness handed down by the U.S. Supreme Court. “It’s like there’s something in the water in Oregon that prosecutors and judges just don’t get it,” Hingson says. Hingson obtained a 2009 report written by private detectives the City of Canby had hired to investigate the steroid scandal. Among their findings: Murphy had been demoted from detective to officer for alleged dishonesty. That information could damage Murphy’s credibility and affect the outcome of Traverso’s case. Quoting a series of U.S. Supreme Court rulings starting in 1963, Hingson says prosecutors have “a duty to learn” such information and hand it over to the defense. But defense lawyers normally rely on prosecutors to reveal information about cops. And Hingson says the only way for that to happen is for prosecutors to review their internal affairs records. That should be the “law of the land,” says Jack King, spokesman for the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers in Washington, D.C. But the standard is upheld unevenly, he says—despite the U.S. Constitution trumping local law. “It ought to be a matter of routine to examine an officer’s service record,” King says. “Are defense attorneys fighting hard enough? That’s a good question.”

Jim McIntyre, a former Multnomah County prosecutor turned criminal defense lawyer, says an Oregon law shielding personnel records makes police agencies tight-fisted and prosecutors hesitant to ask. As a prosecutor, he says, police repeatedly denied him access. “[Prosecutors] rarely seek it out and turn it over [to defense lawyers], because it is so tightly held by the agencies pursuant to the law that protects those records,” McIntyre says. “The defense does file motions to disclose those records, and frequently the judges will turn them down.” Spokesmen for the district attorneys in Multnomah and Clackamas counties say they comply with the law and that Hingson’s interpretation appears overly broad. Multnomah County Chief District Attorney Norm Frink points out his office has prevailed against Hingson on the issue. “Mr. Hinson, a zealous and skilled advocate, has attempted many times to convince the Oregon judiciary [on this issue],” Frink writes in an email. “To my knowledge he has been generally, if not always, unsuccessful.” Hingson counters with a 1996 article in The FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin titled “Disclosing Officer Misconduct: A Constitutional Duty.” And he points to two cases in which the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned decisions by Oregon judges. “The 9th Circuit is saying, ‘Oregon, you are Forrest Gump,’” Hingson quips. Hingson asked a judge to authorize a subpoena of Murphy’s personnel records. Pulling language from a U.S. Supreme Court ruling, Hingson is also demanding to know what “procedures and regulations” prosecutors have in place to become aware of damaging information about cops. He says he’s certain there are no such procedures in Oregon. “It’s because of ignorance of the law,” Hingson says. “I fault the defense attorneys as much as the DAs and the courts.”

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NEWS DIANE RIOS

POLITICS

TA-TA, TRANSPARENCY ELECTIONS “CLEAN-UP” BILL WOULD CREATE A GAPING LOOPHOLE.

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“For large campaigns, it may well cost more than $5,000 in some months just to comply with existing ORESTAR requirements,” Meek said. “So it would be cheaper simply not to report contribuBY NIG E L JAQ UI SS njaquiss@wweek.com tions at all for such months.” The change is aimed at reducing the liabilOregon is the Wild West when it comes to cam- ity of campaign treasurers, most notably Kevin paign contributions, and there’s a bill shooting Neely of the company C&E Systems, which serves through the Legislature that would make a bad as treasurer for many Democratic campaigns. In situation worse. legislative testimony, Neely told lawmakers he Oregon is one of only four states that let any and other treasurers are on the hook when camperson or group funnel unlimited donations to a paigns employing them fail to file disclosures or candidate or cause. file them on time. Fortunately for the public, Oregon also has In recent election cycles, legislative races one of the nation’s most transparent campaign have topped a combined $1 million in expendifinance reporting systems. The ORESTAR sys- tures for one seat. And the 2010 governor’s race tem, maintained by the Elections Division of the saw Republican Chris Dudley and Democrat Secretary of State’s Office, provides easy search- John Kitzhaber spend nearly $20 million coming and robust records. Any candidate, measure bined. Ballot measure campaigns also regularly campaign or independent expenditure effort spend in the millions of dollars. must disclose the source of any contribution In such races, money tends to flow to candiexceeding $100 within a month of receipt (that dates more heavily as Election Day looms. Infordeadline gets shorter as Election Day approach- mation about who is supporting whom and how es). In 2008, a UCLA study rated ORESTAR the much is important as voters weigh their choices. nation’s best electronic filing program and rated Meek and his ally, Sal Peralta of the Independent Oregon’s campaign disclosure law Party of Oregon, have testified second best. about the strategic and financial The Elections Division But Senate Bill 270a, which FACT: motivations of campaigns skiphas levied eight fines in excess passed the Senate unanimously of $5,000 since 2008. The ping reporting requirements and March 2, threatens the public’s largest, $37,000, fell in 2008 simply paying $5,000. ability to see who is giving what on the Coalition for a Healthy But their concerns have been Oregon, which supported a to whom. ignored so far in Salem. cigarette tax increase. That’s because a provision in After seeing the bill get 29-0 the bill awaiting a House work approval in the Senate, Meek session reduces the penalty for nondisclosure sharpened the point of his testimony in the House. from 10 percent of the amount a committee failed “The Secretary of State’s Director of Elections to report to a maximum of $5,000 per month. testified at the Senate Rules Committee that the In essence, that would create a temptation for Secretary of State [Brown] is neutral on this bill,” campaigns to pay the $5,000 as a cost of doing Meek said. “We call upon the Secretary to take business and never report donations because the a stand and demand the removal of [the $5,000 $5,000 limit is potentially far less than prospec- maximum fine].” tive current penalties. But neither Stephen Trout, the elections “[The bill] would eviscerate the Oregon director, nor Brown has taken that stand. campaign finance reporting system, leaving well“We are neutral on the bill,” Trout told WW, funded campaigns the option of not reporting repeating the position he established in legislatheir contributions at all,” says Dan Meek, a pub- tive testimony. “If the Legislature feels it’s OK, lic-interest lawyer with Fair Elections Oregon. it’s OK with us.” Meek, a longtime advocate for campaign Meek is unhappy with that response. “This finance limits, testified against the provision in a bill creates a giant loophole,” he says. “It’s House Rules Committee hearing March 28. ridiculous.”

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ROGUE OF THE WEEK

HAND

A NEIGHBORHOOD ASSOCIATION THAT GAVE A NEIGHBOR THE FINGER. The European white birch tree is highly susceptible to a destructive beetle whose presence in Portland since 2003 has threatened the city’s birch population. But that doesn’t seem to matter to some members of Hosford-Abernethy Neighborhood Development, this week’s Rogue for its devotion to a vulnerable tree. To HAND, a neighborhood association that represents Ladd’s Addition in Southeast Portland, the European white birch is a critical component of the area’s historic character—and the only acceptable street tree for portions of the neighborhood. Diane Brodie owns a home in that area of Ladd’s Addition. When she spruced up her front yard on Southeast Palm Street last fall, she wasn’t keen on planting European white birches. In addition to her concerns about the lethal bronze birch borer beetle, Brodie worried birches’ root systems can be weak, making them prone to falling over. With her landscape designer, Brodie instead chose a magnolia and an Arbutus ‘Marina,’ an increasingly popular tree related to the madrone. Commonly known as a strawberry tree, it boasts clusters of blooms and red fruit. As far as Brodie and her designer were concerned, a 1986 city document that HAND says requires birch trees along Southeast Palm Street only recommends them. Nonetheless, because the trees would be planted in the city’s right of way in front of Brodie’s house, Portland required planting permits. Portland Parks and Recreation granted the permits in October, saying it was OK to plant the magnolia and strawberry trees. That’s where HAND comes in. On Jan. 3, the land-use chairwoman for HAND wrote to David McAllister, the urban forester in the parks department. The neighborhood representative requested Brodie’s two trees be uprooted and replaced with European white birches. “The two trees are not the approved genus and species,” the letter states, “and do not resemble the approved deciduous street trees in scale, color and texture.” In March, the forester reversed course and sided with HAND, sending Brodie a letter ordering the removal of the two street trees that had been “erroneously issued planting permits.” He gave her a deadline of April 7 and two choices: Let the city remove the trees and plant European white birches or go without street trees altogether. (The hope was that a future homeowner might not object to birches.) Joanne Stainbrook of HAND calls the dispute a “misunderstanding” that could have been avoided had city officials heeded the guidelines and declined to issue the original permit. The Rogue Desk gives all of this a big green thumb down. Historic guidelines are great. But so is common sense. We’re heartened to hear the parks department will allow an appeal by Brodie, letting the April 7 deadline slip while cooler heads mediate. We don’t think much time should be wasted doing the obvious. Keep the trees.

INTERVIEW

EVGENY MOROZOV

CULTURE

THE REVOLUTION MAY NOT BE TELEVISED, BUT HERE’S ONE MAN WHO SAYS IT’S NOT GOING TO BE POSTED ON SOCIAL MEDIA, EITHER. WW: We tend to think of technology as an inherently liberating democratic force. Your book turns this premise on its head. Evgeny Morozov: There is nothing about the architecture, culture or political economy of today’s Internet that makes it an unambiguous force of liberation. Dictators (and their proxies such as various pro-government youth groups like Russia’s Nashi) have made ample use of the Internet to oppress, intimidate or distract populations. This doesn’t mean the Internet cannot be used to promote democracy—I think it can be—but we also need to remember that the situation may easily get even worse. The way Facebook and Google choose to treat the privacy of their users will determine the ways in which the Iranian secret police track dissidents.

BY N ATH A N GI L LES

ngilles@wweek.com

Amid the torrent of words praising social media’s role in helping to overthrow governments, Evgeny Morozov has a different take. Morozov, who speaks in Portland Wednesday, April 6, contrasts reports of Egyptian activists coalescing around a Facebook page or tweets from protesters in Iran by saying oppressive regimes are using those same technologies to spy on and stamp out democratic movements. In 2011, Morozov published The Net Delusion, a book critical of what he sees as our technophilic culture’s desire to view new media as an inherently liberating democratic force. From Google to the Kremlin, Morozov instead chronicles the shaky ground on which we have built what he calls our “cyber-utopianism.” A 26-year-old native of the former Soviet republic of Belarus, Morozov is a visiting scholar at Stanford. He comes to his stance as skeptic about new media as a tool for social change after becoming disillusioned following two years working at Transitions Online, a Western non-governmental organization using social media to strengthen journalism in the former Soviet Union. WW corresponded with Morozov through email.

Your book mentions the “Spinternet.” What’s that? One of the ways in which authoritarian governments have co-opted the Web is by creating their own legions of commentators who turn up at various anti-government forums and blogs in order to spread pro-government talking points. This tactic is particularly popular in Russia and China—hence I argue that their Internets are slowly turning into Spinternets, dominated by spin rather than by rational debate. Often, this is happening because Internet censorship is not as effective as it used to be: The cost of publishing has been falling (thanks to the advent of blogging and microblogging), so even if the government manages to force a blogger to delete something off the Web (or they simply block access to the page), this content is likely to resurface on hundreds of other blogs. To avoid such embarrassing situations that show the government’s impotence, the censors prefer to spin the critical posts and accuse the publisher of being a CIA or Mossad agent—or smear them in other ways. Didn’t the recent revolution in Egypt revolve at least partially around a Facebook page? It’s too early to tell. That Facebook page existed for a long time—it didn’t just appear overnight. Yet the protests didn’t happen

[previously], which means that some other political and social conditions changed and created an opening. Generally speaking, I’d say social media helped to mobilize people to go out. Whether such mobilization would be effective in the future is something I’m not yet sure about. So far other dictators seem to have learned their lessons from Egypt and Tunisia and now spend a lot of resources on monitoring Facebook and nipping any potential protests in the bud before they spill into the streets. How are social media, as you write, a double-edged sword for activists? On the one hand, it makes activism easier, as millions of people can simply join a campaign by clicking a button. On the other hand, it also makes activism more trivial, as activists don’t have to contribute much to a campaign: They can just change their avatar or join a Facebook group. It’s nice when activists are prepared to take steps to act in the real life—as was the case in Egypt and Tunisia—but often online activism is limited to the blogosphere only. If totalitarian governments can use the Internet against their citizens, what about potentially countervailing forces like “hacktivism” or groups like WikiLeaks? Well, these groups matter and I wish them well. But their work won’t be enough—we need to get the first principles right. Instead of forcing everyone to use tools like Tor—which do provide a modicum of anonymity online— we need to make sure that NSA is not reading your every tweet or email. You tweet. Do you also have a Facebook page? No, I’m lucky to be completely off Facebook. Twitter is a superb resource for obtaining and sharing information. Facebook—I don’t really have much need for it. GO: Morozov’s speech, sponsored by the World Affairs Council, begins at 7 pm at the Cleaners at Ace Hotel (403 SW 10th Ave.). $35 for book and lecture, $10 lecture only. Prepaid registration required. 3065252, worldoregon.org/events/registration/ evgeny_morozov.php.

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ALL-NIGHT CRICKET PARTY WHILE MOST OF US SLEPT, PORTLAND CRICKET FANS CELEBRATED ONE OF THE WORLD’S BIGGEST SPORTING EVENTS.

CUP OF GLEE: Fans of India’s cricket team sweat out their country’s World Cup match.

BY EVA N SE RN OFFS KY

esernoffsky@wweek.com

At 2:30 am, most late-night establishments release the drunks and lock the doors. But on Saturday, April 2, last call was when the party really started for one Portland business. Swagat, an Indian restaurant on Northwest 21st Avenue and Lovejoy Street, hosted a viewing party of the 2011 Cricket World Cup final in Mumbai between India and Sri Lanka. About 20 fans of India drummed loudly on the tables as Sri Lanka took the field to bat, tensely watching India’s bowler hurl the first ball of the game. For the next eight hours, the fans stayed glued to the TV. The place erupted with everybody exchanging high-fives when, in an act worthy of ESPN SportsCenter’s Top 10, a fielder for India made a diving bare-handed catch. “I have watched almost all of the matches in this World Cup,” said Raiyo Aspandiar, an engineer at Intel in Hillsboro. “I set my body clock so that I can get up and stay awake. They say there are two religions in India—cricket and Bollywood.” Because the match was 13 time zones away, most expats from cricket-playing nations stream the games online or watch with their families. Although the turnout at Swagat was modest, the quadrennial Cricket World Cup final is one of the most-watched sporting events in the world. Cricket is hugely popular among India’s 1.2 billion people, and similarly so among the 10,000 Indians estimated by the India Cultural Association of Portland to live in this area. As TV cameras swept among the 45,000 spectators at Mumbai’s sold-out Wankhede Stadium, viewers at Swagat pointed and nodded at the who’s who of India, such as Aamir Khan, star of the hugely popular film Lagaan. The final was preceded last week by a semifinal match between India and Pakistan that captivated most of South Asia. In a historic act of diplomacy between rival nuclear powers, the prime ministers of both nations sat together

at the stadium in Mohali, India, to watch their nations compete. According to the Associated Press, schools and businesses closed early in Pakistan and India on March 30 in what became a pseudo-national holiday. After India secured its place in the final, throngs of people celebrated in the streets by jumping on cars and lighting fireworks. “That was what we call a high-voltage match,” said Tony Tariq, a Pakistani man who works at a restaurant in downtown Portland. “Now we are all hoping for Sri Lanka to win.” The crowd at Swagat didn’t share that sentiment. The gathering was all Indian save for Krist Homsi, a native-born American who works in sports science for a division of Nike and plays in the Oregon Cricket League with Aspandiar. After 10 years, Homsi is still learning the mechanics of the game. “It is theater that plays out,” Homsi said. “Cricket requires a time and effort that is not part of spoon-fed American sporting culture. It is a game from another time.” Unlike with most American sports, beer is not generally guzzled while watching cricket— chai tea is the drink of choice. It is considered a gentleman’s game in which each match pauses twice—once for lunch, once for tea. Some spectators at Swagat refilled their cups of chai five or six times throughout the night. “It’s not like crack open a six-pack and watch the game,” said Miten Bhatia, a US Bank branch manager who moved to the United States from Mumbai in 1998. “A lot of families watch cricket. I remember watching it with my grandmother.” At one point in the night Swagat owner Srimanth Chinnam went into the kitchen and returned with platters of samosas. The crowd at Swagat graciously devoured plate after plate. As the eight-hour game came to a close Saturday morning with favorite India battling back to win its second World Cup title, the exhausted crowd filed out of Swagat into the bright morning, celebrating its first World Cup win since 1983. “It is a very exhilarating feeling,” Aspandiar said. “The last time India won the World Cup I was here in the United States and there was no way to watch it. This time I got to see India win.”

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EVERYTHING OLD IS NEW AGAIN IN PORTLAND’S COFFEE SCENE. Why is Portland, of all places, the capital of American coffee culture? There’s no overt explanation why a city celebrated for its slacker attitude also devotes so much energy to the roasting and consumption of high-grade joe. Even Seattle’s coffee connoisseurs have conceded our superiority, according to a story Seattle-area public radio station KPLU ran last year. It’s a puzzle. We don’t grow coffee in Oregon, unlike hops, the production of which helped spur our obsession with beer. Maybe it’s all an accident—a function of geography and, believe it or not, race. We’re halfway between Seattle and San Francisco, where Starbucks and Peet’s launched the specialty coffee industry in the ’70s, so Portland was bound to get hooked on caffeine. And this city is still very white. Why does that matter? According to the National Coffee Association, Caucasians drink a half cup a day more coffee than blacks or Hispanics. Certainly it’s partly due to serendipity. While Duane Sorenson, founder of Stumptown Coffee, was raised in Puyallup, Wash., it was to Southeast Portland he moved and set up shop in 1999 as the future Yoda of carefully sourced beans roasted in tiny batches. But our love of coffee predates Stumptown. Paul Thornton, head roaster for

Coffee Bean International, the city’s largest roaster, says we’re stuck in time. “You know how on Portlandia they say we’re stuck in the ’90s? I think there’s still a heavy ’70s culture here. Portlanders are really interested in that handcrafted, living free kind of thing, and coffee falls into that category when you start to learn more about it. As much work as it takes to get a green bean into roasted form and to the consumer, it takes even more for a farmer to take it from the berry to the bean. They determine how well the coffee is done by picking it up and feeling it.” Whatever the cause, the history of coffee in Portland is one of constant, obsessive refinement, of obtaining better beans and pulling better shots. Staying on the jittery edge of the culture requires constant attention. Which is what we’ve been doing over the past several weeks. And what have we found? We found that pre-brewed coffee is going the way of the dinosaur, and Portland baristas are trading complex contraptions for paper and plastic (page 18). We found a lot of new gadgets to brew a perfect cup (page 19), most of which aren’t new at all. We found some cutting-edge ways to out-snob your friends (page 21), a lot of great new coffeehouses (page 22), almost passable decaf (page 24), and the reason why you might be feeling a little pinched at the counter lately (page 25). DRIP CITY cont. on page 18

Willamette Week APRIL 6, 2011 wweek.com

DRIP CITY

CONT.

WHY THE COFFEE INDUSTRY IS SHUNNING STATE-OF-THE-ART TECHNOLOGY FOR CHEAP PLASTIC. BY R U T H BR OW N

rbrown@wweek.com

For the past few decades, the star of almost every coffeehouse in Portland has been a gleaming, stainless steel machine pumping out shots of thick, strong espresso. The equipment can cost upward of $10,000 and is manned by magicians— heavily tattooed, poorly shaven magicians—who transform in seconds bags of beans into beverages you can only dream of being able to make at home. But recently, a new idol has been taking center stage on the coffeehouse counter. Pour-over brewers now sit on coffee bars like amateur science projects—funnelshaped filters used to slowly extract one cup of coffee at a time. Baristas hover intently over the upturned cones with sleek, thin-spouted kettles, slowly tracing a well-practiced pattern over fine grounds. Scales and digital timers ensure that the extraction time and technique is perfect as the coffee slowly drips into a vessel below. One such barista is Water Avenue Coffee’s Tom Pikaart. He doesn’t look like a Prohibition-era bartender or a fixed-gear bike messenger or a folk musician or any other lazy barista stereotype. In a plain knit sweater and not-at-all-artfully tousled hair, he’s a proud geek. And although he’s a first-rate espresso maker, chatting with him is more like speaking to an obsessive home-brewer than the clichéd coffee elitist. He buzzes about the inner-Southeast industrial cafe, serving people who do look like bike messengers, enthusing over his shoulder about the innovation—which is really a throwback—in the coffee brewing world. Pikaart stumbled into this new coffee trend while living in Seattle after being given an hourglass-shaped glass Chemex brewer at a trade show. “I brought it back to the shop where I worked, and everyone was like, ‘Oh, dude!’” he says. Pikaart started “geeking out” with the new toys, recording the experiments on his blog, pouredover.com, complete with

flexible, very dynamic and, with a trained operator, with a manual process, you can make on-the-fly decisions, and with those subtle adjustments, you can get a betterquality product,” Pikaart says. “Single-cup brewing is easy, flexible and delicious. The barista has greater control. It’s also a more inclusive brew method—when a barista is behind an espresso machine, they’re very separate from the customer. With a pourover bar, you can see straight through it, and the customer side and barista side aren’t that different, so it’s interactive. It also has a high romantic value. It makes me think of a tea ceremony, setting up all the gadgets, pouring the water over the coffee. It’s ritualistic. I think a huge part of its value is that it’s just fun.” At least 27 different coffeehouses in Portland now offer pour-over coffee— whether it’s with a Chemex Coffeemaker at Coava in Southeast, a Swissgold filter at Courier downtown or a Clever Coffee Dripper at Sterling in Nob Hill. Pour-over brewing is nothing new. A German housewife by the name of Melitta Benz invented the coffee filter that still bears her name in 1908, and the Chemex was invented by a German-American chemist, Peter J. Schlumbohm, in 1941 (it remains the only coffee maker in the collection at MoMa). But both brewers spent the latter part of the 20th century gathering dust in American cupboards, as automated gadgets and espresso became de rigueur. Over the past decade, an increased focus on high-quality, ethically sourced, singleorigin beans and carefully crafted blends— the so-called “third wave” of coffee—has changed the way many of us think about joe. The realization that each bean from each growing region could elicit its own unique flavors led baristas and consumers alike to seek out new ways to highlight these differences. As it transpired, the best way to do this wasn’t new at all. It’s not a movement Portland can specifically lay claim to, but we make for a unique case study. In 2005, third-wave pioneer Stumptown Coffee opened a tasting room and retail outlet near its Southeast Belmont Street coffeehouse, dubbed the Annex. Its crown jewel was the first-ever Clover machine, an $11,000 Seattle-made auto-

CAMERONBROWNE.COM

THE RISE OF NERD COFFEE

CONES, KETTLE, CARDIGAN: Tom Pikaart at the pour-over bar.

“I think people are finally starting to appreciate the idea that coffee can be something really exciting. Really flavorful, really complex,” says Annex manager Liam Kenna. “These methods, they make it approachable…you can spend $20 on a ceramic cup and get an amazing coffee at home.” “Manual brewing lends itself to the particular type of coffee from a particular place better than anything else within the coffee industry currently. It’s the best way to see what’s really going on with each of these coffees,” agrees Stumptown’s director of operations, Matt Lounsbury. In 2009, a barista in Bellingham, Wash.,

I can do with my $20 brewing cone what that $10,000 device does.” In 2010, Stumptown opened its Brew Bar in New York, an espresso-free coffee bar offering any of its beans brewed in a Chemex, Hario, Melitta, siphon, French press or AeroPress. The company now plans to expand and transform the Annex into the same concept. But as Portlanders know well, nothing is any good if other people like it. You can now buy Hario V60s in Williams-Sonoma. Last year, Starbucks announced it would be rolling out pour-over brewers into all of its stores. And earlier this year, Clover

“I CAN DO WITH MY $20 BREWING CONE WHAT THAT $10,000 [CLOVER] DEVICE DOES.” —TOM PIKAART videos and graphs. His profile in the coffee scene grew nationally, and he relocated to Portland to join a group of local coffee vets looking to start a new roastery and coffee bar. When Water Avenue Coffee opened in April 2010, it wasn’t the $10,000 Synesso espresso machine that took pride of place on the counter; it was an eye-catching pour-over bar, made from 60 pounds of poured concrete and glass drippers inside a laser-etched sheet of bamboo. “Ultimately, the reason [pour-over brewers] are so optimal for drinking fancypants specialty coffee is that they’re very 18

Willamette Week APRIL 6, 2011 wweek.com

mated single-cup brewer that was all the buzz of the industry at the time. Stumptown acquired six others, but in 2008, Clover was bought by Starbucks. The local roaster promptly dumped its entire collection of the machines and returned to using simple old Melitta brewers. The move may have been born out of anti-corporate interests, but the result was brilliant: The controlled brewing and clean, smooth cups allowed baristas to showcase the rainbow of flavors in every bean. And the cheap, low-tech equipment allowed their converted customers to replicate it at home.

began importing a pour-over brewer called the V60 from Japanese glass-manufacturing company Hario, and putting them in the hands of influential baristas across the country. One of its most notable converts was Chicago’s Intelligentsia Coffee, which ditched all its Clovers and created a pourover bar of V60s, helping turn the $10 plastic dripper into a must-have gadget for coffee geeks everywhere. “I think the demise of the Clover was extremely timely, and it’s undeniably correlated to the rise of the individual brew,” says Pikaart. “My whole position is that

unveiled its latest creation: the Precision Pour Over—a hands-off, computerized machine that delivers a temperature-controlled, metered flow of water over a V60, potentially eliminating the need for a skilled barista. Starbucks is already testing the system in one of its Seattle stores. “Parity is the highest form of flattery,” shrugs Pikaart. “Could [Starbucks] kill it? Probably not. Because we have the passion. We will be here whether it makes money or not. I expect it to taper off…[but] as long as people continue to throw money at it, it will continue to be cool.”

CONT.

DRIP CITY

bwaterhouse@wweek.com

While pour-over has become the standard at the city’s finest cafes, home coffee geeks have been steadily expanding their arsenals of java-related gadgetry. Where once the Chemex and French press reigned supreme, there is now a bewildering menagerie of brewers available at the city’s kitchenware stores. Each of these seven brewers makes a good cup of coffee, assuming you start with good, fresh beans, evenly ground; you can find instructional videos on their use, mostly involving digital scales and timers, at wweek. com. The differences between them have largely to do with the amount of time the beans are exposed to water and the amount of sediment that makes it into your cup. As with most things, it all comes down to taste.

Aeropress

$25.95 at Mr. Green Beans, 3932 N Mississippi Ave., 288-8698.

$85.75 at Amazon.com and other Web retailers.

How it works: Designed by the elite Danish design firm Eva Solo, this is a very elegant take on the total-immersion brewer. The process is essentially the same as that of a French press, but instead of a plunger filter, the Solo uses a combination filter and pouring funnel. The manufacturer claims the jacket will keep coffee warm for half an hour, which is fine for those who like to let their coffee steep for 26 minutes longer than necessary. I’d just pour it into a travel mug.

Clever Coffee Dripper

$15 at sweetmarias.com.

How it works: Combining immersion and drip brewing, the Clever Coffee Dripper is a plastic filter cone with a stopper at the bottom. Pop in a paper filter, add coffee and hot water, wait four minutes and pop the brewer on top of your mug. The valve at the bottom of the brewer opens when it presses against the ring of the mug, and your coffee drips out. It’s easier than slowly pouring water over a drip cone.

How it works: This elegant stand turns the Kone, Coava’s stainless-steel reusable filter for the Chemex brewer, into an immersion brewer. It’s essentially the same concept as the Clever Dripper, but it’s prettier and doesn’t require disposable paper filters. For now, the Funnel is only in use at Coava’s shop (1300 SE Grand Ave.), but watch for commercial release in the future.

Hourglass

$49.95 at Kitchen Kaboodle, 404 NW 23rd Ave. and other locations, kitchenkaboodle.com.

How it works: Many Portlanders discovered the joys of rich, low-acid, cold-brewed coffee last summer (Stumptown has even started selling the stuff in 11-ounce bottles). You can make it with a Mason jar and cheesecloth, but local inventors Bob Neace and Todd Maas wanted something a little less fiddly. In 2004 they started selling the Hourglass, a slow-drip cold brewer with a washable filter and BPA-free plastic carafe. Just stick it in the fridge and, 12 hours later, pour.

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How it works: Strictly speaking the only new technology on this list, the Aeropress was invented in 2005 by Alan Alder, the creator of the Aerobie flying ring. Consisting of two plastic cylinders and a rubber plunger, the Aeropress forces briefly steeped coffee through a paper filter and yields a flavor like a French press without the sediment. Coava makes a reusable stainless-steel filter ($15) for those who don’t like throwing away paper.

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Technivorm

$279-$299 at Clive Coffee, 738 SE Washington St., clivecoffee.com.

How it works: The king of automated coffee makers, the Dutchdesigned Technivorm produces drip coffee comparable to that made with a manual filter cone without all the standing and pouring—and it does it fast, brewing 10 cups in under eight minutes. Its massive heating coil brings water to the ideal just-off-boiling brewing temperature of about 200 degrees quickly and keeps it there throughout brewing.

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-Proudly exported from VietnamThe Trung Nguyen Robusta Arabica is definitely the hands-down most accessible and popular coffee served in our taste testings and Market booths. It’s a wonderful blend of high-quality Arabica and heirloom Robusta. It is an “anytime” coffee, with medium caffeine, well-balanced blended taste, and as good iced as it is hot. If you have never tried Vietnamese coffee, here is a perfect first candidate. This coffee is best brewed at 1.5 tablespoons per cup, in a cone-shaped drip machine, French Press, percolator or any soak method. For some reason the coffee is not as successful in commercial machines as some of the other Trung Nguyen coffees, so we don’t recommend it as a coffeehouse coffee, despite its immense popularity in home brewing. The whole bean is exceptionally flavorful, and could be experimented with if you want to use the #2 as a base for coffee specialty drinks and a house coffee.

Vacuum Pot

$35-$90 at Stumptown Annex, 3352 SE Belmont St.

How i t w o r k s : A s water is heated in the lower vessel, it is forced by expanding air pressure through a siphon into the upper vessel, where it mixes with the ground coffee. Removed from the heat, the air in the lower chamber contracts and sucks the brewed coffee back through the siphon with much bubbling and whooshing. The result is an exceptionally bright, clean-tasting coffee that’s worth the considerable time and trouble it takes to brew. DRIP CITY cont. on page 21

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CONT.

DRIP CITY

SEVEN HABITS FOR HIGHLY CAFFEINATED PEOPLE BY BE N WAT E R H O U SE,

bwaterhouse@wweek.com

So you’ve bought a $16 bag of Ethiopia Yirgacheffe from your local microroaster. How long do you have to drink it before all that dollar-an-ounce specialness is gone? According to Courier Coffee owner Joel Domreis, not very long. “Two weeks is my personal limit,” he says. For those really bright, citrusy flavors Portlanders so crave of late, though, you’ll have to be even speedier. “Someday between day five and seven it starts to lose what it has,” Domreis says, but adds, “It’s actually really nice to drink a cup of seven-day-old coffee. It’s mellow.” To keep your coffee fresh as long as possible, buy whole beans and keep them in an airtight container to minimize their exposure to oxygen, which hastens the breakdown of the volatile oils that make fresh coffee taste good. Keep a flavor diary Remembering which roasts taste of berry fruit and which of stone fruit was pretty rough until Dave Selden came along. In December, the Portland marketer and beer blogger released “33 Cups of Coffee,” a pocket-sized tasting notebook with space for a coffee’s vital stats (roaster, sample date, price, brewing method), a one-to-five-star rating scale and a tasting wheel on which to mark how sweet, clean, smoky and so on you find a particular cup to be. You can pick one up for $4 at Coava Coffee (1300 SE Grand Ave.) or order them by the three-pack at 33beers.com. Pick a ratio Stumptown Coffee’s brewing guide recommends using 2.8 grams of coffee per fluid ounce of water to brew coffee with a Melitta filter. Counter Culture, a Durham, N.C., roaster of similar stature to Stumptown, recommends 1.6 to 2 grams per ounce. Choose a ratio and stick with it. Refuse to drink any coffee brewed to the wrong ratio. Heretics shall be burned. Revel in obscurity Yeah, Stumptown’s good, sure, but everybody already knows them, y’know? They’re mainstream. If you’re really going to out-snob your friends at the next ethically raised

pig roast, you’ve got to get your beans from a roaster so obscure it doesn’t even have a cafe, man. Nectar Coffee Company, a year-old local roaster headed by Todd Weiler, a former roaster for Intelligentsia (in Chicago) and Flying Goat (in Healdsburg, Calif.), is a good bet. You can pick it up at the Lloyd Center and Hillsdale farmers markets, or order online at nectarcoffeecompany.com. Badbeard’s Microroastery (badbeardscoffee.com), operated by Portland Cello Project co-founder Justin Kagan, is slightly better-known, having entered the game in 2006. But no other roaster has

11-day tour to owner Augusto Dias Carneiro’s family farm in Brazil in June. See familyroast.com for details.) Or roast your own Now that time-stamped, locally roasted coffee is available on every street corner, home roasting is no longer a necessity for those who crave the freshest of fresh coffee. These days it’s all about experimentation, which Mr. Green Beans (3932 N Mississippi Ave., 288-8698, diycoffeeroasting. com), the city’s only brick-and-mortar retailer of green coffee for home roasters, makes more convenient than ever. The 20 or so varieties of green beans on offer come from all over the coffeegrowing world and range from $5.75 per pound for Brazil Pico Aguada to $10 for Kenya Fairview Estate AA. Try your hand at roasting a blend in a skillet or take home one of the shop’s selection of countertop electric roasters ($109-$920), slap your own label on a kraft paper storage bag (available for 25 cents apiece) and be the envy of your fellow cubicle drones with your exclusive brew. CAMERONBROWNE.COM

DRINK IT FRESH—REALLY FRESH.

Vocabulary test: “fourth wave” It is common, in the food-snob press, to refer to the current wealth of small-batch roasted single-origin coffee as the “third wave” of American coffee culture; the second and first waves were, respectively, the Starbucks-driven espresso exploHOME SKILLET: Buy your own raw beans at Mr. Green Beans. sion and everything that came before it. According to Erin Hulbert, a New produced a Maker’s Mark-infused blend for Portland band York blogger for Serious Eats, the fourth wave arrived with Weinland, and that hipster cred counts for a lot. the debut of the Slayer, an $18,000 espresso machine made in Seattle. The Oregonian used the term before Hulbert, in Even better, pick a region a 2009 story by Kathleen Bauer on the advent of very small One benefit of the proliferation of small roasters in the roasters like Courier and Ristretto. Given that all of those Portland area is that consumers can taste the same cof- roasters are standing on Stumptown founder Duane Sorenfees roasted in several different ways. Instead of finding son’s shoulders, and that the Slayer, for all its bells and a roaster whose products you like, taste around until you whistles, produces a shot of espresso (to my palate, anyway) find a specific region to call your own. Say you want to not drastically unlike that of any other high-end machine, drink beans only from the Yirgacheffe region of Ethiopia: I’m not convinced that there’s been a great enough shift in You can get your beans from Clive, Coava, Oblique, Port- the culture or the industry to warrant the naming of a new land Roasting, Ristretto and Water Avenue. The next time age. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t refer to whatever someone innocently asks you what your favorite coffee you’re drinking at the moment as “fourth-wave” coffee; the is, answer “Sumatra Gayo Mountain” (Oblique, Water best thing about a meaningless phrase is that no one can say Avenue, Caffe Vita, Eugene Roasters, Wandering Goat) you’re using it incorrectly. and refuse further explanation. (For those who want to DRIP CITY cont. on page 22 get to know a farm personally, Nossa Familia is running an 

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KLATCH OF 2011 PORTLAND’S NEWEST COFFEEHOUSES, RATED. What makes a good coffeehouse? It’s more than just good coffee; with an hour’s practice, you can prepare a world-class cup at home. And it’s not free Wi-Fi or great baked goods or art on the walls. All those things are nice, but not essential. A truly fine cafe should, with its location, decor, clientele and general attitude, make everyone who enters its doors seem hipper and clearer of mind. It should do for the spirit what a double espresso does for the brain. It should make you sharp. It’s an ineffable quality, one that cannot be measured by conventional metrics, so we’re going with an unconventional one. We’ve rated these 14 new cafes on the same scale Aaron Mesh has devised for rating movies: 1 to 100, out of all the coffee shops, everywhere. It is subjective and a little irrational; it is also infallible.

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Aliviar Coffeehouse

1737 NE 42nd Ave., 954-1091, aliviarcoffee.com. 6:45 am-5 pm Monday-Friday, 7:45 am-5 pm Saturday-Sunday. As I squeezed into a window-side seat at Aliviar, I nearly landed in the lap of the white-haired fellow at the neighboring table. Aliviar is teensytiny, and tables and chairs are packed tightly together. This is not a place for clandestine conversation. But it is the kind of friendly and welcoming neighborhood haunt where, seconds after sitting down, you’re learning Czech phrases and sauerkraut recipes from the patrons around you. Aliviar offers strong, single-origin coffee roasted by Olympia’s Batdorf & Bronson and Oakland’s Roast. The food selection is nothing special, but the eclectic (and slightly baffling) art collection—including a photograph of Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata, an ad soliciting donations for Afghan freedom fighters battling the Soviet Union, and a tapestry of Our Lady of Guadalupe—should keep you plenty occupied. REBECCA JACOBSON. 90

Barista Alberta

1725 NE Alberta St., 208-2568, baristapdx.com, 6 am-6 pm MondayFriday, 7 am-6 pm Saturday-Sunday. Unlike its flagship Pearl location, which is all industrial-chic brick walls and exposed beams and women in yoga pants, Barista’s second location, which opened on Northeast Alberta Street in early 2010, feels like a 19th-century British hunting den.

Dark wood paneling, mounted bucks’ heads, apothecary jars, flocked wallpaper and leather booths—it’ll either make you gag on your single-origin macchiato or swoon. The first cafe had a bit of a reputation for uninviting coffee snobbery, but although “flocked wallpaper” is probably setting off a few red lights, this location manages to be far warmer and every bit the community coffeehouse. Customers can still choose from an ever-changing lineup of specialty coffees from around Portland and the U.S. (even the odd international guest); the $9 vac-pots are absent, but espresso is served with the same anal attention to perfection as ever. Notably, this location also offers an equally well-curated lineup of local beers on tap—it’s only open until 6 pm, but still a jolly nice spot for an afternoon tipple. RUTH BROWN. 74

Cafe Eleven

435 NE Rosa Parks Way, 954-1375. 7 am-3:30 pm Monday-Friday, 8 am-3:30 pm Saturday-Sunday. The 5 miles between Northeast Alberta Street and St. Johns are marked by the occasional cafe, patiently grinding coffee beans and toasting bagels in the North Portland quietude. Cafe Eleven is a new addition to this archipelago of coffee outposts, along with Posies, GrindHouse Coffee, and Red E Cafe. Just off Northeast Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and a few blocks south of North Lombard Street, Cafe Eleven fills one half of a converted residential duplex—a nice alternative

to the austerity of Portland’s contemporary cafe culture. Until the start of 2011 the house was solely occupied by Florio Bakery, which still bakes in the left part of the building and stocks Cafe Eleven with tasty treats. The beans are supplied by Portland’s Trailhead Coffee Roasters, and though the Altiplano French Roast I tried lacked complexity, it was brewed well and yielded an excellent cup of joe. RACHAEL DEWITT. 79

Cafe Velo

600 SW Pine St., 719-0287, cafe-velo. com. 7:30 am-5 pm Monday-Friday. A longtime Portland Farmers Market vendor, Cafe Velo opened a comically tiny shop in the shadow of Big Pink just over a year ago. There’s no indoor seating or even an espresso machine in the subway tile and chalkboard-appointed space—this is a strictly drip establishment—but there are Mediterranean-inspired flatbread sandwiches (falafel with roasted peppers, chicken za’atar with saffron yogurt sauce) and more complicated specials (tagines and paellas). Whatever’s in the press pot will be good ($1.75 for a 10-ounce cup), but for another 50 cents you can take your pick of drip-to-order beans from a bewildering variety of local coffee roasters, including Stumptown, Heart, Trailhead and even tiny operations like Sterling and Greyhound. Unless you’re willing to brave bus-mall fumes at Velo’s sidewalk tables, you’ll have to get your order to go, so give a hoot and bring your own cup. BEN WATERHOUSE. 75

Caffe Vita

2909 NE Alberta St., 954-2171, caffevita.com, 6 am-8 pm Monday-Friday, 7 am-8 pm Saturday-Sunday. Despite years of speculation that Seattle roaster Caffe Vita would be opening its own outlet in Portland, and persistent rumors of bad blood with Stumptown, when it finally, quietly took over Concordia Coffee House on Alberta late last year, the local response was barely more than a shrug. Almost five months later, there’s still not a lot happening there. The large, echoey space remains sparse, save for a few couches and tables and a cabinet of merchandise. If I hadn’t known they moved in so long ago, I’d have guessed it was last week. On offer is espresso, press pot or cold brew, although an epic old siphon lurking in the background suggested this might expand. The roaster boasts a lengthy menu of take-home beans, but the cafe offers only one on any given day. The Sulawesi available during our visit was bold, clean and sweet, and served with a smile, but hopefully if and when the cafe starts offering manually brewed coffee, the menu will be opened up to show-

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Cloud Seven Cafe

901 NW 10 Ave., 336-1335, cloudsevencafe.com. 7 am-6 pm MondayFriday, 8 am-6 pm Saturday-Sunday. Don’t let the extensive menu and posh decor fool you—Cloud 7 is first and foremost a coffee shop. They’re damn good at it, too. The baristas do justice to the beans (from Chicago-based Intelligentsia, the Stumptown of the Midwest), and they’re big on pour-over—you’ll never get a stale brew. Tao of Tea, mimosas, wine, seasonal draft beer and smoothies are some of the other beverages available in addition to breakfast, lunch and tapas. The space is proportional to the menu—about three times the size of an average Portland cafe—but, almost one year in, the many tables are starting to fill. RACHAEL DEWITT. 73

Coffee Division

3551 SE Division St., coffeedivision.com, 7 am-5 pm daily. Coffee Division, which opened in early February, has leapt onto the already crowded pour-over bandwagon—but this white-walled, airy cafe does it without pretension. Sure, there’s ceremony to the act, as baristas use a delicate, long-necked Japanese kettle to pour hot water over a ceramic filter cone (also Japanese-made), but they’re unhurried and unassuming about it. The method leads to a clean, bitternessfree brew, with no need for cream to cut the bite. Coffee Division’s light-bathed space is spare but welcoming, with potted plants on recessed, ceiling-level ledges and understated art on the walls. Pair your java (made from Stumptown beans) with a zingy, flaky orange ginger scone (one of many toothsome baked goods from Crema on offer), take a seat at a wooden table and watch the Division Street traffic putter by. REBECCA JACOBSON. 84

Courier Coffee

923 SW Oak St., 545-6444, couriercoffeeroasters.com. 7 am-5 pm Monday-Friday. This very small roaster, which began in a garage and still delivers exclusively by bike, wasted little time in taking over Half & Half’s storefront when the beloved sandwich shop

closed last year. The remodeled space resembles a one-fifth scale model of the 3rd Avenue Stumptown, without the slightly menacing air of hipness. Owner Joel Domreis serves espresso drinks and drip-to-order coffee (he uses gold filters, not the usual Melitta disposables), sometimes in Mason jars, from behind a lovely hardwood bar with a heavy coat of nautical varnish. There’s vintage hip-hop on the turntable and friends’ art on the walls, the vanilla syrup is made on-site and the beans are never more than three days from roasting. Don’t miss house baker Leala Humbert’s excellent cake—it’s dreamy. BEN WATERHOUSE. 83

Oui Presse

1740 SE Hawthorne Blvd., 384-2160, oui-presse.com. 7 am-6 pm MondayFriday, 7 am-5 pm Saturday-Sunday. A newsstand, ceramics gallery, bakery and coffee shop, Oui Presse holds a lot of allure for inner-Hawthorne cafe-goers. Since it opened in December, sparsely furnished and bare-walled, the cafe has evolved into a charming hideout from the rain, with good eats, drinks and reads. The beans are the same Stumptown blend you’ll find everywhere, but Oui Presse delivers a French press and espresso pull of uncommon quality. Shelves bulging with magazines line two walls of the shop, and carry titles ranging from Harper’s to Opera to Vogue in three languages. Owner Shawna McKeown (formerly WW’s associate publisher) has been blogging her experiences as cafe owner and discusses additions to the shop. She bakes the chocolate-chip cookies and coffee cake, and Ken’s Artisan Bakery supplies the toast and croissants, making Oui Presse one of the only spots on the east side to serve Ken’s. RACHAEL DEWITT. 82

Public Domain

603 SW Broadway, 243-6374, publicdomaincoffee.com, 6 am-7 pm Monday-Friday, 7 am-7 pm SaturdaySunday. No, the name does not mean your Americano is open source—although the downtown location, which used to be the couch-filled late-night street-kid hangout Portland Coffee House, gets its share of freeloaders still. (You know that guy who paints his face bright blue? He knows when there’s an excess pour to be had.) Newly immaculate, with white walls that may remind former customers of THX 1138 and first-time visitors of an Apple store, Public Domain is now the public face of longtime wholesale roaster Coffee Bean International, and a handsome face it is, if a little antiseptic. The coffee’s excellent: The pour-over is a pre-

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Spunky Monkey Coffee

35 NE 20th Ave., 234-1660, monkeyroasters.com. 7 am-4 pm MondayFriday, 8 am-3 pm Saturday-Sunday. Bring your own recorded music to this Kerns neighborhood shop. Not only will you hear yourself over the speakers during your regular morning coffee run, but you will get 10 free coffees for contributing to the “95 percent local” soundtrack. Gray Nieland of Monkey Roasters encourages über-local everything, from the music he plays at the shop to the coffee he roasts in Sellwood and the chickens he raises for sandwiches. The best part of this little hole-inthe-wall? The staff loathes refined sugar. Spunky uses sugar substitutes of the natural kind—stevia, agave and a bitter, housemade chocolate mix come standard in the shop’s custom mochas and sweets, and it’s offered up at the counter as well. Be sure to check out the plastic drum machine in the restroom—it’s never too early to rock. NIKKI VOLPICELLI. 86

www.touchofclasstours.com April 13-15 $224 od/•pbreakfast p 422pp/do $ •&5dinner 1-31 lirpA Includes

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cisely choreographed floor show, and the direct-trade Peruvian blend my show produced was smooth, with a harvest-festival taste. There’s a happy hour with $1 espresso shots twice a week, plus a pastry case where you’ll find a $2.50 pumpkin-zucchini muffin that will, like the former owner’s hippie tchotchkes, magically vanish. AARON MESH. 71

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Water Avenue Coffee

1028 SE Water Ave., 808-7084, wateravenuecoffee.com. 7 am-5 pm Monday-Friday, 8 am-5 pm Saturday, 9 am-3 pm Sunday. Half the third-wave houses in Portland are piggybacking on pour-over cups—hell, the other day a Starbucks barista asked me if I wouldn’t mind waiting five extra minutes for this innovative new technology—but at inner-Eastside industrial outpost Water Avenue the glass cones and Chemex carafes are lined up gleaming three in a row, at the front of the gleaming wood counter, under the gleaming neon-blue coffee sign. It’s as if the place were the soundstage for a mod ’60s movie, with pour-over coffee as the starlet instead of Marilyn Monroe. The coffee will certainly blow your skirt up: Roasted on-site in a 1974 Samiac machine imported from the Swiss Alps, Water’s nine blends are richly gobsmacking even if you don’t succumb to the allure of the individually brewed mug. AARON MESH.

DRIP CITY cont. on page 24

CAMERONBROWNE.COM

case the full range the company has to offer. This is clearly still a work in progress; the cafe received a beer and wine license last year and word is that it’s going to start roasting there, too. Until then, there’s no great reason to visit this lonely little coffeehouse, unless you really can’t be bothered walking three blocks to the more inviting surrounds of Extracto. RUTH BROWN.

DRIP CITY

OUI PRESSE Willamette Week APRIL 6, 2011 wweek.com

DRIP CITY

CONT.

Most of Portland’s more than 40 coffee roasters are turning out exceptional beans for those of us who don’t mind caffeine, but what about those among us who love coffee but have been warned off the hard stuff ? We grabbed every locally roasted decaf coffee we could find on the shelves at New Seasons, plus a bag of Starbucks to make things interesting, and put them all to the slurp test. BEN WATERHOUSE.

1. Stumptown Decaf House ($12.25 per 12-oz. bag) By far the least offensive and cleanest tasting of the beans we tried, the Stumptown is a little nutty, a little astringent and a little bitter. One taster described it as papery and “roasty.” This was roundly the decaf all of our tasters would buy.

2. New Seasons Decaf ($8.99 per pound) The most complex of the beans we sampled, this house label reminded tasters of darkroasted nuts, caramel and Korean corn tea, but one taster dissented, calling the beans stale-tasting.

3. Starbucks House Blend Decaf ($10 per pound) The most acidic and astringent of the bunch, the Starbucks reminded tasters of cigarette butts and citric acid. It smelled of tomatoes and got progressively more bitter as it cooled. In fairness to Starbucks, though, the bag we got from New Seasons was two weeks past its best-by date.

4. Nossa Familia Teodoro’s Italian Roast Decaf ($10 per 12-oz. bag) Described as flavorless, woody and “like community-center coffee,” the decaf beans from this otherwise reliable roaster were the closest to what we talk about when we talk about percolated decaf.

5. St. Johns Coffee Roasters Flying Squirrel Decaf Blend ($14 per pound) Roundly despised by our tasters, this blend of Indonesian beans was described as tasting “like old clothes.”

FIVE SIGNS WE MAY BE TAKING THIS COFFEE THING TOO FAR 1. Chris King of King Precision Components, a manufacturer of high-end bicycle parts, makes a $75 aluminum and stainless-steel espresso tamper, and Portland Design Works makes a coffeecup holder for bicycles. 2. Several Portland cafes, including Fresh Pot and Public Domain, have allegedly refused to sell espresso to go. 3. Cloud Seven Cafe serves coffee in cups designed by Chicago roaster Intelligentsia Coffee and L.A. design firm notNeutral. They supposedly “aid the barista in the perfect pour and balance effortlessly in the drinker’s hand” and retail for $18 apiece.

Willamette Week APRIL 6, 2011 wweek.com

4. In a story in The New York Times in July 2010, Paul Sykes, a local maker of wooden bicycle fenders, was quoted as saying, “I don’t even go to Stumptown. I go to a more local place.” 5. Here’s the drink Coava barista Sam Purvis devised to win the Northwest Regional Barista Competition: “50g of water was infused with dried raspberries and goji berries. The water was infused for three minutes. And then that water was pressed out over 70 percent dark chocolate to melt it down. Milk was added and it was brought up to temperature and textured and then mixed with the coffee and dusted with dried raspberries.”

P H OTO S : J E S S I C A S TA M B A C H

WHAT ABOUT DECAF?

CONT.

DRIP CITY

THE MONEY IN THE CUP BY BE N WAT E R H O U SE IL LU ST R AT I O N S BY N I C K STO K ES

Your morning cup has gotten more expensive of late. Why? Raw, green coffee beans now cost more than they have at any point in the past 14 years. There are a lot of reported reasons for this state of affairs: Development and climate change are eating away at the amount of land suited to coffee growing; demand for coffee—especially the highquality stuff Portlanders take for granted—is on the rise in India, Brazil and China; and speculators have flooded into the commodity coffee futures market, causing the market to spike. The cost of green coffee, for tiny local roasters and Starbucks alike, is set by the International Exchange in New York, where contracts for

future deliveries of coffee are bought and sold. While specialty roasters like Stumptown generally pay much higher than market price to get the best beans available, the commodities, or “C,” market sets the lowest price any farmers co-op is likely to sell for. On March 9, according to Reuters, the C market hit a 34-year high at $2.96 per pound. One year ago, the price hovered between $1.20 and $1.60 per pound. In response to the upheaval in the market, all of Portland’s small roasters have raised their retail and wholesale prices: Stumptown’s Hair Bender blend has risen to $16 per pound retail from $14 since May 2010, and now wholesales for just over $9 a pound. So with a small drip coffee running $2, where does the money go? We crunched the numbers to find out.

HOW A CUP BREAKS DOWN: ($2 12-oz. French press)

42 cents of coffee. (21 grams at just over $9 per pound)

10 cents cup (at baristaproshop.com)

4 cents lid

4 cents jacket

$1.40 labor, rent, other costs and profit.

HOW A POUND BREAKS DOWN: ($10 pound of coffee)

$5.75 roaster’s expenses (labor, packaging, distribution) and profit

$2.63 paid to the farmers co-op or farmer

14 cents shipping to U.S.

$1 weight loss during coffee roasting

13 cents shipping to roaster

16 cents importer’s fee 16 cents 12 months of storage

S O U R C E : S U S TA I N A B L E H A R V E S T S P E C I A LT Y C O F F E E I M P O R T E R S

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Live Music

FOOD & DRINK: Portland’s in good spirits. MUSIC: The science of soul. THEATER: The dark side of giant murder. MOVIES: Chicken, waffles and Todd Haynes.

29 31 47 51

SCOOP WE NOMINATE JIM LEHRER AS THE NEW KATIE COURIC. WED & THURS: 9PM FRI & SAT: 8.30PM

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KAVA PARTY: A business touting itself as “Portland’s first kava bar” has opened up on Southeast Division Street. Bula Kava House trades in the Polynesian herbal drink known for its alcohol-free intoxicating properties and making tourists visiting Pacific islands act like morons. The menu offers five different kavas from Papua New Guinea, Hawaii and Vanuatu paired with Hawaiian-inspired eats. With few laws controlling consumption, could this be the next hookah lounge? HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SCANDALS: The Burnside Triangle may not be the thriving rainbow epicenter it once was, but one venue is still out and proud: Scandals— Portland’s self-proclaimed “gay Cheers”— celebrates its 32nd anniversary this week. As a birthday present to itself, the bar is launching a new “Thursday Night Live” series—with bands playing every Thursday night. And so say all of us! KNUCKLE SHUFFLE: Amor Lounge, the divey Lebanese bar on Southeast Foster Road, is closing, to reopen as Knuckleheads, a biker bar. Previously, Knuckleheads was four blocks away, in the space that is becoming Gemini Lounge.

CELLULOID CLOSING: The end of 35 mm film as a movie format has long been impending, but now the triumph of digital projection has netted a local casualty: Portland’s only celluloid-film print distribution center is closing at the end of the month. Deluxe Film Services, better known in local cinema circles as the Portland “film depot,” is receiving its final first-run 35 mm reels for local theaters this weekend: the goofy-billionaire remake Arthur and the shark-survival drama Soul Surfer. After it ships those reels back to the studios next weekend, and handles a round of second-run films for the Laurelhurst Theater and some McMenamins theater pubs, the depot will shutter. “Definitely not a rumor,” says Deluxe Film Services manager Derek Sehorn. “35 mm film’s going away. It sucks.”

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STOP THE MUSIC: After 15 years, Old Town Music—which has a history that dates back to the mid-’60s—is leaving downtown. And while spendy rent and the ever-expanding Chinatown douchebag district may factor into the shop’s relocation reasoning, longtime employee Hank Failing puts a brighter spin on things. “We need to expand to get a bigger store,” Failing says. “And, really, we want to be closer to local musicians.” The store’s new location, on Southeast 11th Avenue and Ankeny Street, gives Old Town Music (the name makes slightly less sense these days) a larger showroom and—gasp!— a parking lot. The new location opens Saturday, April 23, but faithful customers should keep their eyes peeled for a party just before the official opening.

HEADOUT

WILLAMETTE WEEK

WHAT TO DO THIS WEEK IN ARTS & CULTURE

WEDNESAY APRIL 6 [THEATER] BILLY ELLIOT THE MUSICAL Elton John and Lee Hall’s stage adaptation of the 2000 film about a boy who yearns to dance has giant dance numbers, cute kids, singing bobbies, a progressive social stance and even a little bit of flying. Keller Auditorium, 222 SW Clay St., 241-1802. 7:30 pm Tuesdays-Fridays, 2 and 7:30 pm Saturdays, 1 and 6:30 pm Sundays through April 17. $29.50-$90. [MUSIC] HOUSE OF SOUND BENEFIT: THE NEEDFUL LONGINGS, THEE HEADLINERS, WELCOME HOME WALKER Supergroup alert! The Needful Longings is the new project of Sean Croghan, leader of much-loved ’90s bands Crackerbash and Jr. High, with Chris Slusarenko (Guided By Voices), Jim Talstra (the Dharma Bums) and Paulie Pulverenti (Atomic 61, Jr. High). Fez Ballroom. 316 SW 11th Ave. 9 pm. $5. 21+.

FRIDAY APRIL 8 [STAND-UP] COMEDY NIGHT AT THE BAGDAD The weekly comedy showcase’s “Spring Spectacular” features Mark Kikel, Ian Karmel, Ron Funches, Richard Bain, Gabe Dinger and Jimmy Newstetter. Good stuff. Bagdad Theater, 3702 SE Hawthorne Blvd. 10 pm. 21+. $5.

DOING IT LIKE THEY DO ON THE SUNDANCE CHANNEL. BY R U TH B R OWN

Italian-born Isabella Rossellini was formerly best known for her famous parents, modeling career, roles in over 40 films, Emmy and Golden Globe nominations, three books and shacking up with Martin Scorsese. But for the past three years, she has become more famous for dressing up as animals, insects and marine life, exploring in graphic detail the various sexual proclivities of creatures great and small, in a series of short films for the Sundance Channel called Green Porno. Call us perverted, but watching a 58-year-old woman get raped

by a cartoon duck and his “corkscrew penis” was one of the most original, entertaining and educational motion-picture experiences we’ve had since the 1975 sex-ed classic Every Boy Gets Hard. Rossellini will be speaking at the First Congregational Church on Wednesday, April 6, as part of the Voices Inc. lecture series—not explicitly about animal sex, but we imagine the subject will come up. Here are our favorite moments of creepy-crawly copulation from Green Porno. Feel free to ask her to re-create them onstage.

SATURDAY APRIL 9 [MUSIC] THE BASEBALL PROJECT Consisting of R.E.M.’s Peter Buck, the Minus 5’s Scott McCaughey and the Miracle 3’s Steve Wynn and Linda Pitmon, the Baseball Project focuses its recreational-rock powers on the folklore of baseball’s golden era. Bunk Bar, 1028 SE Water Ave. 9 pm. $12 advance, $14 day of show. 21+.

SUNDAY APRIL 10 [DRINK] COCKTAIL CAMP Bartenders, cocktail nerds and fans of vintage arm garters gather for a day of chatting about, creating and consuming cocktails, with local mixologists including St. Jack’s Kyle Webster and Beaker & Flask’s Dave Shenaut on hand to shake things up. Gerding Theater, 128 NW 11th Ave. cocktailcamp.net. 10:30 am-5 pm. $50. 21+.

Isabella Rossellini procreates with a fly; they raise their children in a severed head.

Isabella Rossellini dies after giving birth to salmon. Her babies eat her.

A bedbug stabs Isabella Rossellini with his knifelike penis and ejaculates in the wound.

Isabella Rossellini cheats on her cuttlefish mate with a latenight visitor.

“Oh, blowhole sex! Anything goes!”

GO: First Congregational Church, 1126 SW Park St., voicesinc.com. 6:30 pm, April 6. $65.

[MOVIES] BRIEF ENCOUNTER David Lean’s critique of repressed middle-class values has been discussed for, oh, 63 years, but what’s most striking about Brief Encounter is its portrayal of infatuation and longing as a horrible invasion: a kind of disease which can only be endured so long. 5th Avenue Cinema, 510 SW Hall St., 725-3551. 3 pm. $3.

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Silverhawk w/ Sam Wegman T u e s d ay 4 / 1 2 • 8 : 3 0 p m

opEN MIC

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12434 SW Broadway St., Old Town Beaverton 503-641-7474 I www.broadwaysaloon.com Willamette Week APRIL 6, 2011 wweek.com

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Make sure to try our badass burgers & queso. Burnside open ‘til midnight every night.

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FOOD & DRINK = WW Pick. Highly recommended. PRICES: $: Most entrees under $10. $$: $10-$20. $$$: $20-$30. $$$$: Above $30. Editor: RUTH BROWN. Email: dish@wweek.com. See page 3 for submission instructions.

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 6 Portuguese-Inspired Dinner and Wine Tasting at Tabla

The Portuguese are responsible for inventing marmalade, lobotomies and some pretty damn fine wines. Winemaker David Baverstock from Portugal’s Herdade do Esporão wines is visiting Mediterranean bistro Tabla, where chef Anthony Cafiero will be pairing the wines with a five-course “Portuguese-inspired” dinner. Tabla Mediterranean Bistro, 200 NE 28th Ave., 238-3777. 6:30 pm. $45 plus gratuity. 21+.

Naomi Pomeroy on Top Chef Masters

Portland chef Naomi Pomeroy—of meaty Northeast Killingsworth Street eatery Beast—will compete on the new season of Top Chef Masters, battling a team of other accomplished culinarians for $100,000 to give to the charity of their choice. Pomeroy is no stranger to television screens, appearing on Iron Chef America last year, where she lost in a controversial truffle battle with Iron Chef Jose Garces. Let’s hope she can pull it out for Portland this time, bestowing upon our fair city all the glory a reality television show victory brings. Top Chef Masters premieres April 6 at 11 pm on Bravo.

THURSDAY, APRIL 7 Sacred Sea Tuna at Artemis Cafe

Rick Goche from Sacred Sea Tuna in Coquille will be bringing his sustainable local tuna to Artemis Cafe, where chef Grace Pae will transform it into spring risotto with tuna, peas and preserved lemon, and a grilled tuna burger with lemon-caper aioli. Artemis Cafe, 1235 SE Division St., 230-8340. 6-8 pm. Free. RSVP to eat@artemisfoods.com.

Arts & Draughts

On April 7, 1933, Prohibition was repealed for beer in the U.S., and drinking cheap PBR tallboys once again became a national pastime. To celebrate the anniversary of this significant date, Widmer Brothers Brewery is hosting “Arts & Draughts,” celebrating the brewery’s “new look” (glitter? neon orange?) and new releases. Revelers can enjoy complimentary savory appetizers paired with Widmer’s signature brews and live music. Leftbank Annex, 101 N Weidler St. 7-11 pm. $25 at brownpapertickets. com/event/165712. 21+.

Pop-Up Cart Party

The Portland-based Spoon Foundation is throwing a food-cart party to help fund its good work improving the nutrition of orphaned, fostered and

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adopted children around the world. Popular local mobile eateries, including Garden State, Zenbu, Ruby Jewel Treats, Hungry Heart Cupcakes, Namu Killer Korean BBQ, Buddha Bites, Fuego de Lotus and Pepper Box, will be rolling in to offer tastings of their street-food specialties, along with free beer from Breakside Brewing, live music, door prizes, a silent auction and a book signing by Cartopia author Kelley Roy. Village Ballroom, 700 NE Dekum St. 6-9 pm. $45 advance, $55 at door.

SATURDAY, APRIL 9 North Willamette Wine Trail Weekend

Twenty-four wineries in the Northern Willamette Valley will host exclusive tastings during the Wine Trail Weekend. Winery-hopping oenophiles will receive a commemorative wine glass and tote bag to carry from vineyard to vineyard to sample new releases, reserve labels and barrel tastings. Many of the wineries are offering food pairings, live music, tours and demonstrations. 11 am-4 pm SaturdaySunday, April 9-10. $45. $10 for designated drivers. 21+.

The Oyster Bus

EaT: An Oyster Bar—Portland’s little taste of the Big Easy on North Williams Avenue—is chartering a bus to Hama Hama Oyster Farm in Lilliwaup, Wash., for a day of flowing brews and fresh oysters. Guests will be able to tour the oyster farm and enjoy a lunch courtesy of EaT, with as many Double Mountain and Hopworks Urban Brewery beers and bivalve mollusks as they can stomach. EaT: An Oyster Bar, 3808 N. Williams Ave., 281-1222. 9 am. $75.

SUNDAY, APRIL 10 Cocktail Camp

Bartenders, cocktail nerds and fans of vintage arm garters will gather in the Gerding Theater for a day of talking and drinking cocktails. Local mixologists including H50’s Nathan Gerdes, Metrovino’s Jacob Grier, St. Jack’s Kyle Webster and Beaker&Flask’s Dave Shenaut will present on boozy subjects such as beer cocktails; American whiskey; planning cocktail parties; and making your own sodas, bitters and syrups. Lest things get too serious and academic, there will also be three social hours throughout the day with complimentary cocktails. Gerding Theater, 128 NW 11th Ave., 445-3700. 10:30 am-5 pm. Preregistration: $50. 21+.

FIVE GREAT BANH MI SANDWICHES

FEATURE

An Xuyen

This tiny bakery sells all sorts of sugary Vietnamese and French desserts, but the real draw are the rice-flour mini-baguettes it uses to make banh mi, the delicious FrancoVietnamese sandwiches that are something of an obsession among WW staffers. The crunchy, slightly sweet loaves are ideal for all sorts of sandwiches, Viet and otherwise— try them for cheesesteak. An Xuyen makes a particularly good Saigon bacon banh mi to go, too. BEN WATERHOUSE. 5345 SE Foster Road, 788-0866.

Best Baguette

Portland’s only Vietnamese sandwich drive-thru recently added Koi Fusioninspired Viet tacos to the menu, but don’t order them. Stick instead to the nigh-flawless banh mi, especially the Saigon bacon, which can’t be easily found elsewhere in the city, and the pretty excellent barbecue pork. Also available: sardines in tomato sauce, Vietnamese meatballs, headcheese, pâté and even a vegetarian combo. BEN WATERHOUSE. 8308 SE Powell Blvd., 788-3098.

Binh Minh

The banh mi at Binh Minh are a notch above average thanks to fresh-baked bread and housemade liver pâté. The house special is your best bet; it’s jammed with two kinds of meat and that pâté, plus the standard array of crispy carrots and veggies and, if you like, a couple of peppers. The barbecued pork and the lemongrass-chicken versions tie for second place on the menu. BECKY OHLSEN. 7821 SE Powell Blvd., 777-2245.

Ken’s Artisan Bakery

A happy Viet-French hybrid, smearing rough-chopped chicken-liver terrine amped up with Chinese five spice powder, a bit of fish sauce and Szechuan peppercorns atop a toasted baguette. Add wasabi mayo, crunchy sweet ’n’ sour pickled carrot and daikon (of course), and a squirt of sriracha and you’ve got a hot and spicy lunch that’s a continent away from Ken’s usual lunch fare. KELLY CLARKE. 338 NW 21st Ave., 248-2202.

Lillikoi

This front-yard food cart fuses Hawaiian flavors with Southeast Asian fare at ridiculously low prices. The best example comes in the form of the “banh mi style” sandwich, which stuffs two book-sized slices of insanely buttery, grilled Hawaiian sweet bread with a heaping of pickled daikon and carrot, a thick schmear of mayo, soy sauce and ham or tofu. You may dislocate your jaw shoving it all in, but it will be worth it. RUTH BROWN. 1324 N Killingsworth St., 964-8434.

A TOAST TO CRAFT DISTILLERIES It is a cliché of Portland’s food-centric marketing that we are ground zero for the wave of small, so-called craft distilleries that have popped up all over America in the past decade. It’s a debatable point—there are similar clusters of small liquor producers in the Bay Area, Seattle and Denver—but our distillers are definitely better organized, and enjoy better government support, thanks to the Oregon Liquor Control Commission’s progressive licensing attitude, than their colleagues elsewhere. (The OLCC has a guide to starting a craft distillery on the front page of its website.) So it’s fitting that the American Distilling Institute, an eight-yearold organization dedicated to supporting and educating craft distillers, is holding its annual conference in Portland this year. While the conference’s many spirits tastings and lectures aren’t open to the public, we will have a chance to benefit from the presence of hundreds of distillers, thanks to the Oregon Distillers Guild: This Friday, some 40 distilleries will pour their wares at TOAST (The Oregon Artisan Spirit Tasting), an open-bar gathering at Tiffany Center. For $40 you can have all the samples you can stomach from such respected local producers as Clear Creek, House Spirits and Bull Run Distilling, plus out-of-towners like Tuthilltown Spirits (of New York), Sound Spirits (of Seattle) and Montanya Distillers (of Silverton, Colo.). Bartenders from the Oregon Bartenders Guild, including Park Kitchen’s Adam Robinson, Metrovino’s Jacob Grier and H50’s Nathan Gerdes will be on hand to pour samples of original cocktails using local and guest craft spirits, including the new batch of Oregon’s Imbue Vermouth, White Dog Whiskey from Washington’s Woodinville Whiskey Co., and barrel-aged gin from Corsair Distillery in Nashville, Tenn. Mayor Sam Adams will be the guest of honor, for whatever that’s worth. And unlike at Portland’s existing Great American Distillers Festival, there will be no fiddling with drink tickets, which is hard to do when you’re 15 tastes in. BEN WATERHOUSE. DRINK IT: TOAST at the Tiffany Center, 1410 SW Morrison St., second floor. 4-9 pm Friday, April 8. $40 at the door. See oregondistillersguild.org for further details.

BEST BREAKFAST

BURRITOS in PDX! Sundays 9:30-2:30 Our drinks are pretty awesome too.

C RU Z RO OM NE 24th & Alberta • cruzroom.com Willamette Week APRIL 6, 2011 wweek.com

Willamette Week APRIL 6, 2011 wweek.com

MUSIC

APRIL 6 - 12 SCIENCE

= WW Pick. Highly recommended. Prices listed are sometimes for advance ticket sales. At-the-door increases and socalled convenience charges may apply. Event lineups are subject to change after WW’s press deadlines. Editors: CASEY JARMAN, MICHAEL MANNHEIMER. TO BE CONSIDERED FOR LISTINGS, go to wweek.com/submitevents and follow submission directions. All shows should be submitted two weeks or more in advance of event. Press kits, CDs and especially vinyl can be sent to Music Desk, WW, 2220 NW Quimby St., Portland, OR 97210. Please include show or release date information with all physical mailings. Email: cjarman@wweek.com, mmannheimer@wweek.com. Fax: 243-1115.

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 6 The Needful Longings, Thee Headliners, Welcome Home Walker

[PAST AND PRESENT] Supergroup alert! The Needful Longings is the new project of Sean Croghan, a longtime staple in the local music scene as the leader of much-loved ’90s alternative bands Crackerbash and Jr. High, plus the thrash punk of Rapids. The Needful Longings lineup also features Chris Slusarenko (Guided By Voices, Boston Spaceships), Jim Talstra (the Dharma Bums, Maroons) and Paulie Pulverenti (Atomic 61, Jr. High, Elliott Smith), and Croghan says the band is “playing and writing sad songs that you could and should dance to.” Tonight’s show is a benefit for House of Sound radio, where Croghan has been DJ’ing with his buddy DJ HWY 7 on Monday nights for the past few years. MICHAEL MANNHEIMER. Fez Ballroom, 316 SW 11th Ave., 221-7262. 7:30 pm. $5.

Guidance Counselor, Ghost Animal, Blast Majesty, MSG

[HOPPED UP ON PSYCHOCANDY] Plenty of bands have taken on the influence of the first two albums by the Jesus & Mary Chain, but there are few that capture the essence of that feedback-laden, ’60s pop-inspired sound better than the duo known as Ghost Animal. It’s not only the visual aesthetic of watching Marisa Rowland pound on a stand-up drum kit with mallets à la JAMC first drummer Bobby Gillespie, but it’s also the vicious squalls of sound that singerguitarist Michael Avishay tears out of himself and his instrument. Come for the deconstruction of New Order’s “Ceremony.” Stay for the blistering originals. ROBERT HAM. Holocene, 1001 SE Morrison St., 239-7639. 8:30 pm. $5. 21+.

Michael Dean Damron, Heart Full of Snakes

[SINGER-SOUTHERN-SONGWRITER] Michael Dean Damron can write some damn good songs. He has done so with his band, I Can Lick any Sonofabitch in the House, and he has done so on his own. But Damron starts his new disc, Plea From a Ghost, with “Dolls,” a clichéd tune that sounds torn off the dark end of the modern country dial. There’s an emotional authenticity in Damron’s delivery that saves the tune from feeling like hucksterism, but it’s a poor tracking decision right off the bat. For those that stick with the album, there are plenty of tunes worth waiting for—the patient title track and the heart-on-sleeve “Broken Bottle” both speak to Damron’s significant songwriting talent; “The Devil Meets the Longhaired Weirdo” is packed with Tom Waits-style charm. But it’s a thin line between Bruce Springsteen’s sentimentality and Red Sovine’s melodramatic overkill—and it’s hard to get a record back on track when it opens with a five-minute tune that’s squarely in the latter category. CASEY JARMAN. LaurelThirst, 2958 NE Glisan St., 2321504. 9 pm. Free. 21+.

Danielson, Old Light, 1939 Ensemble

[PSYCHO-DELIC] Daniel Christopher Smith, a.k.a. Brother Danielson, is not your average purveyor of psychedelia. Not content just pushing acid-laced grooves and head-trippy beats, the New Jersey oddball has assembled an army of musicians for his recent Best of Gloucester County, slamming out bizarro keys and hammering on glockenspiel over the singer’s crackedout, high-pitched call-and-response melodies. The psycho-poppy-folksyrock result is what Muppet troupe the

Riverbottom Nightmare Band might sound like if Gene Ween took production duties—dark, slightly psychotic, infectious, dreamy and wholly original. AP KRYZA. Mississippi Studios, 3939 N Mississippi Ave., 288-3895. 9 pm. $12. 21+.

Invivo, Sexhair, Granada

[GRRRL POWER] In the history of rock there are a few band names that capture an act’s sound perfectly. Portland’s own all-girl punk outfit Sex Hair—which quite literally describes its sound as “hair that occurs during and after sex”—fancies itself one such group. Like many of Portland’s notorious lo-fi punk acts, Sexhair is keen on releasing its music on cassette (à la Gnartapes labelmates Boom! and White Fang). But even a digital listen reveals the pulse of frizzy punk structures and sexual shrieks that ride a righteous wave of self-proclaimed women’s liberation via 4-track. Taking cues from Hole and Bikini Kill, the carnal energy is actually enhanced in the flesh. Which is to say that—like the dirty deed itself—most of Sexhair’s recorded tracks aren’t truly that great... but at least you’re getting some, right? KEVIN DAVIS. Plan B, 1305 SE 8th Ave., 230-9020. 8 pm. 21+.

THURSDAY, APRIL 7 Ravishers, Derby, Red Jacket Mine

[THE WAY TO GET BY] There’s more than a little bit of Spoon to Portland pop-rock band Ravishers. The first thing you hear on “Underachievers,” the lead single from the band’s three-yearsin-the-making self-titled debut, is singer Dominic Castillo’s muted cough and declaration, “This is gonna be it, this is gonna be the take.” Ravishers, Castillo’s project with guitarist Jonathan Barker, veer toward the same carefully mannered studio perfection as Britt Daniel: Guitars scratch, pianos pound, and bits of studio tomfoolery make the final cut. Fortunately, Castillo’s songwriting is top-notch, from infectious opener “I’m Not Him” to “Keep You Around,” a bouncing pop song that appeared on last year’s PDX Pop Now! compilation and sounds just as sweet these days. MICHAEL MANNHEIMER. Doug Fir Lounge, 830 E Burnside St., 231-9663. 9 pm. $8 advance, $10 day of show. 21+.

Visitor, Jefre Cantu-Ledesma, Indignant Senility

[MOUNTAINS OF SOUND] If you have a penchant for far-reaching and experimental sounds, tonight’s bill at Holocene is manna from heaven. It starts with the lost-in-deep-space panoramas of Pat Maherr, who is playing under the name Indignant Senility. From there it moves into deeper expanses created by the devastatingly talented Jefre Cantu-Ledesma, whose vast discography is filled with crackling, carbonated noise and melody. The night closes with Visitor, the collaboration between Liz Harris (a.k.a. Grouper) and guitarist Ilyas Ahmed that explodes like a particularly viscous acid-base reaction (or an acid-bass reaction, depending on your predilections). Good stuff all around. ROBERT HAM. Holocene, 1001 SE Morrison St., 239-7639. 8:30 pm. $7. 21+.

Giant Panda Guerilla Dub Squad, Kevin Kinsella

[WHITE BOI RUDEBOYS] Giant Panda Guerilla Dub Squad nails reggae, with pulsing rhythmic beats and soaring organs indicative of the genuine article. But while it’s a sincere form of flattery, it’s still imitation: Occasional feigned Jamaican accents and staccato beats don’t change the fact that this “roots” music is made by hippies with actual

THE SOUL’D-OUT MUSIC FEST LOOKS AMAZING. BUT WHAT DOES “SOUL” EVEN MEAN? BY CASEY JA R MA N

cjarman@wweek.com

When we saw the initial lineup for this year’s Soul’d Out Music Festival, our jaws dropped. Lauryn Hill? Mos Def? Ellis Marsalis? Ice Cube? It was a big-time lineup, and a diverse one at that. And let’s face it—Portland can use all the star power and diversity it can get. But how many of the acts headlining the festival would refer to themselves as “soul” musi-

cians? Soulful, sure—but despite all the talk lately of an American soul resurgence (with Janelle Monáe and Sharon Jones at the helm), it’s a little hard to identify exactly what qualifies as “soul”—neo or otherwise—these days. So we plunked some Al Green on the stereo, ran a hot bath and devised a list of categories that should scientifically prove—once and for all—which of Soul’d Out’s headliners are the most...you know, soulful. And you just can’t argue with science. SEE IT: The Soul’d Out Music Festival runs April 7-17 at various venues. Ticket prices and age restrictions vary. See music calendar or souldoutfestival.com for info.

CONT. on page 35 Willamette Week APRIL 6, 2011 wweek.com

Exten

MS LA

Movi

8pm

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APRIL

Willamette Week APRIL 6, 2011 wweek.com

Soul’d out muSIC FeStIvAl – All oN SAle NoW – WWW.SouldoutFeStIvAl.Com

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8pm

RONNIE LAWS

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SAFEWAY-MUSIC MILLENNIUM

THURSDAY - SATURDAY PROFILE

JUSTINE MURPHY

roots in Rochester, N.Y. It’s good, solid reggae music, and who knows, only three years and one album in, the band has garnered a great following. Perhaps with more time, Giant Panda will drop the posturing in favor of a sound better tailored to its considerable musical talent. AP KRYZA. Mississippi Studios, 3939 N Mississippi Ave., 288-3895. 9 pm. $15. 21+.

MUSIC

FRIDAY, APRIL 8 Typhoon, And And And, Brainstorm

See album review, page 38. Doug Fir Lounge, 830 E Burnside St., 231-9663.

Buck and Bounce 5: Big Freedia, Rusty Lazer, Beyondadoubt

[THE FILTHY SOUTH] Shit’s about to get nasty. Like, sex-on-the-floorof-a-gas-station-restroom nasty. So goes the bounce music of New Orleans, a scene that’s about nothing but pure, unhinged carnality (and maybe a little bit about getting drunk, too). Both Rusty Lazer and Beyondadoubt—DJs from the Big Easy and right here in Portland, respectively—are well-versed in the stuff, soundtracking dance-floor hedonism at clubs and block parties across the country. And everyone in Stumptown should know Big Freedia by now. The undisputed queen of the gay-centric offshoot known as “sissy bounce” has played here four times in the past year and was one of the breakout stars of MusicfestNW 2010, where she gave Into the Woods its most NSFW performance ever with a surprise appearance at Sassy’s. Holocene should probably give out full-body condoms at the door for this one. MATTHEW SINGER. Holocene, 1001 SE Morrison St., 2397639. 9 pm. $14 advance. 21+.

Ice Cube, Luck-One

[GANGSTA GRANDDAD] You’d be forgiven for thinking NWA O.G. Ice Cube hung up his mic to re-establish himself as a sneering teddy bear in terrible children’s movies. Cube can still spit, but it’s difficult to buy his talk of gangsta shit like shooting motherfuckers, selling drugs and fucking bitches these days. His 2010 album, I Am the West, sounded like more of a tribute album than his old (downright legendary) self, and while his trademark aggression is still there, it isn’t quite so convincing. Best just to remember the bitches-and-moneyera Cube who got money by hustling, not by letting woodland critters smack him in his formerly swinging nuts on screen. AP KRYZA. Roseland Theater, 8 NW 6th Ave., 219-9929 (Grill), 224-2038 (Theater). 8:30 pm. $30 advance, $35 day of show.

Kathryn Claire, with UHF, Kathryn Claire, My Autumn’s Done Come

[CELTIC FOLK ROCK] After somewhat tentative steps into a solo career, Portland singer-fiddler Kathryn Claire (late of Circled by Hounds and Toad in the Hole) blossoms on new, third release Morning Comes Too Soon. Co-produced by Claire and her brother Andrew Lorish, the album exhibits a lush atmosphere and confident artistry that make for one of the best-sounding local listens I’ve had in a while. Claire’s rich, bell-clear alto and precise playing serve her songs with emotional generosity and evident sincerity. The Celt-inflected folk-rock sound occasionally evokes high-water marks of the genre, such as the string-laden sublimity of Van Morrison’s Veedon Fleece—not a comparison I’d make lightly, although Claire’s songwriting, while perfectly solid and clearly improving, doesn’t yet meet that bar. JEFF ROSENBERG. The Secret Society Ballroom, 116 NE Russell St. 9 pm. Cover. 21+.

SATURDAY, APRIL 9 Lauryn Hill, Hot 8 Brass Band

[FUGUEY] A lot of Miseducation can be a dangerous thing. There’s no

CONT. on page 36

WITCH MOUNTAIN SATURDAY, APRIL 9 [DOOM METAL] In the late ’70s, the musical movement known as the “new wave of British heavy metal” was born. Inspired by the trudging blues of bands like Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath—as well as the hard fury of the punk scene—this version of metal was faster and angrier than its contemporaries, and given to flights of lyrical and instrumental fancy. The acts that rode this wave—Iron Maiden, Motörhead and Saxon, among them—begat every strain of metal that you heard growing up and that is still with us today: glam, technical, stoner, black, doom, etc., etc., ad infinitum. Whether you realize it or not, there’s a similar groundswell happening around our neck of the woods. Oregon and Washington have spawned a ridiculous number of ridiculously talented bands (call it the new wave of Northwest heavy metal) that are following the thread strung along by their British forebears and pushing the genre in audacious new directions. And the impact of recent work by Portland bands like Agalloch, Rabbits and Red Fang (as well as Christian Mistress, Helms Alee and Throne of Bone from up north) is starting to be felt worldwide. One group, in particular—doom metal quartet Witch Mountain—has the very real potential to be the leading force among this current crop of acts. National and international press is calling for interviews. NPR is going to showcase a song from the band’s new album. Fans are still raving about the group’s fantastic set at this year’s SXSW festival. And it only took Witch Mountain 14 years to get to this point. “We released our last album, Come the Mountain, in 2001,” remembers founding guitarist Rob Wrong, “and we just got sidetracked. I used to be married and had a couple of kids. [Bassist] Dave [Hoopaugh] had a daughter. Dave and I spent time doing Iommi Stubbs, the other band that we were in. So, that delayed things for six or seven years.” Witch Mountain is ready to take its rightful place in the spotlight with the release of its second LP, South of Salem. Having had 10 years to hone its attack, the band (which also features WW contributor Nathan Carson on drums) is an unyielding force that slowly oozes out of the speakers, carrying jagged riffs and trudging rhythms that stretch on for upward of 12 minutes per song. It’s not hyperbolic in the least to tag the album as “epic.” The weight of the music is being carried by the band’s most powerful force: vocalist Uta Plotkin. The 29-year-old gives Salem a bluesy edge (both Carson and Wrong compared her to Ann Wilson of the Seattle classic-rock act Heart) that helps separate Witch Mountain from the rest of the growling, screeching doom metal fray. Now that Witch Mountain’s new album is seeing the light of day, the plan is to “get serious again,” Carson says. He says his band is ready to ride its momentum even as it shifts to a more uptempo sound. “I just want to see where we go now that people are taking us seriously again. I regret that we didn’t create a bigger body of work over the last 10 years, but those albums wouldn’t have had Uta on them. I don’t want albums that don’t have her on them. That’s our sound now.” ROBERT HAM. Good metal takes time. Lots of time.

SEE IT: Witch Mountain plays Backspace on Saturday, April 9, with Wizard Rifle, Nether Regions and Rabbits. 9 pm. Cover. All ages. Willamette Week APRIL 6, 2011 wweek.com

MUSIC

SATURDAY

real sense that Lauryn Hill either anticipated nor particularly enjoyed her sudden coronation as queen of the all-encompassing pop-rapR&B hybrid scoring American lives the past decade—directly reverseengineered from the least meaningful elements of her 1998 solo debut—and it’s all too clear how she views her responsibilities to increasingly dissatisfied subjects, on the verge of revolt ever since Fergie ascended the empty throne as duchess regent. While the media has tended to psychoanalyze Hill’s avoidance of massive celebrity, it seems equally likely that she’s extending natural hesitancies and heightening hauteur for a purpose. When your loyal fans complain of lessened range or addled phrasings, when folks bring hand-drawn signs to the arena presuming they’ll be displeased, why not start killing them softly? JAY HORTON. Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, 1037 SW Broadway, 248-4335. $55-$100.

The Baseball Project

[BATTER’S BOX ROCK] Aside from the occasional juicing scandal or hilarious outfield collision, Baseball Project is about the only interesting thing America’s Pastime has going for it. The quartet—consisting of R.E.M.’s Peter Buck and Scott McCaughey and the Miracle 3‘s Steve Wynn and Linda Pitmon— echoes this sentiment, focusing its recreational-rock powers on the folklore of baseball’s golden era, decades ago. It’s a real rarity to be able to play air guitar to tracks about Detroit Tiger Mark “The Bird” Fidrych or Carl Mays, the only player to literally kill a man with a pitch. Seventh-inning stretch music just doesn’t come any better than this. MARK STOCK. Bunk Bar, 1028 SE Water Ave., 894-9708. 9 pm. $12 advance, $14 day of show. 21+.

The Rural Alberta Advtantage, Lord Huron, Aan

muse is upstate Michigan, you move to stay warm. And when you’re Ben Schneider, the brain behind Lord Huron, you travel between genre tags, as well. Lord Huron’s only two recordings are EPs, composed and carried out entirely by Schneider himself: His airy vocals and atmospheric folk instrumentals make for a powerful jet stream, the winds of which artists like Jonsi and Ducktails would be proud to sail on. Lend a close ear to Lord Huron’s subtropical pulse, which is bigger with a backing band and so buoyant it begs for Ladysmith Black Mambazo’s participation (especially on “The Stranger,” one of the best songs of 2010). MARK STOCK. Doug Fir Lounge, 830 E Burnside St., 231-9663. 9 pm. $12. 21+.

Scala and Kolacny Brothers

[IT’S COMPLICATED] Safe to say, we think, that Scala and Kolacny Brothers were among the very top Belgian girl choirs to cover Metallica even before their haunting, transformative version of a Radiohead classic reached the ears of TimeWarner’s marketing team. It’s also not beyond the realm of possibility that one Internet meme or another could have sparked sufficient momentum to acquire U.S. distribution for the choir’s debut album and tour guarantees necessary to bring the act, which can reach as many as 200 women, over from the continent without Hollywood baggage. Their other covers, though, haven’t near the same power—“Champagne Supernova” seems mean, “Beautiful People” banal, “Isn’t It Ironic” an especially poor joke. Meanwhile, the brothers’ prog-tinged originals illustrate the limitations of choral arrangements for unfamous pop rock, and even if they’ve begun performing ’midst their own multimedia projections, we can’t imagine any visual component bettering the two-plus minutes of David

PINKFLAG.COM

[GREAT LAKE WINDS] When your

PRIMER

CONT. on page 38

BY MICHAEL MANNHEIMER

WIRE Formed: 1976 in London. Members: Colin Newman (guitar, vocals), Graham Lewis (bass, vocals), Robert Gotobed (drums) and Bruce Gilbert (guitar). Matt Simms (of It Hugs Back) replaces Gilbert for this tour. Sounds like: A thinking man’s punk band. Wire is snotty but sophisticated, like Johnny Rotten majoring in economics and philosophy. For fans of: Gang of Four, Buzzcocks, the Clash, Brian Eno, the Minutemen, early R.E.M. Latest release: Red Barked Tree, a refreshingly nostalgia-free set of punk and experimental tunes that proves the band’s third act isn’t a joke or an attempt to capitalize on its legendary early material. Why you care: For a three-year stretch in the late ’70s, Wire was the best punk band in the world, burning the boundaries of the genre by eschewing verse/chorus structures and embracing straight-ahead pop, deconstructed skronk and icy keyboard and guitar arrangements that pointed toward synth pop and goth. After the bare-bones, minimalist chug of legendary debut Pink Flag—which spawned minor hits in “Strange” (later covered by R.E.M.) and “12XU” (covered by Minor Threat)—the band basically wrote the first chapter of the book on post-punk by adding lurching atmospherics and electronics on 1978’s Chairs Missing and 1979’s 154. The group’s members disbanded in 1980, reformed in 1985 and gradually moved toward writing New Order-inspired dance music on 1990’s Manscape. Wire split again in 1992 before finally crystallizing in 2000 and releasing the fantastic comeback EP, Read & Burn 01. Wire still treats punk as an amorphous, innovative medium, never settling on one set sound, and the band’s penchant for risk-taking and sonic heaviness should be an example for the young Pitchfork bands who tend to find a niche and never branch out. SEE IT: Wire plays Dante’s on Tuesday, April 12. 9 pm. $20 advance, $25 day of show. 21+.

Willamette Week APRIL 6, 2011 wweek.com

MUSIC

SATURDAY - SUNDAY

Fincher footage that accompanied Scala’s “Creep” to serve as The Social Network’s trailer and ultimate apotheosis: an ineffable, transcendent moment of remove in which the starchild hive-mind tries to glean emotion through empty repetition. JAY HORTON. Roseland Theater, 8 NW 6th Ave., 219-9929 (Grill), 2242038 (Theater). 9 pm. $18 advance, $20 day of show. All ages.

Luck-One, Keak Da Sneak, Ben Darwish, Reva Devito, Gen.Erik

See album review, this page. The Crown Room, 205 NW 4th Ave., 2226655. 9:30 pm. $5. 21+.

SUNDAY, APRIL 10 Black Joe Lewis, Those Darlins

[RAW&B] To steal a phrase from the guy who writes the popular Twitter Discographies account, “You don’t have to reinvent the wheel to make a really nice set of tires.” He was talking about indie-rock legends Guided By Voices, but the idiom also applies to Austin’s Black Joe Lewis. Lewis doesn’t have any pretensions toward innovation. The music he makes with his band the Honeybears is pure vintage—1960s garage soul, raw and full-throated. But damn if it isn’t a well-crafted throwback. Across three albums, including the newly released Scandalous, Lewis has specialized in resurrecting the sound of Stax, all grungy guitars and gutbucket hollering. It’s nothing that hasn’t been heard before, but it’s made with heart and passion and sweaty energy. And sometimes, that’s more important than being unique. MATTHEW SINGER. Dante’s, 350 W Burnside St., 226-6630. 8 pm. $17 advance. 21+.

Lightning Bolt, Flexions, The Greys, DJ Yeti

[UNHINGED CHAOS] Every collegemusic nerd has one moment, usually early on in freshman year, that completely recalibrates his mind. I’d seen a lot of loud bands before— I think I’ve been partially deaf ever since standing directly in front of the speakers at Mogwai’s Crystal show in 2001, idiot—but when I first saw Lightning Bolt literally tear the Echo in Los Angeles to threads my whole world expanded. Never before had a band done so much with so little: just a drummer, the otherworldly Brian Chippendale and a bassist, Brian Gibson, playing in the middle of the crowd for 30 intense minutes, makeshift masks covering their faces as limbs flew in every imaginable direction. Years later, Lightning Bolt is still one of the best live bands around, and 2009’s Earthly Delights serves as a stunning document of what noise music can be when played by dudes who could be in jazz bands. See you in the pit. MICHAEL MANNHEIMER. Holocene, 1001 SE Morrison St., 2397639. 8:30 pm. $12. 21+.

Pigeons, Sam Humans and the Light, Besties

[ROCK] Sam Humans has found his calling. The Portland singer-songwriter’s other band, Modernstate, could be powerful and rocking and laid-back at any given moment— but it could also be a little too... Sam Humans. An imposing figure onstage, the deep-voiced and bearded Humans is now flanked by two players—bassist Matt Genz and drummer David “Papi” Fimbres— who complement him by matching his musicality and, perhaps more importantly, his onstage intensity. New 10-inch Live Free/Let Loose is an admirable attempt to capture the band’s powerful live show on wax, but these guys still have to be seen to be truly appreciated. CASEY JARMAN. Mississippi Studios, 3939 N Mississippi Ave., 288-3895. 9 pm. Free. 21+.

Afro-Cuban All Stars

[EMBARGOED JAZZ] I wonder whether the reliably Republican Cuban Floridians still seething about the events of 1959 realized their

CONT. on page 41 38

Willamette Week APRIL 6, 2011 wweek.com

ALBUM REVIEWS

TYPHOON A NEW KIND OF HOUSE (TENDER LOVING EMPIRE) [BIG-KID POP] It’s a delicate balance we seek from our favorite bands: We want them, upon releasing new material, to take us somewhere familiar, but we don’t want them to go where they’ve already taken us. The much-ballyhooed sophomore slump is usually chalked up to one or the other: A band grows in an unnatural direction or doesn’t seem to grow at all. Typhoon’s A New Kind of House is an attempt to split the difference. More an addendum to last year’s Hunger and Thirst (Typhoon’s spiritual debut, if not its first disc) than a standalone release, the five-song disc gives nods to its predecessor on “The Honest Truth,” which cribs lyrics from Hunger and Thirst’s “Mouth of the Cave,” and the ambitious centerpiece “Claws Pt. 1,” the prequel to Hunger and Thirst’s finest track. But the EP also branches out to new territory—lyrically and musically—on “Summer Home,” which recalls Beirut and Paul Simon’s Graceland while tapping into a brighter side of the Portland collective than anything attempted on the previous disc. Its cascading refrains of “It’s how we start over” could themselves soundtrack the closing credits of the AMC series of your choice, but the band is wise not to linger on these joyful noises. A New Kind of House ends on a pair of pretty, low-key downers, “Kitchen Tile” and “Firewood,” both songs that linger on themes— growing up, disease, domesticity—that successfully tie the EP together as a self-contained work and prove Kyle Morton’s smart, emotive lyricism doesn’t need an orchestra behind it to stand out. The dual closers also perform the important service of toning down Typhoon’s live shows, which had begun to run a strange risk: They were getting too epic. It’s a good problem to have and, right now, Typhoon is one hell of a band to be. CASEY JARMAN.

LUCK-ONE TRUE THEORY (FOCUSED NOISE) [HIP-HOP] Luck-One is nothing if not enthusiastic. The MC’s bombastic excitement is understandable, considering he spent most of the aughts in prison. And that stint also explains why, since 2009, Luck—Hanif Collins to his folks—has been all hustle and brimstone: He raps like a fiery Southern preacher after one too many cappuccinos. On last year’s True Theory Outtakes EP, it was almost too much passion: So fired up was the promising young MC that he rarely stopped to breathe, leaving the listener in awe of Collins’ wellhoned verbal skills but questioning his control of tone. Those questions have been answered. All of Luck’s passions— for politics, for theology and, above all, for words—filter into the verses of True Theory. Here we get a full portrait of the artist: The Malcolm X-sampling radical on “Resistance”; the observant student of life on “Sounds of My City”; the religious historian on “Monotheism.” Stylistically, too, Luck shows his breadth: “Listen to the Rain” is a near-spoken-word affirmation painted in cool tones; “Palestine,” a song with verses so rich it doesn’t need (nor have) any real hook to speak of, comes out appropriately machine-gun fast. Even when he’s rapping alongside guest stars—Illmaculate, Sonny and Toni Hill among them—Luck is clearly the ringmaster. That said, True Theory remains an explosive record; there are moments where the listener wishes Collins would take a deep breath and slow things down for a minute. But the album’s three “skits”—verbose spoken passages from what one assumes are the pages of Luck’s journal—provide insight to the rapper’s spunky disposition: The guy’s brain, like his songs, moves a mile a minute. For Luck, True Theory was like a release valve and there wasn’t much of a filter on what came out. For the rest of us, it’s just a jaw-dropping debut. As he says on “The Real Me,” though, “I’m feeling like there are so many more steps ahead of me than there are behind me.” I can’t wait to watch Luck climb those steps. CASEY JARMAN. SEE IT. Typhoon plays Doug Fir on Friday, April 8. $10 advance, $12 day of show. 21+. Luck-One plays the Crown Room on Saturday, April 9. $5. 21+. See listings for details.

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UPCOMING IN-STORE PERFORMANCES A ROCKET TO THE MOON FRIDAY 4/8 @ 5PM

A Rocket To The Moon— singer Nick Santino, guitarist Justin Richards, bassist Eric Halvorsen and former The Receiving End Of Sirens drummer Andrew Cook—have put their collective experiences into the band’s fulllength debut ‘On Your Side,’ an instantly infectious collection of upbeat pop music that was produced by Matt Squire (Panic! At The Disco, Boys Like Girls).

ALICIA BROUSSARD SATURDAY 4/9 @ 5PM

Currently a full-time singer/songwriter based in Los Angeles, California, Alicia spends her time writing haunting, memorable melodies and lyrics that are paired with hooky and loveable riffs. A proven songwriting talent, Alicia has co-written on over a dozen indie albums. Her new album is titled ‘Miss U. Dig U. Love U.’

THOSE DARLINS

SUNDAY 4/10 @ 3PM

Four years have gone by since Nikki, Jessi, and Kelley Darlin spat in their palms and slapped hands in a three-way promise that would become Those Darlins. Since then, they’ve broken hearts and broken bones, all the while honing their chops and gaining a lifetime of experiences. ‘Screws Get Loose’ is their second album--and the first to show off drummer Linwood Regensburg stepping up... as a songwriter.

THE LONELY FOREST MONDAY 4/11 @ 6:30PM

From the outset The Lonely Forest —singer/guitarist/keyboardist John Van Deusen, guitarist Tony Ruland, drummer Braydn Krueger, and bassist Eric Sturgeon— has been about inclusion. In 2005, a raucous garage session inspired the guys (Braydn, Tony, and Eric) to join forces with Van Deusen’s piano-pop. Since their first show, The Lonely Forest have racked up miles; steadily becoming heroes of the Northwest all-ages scene through relentless gigging around the region.

AGESANDAGES

TUESDAY 4/12 @ 5:30PM

“Armed with dense, tent revival vocal harmonies and capturing a sense of exuberance and earnestness that has the potential to disarm even the most cynical listeners. ‘Alright You Restless’ is an exercise in balance, maintaining enough ebullience to be engaging and uplifting without feeling theatrical or manic. This is a line that AgesandAges walk artfully, making their debut album one that’ll leave fans hungry for a follow-up.” - All Music

RECORD STORE DAY • SATURDAY 4/16 8AM – 10PM

Willamette Week APRIL 6, 2011 wweek.com

SUNDAY - TUESDAY

MUSIC LIVE MUSIC FULL BAR FOOD FUN

Thursday April 7th Alan Hager Duo 8pm Friday April 8th Lloyd Jones 9pm ALL THE YOUNG DUDES: The Needful Longings play the Fez Ballroom on Wednesday. votes, which made the 2000 U.S. presidential election close enough to steal, wound up depriving the nation of Cuban music as well? Buena Vista Social Club impresario Juan de Marcos says that subsequent politically inspired travel restrictions stymied his attempts to bring musicians from the embargoed island here. So he turned to a dozen-plus crack Cuban-born expatriate players and colleagues, who’ve performed with the original BVSC members or backed other musicians like James Brown, Dizzy Gillespie and Sting. Spanning several generations of Cubano musicians, the current lineup of this accomplished jazz orchestra performs both Cuban classics and contemporary sounds rooted in those irresistible dance rhythms. The Cuban diaspora demonstrates that the island’s rich music is too potent to keep confined or embargoed to a single place or time. BRETT CAMPBELL. Wonder Ballroom, 128 NE Russell St., 2848686. 7 pm. $20 advance, $25 day of show. All ages.

6 million albums, but it certainly applies to Raphael Saadiq. Even after generating a cadre of wellremembered R&B hits in the early ’90s with Tony! Toni! Toné!, producing major records by TLC and D’Angelo, and releasing a string of critically praised solo discs, the Oakland-born singer-songwriter multi-instrumentalist is still something of a cult figure in the world of modern soul. Hell, he couldn’t even get name-checked on this year’s Grammy broadcast after he and his band backed up Mick freakin’ Jagger. Little is likely to change with Stone Rollin’, the upcoming follow-up to 2008’s expert Motown revival, The Way I See It, but that works in favor of those who know what’s up: It keeps Saadiq’s live shows confined to smaller venues like the Wonder, allowing his sweatdrenched performances—featuring songs spanning his entire career— to explode in the proper environment. MATTHEW SINGER. Wonder Ballroom, 128 NE Russell St., 2848686. 8 pm. $22 advance, $23 day of show. All ages.

MONDAY, APRIL 11

TUESDAY, APRIL 12

Louis Hayes

[JAZZ GIANT] Just another legend’s apparition on Jimmy Mak’s humble stage. While his name’s not as well known as some percussionists of his era, elder statescat Louis Hayes was one of the men who put the “hard” into hard bop with the legendary Cannonball Adderly Quintet. He also drummed with the Oscar Peterson Trio, as well as for the likes of Dexter Gordon, Yusef Lateef, Horace Silver, McCoy Tyner, Freddie Hubbard, Cecil Taylor, and some guy named John Coltrane (on the latter’s classic 1958 reading of “Lush Life”). What’s Hayes done for you lately? He has released five strong albums as a session leader in the past decade alone, including last year’s acclaimed Lou’s Idea. Dude does not look his 74 years—or play like ’em, either. JEFF ROSENBERG. Jimmy Mak’s, 221 NW 10th Ave., 295-6542. 7 pm. $20 advance, $25 day of show. 21+.

The Joy Formidable, The Lonely Forest

[THE EVERLASTING GAZE] Though it’s still early, I doubt any song will top the Joy Formidable’s “Whirring” in my end-of-year poll. The centerpiece of the Welsh trio’s outstanding full-length debut, The Big Roar, it’s a rare breed of rock single that has both balls and bravado, a rushing blast of powerful, superhuman drumming and Conquer the World guitars. There’s no doubt that the Joy Formidable wants to headline festivals, as its anthemic sound is a 21st-century update of classic Britpop, gauzy Smashing Pumpkins feedback and Kim Deal rage. The Big Roar is endlessly fun, way too long, and bloated with gratuitous codas and six-minute songs—but playing “Whirring” on repeat, I can’t help but smile and jump up and down in sheer joy. MICHAEL MANNHEIMER. Mississippi Studios, 3939 N Mississippi Ave., 288-3895. 9 pm. $12. All ages.

Raphael Saadiq, Quadron

[STILL RAY] “Underrated” isn’t a term typically attached to an artist who was part of a group that sold

Saturday April 9th

Midnight Serenaders

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Upper Left Trio

(Clay Giberson, Jeff Leonard and Charlie Doggett)

Monday April 11th

Renato Caranto’s Funk Band 8pm

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music 7 nights a week

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Francis and the Lights

[NEO-’80s POP] The story goes that when Al Stewart first heard Pet Shop Boys’ “West End Girls,” he phoned his manager claiming no recollection of having recorded the track. Peter Gabriel could be forgiven for similarly tweeting his minders upon encountering NYC indie-lectro popsters Francis and the Lights. The group’s tunage, on its great full-length debut, It’ll Be Better, is closer to “Solsbury Hill” than “Games Without Frontiers,” in the and Francis Farewell Starlite’s wed tight-throated vocals so patently DEC with dj cooky $ evoke Gabriel’s that one might

THIS WEEK

“ cooky jar”

A Soul Night

swearDOORS it a conscious 8PM, dancing affectation, 9PM but the frontman has disavowed any affinity for Gabriel’s music— claiming as his greatest influence that legendary duo Strunk and White. Perhaps, then, the earlyPrince pastiches on 2008 EP A Modern mere p i c kPromise at h o n p r eare s e n another ts coincidence. But with a production credit on a Drake track and sat benefit festival to support propsAarts from Kanye and MGMT, it’s education at Buckman feb Portland Schools Foundation $ clear&feat. his and ERICmusic—throwbacks D. JOHNSON (of Fruit Bats) ANDY CABIC (of Vetiver) all—is being rightfully embraced by & RICHARD SWIFT progressive artists and audiences. JEFF ROSENBERG. Peter’s Room, 8 NW 6th Ave., 219-9929. 8 pm. $17. All ages.

BENEFEST

Foals, Freelance Whales, The Naked and Famous

[BASKING IN THE AFTERGLOW] Maturity is a hard thing for any contemporary band to achieve, let alone over the course of just two albums. Yet, the Oxford, England, quartet Foals managed to ratchet back the fury that marked the dance-punk sound of its 2008 debut on its follow-up, Total Life Forever. The 2010 long-player is a long, lucid fever dream of gorgeous melodies and calmer tempos, albeit one that features moments of surprising beauty, like the glistening first single, “Spanish Sahara,” and the burbling “Alabaster.” There’s still plenty of tension in the creases of Foals’ songbook, but it’s the gorgeous landscapes of the main text that really make this band soar. ROBERT HAM. Wonder Ballroom, 128 NE Russell St., 284-8686. 8 pm. $14 advance, $15 day of show. All ages.

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PERFORMANCE

PAGE 42

STAGE•CLASSICAL•DANCE

Willamette Week APRIL 6, 2011 wweek.com

MUSIC CALENDAR = WW Pick. Highly recommended. Editor: Michael Mannheimer. TO HAVE YOUR EVENT LISTED, send show information at least two weeks in advance on the web at wweek.com/submitevents or (if you book a specific venue) enter your events at dbmonkey.com/wweek. Press kits, CDs and especially vinyl can be sent to Music Desk, WW, 2220 NW Quimby St., Portland, OR 97210. lease include show or release date information with all physical mailings. Email: mmannheimer@wweek.com. Find more music: reviews 31 For more listings, check out wweek.com/music_calendar

WED. APRIL 6 Alberta Rose Theatre

3000 NE Alberta St. A Hawaiian Evening With Makana

Alberta Street Public House

1036 NE Alberta St. Suck My Open Mic With Tamara J. Brown

Andina

1314 NW Glisan St. Pete Krebs

Ash Street Saloon

225 SW Ash St. Foreign Legion, Sapient, Serge Severe, Iame, Destro & L Pro, DJ Gen. Erik

Beauty Bar

111 SW Ash St. Baby Ketten Karaoke

Biddy McGraw’s

6000 NE Glisan St. Colleen Raney Trio (9 pm); Little Sue (6 pm)

Blue Monk

3341 SE Belmont St. Arabsque Bellydance

Branx

Buffalo Gap Saloon

6835 SW Macadam Ave. Buffalo Bandstand

Camellia Lounge 510 NW 11th Ave. Lennie Bird

Dante’s

350 W Burnside St. Jedi Mindf*ck

Doug Fir Lounge

830 E Burnside St. Western Family, HEMA, The Pretty Deep

Duff’s Garage

1635 SE 7th Ave. Suburban Slim’s Blues Jam (9:30 pm), Chris Olson’s High Flyers (6 pm)

Ella Street Social Club 714 SW 20th Place Forget All Rock Taught You, Ether Circus, Bitterroot

Fez Ballroom

316 SW 11th Ave. House of Sound Benefit: The Needful Longings, Thee Headliners, Welcome Home Walker

Good Neighbor Pizzeria

LaurelThirst

2958 NE Glisan St. Michael Dean Damron, Heart Full of Snakes

Goodfoot Lounge

Matador

Gypsy Restaurant & Lounge 625 NW 21st Ave. Goldfish Racing

Gypsy Restaurant & Lounge 625 NW 21st Ave. Stone White

Hawthorne Theatre Lounge 1503 SE 39th Ave. Rockstar Karaoke

Holocene

1001 SE Morrison St. Guidance Counselor, Ghost Animal, Blast Majesty, MSG

Jimmy Mak’s

221 NW 10th Ave. Mel Brown Quartet

LaurelThirst

2958 NE Glisan St. Norman, The Vicious Kisses

The Crown Room

Mudai

The Heathman Restaurant and Bar

4811 SE Hawthorne Blvd. Midnight Expressions 801 NE Broadway Vox Populi Karaoke

Muddy Rudder Public House 8105 SE 7th Ave. Sleepy Eyed Johns

800 NE Dekum St. Open Mic 2845 SE Stark St. Asher Fulero’s Dot.organ

Mt. Tabor Theater

1967 W Burnside St DJ Whisker Friction

McMenamins Edgefield Winery 2126 SW Halsey St. Casey Hurt

McMenamins Rock Creek Tavern

10000 Old Cornelius Pass Road Billy D’s Voodoo Lounge

Mississippi Pizza

3552 N Mississippi Ave. Quizissippi Trivia

Mississippi Pizza

3552 N Mississippi Ave. Benefit for Japan: Ryan Stively, Blue Tic, Kelly Bauman

Mississippi Studios

3939 N Mississippi Ave. Danielson, Old Light, 1939 Ensemble

Mt. Tabor Theater

4811 SE Hawthorne Blvd. New Rebelution, Binghi and the 7th Seal, DJ Brian Zion

Music Millennium

3158 E Burnside St. NIAYH

O’Connor’s Vault

7850 SW Capitol Highway Kit Garoutte on guitar

Papa G’s Vegan Organic Deli

2314 SE Division St. Billy Kennedy

Plan B

1305 SE 8th Ave. Invivo, Sexhair, Granada

Pub at the End of the Universe 4107 SE 28th Ave. Music on Mars Acoustic Showcase: Nathan Urcheck, Nickolas Matta

Slim’s Cocktail Bar 8635 N Lombard St. DJ DirtyNick

Someday Lounge

125 NW 5th Ave. Deux Ex-Machina, DJ Pan the Labrinyth, Illuminati Steele, Dj Twinkletits, Caddoc, Bombshel Bailey

Star Bar

639 SE Morrison St. DJ Kyle Webster

205 NW 4th Ave. Crush Drum and Bass

1001 SW Broadway Bill Beach

The Knife Shop at Kelly’s Olympian

426 SW Washington St. John Vecchiarelli, Her Ghost

Tonic Lounge

Jonathan Byrd, Chris Kokesh

Alberta Street Public House

Ash Street Saloon

1635 SE 7th Ave. Portland Playboys

1314 NW Glisan St. Tracy Kim Trio 225 SW Ash St. Granada, Tigress, The Bumpin Nastys

Backspace

Twilight Café and Bar

115 NW 5th Ave. First Thursday: Pixelometry

Valentine’s

232 SW Ankeny St. The Ocean Floor, Ruthann Friedman, Fort King

Vino Vixens Wine Shop & Bar 2929 SE Powell Blvd. 6bq9

Vino Vixens Wine Shop & Bar 2929 SE Powell Blvd. Autumnal Bliss: 6bq9

White Eagle Saloon 836 N Russell St. Mars Retrieval Unit

THURS. APRIL 7 Alberta Rose Theatre 3000 NE Alberta St.

Doug Fir Lounge

Andina

3100 NE Sandy Blvd. The Weekly Recurring Humor Night: Whitney Streed 1420 SE Powell Blvd. RansackRadio.com Live every Wednesday: Heart Attack High, I Rackon, Her Death and After

Preservation Hall Jazz Band, MarchFourth Marching Band 830 E Burnside St. Ravishers, Derby, Red Jacket Mine

1036 NE Alberta St. Sloe Gin Fizz

115 NW 5th Ave. Michele Wylen

Backspace

Bar Mestizo at Andina 1314 NW Glisan St. Tracy Kim

Biddy McGraw’s

6000 NE Glisan St. John Ross (9:30 pm); The Don of Division St. (6 pm)

Blue Monk

3341 SE Belmont St. Alan Hager Duo

Buffalo Gap Saloon

6835 SW Macadam Ave. Brian Krichevsky

Camellia Lounge 510 NW 11th Ave. Tree Top Tribe

Duff’s Garage

Ella Street Social Club 714 SW 20th Place Ghost Animal, Vacant Fever, Cousins, Duzheknew

Goodfoot Lounge

2845 SE Stark St. Left Coast Country, Jimmy Robb, Dave Clarke

Gypsy Restaurant & Lounge 625 NW 21st Ave. Karaoke Kings

Gypsy Restaurant & Lounge 625 NW 21st Ave. Anthony Brady

Hawthorne Theatre Lounge

1503 SE 39th Ave. Savoir Faire Burlesque

Hawthorne Theatre

3862 SE Hawthorne Blvd. Heaven Generation, Hellokopter, Disco for Deer, Four Season Tree

Holocene

430 N Killingsworth St. Steve Kerin

1001 SE Morrison St. Visitor, Jefre CantuLedesma, Indignant Senility

Crystal Ballroom

Jimmy Mak’s

Chapel Pub

1332 W Burnside St.

221 NW 10th Ave. Mel Brown B3 Organ Group

Kennedy School

D AV I D C O O P E R

320 SE 2nd Ave.

Protest the Hero, Maylene and the Sons of Disaster, TesseracT, Icarus the Owl

[APRIL 6 - 12]

5736 NE 33rd Ave. Christabel and the Jons

LaurelThirst

2958 NE Glisan St. Lewi Longmire Band

LaurelThirst

2958 NE Glisan St. Whistlepunk!, Nick Peets

McMenamins Edgefield Winery 2126 SW Halsey St. Casey Hurt

McMenamins Grand Lodge 3505 Pacific Ave. Jaime Leopold

McMenamins Rock Creek Tavern

10000 Old Cornelius Pass Road Lynn Conover and Gravel

Mississippi Pizza

3552 N Mississippi Ave. Loose Change

Mississippi Studios

3939 N Mississippi Ave. Giant Panda Guerilla Dub Squad, Kevin Kinsella

Mock Crest Tavern 3435 N Lombard St. Laura Invancie

Mt. Tabor Theater Lounge

4811 SE Hawthorne Blvd 7th Planet Picture Show

Mt. Tabor Theater Lounge

4811 SE Hawthorne Blvd Mexican Gunfight, The Mostest

Mt. Tabor Theater

4811 SE Hawthorne Blvd. Elephant Revival, Head for the Hills, Shook Twins

Muddy Rudder Public House

8105 SE 7th Ave. Lauren Sheehan and Bill Uhlig

Papa G’s Vegan Organic Deli

MAGIC MAN: Dr. Lonnie Smith plays Mississippi Studios on Thursday, April 14. (We got so excited we had to tell you a week early.)

2314 SE Division St. Andrew Orr, Jen Howard

Willamette Week APRIL 6, 2011 wweek.com

MUSIC

CALENDAR Ella Street Social Club 714 SW 20th Place The Cuts United, Merkin, Oden

Goodfoot Lounge

2845 SE Stark St. Pert Near Sandstone, The Dust Settlers

Gypsy Restaurant & Lounge 625 NW 21st Ave. Karaoke

Hawthorne Theatre Lounge

1503 SE 39th Ave. Katie Roberts, Your Father’s Pocket Watch

Hawthorne Theatre

3862 SE Hawthorne Blvd. Seeds of Corruption, Shadow of Apollo, Skies Above Reason, Gladhander

Jimmy Mak’s

STRAIGHT OUTTA ROCHESTER: Giant Panda Guerilla Dub Squad plays Mississippi Studios on Thursday. Plan B

1305 SE 8th Ave. Cootie Platoon, Beyond Veronica, Bison Bison

Secret Society Lounge 116 NE Russell St. Caleb Klauder Band, Johanna Divine, Stumptown Aces

Sellwood Public House 8132 SE 13th Ave. Open Mic Night

Slabtown

1033 NW 16th Ave. Sugar Sugar Sugar, Bugs, Fast Takers, The Pathogens

Slim’s Cocktail Bar

8635 N Lombard St. Blue Iris, The Tomorrow People

Someday Lounge

125 NW 5th Ave. The Fix: Rev. Shines, Kez, Dundiggy

Star Bar

639 SE Morrison St. DJ Unruly

The Heathman Restaurant and Bar 1001 SW Broadway Johnny Martin

The Knife Shop at Kelly’s Olympian

426 SW Washington St. Brother Elf, Terwilliger Curves, Lisa Savidge

The Woods

6637 SE Milwaukie Ave. Run on Sentence, Ezza Rose, Henry Hill

Tonic Lounge

3100 NE Sandy Blvd. Lee MacDougall, Solid State

Twilight Café and Bar 1420 SE Powell Blvd. Driftwood, T. Ray & the Shades, Harold Honey

Valentine’s

232 SW Ankeny St. DJ Champagne Jam

White Eagle Saloon

836 N Russell St. Bad Assets (8:30 pm); Will West and the Friendly Cover Up (5:30 pm)

FRIDAY, APRIL 8 Alberta Rose Theatre

3000 NE Alberta St. Third Angle New Music Ensemble Presents: “One Mississippi...”

Alberta Street Public House 1036 NE Alberta St. Mikey’s Irish Jam

Alberta Street Public House 1036 NE Alberta St. Odd Owl, De La Warr, Sucker for Lights

Andina

1314 NW Glisan St. Sambafeat Quartet

Ash Street Saloon 225 SW Ash St.

Dartgun and the Vignettes, Melodie Beirwagen, Advisory, Mollybolt

A Rocket to the Moon, Valencia, Anarbor, Runner Runner, Go Radio

Channel 3, Clackamas Baby Killers, Rum Rebellion, Ether Circus

Backspace

Holocene

1001 SE Morrison St. DJ Kev It Up

Redeemer Lutheran Church

115 NW 5th Ave. Bizzart, broken figures, Peter Chan, A. Madman, Citymouth

Bar Mestizo at Andina 1314 NW Glisan St. Sambafeat

Beauty Bar

Holocene

1001 SE Morrison St. Buck and Bounce 5: Big Freedia, Rusty Lazer, Beyondadoubt

Jimmy Mak’s

111 SW Ash St. Off Brand: Doc Adam

221 NW 10th Ave. Ronnie Laws Band and Marlon McClain

Biddy McGraw’s

LaurelThirst

6000 NE Glisan St. Fenbi International Superstars (9:30 pm); Billy Kennedy and Jimmy Boyer (6 pm)

Bipartisan Cafe

7901 SE Stark St. Meester and Meester

Blue Monk

3341 SE Belmont St. Lloyd Jones

Branx

320 SE 2nd Ave. See You Next Friday: AKA, Sharkmode, Cory O, Mac, Remy, Treyzilla, Propaluv

Brasserie Montmartre 626 SW Park Ave. Mike Winkle Duo

Buffalo Gap Saloon

6835 SW Macadam Ave. Silverhawk

Camellia Lounge 510 NW 11th Ave. Negara

Canvas Art Bar & Bistro

1800 NW Upshur St. Acoustic Open Mic with host Steve Huber

Dante’s

350 W Burnside St. Zepparella

Doug Fir Lounge

830 E Burnside St. Typhoon, And And And, Brainstorm

Duff’s Garage

1635 SE 7th Ave. Joy and Her Sentimental Gentlemen (6 pm); The Knuckleheads (9 pm)

East Burn

1800 E Burnside St. Pagan Jug Band

Ford Food and Drink 2505 SE 11th Eugene Lee and Jon Shaw

Goodfoot Lounge

2845 SE Stark St. DJ Aquaman’s Soul Stew

Gypsy Restaurant & Lounge 625 NW 21st Ave. Karaoke

Hawthorne Theatre Lounge 1503 SE 39th Ave. Rockstar Karaoke

Hawthorne Theatre

3862 SE Hawthorne Blvd.

Willamette Week APRIL 6, 2011 wweek.com

2958 NE Glisan St. Woodbrain

LaurelThirst

2958 NE Glisan St. Gwyneth & Monko, Shoeshine Blue, Carpe Diva

McMenamins Edgefield Winery 2126 SW Halsey St. Casey Hurt

McMenamins Grand Lodge 3505 Pacific Ave. Heartroot

McMenamins Hotel Oregon

310 Northeast Evans St. Mark Ransom

McMenamins Rock Creek Tavern

10000 Old Cornelius Pass Road Christabel and the Jons

Mission Theater

1624 NW Glisan St. Fruition, The Bellboys

Mississippi Pizza

3552 N Mississippi Ave. Lampost Revival

Mississippi Studios

3939 N Mississippi Ave. Rid of Me Benefit Concert & Auction: Storm Large, Grand Archives, Ohioan, Part Time Pony, Oracle

Mississippi Studios

3939 N Mississippi Ave. Video Finder Fridays: Eye Candy VJs

Mock Crest Tavern 3435 N Lombard St. The Student Loan

Mt. Tabor Theater Lounge

4811 SE Hawthorne Blvd Hivemind Club Night

Mt. Tabor Theater

4811 SE Hawthorne Blvd. Prezident Brown, Jah Dan Blakkamoore, Jah Sun and Redemption

Muddy Rudder Public House 8105 SE 7th Ave. Reverb Brothers

Papa G’s Vegan Organic Deli

2314 SE Division St. Lynn Conover

Plan B

1305 SE 8th Ave.

5431 NE 20th Ave. Cindy Kallet, Grey Larsen with Kendálin

Wonder Ballroom 128 NE Russell St. English Beat, The Sentiments

SAT. APRIL 9

Roseland Theater

Alberta Street Public House

Rotture

Andina

8 NW 6th Ave. Ice Cube, Luck-One 315 SE 3rd Ave. Rev. Shines, Slimkid3, DJ Nature, Starchile

Secret Society Lounge 116 NE Russell St. UHF, Kathryn Claire, My Autumn’s Done Come (9 pm); The Brazillionaires (5 pm)

Sellwood Public House 8132 SE 13th Ave. David Ward

Slabtown

1033 NW 16th Ave. Hightower, The Narcs, The Pity Fucks, Mercyia

Slim’s Cocktail Bar

8635 N Lombard St. Susurrus Station, M.A.R.C. and the Horse Jerks, Almost Dark

Someday Lounge 125 NW 5th Ave. Japan Benefit

Star Bar

639 SE Morrison St. DJ Ikon

The Heathman Restaurant and Bar 1001 SW Broadway Naomi LaViolette

The Knife Shop at Kelly’s Olympian

426 SW Washington St. IOA, Sillian Rail, Pluvial, Team Evil

The Secret Society Ballroom 116 NE Russell St. Kathryn Claire CD Release, with UHF, Kathryn Claire, My Autumn’s Done Come (9:00 pm); The Brazillionaires (5:00 pm)

Tonic Lounge

3100 NE Sandy Blvd. Red Ships of Spain, Cuddlebone, Rare Monk

Twilight Café and Bar

1420 SE Powell Blvd. Bordertown, Acoustic Rumor, Damn Dirty Apes, Pecos

Twilight Room

5242 N Lombard St. Franco and the Stingers

Valentine’s

232 SW Ankeny St. DJ Tobias B

White Eagle Saloon

836 N Russell St. Adam Sweeney and the Jamboree, Zoe Muth and the Lost High Rollers, Jake Kelley (9:30 pm); Reverb Brothers (5:30 pm)

1036 NE Alberta St. Punknecks 1314 NW Glisan St. Toshi Onizuka Trio

Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall

1037 SW Broadway Lauryn Hill, Hot 8 Brass Band

Ash Street Saloon

225 SW Ash St. Rewind: DJ Wednesday, DJ NoN, DJ Encrypted

Backspace

115 NW 5th Ave. Creative Live Art Life Drawing Sessions

Backspace

115 NW 5th Ave. Witch Mountain, Wizard Rifle, Nether Regions, Rabbits

Bar Mestizo at Andina 1314 NW Glisan St. Toshi Onizuka

Beauty Bar

111 SW Ash St. Girls Night Out

Biddy McGraw’s

6000 NE Glisan St. The Redeemed (9:30 pm); Twisted Whistle (5 pm)

Blitz Ladd

2239 SE 11th Ave. Fez Fatale

Blue Monk

3341 SE Belmont St. Midnight Serenaders

Branx

320 SE 2nd Ave. Scorched Earth, Cemetery Lust, Grim Ritual, Season of Suffering, Compulsive Slasher

Bunk Bar

1028 SE Water Ave. The Baseball Project

Camellia Lounge

510 NW 11th Ave. Sara Jackson Holman

221 NW 10th Ave. Donald Harrison Band

LaurelThirst

2958 NE Glisan St. Tree Frogs

LaurelThirst

2958 NE Glisan St. Wayward Vessel, Wy’East

McMenamins Edgefield Winery 2126 SW Halsey St. Mark Ransom

Slabtown

1033 NW 16th Ave. Holy Children, Last Watch

Slim’s Cocktail Bar

Someday Lounge

2958 NE Glisan St. Freak Mountain Ramblers

8635 N Lombard St. The Twangshifters

125 NW 5th Ave. Legends of House Music

Star Bar

639 SE Morrison St. French Invasion: DJ Cecilia Paris

The Crown Room

205 NW 4th Ave. Luck-One, Keak Da Sneak, Ben Darwish, Reva Devito, Gen.Erik

The Heathman Restaurant and Bar 1001 SW Broadway Barbara Lusch

426 SW Washington St. Pete International Airport, Go Fever, Lookbook

The Know

2026 NE Alberta St. The Reservations, Hello Electric, Sons of Huns 3100 NE Sandy Blvd. Rudefish, Little Volcano, Water Under the Bridge

10000 Old Cornelius Pass Road Pagan Jug Band

1420 SE Powell Blvd. White City Graves, Stories for Money, Race of Strangers

Mission Theater

Valentine’s

Mississippi Pizza

White Eagle Saloon

3552 N Mississippi Ave. Z’Bumba

Mississippi Studios

3939 N Mississippi Ave. I Was Totally Destroying It, The Trophy Fire

Mississippi Studios

232 SW Ankeny St. Bill Portland 836 N Russell St. Deadwood Revival, Water Tower Bucket Boys, Whiskey Puppy (9 pm); The Student Loan (4:30 pm)

SUN. APRIL 10 Andina

3939 N Mississippi Ave. MRS, DJ Beyonda, DJ Trans Fat, DJ Ill Camino

1314 NW Glisan St. Tupai Spring Performance Series 2011 - Tasha Miller Trio, Ben Darwish

Mock Crest Tavern

Andina

Mt. Tabor Theater Lounge

Ash Street Saloon

3435 N Lombard St. Kinzel & Hyde

4811 SE Hawthorne Blvd The Hollywood Tans, VIVIVI, Ugly Flowers, The Fasters

Mt. Tabor Theater

4811 SE Hawthorne Blvd. Wheels in the Sky: A Tribute to Journey with Keegan Smith and the Fam

Muddy Rudder Public House 8105 SE 7th Ave. Alan Hagar

Plan B

1305 SE 8th Ave. The Meatmen, Therapists, Against the Grain, Belligerents, Mr. Plow

Roseland Theater

1314 NW Glisan St. Danny Romero 225 SW Ash St. Tomorrow’s Dream, The Last Days of Dreams, Ed to Shred

Backspace

115 NW 5th Ave. Portland Poetry Slam

Bar Mestizo at Andina 1314 NW Glisan St. Danny Romero

Blue Monk

3341 SE Belmont St. Upper Left Trio

Dante’s

350 W Burnside St. Black Joe Lewis, Those Darlins

Dante’s

350 W Burnside St. Sinferno Cabaret

Duff’s Garage

Crystal Ballroom

8 NW 6th Ave. Scala and Kolacny Brothers

Saratoga

East End

Dante’s

6910 N Interstate Ave. Purple Rhinestone Eagle, Black Wizard, The Shrine

1332 W Burnside St. Bright Eyes, Titus Andronicus 350 W Burnside St. Death Angel, Stonecreep, Excruciator, Spellcaster

Doug Fir Lounge

Secret Society Lounge 116 NE Russell St. Chervona (9 pm); Jamie Stillway Trio (6 pm)

830 E Burnside St. The Rural Alberta Advtantage, Lord Huron, Aan

Sellwood Public House

East Burn

1821 SE Ankeny St. Larry Murante, Scott Docherty, Alexa Wiley

1800 E Burnside St. Bumpin Nasty’s

8132 SE 13th Ave. Zaxx Vandal

Sierra Club

Matador

1967 W Burnside St Next Big Thing: DJ Donny Don’t

McMenamins Edgefield Winery 2126 SW Halsey St. Billy D’s Voodoo Lounge

Mississippi Pizza

3552 N Mississippi Ave. Franchot Tone

3939 N Mississippi Ave. Pigeons, Sam Humans and the Light, Besties

Twilight Café and Bar

Mississippi Pizza

2958 NE Glisan St. Billy Kennedy & Tim Acott

The Knife Shop at Kelly’s Olympian

426 SW Washington St. T&A’s Hangover Helper Movie Madness

McMenamins Rock Creek Tavern

3552 N Mississippi Ave. Level 2 Music

LaurelThirst

Mississippi Pizza

Tonic Lounge

1624 NW Glisan St. Crafty Underdog

LaurelThirst

The Knife Shop at Kelly’s Olympian

McMenamins Hotel Oregon

310 Northeast Evans St. Mark Alan

Holocene

1001 SE Morrison St. Lightning Bolt, Flexions, The Greys, DJ Yeti

1635 SE 7th Ave. California Honeydrops 203 SE Grand Ave. ANOK4UOK: DJ Alex & Guests

Ella Street Social Club

714 SW 20th Place FOREVER Film Night: DJ Bramble, DJ Eclecto

Hawthorne Theatre Lounge 1503 SE 39th Ave. John Brodeur

Hawthorne Theatre

3862 SE Hawthorne Blvd. Steady Riot

3552 N Mississippi Ave. Smile Brigade

Mississippi Studios

Moreland Presbyterian Church

1814 SE Bybee Blvd. Timothy and Nancy LeRoi Nickel

Muddy Rudder Public House 8105 SE 7th Ave. Irish

NEPO 42

5403 NE 42nd Ave. Open Mic with Fred Stephenson

Plan B

1305 SE 8th Ave. Hive: DJ Owen, guest DJs and bands

Secret Society Lounge 116 NE Russell St. Hanz Araki and Cary Novotny

Slim’s Cocktail Bar

8635 N Lombard St. Donna Jose and the Side Effects

Someday Lounge

125 NW 5th Ave. How the Animal Breathes: A Benefit for the Disembowelment of Truth

Star Bar

639 SE Morrison St. Karaoke That Doesn’t Suck

The Knife Shop at Kelly’s Olympian

426 SW Washington St. The Phoenix Variety Revue

Tonic Lounge

3100 NE Sandy Blvd. Super Sonic Tonic Sunday: Morgan and the Organ Donors, Magic Johnson, The Hooded Hags

Tonic Lounge

3100 NE Sandy Blvd. Hangover Helper Comedy and Burlesque Showcase: Miss Frankie Tease, Whitney Streed, Virginia Jones, Cody Smith, Gabe Dinger, Jewels, Demanda, Miss Alex Kennedy

Tupai at Andina

1314 NW Glisan St. Tasha Miller, Ben Darwish

Valentine’s

232 SW Ankeny St. Sea Caves, Leonard Mynx and Friends

White Eagle Saloon

836 N Russell St. Open Mic/Songwriters Showcase

Wonder Ballroom

128 NE Russell St. Afro-Cuban All Stars

MON. APRIL 11 Andina

1314 NW Glisan St. Scott Head

Ash Street Saloon 225 SW Ash St.

CALENDAR Symmetry/Symmetry, The Hague, Silian Rail

Little Sue & Lynn Conover

Mattress, Prescription Pills

Backspace

LaurelThirst

Twilight Café and Bar

Bar Mestizo at Andina

McMenamins Edgefield Winery

Valentine’s

Biddy McGraw’s

Mission Theater

115 NW 5th Ave. DORKBOT

1314 NW Glisan St. Scott Head 6000 NE Glisan St. Eric Tonsfeldt

Blue Monk

3341 SE Belmont St. Renato Caranto’s Funk Band

2958 NE Glisan St. Kung Pao Chickens

2126 SW Halsey St. Gideon Freudmann

1624 NW Glisan St. Mud Jam, Redwood Son, Michael Sheridan (of National Flower)

Mississippi Pizza

Dante’s

3552 N Mississippi Ave. Portland Spelling Bee

Doug Fir Lounge

3552 N Mississippi Ave. Quizissippi After Dark

350 W Burnside St. Karaoke From Hell 830 E Burnside St. The Submarines, Nik Freitas, Oh Darling

East End

203 SE Grand Ave. Heavy Metal Ladies Night: Rollerball, Fist Fite, DJ Nate C

Ella Street Social Club

714 SW 20th Place ShanRock’s Triviology

Goodfoot Lounge

2845 SE Stark St. Sonic Forum Open Mic Night

Ground Kontrol

511 NW Couch St. Service Industrial: DJ Tibin

Hawthorne Theatre Lounge 1503 SE 39th Ave. Rockstar Karaoke

Jimmy Mak’s

221 NW 10th Ave. Louis Hayes

LaurelThirst

2958 NE Glisan St.

1420 SE Powell Blvd. SIN Night

232 SW Ankeny St. Manxes, Night Moves

White Eagle Saloon 836 N Russell St. NIAYH Family Residency, Worth, Nuestro, Paris

Wonder Ballroom

128 NE Russell St. Raphael Saadiq, Quadron

Mississippi Pizza

Mississippi Studios

3939 N Mississippi Ave. The Joy Formidable, The Lonely Forest, Guests

Mt. Tabor Theater

4811 SE Hawthorne Blvd. Keegan Smith & the Fam

Muddy Rudder Public House 8105 SE 7th Ave. Lloyd Jones

Rotture

TUES. APRIL 12 Andina

1314 NW Glisan St. JB Butler

Ash Street Saloon

225 SW Ash St. Mixed Social Every Tuesday: Tenspeed Warlock, Noise-a-Tron

Buffalo Gap Saloon

6835 SW Macadam Ave. Open Mic Night Hosted by Scott Gallegos

Camellia Lounge 510 NW 11th Ave. Weekly Jazz Jam

Dante’s

Ground Kontrol

511 NW Couch St. Rock Band 2 with MC Destructo

Gypsy Restaurant & Lounge 625 NW 21st Ave. River Twain

Holocene

1001 SE Morrison St. Jeremy Lee Faulkner, Golden Spun, Denver

Jimmy Mak’s

221 NW 10th Ave. Lori Henriques

LaurelThirst

2958 NE Glisan St. Jackstraw

McMenamins Edgefield Winery

Mississippi Pizza

3552 N Mississippi Ave. Baby Ketten Karaoke

Mississippi Pizza

3552 N Mississippi Ave. McDougal, Tom Vandenvond

Mississippi Studios

639 SE Morrison St. Into the Void: DJ Blackhawk

1635 SE 7th Ave. Dover Weinberg Quartet (9 pm), Trio Bravo (6 pm)

Mississippi Studios

The Knife Shop at Kelly’s Olympian

Ella Street Social Club

Mock Crest Tavern

Tube

18 NW 3rd Ave.

Goodfoot Lounge

2845 SE Stark St. Scott PembertonTrio

116 NE Russell St. Raising Hope: A Benefit Concert for the Relief Effort in Japan with Hanz Araki Band, Portland Taiko, Araki Kodo VI, Casey Neill, Bryan Free, James Low

Someday Lounge

Star Bar

714 SW 20th Place Focus! Focus!, Pretty Things, Project Talent

Secret Society Lounge

McMenamins Rock Creek Tavern

350 W Burnside St. Wire

426 SW Washington St. Duncan Ros, My Girl Whiskey, Genevieve Maull

8 NW 6th Ave. Francis and the Lights

Slim’s Cocktail Bar

315 SE 3rd Ave. Civet, Continental, Rendered Useless

Duff’s Garage

Peter’s Room

2126 SW Halsey St. Caleb Klauder and Sammy Lind

10000 Old Cornelius Pass Road Open Bluegrass Jam

3939 N Mississippi Ave. Cults, Magic Kids, White Arrows 3939 N Mississippi Ave. Quizzy with Quiz Master Roy Smallwood

8635 N Lombard St. Open Mic 125 NW 5th Ave. Saturn Presents...

Star Bar

639 SE Morrison St. DJ Smooth Hopperator

The Crown Room

205 NW 4th Ave. See You Next Tuesday: Kellan, Avery

Twilight Café and Bar 1420 SE Powell Blvd. Bitterroot, Bukkit, Chris Baron of Searchlights

Valentine’s

232 SW Ankeny St. Neal Morgan, Thicket, Tom Blood

Wonder Ballroom

3435 N Lombard St. Jeff Jensen Band

128 NE Russell St. Foals, Freelance Whales, The Naked and Famous

Mt. Tabor Theater

Yes and No

4811 SE Hawthorne Blvd.

Ella Street Social Club

Papa G’s Vegan Organic Deli

2314 SE Division St. Paul Brainard’s Fun Machine

MUSIC

SUN. APRIL 10

The Family Funktion featuring Average Leftovers

714 SW 20th Place

WED. APRIL 6 The Crown Room 205 NW 4th Ave. Crush Drum and Bass

Slim’s Cocktail Bar 8635 N Lombard St. DJ DirtyNick

FRI. APRIL 8

1967 W Burnside St

1001 SE Morrison St. DJ Kev It Up

Next Big Thing: DJ Donny Don’t

Mississippi Studios

Plan B

3939 N Mississippi Ave.

Matador

DJ Whisker Friction

Rotture

Star Bar 639 SE Morrison St. DJ Kyle Webster

The Crown Room 205 NW 4th Ave. Crush Drum and Bass

THURS. APRIL 7 Fez Ballroom 316 SW 11th Ave. Shadowplay with DJ Horrid, DJ Ghoulunatic, DJ Paradox

Someday Lounge 125 NW 5th Ave. The Fix: Rev. Shines, Kez, Dundiggy

315 SE 3rd Ave.

MON. APRIL 11

Star Bar 639 SE Morrison St.

Service Industrial: DJ Tibin

DJ Ikon

Star Bar

Valentine’s 232 SW Ankeny St. DJ Tobias B

SAT. APRIL 9

511 NW Couch St.

639 SE Morrison St. Into the Void: DJ Blackhawk

TUES. APRIL 12

Buffalo Gap Saloon

Star Bar

6835 SW Macadam Ave. Dancehall Days (80’s pop rock)

639 SE Morrison St. DJ Smooth Hopperator

Lola’s Room at the Crystal Ballroom

205 NW 4th Ave.

Valentine’s

232 SW Ankeny St. DJ Champagne Jam

Hive: DJ Owen, guest DJs and bands

Ground Kontrol

DJ Unruly

639 SE Morrison St.

1305 SE 8th Ave.

Rev. Shines, Slimkid3, DJ Nature, Starchile

1332 W Burnside St. Jai Ho! Pure Bollywood Dance Party (Hosted by DJ Prashant)

Star Bar

Matador

Holocene

Video Finder Fridays: Eye Candy VJs

1967 W Burnside St

FOREVER Film Night: DJ Bramble, DJ Eclecto

The Crown Room See You Next Tuesday: Kellan, Avery

Yes and No

20 NW 3rd Ave. IDIOT TUESDAYS - DJ Black Dog

232 SW Ankeny St. Bill Portland

20 NW 3rd Ave. IDIOT TUESDAYS - DJ Black Dog

Willamette Week APRIL 6, 2011 wweek.com

APRIL 6-12

= WW Pick. Highly recommended.

The Ugly Duckling

Most prices listed are for advance ticket sales. At-the-door increases and so-called convenience charges may apply, so it’s best to call ahead. Editor: BEN WATERHOUSE. Stage: BEN WATERHOUSE (bwaterhouse@wweek. com). Classical: BRETT CAMPBELL (bcampbell@wweek.com). Dance: HEATHER WISNER (dance@wweek.com). TO BE CONSIDERED FOR LISTINGS, submit information at least two weeks in advance to: bwaterhouse@wweek.com.

THEATER

Attempts on Her Life

is dreamlike in the worst way—these are the restless dreams that come from downing too much cheese and Campari before bed. Director Olga Sanchez has evidently done much to force the visual flow of the play to make sense, but most of the performers, when confronted with a nonsensical line, try to force it into sense by saying it louder. Boomcracklefly is a jarring, unpleasant experience— but at least it isn’t predictable. BEN WATERHOUSE. Miracle Theatre, 525 SE Stark St., 236-7253. 7:30 pm Thursdays, 8 pm Fridays-Saturdays, 2 pm Sundays. Closes April 16. $14-$25.

Big River

Jack, a middle-aged New York limo driver with ambitions of driving for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, is a stoner with his hair twisted into halfhearted nascent dreads, who plays the Melodians’ “Rivers of Babylon” so often that the cassette has stretched and the music warbles ominously. As played by Todd Van Voris in Artists Rep’s production of this romantic comedy by Bob Glaudini (directed by Allen Nause), he comes across as a genuinely nice guy, whom you’d be happy to have haul your rich self around. When Jack is introduced to Connie (Emily Sahler Beleele), a morbid and mousy co-worker of his best friend’s wife, he begins a hesitant and clumsy courtship. Connie wants to go boating, so he learns to swim. She’d like to be cooked for, so he obsessively braises and chops. Their relationship’s slow blossoming is charming, but less riveting to watch than the troubled marriage of his best friend and fellow driver, Clyde (John San Nicolas), and his wife, Lucy (Tai Simmons). Clyde and Lucy are aspirational types, striving to obtain better coffee and better weed, as impassioned in their marriage as in their trespasses. BEN WATERHOUSE. Artists Repertory Theatre, 1515 SW Morrison St., 241-1278. 7:30 pm Tuesdays-Saturdays, 2 and 7:30 pm Sundays. 11 am Wednesday, April 6. Closes April 15. $20-$42.

The Adding Machine

Theatre Vertigo’s final production of the season is a 1923 drama by Elmer Rice about a corporate drone who snaps when he learns his job will be replaced by an adding machine. Jane Bement Geesman directs. Theater! Theatre!, 3430 SE Belmont St., 306-0870. 8 pm Thursdays-Saturdays. Closes May 7. $15. Thursdays are “pay what you will.”

Defunkt Theatre stages Martin Crimp’s very odd 1997 play, which consists of many scenes describing a woman named Annie, or Anne, or maybe Anya, whom we see only in projected photos, taken from behind. She’s a terrorist, or a suicide, or an artist, or a survivor of war crimes, or maybe a new car. The show is at once funny and grim, entertaining and unsettling. The script names no characters and has no stage directions, much like Sarah Kane’s 4.48 Psychosis, which Grace Carter also directed in an excellent production at Defunkt in 2010. Unlike that play, though, Attempts on Her Life is about 40 percent writerly twaddle, and your tolerance for such will determine how much you like the play. I’m very fond of twaddle, and so I enjoyed Crimp’s outrageously morbid riffs on art criticism, love and violence of all stripes. Grace Carter’s attempts to impose order on Crimp’s rambling succeed intermittently—Matthew Kern and David Bellis-Squires share a few very engaging scenes—but her experiments with live video feel superfluous. While the show should be a winner among fans of Nick Cave and Martin McDonagh, less macabre souls may find it disappointing. BEN WATERHOUSE. The Back Door Theater, 4319 SE Hawthorne Blvd., 481-2960. 8 pm Thursday-Saturday, May 7-9. $10-$15.

Staged!, a reliably good musical theater company, presents an allyouth production of Roger Miller and William Hauptman’s musical based on Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. World Trade Center Theater, 121 SW Salmon St., 971-322-5723. 8 pm Fridays-Saturdays, 2 pm Sundays. Closes April 24. $21-$25.

Billy Elliot the Musical

Elton John and Lee Hall’s stage adaptation of the 2000 film about a boy who yearns to dance received gushing praise from every critic in New York and London, along with 15 Tony nominations (10 of which it won). Look for a review on wweek.com. Keller Auditorium, 222 SW Clay St., 241-1802. 7:30 pm Tuesdays-Fridays, 2 and 7:30 pm Saturdays, 1 and 6:30 pm Sundays through April 17. $29.50-$90.

Boomcracklefly

Bravo to Miracle Theatre Group for producing the world premiere of this bizarre comedy. Really, I mean it—the theater is boring when directors don’t take risks, and this one is as risky as they come. Unwatchable, really. Playwright Charise Castro Smith is an accomplished actor, and this is her second play, but the work makes no kind of sense. The story involves twin acrobats, a man who builds wings to escape Havana, a cross-dressing prostitute with an imaginary grandmother, the ghost of Ernest Hemingway, a male pregnancy, the Hindu deity Shiva, a woman who grows butterfly wings, multiple apocalypses and too many scene changes. The characters’ motivations are opaque, the plot’s internal logic inscrutable and the language so dependent on clichés that I have trouble believing Castro Smith ever read it aloud. There is a lot of imagination on display here, but the script

Jack Goes Boating

Lend Me a Tenor

Lakewood presents the classic Ken Ludwig farce. Lakewood Center for the Arts, 368 S State St., Lake Oswego, 635-3901. 7:30 pm ThursdaysSaturdays, 2 pm Sundays. Closes April 17. $24-$27.

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom

Portland Playhouse, which received superlative praise for its 2010 production of Radio Golf, returns to August Wilson in this recording session gone horribly wrong. Kevin Jones, who stole the show in Radio Golf, resurrects a promising cast including Bruce Burkhartsmeier (Shining City, Third Rail Rep), Victor Mack (Radio Golf) and Wendell Wright (Fences, Portland Center Stage). Portland Playhouse, 602 NE Prescott St., 205-0715. 8 pm Wednesdays-Saturdays, 2 pm Sundays. Closes May 1. $20-$25.

Same Time, Next Year

The Public House Theatre takes on Bernard Slade’s play about a couple who meet for a tryst once a year, performed by Leif Norby and Melissa Kaiser. Norby, who is best known in Portland as a musical-theater actor, just finished another infidelity drama, The Scene, last month. Is this his new medium? The CoHo Theater, 2257 NW Raleigh St., 922-0532. 7:30 pm Thursdays-Saturdays, 2 pm Sundays. Closes April 30. $19-$24, $14 Thursdays.

ScratchPDX

Performing artists of every stripe, comedians and avant-garde dancers alike, take the stage at this monthly showcase. Hipbone Studio, 1847 E Burnside St., 358-0898. 9 pm Saturday, April 9. $10.

Tears of Joy Theatre premieres a puppet show inspired by Hans Christian Andersen’s classic tale, set in Australia, in which the duckling in question is actually a platypus. Winningstad Theatre, Portland Center for the Performing Arts, 1111 SW Broadway, 248-0557. 11 am Saturdays, 2 and 4 pm Sundays through April 17 and 7:30 pm Friday, April 8. $15-$18.

COMEDY Brainwaves

The 25-year-old band of improvisers pokes fun at the history and culture of Portland. Shoe Box Theater, 2110 SE 10th Ave., 520-8928. 8 pm FridaysSaturdays through April 16. $10.

Broditarianism

Every Saturday evening, the Brody crew improvise a religion Brody Theater, 16 NW Broadway, 224-2227. 10 pm Saturdays. Closes April 9. $8.

and as far back as the 8th century. Kaul Auditorium at Reed College, 3203 SE Woodstock Blvd., 777-7522. 7:30 pm Saturday, April 9. $10-$25.

Awakening Divine Imagination

Produced by the folks behind the summer Beloved Festival, this “Celebration of Love, Life, Unity and Expressions of the Sacred” features Everyone Orchestra with Steve Kimock and Dave Stringer (Friday), the great San Francisco DJ Cheb-I-Sabbah and Vagabond Opera (Saturday). Refuge, 116 SE Yamhill St. 8 pm FridaySaturday, April 8-9. $33-$45.

Fear No Music

himself to answer letters written to a fictional character (Shakespeare’s doomed Juliet), Costello and members of England’s Brodsky Quartet decided to imagine what those letters might have said. Thus was born their passionate 1993 pop-classical song cycle, The Juliet Letters. Fear No Music enlists a quartet of very different superlative local singers from opera (Angela Niederloh), folk (Holcombe Waller), musical theater (Leah Yorkston) and classical (Stephen Marc Beaudoin) backgrounds to traverse its many moods. Aladdin Theater, 3017 SE Milwaukie Ave., 234-9694. 8 pm Tuesday, April 12. $28-$30.

When Elvis Costello’s pre-Krall wife, Cait, spotted a news item about an Italian academic who took it upon

CONT. on page 48

REVIEW ISHAN VERNALLIS

PERFORMANCE

Comedy Is OK

This month the comedy showcase features Ron Funches, Christian Ricketts and the always wonderful Kevin-Michael Moore (the 3rd Floor). Clinton Street Pub, 2516 SE Clinton St., 236-7137. 9 pm Wednesday, April 6. $5.

Comedy Night at the Bagdad

The weekly comedy showcase’s “Spring Spectacular” features Mark Kikel, Ian Karmel, Ron Funches, Richard Bain, Gabe Dinger and Jimmy Newstetter. Good stuff. Bagdad Theater &Pub, 3702 SE Hawthorne Blvd., 236-9234. 10 pm Friday, April 8. $5. 21+.

Lewis Black

America’s angriest lefty comic drops by America’s angriest lefty city. Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, 1037 SW Broadway, 800-745-3000. 8 pm Friday, April 8. $35-$65 plus fees.

Garden of Curious

The characters from Curious Comedy’s kiddie-comedy show (see “The Curious Garden”) get very, very adult. Curious Comedy, 5225 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., curiouscomedy.org. 10 pm Saturday, April 9. $5. 18+.

Sarah Silverman

The foulmouthed comedienne with the little-girl voice does the Schnitz. Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, 1037 SW Broadway, 800-745-3000. 8 pm Thursday, April 7. $35 plus fees.

Unexpectations

Curious Comedy founder Stacey Hallal in “a one person comedy show that may or may not have more than one person in it.” Curious Comedy, 5225 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., curiouscomedy.org. 8 pm FridaysSaturdays. Closes April 23. $12-$15.

The Uninvited

The Unscriptables improvise a Tennessee Williams-esque family drama—with zombies. Because, like bacon, you can never have too many zombies. The Unscriptables Studio, 1121 N Loring St., theunscriptables.com. 8 pm Saturdays through April 30. “Pay what you want.”

Two for the Show

A series of improv duets. Brody Theater, 16 NW Broadway, 224-2227. 8 pm Saturdays. Closes April 9. $7-$10.

CLASSICAL Al-Andalus Ensemble

Led by virtuosa flamenco guitarist Julia Banzi and Moroccan oud (lute) master Tarik Banzi, the local world music group is winning increasing international acclaim, with major awards and tours through Europe, the Middle East and, just recently, Malaysia. The current lineup features violinist Charlie Bisharat, Spanish dancer Laura Dubroca and smoky-voiced singer Emily Miles. They’ll perform music and dance that stretches from across the Middle East, North Africa and Spain

CHRISTOPHER MANKOWSKI

YOU DON’T KNOW JACK (THE CARPETBAG BRIGADE) For the past three weeks, San Franciscobased avant-garde theater troupe the Carpetbag Brigade has rehearsed and led workshops out of North Portland venue the Headwaters. It concludes its residency with a final week of performances of You Don’t Know Jack. The company deals in physical theater, telling its stories through movement like mime or puppetry, though it has more in common with musical theater than circus arts. The “physical theater” label is met with an equally esoteric premise—to tell the story of Jack and the Beanstalk, adding a “Jungian twist with a dash of PTSD.” With the intent of expressing the uncertain theories of Carl Jung and emulating the scattered state of a brain after trauma, it’s one maelstrom of a play. But all that chaos makes it impossible to feel attachment for the characters or investment in the story. The seeds for the play were sown in 2007 at a theater retreat focused on “exploring the dark side of family dynamics,” in rural New Mexico. The participants of the retreat must have had some dark childhoods, because the resulting play is a tangled mess full of rage and nightmarish entropy. On the small Headwaters stage, the play’s five actors somersault around and sing off-pitch songs that were probably written in the shower. We follow Jack as he navigates his dark reality—his mother drinks after his father was killed in war—and his even darker fantasy, where the giant is represented by a substitute teacher with the hots for Jack’s mom. Neither subtle nor graceful—Jack’s mother’s alcoholism is indicated by near-constant pretend swigs from a whiskey bottle, and the agile actors, perched on wobbly set pieces, seem perpetually about to tumble—You Don’t Know Jack bites off more conceptual fodder than it can reasonably hope to chew. The Carpetbag Brigade is focused on its theoretical achievements. With regards to the show’s four-year creation process, it advertises: “It is rare for a theater company to return to a performance and continue to work on its details over three years. Commitment to that kind of aesthetic maturation runs counter to the dynamics of consumer culture capitalism.” Maturation? Try over-ripening. Overacted and under-rehearsed, You Don’t Know Jack could use a dose of austerity. RACHAEL DEWITT. As thick and overgrown as the beanstalk.

SEE IT: The Headwaters, 55 NE Farragut St., No. 9, brownpapertickets.com. 8 pm Thursday-Saturday, April 7-9. $12-$18.

Willamette Week APRIL 6, 2011 wweek.com

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PERFORMANCE

APRIL 6-12

Ganesh & Kumaresh

Accompanied by two percussionists, the renowned virtuoso violinist brothers will perform the classical Carnatic music of South India. Winningstad Theatre, Portland Center for the Performing Arts, 1111 SW Broadway, 531-7266. 7 pm Saturday, April 9. $20-$35.

Matt Ingalls, Sam Coomes, Mitchell Brown, The Tenses

The Creative Music Guild has reopened a performance space that’s gone by various names over the years, and invited experimental musicians from Portland (Quasi’s Coomes), San Francisco (clarinetist Ingalls) and L.A. (electronic musician Brown). Alice Coltrane Memorial Coliseum, 5135 NE 42nd Ave. 8 pm Sunday, April 10. $5-$15.

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ART GYM DANCE EXHIBITS: Pont Point, 1980.

Oregon Repertory Singers

Veteran conductor Gil Seeley concludes his 35-year run as director of one of the Northwest’s finest choruses with music by two of the world’s most accomplished choral composers, Estonia’s Veljo Tormis and L.A.’s Eric Whitacre, J.S. Bach’s famous cantata, “Christ Lay in Bonds of Death” (accompanied by Baroque chamber ensemble), and The World Beloved: A Bluegrass Mass (accompanied by a bluegrass band). St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church, 3228 SW Sunset Blvd., 230-0652. 8 pm Saturday, April 9. First United Methodist Church, 1838 SW Jefferson St., 230-0652. 4 pm Sunday, April 10. $10-$30.

UPCOMING EVENTS

ROBERT REICHERS

Willamette Week is a gem

Another guest conductor cancellation, another opportunity for young London-based super-sub Michael Francis to fly to Portland and impress the local listeners and orchestra by leading them in works he’d never conducted before—as he did last month. This time, the orchestra performs more familiar fare: Beethoven’s everpopular, perfect-for-spring (“pastoral’) Symphony No. 6, which you might remember from Fantasia. The program also boasts a rarity, Bohemian composer Bohuslav Martinu’s neo-impressionist 1953 Symphony No. 6, initially conceived as a modern successor to Berlioz’s Fantastic Symphony. Another guest, young pianist Natasha Paremski, is the soloist in Prokofiev’s deliciously brash Piano Concerto No. 1. Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, 1037 SW Broadway, 228-1353. 2 pm Sunday, 8 pm Monday, April 10-11. $20-$90.

Portland Chamber Orchestra, Portland Symphonic Girlchoir

The innovative orchestra brings us a classic, Beethoven’s mighty Symphony No. 7, and a rarity, Russian composer Grigori Frid’s 1969 one-woman opera-monodrama, The Diary of Anne Frank, featuring soprano Ani Maldjian. Characteristically, PCO includes a wealth of contextual material, including an animation, Shelley Jordon’s Anita’s Journey, about her mother-in-law’s experience hiding in World War II Berlin; two exhibitions at Catlin Gabel; and, on Sunday only, a pre-concert interfaith panel discussion featuring Jewish, Muslim and Catholic spiritual leaders. Catlin Gabel School, 8825 SW Barnes Road, 205-0715. 7:30 pm Saturday, 2 pm Sunday, April 9-10. $15-$25.

Portland Opera

Small in scale but never slight in substance, Maurice Ravel’s two very different one-act operas make an ideal pairing for the relatively intimate Newmark Theater and the less developed voices of Portland Opera’s young and enthusiastic Studio Artists. Practically dripping with horniness, Darryl Freedman has a grand time vamping up the saucy role of Concepcion in Ravel’s satirical 1909 sex farce The Spanish Hour. Her hapless male costars, especially tenor Steven Brennfleck and bass Nicholas Nelson, all pull off fine comic turns—most hilariously in the smartly directed finale. The chamber

orchestration of Ravel’s original large orchestral forces (required to fit the Newmark’s small orchestra pit) manages to retain most of the composer’s affection for both Spanish music and wry updates on older musical forms. Alas, the same can’t be said of the anorexic (but winningly performed, with special kudos to flutist GeorgeAnne Ries) piano, cello and flute accompaniment for the enchanting The Bewitched Child. Ravel was one of the greatest orchestrators in music history, and this opera (better translated as The Child and the Magic Spells) contains some of his most sumptuous music, but copyright restrictions make this skimpy chamber arrangement the only reduced version authorized for U.S. performance. Nevertheless, with its cleverly designed talking trees, animated armchairs, playful felines and math anxiety incarnate, this sparkling musical fairy tale about a naughty boy’s comeuppance for his temperamental behavior attains moments of real magic. Newmark Theatre, Portland Center for the Performing Arts, 1111 SW Broadway, 241-1802. 7:30 pm Thursday and Saturday, April 7 and 9. $75.

Third Angle

In late 2009, the experimentalist/ post-minimalist New York composer Eve Beglarian spent more than four months paddling and pedaling down the Mississippi River by kayak and bike, from Minnesota to New Orleans, performing with and for the people who lived along the way, recording the sounds she heard and writing music that reflected her journey. Third Angle and Beta Collide will play it, plus a new work Third Angle commissioned from Beglarian. Alberta Rose Theatre, 3000 NE Alberta St., 719-6055. 7:30 pm Friday, April 8. $25-$30.

Young Artists Debut Concerto Competition

Musicians from the Oregon Symphony and Oregon Ballet Orchestra join the nine young winners of the annual competition in music by Liszt, Beethoven, Mozart, Ravel, Prokofiev and Korngold. Newmark Theatre, Portland Center for the Performing Arts, 1111 SW Broadway, 245-4885. 7:30 pm Tuesday, April 12. $15-$25.

DANCE Blue Sky @ BodyVox

Blue Sky is coming, and that’s not just a reference to spring: The annual Blue Sky Concerts, presented by the Dance Coalition of Oregon, provide a generous sample of the many dance styles the community has to offer, from ballet to belly dancing, hip-hop to tap, modern to theatrical. Over the course of a weekend, four different performances will showcase work by more than 25 choreographers and scores of dancers. Opening night includes the modernminded Agnieszka Laska Dancers, Mythobolus Mask Theatre and the PDX Dance Collective. On Saturday,

look for Sonya Duffin (Pure Dance Company), the Portland Youth Ballet and traditional Japanese dancer Sahomi Tachibana. Sunday’s a double-header: The afternoon is devoted to the ladies (Celine Bouly, Maranee Sanders, Jennifer Camp, Nikita Santino, et al.), while the closing program features the ‘20sera dance of the Dolly Pops to the B-boys and B-girls of the Hippoh Project. For the complete lineup, go to dancecoalitionoregon.com. BodyVox Dance Center, 1201 NW 17th Ave., 229-0627. 7:30 pm FridaySaturday, April 8-9; 2 and 7:30 pm Sunday, April 10. $10-$15.

Hangover Helper

Weekly burlesque and standup comedy showcase, hosted by Whitney Streed and Miss Frankie Tease. Tonic Lounge, 3100 NE Sandy Blvd., 238-0543. 2-5 pm Sunday, April 10, 17, 24. $5 door, $5 brunch.

Marylhurst Art Gym Dance Exhibits

If you’ve ever left a dance performance wondering “What was that all about?” you now have an excellent opportunity to find out. The Marylhurst Art Gym is opening two exhibits that not only offer a window into the creative process but document Portland’s contemporary dance history as well. The exhibit Dance: Before, After, During will include materials, documentation and performances by local choreographers Linda K. Johnson, Linda Austin, Tahni Holt and Susan Banyas. Past Moves: Selected Archival Footage of Portland Dance Performances in the 1970s and 1980s documents the Portland Dance Theater, which, although it disbanded in the late ’70s, lived on through its members—among them Judy Patton, Gregg Bielemeier and Bonnie Merrill—who went on to choreograph and teach subsequent generations. Patton, a PSU professor, has digitized footage from those days, which should be a revelation to those of us who arrived after the fact. Marylhurst University, 17600 Highway 43, 699-1814. Opening reception 3-6 pm Sunday, April 3. Free.

The Foundation

B-boys at Reed? It turns out they’ve been there for years. The Foundation is an annual B-boy and B-girl battle with crews from around the Northwest and beyond. And if you’re thinking this is an amateur hour, consider that previous performers have gone on to win on MTV’s “America’s Best Dance Crew.” This year, more than a dozen crews will compete in fiveon-five dance battles, aiming to win $500 cash and other prizes. Contenders include L.A.’s Suicide Kingz, Seattle’s Massive Monkees and Houston’s Jungle Brothers. DJ ComputerFAM will be there to get ‘em fired up. Reed College Student Union, 3203 SE Woodstock Blvd, 771-1112. 6 pm Saturday, April 9. $10-$15.

For more Performance listings, visit

VISUAL ARTS

APRIL 6-12 Q&A

= WW Pick. Highly recommended. By RICHARD SPEER. TO BE CONSIDERED FOR LISTINGS, submit show information—including opening and closing dates, gallery address and phone number—at least two weeks in advance to: Visual Arts, WW, 2220 NW Quimby St., Portland, OR 97210. Email: rspeer@wweek.com. Fax: 243-1115. Emailed press releases must be backed up by a faxed or printed copy.

SPECIAL EVENT Milepost 5 Opening

After a long, hard slog of delays due to the economic downturn, the cultural/ residential project known as Milepost 5 is set to finally kick off with a slew of opening celebrations. The whole weekend of April 8-10 will feature events ranging from the traditional (a ribbon-cutting ceremony with Mayor Sam Adams) to the woo-woo (a “traditional feng shui red rice blessing ceremony”). Also on tap: literary readings, guided tours and loads of visual-art exhibits by Milepost 5 residents and nonresidents. For complete itinerary, visit milepost5.net. Milepost 5, 900 NE 81st Ave., 729-3223.

NOW SHOWING Katherine Treffinger

For vivid, saturated color and an intuitive mastery of composition and surface, it’s hard to beat painter Katherine Treffinger. Her current show is an ode to chartreuse, turquoise and orange-red, interwoven with sinuous, meandering lines and circles that unify the picture plane and lend a jaunty visual syncopation. In Coltrane, circles cluster like grapes, while in The Grotto, turquoise drips seep downward into pink drips rising upward against gravity. Deep Sea Diving, a riot of scratch-work, flecks, drips and miasmas, encapsulates this artist’s adeptness at simultaneously balming and piquing the eye. Guardino Gallery, 2939 NE Alberta St., 281-9048. Closes April 26.

Michael Kessler

Michael Kessler’s paintings are duets— or duels—between the pristine and the corrupt: rigorous squares and rectangles undergirding creeping vines and arcing squirts of organic imagery. The duke-out between structure and anarchy—think Mondrian vs. Jackson Pollock on the same canvas— wages beneath layers upon layers of mixed-media and glassy-smooth surfaces. To behold it is to gaze down through a glass-bottomed boat at a battle between a submarine and a sea monster. Which one wins? Kessler’s work sets the scene; we have to infer the outcome. Butters Gallery, 520 NW Davis St., 248-9378. April 7-30. Sean Healy Sean Healy can always be relied on for thoughtfully conceived, immaculately executed work, so Upstate, his April show at Liz Leach, is cause for attention. Its point of departure is Healy’s hometown, Brasher Falls, in upstate New York, an area devastated by the

decline in the manufacturing industry. Using cigarette butts and precisioncut metals as his media, Healy creates works that often incorporate text and geometric designs, finessing the line between the aridly conceptual and the deeply, poignantly personal. Liz Leach Gallery, 417 NW 9th Ave., 224-0521. April 7-May 28.

Aaron Voronoff Trotter

In recent years, painter and performance artist Aaron Voronoff Trotter has put his energies into drawing, chronicling his peripatetic amblings around Portland in etchings. This switch in emphasis—from live painting performances and splattery, collageheavy abstraction to intricate prints— seems to suit the 30-something artist, who has long had a taste for recording his journeys around the world—Southeast Asia, Canada, New England—in highly detailed works on paper. Utrecht Art Supply, 1122 NW Everett St., 4178024. April 7-30.

James Pustorino

New Jersey-based artist James Pustorino creates a linear narrative experience in the graphic-novel-influenced Universechild. Large storyboards wrap around the exhibition space, weaving a transhumanist story about a boy who finds himself in the presence of an alien intelligence, which possesses the power to either destroy him or turn him into something beyond his wildest dreams. Pustorino’s handling of the narrative is invigorating and thought-provoking. Chambers @ 916, 916 NW Flanders St., 227-9398. Closes April 30.

inFORM

Six recent graduates from art programs in Chicago, Canberra and London use kiln-formed glass to create diverse aesthetic visions in inFORM. The schools— Art Institute of Chicago, Australian National University and the Royal College of Art—are renowned for their programs across a variety of media, including glass. One notable inclusion is longtime Portlander Abi Spring, who has returned to the Northwest after a multi-year sojourn to Australia to study at A.N.U.’s world-class glass workshop. Before she left, Spring was known for her minimalist works in crushed marble and other materials, which she exhibited most prominently at Chambers. It will be intriguing to see how she has translated her vision into the medium of glass. Bullseye Gallery, 300 NW 13th Ave., 227-0222. Closes April 9.

For more Visual Arts listings, visit

SMOKE BREAKERS BY SEAN HEALY AT ELIZABETH LEACH GALLERY

SEAN HEALY UPSTATE In Upstate, artist Sean Healy looks back at his childhood in the once-bustling upstate New York town of Brasher Falls. The town fell on hard times in the 1980s and ’90s, when its three main manufacturing plants closed or relocated. Healy, 39, still visits his mother and sister there. Recently, with his 40th birthday looming, he found himself reflecting on the dissonance between his halcyon memories of Brasher Falls and its current depressed state. RICHARD SPEER. An artist learns you can never go home again.

WW: What’s it like now when you go back home? Sean Healy: It’s a ghost town. There’s no industry, there’s rampant alcohol and drug abuse, spousal abuse, the suicide rate’s gone through the roof.... I’ve been really thinking about it as I get older. It was such an idyllic, Leave It to Beaver-type place to grow up. You played baseball, you rode your bike until the sun set.... Lately I’ve realized how much I romanticize my childhood in my artwork. My color palette, the imagery, it’s been nostalgia-based. I realized this last year around the time I lost my day job after 15 years. I was going through all these scary emotions that the workers at the plants must’ve felt. Did your artwork change when you lost your job? Yes. I couldn’t afford anymore to make the big, grandiose, cut-aluminum pieces that I used to

make. It forced me to work with more blue-collar materials like cigarette butts, salt, wood.... My colors became less “Pop,” more muted and monochromatic. The new show is very spartan. It’s the closest to minimalism I’ve ever come. It’s a very different show for me. I’m nervous about it, but it’s good to be nervous again. Tell me about the pieces that are about cigarettes and male-pattern baldness. There’s a piece called Male Pattern Midlife 1 that came from a vision I had of these blue-collar workers who’d worked in the factories since they were out of high school. Now they’re middle-aged, their hair’s thinning, and they’re out on a smoke break. Another piece is called Lifer, and it’s about the kind of battle cry that these workers had at the plants: “I’m a lifer here.” There must be thousands of cigarettes in these pieces. Where did you get them all? I bought them in bulk online from this place in North Carolina that makes filters for R.J. Reynolds. Is this show about midlife crisis? Not really, although I’m sure that show will come eventually. I probably won’t realize it until it’s done and I look at it afterward and say, “Wow, this is all about Porsches and young women!” SEE IT: Upstate at Elizabeth Leach Gallery, 417 NW 9th Ave., 224-0521. April 7-May 28.

Willamette Week APRIL 6, 2011 wweek.com

APR

06 LISA LUTZ & DAVID HAYWARD / Heads You Lose (Putnam) A hilarious crime novel in which the real mystery is: Will the authors solve the mystery or kill each other?

Music

Listings

WED / 6TH / 7P CEDAR HILLS

LIDIA YUKNAVITCH / The Chronology of Water (Hawthorne Books) Issues of gender, sexuality, etc. from the point of view of a swimmer-turned-artist.

WED / 6TH / 7:30P DOWNTOWN

FIRST THURSDAY: Chris Haberman & K. C. Cowan Cowan and Haberman create They Ainít Called Saints for Nothing!

BOOKS

APRIL 6-12

= WW Pick. Highly recommended. By RACHAEL DEWITT. TO BE CONSIDERED FOR LISTINGS, submit lecture or reading information at least two weeks in advance to: WORDS, WW, 2220 NW Quimby St., Portland, OR 97210. Email: words@wweek.com. Fax: 243-1115.

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 6 The Chronology of Water

In 1989, the iconic beat writer Ken Kesey led an experiment in collaborative writing with 13 University of Oregon students that resulted in a novel titled Caverns. One of those 13 students was Lidia Yuknavitch, who now lives in Portland and has just published a memoir, The Chronology of Water, chronicling her escape from her abusive family and subsequent use of drugs and alcohol. She fine-tuned her tale with the help of Chuck Palahniuk and Chelsea Cain at a Portland writing group. Powell’s City of Books, 1005 W Burnside St., 228-4651. 7:30 pm. Free.

THU / 7TH / 6:30P DOWNTOWN

THURSDAY, APRIL 7

JANE KIRKPATRICK / The Daughter's Walk (Waterbrook) Recounts the story Helga Estby and her daughter, who walked from Spokane to NYC in seven months.

I Madman

Frank Einstein was stitched together after a terrible car crash, and though he lost his memory forever, he gained supernatural mental and physical abilities. Frank, a.k.a. Madman, has been fighting bad guys in the pages of Mike Allred’s comic since it began in 1990. This week marks Madman’s 20th anniversary and the release of a 1,000-page collection of the entire Madman Atomic series, along with a brand-new 64-page issue of Madman. Allred, who lives in Oregon, will sign books at Floating World Comics. But when the clock strikes 8 pm, he plans to whip out his karaoke machine and lead the group in song. Floating World Comics, 20 NW 5th Ave., Suite 101, 241-0227. 6-10 pm. Free.

THU / 7TH / 7P CEDAR HILLS

REBECCA SKLOOT / The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (Broadway) The poor Southern tobacco farmer whose "immortal" human cells became an important medical tools.

THU / 7TH / 7P BAGDAD THEATER

ARYN KYLE / Boys and Girls Like You and Me (Scribner) DAVID GOODWILLIE / American Subversive (Scribner) Two young writers discuss their new novels.

THU / 7TH / 7:30P HAWTHORNE

PAOLO GIORDANO / The Solitude of Prime Numbers (Penguin) A stunning meditation on loneliness, love, and what it means to be human.

A History of Printed Matter

For 35 years, the New York-based arts organization Printed Matter has curated exhibitions and published writing examining the role of print in the world of contemporary art. Learn to Read Art: A History of Printed Matter is a collection of artist books, editions and ephemera that represents the organization’s history on exhibit at Pacific Northwest College of Art’s Philip Feldman Gallery. Printed Matter’s current director, Max Schumann, will be speaking at the opening reception, and the exhibit will be up through June 17. Pacific Northwest College of Art, 1241 NW Johnson St. 6 pm. Free.

FRI / 8TH / 7:30P DOWNTOWN

MEG WOLITZER / The Uncoupling (Riverhead)

A funny, provocative novel about female desire.

SUN / 10TH / 4P DOWNTOWN

OLIVIA BOULER / Olivia’s Birds (Sterling) A lavish picture book celebrating an 11 year oldís successful campaign to save the Gulf through art. MON / 11TH / 7P CEDAR HILLS

JUSTIN TAYLOR / The Gospel of Anarchy (Harper Perennial) BLAKE BUTLER / There Is No Year (Harper Perennial)

Two young novelists discuss their new work.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

MON / 11TH / 7:30P DOWNTOWN

BENJAMIN ROSS / The Polluters

When tobacco farmer Henrietta Lacks died of cancer in the early 1950s, researchers did not ask for her or her family’s permission before using her cells to conduct groundbreaking cancer research. Lacks’ story is recovered by Rebecca Skloot in the new book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Bagdad Theater & Pub, 3702 SE Hawthorne Blvd., 236-9234. 7 pm. $3 suggested donation. 21+.

(Oxford Univ. Press)

Reveals the decisions that have caused environmental hazards to be trumped by political agendas.

MON / 11TH / 7:30P HAWTHORNE

MYRA GOODMAN / The Earthbound Cook (Workman) Providing a wealth of information cooks can use to make greener, smarter choices.

TUE / 12TH / 7P CEDAR HILLS

PHILIP CONNORS / Fire Season (Ecco) A remarkable reflection on work, our relationship to the wild, and the charms of solitude.

FRIDAY, APRIL 8 The Solitude of Prime Numbers

TUE / 12TH / 7:30P DOWNTOWN

Just like prime numbers, the protagonists in The Solitude of Prime Numbers are misfits destined for a solitary existence. This is the first novel by 28-year-old Italian author Paolo Giordano, who trained as a physicist and uses math as a metaphor in his literature. Powell’s City of Books, 1005 W Burnside St., 2284651. 7:30 pm. Free.

PETER ORULLIAN / The Unremembered (Tor) A struggle for balance between gods, mortals, and hellish creatures in the world of Aeshau Vaal. WED / 13TH / 7P CEDAR HILLS

FRANCIS FUKUYAMA / The Origins of Political Order (Farrar Straus & Giroux) A sweeping account of how today's basic political institutions developed.

SUNDAY, APRIL 10

WED / 13TH / 7:30P DOWNTOWN

Visit POWELLS.COM/CALENDAR for further details and to sign up for our EVENTS NEWSLETTER. 50

PAGE 31

Willamette Week APRIL 6, 2011 wweek.com

Meg Wolitzer

The women in Aristophanes’ play Lysistrata go on a sex strike to stop a war (what a concept in an era when a president is urged to bomb Libya by three women, but that’s

another story). In Meg Wolitzer’s new novel, The Uncoupling, all the women and girls at a high school staging the classic play mysteriously lose their desire for sex. The lead actress even hauls her canopy bed to the school parking lot and lies there in newfound chastity to protest the war in Afghanistan. I guess we can’t hope to see Hillary Clinton doing this, for many reasons. SARAH E. SMITH. Powell’s City of Books, 1005 W Burnside St., 2284651. 4 pm. Free.

TUESDAY, APRIL 12 Among Birds: A Bird Man in Antarctica Awkward on land, graceful in water, Southern-Hemisphere-dwelling and knee-bucklingly cute, the penguin is back by popular demand. After the documentary March of the Penguins and Warner Bros.’ Happy Feet, comes Among Birds: A Bird Man in Antarctica in which bird scientist Noah Strycker tells of his eye-opening and bone-chilling stay among the penguins of Antarctica. Annie Bloom’s Books, 7834 SW Capitol Highway, 246-0053. 7-8:30 pm. Free.

For more Words listings, visit

REVIEW

JUSTIN TAYLOR THE GOSPEL OF ANARCHY BLAKE BUTLER THERE IS NO YEAR “They lived as if the fate of the very universe were perpetually at stake and in their hands,” muses an erstwhile member of the “Anarchristian” punk collective brought to begrimed life by Justin Taylor in his ambitious and flawed first novel, The Gospel of Anarchy. The same might be said about nearly every gnarled branch of punk’s family tree (chat up a straightedge dude sometime), but usually with the sneer of someone who’s been there, done that, gotten over it and discovered altcountry. It’s refreshing, then, that Taylor’s imagining of a Crass-friendly Christianity isn’t just another lame excuse to score post-patch points, but a reverent test of punk’s productive energy. Just how far can a book of big ideas go on punk rock’s biodiesel fumes? To infinity and beyond, it turns out. The problem is that Taylor is much better at worrying over guttersnipe minutiae—half-smoked rollies and soggy dumpster scores—than illuminating the muddled religion practiced by a clutch of refuseniks who find a departed comrade’s journal-cum-exegesis and see transcendence in its poetry. Taylor is brave enough to take this spiritual awakening seriously, but as his cutting riffs on porn and Dead Moon devolve into metaphysical slogs, The Gospel of Anarchy becomes nearly as confused and humorless as a kid reading Maximum Rocknroll for the first time. That said, it’s heartening—thrilling, even—to watch a young talent take risks like this, and I’m positive Taylor will write something truly great one day. So here’s hoping Blake Butler’s There Is No Year, with its gray fun-with-margins pages and Lynchian weirdness, doesn’t hog too much of the spotlight as these two writers tour together. Because even though Butler’s despairing take on domestic horror might look like a high-wire act (footnoted commas!), it’s a beginner’s routine, all smoke and mirrors and safety nets. Breathtakingly compact and unsettling as Butler’s sentences can be—a beehive “chock with mazy tunnel,” a mother’s face “engraved with home expression”—there simply aren’t enough of them to go around. Butler’s fractured tale of one sad family’s haunted home relies on ostensible “strangeness” instead, a nightmare repertoire of expanding rooms and rebellious reflections that is too familiar to cause any lasting damage. There Is No Year is a marvel of book design, but one man’s bad dream will almost always be the same man’s dull tale, no matter the amount of typesetting tomfoolery. CHRIS STAMM. GO: Blake Butler and Justin Taylor read at Powell’s City of Books, 1005 W Burnside St., 228-4651. 7:30 pm Monday, April 11. Free.

APRIL 6 - 12 FEATURE

= WW Pick. Highly recommended.

A N D R E W S C H WA R T Z / H B O

MOVIES

Editor: AARON MESH. TO BE CONSIDERED FOR LISTINGS, send screening information at least two weeks in advance to Movies, WW, 2220 NW Quimby St., Portland, OR 97210. Email: amesh@wweek.com. Fax: 243-1115.

NEW

Action Heroes

[ONE NIGHT ONLY] Lukas Tielke’s locally made mountain-biking movie has impressive camerawork, judging from the trailer. Hollywood Theatre. 7 pm Wednesday, April 6.

The Adjustment Bureau

56 Like any paranoid thriller, The Adjustment Bureau gestures toward fighting the power—but not since Capra has a supernatural movie sided so squarely with conformism, acquiescence to authority and abdication of independent thought. Right out of the gate, U.S. Senate front-runner Matt Damon learns that his every decision is being programmed by a totalitarian brain-ray guild, and his basic response is, “Bummer, may I have my lady friend back please?” That the lady friend in question is played by Emily Blunt does not entirely excuse his surrender. PG-13. AARON MESH. Clackamas, Broadway, Bridgeport, St. Johns Twin Cinema-Pub.

NEW

Arthur

Orleans resident (sporting a jaunty white hat to prove it), largely overcomes those obstacles by methodically laying out the case that much of the death and destruction was avoidable. The villain in this instance was the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. And the documentary makes a strong brief, through interviews with a solid cadre of critics—and via easy-to-understand maps and graphics—that the Corps of Engineers failed to engineer a system of levees that could have protected New Orleans. The one off-note comes when the film strays periodically from its sober science to let Treme actor John Goodman introduce jarring detours into asking New Orleans residents easily answered questions, such as why they’re all supposedly sitting around waiting for federal help. The film returns to firmer ground when it sticks to the science, which ably and fairly rejects the conventional narrative that Katrina would have overwhelmed any man-made engineering solution. HENRY STERN. Clinton Street Theater. 7 and 9 pm Friday-Thursday, April 8-14.

Blue Valentine

32 Russell Brand, who is either a

Kaufman-esque bluff of anti-humor perpetrated by Jim Carrey or some sick form of viral marketing for the world’s finest purveyor of nearly lifelike latex masks, attempts to squeeze into Dudley Moore’s tiny shoes in this misbegotten remake of 1981’s unapologetic ode to crapulent dandyism, and it’s as sad and exhausting as a threeday bender’s blighted home stretch. Director Jason Winer and writer Peter Baynham (whose work with Sacha Baron Cohen is evidence enough that he should know better) forgo the original’s perfectly dazed pacing and crank everything until it’s in the red. The story essentially remains the same— trust fund lush Arthur will be cut off unless he marries his mother’s idea of a properly prissy mate—but it unfolds in a stuttering series of effortful set pieces that owe more to Big’s innocent idea of a man-child than Arthur’s bittersweet vision of eternal adolescence. Arthur drives a Batmobile! Arthur fucks in a floating bed! Arthur wears Abe Lincoln’s hat! Arthur dresses up as a gummy bear and falls down stairs! Lop off the third act’s endorsement of teetotaling clarity and what you have here is a brightly colored Saturday-morning advertisement for Maker’s Mark. Hey kids: It goes great with Frosted Flakes. PG-13. CHRIS STAMM. Cedar Hills, Clackamas, Eastport, Cinetopia, Cornelius, Oak Grove, Pioneer Place, Cinema 99, Bridgeport, Hilltop, Lloyd Center, Lloyd Mall, Sherwood, Tigard, Wilsonville, Sandy.

Battle: Los Angeles

40 Lonely and dreaming of the West Coast, spacemen storm Santa Monica like it’s Normandy, and we endure the invasion from the POV of an Aaron Eckhart-led Marine platoon that firefights from beach house to beach house. As the title suggests, the movie’s tactical coldness feels most like a Call of Duty-brand video game and, since the extraterrestrials are the usual whirring biomechanical biped bugs, most of the tech crew’s imagination is expended on making the picture unpleasantly nerve-shattering, then just unpleasant. The soldiers vivisect a captured enemy, trying to locate its vital organs. “Maybe I can help,” says a nice lady, played by Bridget Moynahan. “I’m a veterinarian.” PG-13. AARON MESH. 99 Indoor Twin, Cedar Hills, Clackamas, Eastport, Forest, Bridgeport, Lloyd Mall.

NEW

The Big Uneasy

75 [ONE WEEK ONLY] A documen-

tary explaining what happened—and why—in New Orleans so many years after Hurricane Katrina devastated the Big Easy in 2005 faces high hurdles. Chief among those “why watch” questions is, what’s left to be said about the much-chronicled destruction? But this film, narrated by comedian Harry Shearer, a part-time New

96 In Blue Valentine’s most iconic

sequence, a love-struck Ryan Gosling positions Michelle Williams underneath a heart-shaped wreath outside a florist shop and croons the Mills Brothers’ “You Always Hurt the One You Love” while plucking a ukulele as she tap dances. It’s their first date. You see the longing, curiosity and affection in their eyes. You want it to last forever. You wish you hadn’t seen the hour that preceded it. Derek Cianfrance has crafted a small miracle, a film that reminds us that movies are designed not just to stimulate, but to make us feel—even if those feelings are devastating. R. AP KRYZA. Living Room Theaters. NEW

Brief Encounter

80 [THREE NIGHTS ONLY, REVIVAL]

David Lean’s greatest gift, even as he went on to racing camels and destroying bridges, was to understand the power of a small object, blown up to the dimensions of the big screen. At his best, Lean managed the same transformation on an emotional plane. That’s certainly the magic of 1945’s Brief Encounter, justly the best known of his first pictures. Based on a play by Noël Coward, the 86-minute romance approaches its central liaison obliquely, keeping its full emotional power in reserve for the ending. The hopeless love between Laura (Celia Johnson) and Alec (Trevor Howard) is experienced in the ordinary corners of train-station tea rooms and moviehouse balconies. The implicit critique of repressed middle-class values has been discussed for, oh, 63 years, but what’s most striking about Brief Encounter is its portrayal of infatuation and longing as a horrible invasion: a kind of disease that can only be endured so long. “There’ll come a time in the future when I shan’t mind about this anymore,” Laura thinks to herself as part of her constant internal monologue—and what’s awful (and true) about the line is how killing a part of the soul becomes the only route to peace. It’s the kind of diurnal calamity that most movies would rather not notice. AARON MESH. 5th Avenue Cinema. 7 and 9:30 pm FridaySaturday, 3 pm Sunday, April 8-10.

Cedar Rapids

50 Miguel Arteta (The Good Girl, Youth in Revolt) hosts a Midwestern potluck of current indie-comedy talent, which means Cedar Rapids is not very ambitious, and only superficially funny. Daily Show alum and Office a cappella specialist Ed Helms plays Tim Lippe, an insurance salesman for a Wisconsin firm called Brown Star—that’s an early sign of the movie’s insistently blue material. Tim leaves his hamlet for the first time to attend a business convention in the titular metropolis; the hotel, with its shabby atrium, chipped

CONT. on page 52

VIPER IN HER BOSOM: Evan Rachel Wood snuggles with Kate Winslet.

THE LADY WAFFLES MILDRED PIERCE IS SNAKES ON A HAYNES. BY

AA R ON MESH

amesh@wweek.com

The most perceptive scene in Todd Haynes’ HBO miniseries Mildred Pierce aired two weeks ago, in the first episode. Kate Winslet’s Mildred, a suddenly single mom raising two daughters in Depressionera Glendale, Calif., is in an employment office, pridefully resisting a help-wanted notice for a maid. In a speech nicely condensed from James M. Cain’s source novel, the agent (Brenda Wehle) loses her patience with Mildred: “Sure, you got a head on your shoulders, and a good physique. But you let half your life slip by without anything but sleeping, cooking and setting the table—and, lo and behold, that’s all you’re good for. So get over it.” The most wickedly entertaining scene in Mildred Pierce airs this Monday, in the last episode. Mildred has established a chain of phenomenally successful chicken-and-waffle palaces, but is trying to regain the affection of her adored opera-singing daughter Veda (Evan Rachel Wood). In a speech again condensed from the novel, Veda’s vocal coach, a flamboyant Italian impresario (Ronald Guttman), loses his patience with Mildred: “You go to a zoo. See the little snake.... It is the same with this Veda. You buy ticket. You look at the little snake. But you no take home.” These two scenes share a basic structure— people are forever telling unpleasant things to Mildred Pierce—but it’s their differences that suggest how the miniseries goes subtly awry. It tells the story of a woman who triumphs outside her expected field, but who forgets about the fundamental ingredients of her success in an obsession with her terrible brat. The show is also in many ways a triumph for Portland’s Todd Haynes and local screenwriter Jon Raymond, both working in television for the first time. (For all the furor over film subsidies bringing TV pilots here, it is in some ways more gratifying to see Oregon talent breaking into HBO with a New York-filmed series: Mildred Pierce is on a different plane of craft and talent than Portlandia.) Shedding the murder melodrama of the 1945 film that won Joan Crawford an Oscar, this Pierce returns to Cain’s book, a rapidly

escalating pulp about a mother’s choice between an empty nest and a rotten egg. But the show, like its heroine, ultimately abandons what it does best, all too enraptured at the breathtaking awfulness of that kid. For about half of its five-episode run, Mildred Pierce concentrates on the details of housekeeping, breadwinning and personality. Like Raymond’s previous screenplay for Kelly Reichardt’s Wendy and Lucy, the series keenly observes an economic squeeze (notice Mildred wordlessly choosing between carrots and hot dogs, and how anxious she gets when one of her kids wags a finger too close to the cake she’s selling to makes ends meet). Like Haynes’ Far From Heaven and I’m Not There, the show is occupied with questions of identity (watch how hard it is for Mildred to claim herself a business owner, or anything else). The show understands money, and its power to shamefully expose inadequacies. And the performances are top-shelf throughout: Mildred’s paramours, who all get along reasonably well, are played by James LeGros, Brían F. O’Byrne and Guy Pearce, reaffirming his peerless period-Angeleno credentials with a turn that suggests a decaying Brad Pitt. But Winslet runs into trouble. It may be that the character of Mildred, written by Cain as both pioneer and patsy, is simply impossible to play: Crawford got her brass notes right, but her tenderness seemed false; Winslet is plausibly needy, so much so that I wondered how she was keeping those chicken-and-waffle places humming. The actress has steel, but she eventually plays Mildred as a dishrag. As the character loses her way, so does the show. Its last two installments are mostly distracted from Mildred’s choices by the monstrous Veda, whom Wood portrays as actually talented, but also a snob and moneygrubber beyond all reason. This is all very faithful to the book, which ends up being Mildred Pierce’s great, patience-straining problem: It details every machination to the point it loses momentum, shape and intimacy. It is never less than entertaining, but it could have been more. You look at the little snakes. You even take them home. But you no take them personally. 76 SEE IT: Mildred Pierce’s fourth and fifth episodes premiere on HBO at 9 pm Sunday, April 10.

Willamette Week APRIL 6, 2011 wweek.com

MOVIES

APRIL 6 - 12

woodwork and azure indoor pool, is a marvel of production design by Doug J. Meerdink, who showed similar heartland retro flair for The Informant! Here, it’s wasted on a script with a lot of jokes about how flyover-country folks sure do love talking about God before boinking. R. AARON MESH. Hollywood Theatre, Living Room Theaters.

Cold Weather

88 Cold Weather, an unusually

observant picture, thinks about details. You might say director Aaron Katz and his protagonist share an affinity for clues: About midway through the movie, Doug (Chris Lankenau) learns his ex-girlfriend (Robyn Rikoon) has flown her motel room, and puts his detective skills to work. Katz, meanwhile, patiently feeds us information about Doug, who typifies the Portland resident as somebody whose ambition got lost by the airline on the flight out here. AARON MESH. Living Room Theaters.

NEW

From Here to Eternity

[REVIVAL] Frank Sinatra bombs Pearl Harbor. We kid, we kid. Roseway.

Heartbeats

90 The most visually arresting dispatch from Canada’s young, beautiful and prowling since Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, 21-year-old director Xavier Dolan’s second work is a slow-motion plunge into a flood of pheromones. A Québécois In the Mood for Love in red leopard-print pumps, Heartbeats observes best

pals (Monia Chokri and Dolan) both smitten with a curly blond Adonis (Niels Schneider, ominously introduced wearing the candy-heart sunglasses of Sue Lyon in Kubrick’s Lolita). Dolan is both properly distanced from the blissful aches of infatuation (he divides the acts with faux-documentary interviews with wrecked victims of young romance, all of them very funny) and physically alert to them. I watched with a grin, and my toes tingling. AARON MESH. Living Room Theaters.

REVIEW ALEX BAILEY

Willamette Week

Diary of a Wimpy Kid 2: Rodrick Rules

No Idea What to Do???

Let Us Help! See pages 62 & 63

29 Love Ramona Quimby but hate all that pesky imagination? Would you rather see a kid lip-sync to Ke$ha on YouTube? Have I got a movie for you! To say Diary of a Wimpy Kid 2: Rodrick Rules—the follow-up to the hit adaptation of Jeff Kinney’s tweener novels—is a family flick isn’t fair. Hell, saying it’s for the prepubescent set isn’t even accurate: Kids who can define puberty are too old for the story of Greg (Zachary Gordon), a meek middle schooler forced to bond with his jerkoff older brother Rodrick (Devon Bostick). They’re reluctant until mom gives them a financial incentive, and soon Rodrick is giving his brother a crash course in being a douchebag. What ensues is a series of unfunny situations involving poop, magic shows, fake vomit, ginger kids doing conga lines, girls, senile grandparents and the requisite lesson in brotherly love. Which is fine for the peachfuzz set, but unlike most modern kid flicks, there is absolutely nothing for adults except the prospect of a home-video babysitter in a few months. Let’s hope the inevitable third installment of the sitcomy series debuts on Nick Jr. where it belongs. That way, parents can at least read a book while the kids giggle mindlessly. PG. AP KRYZA. Cedar Hills, Clackamas, Eastport, Cinetopia, Cornelius, Oak Grove, Cinema 99, Bridgeport, Lloyd Mall, Sherwood, Sandy.

NEW Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

75 [ONE NIGHT ONLY, REVIVAL] Peter Sellers may hog all the glory for playing three roles in Dr. Strangelove, but it’s Sterling Hayden’s Gen. Jack D. Ripper who keeps appearing in different manifestations down through the years. Hayden is one of the few players in Strangelove who doesn’t let on any awareness of the joke, so his all-American know-nothing paranoia perfectly presages every solemn, irrational conspiracy purveyor to come. As for the rest of the movie...I don’t know. It’s one of the few canonical comedies that isn’t funnier every time you watch it: The jokes are mostly on the surface, as if Stanley Kubrick feared that human engagement would rub the polish of a gleaming, satanic gag. Sellers’ monkeyshines are wearisome (though his president is enjoyably wearied) and the movie is lucky that the actor sprained his ankle and couldn’t play Major Kong—Slim Pickens is perfect, because he actually didn’t know it was a comedy. In life, we never know it’s a comedy. PG. AARON MESH. Roseway. 8:30 pm Friday, April 8. Presented by Cort and Fatboy.

NEW

WWEEK.COM/ EATMOBILE 52

Willamette Week APRIL 6, 2011 wweek.com

Edvard Munch

[ONE NIGHT ONLY, REVIVAL] A 1974 docudrama on the man who painted The Scream. He had his reasons. NW Film Center’s Whitsell Auditorium. 7 pm Friday, April 8..

KISS ME DEADLY, CATE: Blanchett goes down.

HANNA Best things first: I see no reason why every movie shouldn’t be filmed in a rusting, abandoned German amusement park. East Berlin’s Spreepark does wonders for the final act of director Joe Wright’s Hanna, which includes some jaw-dropping visuals— including Cate Blanchett walking down train tracks that emerge from the moldering jaw of a giant wolf. If there were an Oscar for location scouting, Hanna would be the 2011 frontrunner; as it is, the eerie moonscapes throughout the film (Finnish ice floes, orange-tiled Berlin subway stations, granite military compounds under the Moroccan desert) help compensate for a script that feels a little too eager to be a punky parable. It’s about a pale blond teen (Saoirse Ronan, who is not, as a friend of mine suggested a little too enthusiastically, the girl who plays Luna Lovegood in the Harry Potter movies, though she totally could be) bred and trained to be a killer. Wright’s last movie, Atonement, was a rather overworked literary adaptation also starring Ronan; in Hanna, you can almost see him crowing, “Who’s pretentious and bloodless now, huh?” So the movie opens with the adolescent heroine stalking and gutting a reindeer, her impassive face reflected in the engorged capillaries of the dying animal’s eye. Which is still kind of pretentious, but not bloodless. As Ronan pursues U.S. government operative Blanchett at the behest of her woodsman/secret agent dad (Eric Bana), the film pulses to a score by the Chemical Brothers, who have also written an earworm of a cabaret motif, whistled by a sadistic Weimar pansexual (Tom Hollander). You might ask what a sadistic Weimar pansexual is doing here, and didn’t that stereotype die out some time ago, but you’d be missing out on the zest of the thing. Also very good is Wright’s decision to film much of Hanna from the perspective of Blanchett’s sinister bureaucrat (a device borrowed from Michael Clayton), especially in a memorable, dusky assassination flashback filmed in a fluid, unbroken shot. But, much like Atonement, this picture is too mannered to make an emotional impact. It’s an empty fun park. A family of British tourists (including Olivia Williams and Tamara Drewe’s crass schoolgirl Jessica Barden) is introduced mainly as comic relief, but I found myself worrying about their fate far more than that of the central characters. Alarmingly, Hanna doesn’t seem to care what becomes of the family at all. Instead, the movie ends with another hunting scene; its first and last lines, both delivered to impaled prey, are the same: “I just missed your heart.” That’s OK—nobody was using it. PG-13. AARON MESH.

Hanna got run over by a reindeer.

65 SEE IT: Hanna opens Friday at Cedar Hills, Clackamas, Eastport, CineMagic, Cinetopia, Cornelius, Lake Twin, Oak Grove, Cinema 99, Bridgeport, Fox Tower, Hilltop, Lloyd Center, Sherwood, Wilsonville, Sandy and St. Johns Twin Cinema-Pub.

MOVIES

“ESSENTIAL VIEWING!

APRIL 6 - 12

A gripping, persuasive film.” –LOS ANGELES TIMES

A A FILM FILM BY BY

HARRY SHEARER

invites you and your family to an exclusive advance screening of

NATURAL NATURAL DISASTER? DISASTER? YOU YOU DON’T DON’T KNOW KNOW THE HALF HALF OF OF IT.

for free! on Thursday, April 14 at 7 PM LLOYD CENTER MIRAL

Hop

I Am

29 After Hollywood director Tom

Shadyac developed suicidal leanings while suffering from “post concussion syndrome,” he set out to heal himself and simultaneously figure out the fundamental problems of the entire world. That would seem a tall order for the man who directed Ace Ventura, Bruce Almighty and The Nutty Professor. But being responsible for Patch Adams apparently garnered him access to a lot of respected brains, yielding an unfocused documentary featuring an epic parade of talking heads from Noam Chomsky and Thom Hartmann to Howard Zinn and Desmond Tutu. The high point is watching Shadyac control the energy field of a petri dish full of yogurt with his feelings about his lawyer. KELLY CLARKE. Fox Tower.

I Saw the Devil

64 The latest from Jee-woon Kim (The Good, the Bad, the Weird), violent enough to have been initially banned from public exhibition by the South Korean government, opens with the savage murder of a pregnant woman at the hatchet of Kyung-chul (Oldboy star Choi Minsik), a snarling brute with a thing for raping and bludgeoning women to death, then skinning them. But unlike the other auteurs of the South Korean film renaissance, Kim doesn’t find—or seem particularly

Insidious

30 If you cast your eyes down-

ward, you should see letters P and G and number 13 all bolded there. That should probably tell you everything you need to know about how “horrific” the latest horror flick from the Aussie duo behind Saw (and Saw II, Saw III, Saw IV, Saw V, Saw VI and Saw (circle one:) Artist: 3-D), Leigh Whannell and James Wan, really is. Allegedly, they were Aurelio Heather trying to create Poltergeist for aStaci new generation. If I—a fully grown adult—had trouble understanding Emmett Jay Steve the flimsy and nonsensical internal logic of Insidious (even with 100 Conﬁrmation #: excruciatingly plodding minutes to figure it out), I can only imagine how today’s generation of Ritalinpopping instant-gratification-seeking teens would fare. It all starts out simply (if not exactly captivatingly) enough: Josh (Patrick Wilson) and Renai (Rose Byrne, who’s given little to work with, but it’s nice to see her in a leading role, regardless) move to a new house—a creepy house!—and their son falls into a coma. Weird things start happening. Weird, not very scary things. Could the house be haunted? Could their son be haunted? Or could the whole thing fall apart in a baffling melange of multiple dimensions, paranormal activity and fake American accents? About one tedious hour in, you won’t even care; you’ll just be praying for someone, anyone, to get brutally dismembered. Which, irony of ironies, you know they won’t, because it’s…. PG-13. RUTH BROWN. Cedar Hills, Clackamas, Eastport, Cornelius, Pioneer Place, Cinema 99, Bridgeport, Hilltop, Lloyd Center, Sherwood.

Jane Eyre

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BREW VIEWS P. 56

38 Unlike his homeboy and fellow childhood-greed enthusiast Kris Kringle (who has had to deal with everything from Martians to Vince Vaughn), the Easter Bunny has remained relatively untouched on the silver screen. With Hop, the rabbit is front and center in the form of E.B., the heir to the Easter Bunny dynasty. This being a big studio project, E.B. is a flannel-sporting, jellybean-crapping slacker voiced by Russell Brand, who leaves Easter Island to pursue his dream of becoming a rock drummer by appearing on David Hasselhoff ’s America’s Got Talent ripoff. He’s aided by a liveaction human slacker Fred O’Hare (James Marsden), a jackass who conveniently dreams of becoming the first human Easter Bunny. Meanwhile, E.B.’s dad battles conniving chicks plotting an overthrow of his Wonka-esque candy factory while realizing he should nurture E.B.’s dreams. Hop has moments of saccharine fun for the kids and a couple of gags for parents (including a riff on Fatal Attraction), but in trying to make Hop hip, director Tim Hill forgets to add magic, instead forging a Poochie-like hero who borders on Alvin & the Chipmunks obnoxiousness (Hill directed that mess, too). At least Hop doesn’t teach us the “true meaning” of Easter—a CGI zombie messiah would really scare the shit out of the kids. PG. AP KRYZA. Cedar Hills, Clackamas, Eastport, Cinetopia, Cornelius, Oak Grove, Broadway, Cinema 99, Bridgeport, Hilltop, Lloyd Center, Lloyd Mall, Sherwood, Sandy.

interested in finding—any humanity in inhuman acts. AP KRYZA. Living Room Theaters.

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Please note: Passes received through this promotion do not guarantee you a seat at the theatre. Seating is on a first come, first served basis, except for members of the reviewing press. Theatre is overbooked to ensure a full house. No admittance once screening has begun. All federal,

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20TH CENTURY FOX WILLAMETTE WEEK WEDNESDAY 04/06

3.772" X 6.052"

77 A word of warning for fans of

sweeping period romances: This is not the Jane Eyre you are looking for. Young director Cary Fukunaga and screenwriter Moira Buffini pull everything dark out of Charlotte Brontë’s classic novel and unleash it in all its gothic glory on the big screen. Although this version chops vast swaths of the original text, it is, in many ways, a much truer adaptation than most of the 5 trillion others, which have tended to polish away the characters’ rough edges—including casting inordinately good-looking stars to play characters who repeatedly talk about how ugly they are. Really, most of the characters in the original novel are assholes—ugly assholes—and Fukunaga doesn’t shy away from that. PG-13. RUTH BROWN. Fox Tower. NEW

Kid With the Golden Arm

[ONE NIGHT ONLY, REVIVAL] The Shaw Brothers bring back the Venom Mob. Hollywood Theatre. 7:30 pm Tuesday, April 12. Presented by the Grindhouse Film Festival.

CONT. on page 54

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Email us at JWMovieClub@gmail.com for your chance to win! Entries must be received by Wednesday, April 13th. W hile supplies last. Only a limited number of DVDs available. Limit one DVD per person. W inners chosen at random from all eligible entries. W inners will be notified by e-mail on or about 4/15/11. NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. NO PHONE CALLS!

ON BLU-RAY™ HI-DEF & DVD NOW Willamette Week APRIL 6, 2011 wweek.com

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Cleveland had its own gangsters, and in 1976, pretty much all of them were occupied with setting off car bombs: 36 explosions turned the Mistake by the Lake into Bomb City, USA. Jonathan Hensleigh’s slightly fictionalized, very GoodFellas-ized account of this war’s central figure— Danny Greene, “the Robin Hood of Colinwood”—is not a very good movie, but it’s exactly my kind of not-very-good movie, a parade of vibrant lowlifes played by actors gnashing for work now that their TV serials are over. (For example: Here’s Vincent D’Onofrio donning his eyeglasses to gut-stab a bound valet who tried to bomb Greene’s car, then grinning the eager smile of a nerdy boy who just won the talent show.) Greene, played by Ray Stevenson in an intensely soulful turn that first suggests a young Nick Nolte and then Winnebago Man Jack Rebney, is mythologized and sentimentalized (he’s so nobly Irish, y’see), but he really owes his relative longevity to the poor marksmanship of his enemies (including Christopher Walken, lip-smacking as usual). It’s too bad the movie isn’t a little more clear-eyed and a little less derivative—but heck, there’s so many good, fiery bombings that when Greene hands his girlfriend a velvet engagement-ring box, you half expect it to blow up when she opens it. Instead, there’s some kind of Celtic heirloom. Oh well. R. AARON MESH. Fox Tower.

“raY stevenson has enoUGh testosterone to power a citY BlocK...HHHH!” MICK LASALLE, SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE

“an eFFortless crowD-pleaser... one oF the Year’s Best Films!" OMAR MOORE, EXAMINER.COM

VI NC ENT

STEVE N S O N D’O N O FR IO

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KILM E R

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Kill the Irishman

The King’s Speech

73 The King’s Speech is the sort

A FILM BY

of awards-season tinsel that opens with a speaking engagement going mortifyingly awry—the secondborn son of the House of Windsor (Colin Firth) cannot make it through a sentence without breaking down in heaving gulps—and ends with a heart-swelling proclamation of war. R, PG-13. AARON MESH. Cedar Hills, Clackamas, Eastport, Briageport, Lloyd Mall.

JONATHAN HENSLEIGH

BaseD on the trUe storY oF DannY Greene the man the moB coUlDn’t Kill SCREENPLAY BY

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FOR STRONG VIOLENCE, LANGUAGE, AND SOME SEXUAL CONTENT/NUDITY

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Limitless

71 Limitless, a muddled fable

SUMMER GUIDE 2011 3.772” x 8”

Willamette Week Wed: 04/06

Leave Her to Heaven

[REVIVAL] Once you’ve finished Mildred Pierce and her eeeeevil daughter Veda, check out another noir girl: Gene Tierney, who in this movie is craaaaazy. (These are compliments. This is noir.) Hollywood Theatre.

All.KTi-A1.0406.Wi jm

Lady Terminator

[REVIVAL] The 1989 Indonesian Schwarzenegger ripoff. Hollywood Theatre.

Anchor BAy Films

about a clear pill that offers mental clarity, doesn’t make much sense, and doesn’t need to—it’s pure visual stimulation. Burger’s camera tunnels forward through Manhattan streetscapes in repeated zooms (the effect is of a photograph that, upon closer focus, dissolves into the photograph behind it) and when Cooper’s high wears off, the image literally flips, so that he is vomiting vertically upward, into the air and onto his shoes. When Limitless’ buzz is kicking in, it’s the sympathy-for-the-speculators fun that Oliver Stone’s Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps failed to achieve. PG-13. AARON MESH. Cedar Hills, Clackamas, Eastport, Cinetopia, Forest, Oak Grove, Pioneer Place, Cinema 99, Bridgeport, Hilltop, Lloyd Center, Sherwood, Tigard, Sandy.

The Lincoln Lawyer

67 Matthew McConaughey is a

June 15, 2011 sPace ReseRvation Thursday, June 9 at 4pm 503 243 2122 email advertising@wweek.com

Publishes call

Willamette Week APRIL 6, 2011 wweek.com

ALLITERATION

62 Suck on this, New York:

STUART LEE, WNYX-TV

RAY

APRIL 6 - 12

lawyer who rides around in the back of a black Lincoln Continental with the custom license plate “NTGUILTY.” The movie is NTGOOD, exactly, but it’s NTBAD, either. A sub-Grisham potboiler, its characterizations and atmosphere are secondhand, but the courtroom machinations of its plot are enjoyably convoluted. McConaughey is supported by a bevy of reliable rogues: Josh Lucas, William H. Macy, Bryan Cranston, John Leguizamo

LAURENT THURIN NAL/ MK2

“the Best GanGster Film since ‘GooDFellas’”

THIS IS NOT THE ONE WITH THE SHARKS: Juliette Binoche in Certified Copy.

CERTIFIED COPY/SOUL SURFER Certified Copy 77 Juliette Binoche’s filmography already reads like a Bazin-quoting video store geek’s wet dream—Godard, Haneke, Kieslowski, Assayas and Hou have all harnessed her radiance—and with Certified Copy, she adds an Abbas Kiarostami film to the CV. Although it’s his first narrative feature made outside of Iran, Certified Copy is classic Kiarostami: People drive and talk and then park and walk and talk some more. Chatty Cathys James (William Shimell) and Elle (Binoche) meet in postcard-perfect Tuscany and immediately proceed to that stage in a relationship where shit constantly greets fan. These being some Kiarostami-grade class acts, they fight about love as if it were art, and vice versa. The slow unfolding of their strange arrangement creates the illusion of profundity, but the nonstop verbiage masks rather trite insights into what love means and how art works. That said, it’s always a pleasure to watch Kiarostami’s traveling long takes unfurl in eternal golden hour, and with Certified Copy he has something sublime to follow: Binoche, of course, whose iridescent performance is an effortless dance of flustered fragility and deep sorrow. In the end, it’s middling Kiarostami, but it also might be Binoche’s greatest achievement. CHRIS STAMM. Opens Friday at Living Room Theaters. These movies have nothing in common!

Soul Surfer 25 The true story of Bethany Hamilton is basically a genderswitched 127 Hours, except she gets her arm stuck in a shark. I attended out of a sense of responsibility to the amputationmovie beat and because, hey, it could always defy reason and be good. Nope. Soul Surfer is Dennis Quaid quoting Bible verses and Carrie Underwood trying to explain the mysterious ways of God—schmaltz for Jesus. If you know the premise coming in, the early bits are filled with unintentional humor: There’s little Bethany (wholesome AnnaSophia Robb) playing ukulele...for now! The movie teases with underwater cameras in that coy, post-Jaws way, but when the shark attack occurs, it’s absurdly abrupt and somehow funnier than anything that came before. But what comes after, complete with unpersuasive hide-the-limb CGI, is the comedy of the year. There’s a scene in which the family is about to eat dinner, but Bethany reminds them they need to say grace first, but when they start to hold hands, she can’t hold hands, because she doesn’t have a hand. That sort of thing. Yes, I know I shouldn’t be so cynical, and plenty of people will be inspired by Soul Surfer to...surf, maybe, or help tsunami victims, or help tsunami victims surf. But this is the first movie I’ve ever attended where the security guards were unsuccessfully stifling laughter. PG. AARON MESH. Opens Friday at Cedar Hills, Clackamas, Eastport, Cornelius, Pioneer Place, Cinema 99, Bridgeport, Hilltop, Lloyd Mall, Sherwood and Wilsonville.

APRIL 6 - 12

MOVIES

and Shea Whigham. That’s quite the docket, and doesn’t even include the biker gang that rumbles in from time to time. R. AARON MESH. Cedar Hills, Clackamas, Eastport, Cinetopia, Forest, Lake Twin, Oak Grove, Cinema 99, Bridgeport, Fox Tower, Hilltop, Lloyd Center, Sherwood, St. Johns Twin Cinema-Pub, Sandy. NEW

DISTINCTIVELY ORIGINAL AND BEWITCHING!”

“

Miral

Of Gods and Men

87 A deeply serious study of devo-

tion and doubt as experienced by a brotherhood of French monks whose quiet lives of prayer and community service (and a whole lot of puttering in the garden) are threatened by the Algerian Civil War. Xavier Beauvois evinces a deep and abiding reverence for the deliberate rhythms of ritual—the film is, at times, as slow as a Communion line at Lourdes— and although I don’t think I’ll be buying any of the Lord’s bullpucky anytime soon, Of Gods and Men builds to an affirmation of faith so stunningly transcendent that I emerged from the theater with some understanding of how grace might feel, and I liked it. PG-13. CHRIS STAMM. Hollywood Theatre.

Paul

45 Paul is what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable, albeit imaginary, object: Seth Rogen’s cavalcade of spliff-cough jokes makes its first contact with computer-generated imagery, and nobody wins. The movie sticks Rogen in the body of a little green man who looks like a Roswell figurine and behaves like, well, Seth Rogen—and the movie features a history-of-the-universe montage, but the only sight gag it can think to include is a shot of two aliens humping. I can’t really blame this on CGI. Paul just needs higher intelligence. R. AARON MESH. Cedar Hills, Clackamas, Eastport, Cornelius, Broadway, Bridgeport, Lloyd Center, Sandy.

NEW

Portland Jewish Film Festival

[ONE WEEK ONLY] Highlights of the tribal celebration’s second week include Army of Crime (7 pm Thursday, April 7), a French Resistance thriller, and Tango, a Story With Jews (7 pm Tuesday, April 12), a documentary about exactly what it says. NW Film Center’s Whitsell Auditorium. Runs through Sunday, April 17. Find full listings at nwfilm.org.

Rango

82 If there’s a criticism to lob at

Gore Verbinski’s wildly entertain-

ROMANTIC, THRILLING AND OFTEN SCARY! ” —US WEEKLY

“

46 Following the tremendous

success of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, artist-cum-director Julian Schnabel widens his lens with Miral, tackling the complex and volatile conflict between Israel and Palestine over the course of 50 years. Tracing the “true story” of a headstrong Palestinian schoolgirl (Slumdog Millionaire beauty and decidedly non-Palestinian Freida Pinto), Schnabel’s film attempts to dissect the frustrations of a people under occupation while examining the perseverance of innocence, women’s oppression, hate as a hereditary disease and compassion as salvation. It’s extremely ambitious in its intent. Too bad, then, that Miral feels like a scattershot miniseries pared down to a two-hour movie, rife with community-theater dialogue and wooden performances. The film’s tone and flow jackknife from scene to scene, while characters and their motivations are painted with a simplicity that borders on sloppiness— the Israelis are mostly brutish thugs while the Palestinians are peaceful humanitarians tempted by the fruit of uprising. Effectively examining such contentious subject matter requires multiple points of view, but Schnabel’s film is a dull journey into a CliffsNotes history of the occupation. As expected, the director imbues his film with rich and vibrant hues. It’s a shame his narrative is such a black-and-white mess. R. AP KRYZA. Fox Tower.

“

TRANSFIXING!” A CLASSIC FOR A NEW GENERATION!”

“

TRULY SUSPENSEFUL!”

“

MIA WASIKOWSKA

The Big Uneasy ing existentialist cartoon Western, it’s that he made an existentialist cartoon Western aimed at kids. Ninety-five percent of the stuff that makes Rango so fun is going to be lost on its target demographic, unless Chinatown (from which it cribs part of its plot) and Sergio Leone flicks have suddenly become popular among grade schoolers. Verbinski’s enthusiasm for what is essentially a pastiche love letter to classic cinema bursts through the clutter. PG. MATTHEW SINGER. 99 West Drive-In, Cedar Hills, Clackamas, Eastport, Cornelius, Oak Grove, Broadway, Cinema 99, Bridgeport, Lloyd Mall, Sandy.

Red Riding Hood

54 I’ll hand it to Catherine Hardwicke: She’s attempting to distill the essence of a teenage girl’s sexual fantasy into cinema, and she’s coming closer with every try. Sure, Twilight had its share of touchyourself-but-don’t-finish shivers, but her new Red Riding Hood is a real Bavarian cream dream, existing in a soundstage Expressionist/Freudian forest where the trees sprout thick, jutting thorns, haystacks bloom with bright blue petals, and pure snow exists for the purpose of being mottled with drops of crimson blood. PG-13. AARON MESH. 99 West Drive-In, Clackamas, Cinema 99.

NEW

Saving Pelican 895

[ONE NIGHT ONLY, DIRECTOR ATTENDING] Oscar-nominated Portland director Irene Taylor Brodsky (The Final Inch) debuts her documentary on the effects of the BP oil spill on one befouled pelican. Seats are limited, but the film premieres on HBO on April 20. NW Film Center’s Whitsell Auditorium. 7 pm Wednesday, April 6.

Source Code

93 The director Duncan Jones must

understand the desire to recapture a fleeting experience: His alonewith-my-clone movie Moon was one of the handful of films in recent years to develop a devoted cult following, and he has returned to the same theme of multiple lives for a larger-scale sophomore feature, Source Code. Lightning has struck twice: Source Code is the best science-fiction film since Moon, and may prove the finest picture of this year. Jake Gyllenhaal plays a soldier transported, via some mysterious computer program, into a sensory recording of the final eight minutes before a blast ripped apart a Chicago commuter line. You shouldn’t know more than that going in; he doesn’t. Source Code builds to a tableau displaying the kind of crystalline, transitory emotional perfection we look for in the movies and in life—and then it keeps going, exploring the darkest implications of that desire for control. And even as Jones’ reconnaissance reveals logical knots that can’t be untied without messiness and death—happy endings don’t exist for anyone, by definition—it never mocks our desire to find eternal life in the movies. Source Code is André Bazin’s “holy moment” in

the age of the pause button. I think I’m going to love it for a long, long time. PG-13. AARON MESH. Cedar Hills, Clackamas, Eastport, Cinetopia, Cornelius, Oak Grove, Cinema 99, Bridgeport, Fox Tower, Hilltop, Lloyd Center, Lloyd Mall, Sherwood, Sandy.

Sucker Punch

29 In promoting Sucker Punch, Zack Snyder (300, Watchmen) insisted we should prepare to have our minds blown. He totally succeeds in blowing while telling the story of Baby Doll (doe-eyed and possibly comatose Emily Browning), who is whisked away to a gothic hospital for criminally hot chicks. But goddamn, did Snyder need to take himself so seriously while presenting what’s basically a video-game combination of Girl, Interrupted, The Matrix, Hellboy, Kill Bill, Lord of the Rings and a teenager’s wet dream? The visuals can’t make up for what isn’t just a horrible movie, but three horrible movies packed into one, a redundant mess full of shitty performances and ripoff action. Well, at least we now know that Snyder thinks about more than oiled-up Spartan warriors while wanking. PG-13. AP KRYZA. Cedar Hills, Clackamas, Eastport, Bridgeport, Pioneer Place, Lloyd Center.

Win Win

81 In Tom McCarthy’s redoubtable indie film, Paul Giamatti plays Mike, a New Jersey elder law attorney and high-school wrestling coach who volunteers to become guardian for senile client Leo (Burt Young, very touching in the role), mostly so he can deposit the old man in the nursing home he dreads, then pocket the state checks. This is a venal sin, but a really shitty one. Mike’s bad deed is rewarded with the arrival of Leo’s laconic runaway grandson Kyle (Alex Shaffer), who turns out to be a champion highschool wrestler. This is perhaps one coincidence too many for the movie to bear, but Shaffer’s presence redeems a lot: His blond shag of hair, long face and collected indifference recall Sean Penn’s Spicoli in Fast Times at Ridgemont High. That may seem a lowbrow connection, but I suspect McCarthy’s aware of it: Ridgemont was a very populist comedy that secretly cared about disappointment and failure, and Win Win is a drama about disappointment and failure that secretly wants to be a very populist comedy. R. AARON MESH. Fox Tower, Bridgeport.

NEW

THRILLING & FEVERISHLY SOULFUL!”

“

MICHAEL FASSBENDER

FIERCELY INTELLIGENT & PASSIONATE!”

“

JANE EYRE

JAMIE BELL JUDI DENCH

AND

SPECIAL ENGAGEMENT NOW PLAYING Regal Cinemas FOX TOWER STADIUM 10 Portland 800/FANDANGO 327#

CHECK THEATRE DIRECTORY OR CALL FOR SOUND INFORMATION AND SHOWTIMES

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*492606*

Your Highness

Danny McBride, James Franco and David Gordon Green play Dungeons & Dragons. This is an unassailable premise. So why are we worried? Maybe because it wasn’t screened for critics by WW press deadlines; look for a review on wweek. com. R. Cedar Hills, Clackamas, Eastport, Cinetopia, Cornelius, Oak Grove, Pioneer Place, Cinema 99, Bridgeport, Hilltop, Lloyd Center, Sherwood, Tigard, Wilsonville, Sandy.

A HUNGRY SHOPPER’S GUIDE TO PORTLAND. PUBLISHES May 11, 2011 Space Reservation & Materials Deadline Tuesday, May 3 at 4pm Call • 503 243 2122 • Email • advertising@wweek.com Willamette Week APRIL 6, 2011 wweek.com

A KNOCKOUT! LIKE NOTHING YOU’VE EVER SEEN!”

“

MOVIES

BREWVIEWS WA R N E R B R O S . P I C T U R E S

RAVES:

– PETER TRAVERS

SAOIRSE

ERIC

RONAN

BANA GHT DIRECTED BY JOE WRI ORIGINAL SCORE BY RS THE CHEMICAL BROTHE

CATE

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lusive To buy the exc from soundtrack al Brothers The Chemicbehind the and a look NNA scenes of HA

FRIDAY, APRIL 8TH ADAPT OR DIE CHECK THEATRE DIRECTORIES OR CALL FOR SOUND INFORMATION AND SHOWTIMES

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O NO: If you’re in the mood for a diverting if violent exercise, this weekend you can watch a 28-year-old Vincent D’Onofrio as a doomed jarhead in Full Metal Jacket, then hop to Fox Tower and watch a 51-year-old Vincent D’Onofrio as a doomed Cleveland mob underboss in Kill the Irishman. D’Onofrio rarely makes it through a picture unscathed: He has embraced the features that make him seem like

a diseased child, a hopeless cause, and it may be that he never quite recovered from the beneaththe-brows breakdown Kubrick had him perform in the Jacket barracks. He’s still plumbing his major malfunction. AARON MESH. Laurelhurst. Best paired with: Widmer Hefeweizen. Also showing: True Grit (Academy, Bagdad, Kennedy School, Laurelhurst, Mission, St. Johns, Valley), Blood Simple (Mission).

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