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HIGH PRICE OF E-JUSTICE: Critics question whether Oregon’s getting its money’s worth on a project to computerize court records. Page 8.
NEWS
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STAFF Editor-in-Chief Mark Zusman EDITORIAL Managing Editor for News Brent Walth Interim Arts & Culture Editor Ruth Brown Staff Writer Nigel Jaquiss, James Pitkin Copy Chief Kat Merck Copy Editors Matt Buckingham, Sarah Smith Assistant Arts & Culture Editor Ben Waterhouse Acting Movies Editor Matt Singer Music Editor Casey Jarman Editorial Interns Natasha Geiling, Nathan Gilles, Ashley Gossman, Karen Locke, Corey Paul, Evan Sernoffsky CONTRIBUTORS Classical Brett Campbell Dance Heather Wisner Visual Arts Richard Speer
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Our mission: Provide our audiences with an independent and irreverent understanding of how their worlds work so they can make a difference. Circulation: 80,000-90,000 (depending on time of year, holidays and 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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INBOX CLARIFYING OREGON CAPITOL NEWS We appreciate your interest in the Oregon Capitol News [“All the News That Fits a Viewpoint,� WW, May 25, 2011]. A couple of corrections/ clarifications to both the WW piece and the KPOJ interview: OCN is not a blog, it is an online news reporting entity, focused primarily on the statehouse. Unlike bloggers, none of the OCN writers editorialize about the topics they are covering. OCN ran video interviews with Republican candidates last fall because they were the only ones willing to be interviewed. The OCN staff targeted 10 races (state and federal) that they wanted to do features on, and contacted candidates from both parties. Ultimately 5 videos were produced, all with Republicans. Democrats either ignored repeated requests, or declined to participate. At one point Rep. David Wu did agree to be interviewed, but then cancelled. We prefer that Cascade be described as a “free-market think tank� or “free-market policy research center.� We don’t think political labels such as Libertarian, Conservative, Republican, etc., are helpful. John Charles President, Cascade Policy Institute
WWEEK.COM READERS COMMENT ON “GIVING US FLACK,� WW, MAY 25, 2011
2011 ROSE FESTIVAL CITYFAIR - ROZONE
“Just goes to show you that in media’s eyes, public agencies can do no right. If there aren’t enough PR people (i.e., the conduits between the government and the media), then the government is not transparent enough and
secretive. So, the government ramps up its communications staff but now there are too many of them. So which is it? Do you want information and do you want it accurately and in a timely manner? Because there is a price to be paid for it. If not, then fine, lets bag the ‘flacks’ but also quit complaining that information isn’t flowing out of City Hall or Metro.â€? —Elaine Your shallow treatment of this subject does not serve readers or the community well. Local government agencies in Oregon are subject to a number of legally mandated and sometimes quite extensive public notice requirements, public hearings and other formal public information processes. One example is the very elaborate process of notifications and hearings required by state land use laws (which are mostly unique to Oregon). Federal agencies such as HUD and the U.S. Dept. of Transportation often require local government agencies (such as Metro and the City of Portland) to engage in extensive local planning and public involvement activities as a formal requirement for grant funding‌. How much of the work performed by the local agency PR staff that you spent an hour or so cataloging for the article is part of the legally mandated responsibility of these local government agencies, and how much is extra or discretionary? This is the real question.... —Ray Teasley 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
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In at least two spots near where I-5 meets I-84, would-be traffic lanes overhead stand half-completed, as if freeway builders ran out of money halfway through the job. What’s the deal? —James Any time you want to bolster your status as a true O.G. Portlander, simply gesture at the nearest ghost ramp or zoning anomaly, lay your finger alongside your nose, and knowingly intone these magic words: “Mount Hood Freeway.â€? Those particular ramps were put there to hook up with the proposed Rose City Freeway, not the more notorious Mount Hood. But both were part of a grand plan in which freeways, freeways and more freeways would be the city’s first, last and only transit solution. This vision originated with trucked-in New York Ăźberplanner Robert Moses. His 1943 “Portland Improvementâ€? plan would have effectively carved the city into a series of superhigh-
way-delineated enclaves. As you read this on the MAX, a fixie on your hip, you may notice that Portland did not, in fact, turn into the slightly soggier version of L.A. envisioned by Moses and his freewayloving cohort. That fact is due to the Great Freeway Revolt of the early 1970s. In what is arguably modern Portland’s defining moment, residents turned against the neighborhood-smashing Mount Hood Freeway and set their Birkenstocks on the wonky, green path we’ve trod ever since. Meanwhile, Mayor Neil Goldschmidt wheedled the feds into letting us keep the $500M already allocated for the freeways, so we could build the transit mall and the first MAX line. Then, of course, in 1975 Gov. Bob Straub hiked up the slopes of Mount Doom and hurled Robert Moses into its fiery depths, and we all lived happily ever after. Except Neil Goldschmidt. QUESTIONS? Send them to dr.know@wweek.com
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POT SHOT: Medical clinic or social club? E-WASTE: The cost of digitizing Oregon’s courts. COVER STORY: Structural failure.
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A chilly wind blew through the mayor’s office this week: First Charlie Hales announced he would challenge Mayor Sam Adams in 2012. Hales, who preceded Adams as a champion of streetcars and sustainable development, will probably compete for Adams’ donor base. Second, Ryan Deckert, president of the Oregon Business Association, wrote potential mayoral candidate Eileen Brady a $500 check. It HALES was the first contribution for Brady, who co-founded New Seasons. “Eileen served on our board at OBA,” Deckert says. “I think very highly of her.” Last week, for the second time in a month, a violent criminal was on the loose near two Portland Public Schools: Chief Joseph Elementary and Portland Village School in North Portland. Chief Joe got locked down by Portland Police through the normal procedure, but once again, the charter Village School (see Rogue of the Week, WW, May 18, 2011) says it was not notified and only went into lockdown because a parent alerted school officials of the nearby stabbing. Portland Police Bureau spokesman Pete Simpson says an officer subsequently called the Waldorf-inspired school, but administrators say they have no record of that call. Simpson says officials from North Precinct will meet with the Village School to fix the communication problem. After WW first wrote about bar owners’ attempts to clean up the nightlife in downtown’s so-called “Barmuda Triangle” (see “Douchebags Not Allowed,” WW, March 23, 2011), the City Council is set to vote June 15 on a proposal to make Southwest Ankeny Street car-free between 2nd and 3rd avenues. As reported May 26 on wweek.com, the ordinance would bar vehicles for four months starting June 21 and allow businesses to put tables on the street. “We heard from businesses that they wanted this, and we’ve responded,” says Portland Bureau of Transportation spokesman Dan Anderson. A state-employed contract nurse is suing Multnomah County for $75,000, alleging a county employee lied about her in an investigation. In the suit filed May 27, nurse Lisa Schmuckley claims county human-services investigator Linda Walker intentionally defamed her in a report about a 2009 non-lethal health incident involving one of her patients while Schmuckley was out of town. Walker was out of the office at press time and unavailable for comment, and county spokesman David Austin declined to comment on pending litigation. Read more Murmurs and daily scuttlebutt.
6
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DESIGN RENDERING COURTESY OF MARIO MAMONE
BUDDING CONFLICTS AN AMSTERDAM-STYLE POT BAR IS THE LATEST CONTROVERSY IN OREGON’S MARIJUANA WORLD. BY JA M E S P I T K I N
jpitkin@wweek.com
DARRYL JAMES
For Mario Mamone, the dream of opening a marijuana cafe started 10 years ago on his first trip to Amsterdam, where he visited famous hash bars like Green House and Dampkring. Now the 62-year-old retired wildlife biologist is close to bringing his vision to Gladstone. Next month he plans to open the Maritime Cafe in a Southeast McLoughlin Boulevard strip mall, between a Curves Fitness Center and a headshop called the Stash. The cafe will be open only to medical-marijuana patients over 18. Plans by Mamone and his partner, Tim Welsh, include intimate booths, potleaf murals and killer buds for $10 a gram. “We’re looking for a place where people can come and hang and listen to music,” Mamone says. “A romantic atmosphere.” Maritime will be the latest addition to a growing industry in Oregon. Voters last year defeated a ballot measure that would have set up rules for a statewide system of dispensaries to sell pot to patients. The measure’s failure didn’t stop people from opening dispensary-style businesses (see “Weed, the People,” Jan. 12, 2011). The shops remain unregulated, and some establishments push the boundaries between clinic and social club. That’s made them a bigger target for law enforcement and opened rifts inside the medical-marijuana movement. “These places are set up like a party,” says Donald Morse, who helps run the Human Collective clinic in Tigard. “You don’t see people on dialysis having a party.” Oregon’s medical-marijuana law, approved by voters in 1998, makes no mention of dispensaries. But it allows patients to designate a grower, and it lets those growers
DOUBLE DUTCH: Design plans for the Maritime Cafe in Gladstone were inspired by Amsterdam hash bars.
U.S. Attorney Mike Ormsby in Spokane vowed “quick charge patients for expenses like fertilizer, lights and power. Advocates say Oregon’s program is flawed for patients and direct action” in an April 6 letter to Washington Gov. who lack a grower. Club operators like Mamone say they’re Chris Gregoire, who promptly vetoed a bill to license growers and dispensaries. Spokane-area pot shops saw a working within the law to fill that need. string of closures. Law enforcement stands ready to harsh their mellow. No such letter has gone out in Oregon, and interim “I am confident the residents of Gladstone do not want U.S. Attorney Dwight Holton wouldn’t say a marijuana coffeehouse in their comwhether he’s planning similar action. But munity,” says Clackamas County District FACT: As of April 1 there were it’s clear Holton is no friend to folks like Attorney John Foote. “If he wants to 39,774 patients registered Mamone. dance around the edge of the law, he runs with the Oregon Medical Marijuana Program. By county: “I’m struck by the brazenness of recent the risk of getting arrested.” 6,796 in Multnomah, 2,735 dispensaries who seem to think they are Attorney General Eric Holder said in in Washington and 2,835 in above the law,” Holton says. “It’s drug traf2009 the Justice Department would end Clackamas. the Bush administration’s raids on stateficking. Period. End of story.” sanctioned medical-marijuana facilities. Pot remains Dispensaries aren’t legal in Oregon, so operators call illegal under federal law. But this spring saw an apparent them “clubs” or “co-ops.” They claim to work on a consignchange in policy, as federal prosecutors wrote letters to ment model: Growers give weed to the club, which sells it governors in Washington, Arizona, Colorado, Montana, to patients and reimburses the growers. The clubs charge Vermont and Rhode Island threatening a crackdown on membership fees. Portland cops aren’t concerned, says Lt. Robert King, dispensaries. a spokesman for the police bureau. Clubs in Southeast include Foster Healing Center and Highway 420. “It’s more or less a regulated and lawful establishment,” King says. “We assist if they need any assistance, but by and large they don’t.” Not so in the suburbs. After WW featured the Aloha club Wake n Bake in our Jan. 12 cover story, co-owner Kat Cambron says Washington County sheriff’s deputies have pulled over about a dozen members as they leave. Cambron says the members are searched, given roadside sobriety tests and questioned about the club. No one has been arrested, but Cambron worries they face harassment due to their medical needs. “If you see somebody pulling out of a place where you know people are smoking marijuana, you’re going to watch how they’re driving,” says Sgt. Dave Thompson, spokesman for the sheriff ’s office. “They’re aware it’s there. Nobody’s targeting it.” Elsewhere in Washington County, Morse’s nonprofit Human Collective looks and feels like a doctor’s office. Patients purchase weed in child-proof medicine bottles for $5 to $8 a gram. “Maybe we’re deluding ourselves, but we like to think places like Wake n Bake should be busted before this place,” Morse says. “We would be honored to be the test pilot for how it should be done.”
CANNABIS CURE: Human Collective director Sarah Bennett (right) helps a client at the Collective’s clinic in Tigard.
Willamette Week JUNE 1, 2011 wweek.com
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OUT OF ORDER THE OREGON COURTS HAVE SO FAR SPENT $23 MILLION ON A NEW COMPUTER SYSTEM WITH LITTLE TO SHOW FOR IT. BY B R EN T WA LTH
bwalth@wweek.com
The state of Oregon has a long history of bungled computer and high-tech projects: DMV, the State Data Center and OWIN, the state’s failed emergency-radio network. Now, Chief Justice Paul J. De Muniz of the Oregon Supreme Court is scrambling to keep a troubled, $90-million computer project he oversees from joining the list. The project, called Oregon eCourt, is intended to move state courts into this century by ending paper files and allowing court officials to better track cases electronically. Court officials say they have had some setbacks but intend to deliver the project on time and on budget in 2015. Internal records show eCourt sometimes looks eerily similar to past computer disasters. It’s fallen behind schedule. The courts have already spent $23 million and only a small part of the system is done. A critical legislative report released last week says it’s not clear how long the project will last and what it will ultimately cost. The project is creating an unusual showdown in Salem. Legislators historically have done a lousy job of policing massive computer projects and have vowed to do better. De Muniz is asking lawmakers for another $27 million in the next two-year budget cycle. And the chief justice is pushing back against the scrutiny of eCourt. He’s told lawmakers he understands they control the money for the project, but that separation of powers—the courts are a separate branch of state government—means lawmakers threaten to overstep their bounds by dictating how the courts run the project. “He’s found an instance or two where he thinks there’s been an intrusion,” courts spokesman Phil Lemman says of De Muniz’s message to legislators. “This is the chief justice’s way of reminding people there is a separation of powers and there is such a thing as micromanaging.” Legislators tired of being shamed by the state’s failed computer projects say the chief justice had better get used to the scrutiny. 8
Willamette Week JUNE 1, 2011 wweek.com
“We’re cognizant of [the fact] that this is the judicial branch,” says Sen. Richard Devlin, D -Tualatin, co-chair of the committee that reviewed eCourt. “But the chief justice understands our concern is fiscal and keeping an eye on costs.” Across Oregon, court file rooms work about the same as they did decades ago—stacks of paper files, logged in by hand. After years of work, new software for the Oregon Supreme Court and the Oregon Court of Appeals is running fairly well. But that’s a small bright spot. An independent quality-assurance consultant’s study—apart from the legislative report—found 18 management problems that are likely to threaten the eCourt project’s success. The legislative report says the project started in 2004. Yet court officials, the study says, still lack a way of “identifying, tracking, managing and reporting issues facing the program, leading to performance delays, performance failures, and duplication of effort.” When the project falls behind schedule, the study found, court officials erase the missed deadlines and set new ones. As a result, the study says, “The program will appear to be never behind schedule.” Most of the money that remains to be spent will go toward updating computer systems for the trial courts in 36 counties. And that’s where the big job is: Oregon trial courts handle 50 million pieces of paper a year. Scott Smith, the eCourt program manager, says all of the problems are being addressed. Others come from court officials’ decision last year to change course and use a single program to handle records rather than getting several to work together. The change, he said, will allow the project to finish earlier than planned and save money overall. However, the legislative report says the switch means abandoning progress made to date: $6 million to $8 million spent on earlier software will go to waste. Smith said he understands lawmakers are worried but criticisms of eCourt have “cherry picked” problems while ignoring the program’s strengths. “You combine that with a gun-shy Legislature, and there’s your issue,” he says. Devlin says the court officials will not see the full $27 million they asked for in the next budget—and they can expect to have legislators dole it out slowly until eCourt shows meaningful progress. “We have to figure out how to do these projects properly,” Devlin says. “We just can’t afford to have any more significant failures.”
Willamette Week June 1, 2011 wweek.com
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P O RTL AN D PR I D E 2 0 11 – PDX Pride Series presents...
m a ke i t HAPPE N !
PRE-PRIDE COMMUNITY MIXER Pride Northwest welcomes all ages to our FREE community mixer - meet the folks who organize community Pride events and thank our generous sponsors - Enjoy food, drink & live music! Meet new friends and make Pride plans
by Tim Acito, with add’l material by Alexander Dinelaris.
SAT Jun 11, 4 - 7:00 pm, Q Center, 4115 N Mississippi Come on down to “the Q” and make it HAPPEN! PULSE! PRIDE DANCE PARTY ON THE WATERFRONT & BRIDGE LIGHTING New for 2011! - Why wait until Saturday to get your Pride on? Come down to the Festival on Friday night for our first-ever Dance Party.
Sat June 11, 7:00 pm; Sun June 12, 6:30 pm,
* Live DJs * Light Show * Food & Drink * Beer Garden * The Morrison Bridge lit in rainbows! *
FRI Jun 17, 6 -10 pm - Naito Pkwy at Pine St - $7 donation requested
Fez Ballroom (21 and over).
Tickets $10.50 advance/$12 door.
The New York Time sez, "...satisfies a sweet tooth [we've] forgotten we have." Sponsored by Pride Northwest. www.pdxprideseries.com.
Check out the 2011 Official Portland Pride Guide only in Willamette Week June 8.
Co-Produced by Belinda Carroll Comedy and Stand Out Productions. Queer Comedy Showcase.
PORTLAND PRIDE FESTIVAL Two Stages. Six Headliners. More than 140 Exhibitors! Food & Drink. Queer College Fair. Families, Seniors and Youth Programs. PABA Village. Travel Expo. Pet Parade. Tom McCall Waterfront Park, entrances on Naito Parkway at Pine and Morrison Sts - $7 donation requested
Featuring host
BELINDA CARROLL, with performances by Vicki Shaw, Gloria Bigelow and Jackie Monahan.
Thu June 16, 7 & 9 pm,
Curious Comedy Theater.
$22 / $35 VIP includes after-party and wine Sponsored by Pride Northwest. www.CuriousComedy.org “Your life reflected...with a twist! Laugh yourself queer!”
10
Willamette Week June 1, 2011 wweek.com
SAT June 18, Noon to 10:00 pm (Exhibitors close at 6:00, Entertainment continues)
SUN Jun 19, Noon to 6:00 pm PORTLAND PRIDE PARADE Kicks off SUN Jun 19 @ 11:30 am, NW 13th Ave & W Burnside - Find a great view on the sidewalk or join us in the street as we make it HAPPEN in 2011! $1000 in cash prizes. Costumes. Music. The Portland Drag Race. Dykes on Bikes. A mile of smiles from the Pearl to the Parkway! For more info on all Portland Pride events, go to www.PrideNW.org.
A BRIDGE TOO FALSE TURNS OUT MOST OF THE CASE FOR THE $3.6 BILLION COLUMBIA RIVER CROSSING ISN’T TRUE. BY N IGEL JAQU ISS
njaquiss@wweek.com
If anyone should love the idea of creating jobs and boosting the Oregon economy, it’s Katie Eyre Brewer. Eyre Brewer is a freshman Republican representative from Hillsboro, as well as a former leader of the local chamber of commerce and the planning commission, where she got chummy with big Washington County employers like Intel, Solarworld and Genentech. She won her House seat with big campaign checks from lobbying groups such as Associated Oregon Industries, the Oregon Business Association and Associated General Contractors. Eyre Brewer, 45, is also a CPA for Harsch Investment Properties—the Schnitzer family real estate empire—and has plenty of experience analyzing complex financial deals. Yet Eyre Brewer is saying no to the state’s single biggest job-creation plan: the proposed $3.6 billion Interstate 5 bridge project between Oregon and Washington, known as the Columbia River Crossing. The state’s most powerful interests want the project: big business (including Eyre Brewer’s top campaign donors), labor unions and Gov. John Kitzhaber. Eyre Brewer is standing up to the project’s backers for a simple reason: She thinks the arguments for the Columbia River Crossing are flimsy, ill conceived and often untrue. “Before I got here, I thought the important questions about the CRC had been asked and answered,” Eyre Brewer says. “I was terribly surprised.”
P H I L I P C H E A N E Y. C O M
CONT. on page 12
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CONT.
She is not alone. More than 20 lawmakers—Republicans and Democrats—have raised hard questions about the project. They say Oregon hasn’t taken a serious look at the project’s risks or at cheaper ways to fix the traffic problems at the Oregon-Washington border. In the current legislative session, lawmakers have debated the proper size of chicken cages, whether it’s OK to use plastic bags, and what kind of dirt should be named the official state soil. But they have only glanced at the project known as the CRC. Lawmakers supportive of the project introduced a toothless measure, House Joint Memorial 22, which urges Congress to fund the CRC but doesn’t commit a single dime of state money—yet. Eyre Brewer and critics oppose even that feel-good memorial, saying if it passes, backers could claim the Legislature supports the CRC. March hearings on HJM 22 exposed growing skepticism and opposition to the project. “We’ve had no substantive debate on the project,” says State Rep. Mitch Greenlick (D-Portland), a CRC critic who calls the project “a steamroller headed off a cliff.” Neither Eyre Brewer, Greenlick nor any of the growing number of CRC opponents deny there is a traffic problem between Portland and Vancouver. But the specter of the CRC brings Oregon to a defining moment. If built, it would be the biggest transportation project since the 1966 completion of I-5 and—in modern terms—would rival the construction of Bonneville Dam. Yet Oregonians have failed to grasp the possibility its leaders might dump billions on a massive road project that emphasizes cars over mass transit and, as the state’s own records show, relies on faulty assumptions and won’t fix the traffic problem. WW looked at the central claims CRC backers make. Here’s what we found:
SOURCE: CRC
BRIDGE MYTHS
NOT THE GOLDEN GATE: In February, nearly three years after CRC partners chose a novel design, an expert panel told Oregon and Washington to choose a more “viable” design like the artist’s rendering above.
MYTH NO. 1: Spending billions on a new I-5 bridge project at the Columbia River will solve congestion. Anybody who drives from Portland to the ’Couv at rush hour knows trying to cross the Columbia can be a disaster. Radio traffic reporters use the phrase “slowing at Delta Park” more often than they say their stations’ call letters. In hopes of unclogging the bridge, the CRC—a partnership between Oregon and Washington—would create a new freeway span, widen I-5, improve seven major interchanges and run light rail to Vancouver. As a lot of CRC critics say, it’s not so much a new bridge as a massive freeway project that just happens to cross a river.
WE’RE ODOT — TRUST US If the CRC were to go forward, the Oregon Department of Transportation would be the lead agency for all construction on this side of the river. It would be a far more complex job than ODOT has tackled in decades. But the agency does take on big projects. Two current ones give some observers cause for concern. The first is ODOT’s ongoing effort to realign U.S. Highway 20, between Corvallis and Newport. It’s a fiasco. Engineering failures have led to landslides, and giant concrete supports to elevate the highway have tipped. ODOT originally said the project would cost $110 million. Today it’s not close to being done and the price has hit $230 million. “This project has faced unique challenges,” ODOT spokesman Patrick Cooney says. Closer to home, ODOT’s second-biggest ongoing project is in Southeast Portland, and it, too, has
12
Willamette Week JUNE 1, 2011 wweek.com
To make the CRC happen, Oregon lawmakers will eventually need to approve $450 million as the state’s share. That money doesn’t include the $126 million Oregon and Washington have already spent on planning. (Much of that money was wasted chasing a bridge design a February 2011 bridge review panel called “not a viable option.”) CRC supporters say the congestion costs the region millions a year by tying up freight that travels along I-5. Oregon Department of Transportation figures show $40 billion worth of freight moves across the existing bridge every year—sometimes slowly. “This is the worst freight bottleneck in the nation,” ODOT Director Matt Garrett told lawmakers March 28 during a hearing for House Joint Memorial 22. Garrett’s boss, Gov. Kitzhaber, echoed
cost far more money and taken much longer than originally anticipated. The project? Rebuilding the Southeast Grand Avenue/Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard viaduct on McLoughlin Boulevard just west of Division Street. In 2002, ODOT estimated the cost of replacing a short and straight stretch of elevated highway at $32 million. If the CRC is like building a house, the viaduct project is akin to nailing two boards together. And yet, as that project inches toward completion later this year, ODOT figures show it will end up costing about $95 million—three times the original budget. It’s also at least two years behind schedule. ODOT spokesman Dave Thompson says there are good reasons the project ended up so different from plans. First, he says, the scope of the work changed significantly. Instead of renovating the viaduct, ODOT determined it had to replace it. Asphalt costs rose dramatically, and seismic fixes required an additional million pounds of steel. The need to keep two lanes open in each direction complicated
his claim. “Commerce is increasingly impacted by congestion at a pinch point now considered the worst spot anywhere between Mexico and Canada,” Kitzhaber said in an April 25 speech at Hayden Island. The congestion is real. But Garrett and Kitzhaber are wrong. Inrix is a Kirkland, Wash., firm that collects and studies traffic data. In 2010, Inrix ranked the Interstate Bridge 214th in the nation for congestion. On the I-5 corridor alone, the bridge trailed far behind five Los Angeles bottlenecks. Most of the traffic crossing the I-5 bridge, ODOT records show, is single-occupancy vehicles heading south out of Clark County in the morning and then home again in the CONT. on page 14
construction, as did the discovery that the viaduct was built on 66 feet of old fill from sawmills. Thompson says the delays and cost overruns are not a reflection on ODOT, nor should the viaduct experience be used to generalize about what could happen with the CRC. Each project, he says, is unique. “People tend to forget the caveats and complexities, and remember only the original estimate,” Thompson says. “But the scope of the job changed.” Rep. Katie Eyre Brewer expressed concerns about ODOT’s previous performance in her March testimony on House Joint Memorial 22. That earned her a follow-up visit from ODOT Director Matt Garrett. She says she wasn’t satisfied by his explanation as to why project costs significantly exceed original budgets. “They say sometimes the projects grow,” Eyre Brewer says. “I can’t speak to whether that is mismanagement, but their history of cost overruns is enough to make you question them.” —NJ
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Willamette Week June 1, 2011 wweek.com
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CONT.
afternoon. “This is a project primarily for the benefit of Vancouver commuters,” Rep. Ben Cannon (D-Portland), a CRC critic, testified on March 28. Let’s say Oregon and Washington ignore critics such as Cannon and move forward with construction. How much time would those Clark County commuters save each day heading to work across this $3.6 billion highway project? One minute. That’s right: A 2010 governors’ independent review panel found the massive project will shave exactly 60 seconds off the peak morning commute. And here’s why: The Interstate Bridge and nearby interchanges are just one bottleneck. The project does nothing to fix the choke point at the Rose Quarter, five miles south, where I-5 narrows to two lanes. Today, the bridge actually serves as a traffic-control device by slowing the flow of cars headed toward the Rose Quarter. A wider bridge with streamlined interchanges will simply create a bigger jam down the road. Last summer, the governors’ review panel said that failing to address the Rose Quarter congestion would be like hooking a garden hose to a fire hydrant. “Questions about the reasonableness of investment in the CRC bridge because of unresolved issues to the south [the Rose Quarter] threaten the viability of the project,” the panel wrote in July 2010.
The proposed bridge will charge a toll of at least $2 in each direction. So see if this makes sense: A commuter living in Vancouver could pay $1,000 a year in tolls for a big, wide bridge—and not get to her Portland office more than a minute sooner than she does now. Patricia McCaig, a consultant to the CRC project, says the project offers a wide range of improvements, and it would be a
mistake to zero in on selected details and miss the big picture. “You can focus on any small measures, but the project has real and tangible benefits,” she says.
MYTH NO. 2: We have to build a bridge because the traffic is only going to get worse.
WHO’S GETTING RICH FROM THE CRC? As of May 18, the CRC has paid $126 million for consulting services of various kinds. Here are the largest contractors and the amounts they have been paid: David Evans Associates $30,873,166 Parsons Brinckerhoff $16,575,058 Parametrix $11,985,488 HDR Engineering $5,656,172 EnviroIssues $4,958,274 —NJ
SOURCE: CRC
BRIDGE MYTHS
ODOT and the Washington Department of Transportation say the number of vehicles crossing the Interstate Bridge in 2030 will be 184,000 a day—that’s a 45 percent increase over today. That flood of additional vehicles, they say, means the five-mile stretch around the Interstate Bridge needs more capacity. Traffic did increase steadily until the middle of the last decade. More than anything, the case for the CRC is built on an assumption it would continue. Here’s the problem for CRC: It didn’t. Joe Cortright, a Portland economist critical of the project, looked at ODOT’s traffic projections and compared them to how many cars actually crossed the river. The CRC backers projected traffic would increase about 1.3 percent a year from 2005 until 2030. But from 2005 to 2009, Cortright found, traffic over the bridge declined nearly 1 percent each year. In fact, fewer vehicles crossed the bridge in 2009 than in 1999. ODOT officials don’t dispute Cortright’s findings, but they note bridge traffic ticked up slightly in 2010. Still, nearly 15,000 fewer cars a day use the bridge today than the CRC said would be the case. ODOT’s Garrett says the phenomenon is temporary. “It is typical for traffic volumes to decline during a recession and to rise during boom periods,” he wrote in a Jan. 21 letter to lawmakers.
www.underdogportland.com (503) 282-1155 14
Willamette Week JUNE 1, 2011 wweek.com
Cortright, who has been hired by Plaid Pantry to analyze the project, counters that the dip began three years before the economy tanked. And he says high gas prices—which have more than doubled since ODOT made its projections—have permanently shifted drivers’ behavior. “It’s very apparent that the traffic decline had everything to do with the big run-up in gas prices,” Cortright says. “It’s not a local phenomenon. It’s national. And even as gas prices declined from 2008, driving has not gone back up.”
BRIDGE MYTHS SOURCE: CRC
CONT.
CRC FORECAST VS. ACTUAL TRAFFIC Behind schedule: Actual daily crossing of the I-5 bridge between Portland and Vancouver (lower line) have lagged far behind the projections upon which the project is based.
145,000
140,000 I-5 Traffic, Vehicles Per Day
MYTH NO. 3: The current bridge is too dangerous. As any parent knows, when logic fails, try fear. “I recognize the importance of replacing the Interstate Bridge to address a wide range of public priorities,” Kitzhaber said April 25 when he helped unveil the latest design for the bridge. “First and foremost, safety.” Proponents claim the safety concerns are twofold: seismic danger and crashes. Sen. Bruce Starr (R-Hillsboro) invoked the Japanese earthquake in recent CRC testimony. “If there’s a big quake off the Oregon coast, the [Interstate] bridge would be rendered inoperative,” said Starr, a CRC
135,000
130,000
125,000
120,000
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
Forecast
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
Actual
CONT. on page 16
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supporter. ODOT’s Garrett amped up that point. “If there’s a big shake, that bridge will come down,” he told legislators. Earthquakes are a risk in Portland. But if Oregon gets hit with a massive quake (experts say “the big one” could be a magnitude 9.0), many bridges will become scrap metal. The Interstate Bridge was built in 1917. The second set of lanes was added in 1958, when the older one was refurbished. So you might think the Interstate Bridge would be the first to go. Not according to ODOT’s own reports. The agency’s data show there are more than two dozen I-5 bridges in Oregon in worse shape than the Interstate Bridge, including the Marquam Bridge over the Willamette River. The Marquam is rated a lot lower for its ability to withstand a big quake, despite being built in 1966. No one seems in a big rush to claim that bridge is unsafe or to replace it. Another claim CRC backers like to make is the number of crashes on either side of the Interstate Bridge. They often exaggerate here as well. “Currently, the I-5 Columbia River bridges have the highest incidence of crashes of any highway segment in Oregon,” Portland Business Alliance lobbyist Bernie Bottomly told lawmakers in written testimony on March 28. ODOT’s Garrett supported that claim with a PowerPoint presentation that included slides claiming that the Interstate Bridge had the “highest crash locations on I-5 in Oregon.” Again, false. ODOT’s own stats show that both the Marquam and Fremont bridges have higher crash rates than the Interstate Bridge, and other stretches of Oregon highways see far more crashes per mile traveled. The CRC’s McCaig says it’s important to look at the big picture. “There are nearly 400 crashes a year in the bridge area,” she says. “That’s twice the rate for urban freeways.” What’s important, she says, is to realize that substandard interchange spacing, a lack of highway shoulders and frequent bridge lifts are dangerous and cause congestion. “Safety matters in terms of a functioning system that keeps people and freight moving,” she says.
RE-ROUTING THE BARGES CHEAP FIX: Critics say spending about $50 million to renovate a rail bridge one mile downstream of the Interstate Bridge would give barges a straight shot (green dashed line) and eliminate 95 percent of more than 500 annual bridge lifts. (For more information on this and other solutions, see wweek.com.)
Alternate Barge Channel Route
WASHINGTON
Columbia River
I-5
Willamette Week JUNE 1, 2011 wweek.com
Clearance: 58-69 feet
Clearance: 40 feet
We have a plan to pay for it.
16
Primary Channel Route
Clearance: 69 feet
MYTH NO. 4: CRC supporters think they’ll get $1.4 billion from tolls, about $1.3 billion in federal money, and $900 million from Oregon and Washington. The money from the feds and the states is far from certain. But even if the money comes through, projected toll revenues are shaky. Patricia McCaig, the governor’s adviser on the CRC, says that the project’s budget is solid and has been vetted by transportation finance experts. “It’s in no one’s best interest not to do diligent, thoughtful, rigorous and conservative work looking at these numbers,” McCaig told lawmakers on March 30. Both states would borrow heavily to pay for construction and use toll revenue to repay their lenders. As noted earlier, traffic projections are already way off. Cortright says that creates two kinds of risk. First, it may make potential lenders skittish—and they might demand higher interest rates. Second, if traffic is less than projected, then the states may not have enough toll money to make their interest payments and would have to look elsewhere to cover the costs. Either way, Cortright says, the project becomes more expensive than backers say. “What it means,” he says, “is the project can’t pay for itself.” That prospect scares some lawmakers who have reviewed the numbers. “I think the traffic counts are faulty,” Sen. Chris Telfer (R-Bend), a CPA and member of the Senate finance committee, told WW. “That creates a serious problem for the financing plan.”
Barge Channel Route
OREGON
Primary Channel Route
Alternate Barge Channel Route
Barge Channel Route
Proposed New Route
WHAT’S THE ANSWER? In April, Kitzhaber and Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire resolved what at first seemed to be the remaining big CRC question: What’s the bridge going to look like? Should it be a Golden Gate-like landmark, or a utilitarian slab like the Glenn Jackson Bridge on I-205? (They chose the latter.) That debate was in some sense a misdirection—like a street-corner game of three-card monte. By focusing on aesthetics, the public missed the real question: Is the project as currently conceived worth doing at all? Many CRC critics want Oregon to look at smaller, lessexpensive steps that could accomplish more for less. “This project has just spiraled out of control,” says George Crandall, a Portland planning consultant who has urged CRC proponents to reconsider the plan. “Are we really looking at the real problem and the right solutions?” If, as proponents say, congestion and safety are the top concerns, Oregon and Washington could toll the existing I-5 bridge. That would reduce traffic by nearly 15 percent
immediately, according to CRC studies, and pay for seismic upgrades to the existing bridge. ODOT could also provide incentives for carpooling and express lanes for trucks. And it could build a separate local traffic bridge for Hayden Island, reducing congestion on I-5 near the Interstate Bridge. Of course, none of those 21st-century approaches would allow ODOT to do what it and its political benefactors want to do: build stuff. Whether the CRC gets started or is forced back to the drawing board should ultimately be in the hands of the Oregon House. That’s because any new tax measure— and that’s what will be necessary if Oregon kicks in $450 million—must start there. Eyre Brewer, the freshman legislator from Hillsboro, will be waiting with a giant “stop” sign. “We need to ask the overarching questions,” Eyre Brewer says. “Have we identified the problems we are trying to solve, and are we proposing the best solutions? I just don’t think they’ve made that case.”
S O U R C E : C R C ; I L L U S T R A T I O N S : P H I L I P C H E A N E Y. C O M
CONT.
BNSF Bridge
BRIDGE MYTHS
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FUR PARTY: Montreal duo Handsome Furs created a bit of a stir recently upon revealing the album art for its forthcoming record Sound Kapital—a dark, moody photo of a tattooed naked woman standing beneath the east end of Portland’s Fremont Bridge, taken by local director Scott Coffey. It’s a still from the band’s forthcoming video for first single “What About Us.” The soon-to-be-released video, Coffey promises, will absolutely feature more nudity. Coffey says he shot it just a few weeks ago while the band was visiting Portland. “We shot without a permit so it was scary and very cold,” he says. Coffey says the Furs are also scoring a movie he’ll be shooting this fall. And, he adds (yes, in all caps), that “THE NEW RECORD IS SO SO SO SO GOOD.”
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SAUSAGE SOZZLE: 82nd Avenue may soon see its first distillery—or at least its first licensed distillery—which, pending the Oregon Liquor Control Commission’s approval, will be turning out artisan, high-proof sausage. According to owner Yun Yue Ho’s application, EC Kitchen (6335 SE 82nd Ave.) will “mainly sell Chinese sausage,” the production of which requires “Chinese grain liquor of 50 percent or more alcohol by volume as one of the main spices...and the liquor cannot be found in Oregon.” >> In other OLCC application news, Base Camp Brewing is coming to 922 SE Oak St. and Mac, a macaroni and cheese-centered eatery—with liquor!—is coming to 3936 N Mississippi Ave—just a couple miles from the other mac-and-cheese-centered eatery Baked! on Northeast Alberta Street. C H R I S R YA N P H O T O . C O M
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Willamette Week JUNE 1, 2011 wweek.com
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SURVIVOR: CHEF EDITION: The Food Network has announced a new cooking reality show called Extreme Chef, which it says “pushes three chefs to their physical and mental limits as they must adjust to extreme conditions and unpredictable curveballs such as swimming across a lake for ingredients and using a car engine as a makeshift stove.” Two Portland chefs GOURDET will appear on the first season (provided it isn’t canceled after a few episodes): Gregory Gourdet of Departure and Leather Storrs of Noble Rot. “Chef reality cooking shows are kind of silly anyway, so I think it was cool to compete in the most extreme,” Gourdet told WW. PUT A CELEBRITY ON IT: Oregon Episcopal School has managed to secure Portlandia’s Fred Armisen to deliver the commencement address for its 2011 senior class (high schools have commencement addresses now?). A senior student came up with the idea to fit in with the class theme (theme?) of “Ho11ywood.” After finding a connection in the local film industry, they made a few calls and Armisen was secured for the speech. “[Armisen’s] work has been contributing a lot of focus on Portland, so I think it’s good he wants to be a part of the community like this,” Marty Jones, OES’s director of communications and marketing, told WW.
HEADOUT
WILLAMETTE WEEK
WHAT TO DO THIS WEEK IN ARTS & CULTURE
BLIND TASTING
THURSDAY, JUNE 2 [SPOKEN WORD] MORTIFIED PORTLAND Portlanders share their most embarrassing stories of shame and humiliation—live onstage! Mission Theater, 1624 NW Glisan St. June 2-3. Show starts 8 pm, doors 6 pm. $12 in advance at getmortified.com/live, or $15 at the door.
T H E B L I N D C A F E C H A L L E N G E S P O R T L A N D TO D I N E I N DA R K N E S S . T H E
B L I N D
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FRIDAY, JUNE 3 [MOVIE] MIDNIGHT IN PARIS Sorry to break it to you, New York, but Woody Allen is cheating on you. This time-traveling fairy tale for lit majors, beautifully filmed in the French capital, is his best work in years. Regal Fox Tower, 846 SW Park Ave., 221-3280. Multiple showtimes. $7.50-$10.50.
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[THEATER] HOPELESS Melanya Helene reprises her Drammy-winning performance based on the writings of American Buddhist nun Pema Chödrön. Brooklyn Bay, 1825 SE Franklin St., 258-9000. 8 pm Fridays-Saturdays through June 11. $12-$15.
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[MUSIC] BRUCE COCKBURN It’s hard not to compare Bruce Cockburn to fellow Ontarian Neil Young. But, alas, Cockburn, touring on 31st release Small Source of Comfort—a typically stirring collection of wry narratives and gorgeous instrumentals—remains the lesserknown Canuck. Aladdin Theater, 3017 SE Milwaukie Ave., 234-9694. 8 pm. $35. All ages (minors must be accompanied by parent).
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SATURDAY, JUNE 4 [BEER] COLLABORATION FEST Local beer nuts collaborate with Breakside Brewery to create unique brews, including a Meyer lemon kölsch and a beet ale. Ten dollars gets you a sample tray of all their concoctions. Breakside Brewery, 820 NE Dekum St., 719-6475. Noon. $10.
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[CLASSICAL] ANNA POLONSKY, PSU SYMPHONY The Russian émigré pianist joins the symphony in Maurice Ravel’s dizzyingly jazzy Piano Concerto in G, Morton Feldman’s beautifully moody The Viola in My Life, Bryan Johanson’s In the Deep Wood Reflected, the intermezzo from Samuel Barber’s opera Vanessa, and Smetana’s perennial The Moldau. Lincoln Hall, Portland State University, 1620 SW Park Ave., 725-3307. 7:30 pm. Free.
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SUNDAY, JUNE 5
GO: TaborSpace in Mount Tabor Presbyterian Church, 5441 SE Belmont St. June 2-4, 6:30 pm check-in, 7 pm seating. $45 general admission, $35 students/seniors, sliding scale available. For tickets, call 1-800-838-3006, or go online at brownpapertickets.com/event/155763.
[MUSIC] TOMBSTALKER, BLUES DRUID, FUCKING LESBIAN BITCHES Tombstalker is slow doom perfection: Janie Black’s earthshaking drumming and Radio Sloan’s sludgy guitar work would be right at home on an early Electric Wizard record, while singer Nadia Buyse’s howls infuse the band with the psych-rock leanings of Sabbath and Hawkwind. Tonic Lounge, 3100 NE Sandy Blvd., 238-0543. 8 pm. $3. 21+.
Willamette Week JUNE 1, 2011 wweek.com
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Now Serving
40
Taste the Difference
Varieties of Gourmet Tamales
CASA DE
AL
AN T
M TA
Find us there on Sundays in June.
Vegan & vegetarian tamales
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Coming soon to the Woodstock Farmer’s Market
SPARAGUS A F Y
AR
& Wine
CAN B
Beer
Open 11am-9pm
Weekly specials Catering Available
R 503.654.4423 ES U A REST 10605 SE Main St. Milwaukie, Or
Delivery & Shipping Available
www.CanbyAsparagusFarm.com
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.
SATURDAY, JUNE 4 Breakside’s Collaboration Fest
With the help of Breakside Brewery, beer writer John Foyston has created an American amber ale; beer media personality Lisa Morrison has invented a Meyer lemon kölsch; Ladies of Lagers and Ales founder Margaret Lut has bravely designed a beet ale; and the crew at Saraveza has come up with a saison brewed with Northwest hops. KAREN LOCKE. Breakside Brewery, 820
supper@gmail.com to reserve a seat. Bakery Bar, 2935 NE Glisan St., 503421-1504. 7 pm. $40, limited number of $25 seats for volunteers.
TUESDAY, JUNE 7 NE Dekum St., 719-6475. Noon. $10 sampler tray. 21+.
SUNDAY, JUNE 5 The Monk and the Explorer Dinner
Roving dining series the Special Snowflake Supperclub imagines what would be served if “a Buddhist monk and a European explorer sat down and shared a meal.” Dishes are likely to include Tibetan barley bread, water buffalo jerky, and saffron-infused fish pie. Contact snow-
Portland Food Adventures at Genoa and Accanto
Chefs David Anderson and Daniel Mondok serve up six courses between their sister restaurants Genoa and Accanto for this month’s Portland Food Adventures. As always, diners will receive gift certificates to some of the chefs’ favorite Portland eateries, including Toast, Boke Bowl and Lucky Strike. Accanto, 2838 SE Belmont St., 2354900. 6:30 pm. $125 at brownpapertickets.com. 21+.
JACOB GARCIA
REVIEW
OPENING SOON!
Maritime Café An OMMP Patients Café Highest quality Medicine and Medibles Opening in Mid-June
Grand Opening Party -TBA 17415 SE McLoughlin Blvd
CHOCOLATE, SUGAR, CREAM AND BUTTER: Emilie Dessert Cafe’s cakes are a labor of love.
LET THEM EAT CAKE
lemon cake, raspberry jelly, whipped cream and lemon-soaked white cake, covered in frosting and shredded coconut. The glass display case also holds hearty chunks of raisin-studded bread pudding ($5.95), thick pecan bars, and a peach custard tart ($2.50) with a dense, buttery crust that stands on its BY JOA N N A MILLER 243-2122 own merit. The almond croissant ($2.25), with its crisp exterior, flaky layers and mildly sweet All right. Caribbean-themed dance club: check. almond-paste center, is fantastic. A muffin-sized Lexus dealership: check. Vegas-style VIP room: financier ($1.95) scores big points with its unexcheck. How to round out the gamut of hedonistic pected eggy moistness. delights on a less-than-quaint stretch of SouthLess remarkable is the cafe’s selection of cookwest Canyon Road? A Euro-style, dessert-centric ies; shortbread rounds sandwiching amaretto, jam cafe, bien sur. And judging from the shop’s busy or pumpkin fillings contain merely a trace of their seating area, Emilie Dessert Cafe is a welcome promised treasure, preventing them from being addition to this commercial strip—one not likely nearly as interesting or delicious as they sound. The to be found on any list of Portland’s top 10 “must- apple “strudel” was only just OK; it’s always disapsee” neighborhoods. pointing when phyllo dough Opened last July by sister- Order this: Espresso mocha cake with takes the place of the Austrian and-brother team Wenny and crème anglaise with Stumptown coffee. pastry’s traditional dough. Wisman Santoso, the dated- Best deal: Almond financiers. Unfortunately, Emilie’s is no looking cafe (think Tuscan I’ll pass: Shortbread sandwich cookies exception to this egregious shabby chic circa 1994) not only sound great. They are not. crime against strudel. keeps the early-morning coffee While Emilie is probably and pastry crowd happy, but considerately stays not one of Portland’s sexiest pâtisseries or dateopen well after dinner time, when we cake eaters night dessert joints, what it lacks in hip decor it are most likely on the prowl for chocolate, sugar, makes up for in refreshing hospitality and gracream and butter. ciousness. On each visit, the owners and servers On a recent visit, we were knocked out by an not only answered our many queries about their espresso mocha cake ($5.95), a generous slab desserts patiently, they did so with an unbridled consisting of a chocolate cookie base, a shocking- “joie de cake.” In other words: This is a labor of ly thick layer of ganache, and Irish cream-soaked love, and it shows. chocolate cake, crowned with a thick tier of mascarpone espresso mousse—all resting upon a EAT: 8680 SW Canyon Road, 206-5576, emiliedessertcafe.com. 7 am-5 pm Monday, healthy drizzle of crème anglaise. Less assertive 7 am-8 pm Tuesday-Saturday, 7:30 am-3 pm but every bit as moist and fulfilling is the coconut Sunday. $ Inexpensive.
EMILIE DESSERT CAFE OFFERS A TASTE OF EUROPE IN THE SUBURBS.
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Willamette Week JUNE 1, 2011 wweek.com
D E S I G N • D E TA I L • C R A F T S M A N S H I P • E S T 1 9 8 2
BEST
ON SALE NOW
BREAKFAST LET US MAKE YOUR BED Designers and Master Craftsmen of Sustainably Harvested Hardwood Furniture
MY M MORNING JACKET
BURRITOS in PDX!
Circuital
$11.95-cd/$15.95-lp
The band returns with their signature eclectic, alt.country/classic rock inspired sound.
Sundays 9:30-2:30 Our drinks are pretty awesome too.
DEATH CAB C FOR CUTIE
Codes and Keys
$14.95-cd/$20.95-lp
C RU Z RO OM
On their first studio release in three years, Death Cab takes an atmospheric, textured turn.
EDDIE VEDDER EDDI
NE 24th & Alberta • cruzroom.com
Scoop
Ukulele Songs $13.95-cd
Vedder’s first full-fledged solo album is light-hearted and features Glen Hansard and Cat Power. Sale prices good thru 6/12/11
NEW
Dave Matthews • Nick Cannon • Kate Bush RELEASES Flogging Molly • BT • Madlib • Seapony OUT NOW: Robert Pollard • Jordan Knight • David Sylvian
USED NEW &s & VINYL VD CDs, D
FOR ANY & ALL USED CDs, DVDs & VINYL
DOWNTOWN • 1313 W. Burnside • 503.274.0961 EASTSIDE • 1931 NE Sandy Blvd. • 503.239.7610 BEAVERTON • 3290 SW Cedar Hills Blvd. • 503.350.0907 4804 SE WOODSTOCK BLVD • 503.788.8547 • OPEN DAILY • THEJOINERY.COM
UPCOMING IN-STORE PERFORMANCES BLACK STAX
FRIDAY 6/3 @ 6PM
The avant-garde Seattle hip-hop group comprised of MC’s Silas Blak and Jace ECAj and vocalist Felicia Loud, Black Stax creates an eclectic, urban sound that is reminiscent of The Roots and The Coup with a dash of classic Janis Joplin. Black Stax recently released their debut album, ‘Talking Buildings.’
POINT JUNCTURE, WA SATURDAY 6/4 @ 6:30PM
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OPEN EVERYDAY AT 9 A.M. | WWW.EVERYDAYMUSIC.COM
SUMMER GUIDE 2011
Point Juncture, WA, is a collaboration between four Portland songwriters, instrumentalists, recording engineers, and friends: Amanda Spring (vocals, drums) Victor Nash (keyboards, vocals) Skyler Norwood (guitar, vibraphone) and Wilson Vediner (guitar). Their third album ‘Handsome Orders’ is a tour de force of songwriting and production, showcasing an impressive blend of fuzzed out bliss, beautiful boy-girl harmonies, and sublime melody.
SONGWRITERS CIRCLE MONDAY 6/6 @ 7PM
Alan Kanning was born in Shelby, Montana into a third-generation Montanan family. His
early life revolved around the family farm and the “family hobby” - music. He learned guitar accompanying his father’s fiddle and was exposed to bluegrass, folk, and traditional country by his dad and his uncles. Kanning has spent the last few years writing and performing at various venues, and is currently near the completion of his first solo CD project.
L.G. (Greg) Paul has been cheated on, ripped off by so called friends, beaten to a pulp by a drunk prizefighter, nearly drowned in an angry river, shot at while sitting in a greasy spoon and nearly died from an inexplicable brain injury. He has lived to tell the tales in first person with his guitar in hand. His latest project is ‘Panhandlers Union.’ Jack McMahon is a performing songwriter as well host and organizer of the Music Millennium Songwriters’ Showcase. McMahon has been a working musician for all of his adult life and over the years has fronted some of Portland’s more notable bands (Tracks, The Chameleons, Jack McMahon & Friends).
REDWOOD SON
TUESDAY 6/7 @ 6PM
Whether or not the name and music of Redwood Son has yet hit the big radar, this year’s “Best New Artist” of the Portland Music Awards heads for the summer with rocket in their pocket destined to catch waves. Their 20 song double-disc debut, ‘The Lion’s Inside,’ boasts a dynamic versatility that crosses the borders of their West Coast Americana with hook-laden Roots-Rock and Alt. Country.
PUBLISHES JUNE 15TH • RESERVE YOUR AD SPACE BY JUNE 9TH Willamette Week June 1, 2011 wweek.com
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B AN D O F H O R S E S • I R O N & WI N E EXPLOSIONS IN THE SKY • THE KILLS
B UT TH O LE S U R F E R S • AR C H E R S O F LOAF
N E U ROS IS • B LI N D PI LOT • B LITZ E N TRAPPE R
MACKLEMORE & RYAN LEWIS • Sebadoh • HANDSOME FURS
LITTLE DRAGON • THE VACCINES • THE ANTLERS • THE JOY FORMIDABLE YACHT • S HARON VAN ETTE N • CHAR LES B RADLEY • THEE OH SEES HORSE FEATHERS • the thermalS • THE HORRORS • de n n iS Coffey CASS McCOMBS • PHANTOG RAM • AVI BUFFALO • G LASS CANDY R H E T T M I L L E R • P o r t l a n d C e l lo P r o j e Ct • B I G F R E E D I A G IVE R S • K YLE SA • P I G D E STR OYE R • T Y S E GALL • YO U AM I OLIVIA TR E MOR CONTROL • Crooke d fi ng e rS • TE D LEO dam-funk & maSter blaSter • G RAILS • ema • SHABAZZ PALACES
BOB BY BAR E J R. • te n n iS • CE NTRO -MATIC • th e hood i nte r n et • TYPHOON the moondoggieS • TALKDEMONIC • twin SiSter • PS I LOVE YOU • the gaSlamP killer TH E SOFT MOON • di rty b eaCh eS • MOR N I NG TE LE PORTATION • th e th ron eS • YOB aki m bo • VIVA VOCE • u n known mortal orCh eStra • ALE LA DIAN E • b laCk Prai r i e HAM M E R H EAD • SleePy Sun • WHITE HILLS • joe Pug • LIFESAVAS • emily wellS Pi e rCe d ar rowS • R ICH MON D FONTAI N E • boat • R E B ECCA GATES • rtX • H EAVY CR EAM THE LADYBUG TRANSISTOR • the minderS • WEINLAND • rabbitS • DOLOREAN • bare wireS the miraCleS Club • A STOR M OF LIG HT • ZuZuka PoderoSa • B LOUS E • anaiS mitChell DJ ANJALI, THE INCREDIBLE KID, & E3 • dirty mittenS • Y LA BAMBA • holCombe waller • UME AND MANY MORE...
TIC KETS ON SALE TH IS FR I DAY, J U N E 3R D AT 10:00 AM AT ALL TIC KETSWEST LOCATIONS
I N F O AVAI L AB L E AT M U S I C F E STNW.C O M /TI C K ETS
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MUSIC
JUNE 1 - 7 PROFILE
= WW Pick. Highly recommended.
MELANI BROWN
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. Editor: CASEY JARMAN. 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. Fax: 243-1115.
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 1 Amor de Dias, Damon and Naomi
[MORE SAD HITS] Damon Krukowski and Naomi Yang have been musical collaborators for 25 years; first as members of the seminal dream-pop trio Galaxie 500, then as the rhythm section for the psych outfit Magic Hour. Since 1992, the duo has also put its energies into its own collaborative music, a gorgeous folk sound that weaves in the heady essence of psychedelia and noise without ever losing a hint of its inherent beauty. Amor de Dias, the new project from the Clientele frontman Alasdair MacLean that emphasizes a delicacy that sometimes gets lost in his band’s volume and blustery touches, joins them on this tour. ROBERT HAM. Bunk Bar, 1028 SE Water Ave., 894-9708. 9 pm. $10 advance, $12 day of show. 21+.
Mattress, Boom, Plankton Wat
[SYNTHY SQUALOR] One-man-band Mattress features Rex Marshall, an ‘80s loving prophet of sorts who knows dark times are ahead and simply cracks his knuckles and taunts the inevitable. His woozy, effect-laden musical sketches are monotonous and mechanical, a sonic parody of contemporary culture. Evidenced by 2009’s Low Blows, Mattress juggles the glitches and gloom in weirdly charming fashion, like a digitized and deconstructed version of Art Brut’s side project Everybody Was In The French Resistance. Picture Dean Martin on drugs crooning to the Blade Runner soundtrack, if your imagination will allow for it. MARK STOCK. Holocene, 1001 SE Morrison St., 2397639. 8:30 pm. $3. 21+.
THURSDAY, JUNE 2 PDX Pop Now Compilation Release: O Bruxo, Blue Skies for Black Hearts, Swahili, Lost Lander, DJ Papi, DJ Gigante
[TAKES ALL KINDS] This year’s PDX Pop Now! compilation is a startling reminder of two things: How many fine bands this city continues to churn out and just how old I am getting. The disc, which features unreleased jams from old favorites (Alan Singley, Cool Nutz) and upstart groups (Blouse, Reva Devito) alike, offers tastes of everything from garage rock to hip-hop to
blistering metal, but tonight’s show has a definite groove to it. O Bruxo’s onenight reunification can only mean assshaking, especially when paired with dancey new acts Swahili and the brandnew Matt Sheehy-helmed singer-songwriter-beatlover project Lost Lander (which sounds awesome in large part due to ex-Menomenaut Brett Knopf’s superb production). But don’t worry, Blue Skies for Black Hearts will hold it down for rock and roll at this rare allages Holocene show. Good music, good cause and the kids are invited: What could be better? CASEY JARMAN. Holocene, 1001 SE Morrison St., 2397639. 8 pm. $10 (includes a free copy of the two-disc PDX Pop Now! 2011 compilation). All ages.
Ken Mode, Anne, Deafheaven
[NOISE ROCK] Winnipeg’s Ken Mode channels the sound of its influences and their attitudes. The group named itself after a Black Flag-era Hank Rollins quote in which he suggests a “kill everyone now” approach to touring. On that note, this stop is part of a marathon tour in support of the brand-new album, Venerable, produced (of course) by Converge’s Kurt Ballou. Musically, the trio fuses all the great ’90s noise-rock feel of Amphetamine Reptile’s recording artists with the sounds of mid-’90s metalcore— before Victory Records ruined the genre. Remember how well Black Elk blended Jesus Lizard and Slayer? Let Ken Mode be your new fix for aural pain. Promising Portland shoegaze outfit Anne, playing out on new 7-inch Family Is a Nest of Suffering, opens. . NATHAN CARSON. Tube, 18 NW 3rd Ave., 241-8823. 9 pm. $5. 21+.
FRIDAY, JUNE 3
TOP FIVE BON IVER
Bruce Cockburn
[THE MAPLE LEAF AND THE DAMAGE DONE] It’s hard not to compare prodigiously talented and politically oriented songwriting legends of rare thoughtfulness and longevity born within six months of one another in the same corner of Ontario. But as older men taking looks at their lives, Bruce Cockburn followed rather a different career path since replacing Woodstock-bound Neil Young as headliner of the 1969 Mariposa Folk Festival. The former’s success was largely rel-
CONT. on page 26
BY H O LO CEN E’ S S COTT M CLEA N
TOP 5 SHOWS AT HOLOCENE, EVER
Gang Gang Dance, 6/16/2007 Such a wonderful, trippy journey. They should be coming back soon. Bon Iver (opening for Phosphorescent), 3/24/2008 Line around the block for the support act. One of those “I saw him when” shows. Fleet Foxes, 4/19/2008 They were a total blissful surprise and some of the nicest guys. JD Twitch of Optimo, 1/20/2009 He played our Inauguration Night Party in 2009—my all-time favorite DJ from Glasgow’s Optimo party. Pantha Du Prince, 9/20/2010 We waited so long to get Pantha at Holocene. A perfect mix of ambient and dance-floor jams. SEE IT: Holocene celebrates its eighth year on Friday, June 3, with the Miracles Club, Guidance Counselor, Blouse and more. 8 pm. Free. 21+.
OUTSIDE IN
A LOOK INTO THE BRIGHT FUTURE OF SALLIE FORD AND THE SOUND OUTSIDE. BY SHA N E DA N A HER
243-2122
[ROOTS POP] It was roughly this time last year that it became official: Sallie Ford and the Sound Outside was on a roll. The pop-Americana quartet had taken top honors in WW’s Best New Band poll, shared stages with high-profile fans the Avett Brothers, and turned out an EP (Not an Animal) that yielded a legitimate regional hit with the literate, throwback pop of “Write Me a Letter.” Such success at so quick a pace spoke of an unusual talent, and you didn’t have to look further than the band’s name to figure out where to find it. A pint-sized, bespectacled songwriter with the woodsmoke voice of Ella Fitzgerald and the personal affect of Hermione Granger, Sallie Ford—who began writing songs at age 19—belongs to an echelon of songwriters whose effortless facility with pop music seems almost unfair. Now 23, she is easily among Portland’s most recognizable songsmiths, as well as one of its most remarked-upon vocal talents. Much has been made of Ford’s vocal abilities, and it’s a case where even the most egregious hyperbole still manages to seem insufficient. Ford sings with boundless confidence and strength, utilizing her naturally arresting pipes to breathe life into songs that howl with a leering sense of humor. But Ford wasn’t always the darling of the Portland music scene. A native of Asheville, N.C., Ford is in many respects the ultimate Portland immigrant. She has made good on the Left Coast, but when she set forth in 2006 it was with little more than a one-way ticket marked “PDX” and a vague notion of Portland’s status as a “cool, artsy, happening spot,” she says. After a short stay in the Hawthorne Hostel, Ford wound up living in a house in Southeast, and when her roommates booked a show in their living room, they put Sallie Ford on the bill. “Right before the show I was like, ‘Well, if I’m gonna play a house show, I might as well write some songs.’” Originally performing solo as Down South Sallie (“I always felt really stupid about the name because it had a sort of dirty connotation”), Ford eventually
hooked up with Alaskan transplants Ford Tennis and Tyler Tornfelt, who provided bass and drums, respectively. Jeff Munger lent his chicken-peck lead guitar to the group after Ford discovered him busking on Northeast Alberta Street. It didn’t take long for the quartet to start getting attention. It’s easy to hear why: The Sound Outside plays pop music through the lens of classic Americana. There is a hint of the Tennessee Three in the group’s minimal, country-tinged arrangements, but the Sound Outside is a versatile beast, wandering into the realms of gospel, blues and balladry, all beneath the pace-setting tone of Ford’s brash vocals. But there’s an edge to the Sound Outside’s sound. Ford is fearless—combative, even. There’s no place in her songwriting for affected whimsy, and when the situation calls for it, she howls. In her song “Cage,” Ford belts out, “The bitch, she got me up in a cage,” pushing the sentiment so far over the top that it becomes a macabre joke. In “Write Me a Letter” she manages to sneak in a reference to E.E. Cummings right next to a cheekily deployed “fuck” (though that latter line has undergone some prudent editing as the group starts angling for wider recognition). In the past year, Sallie Ford and the Sound Outside has recorded a full-length album—under the guidance of Portland omni-producers Adam Selzer and Mike Coykendall—and signed to the venerable, New York-based Partisan Records. Her debut album, Dirty Radio (released last week), provides polished rehashings of several of the tracks from Not an Animal alongside new songs that maintain the spare professionalism of the Sound Outside’s live shows. The soulful dirge of “Nightmares” and the howling blues of “Poison Milk” show Ford reaching new emotional heights as a lyricist while the Sound Outside expands its precisely trod range. This is a debut record with huge potential, as the PR agents, managers and label heads helping engineer Dirty Radio’s release seem keenly aware. “It’s nice to have everybody work for you and stuff,” says Ford, punctuating her statement with a loud laugh. “I feel like the boss or something.” She can laugh if she wants, but with a band of her caliber, she’d better get used to the idea. SEE IT: Sallie Ford and the Sound Outside play Doug Fir on Friday, June 3, and Saturday, June 4. See listings for details. Both shows 21+.
Willamette Week JUNE 1, 2011 wweek.com
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TI C K O N S E TS A F R I D LE J U N E AY, AT 1 0 3 R D AM!
F ALL O E TH E S R E SA S H O W G E S! ALL A
PIONEER STAGE AT PIONEER COURTHOUSE SQUARE
IRON & WINE SEPT. 9
DOORS 3:30 PM
EXPLOSIONS IN THE SKY SEPT. 10 WITH THE ANTLERS & TYPHOON DOORS 2:30 PM
BAND OF HORSES
SEPT. 11 WITH CASS MCCOMBS, MORNING TELEPORTATION & BOBBY BARE JR DOORS 2:30 PM
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Willamette Week June 1, 2011 wweek.com
CRYSTAL BALLROOM
ROSELAND THEATER
ALADDIN THEATER
THE KILLS
BUTTHOLE SURFERS
CHARLES BRADLEY & DENNIS COFFEY
DOORS 8 PM
DOORS 8 PM
DOORS 7 PM
SEPT. 7
ARCHERS OF LOAF SEPT. 8 WITH SEBADOH & VIVA VOCE DOORS 7 PM
SEPT. 8 WITH THE THRONES
MACKLEMORE & RYAN LEWIS
SEPT. 9 WITH SHABAZZ PALACES AND TXE
SEPT. 8 WITH MONARQUES
HORSE FEATHERS SEPT. 9 WITH JOE PUG AND ANAIS MITCHELL DOORS 8 PM
DOORS 7:30 PM
BLITZEN TRAPPER SEPT. 9 WITH SHARON VAN ETTEN & WEINLAND DOORS 8 PM
NEUROSIS
SEPT. 10 WITH GRAILS, YOB & AKIMBO
PORTLAND CELLO PROJECT SEPT. 10 WITH LIFESAVAS AND EMILY WELLS DOORS 7 PM
DOORS 7 PM
FOR TICKETING AND WRISTBAND INFO GO TO MUSICFESTNW.COM/TICKETS LI M ITE D N U M B E R OF ADVANCE TICKETS FOR TH ES E S HOWS AR E AVAI LAB LE TH ROUG H TICKETSWEST.
BLIND PILOT
SEPT. 10 WITH AVI BUFFALO, ALELA DIANE & BLACK PRAIRIE DOORS 7 PM
$70* $115*
ONE
WRISTBAND PLUS A GUARANTEED TICKET TO SHOW AT PIONEER COURTHOUSE SQUARE: IRON & WINE, EXPLOSIONS IN THE SKY OR BAND OF HORSES
ALL THREE
WRISTBAND PLUS GUARANTEED TICKETS TO SHOWS AT PIONEER COURTHOUSE SQUARE: IRON & WINE, EXPLOSIONS IN THE SKY AND BAND OF HORSES *Service Fees Apply
Willamette Week June 1, 2011 wweek.com
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MUSIC
FRIDAY
egated to north of the border, where he newly appears on a postage stamp. Though last troubling U.S. charts with the early MTV staple “If I Had a Rocket Launcher” (Canadian troops in Afghanistan, ever immune to irony, recently gave him one), he continues to travel war zones and record albums; the troubadour is currently touring with a small ensemble in support of 31st release Small Source of Comfort, a typically stirring collection of wry narratives and gorgeous instrumentals. JAY HORTON. Aladdin Theater, 3017 SE Milwaukie Ave., 234-9694. 8 pm. $35. All ages (minors must be accompanied by parent or guardian).
[DANCE POP] Doubleplusgood is Portland’s best employer of AutoTune. The duo has been around since 2006, laying down dance tracks of the old(ish) school that favor sequencing over live drums and view the vocoder as a useful tool rather than a tempting career pitfall. This February, Doubleplusgood came out with one of the smartest of all smartypants music videos, posing as works of classic art atop the soundtrack of its song “Falls Apart.” The track sounds like something that Simon and Garfunkel would have come up with if they had a lesser predilection for schlock and easier access to Ableton Live. Such cleverly emotive dance cuts can’t be anything but, well, “good.” SHANE DANAHER. Backspace, 115 NW 5th Ave., 2482900. 9 pm. $5. All ages.
PROFILE
Anna Calvi, Cuckoo Chaos, Oracle, Lost Lockets
ALELA DIANE SATURDAY, JUNE 4
See music feature, page 23. Doug Fir Lounge, 830 E Burnside St., 2319663. 9 pm. $11 advance, $12 day of show. 21+.
Sharks, Lost City, Rendered Useless
[WHITE MAN IN HAMMERHEAD PALAIS] Oh, the Sharks have pretty teeth, dear—not capped, perhaps, yet suspiciously pearly for Midlands boys channeling the ghosts of the 100 Club (though career opportunities for young punks have rather expanded since Strummer walked the earth). Touring the States even before they’ve recorded a full-length debut thanks to the early patronage of Social Distortion and the Warped tastemakers, the Sharks recently released Joys of Living 2008-10, which collects their early EPs’ cultured Clashicisms, dub-reggae forays and pub-metal tinge, hinting toward greater ambition than complete control of gob-along white-washed riots. JAY HORTON. Hawthorne Theatre, 3862 SE Hawthorne Blvd., 233-7100. 9 pm. $10 advance, $12 day of show. All ages.
The Miracles Club, Guidance Counselor, Blouse, Purple & Green, The Greys, Selector Dub Narcotic, DJ Zac Eno
[TIME-TRAVEL B-DAY PARTY] It’s not for nothing that Holocene has become a local live-music institution: With a calendar that shuffles national rising stars, vibrant dance nights and unswerving support for
CONT. on page 29
CHLOE AFTEL
[SOLO FURRY ANIMAL] Taking
Sallie Ford & the Sound Outside, Quiet Life, What Hearts
Willamette Week JUNE 1, 2011 wweek.com
Gruff Rhys, Y Niwl, The Ocean Floor
another break from his day job as main songwriter for Welsh pop geniuses Super Furry Animals, Gruff Rhys returns to Portland in support of a new solo effort, a luscious concoction entitled Hotel Shampoo. On the new disc, the 40-year-old musician reins in his political leanings and radio dial-jumping eclecticism in place of a humble approach that sparkles with the influence of Tropicalia and the glisten of ‘60s acts like the Monkees and the Association. Rhys is aided on this U.S. jaunt by fellow Welshmen Y Niwl, who will open up the show with a set of irony-free, surf-style pop. ROBERT HAM. Mississippi Studios, 3939 N Mississippi Ave., 288-3895. 9 pm. $12. 21+.
Doubleplusgood, Vanimal, Starlight & Magic, Magic Fades
[GORGEOUS ROCK] Anna Calvi is having a good year. Described by Brian Eno as “the biggest thing since Patti Smith,” Calvi is winning kudos, award nominations, record deals and gushing press accolades. She was even hand-selected to be the support act for Nick Cave’s Grinderman tour in Europe. All this is based on her tremendous voice (think PJ Harvey or Siouxsie Sioux) and her patented circular guitar strumming. Calvi’s self-titled debut album was just released in the U.S. in March—it exhibits a confident and sensual rock sound that seems pleasantly unaffected by current pop music trends. NATHAN CARSON. Branx, 320 SE 2nd Ave., 234-5683. 8 pm. $12. All ages.
26
Portland bands (including plenty of financially risky underground experimental shows), the venue is perhaps the best-booked in town. Tonight, Holocene celebrates its eighth birthday, and while that only dates the club to 2003, the lineup of its (free!) anniversary show is of a decidedly earlier vintage—a kind of dance backwards through the ‘90s and ‘80s from the house music of The Miracles Club, to Purple & Green’s ecstatic R & B and the New Wave sounds of Blouse. JONATHAN FROCHTZWAJG. Holocene, 1001 SE Morrison St., 2397639. 8 pm. Free. 21+.
[HOMESPUN FOLK] The Southeast Portland home Alela Diane shares with her husband, Tom Bevitori, looks almost exactly as you would imagine if you’ve spent any time with her fine-spun, lived-in folk pop or even glanced at her lacy album covers. Their cozy domicile is decorated with delicate-looking artwork and, on one wall, a handsome acoustic guitar. One cabinet in their kitchen is packed full of boxes of tea. But, sipping a steamy mug of green tea at the small rickety table in the couple’s den, Diane explains that it’s only recently that they’ve been able to enjoy their home. “We were on tour for the whole of 2009,” she remembers, “and prior to that I had really been touring for Pirate’s Gospel [her 2006 debut] for two years. So, I decided to take a solid year off to get my feet back on the ground and get settled in here.” Diane seems settled. Some of that can be attributed to the time she’s taking off now between tours, but it also comes down to Diane’s comfort level with the creative process. Where her first album emerged from the depths of a bevy of personal crises (her parents’ divorce, her own breakup with a longtime boyfriend), Diane’s most recent LP, Alela Diane & Wild Divine, was created from much more agreeable circumstances. Diane wrote the lyrics during her ’09 tour and collaborated closely with Bevitori to turn them into fully formed songs. “He plays things I wouldn’t think to play on the guitar and the piano,” she says. “Because of that, I was able to come up with different melodies and I had the freedom to just sing. ” Diane’s voice has always been the strongest component to her sound. It’s a gorgeous alto that breaks in all the right places and carries the right amount of twang to keep the MOR fans happy. On the new record—backed by steadily shuffling, almost entirely acoustic accompaniment and stoked by the assured hands of famed producer Scott Litt (R.E.M., Nirvana)—it shines even brighter. The response to the new album mirrors that luster, with glowing reviews flying in and Diane’s fan base growing even stronger (especially in Europe, where she’s treated like musical royalty). “It feels like you’re in some alternate reality,” she says of her success overseas. “You’re playing in a giant room for a thousand people. It’s great. It’s amazing. But you come back here and you can’t even get a goddamn free beer!” She laughs. “It’s kept things very real, though. It keeps me human to do the shuffle around America and be in shitty basement green rooms with dicks drawn all over the walls.” ROBERT HAM. Coming home has been easy for the singer-songwriter. Getting free beers has been tougher.
SEE IT: Alela Diane releases her new disc Saturday, June 4, at Mississippi Studios, with the Parson Red Heads. 9 pm. $10. 21+.
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MUSIC
ALBUM REVIEWS
Black Stax
See today’s Someday Lounge listing. Music Millennium, 3158 E Burnside St., 231-8926. 6 pm. Free. All ages.
IAME LAME (TAXIDERMY RECORDS)
The Black Stax, Rose Bent, DJ Luvva J.
[FRESH HIP-HOP] Northwest hip-hop is most often derided for lacking a distinct regional aesthetic. But the Sandpeople crew—and by extension, iAMe, one of its premier MCs—has a sound. The squad relies on wobbly, carnivalesque beats strung with synths and half-sung choruses that are often both soulful and hauntingly distant to craft its hallmark sound. So what happens when a Sandpeople MC wants to break out of the Sandpeople mold? Lame happens. Portland MC iAMe’s new record—named in part for how his name looks in print sans its unique capitalization—doesn’t look like a Sandpeople album (the cover looks like something a metal band would come up with). Produced by forward-thinking, reclusive local producer Smoke M2D6 of Oldominion, it doesn’t sound like a Sandpeople record, either. But most tellingly, iAMe’s subject matter has expanded to encompass everything from nightmare sequences (“Felt So Real”) to theology (“Thy Will”) and the kept life (“Domestikated”). The MC’s flow hasn’t changed much, but the expanding thematic horizons do lead to a refinement of tone (see the lackadaisical, gooey and masterfully written “Ninja Defense”). It’s not a complete transformation: iAMe opens his album by framing it as a rather depressing drinking game, and songs like “It’s Not Always Pretty” and “Carlin List” are pretty classic Sandpeoplestyle calls to arms. But from time to time—see the minimal, futuristic “Keep the Change”—iAMe completely reinvents his sound. Still, the real challenge presented to other area artists here is in iAMe’s lyricism: Everything in the rapper’s life—his problems with (and celebrations of ) drinking, his relationship, his politics and his selfdoubt—is on the table on Lame. That’s what makes this a record rather than a collection of songs. Northwest hip-hop is growing up, and iAMe is maturing faster than most. CASEY JARMAN.
[STACKS OF NW HIP-HOP] On the “I Love My Life” single from Seattle hip-hop trio Black Stax’s 2010 debut, Talking Buildings, singer Felicia Loud sagely intones that, while she’s got troubles, she “wouldn’t change a thing / ‘cause that would change everything.” That’s apposite advice for this nicely balanced group, too: Loud’s expressive, expansive vocals—along with a soul-rooted brass section— provide the musical spark to the socially conscious lyrical tinder of MCs Silas Blak and Jace ECAj. Rose Bent, Portland’s badly needed allfemale rap troupe, fills out a fine bill of promising Northwest hip-hop acts. JONATHAN FROCHTZWAJG. Someday Lounge, 125 NW 5th Ave., 248-1030. 9 pm. $8. 21+.
The Crash Engine (CD Release), Galaxy Farm, I Am the Ocean
[GOOD ROCK] As a music writer, I’ve heard variations of the phrase “What ever happened to rock and roll?” more times than I can count. There are a handful of solid, reasonably straightforward local rock acts I then push these disgruntled rockers toward: the Crash Engine being a big one. New record Beautiful Blood keeps up the Portland-via-Eugene quartet’s proud tradition of writing good, dynamic rock tunes (think of like-minded locals like Jonah or System & Station, or of a less slick Foo Fighters). The album was partially produced by Lou Giordano, who has tackled both Sunny Day Real Estate and the Goo Goo Dolls, which is funny, because the Crash Engine’s sound resides somewhere in the emotional and sonic chasm between those two bands’ mid-tolate-’90s output. CASEY JARMAN. The Knife Shop at Kelly’s Olympian, 426 SW Washington St., 228-3669. 10 pm. $5. 21+.
Meester and Meester
[INTIMATE INSTRUMENTATION] Before Portland’s 3 Leg Torso unveiled its off-center world chamber pop a decade and a half ago, founders Bela Balogh (violin) and Courtney von Drehle (accordion) busked as a duo, later adding cello to the mix. For this show, they return to that sound, substituting Mike Murphy’s double bass to hold down the low end, and shedding 3LT’s double percussion section for a more melodic emphasis and intimate atmosphere appropriate to wine-bar ambience. They’re always a delight in any incarnation. BRETT CAMPBELL. Vie de Boheme, 1530 SE 7th Ave., 360-1233. 8 pm. $5. 21+.
Tender Loving Empire Fourth Anniversary Party: Jared Mees & the Grown Children, Typhoon, Y La Bamba, Loch Lomond, Radiation City
[CUDDLY CONQUERERS] Like a denim-clad, rain- and Pabstbesotted Walt Disney, Tender Loving Empire co-founder Jared Mees is doing a handy job of expanding a good idea into near ubiquity. The good idea: a collectivist core sampling of the Portland arts and music scene. The media penetration: In its first four years, Tender Loving Empire has placed its fingers into such various pies as record distribution, retail, concert production, art gallery management, comics publishing, screen-printing and consignment fashion. The bands on the Tender Loving Empire label include Mees’ own Jared Mees and the Grown Children, as well as the rightfully beloved orchestral collectives of Typhoon and Loch Lomond, and its most recent addition—the rightly hyped ambient-rock outfit Radiation City. If there’s a unifying thread to all of TLE’s exploits it seems to be
CONT. on page 30
BRIGHT ARCHER HIDDEN SYSTEMS (BEAR ISLAND) [THE PIANO INFLATES] Good piano balladeers are hard to find these days. Though squealing synthesizers pimple a guitar-riddled indie-music landscape, acoustic pianos are markedly less popular. But piano—and fine piano playing—is so central to Johanna Kunin’s sound that she recorded that melodic backbone of her new Hidden Systems LP at one studio (Seattle’s Other Room) and constructed everything else with Portland’s Skyler Norwood at his Miracle Lake Studios. That dual-studio approach doesn’t hurt the beautiful-sounding disc’s cohesiveness. In fact, it creates a blueprint for Kunin, the Seattle-to-Portland transplant who adopted the Bright Archer moniker for her second full-length release. Nine of the new disc’s 11 songs lead with dreamy, echoing piano lines, then add Kunin’s vocals, then guest instrumentation from members of Loch Lomond; Point Juncture, WA; and Kunin’s other band, Velella Velella, among others. If anything, that structure grows a little weary at the end of the disc, though Kunin still manages a huge breadth of tone, from sprawling opener “Featherweight,” with its blistering drum fills, to the jazzy, start-and-stop “Road” (which reminds more than a little of Vince Guaraldi’s tunes from the Peanuts specials). Even the downest of down-tempo numbers manage surprising midtune dynamics (see the title track’s skittering hi-hat and the unexpected synth-and-clarinet pairing on “Underground”). Hidden Systems refuses easy, emotionally exploitative chord progressions for something a bit more ambiguous and challenging—a testament to both Kunin’s songwriting and Norwood’s studio prowess. Piano is nice and all, but an entire album of piano and vocals— even Kunin’s sharp, fearless vocals and her abstract, if slightly hippiedippy, lyrical couplets—would get a little sleepy. So it’s a good thing the piano ballad is such a rarity: The mathy piano, guitar, French horn and viola ballad is a lot more interesting. CASEY JARMAN. SEE IT: Bright Archer plays The Woods on Thursday, June 2, with Basia Bulat and Vikesh Kapoor. 9 pm. $10. 21+. iAMe plays the Mount Tabor Theater Lounge on Saturday, June 4, with Onry Ozzborn, Hives Inquiry Squad, Cloudy October and Void Pedal. 9 pm. $7. 21+. Willamette Week JUNE 1, 2011 wweek.com
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The Best Of Portland Independent Jazz: “John Stowell w George Mitchell and Todd Strait” – 8pm Monday June 6th Renato Caranto’s Jam Band 8pm Tuesday June 7th Pagen Jug Band – 6:30pm every wed - Arabesque & Belly Dance 8pm
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DANCE DANCE REVOLUTION: Janelle Monáe plays the Rose Garden on Saturday. pure exuberance, and, hell, theme parks have secured financing on far less. SHANE DANAHER. Wonder Ballroom, 128 NE Russell St., 2848686. 8 pm. $10. All ages.
SATURDAY, JUNE 4 Music From Winter’s Bone: Marideth Sisco, Dennis Crider, Bo Brown, Van Colbert, Tedi May, Linda Stoffei
[BANJO AND FRIENDS] While it’s a shame last year’s excellent film Winter’s Bone didn’t win any of the four Oscars it was nominated for, the real oversight was the snubbing of the film’s thoughtfully curated soundtrack. In their search for the ideal aural accompaniment to their bleak tale, the filmmakers collaborated with local musicians on their location in the Missouri Ozarks, including Marideth Sisco, who also produces a radio program focused on the region’s music and folklore. Thanks to its release via Light in the Attic Records and the buzz worked up by this tour, the eerie-yetenchanting material is now reaching the broader audience it deserves. HANNAH LEVIN. Aladdin Theater, 3017 SE Milwaukie Ave., 234-9694. 8 pm. $15-$18. Minors must be accompanied by a parent. All ages.
Sallie Ford & the Sound Outside, Pancake Breakfast, Basemint
See music feature, page 23. Doug Fir Lounge, 830 E Burnside St., 2319663. 9 pm. $11 advance, $12 day of show. 21+.
Spellcaster, Split Heaven, Skelator, Excruciator
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Willamette Week JUNE 1, 2011 wweek.com
[THRASH] With KUFO dead and gone, it’s become more challenging to find one’s metal fix. To shamelessly quote James Hetfield—sing it with me—this is sad but true. Enter Spellcaster, a band composed of five young local lads with the power thrash wherewithal of Master of Puppets-era Metallica and Queensryche. Leather-clad vocalist Thomas Adams boasts the ability to crack glass with his shrieks, frosting on a cake made of elaborate power chord structures and doublekick drum pandemonium. Last fall, the group debuted with Spells of Speed, affirmation that the raucous metal dreams of decades past are still alive and amplified in Portland. Groups from Mexico City (Split Heaven) and Seattle (Skelator) round out the bill. MARK STOCK. East End, 203 SE Grand Ave., 2320056. 9 pm. $8. 21+.
Bruno Mars, Janelle Monáe
[SAMMY DAVIS III] With a name and hairstyle seemingly lifted from an unmade Disney Channel series, you’d be forgiven for presuming Bruno Mars had been manufactured in the vast laboratories below Orlando or, worse, grabbed the brass promise ring of tweenerpated insta-stardom as the inexplicable meme of the moment, all pompadour and circumstance. The former Peter Hernandez has been at this for a while, though,
making his bones through the L.A. cover-band circuit—which explains his baffling live set list, currently including a “Smells Like Teen Spirit”/“Billie Jean”/“Seven Nation Army” medley—and cowriting a fistful of hits (“Fuck You,” “Billionaire”) before showing he has showman chops that easily outstrip the reggae lite and prefab R & B of last year’s Doo-Wops & Hooligans debut. While opener Janelle Monáe—also 25 and trailing a hitstrewn debut—also covers young Jacko alongside Nat King Cole (accompanied by a 12-piece band), her breathtaking genre leaps and multimedia ebullience point rather more forcefully toward the future. JAY HORTON. Rose Garden, 1401 N Wheeler Ave., 235-8771. 7:30 pm. $35. All ages.
SUNDAY, JUNE 5 Sloan, Dearly Beloved
[STILL PRETTY TOGETHER] The greatest rock band to emerge out of Nova Scotia (sorry, Thrush Hermit), Sloan is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year. It’s a run that has seen the group manage to keep the same four members involved throughout while not losing a modicum of its sharp pop sensibilities and sly wit. The latest album by this quartet, The Double Cross (released this month on Yep Roc), finds all the members contributing, pulling from a deep well of influences from the ‘60s and ‘70s—with just a little bit of punk flash thrown in for good measure. ROBERT HAM. Doug Fir Lounge, 830 E Burnside St., 231-9663. 9 pm. $13 advance, $15 day of show. 21+.
Glasvegas, Gliss
[PRATTLE AND HUM] Amidst the Arctic Monkey-see-monkey-do unanimity of UK post-punk at the end of the aughts, one wouldn’t make book on the career success of a Scottish quartet melding U2 dynamics, Brill Building tastes, and ’80s synth-fuzz tendencies that perhaps better reflected instrumental limitations, vocal eccentricities, and rather more dangerous hobbies. Though Glasvegas frontman James Allan’s burr remains barely decipherable (to the benefit of many over-emoted platitudes, we’re sure), the quartet’s relocation to the beaches of Santa Monica for follow-up album Euphoric Heartbreak has only strengthened the group’s arena-trembling ambitions. JAY HORTON. Hawthorne Theatre, 3862 SE Hawthorne Blvd., 233-7100. 9 pm. $18 advance, $20 day of show. All ages.
Tombstalker, Blues Druid, Fucking Lesbian Bitches
[HEAVINESS] When playing with Portland trio Tombstalker, veteran queercore scene staple Radio Sloan takes the grinding guitar riffs she perfected as a member of the Need and slows them way down. Paired with singer Nadia Buyse’s bluesy vocals, the stoner-metal revivalists sound like a doomier version of their Washington State contemporaries, Christian Mistress.
SUNDAY - MONDAY Janie Black’s earthshaking drumming and Sloan’s sludgy guitar work would be right at home on an early Electric Wizard record, while Buyse’s howls infuse the band with the psych-rock leanings of Sabbath and Hawkwind. Combined, their classic influences make for a facemelting sound that’s as refreshing as it is timeless. DEVAN COOK. Tonic Lounge, 3100 NE Sandy Blvd., 238-0543. 8 pm. $3. 21+.
MONDAY, JUNE 6 Detroit Cobras, Girl in a Coma
[SHOUT & SHIMMY] The Detroit Cobras have almost no original material, but you can hardly call the group a tribute act or cover band. Over the course of four albums and a grippe of 7-inch singles— recorded in the downtime between its members’ other musical concerns (guitarist Greg Cartwright is a pillar of the underground rock scene)—this quintet adds a garagerock spin on its favorite soul, R & B and gospel tunes, nearly all of them from the ’60s. That means plenty of volume, a booze-fueled swagger, and a sheen of fuzzy chords and snarling vocals. ROBERT HAM. Dante’s, 350 W Burnside St., 2266630. 9 pm. $13 advance, $15 day of show. 21+.
Friendly Fires, Wise Blood
[DIGITAL HOMAGE ROCK] The good (and, more often, bad) thing about music today is that any kid with a vinyl collection, some basic recording equipment and a fondness for the abstract can make himself heard. Christopher Laufman, or Wise Blood—a Pittsburgh-based collage musician who turns iconic melodies or drum lines from the Beatles or Zeppelin into dizzying, synth-stacked mash-ups—personifies the good side of that coin. With just a five-song EP, called simply +, to his name, Laufman is still tuning his identity, an always fascinating state to see a young musician in. U.K. dance-floor royalty Friendly Fires headlines, trotting its overly produced, albeit overly contagious, new record, Pala. MARK STOCK. Doug Fir Lounge, 830 E Burnside St., 231-9663. 9 pm. $14 advance, $15 day of show. 21+.
MUSIC
“You want the El Jefe?
YOU CA N’T
Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr., EMA
[PSYCHEDELIC SWEETS] For a band whose name conjures unavoidable associations with violent death, Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. is surprisingly mellow. The single “Morning Thought,” arriving in advance of June’s It’s a Corporate World, features the duo pairing its airy synthesizers with reverbladen vocals and a neon-colored penchant for the playful and odd. In its most relaxed moments, Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. can sound like M83, only instead of stone-faced seriousness, its affect is one of kaleidoscopic pranksterism. Its music videos—something the band is known for—can feel like castoffs from Tim and Eric Awesome Show, attenuated with a wee bit more gravity and a keener ear for melody. SHANE DANAHER. Mississippi Studios, 3939 N Mississippi Ave., 288-3895. 9 pm. $10-$12. 21+.
HA NDL E
THE EL JEFE!”
ge: Jefe chall en Take our el tes u in e’s in 7 m Eat 15 El Jef all of Flame”! r “W & make ou Our 12 sa uces also Whole Fo at ods, New Lamb’s Th Seaso ns, riftway, M arket of & Food Fr Choice o nt Co-O p
1708 E Burnside • 503-230-9464 4225 N Interstate • 503-280-9464
Aceyalone, Raashan Ahmad, Theory Hazit, DJ Queasy, Reva Devito
[RAINBOW RAPS] Always one of hip-hop’s most underrated verbal gymnasts, Aceyalone has one great commercial weakness that might also be his biggest creative strength: The Freestyle Fellowship founder can’t seem to stick to one sound. With occasional, neatly curated exceptions— his excellent 2006 collabo with RJD2, Magnificent City, being the biggest standout—the Los Angeles MC spends his studio time tackling just about every genre he can: throwback jazz beats, reggae jams, 8-bit soundscapes, and boombap bangers among them. The MC spent the latter part of the aughts rebranding himself as a neo-soul/doo-wop/hip-hop crossover artist (going so far as to name the whole experiment Aceyalone & The Lonely Ones). Aceyalone certainly isn’t the first L.A. artist to show a blatant disregard for genre (ahem, Fishbone), but he’s carrying that torch admirably. We just don’t know how to tell you what you’re going to get at tonight’s Crown Room gig. CASEY JARMAN. The Crown Room, 205 NW 4th Ave., 503-222-6655. 9 pm. $5. 21+.
PRIMER
BY JAY H O RTO N
OLD 97’s Formed: In 1993, when a fight broke during a Dallas bar band rehearsal: “You put alt in my country!” “You put country in my alt!” Sounds like: Suburban cowboys tending their bar-brawl wounds and spinning regrets the long morning after. For fans of: Wilco, Waco Brothers, Bad Livers, Drive-By Truckers, Dallas Mavericks (they’re the unofficial house band for the Western Conference champs). Latest release: While last year’s The Grand Theatre Volume One wasn’t quite the return to form advertised nor the Great Americana Record long expected by the faithful, the honky-tonk barnburners and affecting balladry still shine. Why you care: Corralled during the great y’allternative stampede but left to pasture just a few years afterward as those old 1997 hopes of a cattle-drive-time ubiquity vanished to the winds, Rhett Miller and the boys opted to make a Chili’s jingle— instilling a rhythmic meter to baby back ribs whose catchiness still haunts dreams—and, apparently, found new direction in the process. The band’s successively de-twanged albums failed to deliver the all-conquering single nor identify that Soccer Mom Tupelo demographic. Lately embracing their roots (if not quite their rootsiness), the Old 97’s can still kick in the cowpunk afterburners, Miller retains his sweetheart-of-the-rodeo allure, and although their famously far-ranging songcraft can veer toward the cheeseball, their best instincts effortlessly divine big-sky grandeur from relentlessly ordinary lives with affecting—and essentially unfranchiseable—distinction. SEE IT: The Old 97s play Doug Fir on Wednesday, June 1, with Sarah Jaffe. 9 pm. $20. 21+. Willamette Week JUNE 1, 2011 wweek.com
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GREAT RECOMMENDED MUSIC TEDESCHI TRUCKS BAND
KATE & ANNA MCGARRIGLE
REVELATOR ON SALE $10.99 CD LP ALSO AVAILABLE
TELL MY SISTER ON SALE $20.99 3CD
‘Revelator’ is the song-oriented debut album by the husband-wife team of singer/ guitarist Susan Tedeschi and guitarist Derek Trucks. Filled with smoky, blues-dipped rockers and heart-stilling ballads that show off, respectively, the gutsier and softer side of Tedeschi’s vocal ability, plus a series of emotive, story-telling solos shaped by Trucks’s uncanny agility on slide-guitar. It also serves to introduce the couple s new, 11-piece ensemble Tedeschi Trucks Band.
‘Tell My Sister’ is a three-disc set comprising of remastered versions of Kate and Anna McGarrigle’s beloved 1976 self-titled debut, its equally praised 1977 follow-up, ‘Dancer with Bruised Knees,’ and a collection of previously unreleased songs, including solo and duo demos. Joe Boyd, who produced the first two albums, assembled the material for the third disc in addition to serving as producer for the whole set.
What Sarah Jarosz’s acclaimed debut ‘Song Up In Her Head’ suggests, ‘Follow Me’ confirms: she is constitutionally incapable of getting stuck in a rut. On her new album she pays homage to her musical roots while pushing beyond those sometimes limited boundaries, taking us on a journey both dark and mystical.
Groundbreaking banjoist/composer/ bandleader Béla Fleck has reconvened the original Béla Fleck & The Flecktones, the initial line-up of his incredible combo. ‘Rocket Science’ marks the first recording by the first fab four Flecktones in almost two decades, with pianist/ harmonica player Howard Levy back in the fold alongside Fleck, bassist Victor Wooten, and percussionist/drumitarist Roy “Futureman” Wooten.
RAMBLE AT THE RYMAN ON SALE
FOLLOW ME DOWN ON SALE $9.99 CD LP AVAILABLE 6/21
$13.99 CD / $14.99 DVD
LP AVAILABLE 6/21 Neanderthal Records
On September 17, 2008, the legendary Levon Helm took his beloved Midnight Ramble on the road to one of America’s treasured venues, Nashville’s historic Ryman Auditorium. Accompanied by such luminaries as Buddy Miller, John Hiatt, Sheryl Crow, George Receli, Sam Bush and Billy Bob Thornton, the Levon Helm Band created an unforgettable night of stage magic.
SEAN JONES NO NEED FOR WORDS
ON SALE $13.99 CD
ROCKET SCIENCE ON SALE $12.99 CD
LEVON HELM
SARAH JAROSZ
SEE HER LIVE 6/13 @ MISSISSIPPI STUDIOS
BELA FLECK & THE FLECKTONES
As has become evident over the course of his five previous albums, trumpeter Sean Jones is particularly adept at plumbing complex emotional depths through his trumpet playing and composing. So when he set his mind to recording a set of love songs, it should come as no surprise that he delved into the evocative nuances of love rather than the more obvious boys-meets-girl, boy-loses-girl generalities.
THE WRONGLERS WITH JIMMIE DALE GILMORE HEIRLOOM MUSIC ON SALE $12.99 CD
For some time Jimmie Dale Gilmore has been wanting to go back to a time before country music got really commercialized and he saw his opportunity with The Wronglers. He and Warren Hellman (founder and benefactor of the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival) have joined forces to make ‘Heirloom Music,’ an album of early twentieth century, folk-rooted country music featuring material from the likes of Charlie Poole, the Carter Family, Bill Monroe, Bob Wills and the Delmore Brothers.
GREG BROWN FREAK FLAG ON SALE $12.99 CD LP ALSO AVAILABLE As the result of a fateful lighting strike on the studio where he was working, Greg Brown lost the recordings that were to comprise his next album. For most artists, losing that much material would have been a creatively scarring and demoralizing experience. For Greg, it was just an excuse to turn inward once again, and write more songs. Of the songs that came to comprise his 24th album ‘Freak Flag,’ the title track is all that remains of that ill-fated lost original album.
OFFER GOOD THRU: 6/30/11
THE GIANT SUMMER CATALOG SALE 20% OFF ALL SONY TITLES BY THESE ARTISTS AC/DC
Jimi Hendrix
Highway To Hell
Are You Experienced
ON SALE $8.99 CD
Bob Dylan
Comfort Eagle
ON SALE $7.99 CD
ON SALE $8.99 CD AC/DC AEROSMITH ALICE IN CHAINS HERB ALPERT/TIJUANA BRASS ATKINS/KNOPFLER ATKINS/PAUL BANGLES JEFF BECK BLACK CROWES BLOOD SWEAT & TEARS BLOOMFIELD/KOOPER/STILLS BLUE OYSTER CULT BOSTON DAVE BRUBECK JEFF BUCKLEY BYRDS CAKE
Transformer ON SALE $7.99 CD
ON SALE $10.99 CD
Cake
Blonde On Blonde
Lou Reed
CAPTAIN BEEFHEART JOHNNY CASH CHEAP TRICK CLASH LEONARD COHEN SAM COOKE DICK DALE NEIL DIAMOND DONOVAN MILES DAVIS BOB DYLAN EARTH, WIND & FIRE ELECTRIC LIGHT ORCHESTRA EMERSON LAKE & PALMER RORY GALLAGHER DAVID GILMOUR GUESS WHO
WOODY GUTHRIE BUDDY GUY HALL & OATES HERBIE HANCOCK HEART JIMI HENDRIX HIGHWAYMEN IGGY & THE STOOGES ISLEY BROTHERS JEFFERSON AIRPLANE WAYLON JENNINGS ROBERT JOHNSON JANIS JOPLIN JOURNEY JUDAS PRIEST KINGS OF LEON RAY LAMONTAGNE
Jefferson Airplane Surrealistic Pillow ON SALE $6.99 CD
Harry Nilsson
Nilsson Schmilsson ON SALE $6.99 CD
CYNDI LAUPER LOVIN’ SPOONFUL CHARLES MINGUS MODEST MOUSE HARRY NILSSON O’JAYS ROY ORBISON ALAN PARSONS JACO PASTORIOUS RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE LOU REED DJANGO REINHARDT MARTY ROBBINS RONETTES SADE SANTANA SIMON & GARFUNKEL
Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band Safe As Milk ON SALE $6.99 CD
SLADE SLAYER SLY & THE FAMILY STONE PATTI SMITH SOCIAL DISTORTION SPIRIT BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN STONE ROSES TOOL TRIBE CALLED QUEST UNCLE TUPELO STEVIE RAY VAUGHAN BILL WITHERS WU-TANG CLAN
OFFER GOOD THRU 6/30/11
32
Willamette Week June 1, 2011 wweek.com
MUSIC CALENDAR Editor: Jonathan Frochtzwajg. 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. Please include show or release-date information with all physical mailings. Email: music@wweek.com.
WED. JUNE 1 303 SW 12th Ave. Kevin Devine
Aladdin Theater
3017 SE Milwaukie Ave. Blackfield, Jordan Rudess
Andina
1314 NW Glisan St. Toshi Onizuka
Ash Street Saloon
225 SW Ash St. Team Mascot, Morningbell, Eric John Kaiser
Beaterville Cafe
2201 N Killingsworth St. Lowell John Mitchell and the Triplets of Beaterville
Bunk Bar
1028 SE Water Ave. Amor de Dias, Damon and Naomi
Crystal Ballroom
1332 W Burnside St. Foster the People
Doc George’s Jazz Kitchen
4605 NE Fremont St. Karen Maria Capo
Doug Fir Lounge
830 E Burnside St. Old 97s, Sarah Jaffe
East End
203 SE Grand Ave. Peroxide, Germ Attak, Living Sickness
Ella Street Social Club 714 SW 20th Place The Smittens, Mark Monnone, The Rainy States
Goodfoot Lounge
2845 SE Stark St. Cow Paddy Stompers, The Ragged Word
Gypsy Restaurant & Lounge 625 NW 21st Ave. Richie Rosencrans
Holocene
1001 SE Morrison St. Mattress, Boom!, Plankton Wat
Jimmy Mak’s
221 NW 10th Ave. The Mel Brown Quartet
Kells
112 SW 2nd Ave. Cary Novotny
Kenton Club
2025 N Kilpatrick St. The Barkers
Landmark Saloon
4847 SE Division St. James Ray and the Cowdogs
LaurelThirst
2958 NE Glisan St. Michael Dean Damron, Run On Sentence, Audie Darling (9 pm); Portland Country Underground (6 pm)
McMenamins Edgefield Winery
2126 SW Halsey St. Water Tower Bucket Boys
Mississippi Pizza
3552 N Mississippi Ave. Sideways Reign
Muddy Rudder Public House
8105 SE 7th Ave. Sleepy Eyed Johns
O’Connors
7850 SW Capitol Hwy Kit Garoutte
Papa G’s Vegan Organic Deli
2314 SE Division St. Billy Kennedy
Plan B
1305 SE 8th Ave.
Union Station, 800 NW 6th Ave Ron Steen, Rebecca Kilgore
THURS. JUNE 2
Find more music: reviews 23 For more listings, check out wweek.com/music_calendar
Al’s Den at the Crystal Hotel
Wilfs Restaurant and Bar
Al’s Den at the Crystal Hotel Heaven Generation, CC Swim, The Glorious First of June
Someday Lounge
125 NW 5th Ave. Yoya, Greenhorse, The Hugs
The Globe
2045 SE Belmont St. Quintillion
The Knife Shop at Kelly’s Olympian
426 SW Washington St. Delaney and Paris, Autry
The Woods
6637 SE Milwaukie Ave. The Billy Nayer Show, Ozarks
Tony Starlight’s
3728 NE Sandy Blvd. Mike Winkle
Tube
18 NW 3rd Ave. Island Soundz: Standing 8, DJ Tigerstripes
Vino Vixens Wine Shop & Bar
303 SW 12th Ave. Kevin Devine
Alberta Rose Theatre
3000 NE Alberta St. Tyrone Wells, Jayme Dee
Alberta Street Public House
1036 NE Alberta St. The Harmed Brothers; The Appalachian, M.D. Elsworth; Hot Milk (9:30 pm); Daniel Whittington, Chris Beland (6:30 pm)
Andina
1314 NW Glisan St. Tracy Kim Trio
Andrea’s Cha Cha Club 832 SE Grand Ave. Dina and Bamba Y Su Pilon D’Azucar with La Descarga Cubana
Ash Street Saloon
225 SW Ash St. Eight-53, The Flying Mammals, Tyrannosaurus Grace, The Bittersoundfase
Beaterville Cafe
2929 SE Powell Blvd. Karyn Patridge
2201 N Killingsworth St. Andre St. James
White Eagle Saloon
Dante’s
836 N Russell St. Mars Retrieval Unit
350 W Burnside St. James Angell
Doc George’s Jazz Kitchen
4605 NE Fremont St. Ron Steen’s Jazz Jam Session
Doug Fir Lounge
830 E Burnside St. Stornoway, Sea of Bees
Duff’s Garage
1635 SE 7th Ave. John Koonce, Insanitizers, Splashdowns (9:30 pm); Portland Playboys (6 pm)
Ella Street Social Club
Jimmy Mak’s
Jimmy Boyer Band (9:30 pm); Shook Twins, Jeff Crosby & the Refugees (6 pm)
Kells
Mcmenamins Edgefield Little Red Shed
221 NW 10th Ave. The Mel Brown B3 Organ Group 112 SW 2nd Ave. Cary Novotny
Kennedy School
5736 NE 33rd Ave. Professor Banjo
Kenton Club
2025 N Kilpatrick St. Small Kingdoms, The Hookers, Golden Retriever
714 SW 20th Place Like a Villain, Mojave Bird, Sarcastic Dharma Society
Landmark Saloon
Goodfoot Lounge
LaurelThirst
2845 SE Stark St. The Dust Settlers, Shook Twins, Jeff Crosby and the Refugees
4847 SE Division St. Tin Silver 2958 NE Glisan St.
2126 SW Halsey St. Ezra Holbrook and the My Oh Mys, Redray Frazier
Mississippi Pizza
3552 N Mississippi Ave. Loose Change
Mississippi Studios
3939 N Mississippi Ave. PBR Presents: The 1970s
Mock Crest Tavern 3435 N Lombard St. Carolina Dreams
CONT. on page 34
Gypsy Restaurant & Lounge 625 NW 21st Ave. Anthony Brady
CASEY JARMAN
= WW Pick. Highly recommended.
[JUNE 1 - 7]
Hawthorne Theatre
3862 SE Hawthorne Blvd. Digital Dreamcore, Carson, Bilge Rats and Pyrettes, Cory Gonzalez, Alex Taimano
Holocene
1001 SE Morrison St. PDX Pop Now Compilation Release: O Bruxo, Blue Skies for Black Hearts, Swahili, Lost Lander, DJ Papi, DJ Gigante
Jade Lounge
2346 SE Ankeny St. Nico Bella (8 pm); Nahko (6 pm)
OUR LADY OF FUZZ AND FEEDBACK: EMA plays Mississippi Studios on Monday.
Willamette Week JUNE 1, 2011 wweek.com
33
MUSIC
CALENDAR
SPOTLIGHT
Drunken Prayer
CAMERONBROWNE.COM
Gov. Tom McCall Waterfront Park
Rose Festival: Branded, Chad Williams, Christie Snow Band, Ron Rogers and the Wailing Wind, Lincoln’s Beard, Moonlight Mile
Gypsy Restaurant & Lounge 625 NW 21st Ave. Merrill Lite
Hawthorne Theatre
3862 SE Hawthorne Blvd. Sharks, Lost City, Rendered Useless
Holocene
1001 SE Morrison St. The Miracles Club, Guidance Counselor, Blouse, Purple & Green, The Greys, Selector Dub Narcotic, DJ Zac Eno
BAIT AND SWITCH: The quest for authenticity is often a well without bottom, but if there were a bottom, The Trap (3805 SE 52nd Ave., 777-6009) wouldn’t be far from it. This is a serious dart bar, its four spot-lit boards granted pride of place, surrounded by scores of trophies, but when I dropped by no one was playing. Rather, a dozen jovial drinkers, most over 50, were clustered around the bar, downing $2.25 pints of Pabst and Coors Light and occasionally tending to the pool table and shiny lottery consoles. The ribbing I received for showing up in a dress shirt was friendly—the bar hasn’t yet been discovered by the ironic dickhead set, perhaps because the entrance is, fittingly, a trap. The door under the neon “open” sign is locked, and if you try the “Family Dining” entry you will have to duck through the kitchen to find the bar. Save yourself the embarrassment and use the hidden door in the parking lot. There is karaoke Friday and Saturday, which I assume is incredible. BEN WATERHOUSE. Mount Tabor Theater
4811 SE Hawthorne Blvd. The Student Loan, Worlds Finest
Original Halibut’s II 2527 NE Alberta St. Terry Robb
Papa G’s Vegan Organic Deli
2314 SE Division St. Andrew Orr, Jen Howard
Rotture
315 SE 3rd Ave. Signal Path, The Malah
Sellwood Public House
8132 SE 13th Ave. Open Mic with Two Rivers
Slim’s Cocktail Bar 8635 N Lombard St. The Honeycuts
Someday Lounge
125 NW 5th Ave. La Pura, Mark Ferguson, Paul Brady
Star Bar
639 SE Morrison St. Hopeless Jack and The Handsome Devils, Holy Children, Ex-Girlfriend Club
The Blue Monk
3341 SE Belmont St. Alan Jones Quintet
The Globe
2045 SE Belmont St. Kelsey Lindstrom (8:30); Jonathan Lowell and Friends (6 pm)
The Heathman Restaurant and Bar 1001 SW Broadway Johnny Martin
The Knife Shop at Kelly’s Olympian
426 SW Washington St. The Smittens, The Special Places, Monnone Alone
The Woods
6637 SE Milwaukie Ave. Basia Bulat, Bright Archer, Vikesh Kapoor
Tony Starlight’s
3728 NE Sandy Blvd. Sing For Your Supperclub with Lisa Knox
Tube
18 NW 3rd Ave.
34
Ken Mode, Anne, Deafheaven
Twilight Cafe and Bar 1420 SE Powell Blvd. Jason Oattis, The New Independents
Vino Vixens Wine Shop & Bar
2929 SE Powell Blvd. The Rocktet (9 pm); 6bq9 (6 pm)
White Eagle Saloon
836 N Russell St. Bad Assets (8:30 pm); Will West and the Friendly Cover Up (5:30 pm)
Wilfs Restaurant and Bar
Union Station, 800 NW 6th Ave Mike Horsfall, Karla Harris, Todd Strait
FRI. JUNE 3 Al’s Den at the Crystal Hotel
303 SW 12th Ave. Kevin Devine
Aladdin Theater
3017 SE Milwaukie Ave. Bruce Cockburn
Aladdin Theater
3017 SE Milwaukie Ave. Bruce Cockburn
Alberta Rose Theatre 3000 NE Alberta St. Live Wire! Radio: Alela Diane, Ramona Falls
Alberta Street Public House
1036 NE Alberta St. Renegade Minstrels (9:30 pm); Mikey’s Irish Jam (6:30 pm)
Aloft
9920 NE Cascades Parkway Ian James
Andina
1314 NW Glisan St. John Butler Trio
Ash Street Saloon
225 SW Ash St. Queen Bitch, The Police Cars
Willamette Week JUNE 1, 2011 wweek.com
Backspace
Jade Lounge
221 NW 10th Ave. Farnell Newton Band
Keller Auditorium 222 SW Clay St. The Moody Blues
Kells
112 SW 2nd Ave. Grafton Street
Kenton Club
2025 N Kilpatrick St. Council Crest, Tigress, Granada
Landmark Saloon
4847 SE Division St. Lloyd Mitchell Canyon
LaurelThirst
2958 NE Glisan St. Crow Quill Night Owls, Blind Boy Chocolate and the Milk Sheiks (9:30 pm); James Low Western Front (6 pm)
2126 SW Halsey St. Rat City Brass
3552 N Mississippi Ave. Kimosabe and Speakerminds (9 pm); Jenny Sizzler (6 pm)
320 SE 2nd Ave. Anna Calvi, Cuckoo Chaos, Oracle, Lost Lockets
Mississippi Studios
Clyde’s Prime Rib
Mount Tabor Theater
1332 W Burnside St. Adele, Wanda Jackson
Dante’s
3939 N Mississippi Ave. Gruff Rhys, Y Niwl, The Ocean Floor 4811 SE Hawthorne Blvd. Yamn, Jesta
Muddy Rudder Public House 8105 SE 7th Ave. Bass and Mando
350 W Burnside St. The Skatalites, The Sentiments
Music Millennium
Doc George’s Jazz Kitchen
Original Halibut’s II
4605 NE Fremont St. The Nick Saume Trio (7:30); Scot Crandal (5:30)
Doug Fir Lounge
830 E Burnside St. Sallie Ford & the Sound Outside, Quiet Life, What Hearts
Duff’s Garage
1635 SE 7th Ave. Shorty and the Mustangs, Bob Manning
Eagles Lodge, Southeast
4904 SE Hawthorne Blvd. The New Iberians Zydeco Blues Band
East End
203 SE Grand Ave. Satin Chaps, The Pynacles, DJ Drew Groove
Ella Street Social Club 714 SW 20th Place DJ Mr. Mumu
Ford Food and Drink 2505 SE 11th Rollie Tussing
Ford Food and Drink 2505 SE 11th
1001 SW Broadway Pete Krebs
The Knife Shop at Kelly’s Olympian
426 SW Washington St. The Crash Engine (CD Release), Galaxy Farm, I Am the Ocean
The Know
2026 NE Alberta St. Drunk Dad, Fugue, Axxicorn
Tonic Lounge
3100 NE Sandy Blvd. The Eegos, Apocalypse Dudes, Reptilian Civilian, Taxi Boys
Twilight Cafe and Bar
Mississippi Pizza
Crystal Ballroom
The Heathman Restaurant and Bar
Jimmy Mak’s
Beaterville Cafe
5474 NE Sandy Blvd. Muthaship
2045 SE Belmont St. Denim Wedding
Tony Starlight’s
Mcmenamins Edgefield Little Red Shed
Branx
The Globe
2346 SE Ankeny St. Stephanie Scelza, Colin Johnson
115 NW 5th Ave. Doubleplusgood, Vanimal, Starlight & Magic, Magic Fades 2201 N Killingsworth St. Oilskins, Barry Walker and the Tanks
Dunbar Number, Cadet, Stumblebum
3158 E Burnside St. Black Stax 2527 NE Alberta St. Jim Mesi
Papa G’s Vegan Organic Deli
2314 SE Division St. Lynn Conover
Plan B
1305 SE 8th Ave. Stolen Rose, The Last Days of Dreams, Therapist
Red Room
2530 NE 82nd Ave. Separation of Sanity, Truculence, Nekro Drunkz, Domesticide
Sellwood Public House 8132 SE 13th Ave. Adrian Martin, Karen Maria Capo
Slim’s Cocktail Bar 8635 N Lombard St. Radio Giants
Someday Lounge
125 NW 5th Ave. Black Stax, Rose Bent, DJ Luvva J.
The Blue Monk
3341 SE Belmont St. Eddie Martinez
The Foggy Notion 3416 N Lombard St.
3728 NE Sandy Blvd. Neil Diamond Tribute 1420 SE Powell Blvd. Charming Birds, Fasters, Crypt of the Grave
Vie de Boheme
1530 SE 7th Ave. Meester and Meester
Vino Vixens Wine Shop & Bar 2929 SE Powell Blvd. Rich Layton and the Troublemakers
White Eagle Saloon
836 N Russell St. Chris Margolin and the Dregs, Simple Sweet, Stone the Murder (9:30 pm); Reverb Brothers (5:30 pm)
Wilfs Restaurant and Bar
Union Station, 800 NW 6th Ave Ed Bennett Quintet
Wonder Ballroom
128 NE Russell St. Tender Loving Empire Fourth Anniversary Party: Jared Mees & the Grown Children, Typhoon, Y La Bamba, Loch Lomond, Radiation City
Doc George’s Jazz Kitchen
4605 NE Fremont St. Jay Harris’ Moon by Night Jazz and Soul Band
Doug Fir Lounge
830 E Burnside St. Sallie Ford & the Sound Outside, Pancake Breakfast, Basemint
Duff’s Garage
1635 SE 7th Ave. Midnight Serenaders
East End
Al’s Den at the Crystal Hotel 303 SW 12th Ave. Kevin Devine
Aladdin Theater
3017 SE Milwaukie Ave. Music from Winter’s Bone: Marideth Sisco, Dennis Crider, Bo Brown, Van Colbert, Tedi May, Linda Stoffei
Alberta Street Public House
1036 NE Alberta St. California Stars (9:30 pm); Michelle McAfee, David Jacobs-Strain (6:30 pm)
Aloft
9920 NE Cascades Parkway The Andre St. James Trio
Andina
1314 NW Glisan St. Toshi Onizuka Trio
Ash Street Saloon
225 SW Ash St. Raise the Bridges, Manimalhouse, Rare Monk
Backspace
115 NW 5th Ave. The River Empires, Fanno Creek, Patti King
Beaterville Cafe
2201 N Killingsworth St. Arthur Moore’s Harmonica Party
Clyde’s Prime Rib
5474 NE Sandy Blvd. Cool Breeze
Dante’s
350 W Burnside St. Appetite For Deception, Poison Us, AC/DDC
2530 NE 82nd Ave. Sindicate, Scatterbomb, Bangovers, Torture Me Elmo
Rose Garden
1401 N Wheeler Ave. Bruno Mars, Janelle Monáe
Saratoga
6910 N Interstate Ave. Wow and Flutter, Old Kingdom, The Harvey Girls
203 SE Grand Ave. Spellcaster, Split Heaven, Skelator, Excruciator
Sellwood Public House
Goodfoot Lounge
Slabtown
2845 SE Stark St. Marv Ellis and the Platform
Gov. Tom McCall Waterfront Park
Rose Festival: Carrie Cunningham, Coyote Creek, New Iberians, Bob Shoemaker, Sonada Malay, The Basinbillies, The Lansings, Gothard Sisters, Lew Jones Act
Hawthorne Hophouse 4111 SE Hawthorne The Student Loan
Hawthorne Theatre
3862 SE Hawthorne Blvd. DJ Villain, So Good, Hidden Remedy, Deklun and Pace
Jade Lounge
8132 SE 13th Ave. Harley and the Hotshots 1033 NW 16th Ave. Advisory, The Decliners, Zebra Omega, Strichnines, Erika Meyer
Slim’s Cocktail Bar
8635 N Lombard St. Union Pulse, The Dirty Words
Someday Lounge
125 NW 5th Ave. PDX Songwriter Happy Hour
TaborSpace
5441 SE Belmont St. Eleanor Murray, You Are Plural
The Blue Monk
3341 SE Belmont St. Andrew Oliver
The Globe
2346 SE Ankeny St. Cory Dauber (9 pm); Autumn Electric (6 pm)
2045 SE Belmont St. All Together Now
Jimmy Mak’s
2026 NE Alberta St. Blood Beach, Thick Shakes, Welsh Bowmen
221 NW 10th Ave. Jessie Marquez
Kenton Club
2025 N Kilpatrick St. Ramble On, Smoking Mirrors
LaurelThirst
2958 NE Glisan St. Emma Hill and Her Gentleman Callers, The Devil Whale (9:30 pm); Tree Frogs (6 pm)
McMenamins Edgefield Winery 2126 SW Halsey St. Laura Ivancie
Mississippi Pizza
SAT. JUNE 4
Red Room
3552 N Mississippi Ave. Bloom Out Inside (9 pm); Level2Music (7 pm)
Mississippi Studios
3939 N Mississippi Ave. Alela Diane, The Parson Red Heads
Mississippi Studios
3939 N Mississippi Ave. Alameda
Mock Crest Tavern 3435 N Lombard St. Donna and the Side Effects
Mount Tabor Theater
4811 SE Hawthorne Blvd. Camp Cascadia Presents
Mount Tabor Theater
4811 SE Hawthorne Blvd. Medicine for the People, Renegade Samba Set, 4 on the Floor, Bitterroot
Mt. Tabor Theater Lounge
4811 SE Hawthorne Blvd Onry Ozzborn, iAMe (of Sandpeople), Hives Inquiry Squad, Cloudy October, Void Pedal
Muddy Rudder Public House 8105 SE 7th Ave. Kinzel and Hyde
Music Millennium
3158 E Burnside St. Point Juncture, WA
Original Halibut’s II 2527 NE Alberta St. Lisa Mann
Plan B
1305 SE 8th Ave. My New Vice, Flexx Bronco, MF Ruckus
Press Club
2621 SE Clinton St. Mood Area
The Know
The Secret Society Ballroom
116 NE Russell St. Russell Bruner (SwingtimePDX), Eric Stern (Vagabond Opera), Anna Paul and The Bearded Lady
The Woods
6637 SE Milwaukie Ave. Dustin O’ Halloran, Alameda, Hello Mtn
Thirsty Lion
71 SW 2nd Ave. Brian Odell, DJ Soulshaker
Tigard Public Library 13500 SW Hall Blvd. IOA
Tonic Lounge
3100 NE Sandy Blvd. The Situation, Spanish Gamble, Old Junior (9:30 pm); DJ Drew Groove (5 pm)
Tony Starlight’s
Heroin Mascara, Broken End Stereo, Heaven Generation, Man Rock
Clyde’s Prime Rib
5474 NE Sandy Blvd. Ron Steen’s Jazz Jam
Doc George’s Jazz Kitchen
4605 NE Fremont St. Ed Neumann with the Big Easy Band
Doug Fir Lounge
830 E Burnside St. Sloan, Dearly Beloved
Duff’s Garage
1635 SE 7th Ave. Stolen Sweets
Ella Street Social Club
714 SW 20th Place John Craig and The Weekend, Violet Isle, Sara Jackson Holman
Gov. Tom McCall Waterfront Park
Rose Festival: Mariachi Portland, Los Reyes de Mexico, Atomic Gumbo, Bob Voll and Too Loose, Sonada Malay
Hawthorne Theatre
3862 SE Hawthorne Blvd. Glasvegas, Gliss
Jade Lounge
2346 SE Ankeny St. Novelty Theory
LaurelThirst
2958 NE Glisan St. Billy Kennedy and Tim Acott with Jake Ray (9 pm); Freak Mountain Ramblers (6 pm)
McMenamins Edgefield Winery 2126 SW Halsey St. Pamela Goldsmith
Mississippi Pizza
3552 N Mississippi Ave. Zach Zaitlin (9 pm); Lazy Champions (6 pm)
Mississippi Studios
3939 N Mississippi Ave. Hello Electric, Sons of Huns (9 pm); The Lumineers, Lincoln’s Beard (4 pm)
Music Millennium
3158 E Burnside St. Battles
Red Room
2530 NE 82nd Ave. Knox Harrington, The Borstal Boys, Gun Safe
Rontoms
600 E Burnside St. American Friction
Slim’s Cocktail Bar 8635 N Lombard St. Suburban Slim
Someday Lounge
3728 NE Sandy Blvd. Marianna and the Baby Vamps
125 NW 5th Ave. Lillian Soderman, Karyn Patridge, Bird Flying South
Twilight Cafe and Bar
The Blue Monk
1420 SE Powell Blvd. The Insanitizers, Serviceable Villains
Vino Vixens Wine Shop & Bar 2929 SE Powell Blvd. My Girl Whiskey, Twisted Whistle
White Eagle Saloon
836 N Russell St. Or, The Whale, The Beautiful Train Wrecks (9:30 pm); The Student Loan (4:30 pm)
Wilfs Restaurant and Bar
Union Station, 800 NW 6th Ave Deanna Witkowski, Dave Ambrosio
Wonder Ballroom
128 NE Russell St. Architecture in Helsinki, Hooray for Earth
SUN. JUNE 5 Al’s Den at the Crystal Hotel 303 SW 12th Ave. Mike Midlo (of Pancake Breakfast)
Ash Street Saloon 225 SW Ash St.
3341 SE Belmont St. John Stowell
The Globe
2045 SE Belmont St. Rychen and Friends
The Knife Shop at Kelly’s Olympian
426 SW Washington St. Sons of Lovers, Verso/ Recto
Tonic Lounge
3100 NE Sandy Blvd. Tombstalker, Blues Druid, Fucking Lesbian Bitches
Twilight Cafe and Bar
1420 SE Powell Blvd. The Rodeo Clowns, JAMF
Valentine’s
232 SW Ankeny St. Pony Village, Seasons, Terrapin
Vino Vixens Wine Shop & Bar 2929 SE Powell Blvd. Byron and Shelley, Naomi Hooley
MON. JUNE 6 Al’s Den at the Crystal Hotel 303 SW 12th Ave.
CALENDAR Mike Midlo (of Pancake Breakfast)
Alberta Street Public House 1036 NE Alberta St. Matt Lauretano
Aloft
9920 NE Cascades Parkway Martini
Andina
1314 NW Glisan St. Scott Head
Dante’s
350 W Burnside St. Detroit Cobras, Girl in a Coma
Doug Fir Lounge
830 E Burnside St. Friendly Fires, Wise Blood
Duff’s Garage
1635 SE 7th Ave. Lily Wilde Orchestra
Kells
112 SW 2nd Ave. Tom May
LaurelThirst
2958 NE Glisan St. Kung Pao Chickens
McMenamins Edgefield Winery 2126 SW Halsey St. Skip vonKuske, Will West
Mississippi Studios
3939 N Mississippi Ave. Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr., EMA
Mount Tabor Theater
Music Millennium
3158 E Burnside St. Alan Kanning, Greg Paul, Jack McMahon
O’Connors
7850 SW Capitol Hwy Kit Garoutte
Someday Lounge
Ash Street Saloon
225 SW Ash St. Sistafist, Kissing Cousins, Little Volcano
Mississippi Pizza
Johnny Indovina, DJ Curatrix, DJ Wednesday
Beaterville Cafe
Music Millennium
6637 SE Milwaukie Ave. In The Cooky Jar
2201 N Killingsworth St. Will Stenberg and Buddy Stubbs
125 NW 5th Ave. Woodsman, Tape Deck Mountain, Hosannas
Crystal Ballroom
The Blue Monk
Duff’s Garage
3341 SE Belmont St. Renato Caranto Project
1332 W Burnside St. Krishna Das
The Crown Room
1635 SE 7th Ave. Dover Weinberg Quartet (9 pm); Trio Bravo (6 pm)
The Globe
714 SW 20th Place Focus! Focus!, Seasons, Sun Mar, Terrapin
205 NW 4th Ave. Aceyalone, Raashan Ahmad, Theory Hazit, DJ Queasy, Reva Devito
Ella Street Social Club
2045 SE Belmont St. Hank Hirsh’s Jazz Lounge and Open Jam
Goodfoot Lounge
The Knife Shop at Kelly’s Olympian
Gypsy Restaurant & Lounge
426 SW Washington St. AUX 78, Earl Patrick
Tube
18 NW 3rd Ave. Cull, Atrocity Exhibition, DJ Ashley Eagle
White Eagle Saloon 836 N Russell St. Chris Robley and the Fear of Heights (8:30 pm); Open Mic / Songwriter Showcase (6:30 pm)
TUES. JUNE 7
2845 SE Stark St. Scott Pemberton Trio
625 NW 21st Ave. Kent Smith
Jade Lounge
2346 SE Ankeny St. Acoustic Minds (8 pm); Mike (6 pm)
Jimmy Mak’s
221 NW 10th Ave. The Mel Brown Septet (8 pm); The Union H.S. Jazz Band (6:30 pm)
Kells
112 SW 2nd Ave. Tom May
Kenton Club
2025 N Kilpatrick St. Countryland
4811 SE Hawthorne Blvd. Keegan Smith and The Fam, The Excellent Gentleman
Al’s Den at the Crystal Hotel
LaurelThirst
Muddy Rudder Public House
303 SW 12th Ave. Mike Midlo (of Pancake Breakfast)
Andina
Mcmenamins Edgefield Little Red Shed
8105 SE 7th Ave. Lloyd Jones
1314 NW Glisan St. JB Butler
Hanz Araki Band
2958 NE Glisan St. Jackstraw
2126 SW Halsey St.
The Woods
3552 N Mississippi Ave. Andrea Algieri 3158 E Burnside St. Redwood Son
Papa G’s Vegan Organic Deli
Tiga
WED. JUNE 1 Ground Kontrol
2314 SE Division St. Paul Brainard
511 NW Couch St. TRONix: Bryan Zentz
Peter’s Room
Langano Lounge
8 NW 6th Ave. Grouplove, Rock The Moon
Star Bar
639 SE Morrison St. Welcome Home Walker
The Blue Monk
3341 SE Belmont St. The Planet Jackers, Pagan Jug Band
The Globe
1435 SE Hawthorne Blvd. Mo DJs Mo Problems: DJ Snakks, Dreamlover, DJ $ister $ister
Matador 1967 W Burnside St DJ Whisker Friction
Star Bar
639 SE Morrison St. DJ Sugar Plum
2045 SE Belmont St. Mark MacMinn (9 pm); Jaggedease (7:30 pm)
The Crown Room
The Knife Shop at Kelly’s Olympian
The Lovecraft
426 SW Washington St. Cuddlebone
Thirsty Lion
71 SW 2nd Ave. PDX Singer-Songwriter Showcase
Tonic Lounge
3100 NE Sandy Blvd. The Welsh Bowmen, Pleassure, Grrlfriend
Valentine’s
232 SW Ankeny St. Sun Angle, Karen
Vino Vixens Wine Shop & Bar
2929 SE Powell Blvd. Arthur “Fresh Air” Moore Harmonica Party
White Eagle Saloon 836 N Russell St. Kory Quinn
205 NW 4th Ave. Crush 421 SE Grand Church of the V8 Chainsaw
The Whiskey Bar 31 NW 1st Ave. Crush
Tiga 1465 NE Prescott St. DJ Copy
THURS. JUNE 2 East End 203 SE Grand Ave. Monorail Space Disco Party: DJ Remy the Restless, Lemar Leroy
Fez Ballroom 316 SW 11th Ave. Shadowplay with DJ Horrid, DJ Ghoulunatic, DJ Paradox
Ground Kontrol 511 NW Couch St.
Variety Pac with Strategy, Fiasco with DJ Brokenwindow
1465 NE Prescott St. DJ Ikon
Someday Lounge
18 NW 3rd Ave. Hot Mess with Doc Adam
125 NW 5th Ave. The Fix: Rev. Shines, KEZ, Dundiggy
The Know 2026 NE Alberta St. DirtBag with DJ Gutter Glamour
The Whiskey Bar 31 NW 1st Ave. SpecOps
Tiga 1465 NE Prescott St. DJ Troubled Youth
Tube
18 NW 3rd Ave. Bang A Rang with Lionsden
FRI. JUNE 3 Al’s Den at the Crystal Hotel
Tube
SAT. JUNE 4 Al’s Den at the Crystal Hotel 303 SW 12th Ave. DJ Stargazer
Fez Ballroom 316 SW 11th Ave. Twice As Nice
Ground Kontrol 511 NW Couch St. DJ Etbonz
Holocene 1001 SE Morrison St. Booty Bassment: Ryan & Dmitri, Maxx Bass
Rotture
303 SW 12th Ave. DJ Santo
315 SE 3rd Ave. Andaz: DJ Anjali & The Incredible Kid, BlackMahal
Fez Ballroom
Star Bar
316 SW 11th Ave. Decadent 80s: DJ Encrypted, DJ NoN
639 SE Morrison St. Go French Yourself! with DJ Cecilia Paris
Goodfoot Lounge
Tiga
2845 SE Stark St. Soul Stew with DJ Aquaman
1465 NE Prescott St. DJ Swag
Ground Kontrol
18 NW 3rd Ave. DJ Freaky Outy
511 NW Couch St. DJ Epor
Star Bar 639 SE Morrison St. DJ Smooth Hopperator
The Lovecraft 421 SE Grand
Tube
Valentine’s 232 SW Ankeny St. DJ Maxamillion
MUSIC
SUN. JUNE 5 Matador
1967 W Burnside St Next Big Thing with DJ Donny Don’t
Plan B 1305 SE 8th Ave. Hive with DJ Owen
Tube 18 NW 3rd Ave. Sunday’s Best: DJ Nick Dean, DJ 60/40
Tube 18 NW 3rd Ave. DJ Queef Lorraine
MON. JUNE 6 Ground Kontrol 511 NW Couch St. Service Industrial Night with DJ Tibin
Star Bar 639 SE Morrison St. Into the Void with DJ Blackhawk
The Know 2026 NE Alberta St. DJ Freaky Outty
Tiga 1465 NE Prescott St. DJ Valkyrie
TUES. JUNE 7 The Crown Room 205 NW 4th Ave. See You Next Tuesday: Kellan, Avery
Tiga 1465 NE Prescott St. Minstrel Gigolo
Tube 18 NW 3rd Ave. Tubesday with DJ Freaky Outy
Yes and No 20 NW 3rd Ave. Idiot Tuesdays with Black Dog
©2011 COORS BREWING COMPANY, GOLDEN, CO Willamette Week JUNE 1, 2011 wweek.com
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JUNE 1-7
= WW Pick. Highly recommended. 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 Bust
On any given day, the Los Angeles County jail system holds more than 18,000 men and women in custody—160,000, all told, in 2010. Lauren Weedman’s autobiographical play, drawn from her experiences volunteering there as an inmate advocate, weaves visits to the jail with the humiliation and frivolity of the lives of the not-quite-famous. BEN WATERHOUSE. Gerding Theater, 128 NW 11th Ave., 445-3700. 7:30 pm Tuesdays-Wednesdays and Fridays, 2 and 7:30 pm Saturdays and Sundays, noon and 7:30 pm Thursdays, through June 19. $18-$40.
Fortinbras
Profile Theatre’s finale to its season of plays by Lee Blessing may pick up where Hamlet left off, but it’s no Shakespearean tragedy. Fortinbras is so contemporary it would be spooky, save for the superb humor. Following a bizarre royal regicide, frat boy Fortinbras seizes the throne and decides to rewrite history (inventing a villain, declaring false wars and shutting down nonconformists). “How can we be heroes if we can’t even see who we’ve triumphed over?” Fortinbras asks. “We need someone we can hate right here, right now.” Déjà vu, anyone? STACY BROWNHILL. Theater! Theatre!, 3430 SE Belmont St., 242-0080. 7:30 pm Wednesday-Saturday, 2 pm Sunday, June 1-5. $12-$28.
Hopeless
Melanya Helene reprises her Drammywinning performance based on the writings of American Buddhist nun Pema Chödrön. Brooklyn Bay, 1825 SE Franklin St., 258-9000. 8 pm FridaysSaturdays through June 11. $12-$15.
The Importance of Being Earnest
Third Rail Rep presents a high-definition screening of a performance of the Roundabout Theatre Company’s production of Oscar Wilde’s perfect comedy, with Brian Bedford as Lady Bracknell. World Trade Center Theater, 121 SW Salmon St., 235-1101. 7 pm Thursday, June 2, and 2 pm Sunday, June 12. $15-$20.
Lobby Hero
Twilight Repertory Theatre presents a comedy about four people who live in a really awful apartment building. Shoe Box Theater, 2110 SE 10th Ave., 3126789. 7:30 pm Thursdays-Saturdays, 2 pm Sundays. Closes June 12. $10-$15. Sundays are “pay what you will.”
Reasons to Be Pretty
When Greg (Casey McFeron) tells his work buddy Kent (John San Nicolas) that his girlfriend, Stephanie (Nikki Weaver), may have only a “regular” face but he wouldn’t trade her for the world, Kent’s wife, Carli (Kelly Tallent), immediately tattles on him, unleashing wrath of an order I hope never to encounter. Greg, a thick but wellmeaning regular guy, fails to understand why his offhand comment results in his romantic termination, so playwright Neil LaBute sets about explaining it to him, through a succession of miserable experiences. Director Gretchen Corbett and her perfectly selected cast execute LaBute’s funny, profane script so vividly that I found myself wanting to spit on San Nicolas’ smarmy, despicable Kent. The CoHo Theater, 2257 NW Raleigh St., 205-0715. 8 pm Thursdays-Saturdays, 2 pm Sundays. Closes June 18. $20-$25. Thursdays are “pay what you will.”
SPLAT
Carol Triffle’s hourlong play involves a woman (Danielle Vermette) whose plans to move to France are delayed
36
by a dead body in her basement and mysterious voices on her language tapes, which order her to take off her clothes (which she does not do). Imago Theatre, 17 SE 8th Ave., 231-3959. 7:30 pm Thursday-Saturday, June 2-4. $8.
The Secret Garden
Kirk Mouser and Alan D. Lytle direct the musical adaptation of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s novel. Lakewood Center for the Arts, 368 S State St., Lake Oswego, 635-3901. 7:30 pm Thursdays-Saturdays, 2 pm Sundays. Closes June 12. $20-$32.
A Wrinkle in Time
Oregon Children’s Theatre puts on a marvelous and clever production of Madeleine L’Engle’s classic tale. Meg Murry (Madeleine Rogers) is older sister to Charles Wallace (Jack Clevenger), and both are bright and not a little “different.” Charles Wallace—the brighter and different-er of the two, sweeps his sister and friend Calvin O’Keefe (Connor Delaplane) into a fantastical plot through space and time in search of their absentee scientist father. CAITLIN MCCARTHY. Newmark Theatre, Portland Center for the Performing Arts, 1111 SW Broadway, 228-9571. 2 pm Saturday-Sunday, June 4-5. $16-$26.
COMEDY Apocalypse Now and Later
Curious Comedy’s post-apocalyptic view of the world is somewhat generic, but the dialogue is clever, and the actors do an impressive job of creating distinctive characters. KAREN LOCKE. Curious Comedy, 5225 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., 477-9477. 8 pm Fridays-Saturdays through June 4. $12-$15.
Comedy Is OK
Music by Purple and Green; comedy by Phil Schallberger and Aaron Ross; performance art by the Working Theater Collective; sketches and videos by Mikey Kampmann, Paul Schlesinger and Andrew Michaan. Clinton Street Theater, 2522 SE Clinton St., 238-8899. 9 pm Wednesday, June 1. $5.
Hilarious at the Hawthorne
Belinda Carroll hosts local comics Whitney Streed, Don Frost, Kyle Harbert, Jessie McCoy and Shawn Boomer Flack. Hawthorne Theatre Lounge, 1503 SE 39th Ave., 233-7100. 9 pm Saturday, June 4. $5. 21+.
Improvcalypse
The Brody Theater digs some laughs out of the end of the world. Brody Theater, 16 NW Broadway, 224-2227. 10 pm Saturdays through June 25. $8.
The Light-Fingered Five Take the Fall
The improv troupe goes noir. Shoe Box Theater, 2110 SE 10th Ave., 971-244-3740. 10 pm Friday, June 3. $5.
USS Improvise: The Musical
The Unscriptables improvise “lost” musical episodes of Star Trek. The Unscriptables Studio, 1121 N Loring St., theunscriptables.com. 8 pm FridaysSaturdays through June 25. All shows are pay what you will.
CLASSICAL Bach Cantata Vespers
J.S. Bach’s big, rousing Cantata 128. St. James Lutheran Church, 1315 SW Park Ave., 227-2439. 5 pm Sunday, June 5. Donation.
In Mulieribus
The women’s vocal ensemble’s seasonclosing concert offers music by the medieval and Renaissance composers
Willamette Week JUNE 1, 2011 wweek.com
(Hildegard of Bingen, Dufay, Nicolas Gombert) the singers have proven adept at essaying. But it also offers a seldom-heard modern work, Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos’ St. Sebastian Mass, and much rarer song settings from ancient manuscripts of texts from The Golden Legend, a medieval chronicle of the lives and miracles of the saints. St. Stephen’s Church, 1112 SE 41st Ave., 283-2913. 7 pm Sunday, June 5. $12-$20.
Naomi LaViolette
The Celebration Works series concludes with the pianist-singer-songwriter and rhythm section performing original songs from her upcoming CD, along with music by Gershwin and Joni Mitchell. First Presbyterian Church, 1200 SW Alder St., 228-7331. 2 pm Sunday, June 5. $10-$12.
Marlise Stroebe
The local pianist celebrates women composers starting with Hildegard of Bingen, ranging through early20th-century French composers Cécile Chaminade and Lili Boulanger, American Romantic Amy Beach and a slew of fine living composers: Chen Yi, Ireland’s Mary McAuliffe and Marian Ingoldsby, and jazzers Valerie Capers and Marian McPartland. Sherman Clay/ Moe’s Pianos, 131 NW 13th Ave. 7 pm Thursday, June 2. Free.
Call
Slater, a modern dancer-choreographer, is curating the new series Call as a showcase for other Pacific Northwest-based contemporary dancer-choreographers she has personally selected. Call’s first installment features several familiar faces: BodyVox-2 dancers Éowyn Barrett, Kara Girod and Josh Murry; Polaris’ Jennifer Camp; and Jefferson Dancers veteran Sydney Skov. Joining them is Seattle’s Rosa Vissers (O24dance) and Slater herself. North Star Ballroom, 635 N Killingsworth Court, 240-6088. 2 and 6:30 pm Sunday, June 5. $10. Reserve through rachelslaterdance@gmail.com.
Erin Zintek Movement Project
Groove Nation Academy instructor Erin Zintek has recently created the Erin Zintek Movement Project, which presents the concert Limitless
Boundaries as a benefit for the American Heart Association. Conduit Dance , 918 SW Yamhill St., Suite 401, 221-5857. 7:30 pm Friday-Saturday, June 3-4. $10-$20.
Skinner/Kirk Dance Ensemble
BodyVox regulars Eric Skinner and Daniel Kirk team with colleagues Zach Carroll, Heather Jackson and Margot Yohner for a musically adventurous side project. Accompanied by live piano from musician-conductor Bill Crane, Skinner’s choreography is set to Arvo Pärt, Ennio Morricone and three deconstructed and rearranged Haydn sonatas. BodyVox Dance Center, 1201 NW 17th Ave., 229-0627. 7:30 Friday, 7:30 and 9 pm Saturday, June 3-4. $15.
For more Performance listings, visit
REVIEW OWEN CAREY
PERFORMANCE
Metropolitan Youth Symphony
Three local orchestras of young performers tackle some of the most exciting and challenging works in classical music, including Saint-Saëns’ mighty Organ Symphony (featuring guest soloist James Denham), Sibelius’ Violin Concerto in D minor (with concerto competition winner Jonathan Huang), Haydn’s magnificent final symphony, No. 104 and an oboe concerto attributed to him that he probably didn’t write (starring another competition winner, Megan Zochert), plus Robert Russell Bennett’s Suite of Old American Dances. Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, 1037 SW Broadway, 239-4566. 7:30 pm Friday, June 3. $12-$35.
Anna Polonsky, PSU Symphony
The Russian émigré pianist joins the Symphony as guest soloist in one of the 20th century’s most thrilling orchestral works, Maurice Ravel’s dizzyingly jazzy Piano Concerto in G. The rest of the program is just as enjoyable: the Morton Feldman’s beautifully moody The Viola in My Life, featuring Oregon Symphony principal violist Joel Belgique, who also stars in PSU prof Bryan Johanson’s In the Deep Wood Reflected, the intermezzo from Samuel Barber’s opera, Vanessa, and Smetana’s perennial The Moldau. Lincoln Hall, Portland State University, 1620 SW Park Ave., 725-3307. 7:30 pm Saturday, June 4. Free.
Anna Polonsky, Peter Wiley and Ida Kavafian
For her second appearance this weekend, the Russian pianist joins two Chamber Music Northwest veterans in still more Ravel, plus another of the absolute gems of chamber music, Antonín Dvořák’s “Dumky” trio in E minor. Lincoln Hall, Portland State University, 1620 SW Park Ave., 725-3307. 4 pm Sunday, June 5. Free.
Portland State University Choir
Shaker hymns and folk songs arranged by one of our earliest composers, William Billings, and our greatest, Aaron Copland, as well as music from the two great American operas, George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess and Leonard Bernstein’s Candide, plus Broadway tunes. Lincoln Hall, Portland State University, 1620 SW Park Ave., 725-3307. 8 pm Friday, June 3. $5-$10.
DANCE Agnieszka Laska Dancers, Ciudad Interior
Agnieszka Laska Dancers and Mexico’s Ciudad Interior stage Homeland Insecurity, a collaborative, cross-cultural and contemporary dance and theater piece. Zoomtopia, 810 SE Belmont St., zoomtopia.com. 7:30 pm Friday-Sunday, June 3-5. $10-$20.
ONE NIGHT WITH JANIS JOPLIN (PCS) Miles and miles and miles of heart.
Portland Center Stage, inexplicably determined that its final show of the season pay tribute to a long-deceased blues belter of dimming celebrity, decided mid-season to shelve the originally scheduled Love, Janis and host instead the global premiere of One Night With Janis Joplin. This newest iteration, like Love, Janis a family-sanctioned glimpse of a lessthan-compelling tale, was written and directed by Randy Johnson, architect of a remarkably successful Elvis Presley facsimile concert— but there’s a reason Joplin impersonators haven’t quite made careers. It is faintly bizarre to mount a production dependent upon replicating the charms of a woman always more influential than iconic, whose legend rests upon inimitable eccentricities, and it’s near perverse to flesh out the performance with vague artistic elaborations. The effect’s like picking up a sun-damaged Big Brother LP at a yard sale and receiving a detailed provenance of vinyl ownership alongside; the scuff marks may add atmosphere, but some mysteries are best left unexplored. The playwright’s decision to embrace theatricality at the expense of celebrating the ineffable led to the most intriguing element of the show: Silhouetted above or standing beside our heroine, amid a set decorated like the karaoke lounge at High Times casino, the Blues Singer (Sabrina Elayne Carten) appears to embody mythic inspirations and give voice to young Janis’ fave tunes, with a notably better voice than was allowed the Janis character. Cat Stephani does her best with the title role, but, as she trades a wearying 25 songs with Carten, the disparity in talent colors perceptions. Despite a preternatural facility for soul music, Janis’ moments of rapture came from an unselfconscious delight in her own powers impossible for any actress to more than suggest. Comic touches fell flat opening night as the crowd was left wondering whether laughter seemed cruel, and they cheered on the staple hits as they would a troubled daughter’s recital. The summer-stock-rawk rendition of “Piece of My Heart” moved the well-heeled audience-ofa-certain-age to stand and sway like dowager night at the Apollo, but the sheer Glee-ful wrongness of choreographed abandon rang false: Joplin’s transcendent sneer replaced by spunk, the anarchic warrior recast as group-hug object. Legacy’s just another word for nothing left to lose. JAY HORTON. SEE IT: Gerding Theater, 128 NW 11th Ave., 445-3700. 7:30 pm TuesdaysFridays, 2 and 7:30 pm Saturdays-Sundays. Closes June 26. $38-$63.
VISUAL ARTS
JUNE 1-7
= 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: 2431115. Emailed press releases must be backed up by a faxed or printed copy.
Delivered every Thursday! Sign up for Swag Rag for info on Willamette Week events, contests and WW Picks.
Plus, we’ll be sharing recipes from our favorite restaurants and bars around Portland. GO TO WWEEK.COM/PROMOTIONS
UNTITLED BY ARCY DOUGLASS AT PDX CONTEMPORARY
NOW SHOWING Saints and Other Folk and Memory Trip
Anne Siems brings a touch of Frida Kahlo to the haunting narrative figuration of Saints and Other Folk, while regionalist landscape painter Michael Brophy excels in bringing more than a touch of the quotidian to otherwise transcendental vistas in Memory Trip. Laura Russo Gallery, 805 NW 21st Ave., 226-2754, laurarusso.com. Closes July 1.
James Minden
If there is one must-see show for June, it is James Minden’s Light Drawings, a gee-whiz, how’d-hedo-that collection of inscribed plastic drawings that project trippy holograms into the air. As you walk around the gallery, the works seem to reach out and touch you, and you reach out to touch them back, only to watch them disappear, wraithlike, evading your grasp. Minden is known for his paintings and prints, so the current show is a major departure. We’ve all seen holograms on decals and Cracker Jack toys, but to behold them writ large and in such a controlled, fine-art setting, is nothing short of a revelation. Augen Gallery, 716 NW Davis St., 546-5056, augengallery.com. Closes July 2.
Mary Bennett
For those who fancy themselves creative and destined for acclaim, Mary Bennett’s installation, 1,983 Rejections: 3 Acceptances, is sobering, to put it mildly. It consists in part of meticulously arranged index cards found by Bennett in a dumpster in California during the mid-1990s. The cards were from a cache of documentation kept by an unknown and possibly deceased poet, showing submissions to poetry journals during the years 1973 to 1978. Of the nearly 2,000 submissions, only three were accepted. What do we call the force—perseverance, pride, selfdelusion?—that motivates creative types to put their necks and souls on the line when the world shouts a chorus of uninterest? Bennett poses the question and leaves us to ponder it with a pit in our guts. 23 Sandy Gallery, 623 NE 23rd Ave., 927-4409, 23sandy.com. Closes June 25.
Oomph: enthusiasm, vigor, or energy. Sex appeal.
this month’s exhibition is provocatively titled and subtitled: Oomph: enthusiasm, vigor, or energy. Sex appeal. Our blood quickens at the thought of it. We shall wear a full-body condom to the opening. What other choice do we have, with works on display such as Storm Tharp’s splay-legged hunk Health (8), clad only in briefs, and Arcy Douglass’ kaleidoscopic Technicolor Untitled, a riot of Op Art-flavored eye candy? For the love of God, bring on the cold shower! PDX Contemporary Art, 925 NW Flanders St., 222.0063, pdxcontemporaryart.com. Closes July 2.
Christopher Perry
Christopher Perry’s abstract paintings have a jaunty sense of rhythm, with broad swaths of color punctuated by speckly dots and dashes that suggest pebbles on a landscape or clouds in the sky. He also works in glass, so it will be interesting to see how his vision and technique translate across these diverse media in his exhibition Visual Acuity. Butters Gallery, 520 NW Davis St., 248-9378, buttersgallery.com. Closes July 2.
Sang-ah Choi
The reach of Sang-ah Choi’s Fab:topia exceeds its grasp. The sprawling panels of resin, felt pen, and glitter attempt a critique of urban sprawl and the scourge of landfills, but are hindered by facile technique and shoddy execution. The most successful pieces in the show, Light and Shadow, benefit from compositional and material simplicity, but unfortunately succeed only in being vaguely decorative. Chambers @ 916, 916 NW Flanders St., 227-9398, chambersgallery.com. Closes June 25.
Cheryl Norton
Delicate and enigmatic, Cheryl Norton’s installation of clay-caked undergarments is understated yet impactful. The neatly stacked piles of clothing rise from gray pedestals: highly sculptural, fragile-looking, implying volumes, divulging little. Based on porcelain work by Hong Kong artist Sara Tse, the pieces make a unique statement using a minimum of colors and visual information. 325 NW 6th Ave., 224-5721, ankagallery.com. Closes May 27.
For more Visual Arts listings, visit
PDX Contemporary is known for director Jane Beebe’s oft-professed taste for “quiet art,” yet
Willamette Week JUNE 1, 2011 wweek.com
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BOOKS
JUNE 1-7
= WW Pick. Highly recommended. By NATASHA GEILING. 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.
Horror of Charm: The Stories of Shirley Jackson
For anyone who has ever sat around listening to creepy ghost stories, this installment of Story Time for Grownups presents the adult version of campfire creeps. Anyone who has read Shirley Jackson’s short story “The Lottery” knows the terrifying seduction of this woman’s prose. Sip some coffee while Portlander David Loftus brings to life the dark visions of Jackson’s language. Grendel’s Coffee House, 729 E Burnside St., 595-9550. 7:30 pm. Free.
Joint Palestinian-Israeli Popular Struggle
If the intricate details of the ArabIsraeli conflict are a little fuzzy for you, let Stanford professor of Middle East history Joel Beinin illuminate things. His lecture, “Joint PalestinianIsraeli Popular Struggle: The Face of a Future of Peace and Equality,” will be followed by a discussion. Portland State University, Cramer Hall, 1721 SW Broadway. 7:30 pm. Free. All ages.
Lessons from a Desperado Poet Congress of the Animals
Amid some of Seattle’s finest contemporary drawing, contemplate the possible impacts of independence with the launch of Congress of the Animals, Jim Woodring’s first full-length graphic novel that narrates his signature character Frank’s break from the binds that hold him and his struggle with the realities of being on his own. Floating World Comics, 20 NW 5th Ave., Suite 101, 241-0227. 6-10 pm.
Conjunctions Reading
The literary journal Conjuctions’ spring issue, Terra Incognita: The Voyage Issue, is all about exploring the unknown. Two of the issue’s contributors, Tim Horvath and Gabriel Blackwell, will join author Matthew
Simmons to share readings that focus on the discovery of the uncharted. If you’re thirsty for more than just adventure, a $5 donation will get you some beer. Crow Arts Manor, 850 NE 81st Ave., No. 114. 7:30-8:30 pm. Free.
Debate for Beginners, Public Speaking for Opinionated People
Because we can all use a little help winning arguments, Radical Women presents a workshop for those looking to improve their speaking and listening skills. The workshop is a fundraiser for the Freedom Socialist newspaper. Bread and Roses Center, 819 N Killingsworth St., 240-4462. 11 am-4 pm. $20 (includes lunch and printed materials).
Maybe it’s just ignorance, but it seems the words “cowboy” and “poet” rarely go together: It’s difficult to imagine T.S. Eliot riding his trusted horse through the desert. Enter Baxter Black, whose new book, Lessons From a Desperado Poet, narrates the birth, growth and maturation of his literary career in a land where the deer and the antelope play. Annie Bloom’s Books, 7834 SW Capitol Highway, 246-0053. 7 pm.
Market Day Reading Series
The Market Day Reading Series begins this Saturday with readings from poets Dan Raphael, Brittany Baldwin and Lisa Radon. This 20-week reading series, held in tandem with the St. Johns Farmers Market, runs every Saturday at noon from June 4 to Oct. 15. St. Johns Booksellers, 8622 N Lombard St., 283-0032. Noon.
Michael Shermer
Skeptics Society founder Michael Shermer’s new book, The Believing Brain, seeks to overturn traditional notions of belief by examining how beliefs are formed within the human brain. Shermer also dips into the realm of neuroscience to explain exactly how the brain can act as a belief-generating factory. Powell’s City of Books, 1005 W Burnside St., 228-4651. 7:30 pm.
Oregon Favorites: Trails and Tales
You can live in Oregon your whole life and never see everything this state has to offer. Get a jump-start on your Oregon bucket list with Oregon Favorites: Trails and Tales, William L. Sullivan’s compilation of 62 stories about the state’s greatest locales and the people who love them. Powell’s on Hawthorne, 3723 SE Hawthorne Blvd., 228-4651. 7:30 pm. Free. All ages.
PSU Capstone Reading
Join local authors and students for an open mic and reading session to benefit the Independent Publishing Resource Center. Wimpy’s, 521 NW 21st Ave, 223-5153. 6-9 pm. $5 suggested donation. 21+.
Portland Poetry Slam
The Portland Poetry Slam runs every Sunday at Backspace. Each show opens with an open mic at 8 pm, followed by a featured poet, then the slam, where eight poets battle it out for $50 and poetic glory. Signups for the slam and open mic begin at 7:30 pm. RUTH BROWN. Backspace, 115 NW 5th Ave., 248-2900. 7:30 pm. $5 suggested donation. All ages.
Stories of Your Life and Others
There’s a lot of literary hype surrounding Ted Chiang’s Stories of Your Life and Others, a collection that includes the author’s first eight published stories. Chiang’s style, which combines science fiction with intricate language and precise narrative style, has
garnered praise from contemporary heavyweights like Junot Diaz, and has earned the author a bevy of awards including the Nebula and the Asimov. Powell’s Books at Cedar Hills Crossing, 3415 SW Cedar Hills Blvd., Beaverton, 228-4651. 7 pm. Free. All ages.
The Chronology of Water
Portland writer and teacher Lidia Yuknavitch’s memoir, The Chronology of Water, is a wild anecdote that reflects her shifting life: from a youth filled with Olympic dreams to a turn to drugs and alcohol and, ultimately, to the love for her family. As transient as water through its separate forms, reviewers have praised Yuknavitch’s memoir for its intense, raw and piercing look at life. Broadway Books, 1714 NE Broadway, 284-1726. 7 pm.
The Late Interiors: A Life Under Construction
Corvallis-based professor and author Marjorie Sandor is a stable fixture on the Oregon book scene. She’s written four books, and a book of her personal essays was awarded the Oregon Book Award for Literary Nonfiction in 2000. Her new memoir, The Late Interiors: A Life Under Construction, centers not on change but stability. Sandor celebrates the publication of her newest work at Broadway Books by reading stories of her renewal and search for adventure. Broadway Books, 1714 NE Broadway, 284-1726. 7 pm. All ages.
Washington Territory at War
We might pretend to be cool and modern, but we all have an inner nerd who is proud of the Pacific Northwest’s burly pioneer history. Embrace your inner history buff with public historian Dr. Lorraine McConaghy as she recounts the history of Seattle’s garrisoning between 1855 and 1856 and the Battle of Seattle in 1856. Clark County Historical Museum, 1511 Main St., Vancouver, 360-993-5679. 7 pm. Free. All ages.
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Willamette Week JUNE 1, 2011 wweek.com
JUNE 1-7 FEATURE
= WW Pick. Highly recommended.
NORTHWEST FILM CENTER
SCREEN
Editor: AARON MESH. Acting Editor: MATTHEW SINGER. TO BE CONSIDERED FOR LISTINGS, send screening information at least two weeks in advance to Screen, WW, 2220 NW Quimby St., Portland, OR 97210. Email: msinger@wweek.com. Fax: 243-1115.
After Hours
[THREE NIGHTS ONLY, REVIVAL] Scorsese’s Hangover before The Hangover, about the night before the hangover. R. Clinton Street Theater. 7 and 9 pm Monday-Wednesday, June 6-8.
Bill Cunningham New York
82 Arriving with the prized imprimatur
(and fonts) of the Sulzberger Times, director Richard Press’ graceful documentary is deceptively spontaneous—a quality it shares with fashion photographer Cunningham’s “On the Street” column. It requires real concentration to find the patterns and connections between haute Paris runways and harried Manhattan commuters, just as it surely took effort to get Cunningham to reveal any detail of his personal life—or even to sit still long enough to take questions. As the octogenarian cyclist pedals through Times Square in search of great jackets and better legs, it’s clear that the movie, while belonging to the milieu that gave us profiles of Anna Wintour and Valentino, is also one of the great recent New York street-life films; it does for newspaper photography what I Like Killing Flies did for diner cuisine. Himself darting along the sidewalk like a Kennedyaccented lightning bug with a handheld flash, Cunningham eventually begins to seem a frail bulwark of civilization. “He who seeks beauty will find it,” he declares, and his work is a natural subject for the movies: the physical ecstasy of truly and uniquely seeing a thing, and immortalizing a glimpse of it. AARON MESH. Living Room Theaters.
Bridesmaids
60 There is something a little labored
about Bridesmaids, as if director Paul Feig and star Kristen Wiig were trying to compensate for a decade of Judd Apatow’s dong jokes by bypassing the genitalia and going straight for the universally scatological. Not 30 minutes into the movie, there’s a wedding-dress fitting interrupted by an eruptive case of food poisoning, and after our heroines finish vomiting into each other’s hair and lining up to use a fancy marble sink as a commode, the bride (Maya Rudolph) rushes out of the store and shits in the street. Considering this is the first direct reunion of Feig and Apatow since they co-created the wondrously warm Freaks and Geeks, all that straining for ribaldry feels a little sad, like Feig and his actors know they’re sacrificing honesty for coarse bumptiousness. I don’t think it makes me a chauvinist if, when a movie climaxes with two people screaming in public about their bleached assholes, I feel a little sorry for them. R. AARON MESH. Clackamas, Cornelius, Oak Grove, Sandy.
Cave of Forgotten Dreams
80 The new Werner Herzog documentary, Cave of Forgotten Dreams, is comparatively thin on the cuckoo German’s trademark perversity—except when you consider that he has made a 3-D documentary about motionless drawings on rocks. They are, admittedly, very old drawings on very unique rocks: Sketched in charcoal on the walls of the Chauvet Cave in southern France, the 32,000-year-old paintings are the earliest ever found, preserved by a rockslide that sealed the artwork (and many bear bones) until 1994, when the cave was uncovered and immediately locked up again for preservation. Still, there are no flying dragons. You will have to settle for woolly rhinos, which doesn’t strike me as too painful a concession. AARON MESH. Living Room Theaters.
Fast Five
70 Vin Diesel and his cast of chiseled
friends—Paul Walker, Jordana Brewster, Tyrese Gibson, Ludacris, some Asian dude from Tokyo Drift and the gorgeous model Gal Gadot—don’t just steal fast sports cars and obliterate
the streets of Rio, they concoct a plan to swipe $100 million from Brazil’s biggest drug kingpin, who keeps his bills locked inside an impenetrable vault inside police headquarters. If this concept seems far-fetched, well, I hate you. Go watch The King’s Speech and get off my lawn, you damn intellectual. PG-13. MICHAEL MANNHEIMER. Indoor Twin, Clackamas, Oak Grove, Sandy.
The Florestine Collection
[ONE NIGHT ONLY] An animated documentary about a New Orleans seamstress by director Helen Hill, who was murdered in 2007. Hollywood Theatre. 7 pm Saturday, June 4.
Forge
[ONE NIGHT ONLY] When a scientist goes mad, his brother tries to save him. Hollywood Theatre. 7 pm Wednesday, June 1.
The Hangover Part II
34 If nothing else—and believe me, there is nothing else—The Hangover Part II is bound to go down as the most profitable game of Mad Libs ever played. Writer-director Todd Phillips can claim he did more than just remove key nouns from the script of his 2009 frat boy insta-classic, then have co-writers Craig Mazin and Scot Armstrong fill in the blanks, but that’s clearly bullshit. I imagine the brainstorming session went like this: “Name a foreign locale famous for debaucherous behavior.” “Bangkok!” “Great! Now, name something cute Zach Galifianakis can carry around with him.” “A monkey!” “Awesome! OK, what’s their motivation? Ed Helms is the groom this time, so we can’t have him missing for the entire movie.” “They’re looking for his fiancée’s teenage brother!” “All right! Throw in some chicks-with-dicks and Ken Jeong doing a ching-chong voice and we’ve got ourselves a hit sequel! Break!” R. MATTHEW SINGER. Clackamas, CineMagic, Cornelius, Oak Grove, Sandy, St. Johns.
Hobo With a Shotgun
32 This is going to be a summer of worn retreads and diminishing returns, but no last gasp will be as wheezing and shallow as Hobo With a Shotgun. Another full-length film based on an interstitial “trailer” from the TarantinoRodriguez Grindhouse, this Canadian feature (with Rutger Hauer as the titular drifter) has none of the borderfence political ax-grinding of Machete; it just wants to look exactly like an early-’80s film that wanted to make fleapit viewers retch in delight. The audience for Hobo With a Shotgun is supposed to retch ironically. I hated every knowing, intentionally shitty minute of it. It opens with crime boss Drake (Brian Downey, looking like a cross between Bruno Ganz and a slug) forcing passersby to watch him decapitate his brother with razor wire and a manhole cover, and that’s one of the less aggressively vile scenes. As the hobo, Hauer at least delivers a real performance from behind his shopping cart. He has catchphrases, but I didn’t find them funny: I don’t tend to write down the rants of the homeless people who sleep in our doorway and repeat them to my pals for giggles, either. AARON MESH. Hollywood Theatre.
Jane Eyre
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
TWINSIES: The Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jane.
BORN MANY WAYS PANDROGYNY, ART PORN AND THE SON OF CHER AT THE PORTLAND QUEER DOCUMENTARY FILM FESTIVAL. BY MAT T H E W S I NG E R AND SAU NDRA S ORE NS O N msinger@wweek.com 243-2122
Apparently, Lady Gaga doesn’t own the last word on homosexuality in pop culture. The selections in the fifth annual Portland Queer Documentary Film Festival represent a broad range of subjects—from the history of gay activism in Los Angeles to coming out in India to body-image issues—but there is a particular focus this year on artists (and the children of artists) whose lives and work represent several facets of the gay experience in America and abroad. Here are four of the must-sees. Arias With a Twist 85 Vocally gifted master of flamboyance Johnny Arias proves that performance art can, in fact, be bearable. He’s playful where others are pretentious, and Arias argues that his decades-spanning career has reached a new high thanks to his collaboration with puppeteer Basil Twist. These two represent the redheaded stepchildren of theater, embracing oversexed spectacle and adding only a little substance. Together, the two craft a world that allows a Bettie Page-esque Arias to belt Zeppelin while strapped down under the watchful gaze of discombobulated extraterrestrials. Arias and Twist’s winking sense of humor carries not only their resulting marionette-bedecked burlesque, but Arias itself. Director Bobby Sheehan competently gives us the back story on the art and craft of Arias; it is Arias and Twist whose mutually gushing passion for performance makes the film a success. (SS) 7 pm Thursday, June 2. Joey Arias attending. The Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye 74 Anyone who’s ever laid eyes on Genesis P-Orridge already knows he doesn’t just question gender roles; he obliterates the notion of gender itself. P-Orridge is a founding member of Throbbing Gristle, the band credited with inventing industrial music, and his life is an ongoing art project that peaked when he met a pretty blond dominatrix named Lady Jaye. Director Marie Losier followed the couple for five years as they
consummated their relationship by undergoing a series of plastic surgery operations to transform themselves into a single “pandrogynous” entity. These being performance artists, there’s plenty of interstitial nonsense to endure, but at the core of the film is a genuine (and ultimately tragic) love story that’s not as bizarre as it might sound. (MS) 9:30 pm Friday, June 3. The Advocate for Fagdom 78 “Gay outlaw,” “the pornographic Brecht” and “the greatest provocateur Canada ever produced” are a few of the ways cult director Bruce LaBruce is described in Angélique Bosio’s The Advocate for Fagdom. As you might guess, LaBruce is a fascinating figure, an art-punk terrorist looking to assault the conservativism of gay and straight cultures alike, but the movie isn’t really about him as much as his work. An entertaining cast of talking heads, including John Waters, Harmony Korine and Gus Van Sant, mostly discuss whether his films, which feature a lot of hard-core sex—excerpted by Bosio without much editing—qualify as pornography, independent cinema or something else entirely. “Coming on Mein Kampf is a little different than a regular porn movie,” says Waters. True that. (MS) 9 pm Saturday, June 4. Becoming Chaz 70 You can’t choose your parents, but if you could, appointing gay icon Cher your materfamilias seems like a safe bet if you happen to be transgendered. Chaz (born Chastity) Bono is here to challenge that assumption in front of what appear to be reality TV crews. As Chaz undergoes profound hormonal and physical changes, Cher finds time only to grace David Letterman with her half-hearted thoughts of acceptance for her erstwhile daughter. So we can thank Cher for the star power driving this film, because while Becoming Chaz relies too heavily on family photos of a girlish Chastity to elicit the audience’s disbelief about the female-to-male transition, Chaz’s bare-chested honesty and openness about his relationship with partner Jennifer communicate foremost how necessary—if graphic—the endeavor can be. (SS) 7 pm Sunday, June 5. SEE IT: The Portland Queer Documentary Film Festival runs Thursday-Sunday, June 2-5, at the Clinton Street Theater. Full schedule and information available at queerdocfest.org.
CONT. on page 40 Willamette Week JUNE 1, 2011 wweek.com
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67 In the first Kung Fu Panda, Jack Black’s Po is a bumbling idiot who succeeds despite his flaws by learning to believe in himself. Now we find out he’s a bumbling idiot with abandonment issues. Plagued by visions of the parents who gave him up for adoption, he starts asking existential questions like, “Who am I?” Turns out, he’s the only survivor of a panda genocide perpetrated by a megalomaniacal peacock (Gary Oldman). There’s a message about letting go of the past, but it’s uncomfortably crammed in between an almost unbroken stream of action sequences—all of which look spectacular—and an overcrowded field of voice actors (Angelina Jolie, Dustin Hoffman, Danny McBride, Jean Claude effin’ Van Damme, etc.) clamoring to get a word in. For a movie with a theme of finding inner peace, it’s pretty fucking chaotic, but still a good deal of fun—even if it only exists to justify a third installment. PG. MATTHEW SINGER. Clackamas, Cornelius, Moreland, Oak Grove, St. Johns, Sandy.
L’Amour Fou
73 Pierre Thoretton’s documen-
tary watches the dismantling of Yves Saint Laurent’s opulent art collection, and uses it to reconstruct the fashion titan’s bond with his lover and business partner (and, one suspects, caretaker) Pierre Bergé. It is not perhaps the smoothest introduction to the couturier’s life—but there have already been two documentaries riding that roller coaster and, honestly, were you planning on bringing all your Wal-Mart-shopping relatives for a meet-’n’-greet with prêt-à-porter? (I did find myself, at regular intervals, cursing whatever restraint kept some French studio from casting a young Crispin Glover in a Saint Laurent biopic.) No, this is a tour for the style acolytes, and they will be greatly rewarded with emotional reserve, wickedly sly editing and Mondrians. Like the similar (and somewhat superior) documentary on Valentino, L’Amour Fou is an exercise in dignified memory of heady creation. But it does offer its morsels of personality: We learn that Saint Laurent, soaring into alcoholism, used to bring his dog Moujik to Le Palace nightclub, and Bergé recalls finally growing so fed up with the all-night partying that he left his partner, moving into the Lutetia Hotel. “In other words,” he admits, “I went no further than the end of his street.” AARON MESH. Living Room Theaters.
The Last Nomads
The Lion of Judah
65 There are no lions in The Lion
CHECK DIRECTORIES FOR THEATRES AND SHOWTIMES SPECIAL ENGAGEMENT - NO PASSES OR DISCOUNT TICKETS ACCEPTED
40
Willamette Week JUNE 1, 2011 wweek.com
takes a turn for the holier-thanthou when Jesus enters the scene. It quickly becomes very clear that, in the end, this isn’t a movie interested in abstract allegory. It’s isolating to audiences who would watch the movie for entertainment and not as supplementary material for Sunday school—but my guess is that those people probably won’t see this film anyway. NATASHA GEILING. Lloyd Mall, Movies on TV.
My Perestroika
63 “Perestroika” is the term applied to the ultimately disastrous reforms Gorbachev brought to the Soviet Communist Party in the 1980s. In Robin Hessman’s documentary of life in Russia before and after the collapse of the U.S.S.R., the word refers to a more personal form of readjustment. Weaving together archival newsreels, home movies and present-day footage shot cinéma vérieté style, Hessman—an American who studied directing in Moscow—paints a complicated portrait of the last generation of Russians to come of age behind the Iron Curtain. None of the five former classmates she profiles ever really made sense of essentially having their reality erased in 1991 and replaced with something completely different, and they certainly haven’t lived similar lives since: At the two greatest extremes, one guy now owns a store selling expensive French-made dress shirts while the other quit playing guitar in a popular punk band to busk in a subway station. What links them— and us to them—is the lesson that generations cannot be broadly defined by the political systems they grew up under. My Perestroika is no doubt well-made, but the universality of experience Hessman wants to communicate doesn’t quite resonate loud enough to make the film crucial for anyone who isn’t already interested in the subject. MATTHEW SINGER. Living Room Theaters.
ALL.KF2-A1.0601.WI LT LT
of Judah, which is disappointing, because the king of cats’ dramatic majesty really could have added some spice to this fairly cookie-cutter Christian film. It tells the story of Jesus’ crucifixion through a batch of barnyard animals. When the animals discover their friends are going to be sacrificed for Passover, they mobilize in an attempt to save them. This Passover just happens to coincide with the Passover of Last Supper fame. Through a series of heavy-handed coincidences, animal world and human world collide as the animals seek the help of Jesus to save their friends. At times, the movie isn’t overly preachy, and the first half is pretty enjoyable, if you can think of it in highly metaphorical terms. Unfortunately, the film
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NOW PLAYING
HAVE PONCHO, WILL MURDER: It’s been a big year for spaghetti Westerns—or at least, tributes to them. Gore Verbinski paid homage in his bizarre kiddie flick Rango, Community spoofed them in its season finale, and Danger Mouse put out an album inspired by the music of the composer who scored many of them, Ennio Morricone. Nothing beats the real thing, though. For a Few Dollars More, from 1965, is the second part in genre master Sergio Leone’s Dollars Trilogy, starring Clint Eastwood as a bounty hunter who roams the American Southwest, kicking ass and taking names and never revealing his own. MATTHEW SINGER. Laurelhurst. Best paired with: Widmer Hefeweizen. Also showing: High Fidelity (Academy), Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut (Bagdad, 11 pm Friday, June 3).
JF
[ONE NIGHT ONLY] Ethnographer Ian Mackenzie travels through the Borneo rainforest with the Penan, the world’s last tribe of nomadic hunter-gatherers. Hollywood Theatre. 7 pm Wednesday, June 1. Ian Mackenzie will be in attendance to discuss the film.
®
BREW VIEWS
Kung Fu Panda 2
2 COL.(3.772”) X 8”
SHAWN EDWARDS, FOX-TV
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. Hollywood Theatre.
JF
GRAND OPENING BLOCK PARTY
JUNE 1-7 FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER
MOVIES
Northwest Animation Festival
[THREE DAYS ONLY] Nearly 80 international shorts about drunk
ninjas, missing noses, lighthouses and other such things. Fifth Avenue Cinema. 7 pm Friday-Saturday, June 3-4. 3 pm Sunday, June 5.
Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides
The original Pirates of the Caribbean worked because it gave us what we wanted: pirates doing pirate shit. But then producer Jerry Bruckheimer and director Gore Verbinski started adding all kinds of nonsense to the sequels, when all we really wanted was to see an eyeliner-wearing Johnny Depp jump off high buildings, steal shit, swashbuckle and crack jokes. So we arrive at On Stranger Tides promised just that. Stripped of obnoxious starcrossed lovers Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightly and Verbinski’s belabored plot, we’re given a film that hoists Depp’s Jack Sparrow directly into the captain’s seat as he seeks the Fountain of Youth, pursued by a bevy of baddies ranging from the Spanish Armada to returning villain/teammate Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush), hot chick/former flame Angelica (Penelope Cruz) and sadist of the sea Blackbeard (the craggy Ian McShane). Cue a high-speed carriage chase through London, swordfights, flesh-munching mermaids, ’splosions, looting, double crosses, and Depp swaggering around the screen like an effeminate Hunter S. Thompson with a bad accent. Yet it all rings hollow. New director Rob Marshall can’t make any of it pop, mainly because it’s all so bloody familiar and tedious. The entire franchise deserves to be buried at sea. AP KRYZA. PG-13. Clackamas, Cornelius, Oak Grove, Sandy.
The Oregonian
55 [ONE NIGHT ONLY] Using a
’70s horror aesthetic, this flick takes us back to a time when handheld cameras and uneven audio were not only the norm but necessary, in order to follow a haunted farmdweller who escapes a violent relationship and goes on a dark odyssey through her soul—which looks
JUNE 1-7 them in no true narrative order and without any historical footage— just words, faces and images of the sites as they looked when the film was made, between 1974 and 1985. And yet, that is enough. It is odd to call something of Shoah’s length a masterpiece of simplicity, but Lanzmann’s accomplishment is in realizing that what matters most are the voices of those who were there. With the number of such voices dwindling, the importance of his insistence that they speak grows with each passing year. MATTHEW SINGER. NW Film Center’s Whitsell Auditorium. Part I screens at 5:30 pm Sunday, June 5. Part II screens 6 pm Monday, June 6.
Rio
63 Overall, it’s hard to watch a cartoon toucan without thinking he’s selling you cereal. G. AARON MESH. Indoor Twin, Oak Grove.
The Searchers
[THREE DAYS ONLY, REVIVAL] An all-time classic marred by old-timey racism. Like Birth of a Nation, except it’s John Wayne huntin’ Injuns. Fifth Avenue Cinema. 7 pm and 9:30 pm Friday-Saturday, June 3-4; 3 pm Sunday, June 5.
Shoah
94 [TWO DAYS ONLY] Very early in
the nine-and-a-half hour Holocaust documentary Shoah, director Claude Lanzmann asks one of the only two survivors of Chelmno, the first Nazi concentration camp to use gas vans in exterminating Jews, why he is recalling the horror of his experience for the camera if it brings him so much pain. “Because you’re insisting on it,” he answers. Lanzmann spent 11 years imploring witnesses to the atrocity—including the perpetrators—to share their memories, not out of a false promise of closure or catharsis but simply to get them on record before it was too late. He is a dispassionate interviewer; Lanzmann has said he believes any attempt to understand or rationalize this great crime against humanity is an intellectual folly bordering on abomination, so his brand of journalism is only the who, what, when, where and how. He digs for the minute details and arranges
-A.O. Scott, THE NEW YORK TIMES
“A JOYOUS DELIGHT! IN THIS BEGUILING AND THEN BEDAZZLING NEW COMEDY, NOSTALGIA ISN’T AT ALL WHAT IT USED TO BE— IT’S SMARTER, SWEETER, FIZZIER AND EVER SO MUCH FUNNIER.” -Joe Morgenstern, WALL STREET JOURNAL
“EXHILARATING! BRIMS OVER WITH BRACING HUMOR AND RAVISHING ROMANCE– INFUSED WITH SEDUCTIVE SECRETS. OWEN WILSON IS PITCH PERFECT. MARION COTILLARD IS SUPERB.” -Peter Travers, ROLLING STONE
CONT. on page 42
REVIEW
OPENING NIGHT Cannes Film Festival
Midnight in Paris Written and Directed by Woody Allen WWW.SONYCLASSICS.COM
STARTS FRIDAY, JUNE 3!
SCAN THIS FOR MORE INFORMATION
Paul Bettany is a killer monk—again. Not screened for critics. PG-13. Clackamas.
A CREDIBLE BLEND OF WHIMSY AND WISDOM.”
type of movie that makes you glad you live in Portland, and not in a place surrounded by acres and acres of empty land, where no one can hear you scream. The film, directed by Ed Gass-Donnelly, is set in a minuscule Ontario Mennonite town, where police officer Walter (Peter Stormare) has to solve his first murder case. This town is so small that Walter can identify the victim as an out-of-towner and the 911 caller by first and last name. Within minutes of discovering the body,
54 Catherine Deneuve takes the
Priest
“MARVELOUSLY ROMANTIC.
Small Town Murder Songs
71 Small Town Murder Songs is the
Potiche
reins of the factory run by her piggish husband (Fabrice Luchini). It makes umbrellas. Yep, as in Cherbourg. François Ozon’s winking, 1977-set gender skirmish is painted in the Technicolors of Demy’s musical, though it also looks a lot like the set of The Brady Bunch. The title roughly means “trophy wife,” but the exact translation is “vase”—indeed, interior decoration and wardrobe steal the show, with a shaggy green telephone earning a big laugh. Speaking of cherished heirlooms: Here comes Gérard Depardieu, growing more adorable the more he resembles the Muppet Sweetums. Ozon bases his pastiche on a 1980 boulevard farce and, yeah, I can see how the scene of Luchini’s wife and mistress chanting his name so it rhymes with “asshole” would have killed on community-theater stages across France. It’s certainly stagy. Potiche loosens up a bit in its second half, with a Sturges-worthy joke involving La Deneuve and a long-haul trucker. Maybe the farce could stand to be a bit more acidic and a lot less mellow; maybe that’s my old anti-middlebrow reflex acting up again. I shouldn’t be hypocritical: If Potiche were an episode of That ’70s Show, I’d probably be more enthusiastic. It could use a laugh track. R. AARON MESH. Living Room Theaters.
Kathy Adrien Carla Marion Rachel Michael Owen Bates Brody Bruni Cotillard McAdams Sheen Wilson
R O G E R A R PA J O U
uncannily like the forests of Oregon. Enigmatic clues about her mysterious “accident” are provided by roadside crones and campers who speak in riddles, and graphic clues about mortality punctuate every odd encounter the Oregonian has with other (ostensibly living) souls as she flashes back to images of her own downfall. But tired tropes like symbolic rooms and cackling choirs of women derail any mystery the film succeeds in creating. Despite the quaint retro feel, it all comes off as clunky and poorly thought out; not so much an homage to the ’70s horror genre, but a contender for a film best left, forgotten, in that era. SAUNDRA SORENSON. NW Film Center’s Whitsell Auditorium. 7 pm Thursday, June 2. Director Calvin Lee Reeder and actress Lindsay Pulsipher (HBO’s True Blood) will introduce the film.
MOVIES
REGAL FOX TOWER STADIUM 10 846 SW Park Ave, Portland (800) FANDANGO
VIEW THE TRAILER AT WWW.MIDNIGHTINPARISFILM.COM
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3.825” X 5.25" PORTLAND WILLAMETTE WEEK
PARDON MY FRENCH: Owen Wilson and Rachel McAdams.
MIDNIGHT IN PARIS
WED 6/1
AE: (circle one:) Artist: (circle one:) Sorry to break it to you, New York, but Angela Maria Josh Aurelio Heather Staci Freelance 2 32 years after he declared you the only city for him in Manhattan, Woody Allen Tim McCool Emmett Jay Steve Freelance 3 is cheating on you. He’s had trysts in the past, but in Midnight in Paris his flirtation with the City of Light blossoms into a full-blown Deadline: Confirmation #: affair. His infatuation is obvious in every lovingly filmed frame. He even pulls one of his old seduction techniques, opening with a montage of sumptuous location photography. At least he doesn’t set it to “Rhapsody in Blue.” That would just be cruel. If it’s any consolation, Paris isn’t about Paris in the way Allen’s Little should be said other than classic New York films were about the experience of actually being ‘WOW, WOW, WOW’. in New York. It’s more about the idea of Paris, and really the idea ALSO, ‘WOW’.” of any time and place that isn’t our own. Owen Wilson, convincingly stepping into the “Woody Allen role,” stars as Gil Pender, a “A CLASSIC screenwriter and self-described “Hollywood hack” who thinks of himself as a novelist born in the wrong era. On vacation in Paris with SAMURAI FILM, right up there among his unsupportive fiancée (Rachel McAdams), her parents, and her the finest in the genre.” pretentious fuckwad of a friend (Michael Sheen, oozing with great pseudo-intellectual smarm), Pender wanders into the streets one night and tipsily stumbles upon a rip in the space-time continuum. At the stroke of midnight, an old-timey car pulls up and whisks him a film by takashi miike off to the 1920s to party with his literary idols—F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald (Tom Hiddleston and Alison Pill), Gertrude Stein (Kathy Bates) and Ernest Hemingway, portrayed with hilarious hyper-masculinity by Corey Stoll—and Picasso’s beguiling mistress Adriana (Marion Cotillard). It’s basically a fairy tale for English lit majors. It’s also Allen’s best work in years, and his most fun. He has a ball “Woody-izing” time-travel comedy—his version of Back to the Future’s “Marvin Berry” joke involves Luis Buñuel and the plot for The Exterminating Angel. That said, calling Paris a true return to form for him after the past decade’s mixed bag is an exaggeration. It’s more of a charming trifle, à la his 1996 foray into musicals, Everyone Says I Love You. Allen knows this, too. “I’m having an insight,” Wilson proclaims in the midst of literally spelling out the theme of the movie. “It’s a minor one, but still.” So don’t fret, New 13ASSASSINS.COM York: He still saves his big ideas for the Big Apple. He just hasn’t had one in a while. MATTHEW SINGER. Woody and Owen’s excellent adventure.
ART APPROV AE APPROV CLIENT APPROV
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fffff — JOSHUA ROTHKOPF, TIME OUT NEW YORK
— KEVIN THOMAS, LA TIMES
CINEMA 21 Starts Friday, June 3 Portland (503) 223-4515
Exclusive Engagement
SEE IT: Midnight in Paris is rated PG-13. It opens Friday at Fox Tower. 77
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he’s certain he knows the killer. At its core, though, Small Town Murder Songs is not so much a murdermystery as a character drama about the dichotomy between body and soul. The emergence of the town’s murder shakes Walter’s life to its foundations. Newly baptized, Walter struggles to keep Christian when his violent nature keeps slipping out. In the end, however, there doesn’t seem to be much of a solution to Walter’s life. At 75 minutes, the movie is too short, but the cinematography makes it worthwhile, with its crisp panoramas of the Canadian countryside. ASHLEY COLLMAN. Living Room Theaters.
Something Borrowed
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Win Win
The Wizard of Oz
Win Win is a drama about disappointment and failure that secretly wants to be a very populist comedy. Halfway through, highschool wrestling coach Mike (Paul Giamatti) gives his team instructions: “The move is, whatever the fuck it takes!” This is a pretty obvious life metaphor (this is an indie movie), but it also represents director Tom McCarthy’s willingness to go all out to entertain. R. AARON MESH. Hollywood Theatre.
[ONE NIGHT ONLY, REVIVAL] Oh, this is the white version of The Wiz, right? Hollywood Theatre. 7 pm Monday, June 6.
X-Men: First Class
Mutant babies, they make our dreams come true! Mutant babies, they’ll do the same for you! Not screened by WW press deadlines. Look for a review at wweek.com. Cedar Hills, Clackamas, Eastport, Cornelius, Oak Grove, Pioneer Place, Bridgeport, Lloyd Mall, Tigard, Wilsonville, Roseway, Sandy.
REVIEW MAGNOLIA PICTURES
MOVIES
24 Without a doubt the most
harrowing of the Saw sequels, Something Borrowed stars Kate Hudson as Darcy, a tan with teeth, engaged to a haircut with teeth named Dex (Colin Egglesfield). PG-13. CHRIS STAMM. Clackamas.
Thor
ON MONDAY, JUNE 13TH AT 7:00PM! MAIL WITH THE SUBJECT LINE: SUBMARINE - PDX TO CONTESTSPDX@GMAIL.COM 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, state and local regulations apply. A recipient of tickets assumes any and all risks related to use of ticket, and accepts any restrictions required by ticket provider. The Weinstein Company, Willamette Week and their affiliates accept no responsibility or liability in connection with any loss or accident incurred in connection with use of a prize. Tickets cannot be exchanged, transferred or redeemed for cash, in whole or in part. We are not responsible if, for any reason, recipient is unable to use his/her ticket in whole or in part. All federal and local taxes are the responsibility of the winner. Void where prohibited by law. No purchase necessary. Participating sponsors, their employees and family members and their agencies are not eligible. NO PHONE CALLS!
IN THEATRES JUNE 17!
26 When Marvel began to reclaim control of its movie licensing, the hope was that the superhero-movie universe might become as complex and interwoven as the superherocomic universe. That appeals to nerds like me, and Thor, perhaps more than any Marvel movie to date, hints at this potential by sharing characters and plot points with other Marvel films. But really, if Marvel’s movies are going to be this dumb, why bother? PG-13. CASEY JARMAN. Clackamas, Cornelius, Oak Grove, Sandy.
Totally ’80s New Wave Sing-Along
[ONE NIGHT ONLY] Come sing the songs that made the whole ’80s sing. Hollywood Theatre. 7:30 pm Tuesday, June 7.
Water for Elephants
30 Oddly, at no time in this sur-
passingly dreary circus movie does anybody fetch any water for the show’s sole elephant. It’s a gorgeous elephant, and just about every scene she’s in is interesting—as opposed to just about every scene Robert Pattinson is in, which is boring. PG-13. AARON MESH. Living Room Theaters, Oak Grove.
We Are What We Are
80 “We’re monsters, Julian,” the
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mother (Carmen Beato) tells her youngest son as he drives toward the red-light district of a crumbling Mexican slum. She says this without shame or regret. It’s just a fact, as if she were reminding him he belongs to a family of Methodists or beet farmers. Frankly, “monsters” is probably the most accurate word to describe these folks, considering her kids abducted the hooker she bludgeons to death with a cane and then stuffs in the trunk of their car. They also eat people. Of course, real-life monsters are rarely born. They’re made in places like the dilapidated corner of Mexico City where writer-director Jorge Michel Grau sets his unsettling feature-length debut, We Are What We Are, the kind of blighted ghetto that acts as a storage unit for society’s unmentionables. Grau’s socio-political commentary happens mostly in the background of what is really an intense family drama—it is not, in strict genre terms at least, a horror movie—but it is what makes the film so greatly disturbing, as it blurs the line between allegory and actual social reality. Maybe we shouldn’t be shocked at the idea of the poor eating the poorer: Treat people like they’re subhuman long enough, and eventually it becomes the truth. MATTHEW SINGER. Hollywood Theatre.
Wearing Normal
A locally made drama about a family struggling with Alzheimer’s. Hollywood Theatre. 5 pm Saturday, June 4.
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SLICE TO SEE YOU: Two samurai square off.
13 ASSASSINS Although he’s done a bit of everything at this point (that’s what happens when you churn out an average of four movies per year), the name Takashi Miike is still associated with a few specific things in the minds of Japanese cult movie fans. Namely, human entrails. And emotional degradation. And the exploitation of social taboos for pitch-black comedic effect. So when fans heard Miike had remade a samurai epic from the 1960s, the assumption was he’d take the genre to bloody, transgressive new extremes. 13 Assassins turns out to be quite the opposite. It is, in fact, a very traditional picture, a reverential throwback to the feudal period pieces of Akira Kurosawa. And here’s a bold suggestion: It might be the best of its kind since Kurosawa’s 1954 standard-bearer, Seven Samurai. If Miike wanted to make this into another of his splatterfests, he easily could have. It opens with a man committing seppuku, the Japanese ritual suicide involving self-inflicted disembowelment— the perfect opportunity for Miike to show us guts tumbling out of a stomach. As he does throughout the film, the director chooses suggestion over gore. OK, we do see several decapitated heads rolling away from their bodies, but it’s not particularly graphic. For Takashi Miike, this is holding back. The suicide is an act of protest against Lord Naritsugu (Goro Inagaki), the younger brother of a shogun and a sadistic tyrant to whom power has been gifted rather than earned, who rhapsodizes about the magnificence of war while hiding behind a phalanx of soldiers doing the actual fighting. (Gee, that sounds familiar, doesn’t it?) He’s politically untouchable, so an aging samurai (Koji Yakusho) is recruited to take him out. He assembles a group of 11 others (the 13th is a hunter they run across in the woods) and begins plotting an intricate ambush against Naritsugu and his army of protectors. Oh, you don’t care about all that story stuff? You just want to know about the action? Well, it takes over an hour to get there, but once it arrives it’s an exhilarating 45-minute blur of blades and blood and explosions and flaming bulls (yes, flaming bulls—the CGI is subpar, but it’s the thought that counts). It’s a career-defining climax from a filmmaker who’s always known how to orchestrate violence. Only here, he uses his skill not for shock but for a brutal kind of beauty. It’s masterful. MATTHEW SINGER.
Takashi Miike’s grand symphony of violence.
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SEE IT: 13 Assassins is rated R. It opens Friday at Cinema 21.