P. 7 P. 21
TO ADVERTISE ON WILLAMETTE WEEK’S BACK COVER CALL 243-2122 Improvisation Classes Guitar Lessons MAC REPAIR Now enrolling. Beginners Welcome! Personalized instruction for over 15yrs. Brody Theater 503-224-2227 PORTLAND MAC TECH www.danielnoland.com 503-546-3137 www.brodytheater.com
$100-$10,000 Cash for Running & Non-Running Vehicles
Having Computer Problems?
We can fix any computer. Steve’s PC Repair 503-380-2027
Male Seeking Adult Female
Interested in BDSM, leather, kink, etc. 971-222-8714.
We pay Top dollar for any kind of vehicle! Free Towing 503-989-5834 503-989-2277
FREE PET VALENTINES wweek.com/petlove
Bankruptcy Attorney
It’s not too late to eliminate debt, protect assets, start over. Experienced, compassionate, top-quality service. Christopher Kane, 503-380-7822 www.ckanelaw.com
AA HYDROPONICS
9966 SW Arctic Drive, Beaverton 9220 SE Stark Street, Portland American Agriculture • americanag.com PDX 503-256-2400 BVT 503-641-3500
Anita Manishan Bankruptcy Attorney
20 YEARS EXPERIENCE. DEBT RELIEF AGENCY. www.nwbankruptcy.com FREE CONSULTATIONS, 503-242-1162
ALL MUSIC PAWN SHOP! Briz Loan & Guitar. Downtown Vancouver, WA 360-699-5626 www.briz.us
Thurs, Feb. 9th - 7:30 p.m. - $15
Electrifying the Senses for Even Better Sex w/ Felice Shays
BANKRUPTCY FREE CONSULTATION! Get a fresh start! Call today to explore your options. Debt relief agency, Attorney, Amber Wolf 503.293.8482
space is limited- sign up now at sheboptheshop.com to reserve your spot!
A FEMALE FRIENDLY SEX TOY BOUTIQUE
SUN-THRS 11–7, FRI–SAT 11–8. 909 N Beech Street, Historic Mississippi District 503-473-8018 sheboptheshop.com
$$Cash for Cars$$ Dead or Alive we haul away! Ron 503-758-3050 rsyoc@comcast.net
CDPDX
The Best For CD + DVD Duplication. 503-228-2222 • www.cdpdx.com
Eskrima Classes
Personal weapon & street defense www.nwfighting.com or 503-740-2666
Fresh Start: Bankruptcy FREE Consultation. Eliminate Debt. Experienced. Debt Relief Agency. Jake Braunstein 503.505.0411
20% Off Purchase With This Ad! Glass Pipes, Vaporizers, Incense & Candles
Vancouver, WA 98665
(360) 735-5913 212 N.E. 164th #19 Vancouver, WA 98684
(360) 514-8494
1425 NW 23rd Portland, OR 97210 (503) 841-5751
6913 E. Fourth Plain Vancouver, WA 98661
8312 E. Mill Plain Blvd Vancouver, WA 98664
Longview Wa 98632
(360) 695-7773 (360) 577-4204 Not valid with any other offer
Home Repair & Remodel
Older homes my specialty. 40/years experience in Metro Area. Call Rob 503-318-0937
Homestead Ax Skills
Classes, sharpening, & DIY tool rehab. www.oldfedco.com 503-309-1568
(360) 213-1011
1156 Commerce Ave
We help with: Chronic pain Migraine headaches Nausea Seizures Cancer HIV/AIDS
1825 E Street
Washougal, WA 98671
(360) 844-5779
Mary Jane’s House of Glass Glass Pipes, Vaporizers, Incense, Candles. 10% discount for new OMA Card holders! 1425 NW 23rd, Ptld. 503-841-5751 7219 NE Hwy 99, Vanc. 360-735-5913
MEDICAL MARIJUANA
Our nonprofit clinic’s doctors will help. The Hemp & Cannabis Foundation. www.thc-foundation.org 503-281-5100
program with suboxone. CRCHealth/Dr. Jim Thayer, Addiction Medicine www.transitionsop.com 503-505-4979
Qigong Classes
Cultivate health and energy www.nwfighting.com or 503-740-2666
$Quick Cash for Junk Vehicles$
Free removal. Ask for Steve. 503-936-5923
Stop Neck and Back Pain!
The Aurora Clinic 503.232.3003
BUY LOCAL, BUY AMERICAN, BUY MARY JANES
7219 NE Hwy. 99, Suite 109
We Buy, Sell, & Trade New & Used Hydroponic Equipment. 503-747-3624
Opiate Treatment Physician Exams Program Fast | Easy | Affordable Evening outpatient treatment
Thurs, Feb. 23rd - 7:30 p.m. - $20
ATTORNEYBANKRUPTCY
FREE Consultation. Payment Plans. Experienced. Debt-Relief Agency Scott Hutchinson. 503-808-9032 www.Hutchinson-Law.com
North West Hydroponic R&R
MEDICAL MARIJUANA CARD
Joys of Toys
Dr. Lowell Chodosh ND,LAc 503-222-1865
1847 E. Burnside, Portland www.theauroraclinic.com info@theauroraclinic.com
Stop SMOKING, MEDICAL MARIJUANA Already! Hypnotherapy works. Voter Power Foundation Clinic & Patient Resource Center Most Complete Services 6701 SE Foster Road PRC Open Tues-Fri 2-6, Sat 1-5 Clinic schedule varies Call 503-224-3051 for appointment
MEET GAY & BI SINGLES
Listen to Ads & Reply FREE! 503-299-9911 Use FREE Code 5906, 18+
Jen Procter, CHt., M.NLP 503-804-1973 hello@jenprocter.com
SuperDigital
The Recording Store. Pro Audio. CD/DVD Duplication. www.superdigital.com 503-228-2222
WE BUY GOLD!
The Jewelry Buyer 2034 NE Sandy Blvd. Portland. 503-239-6900
WWEEKDOTCOM MEDICAL MARIJUANA Card Services Clinic
$ 25 OFF your next maintenance interval First time visits. Excludes oil changes.
www.mmcsclinic.com
open 7 days • 30 minute appts • low-income discounts Serving OR & WA • Habla Espanol
STEVESIMPORTS.COM | 503.771.6701
WILLAMETTE WEEK PORTLAND’S NEWSWEEKLY
THAI HARD
P. 39
503.384.WEED (9333)
“CURDLED ROMANCE BETWEEN AN AUTISTIC MAN AND A GAY COMPUTER.”
Free House Calls • Low Rates $25 diagnostic fee, $75 per hour. Call 503-998-9662 or Schedule an appointment at www.portlandmactech.com
P. 23
4911 NE Sandy Blvd, Portland 97213
WWEEK.COM
VOL 38/13 02.01.2012
ANDY RICKER TAKES POK POK TO NEW YORK. DO HIS WINGS HAVE A PRAYER? BY AARON MESH | PAGE 12
J E F F R E Y G R AY B R A N D S T E D
BACK COVER
NEWS CITY HALL CAMPAIGN CASH BOX. FOOD DINNER AND A SHOW AT NOISETTE. MUSIC A LITTLE LOST LANDER MAGIC.
FEBRUARY 17–26
FEBRUARY 20 CHARLES MCPHERSON
FEBRUARY 18 ENRICO RAVA TRIBE
Decipher the mystery and complexity of the human body and brain in this all-new exhibition.
ROY HAYNES QUARTET DEE DEE BRIDGEWATER BILL FRISELL BRANFORD MARSALIS + JOEY CALDERAZZO DUO CHARLES MCPHERSON CHARLIE HUNTER MARDI GRAS AT THE MISSION THARA MEMORY GARTH FAGAN DANCE ENRICO RAVA TRIBE JAZZ PASSENGERS VIJAY IYER + PRASANNA + NITIN MITTA = TIRTHA 100+ EVENTS
2
SAVE WITH SPECIAL TICKET PACKAGE DISCOUNTS
Willamette Week FEBRUARY 1, 2012 wweek.com
pdxjazz.com OR CALL
503.228.JAZZ
CLOSING SOON O M S I . E DU
Capture the Love
CONTENT
12.1
NEW
MEGA
PIXELS
n Built-in GPS tracker records your location ull range of shooting including RAW + JPEG n Full n 5x Optical Zoom with 24mm wide angle f/2.0 lens n Capture stunning Full HD 1080p video in stereo
IN STOCK!
42999
$
12.1 MEGA
PIXELS
n 1080p Full HD Video n Versatile 14x wide-angle zoom lens n Tag your photos by GPS with time & location
SAVE CANON SX230 HS
50 $24999†
$
† PowerShot SX230 HS reg price is $299.99 less $50 instant savings. Expires 2-11-12.
RETRO REPTILES: Memories of favorite dragons. Page 19.
NEWS
4
FOOD & DRINK
20
LEAD STORY
12
MUSIC
23
CULTURE
17
MOVIES
39
n 3-inch LCD Screen
HEADOUT
19
CLASSIFIEDS
44
† PowerShot 100HS reg price is $179.99 less $50 instant savings. Expires 2-4-12.
EDITORIAL Managing Editor for News Brent Walth Arts & Culture Editor Martin Cizmar Staff Writers Hannah Hoffman, Nigel Jaquiss, Corey Pein Copy Chief Rob Fernas Copy Editors Matt Buckingham, Kat Merck Assistant Arts & Culture Editor Ben Waterhouse Movies Editor Aaron Mesh Music Editor Casey Jarman Editorial Interns Penelope Bass, Heidi Groover Melinda Hasting, Kara Wilbeck CONTRIBUTORS Classical Brett Campbell Dance Heather Wisner Food Ruth Brown Visual Arts Richard Speer
HOURS
PRODUCTION Production Manager Kendra Clune Art Director Ben Mollica Graphic Designers Soma Honkanen, Adam Krueger, Brittany Moody, Carolyn Richardson, Dylan Serkin Production Interns Mike Grippi, Ivan Limongan, Lana MacNaughton ADVERTISING Director of Advertising Jane Smith Display Account Executives Sara Backus, Maria Boyer, Michael Donhowe, Greg Ingram, Janet Norman, Kyle Owens Classifieds Account Executives Ashlee Horton, Tracy Betts Advertising Assistant Ashley Grether Marketing and Events Manager Jess Sword Marketing and Promotions Intern Jeanine Gaitan
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
50
$
n 28mm Wide Angle Lens with Optical Image Stabilization
800-835-3314
Erik Bader, Judge Bean, Nathan Carson, Devan Cook, Shane Danaher, Jonathan Frochtzwajg, Robert Ham, Shae Healey, Jay Horton, Matthew Korfhage, AP Kryza, Hannah Levin, Jessica Lutjemeyer, Jeff Rosenberg, Matt Singer, Chris Stamm, Mark Stock
SAVE
MEGA
PIXELS
www.ProPhotoSupply.com
STAFF Editor-in-Chief Mark Zusman
12.1
n Full 1080p HD Video
n
n
n
CANON 100 HS
12999
$
blog.prophotosupply.com
1112 NW 19th (at Marshall), Portland, Oregon
MON 7:30-6:00
n
†
TUES-FRI 8:30-6:00
n
SAT 9:00-5:00
n
CLOSED SUN
CANON U.S.A. ONE-YEAR LIMITED WARRANTY
Give!Guide Director Brittany Cornett Production Assistant Brittany McKeever DISTRIBUTION Circulation Director Robert Lehrkind WWEEK.COM Web Production Brian Panganiban Web Editor Ruth Brown MUSICFESTNW Executive Director Trevor Solomon OPERATIONS Accounting Manager Andrea Manning Credit & Collections Shawn Wolf Office Manager & Receptionist Nick Johnson Office Corgi Bruce Manager of Information Systems Brian Panganiban Publisher Richard H. Meeker
Willamette Week welcomes freelance submissions. Send material to either News Editor or Arts Editor. Manuscripts will be returned if you include a self-addressed, stamped envelope. To be considered for calendar listings, notice of events must be received in writing by noon Wednesday, two weeks before publication. Send to Calendar Editor. Photographs should be clearly labeled and will be returned if accompanied by a selfaddressed, stamped envelope. Questions concerning circulation or subscription inquiries should be directed to Robert Lehrkind at Willamette Week. postmaster: Send all address changes to Willamette Week, 2220 NW Quimby St., Portland, OR 97210. Subscription rates: One year $100, six months $50. Back issues $5 for walk-ins, $8 for mailed requests when available. Willamette Week is mailed at third-class rates. A.A.N. Association of ALTERNATIVE NEWSWEEKLIES This newspaper is published on recycled newsprint using soy-based ink.
Willamette Week FEBRUARY 1, 2012 wweek.com
3
INBOX POT AND PANS
All events are free unless otherwise noted. Parking is free after 7 p.m. and all day on weekends. Through March 18 Tuesday-Sunday 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Hoffman Gallery of Contemporary Art
EXHIBITION
The Edge of Vision: Abstraction in Contemporary Photography See the work of 20 international photographers who base their practice in some form of abstraction. This exhibition is organized by Aperture Foundation.
February 10 7 p.m. Templeton Campus Center, Council Chamber
ADDRESS
February 10 8 p.m. Evans Auditorium
CONCERT
February 11 6 p.m. and 8 p.m. Pamplin Sports Center
ATHLETICS
How Do Muslims View Science and Evolution? Salman Hameed, director of the Center for the Study of Science in Muslim Societies, will discuss how Muslims in different societies view biological evolution.
(Anti)Valentine’s Concert Celebrate—or curse—Valentine’s Day with this tongue-in-cheek concert by the choirs, a cappella groups, and voice department of Lewis & Clark College.
Women’s and Men’s Basketball vs. Pacific Lutheran University
Has not a single one of our federal officials traveled to The Netherlands and observed that the coffeeshops are no big deal? [“Weed All About It,” WW, Jan. 25, 2012.] The federal marijuana prohibition is bad law that makes kids less safe. States that have passed medical marijuana laws have seen a 9 percent drop in alcohol-related traffic fatalities. We can save a lot of lives by giving people the right to substitute marijuana for alcohol. Marijuana has repeatedly been proven to not cause cancer, heart disease, brain damage, liver disease, emphysema, or any other significant health issue, and its addiction potential is about on par with coffee. We mustn’t wait until a loved one has been harmed by alcohol before demanding that our legislators legalize adult marijuana sales. —“Jillian Galloway” Your article is way too narrow in scope. You completely ignore very recent federal actions in places like California—one of the most potfriendly places on Earth—where the feds are shutting down dispensaries. Large and profitable dispensaries. Landlords won’t even lease to these operators since they risk property confiscation by the feds—not the State of California. Anything Oregonians do will be subject to the same federal harassment, regardless of any state law. The feds seem to be going after multimillion-dollar producers, of which there are many. Has any WW reporter thought to ask why? I am sure it is much more than a simple case of bong envy. —“yank”
“Medical” marijuana is a joke. The cause would be better served if these people stopped pretending their efforts are anything more than an attempt to legalize their crutch. —“nativeson” I’ve been buying and smoking weed in Portland for over 30 years. The weed today is of the best quality and of comparable price to the cheapest ($30-$40 for an eighth of an ounce) in those 30 years. The various plans to “legalize” weed are just entrepreneurial grasps at a lucrative market. I love things the way they are. I get 2 ounces of quality bud (Noid, Train Wreck, Haze, etc.) every month for free. It works for me and it works for my Oregon Medical Marijuana Program grower. —“Dona Marina”
ETHIOPIAN CONTENDER
The author of this article [“Teff Love,” WW, Jan. 25, 2012] should try Sengatera Ethiopian Restaurant on [Northeast Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard]. It is the more original of them all. The menu is a value, the quality of the food is very good, and the people are very friendly. Best injera bread in town. I have been there twice and will continue to go. —“Eddie Dantes” 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
The nationally ranked women’s basketball team tips off at 6 p.m., with the men’s game to follow at 8 p.m. Tickets cost up to $7. February 13 7 p.m. Templeton Campus Center, Council Chamber
MAYORAL FORUM
February 14 7 p.m. Templeton Campus Center, Council Chamber
ADDRESS
February 16 7:30 p.m. Templeton Campus Center, Council Chamber
STEINHARDT LECTURE IN ECONOMICS
Portland Mayoral Candidates Learn more about candidates Eileen Brady, Charlie Hales, and Jefferson Smith at this forum with a student and faculty panel. Seating is limited. Advance registration is required at go.lclark.edu/mayoral_forum.
Black History Month Keynote: Ericka Huggins Huggins is a human rights activist, poet, professor, and former Black Panther leader and political prisoner. She is a frequent lecturer on a variety of issues.
The End of Loser Liberalism: Making Markets Progressive This year’s guest lecturer will be Dean Baker, codirector of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR).
www.lclark.edu 4
Lewis & Clark 0615 S.W. Palatine Hill Road Portland, Oregon 97219
Willamette Week FEBRUARY 1, 2012 wweek.com
I’ve been hearing about this from a wide variety of bullshit artists ever since I moved to Portland, but I’m hoping you’ll have the real scoop: Did the State of Oregon really blow up a whale? —Laney Oregon’s legendary exploding whale looms so large in my mythology I’m always surprised when someone hasn’t heard of it—it’s like meeting someone who doesn’t know you can light farts. Yes, it really happened (there are videos— more than 700,000 hits on YouTube). In 1970, a rotting, 45-foot sperm whale washed up on the beach near Florence. Since Oregon beaches are public rights of way, disposal of the whale fell to the Department of Transportation (then called the Oregon Highway Division). In a decision that would prove fateful, ODOT elected to use dynamite, hoping to reduce the whale to bite-sized chunks that could be carried off by seagulls and other scavengers.
In fairness, ODOT didn’t invent this method of whale disposal—it was and remains one of the accepted solutions to this thorny problem. That said, things could have gone better: The half-ton of dynamite used may have been excessive, and a chunk of whale really did crush a car parked a quarter-mile away. The whole thing was pretty gross, and ODOT has suffered 40 years of jeers because of it. But let’s be honest: Eight tons of rotting meat isn’t something you can blot out with a little club soda on a cocktail napkin. All of the officially accepted solutions to this problem are deeply disgusting. You can: (1) Carve up the rotting whale with chainsaws; (2) tow it out to sea, weight it down with train parts, and hope the chains hold; or (3) tow it out to sea and blow it up. In this context, ODOT’s decision doesn’t seem so crazy. Plus, how many other states have had an exploding whale? QUESTIONS? Send them to dr.know@wweek.com
CURATED ARTISAN ATTIRE
THE PRACTICE of SANT MAT is based on meditation on inner Light and Sound, ethical values, service to others and love for all creation.
"Let love descend into our hearts and take root." Sant Baljit Singh
THE GOAL is to enable the soul to return and merge into its source to realize and enjoy our full potential.
3:30 pm - Sun., February 12th Center for Natural Medicine 1330 SE César E. Chávez Blvd (SE 39th Ave.), Portland Ongoing talks given by an authorized speaker
meditation inner Light & Sound
Sant Baljit Singh, the spiritual Master, teaches the meditation on the inner Light and Sound to anyone who is searching for a deeper meaning in life.
ALWAYS FREE
1-877-633-4828 info@knowthyselfassoul.org santmat.net
LA Revised Heidi Durrow Willamette Week Final Ad.pdf
1
12/20/11
8:45 AM
524 NW 23RD, PORTLAND, OR FEATURING:
FEATURING: STICKS & STONES
PVBLIC (NYC) MUTTONHEAD (Toronto) DESIGNER DRUGS (Chicago) WOOL AND THE GANG (NYC) HARDING & WILSON (PDX)
think. see. teach. heal. pacificu.edu/discover
A R T S & S C I E N C E S | O P T O M E T RY | E D U C AT I O N | H E A LT H P R O F E S S I O N S
800-677-6712 | admissions@pacificu.edu Willamette Week FEBRUARY 1, 2012 wweek.com
5
CITY HALL: Following the money in the mayor’s race. POLITICS: New Seasons’ tough language about unions. THE COURTS: An ex-vice cop alleges retaliation by top brass. ROGUE OF THE WEEK: Sen. Chip Shields.
Eat at
Ken’s Artisan Pizza
7 8 10 11
on
Superbowl Sunday A TV-Free, Pizza-Happy Zone
It’s Soppressata vs. Margherita & Arugula!
DENNISRICHARDSON.ORG
SALEM SPAM, ANIMAL PSYCH, AND SMITH’S SLIP.
Plus – 10% off all wine by the bottle.
FREE PET VALENTINES
wweek.com/petlove
304 SE 28th Ave • Open 4 – 9pm
Protect the OVO!
Have fun at Willamette Week’s Cartathlon and win tickets to OVO by Cirque du Soleil! As part of Willamette Week’s second annual food-cart scavenger hunt, participants will have a chance to win tickets to OVO by Cirque du Soleil! Teams will be given an egg at the beginning of the hunt. Should they carry the egg undamaged to the ending point, they will compete in a “sudden death” egg toss. The last team with an egg intact wins a pair of openingnight tickets to OVO by Cirque du Soleil. OVO by Cirque du Soleil opens April 5th under the Big Top in Portland Tickets on sale NOW at cirquedusoleil.com
Feb. 25 • wweek.com/promotions 6
Willamette Week FEBRUARY 1, 2012 wweek.com
Thousands of people have been getting emails from state Rep. Dennis Richardson (R-Central Point) recently and haven’t been sure why. Turns out Richardson, co-chairman of the budgetwriting Ways & Means Committee, has collected 100,000 email addresses by filing public-records requests for them with state agencies. Richardson is using the addresses to seek advice and help in solving the state’s budget crisis. Richardson’s building of a mailing list from the very agencies he oversees has left some recipients angry. Rep. Val Hoyle (D-Eugene) told Richardson in an email it was inappropriate “to use state workers’ time and scarce taxpayer dollars to harvest people’s personal emails.” Richardson says he’s received 6,000 responses—nearly all positive—and has apologized to those who are aggrieved. Want to know what goes on between your dog’s floppy ears? Multnomah County has answers. The county’s animal shelter is sponsoring the “Masters in Behavior” conference dedicated to animal psychology and behavior. The conference, Feb. 4-6 at the Sheraton Portland Airport, is intended to train shelter workers, but is open to the public and will include “assessing an animal’s personality” to help in “preventing house soiling and separation anxiety.” Sessions include “Coyotes in Our Neighborhoods” and “Learning From Cats in Science.” The county says it expects registration fees will cover the conference’s $7,000 cost. Mayoral candidate and former City Commissioner Charlie Hales is promising, if elected, to persuade Columbia Sportswear to bring its headquarters—and approximately 1,600 employees—back to Portland. Columbia fled to Washington County in 2000 after a real-estate dispute involving thenMayor Vera Katz and her chief of staff, current Mayor Sam Adams. Columbia CEO Tim Boyle has donated $5,000 to Hales’ campaign; he didn’t respond to WW’s query whether Hales’ pitch had a prayer. Many suspect state Rep. Jefferson Smith’s ambitions go far beyond Portland City Hall—but maybe he should get elected mayor before revealing them. Last week, Smith held a fundraising event at Bossanova Ballroom. The next day, at a mayoral candidates forum sponsored by Occupy Portland and the Green and Progressive parties, Smith said his political values were a big reason voters should elect him governor. “I’m sorry,” he said after the laughter died down. “We had a big party last night, and I’ve been working all day.” What other Portland political news are you missing? Quite a bit if you’re not visiting our new election website, PDXVotes. Check it out at wweek.com/pdxvotes. Read more Murmurs and daily scuttlebutt.
NEWS
GOT A GOOD TIP? CALL 503.445.1542, OR EMAIL NEWSHOUND@WWEEK.COM
CITY HALL BUCKS CONTRIBUTIONS IN THE MAYOR’S CAMPAIGN HAVE TOPPED $1 MILLION, AND IT’S BECOMING CLEAR WHO’S PAYING FOR THIS RACE. BY H E I D I G R O OV E R
hgroover@wweek.com
From speeches in swanky bars to parties with aerial dancers, Portland’s three leading mayoral candidates are still pleading for your attention—and your money. But with 3½ months before the May 15 primary, a clear pattern in the way the mayoral candidates are collecting money—and how fast they’re spending it—is already taking shape. So, too, are the ways special-interest groups are lining up behind candidates Eileen Brady, Charlie Hales and Jefferson Smith. Developers, construction firms, bankers, lawyers, health-care companies, high tech—people involved in these and other interests are giving big dollars to the candidates. All told, the campaigns have hit the $1 million mark, and one candidate, Brady, accounts for more than half of that. The million-dollar milepost is also notable, however, for what’s missing: union money. Many unions have stayed out of the race so far. The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 48 has backed Brady, while the union that represents most city workers, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, has endorsed Smith. But meaningful financial support from unions hasn’t yet shown up in the candidates’ finance reports. Smith held a big fundraiser last week before state law shuts him down for a month: State legislators are prohibited from accepting contributions while in session, and Smith will be in Salem for a four-week session starting Feb. 1. (The ban will also affect Rep. Mary Nolan, D-Portland, in her campaign against City Commissioner Amanda Fritz.) WW crunched the numbers in the candidates’ campaign reports. Here is some of what we found.
BRADY
OVERALL SPENDING
DEVELOPERS
BANKING & FINANCE
HEALTH CARE
LAWYERS
Brady, a Portland businesswoman, is bringing in about $2,150 a day— far outpacing Hales, a former city commissioner, and Smith, a state rep from East Portland. Brady is also burning through her cash faster than her opponents.
Development interests—builders, real-estate companies, construction workers and the like—have as a group given more money overall than any other. Most of the money likes Hales.
Banking, finance and investors: The suits who control big piles of money are the second-biggest group. Brady is dominating this sector.
Health-care industry contributions come from doctors, nurses, health insurance companies and their respective PACs. Brady is cleaning up here, too.
SMITH
HALES TOTALS: Brady
Raised So Far $531,683
Cash Left $203,997
Hales
$308,556
$143,797
Smith
$231,424
$159,091
Hales: $113,400 Brady: $73,757 Smith: $8,417
Brady: $70,770 Hales: $28,000 Smith: $13,696
Brady: $42,630 Smith: $11,970 Hales: $11,500
Smith is a lawyer, but Brady is getting more money from attorneys and law firms.
Brady: $27,056 Smith: $22,825 Hales: $8,950
For updates on the race for City Hall and other 2012 elections, check out wweek.com/pdxvotes
SMALL CONTRIBUTIONS
OUT OF STATE
Smith is relying heavily on donations of less than $100; small donors have not proven as important to the overall fortunes of Brady and Hales.
Smith: 21%
Brady: 9%
Hales: 8%
Smith: 26%
Hales: 25%
Brady: 11%
Smith says he’s not accepting money from out-of-state companies—but individuals outside Oregon are key to his fundraising efforts.
Source: Oregon Secretary of State Elections Division, as of Jan. 30-31, 2012. Willamette Week FEBRUARY 1, 2012 wweek.com
7
NEWS
POLITICS
MANUAL DEXTERITY WHEN EILEEN BRADY HELPED RUN NEW SEASONS, THE COMPANY EQUATED UNIONS WITH EXTREMISTS. BY NIG E L JAQ UI SS
njaquiss@wweek.com
N ATA L I E B E H R I N G . C O M
Eileen Brady’s association with New Seasons Market has been the central narrative of her campaign for Portland mayor. It makes sense that she wants to identify herself with the grocery that calls itself “the friendliest store in town.” Brady’s ties go beyond her claim she is a co-founder and an original co-owner of the store. She was, according to early employees, one of the people who helped establish the progressive New Seasons ethos. Brady has been on the defensive about some of those claims, however, since WW two weeks ago raised questions about her role as a founder and owner (“Extra Seasoning,” WW, Jan. 18, 2012). WW cited the company’s financial disclosures to the Oregon Liquor Control Commission, which never listed Brady as an owner. The OLCC requires full disclosure of ownerships when granting licenses. Brady says she worked behind the scenes, even though she was never
EILEEN BRADY
employed by New Seasons or served on its board. For example, Brady says she wrote the original employee handbook for New Seasons and effectively oversaw the company’s human resources until it hired a permanent HR director. “We [New Seasons] didn’t have a human resources director for many years—five or six years,” Brady told WW. “I was the person that provided all the backup HR.” Part of building New Seasons’ culture, Brady says, was creating the document that outlined employees’ rights and responsibilities. “I wrote the first staff handbook,” Brady told WW. The first handbook published, bound and distributed to employees, dated March 2001, expresses many of the ideas and themes that make New Seasons unique. But the handbook also includes language that equates labor unions with “extremist” and “anti-human rights organizations”—groups the chain sought to ban from soliciting on company property. The handbook also said New Seasons banned its employees from soliciting support for groups promoting an “oldstyle ‘company versus union’ adversarial employee relations system.” Brady referred questions about the handbook to her husband, Brian Rohter, who was New Seasons’ founding president and later its CEO. Rohter says Brady did indeed write the original draft of the handbook, but he takes responsibility for the published version that included anti-union language. He says Brady’s original 47-page text was kept in a three-ring binder at stores for employees to read. Her version, he says, didn’t include any reference to unions. In the fall of 2000, Rohter says, he revised the manual, adding sections after consulting with employees and lawyers. Rohter says he never showed Brady the changes, which included the comparison of unions to extremist groups. “The comment about the union was a mistake on my part,” Rohter says of the ‘company vs. union’ language. “I brought
AN EXCERPT FROM NEW SEASONS MARKET’S 2001 EMPLOYEE HANDBOOK.
it home and showed Eileen. Her comment was, ‘What the fuck is this?’” Rohter says there is no discrepancy between Brady’s assertions that she was deeply involved in New Seasons’ humanresources issues, and his decision not to show her his changes to the handbook. He says she was busy with her own full-time job and raising children. “I am not going to check with Eileen on feedback from an attorney,” he says. Rohter says the language was intended to exclude right-wing groups, such as the Oregon Citizens Alliance, from gathering petition signatures at New Seasons stores. He says he received other complaints, including from employees, and agreed to change the language. But Rohter says the company didn’t do so until 2005. Later versions omitted the words “company versus union” but continued to ban “promoters of the old-style adversarial employee relations system.” The language in the 2001 New Seasons handbook surprised two labor law experts WW asked to read it. “Making this reference to ‘old-style’ unionism seems to be saying we have a different approach to managementemployee relations,” says Elizabeth Ford, a professor who specializes in labor law at the University of Washington Law School.
LEARN THE ART OF
GLASS BLOWING
Sign up now for classes starting in February.
CLASSES OFFERED IN:
Beginning & Intermediate glass blowing. Beginning & Intermediate solid glass sculpture. 8 week classes in the afternoon & evenings.
“It’s an interesting approach, but what an employer is not allowed to do is pick and choose groups for the employees.” Ford says that provision may run afoul of the National Labor Relations Act, which makes it illegal for employers to ban workers from talking about unions or distributing literature during non-working hours. “I haven’t seen anything like this before,” Ford says. Bob Bussel, director of the University of Oregon’s Labor Education and Research Center, says the New Seasons employee manual’s comparisons are troubling. “It’s an interesting juxtaposition to have ‘extremist groups’ on one side of the conjunction and unions on the other,” Bussel says. Rohter and Jon Isaacs, Brady’s political consultant, say the important point for voters is that Brady’s work informed the core values that have made New Seasons a Portland icon. Isaacs says those values—including wages, generous benefits and workers’ rights—have resulted in New Seasons’ employees having never sought to form a union. “What matters,” Isaacs says, “is that what unions have to fight other employers for, they don’t have to fight for at New Seasons.”
for her. for him. for both of you. A $200 gift card includes a champagne shop rendezvous or Valentine’s Day delivery. RSVP to make it happen.
P O RTL A N D ’S H OT SH O P!
134 NW 21st Ave. • 503-295-6488 8
Willamette Week FEBRUARY 1, 2012 wweek.com
1979 Vaughn Street, Portland, Oregon 97209 503.228.0575 • ElementsGlass.com
www.ohbabylingerieshops.com 722 NW 23RD • 503.274.4190
Find the Love
New Year, healthier you.
free pouch with pocket heart
Bombshell Vintage 811 E. Burnside
(Feb. 1 - 14)
We will rock you!
Pioneer Place • Concourse Level • 340 SW Morrison (503) 228-6998 • www.fossilcartel.com
BikramFremontStreet.com
Your Journey to Graduate School Begins February 25 JOIN US FOR A SPECIAL PROGRAM ON CAMPUS IN SANTA BARBARA This special One-Day Introduction on Saturday, February 25 has been designed to give prospective students a comprehensive introduction to Pacifica’s Graduate Institute’s unique educational features.
Experience Pacifica’s interdisciplinary curriculum through characteristic classroom presentations
D E S I G N • D E TA I L • C R A F T S M A N S H I P
Guaranteed love for Valentine’s day the Ar ts and Crafts Bed on sale until Feb. 14th
Learn about the degree programs at facultyled, program-specific information meetings Explore the Ladera Ln. & Lambert Rd. Campuses Visit the Opus Archives and Pacifica’s Bookstore Learn about admissions and financial aid Meet Pacifica alumni, faculty, staff, and other prospective students
Explore M.A. and Ph.D. Programs in Psychology, the Humanities, and Mythological Studies Space at the Feb. 25 Introduction is limited. Register today. Call 805.969.3626, ext. 103 or register online at www.pacifica.edu The $75 registration fee for this 8:30am to 6:00pm program includes breakfast, lunch, and a $25 gift certificate good at the Pacifica Bookstore.
249 Lambert Rd., Carpinteria, CA 93013 www.pacifica.edu
Scan for a video on Pacifica
T HE J O I N E RY. C O M • s I N C E 1 9 8 2 4 8 0 4 sE Woo d s to Ck • 5 0 3 . 7 8 8 . 8 5 4 7 • dAI LY 10- 6
Pacifica is accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC). Willamette Week FEBRUARY 1, 2012 wweek.com
9
NEWS
POLICE
NEW ALLEGATIONS FROM A FORMER VICE COP ABOUT THE TOP BRASS. BY CO R E Y P E I N
declined to comment. Justus, 56, claims his problems began in the spring of 2010, when a crew from HDNet’s Dan Rather Reports came to town. Justus gave the former CBS News anchor an interview about child sex trafficking and a tour of Portland strip clubs. After “Pornland, Oregon,” aired on HDNet that May, Justus alleges, he learned the interview had made the city’s new police chief, Mike Reese, and Mayor Sam Adams “very upset.” Justus was reassigned, and he alleges police brass accused him of having a drinking problem and abusing prescription drugs. He says neither is true. He later appeared on ABC’s Nightline and America’s Most Wanted. Justus was also quoted in a 2010 Seattle Times story critical of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Portland for failing to protect an 18-year-old prostitute who disappeared only weeks after testifying against her pimp before a federal grand jury. In the summer of 2010, his suit says, Justus persuaded the mayor’s office to agree to spend $5,000 for a vice investigators’ conference in Portland. Adams gave a speech thanking Justus, and announced plans to double the size of the vice unit and to build a shelter for trafficking victims. The next day, the suit alleges, Reese
cpein@wweek.com
A former vice cop is making new allegations of retaliation, lying and backbiting in the highest ranks of the Portland Police Bureau—after he gave a series of interviews about the city’s failure to crack down on sex trafficking. Former Sgt. Doug Justus abruptly retired from the bureau a year ago. A federal lawsuit he filed Jan. 12 casts Justus as a whistle-blower wrongfully terminated for speaking publicly about the city’s failures in sex-trafficking cases, and who suffered retaliation and defamation by bureau managers even after he left the force. He’s seeking $2.5 million. The suit raises serious questions whether one of the city’s top vice cops was punished for going off script when talking to the media about one of the most publicized crime issues of recent years—the city’s sex trade. But now no one is talking. Justus agreed to be interviewed by WW, but his new attorney, Charese Rohny, later said she didn’t think it would be in his best interest. City and Police Bureau officials also
W W P H OTO I L L U S T R AT I O N
BUSTED RANKS
accused Justus of “going behind his back.” Health and Sciences University. A month All this led to an internal affairs inves- before he was to start, Justus alleges tigation—its scope is unclear—and Justus’ OHSU’s assistant chief of public safety, demotion to patrol car duty. Vicky Stormo, revoked the offer. Stormo According to Justus’ suit, Assistant allegedly told Justus she’d learned someChief Eric Hendricks told him that “no thing that disqualified him for the job, but matter what” the investigation showed, she wouldn’t say what. “you will be transferred to the central OHSU officials declined to answer graveyard shift as a street sergeant where WW’s questions. you will spend the rest of your career.” Who got the OHSU job? Justus claims Justus retired in January 2011. it went to Stan Grubbs, a retired assistant The lawsuit hints the intrigue didn’t chief at the bureau and, Justus alleges, a stop there. Justus says he soon an NCole close friend WWeek ad landed 4S Spec12 runs 2-1 &of 8 Hendricks’, the assistant $80,000-a-year security job at Oregon chief he says threatened him.
Love your skin!
One unforgettable night.
Explore State-of-the-Art Treatments
Nine-time GRAMMY award-winner Natalie Cole celebrates Valentine’s Day in … Portland.With you! Skin Cancer & Mole Evaluation with Dermoscopy Photodynamic Therapy for Pre-Cancerous Spots & Acne Excimer Laser & Light Therapies for Psoriasis, Vitiligo, Eczema, Urticaria & Itch Treatments for Skin Cancer, Rosacea, Acne, Warts, Scars, Keloids & Rashes Multiple Laser Modalities, Botox & Dermal Fillers to reverse signs of Aging & Skin Damage Bernard Gasch, M.D. • Beata Rydzik, M.D. Board Certified in Dermatology Visit us at the Expo. Feb. 25!
Holly Chandler, PA-C • Sean Pearce, PA-C
A Natalie
Cole
Valentine
Tuesday, February 14 | 7:30 p.m. Tickets start at $30, while they last.
Same Day & Urgent Care Appointments Available
503-297-3440 Ticket office: 923 SW Washington | 10 am – 6 pm Mon – Fri
centerdermlaser.com facebook.com/pdxdermatology 10
Willamette Week FEBRUARY 1, 2012 wweek.com
HILLSBORO 5880 NE Cornell Suite B
PORTLAND 9427 SW Barnes Suite 495
Call: 503-228-1353 | 1-800-228-7343 Click: OrSymphony.org
ARLENE SCHNITZER CONCERT HALL
ROGUE
NEWS double mountain Valentine’s Day dinner
4-Course Meal with Beer Pairings $60 couple • reservations advised 503-477-9619 • 4111 SE Hawthorne 971-266-8392 • 1517 NE Brazee details at oregonhophouse.com
Antoinette
Antique and Estate Jewelry
ROGUE OF THE WEEK
SEN. CHIP SHIELDS A LAWMAKER MIXES HEALTH CARE FOR OREGONIANS AND PROTECTING HIS OWN WALLET. Oregon legislators convene Feb. 1 in Salem for a one-month session. They’ll deal with education reform, the budget and fundamentally changing the way the state pays for health care. On that last issue, Sen. Chip Shields (D-Portland) has been less than transparent about the conflict of interest between his public duty and private financial interest. In his day job, Shields, 44, serves as the business manager for Hands On Medicine, a North Portland clinic owned by his wife, Shelda Holmes. The clinic treats Medicaid patients, whose bills are paid by the state. Shields—a lawmaker since 2005—has been a strong advocate for his constituents, many of them low-income residents of North and Northeast Portland. He’s also a member of the Senate Health Care Committee, which makes him a player in Gov. John Kitzhaber’s proposed reforms. Kitzhaber wants to cut Medicaid—by $239 million now, and more later. To absorb those cuts, hospitals, doctor groups and clinics are forming “coordinated care organizations,” or CCOs, to provide Medicaid services more efficiently. Shields has been demanding details about these plans and mixing his public and private roles when doing so. According to documents WW obtained through public records requests, Shields sent emails to organizers of the proposed CCO from a personal email account and identified himself as the “business manager” of Hands On Medicine. But in a Jan. 17 email from his repshields@comcast.net address (Shields used to serve in the House), he wrote, “[H]ere’s the information I need in order to do my job of representing the 120,000 people in N/NE part of Multnomah County, and the Medicaid recipients current and future in my district.” His questions, though, focused more on the implications of the proposed CCO for his wife’s clinic than for his constituents. He asked for “a statement of who is representing privatepractice primary care providers, and who is representing other practitioners who are not part of a hospital system.” He also asked to be included in all future CCO planning meetings, which are not open to the public. Shields says he was trying to shed light on a billion-dollar, publicly funded enterprise. But he acknowledges he needs to separate his dual roles with a bright line—and hasn’t done so. “It’s a fair point,” he says. “I should send anything related to my legislative work from my legislative email address.”
, S E V O L G , S T A H G E L , M R A , S K SOC S R E M WAR
2328 NW Westover Rd (503) 348-0411 AntoinetteJewelry.com
Willamette Week FEBRUARY 1, 2012 wweek.com
11
THAI HARD ANDY RICKER TAKES POK POK TO NEW YORK. DO HIS WINGS HAVE A PRAYER? BY AARO N MESH
amesh@wweek.com
Pok Pok? The woman in the woolen hat mouths the words on the sidewalk in Manhattan’s Lower East Side, where Andy Ricker has opened the latest outpost of his Thaifood realm. She scrunches her face as she reads the sign. Pok Pok? But she never glances at the narrow walk-down storefront below, where behind the window a pan full of huge Ike’s Vietnamese fish sauce wings crackles over an electric range. The 15 customers packed in the tiny dining room chatter about the three choices on the menu, and overhead a vintage Thai-pop cover of “Hit the Road Jack” trills from the speakers. She mouths the words again, as if satisfied she’s got it right. Pok Pok. She moves on. The funny name of Ricker’s restaurant, the latest Portland export to New York’s food scene, is just one more oddity here. The question of how many New Yorkers will want to solve the mystery behind the name and actually try the food is key to the success of Portland’s most celebrated chef. Seven years ago, Ricker opened his first Pok Pok in a wooden shack on Portland’s Southeast Division Street, with $60 left in his bank account. Nine months ago, he won the James Beard Foundation’s Best Chef Northwest Award in what amounts to the Oscars of food. He has opened or co-opened five restaurants in Portland, with a sixth on the way, because he’s the white guy who serves the obscure, difficult Northern Thai dishes that native Thai cooks don’t dare try on Americans. Now Ricker is leveraging the whole thing—using $300,000 of his own money and small-business loans—in his bid to become a major player in the nation’s toughest culinary scene. 12
Willamette Week FEBRUARY 1, 2012 wweek.com
“The time is now to pull the trigger, if you’re going to pull the trigger,” Ricker says. “Is there a chance I could get my ass handed to me? Of course. New York loves to love and they love to hate.” Ricker’s big moment comes as Portland enjoys its own fling with New Yorkers. Our Stumptown coffee is now their coffee. Our TV show is their show. Will our chicken wings be theirs too? Even if you’ve never eaten Ike’s wings, Ricker’s gamble is by extension this city’s as well. Succeeding in New York is exponentially harder than succeeding in Portland. It’s more expensive, the attention spans are shorter, and restaurateurs are fiercely protective of their territory—both geographic and culinary. Ricker doesn’t just want to survive in New York. He’s opening two places at once and wants his restaurant to explode into a chain that will bring Northern Thai street food to all parts of the city. To succeed, Ricker will need skill and luck. But he may also need to move beyond the intense DIY ethos that made him a success in Portland. He obsessively controlled
every detail of Pok Pok to the exclusion of nearly everything else, making quiet but unyielding demands that his people cook Thai food his way. But if he’s going to expand—if he’s going to have an empire that spans two coasts— he must grow Pok Pok beyond the point where he can possibly control it. And that’s a place where Andy Ricker has never been before. Ricker is 48 and looks like Bruce Willis— cold gray eyes, thick jowls, and the intensity of a detective on one last stakeout. He speaks softly but swears so often it’s as if he’s being paid by the f-bomb. He arrived in New York as a foodie celebrity. Eater NY, the influential food blog, has wryly dubbed him the “chicken wing messiah.” In November, a New York Times freelancer followed him around Thailand. Bon Appétit magazine gave his recipes its center spread in January. But right now, Ricker doesn’t need press. What he needs is a cooking scale. CONT. on page 14
THE OUT-OF-TOWNERS: Pok Pok WIng in Manhattan is packed.
P H O T O S B Y J E F F R E Y G R AY B R A N D S T E D
MARATHON MAN: Andy Ricker has decorated the walls of Manhattan restaurant Pok Pok Wing with Thai record covers (above) and photos of the shop’s three dishes (below).
Willamette Week FEBRUARY 1, 2012 wweek.com
13
CONT.
LAST EXIT TO BROOKLYN: Pok Pok Ny, Ricker’s full-menu restaurant in Red Hook, has a view of Lower Manhattan.
It’s 10 minutes before the restaurantsupply shops in the Bowery close, and Ricker walks double-speed eight blocks west across Manhattan. “I don’t have a life outside the restaurants,” he says. “I don’t have kids. I don’t have any other significant interests. I’m single at the moment, and probably will be for some time. I’m a pretty ambitious guy. I’m in survival mode.” He makes it to the restaurant-supply shop Bari Equipment with five minutes to spare. The store is owned by a manifestly proud Italian family; a framed poster shows Don Corleone holding a slicer and reads, “I’m gonna make you a pizza you can’t refuse.” Ricker hunts for a scale amid the aisles of blenders, ovens and plastic ketchup and mustard bottles. The owner asks him the name of his restaurant. “Pok Pok,” says Ricker. “Pok Pok?” “Over on Rivington.” “Down Rivington,” corrects the owner. “By the bridge.” Ricker chuckles. His restaurant, Pok Pok Wing, is indeed a block from the Williamsburg Bridge. The old guy is marking his turf for the outsider. New York City ’s dining market is notoriously tough. The most commonly cited number, first asserted in the 2004 documentary Eat This New York, is that 80 percent of new restaurants in the city fail within five years. A restaurant lasting three years is a marvel. But many people believe Ricker will make it. “Out-of-town chefs almost always wash out in New York,” says New Yorkbased food writer Josh Ozersky, who founded the Grub Street blog and now writes for Time. “They never succeed. They get chewed up and spit out. The city invariably roughs them up pretty good and sends them back to whatever province they came from. But Andy may be the exception.” Mark Bitterman, who recently expanded his Portland salt shop the Meadow to a second location in Manhattan, is more succinct: “Ricker is going to destroy.” And he’s trying to do it twice. Pok Pok Wing is in the former Rivington Street location of a Chinese pork-bun restaurant called BaoHaus. Ricker redecorated it himself in a collage of rainbow-col14
Willamette Week FEBRUARY 1, 2012 wweek.com
the Garment District’s Ace Hotel—just like the Portland Ace, but fancier—has Fridayafternoon lines 20 people deep. In March, former Castagna chef Matthew Lightner is opening Altera, a restaurant in Tribeca. The headline of a Grub Street article last September asked, “Is New York About to Become New Portland?” All of which runs in Ricker’s favor. Everything else seems to run against him. Matt Piacentini, a co-owner of Portland’s Ace Hotel restaurant Clyde Common, recently started a New York eatery called the Beagle. He says the Beagle is gaining an industry following (“We’re doing extremely well considering none of us is anybody”), but the challenge is immense. “To put it plainly, there are thousands and thousands of places that are better than you,” says Piacentini, who has never
remembers “look like puffballs—dark brown, slightly bitter.” He thought Thai food was supposed to be sweet, like the sugary pad kee mao served stateside. But this was a bounty of distinct flavors—bitter and earthy and sour and sweet—combined to make hearty mountain food served as snack-sized bits, often with a the undercurrent of fish-sauce funk. It was seemingly contradictory items like “beef salad.” It was great. When Ricker moved to Portland in 1990, he worked as a sous chef under Chris Israel at Zefiro—a training ground for many of Portland’s best cooks—and worked as a commercial painter, eventually giving new paint jobs to several restaurants where he’d worked. But he kept making Northern Thai recipes. His best friend, photographer Adam
“IS THERE A CHANCE I COULD GET MY ASS HANDED TO ME? OF COURSE.”—ANDY RICKER met Ricker. “You get absolutely trampled, like a train running over a fly. Right now, everybody’s really excited because these legendary chicken wings are coming to town. But how long is it going to be before people say, ‘Pok Pok is bullshit. This place in Queens has been doing that for three generations’?”
ored Thai vinyl albums from a used-record shop in Bangkok. His second shop is Pok Pok Ny. (In Thai, “Ny”—pronounced “nigh”—means “in the city.”) It’s on Columbia Street, on the west edge of Red Hook, a Brooklyn neighborhood with handsome brownstones that look like the exterior shots from The Cosby Show. Workers are still putting the place together. But the unopened shop—cluttered with boxes of papayas, cabbage wedges and roasted peanuts—is currently serving as the prep kitchen for Pok Pok Wing. An employee drives the prepared food across the Manhattan Bridge to Ricker’s only open shop. Ricker concedes he’ll be lucky if Pok Pok Ny is open by March. Ricker has already been discovered by Portland expats. During one evening at Pok Pok Wing, a half dozen customers volunteer to the cashier that they knew Ricker’s food from Portland. “My parents live in Northwest Portland,” a twentysomething woman says. “I dropped my phone when I found out this was coming here. Now they think I have no reason to visit them.” And Portland has clearly been discovered by New York. Stumptown Coffee now operates a roaster in Red Hook, a half mile from Pok Pok Ny. The Stumptown cafe in
What Ricker also has going for him is his obsessive nature—and his take on the cuisine of Northern Thailand. “I never met a guy more driven,” says his friend Willy Vlautin, a musician and novelist who worked for Ricker as a house painter in the ’90s. “He grew up pretty poor, and I think he wanted to not be that way. He’s one of those guys who had to work twice as hard to get where other people were in the first place.” A native of Vermont, Ricker had been cooking since he was 16, working in restaurants in order to make money to ski. Later he got into rock climbing, and took cooking jobs on sailboats so he could climb all around the world. In 1987, when he was 24, Ricker went to Chiang Mai, the largest city in Northern Thailand, where he ate a curry that changed his life. The bowl was filled with hed top, seasonal mushrooms that he
Levy, liked Thai food, but the kind that most Americans know. “He always used to harsh my buzz, “ Levy says. “He knew what I was eating was the insipid honky formulation—Chinese food with a few different ingredients. We’d actually have fights about it.” In 2005, Ricker bought a house on Southeast Division Street, and out front built a wooden shack with a kitchen and to-go window. He maxed out several credit cards and borrowed money from his mother to make payroll. He rejected the conventional fare—no pad Thai on his menu. “Think about how alienating Pok Pok could have been,” says Kurt Huffman, who later co-opened restaurants Ping and Foster Burger with Ricker. “Nothing you can pronounce. Nothing you recognize. Weird flavors. You don’t go out and say, ‘Let’s open up an Italian place that refuses to serve spaghetti, and everything on the menu’s gonna be in Italian.’” But Pok Pok wasn’t off-putting. Actually, it was a food cart before Portland’s cart scene got big, and it served finger-licking chicken. People started telling each other immediately: Ricker had been to Thailand, CONT. on page 16
P H O T O S B Y J E F F R E Y G R AY B R A N D S T E D
THAI HARD
GOOD MORNING, VIETNAM: Ike’s wings and a drinking vinegar on the Lower East Side.
FEbRUARy 1, 2012 | 7Pm
2012 ILLAHEE LECTURE SERIES “As dysfunctional as people believe our government is, they are just as convinced that the Constitution still works. But does it?”
CHRISTOPHER PHILLIPS
RETHINKING DEmOCRACy TICKETS AND INFORmATION www.illahee.org | (503) 222-2719
We’ve brought in a Truckload of Leather for the Big Game! Everything is in stock & ready to deliver in time for Super Bowl Kickoff!
• PALATIAL LEATHER • BRADINGTON YOUNG • WHITTEMORE-SHERRILL • STICKLEY ...and more! *Savings off MSRP. Some restrictions apply. See store for details.
paulschatzfurniture.com 6600 SW Bonita Rd. in Tigard • 503-620-6600
Willamette Week FEBRUARY 1, 2012 wweek.com
15
CONT.
and he’d brought back something out of a dream. “The charcoal-roasted game hen is killer,” wrote Oregonian food critic Karen Brooks six months after Pok Pok opened, “full of juiciness and crisp skin, with a tart, garlic-dizzy dipping sauce to kick it higher.” What saved Ricker were those rotisserie game hens and Ike’s wings—a dish named for Ich Truong, an employee who helped perfect the recipe that made Pok Pok famous. With Ike’s wings, Ricker hit upon a trifecta of food cravings: meat, spice and sweetness. The wings are huge: Each one includes the full extension of the bird’s appendage— drumstick, flat and end joint—making them far larger than the typical Buffalo wing. They’re marinated in garlic, sugar and fish sauce, tossed in tempura batter, and fried in hot oil. Then they’re painted with garlic and a fish-sauce caramel. They play to Portland’s love of artisan quality, exotic snobbery and decadent indulgence. They’re a recipe for addiction. The Oregonian named Pok Pok its Restaurant of the Year in 2007. The same year, Food & Wine magazine declared Ike’s wings one of the 10 best restaurant dishes in America. Pok Pok has been featured on TV shows Diners, Drive-ins and Dives; Unique Eats; and The Best Thing I Ever Ate. A 45-minute wait for a Pok Pok table soon became typical, and Ricker expanded. He opened Whiskey Soda Lounge across Division Street in 2009, serving dried cuttlefish and cocktails made with Thai drinking vinegars. He also opened Southeast Asian pubgrub restaurant Ping in Chinatown in 2009 with Huffman, and they launched Foster Burger a year later with Sel Gris’ Daniel Mondok. There’s a second takeout joint, Pok Pok Noi, in the Sabin neighborhood, and Ricker is working on a third Division Street restaurant dedicated solely to the curry-on-rice dishes called khao kaeng. He has 120 people on his payroll. Ricker soon found himself acclaimed as one of the nation’s best Thai chefs. He has become an evangelist for obscure Northern Thai favorites like laap, a duck dish, and khao soi, a curry-broth and noodle bowl. “To this date,” Ricker says, “the vast majority of the Thai community in Portland believe I have a Thai wife. Either here in the United States or in Thailand, behind the scenes, running all this.” Some bridle at Ricker’s presumption. Chawadee Nualkhair, a food journalist based in Thailand, berated him for calling yam samun phrai—lemongrass spicy salad—a Northern Thai dish. She says it’s actually from Central Thailand. “I don’t have a problem with any Westerner presenting himself or herself as an authority on Northern Thai cuisine,” she says. “But that person—Western or Thai, it doesn’t matter—has to be right. It’s like if someone is a football commentator and they confuse Ben Roethlisberger with Tom Brady.” In New York’s Lower East Side, customers flow in and out of Pok Pok Wing on a Thursday night as Matthew Adams eavesdrops on every conversation at the counter. He knows exactly what he wants to hear. Adams is Ricker’s operations manager, 16
Willamette Week FEBRUARY 1, 2012 wweek.com
DINNER AT EIGHT: Papaya Pok Pok is crushed with a pestle and served on marble counters.
first hired at Ping and running three of his boss’s Portland restaurants. He’s in New York to supervise Pok Pok Wing’s opening weeks. He knows working in Ricker’s restaurants is hazardous: In his first year at Ping, Adams gained 20 pounds. Adams listens as cashier Taylor Warden takes orders. “Would you like sticky rice?” Warden asks a customer. Adams pulls him aside later to correct his delivery: “Would you like to order sticky rice?” Otherwise, Adams says, customers might think the rice is free. Warden hands a mother and daughter at the counter their drinking vinegars—like a tart fruit syrup in soda water—and says, “Stir it a little.” They gave their drinks a light swish with their straws. Adams corrects again: “You want to give it a good stir.” This is part of Ricker’s plan: close supervision and tight control over every aspect of the Pok Pok meal. “To be able to come to one of the most difficult cities to open a restaurant, and to do it in two months, that’s pretty impressive,” Ricker says. “And it’s not because of any Herculean strength on my part. Everything we do has been about minimizing or eliminating everything that can go wrong.” For example, take the chilies used in the restaurant’s namesake dish, Papaya Pok Pok. The name comes from the sound the chef’s mortar on pestle—pok pok, pok pok—as it crushes long beans, tamarind,
Thai chili, garlic, fish sauce, palm sugar and peanuts with green papaya shavings. The heat of the chilies changes seasonally, and they come from a dozen or more places in Asia. That means the dish requires a constant rebalancing of the recipe. “And the only one who’s capable of doing that is Andy,” Levy says. Ricker’s dreams are moving beyond the place where that kind of control is possible. He has a cookbook coming out this year—still untitled—and is retailing the drinking vinegars under the name Som. He wants to open a shop to sell ingredients
and equipment—laap spice, steamers, rice baskets—to go with the recipes. He talks of opening Pok Pok Wing outlets across New York, like a Thai version of Shake Shack. “You could potentially open these all over the city,” he says of Pok Pok Wing. “You could have a central commissary that functions as a particle accelerator. This place on the Lower East Side is totally a science experiment.” Yet as Ricker stretches himself further and further, he remains fundamentally alone in understanding his operation. He sold his share of Ping and Foster Burger last year, to solely focus on Pok Pok. “That’s also, I think, why he’s so attached to the idea of the wing shack,” Huffman says. “It allows you to be excellent. The question is, can he get enough people to help him build this thing as big as he wants?” Ricker is trying to spread the expertise. He has taken at least six members of his staff to Thailand with him. And among his employees, he inspires fierce loyalty. When Pok Pok threw a Christmas party last year, nearly all of his 120 employees wore temporary tattoos of the illustration that ran with the Bon Appétit article: Ricker riding a fish. When it comes to Pok Pok, Huffman says of Ricker, “He is the source of truth. The only way to scale that is to have people who work for him who are also a source of truth.” Ricker knows he’s got to back away from the kitchen. “You don’t see a lot of old chefs,” he says. “I’d like to live to at least 60. There’s plenty of people out there who can do this. I know I’m not the only person in the whole world who’s interested.” To achieve the national brand he wants, Ricker will have to release control of his cooking. But sometimes it seems like Pok Pok won’t let go of him. Near midnight, Ricker returns to Pok Pok Wing after dealing with problems at the unopened shop in Brooklyn. He and Adams look proudly over the pile of receipts. Adams spots an anomaly. “There’s a Portland number on here,” he says. Ricker looks closer at the receipts. The two men reach a realization simultaneously, and start to laugh. For Pok Pok Wing ’s first 10 days in business, Ricker has been giving the citizens of New York his personal cellphone number. P H O T O S B Y J E F F R E Y G R AY B R A N D S T E D
THAI HARD
WHAT ARE YOU WEARING?
STREET
INTO THE WOODS? URBAN LUMBERJACKS ON EVERY CORNER. P H OTOS BY MOR GA N GREEN -H OP KIN S, IVAN LIMON GA N A N D L ANA MACNAU GHTON wweek.com/street
Willamette Week FEBRUARY 1, 2012 wweek.com
17
DRANK: Calapooia’s chili beer. FOOD: Noisette’s perfect symphony. MUSIC: Lost Lander’s big universe. MOVIES: A beer blast.
20 21 23 39
SCOOP
PAU L R O P E R
GOSSIP THAT DID NOT SEE THAT FUNNY COMMERCIAL. BOILED DOWN: Bagel-shaped-object-maker Einstein Bros has announced plans for re-branding the Kettleman Bagel Company stores the company acquired in November. Real bagels are boiled; Einstein Bros’ are not. Happily, three varieties of bagels, to be determined by customer vote, will be boiled “kettle style.” Making them, um, actual bagels. Not everyone is impressed. “Please just make your own garbage bread disks with holes in them that you call bagels,” says one Facebook commenter. “Kettlemans has already died for me...this will only continue the pain of the loss.” BECK TO BECK: Talk radio has a new Beck. Former WW columnist Byron Beck will launch a twohour talk show Feb. 13 on KXL 101.1-FM. Bailey and Beck, which Beck will co-host with Shel Bailey and producer Zak Kindrachuk, will BYRON BECK air from 7 to 9 pm Monday through Friday. KXL is best known as the home of always-angry radio personality Lars Larson. Beck, who also hosts the online TV show Have You Heard? and blogs at ByronBeck.com, authored WW’s “Queer Window” column from 2001 to 2008. “It’s a talk show that’s just going to be a little bit different than what KXL has done before—more culture and less politics,” Beck says. “It’s a new direction for the company. I mean, come on, from Glenn Beck to Byron Beck? I think that’s a huge leap forward.”
REUNITED (AND IT FEELS SO GOOD): Hazel, the legendary Portland rock band that disbanded in 1997 and hadn’t been onstage since a 2005 MusicfestNW reunion show, reassembled last Saturday. Playing immediately after a two-hour drag show at Al’s Den, the tiny basement bar at McMenamins’ Crystal Hotel, the band billed as “Pete Krebs and Jody Bleyle”—played eight classic tunes, with Team Dresch frontwoman Donna Dresch filling in for bassist Brady Smith, and with performance artist/dancer Fred Nemo roaming the club in a bathing suit. “We’re trying to keep it really low-key since it’s a small place and we might suck,” Krebs told WW a few days before the show. In fact, the show found the band sounding better HAZEL than ever, with 40 to 50 awed audience members cheering and singing along. Plans for (larger) future engagements are forthcoming, Krebs says. It’s worth noting that the group got through its entire set without an onstage fight. See photos and more info at wweek.com. 18
Willamette Week FEBRUARY 1, 2012 wweek.com
MARK SELIGER
CHAMP’S CUP: Competitive coffee-making exists and involves music and costumes. Portland baristas headed up to Tacoma last weekend to flex their tamping muscles in the region’s premier coffee-making competitions, the three-day Northwest Regional Barista Competition, which is focused on espresso, and the Brewers Cup, which is all sorts of coffee brewing. Coava Coffee’s Devin Chapman took first place in both competitions. Portland scored all six spots in the finals of the espresso competition—second place went to Stumptown’s Laila Ghambari and third to Barista’s Tyler Stevens, while reigning champ Sam Purvis from Coava, Barista’s Marty Lopes and Sterling’s Colin Schneider made up the rest of the final six.
HEADOUT K E I T H WA R R E N G R E I M A N
WILLAMETTE WEEK
WHAT TO DO THIS WEEK IN ARTS & CULTURE
WEDNESDAY, FEB. 1 FARNELL NEWTON PLAYS WAYNE SHORTER [MUSIC] A player well-versed in funk, bop, old-time swing and avant jazz, Newton will be in the house to perform a set of songs written by Wayne Shorter, a great saxophonist who moves between genres with a similar ingenuity and panache. Ivories Jazz Lounge and Restaurant, 1435 NW Flanders St., 241-6514. 8:30 pm. $7. 21+.
FRIDAY, FEB. 3 A SEPARATION [MOVIES] If you think divorce in Iran is as simple as a dude saying, “I divorce you, I divorce you, I divorce you,” check out this engrossing drama from Tehran, about the 50 ways you can’t leave your lover. Regal Fox Tower Stadium 10, 846 SW Park Ave., 221-3280. Multiple showtimes. $10.50. SUPERFRESH 3 [MUSIC] For 10 bucks, you can spend two nights shaking your ass to the best dance music—electronic and analog alike—for two nights straight. Hard to beat, especially when bands like Wampire, Radiation City, Truckasaurus and Brainstorm lead the charge. Branx, 320 SE 2nd Ave., 234-5683. 7 pm. $7. All ages (upstairs shows are 21+).
SATURDAY, FEB. 4 FOR THE BEST AND FOR THE ONION! [MOVIES] The Cascade Festival of African Films gets an extensive review in our movie pages, but here we’ll just point you toward what is probably (though we have not researched this) the only wedding drama about the market for Niger’s purple onions. Know yr African cinema! Portland Community College Cascade Campus, Moriarty Arts and Humanities Building, 705 N Killingsworth St., Room 104. 2 pm. Free.
RUTH BROWN’S FAVORITE CHILDHOOD DRAGONS. Tet Nguyen Dan—better known as Tet or Vietnamese New Year— was on Jan. 23. The big celebration in Portland is this weekend, however, since the Portland International Auto Show was at the Convention Center last week and age-old lunar festivals have to wait behind shiny new cars. This is the Year of the Dragon. That’s a big deal, because it’s the luckiest year in the zodiac and the most popular in which to have children. Sadly, I was born in the year of the lame-ass ox. But in honor of 2012, I’d like to look back at the best dragons of my childhood:
reading it to me every night when I was 6, and that it had a dragon. Afterward, I would lay awake petrified that Gollum was hiding under my bed. Thanks mom! (In fairness, I also believed witches, snakes and Worzel Gummidge were under my bed.) Falkor from The NeverEnding Story II: The Next Chapter Yes, II. I preferred the totally bastardized 1990 sequel, probably because it starred the dreamy Jonathan Brandis. Rest in peace, Jonathan—at least you got to fly on the back of a giant talking dragon.
Puff the Magic Dragon I hated when we sang Puff’s titular song in class because the last few choruses made me cry every time. “His head was bent in sorrow/ Green scales fell like rain/ Puff no longer went to play along the cherry lane.” That’s heavy shit for a 5-year-old.
Dragonzord from Mighty Morphin Power Rangers When Green Ranger played his Dragon Dagger like a flute, this giant Godzilla-dragon-robot thing would rise out of the water and beat up bad guys with its tail. It could also fire missiles out of its fingers. If that wasn’t enough, it would combine with the other robots to become Mega Dragonzord. If that wasn’t enough, it would combine with a brachiosaurus robot to become Ultrazord. Nothing could defeat Ultrazord. RUTH BROWN.
Smaug from The Hobbit I barely remember a whit of this book, other than my mother
GO: Tet Festival 2012 will be at the Oregon Convention Center, 777 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., 10 am to 6 pm Saturday, Feb. 4. congdongvietnamoregon.org.
SUNDAY, FEB. 5 45TH PARALLEL QUARTET [MUSIC] A foursome of Portland’s top classical players convene to perform Dvorák’s “American String Quartet,” Schubert’s “Death and the Maiden” and a quartet arrangement of Guns N’ Roses’ “Sweet Child o’ Mine.” Alberta Rose Theatre, 3000 NE Alberta St., 719-6055. 7:30 pm. $15.
TUESDAY, FEB. 7 ELEANOR FRIEDBERGER [MUSIC] Friedberger’s debut album, Last Summer, exudes humility in title and execution. Free of the cut-and-paste aesthetic of her other group, the Fiery Furnaces, she indulges in ’70s-style pop that shuffles, swings and stomps comfortably, edged with sparkling postproduction touches. Mississippi Studios, 3939 N Mississippi Ave., 288-3895. 9 pm. $10. 21+.
Willamette Week FEBRUARY 1, 2012 wweek.com
19
FOOD & DRINK = WW Pick. Highly recommended. By RUTH BROWN. PRICES: $: Most entrees under $10. $$: $10-$20. $$$: $20-$30. $$$$: Above $30. Editor: MARTIN CIZMAR. Email: dish@wweek.com. See page 3 for submission instructions.
DISH MIKE GRIPPI
FRIDAY, FEB. 3 Portland Seafood and Wine Festival
Get crabs...at the Portland Seafood and Wine Festival. Yes, the good kind of crabs. Exhibitors include Alaskan Weathervane Scallops, BaRa Sushi House, Mo’s Chowder, Newport Seafood Grill, Oregon Oyster Farms, RingSide Fish House and more, plus live music, sand sculpting and a “celebrity crab-cracking contest,” though I’m struggling to think of a single celebrity crab. Oregon Convention Center, 777 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., 235-7575. 2-10 pm Friday and noon-10 pm Saturday, Feb. 3-4. Adults $12, seniors and kids (16 and under) $8, 5 and under free.
Friday, Feb 3rd
alice
Dimicele with
Jeff Pevar & Damian erskine Saturday, Feb 4th
SUNDAY, FEB. 5 Super Ramen Bowl Sunday at Wafu
Division-area ramen joint Wafu won’t be airing the big game, but it will be celebrating the 46th Super Bowl with $4.60 bowls of ramen (usually $8) and 46-cent add-ons (usually $1-$2). It will also introduce a new menu of bao—which is kind of weird, as the restaurant is otherwise largely Japanese-ish, but at 46 cents each, we’re not complaining. Wafu, 3113 SE Division St., 236-0205, wafupdx.com. 5-11 pm.
an eveninG with
the liv warfielD exPerience Sunday, Feb 5th
45th Parallel quartet
Super Bowl Party at EaT: An Oyster Bar
Death & the maiDen / sweet chilD o’mine Thursday, Feb 9th
John Gorka
Business in the Front...
MONDAY, FEB. 6
with sPecial Guest
rose cousins Satuday, Feb 11th
Restaurant
martyn JosePh
8115 SE Stark
Gretchen Peters Sunday, Feb 12th
one hit wonDers & Guilty Pleasures valentine cabaret
featurinG
the Perfect anGels Tuesday, Feb 14th
PortlanD story theatre:
Party in the Back!
kiss anD tell Alberta Rose Theatre (503) 764-4131 3000 NE Alberta AlbertaRoseTheatre.com
20
Oysters and football? Why not? EaT is hosting its annual Super Bowl party, with food specials, $2 mugs of Trumer pils, and the chance to win a flat-screen TV. EaT: An Oyster Bar, 3808 N Williams St., 281-1222, eatoysterbar. com. Kickoff is at 3:30 pm.
Bar
410 SE 81st Ave. Directly behind the Observatory
Willamette Week FEBRUARY 1, 2012 wweek.com
Pickle
The Second Annual Perfect
The Dill Pickle Club—which usually has very little to do with dill pickles and much to do with educating Portlanders about the past, present and future of the city in which they live—is hosting its second annual Perfect Pickle fundraiser, which actually has a lot to do with dill pickles. Local culinary heavyweights, including Biwa, Chop, DOC, Olympic Provisions, Unbound Pickling, Picklopolis and others will prepare small batches of pickles for sampling and buying, competing to be named “Pickler of the Year,” or score the people’s choice award. Voodoo Doughnut will create a special pickle doughnut for the occasion, which no doubt will soon be coming to a Food Network special. There will also be live music, films and the release of the Dill Pickle Club’s latest publication, The Dill Pickler: A Year in Review. Holocene, 1001 SE Morrison St., 239-7639. 6 pm-midnight. $10, free for Dill Pickle Club members.
HOUSE OF LINKS: Chinese sausage is the star attraction.
EC KITCHEN
The sign outside this newly refurbished house on Southeast 82nd Avenue, about a mile north of the dividing line between civilization and Clackamas County, promises “Chinese Traditional Delights.” It does not disappoint. EC Kitchen is, to the best of our knowledge, the only outfit in Oregon producing Chinese and Taiwanese dried sausages. Imported brands of these sweet, salty and characteristically knobby pork logs are commonly available at East Asian markets and used in fried-rice entrees around town, but EC Kitchen’s are better. The owners are so devoted to authenticity that, faced Order this: House special fried noodle with the unavailability in the with Chinese sausage ($7.49). Best deal: Two tea eggs, hard-boiled U.S. of a 100-proof grain spirit and steeped in tea and spices until used to make the sausages, they turn sweet and brown ($1.50). they applied for a distillery I’ll pass: The turnip cake ($3.50, four license to start making their pieces) is pretty good—for turnip cake. Stick with the eggs. own. The result is a chewy, fresh-tasting sausage that’s like an explosion of sunshine on a gray winter evening. EC sells them packaged or prepared in a small handful of combinations with rice or noodles. Get the noodles—they’re like state-fair yakisoba in the best possible way. BEN WATERHOUSE. EAT: EC Kitchen, 6335 SE 82nd Ave., 788-6306, eckitchenllc.com. Noon-8 pm Tuesday-Saturday, 1-6 pm Sunday for packagedproduct sales only. $
DRANK
CHILI BEER (CALAPOOIA BREWING CO.) Call me boring, but I like my beverages to come without prefixes, especially when it comes to beer. Bring on the ale, leave out the fruit, please. But I was pleasantly surprised by how well the Anaheim, jalapeño and serrano peppers complement the warm, bready malt in this ale from Calapooia Brewing in Albany, Ore. Chili beer smells like roasting green chilies and tastes not unlike a good enchilada sauce. It has just enough heat to get your salivary glands going and, unlike most capsicum-added beers on the market, it has no sour or chemical flavors on the finish. It could make an excellent aperitif. But while the “chili” part of chili beer is very good, the beer is disappointing, with almost no detectable carbonation. Perhaps we got a bad bottle; I hope so. Calapooia started bottling its beers in only October, so quality control may not yet be up to snuff. In either case, this is one brew badly in need of some fizz. BEN WATERHOUSE.
WELLNESS AMAREN COLOSI
REVIEW
D A V I D F LY N N
Integrating Swedish, deep tissue and stretching for a truly great massage experience.
503.775.4755 LMT#11142
for more info, CheCk out massage
page 44
Shandong cuisine of northern china
BEEF TWO WAYS: The short rib and New York strip steak are enhanced by very French saucing.
A FINE SHOW
fresh ingredients • prepared daily • a new look at classic dishes open daily 11-2:30 lunch 4-9:30 dinner happy hour specials 4-6
3724 ne broadway portland or 97232 503.287.0331 shandongportland.com
Feb. 22, 2012
NOW SERVING BRUNCH. Along with our regular menu
All you can eat buffet. 10am – 5pm Sundays
AN T
M
CAN B
• Pork Rojo SPARAGUS • Grilled Asparagus F YA • Tamales • Empanadas 40 • Cottage Cheese Varieties Taste the of Gourmet Difference • Enchilada Roja Tamales • Enchilada Verde CASA DE • Fruit Cocktail A R LE • Mexican Sweet Bread S R E S TAU
AR
• Beans • Rice • Potatoes • Huevos a la Mexicana • Chicken Verde • Chile Rellenos • Beef Rojo
M TA
reduction, with shallot and bittersweet fennel on top. The potato “sauces,” which were used twice during the meal, were a truly delicate notion; it MATTH E W KO R FAG E 243-2122 is a hard thing to make potato interesting when it’s allowed to be only itself. But this potentially Chef Tony Demes’ new French-modern restau- familiar combination of tastes was in its own way rant Noisette is good for both dinner and a show renewed. A well-executed short rib and New York if you do it right. Couvron, his much-missed strip ($15), both very French in their saucing, previous restaurant—which Demes moved from were brought up against crisped, wilted tendrils Portland to New York in the early aughts—was of pea to similar effect. Among the appetizers, Demes served up a celwell known for its four-hour, many-course tasting menus, and Demes has carried this tradition into ery root “hummus” ($9) that in texture was more the new venture. While the oh-so-petite dishes like whipped custard, to be eaten using a turbined are available à la carte ($9-$18), the true heart wheel of small unsalted potato chips ensconced of the place is still in the full $75, eight-course, in the hummus; the celery was frothy and gentle ever-changing tasting menu, an enveloping two- in its flavor, like whipped air tinged with lightly or three-hour experience dedicated to the notion bitter memory. As soon as one dish was savored and discussed that dining can be a full evening’s entertainment in its own right, not just a decadent prelude to and settled, another was brought. The pacing was on point throughout, as indeed meals were always later spectacles. The small dishes are presented with obvious served from the right and taken from the left, each care and maybe a little showmanship: the over- ingredient explained, the water filled, the hand towels in the bathroom size plates, tight culinary made of cloth and not geometries and swirls of Order this: Spring for the full tasting menu; paper. If you’re trying to reduction native to the even if you skimp on the wine you’ll still leave make eating an experience, much-parodied nouvelle feeling somehow drunk and rosy. deal: And yet, you can also approximate the details count. So while cuisine are often in evi- Best the experience for half price by ordering a there was no real pomp or dence here. The servers ori- scattering of six plates and sharing. formality—wear what you ent each beautifully plated I’ll pass: If somehow there’s something you want—the formalities were dish to the diner with ter- don’t like, take it home with you; give the paper your address and I’ll pick it up. so well attended to that they rific precision, as if framing dropped from view. a portrait over a settee. But In a town that rightfully prides itself on its a single glance at the kitchen will let you know this is a place of tradition as much as innovation whimsically homegrown fresh-local-casual or glitz. The main tools in use are the pot, pan and approach to dining—we have achieved in only 15 years something of a genuine regional cuisine— knife, not the freeze dryer or sous vide cooker. Each dish is both simple and complex at once, Noisette manages to be both appropriate to the a matter of four or five distinct notes brought city and something that we nonetheless mostly into harmony. You find yourself comparing one lack, which is true high-end traditional fine dinrich bite to the next, wondering, do you prefer ing. I’m happier than anyone that we have more the tarragonned and hazelnutted lobster ($13) haute hamburgers per capita than anywhere in with the tightly cubed beet and pear together, or the nation, but sometimes the smug comfortmerely with the pear? (Answer: You prefer it with foodieism is just a mask for entitled middlebrow taste gone haywire in its priorities. Noisette is a just the pear.) There were no missteps in the 10 courses I nice little tug on the proverbial scales. tried, though there were standouts—in particular, a petite filet of tender white sturgeon ($14) atop EAT: Noisette, 1937 NW 23rd Place, 719-4599, noisetterestaurant.com. Tuesday-Saturday, 5-10 a bed of creamy potato purée against red wine pm. $$$$.
TONY DEMES IS BACK WITH NOISETTE.
Only $13. Unbelievable! 503.654.4423 • 10605 SE Main St. Milwaukie, OR www.CanbyAsparagusFarm.com
Delivery & Shipping Available
Willamette Week FEBRUARY 1, 2012 wweek.com
21
22
Willamette Week FEBRUARY 1, 2012 wweek.com
MUSIC
FEB. 1-7 PROFILE
= WW Pick. Highly recommended.
BEN MOON
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, FEB. 1 Farnell Newton: The Music of Wayne Shorter
[JAZZ TRIBUTE] Not to start a rivalry here, but Ivories, a relative newcomer in the Portland club scene, seems aimed toward supplanting Jimmy Mak’s as Portland’s most intimate venue to see incredible jazz talent. The club recently welcomed jazz giant Christian McBride for a one-off show, and tonight local trumpeter Farnell Newton visits the Ivories stage. A player well-versed in funk, bop, oldtime swing and avant jazz, Newton will be in the house to perform a set of songs written by Wayne Shorter, a great saxophonist who moves between genres (he’s played with Miles Davis and helped form fusion group Weather Report) with a similar ingenuity and panache. ROBERT HAM. Ivories Jazz Lounge and Restaurant, 1435 NW Flanders St., 241-6514. 8:30 pm. $7. 21+.
The Woollen Kits, The Woolen Men, Zotz
[SIMPLY POP] I was ready to dismiss Melbourne’s the Woollen Kits as a pleasing but pedestrian entry in an overcrowded field of lo-fi fuzz lovers after hearing last year’s bland “Maths” single. “Out of Whack,” the first public offering from the Kits’ new LP, however, has made an expectant fan out of me. It is a mannered anachronism of a tune, make no mistake: Put it in on a mixtape between the Clean and the Feelies and see if anyone can spot the 21st-century band. But “mannered anachronism” is just fancy phrase for “pop music,” and the Woollen Kits have become very good at plying their particular craft. CHRIS STAMM. The Know, 2026 NE Alberta St., 473-8729. 8 pm. Cover. 21+.
THURSDAY, FEB. 2 Weinland, Gideon Freudmann, St. Even
[JEW JAM] Many of America’s great musical figures—Dylan, Simon, Diamond, Midler, Cohen, Bacharach and Kravitz among them—are members of the tribe, so it’s nice that the Oregon Jewish Museum has given the nod to some fine local Chosen musicians. Weinland’s formidable singer-songwriter-driven rock music can get downright epic onstage, Gideon Freudmann you’ll recognize from the Portland Cello Project, and St. Even (Steven Hefter) is a songwriter I am personally hell-bent on exposing to the world. It should be noted that yes, there will be Manischewitz on sale, and knishes are being flown in from New York for the occasion. CASEY JARMAN. Holocene, 1001 SE Morrison St., 239-7639. 8 pm. $10. 21+.
O.A.R., Parachute
[MODERN ROCK FOR JOCKS] As grassroots movements go, O.A.R.—Of a Revolution, which surely must have referred to frat-house upheaval once upon a time—has come quite a way from soundtracking Ohio State mixers, and it’s testament to the vapidity of the band’s reggae-dappled, H.O.R.D.E. Fest-approved anthems that even the most pristine digital airbrushing cannot dispel the whiff of ganja from seventh studio album King. Simultaneously enervated and aggressive, the slickness applied to traditionally textured idioms seems almost appropriate given vocalist Marc Roberge’s undying convictions about.nothing in particular. As a music of occupation, O.A.R. trends white collar. JAY HORTON. Roseland Theater, 8 NW 6th Ave., 224-2038. 8 pm. $27.50-$40. 21+.
Youthbitch, DJ Jonny Cakes
[PUNK SHOW] As if the band’s name
weren’t enough to ruffle some feathers, the garage-pop geniuses of Youthbitch have decided to drive the point home by naming their latest cassette-only release Youthbitch Youthbitch Youthbitch Youthbitch Youthbitch. Hell, it takes almost as long to say the title as it does to listen to the whole nine-song album. The trio takes pointers from its idols, the Ramones: Keep songs short, catchy, fast and fun. There ain’t anything groundbreaking here, just healthy doses of grumbling power chords, slapdash percussion, and tossed-off vocals that drip with perfect notes of snot and bile. ROBERT HAM. Star Bar, 639 SE Morrison St., 232-5553. 9 pm. Free. 21+.
FRIDAY, FEB. 3 Marty Marquis (of Blitzen Trapper), Thousands, Tom Bevitori
[TRAPPER TUNES] Al’s Den has become a confession room, a haven for singular and stripped-down musical talent. The residency program lets artists fare on their own or collaborate with friends or bandmates for a week at a time. And you, dear listener, get to pay witness for free. Blitzen Trapper hype man and multi-instrumentalist Marty Marquis is featured tonight. His solo work is as heartening in sound as it is dense lyrically. Marquis seems the history-buff type, building soft and supple roots rock around adventurous period characters like Jed Smith (who was a trapper, among other professions). Arrive early for Thousands, Seattle’s contemporary answer to Simon and Garfunkel. MARK STOCK. Al’s Den at the Crystal Hotel, 303 SW 12th Ave., 972-2670. 7 pm. Free. 21+.
The Wood Brothers, Sarah and Christian Dugas
[BLUES ROOTS] Over the past 15 years, brothers Oliver and Chris Wood have largely pursued separate musical careers. Oliver sang and played guitar for the blues-funk band King Johnson while Chris added the bass (and the Wood) to forward-thinking jazzjam trio Medeski Martin & Wood. But in 2005, the two formed the Wood Brothers as a side project. Having since released three full-length albums of folk- and blues-inspired songs, the duo continues maturing as its side project evolves into a well-recognized staple of roots music. Listening to Chris’ jazzy bass lines combined with Oliver’s bluesy guitar and gravelly voice is impressive, but the satisfaction really kicks in when each musician shows off the perfection of his craft during a solo. In this case, it seems the brothers’ trudging down separate musical paths molded two nicely fitting pieces. EMILEE BOOHER. Aladdin Theater, 3017 SE Milwaukie Ave., 234-9694. 8 pm. $16 advance, $18 day of show. Minors must be accompanied by a parent or guardian. All ages .
The Sexbots, Dropa, Stereovision
[OUTSIDER ELECTRO-POP] Portland has a thriving electronic-music scene, but neither of tonight’s headlining acts—the Sexbots and Dropa, both of whom release albums tonight—are names one hears on the shortlist of go-to electronic dance acts. Maybe that’s because the Sexbots and Dropa play with pop structures and outsider lyrical themes. The former’s frontwoman, Ilima Considine, writes dark, erotic poetry, with bold bleeps and bloops behind her (the beats are coproduced by ex-FEAR drummer and Portlander Spit Stix, so subtlety isn’t generally the goal here) on new album Don’t Stop. Dropa’s Micah Tamblyn and
CONT. on page 24
LET’S GET LOST LOST LANDER MAKES A LITTLE MAGIC FOR THE THROWAWAY WORLD. BY MATTHE W SIN GER
243-2122
“Did you do the planetarium yet?” asks Matt Sheehy, the singer-songwriter behind Lost Lander, as he squeezes his lanky frame into my Hyundai Sonata and spots a copy of his new album sitting on the passenger seat. I have no idea what he’s talking about. He picks up the cardboard CD case and folds the sides together, forming a triangle-shaped box. He then holds his cell phone up to a quarter-sized hole on one side and turns on a flashlight app, sending light pouring through several dozen small punctures on the other panels. In the mid-evening darkness, it creates a miniature star map on the ceiling of my car. Each fictional constellation represents a different song on the record, he says. Neat gimmick, I must admit. But Sheehy insists the creative packaging is not just a marketing ploy: It’s a physical representation of the record’s overarching theme. No, DRRT is not a concept album about the cosmos. It does, however, deal with mankind’s relationship to the universe; specifically, the relationship between nature and technology. Across the record’s 11 tracks, produced with spacious warmth by Ramona Falls’ Brent Knopf, Sheehy makes references to rain, the tides, and cold wind blowing “through your bones,” while expressing an unease about a world overflowing with “too much information.” The title—a vaguely computerized spelling of “dirt”—is meant to suggest the intermingling of the organic and the electronic. And for Sheehy, space is part of that dichotomy. “If you think about it, outer space is nature, too,” he says later, sipping a hot toddy upstairs at North Portland’s Interurban. “It’s the ultimate nature.” Nature is something Sheehy, a native of Juneau, Alaska, knows a bit about. After the breakup of his first band, the electro-rock duo Gravity and Henry, in 2005, Sheehy entered his wilderness years— literally. He took a forestry job on the Oregon coast, dividing his time between Portland—where he’d come to jam with other musicians—and Oceanside, where he lived, worked and, in his words, did a good
deal of “existential crisising.” It was during that time Sheehy befriended Knopf. Gravity and Henry had played a few shows with Knopf’s former group, Menomena, before splitting up, but the two really got to know each other when Sheehy portrayed the Grim Reaper in Menomena’s video for its song “Wet and Rusting.” (Sheehy had previously dabbled in acting; his biggest role was starring in a pro-gay rights ad produced for MTV.) “I immediately trusted anything he said, because I respected him so much,” Sheehy says of Knopf, who helped Sheehy record his first solo album, 2008’s Tigerphobia. For DRRT, Sheehy and Knopf’s partnership increased to the point of nearly a full-on collaboration. The pair often worked back to back in tiny rooms on the coast and along Washington’s Olympic Peninsula. Knopf’s studio proficiency grew Sheehy’s songs—simple enough at their core to be sung around a campfire, Sheehy says—into lush, evocative creations. Even more than in the lyrics, the “nature meets technology” theme is in the music itself: Acoustic guitars, strings and heavily percussive drums loop and sway around strategically placed synthesizer blips and encroachments of digital noise. Although bigger, musically and thematically, than the introspective Tigerphobia— something the full Lost Lander live band helps bring across—DRRT maintains an undercurrent of intimate melancholy, particularly on the haunting lament “Afraid of Summer” and the closing “Your Name Is a Fire,” a love song written after a relationship had already begun to fray. Of course, no one who’d make an album that can transform into a planetarium can be that much of a downer. To fund the light boxes, Sheehy launched a Kickstarter campaign, featuring videos parodying a PBS telethon. Appropriately, he doesn’t think of the planetariums as a novelty to sell records but as a gift for donors. “Making CDs seems weird to me. I don’t understand why people want to buy them,” Sheehy says. “It feels so much more satisfying to think somebody might buy something and then use it and have it around, show it to their kids or just enjoy it, or feel a little bit of magic in their lives.” SEE IT: Lost Lander plays Doug Fir Lounge on Saturday, Feb. 4, with Yours and Houndstooth. 9 pm. $8 advance, $10 day of show. 21+. Willamette Week FEBRUARY 1, 2012 wweek.com
23
Flowers? Candy?
MUSIC!!... The Best Valentine’s Gift
MUSIC
Matthew Higgins write similarly pronounced—but altogether more psychedelic—dance tracks about contemporary society on Glass House, and the duo’s worldview reminds of guys like Trent Reznor and Thom Yorke. What unites the two groups is that they’re keeping it real—and real direct—rather than keeping it weird. That commitment to clarity may actually be holding them back a bit, but those who like hearing the words while they dance will appreciate the groups’ efforts. CASEY JARMAN. Backspace, 115 NW 5th Ave., 2482900. 9 pm. $7. All ages.
ALL SONY ESSENTIAL SERIES TITLES ON SALE
2CD SETS ON SALE $12.99 • SINGLE DISC ON SALE $7.99 & $6.99
LEONARD COHEN
WILLIE NELSON
ON SALE $12.99 2CD
ON SALE $12.99 2CD
ESSENTIAL LEONARD COHEN
STEVIE RAY VAUGHAN
ON SALE $12.99 2CD
ON SALE $12.99 2CD
EMERSON LAKE & PALMER CESARIA EVORA HALL & OATES HERBIE HANCOCK HEART MICHAEL JACKSON JEFFERSON AIRPLANE WAYLON JENNINGS
ESSENTIAL STEVIE RAY VAUGHAN
JANIS JOPLIN JUDAS PRIEST TAJ MAHAL ALAN PARSONS PROJECT ELVIS PRESLEY LOU REED PAUL REVERE & THE RAIDERS
SIMON & GARFUNKEL NINA SIMONE SLY & THE FAMILY STONE BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN WEIRD AL YANKOVIC & MANY MORE! OFFER GOOD THRU: 2/29/12
NEW MUSIC FOR LEAP YEAR From our master singer-songwriter, Leonard Cohen, here are ten new songs that mine the heart, shake the body and break the boundaries as everybody knows only Leonard can do. ‘Old Ideas’ was produced with Patrick Leonard, Anjani Thomas, Ed Sanders and Dino Soldo. Complementing Cohen’s signature baritone on the album are vocalists Dana Glover, Sharon Robinson, The Webb Sisters (Hattie and Charley Webb) and Jennifer Warnes.
FIRST AID KIT
ON SALE $10.99 CD • LP ALSO AVAILABLE
ON SALE $9.99 CD • LP ALSO AVAILABLE
‘¿Which Side Are You On?’ marks singer/songwriter/ guitarist Ani DiFranco’s first studio album in more than three years and features 11 new songs alongside a radically reworked rendition of the classic title song. Guest players includes Ivan and Cyril Neville, avantsaxophonist Skerik (Pearl Jam, R.E.M., Bonnie Raitt, The Meters), singer/songwriter Anaïs Mitchell, guitarist Adam Levy (Norah Jones,Tracy Chapman, Amos Lee), and a host of New Orleans-based horn players.
THE LION’S ROAR
‘Go Fly A Kite’ marks the triumphant return of Ben Kweller and debut release of his new label, The Noise Company. From beginning to end ‘Go Fly A Kite’ exhibits Kweller’s signature genre-jumping blend of Alt Rock, Piano Ballads and Folk Music. The album is a celebratory offering of the essential Ben Kweller and serves as a career-defining album.
ANI DIFRANCO
BEN KWELLER
ON SALE $12.99 CD • LP ALSO AVAILABLE
ON SALE $11.99 CD • LP ALSO AVAILABLE
¿WHICH SIDE ARE YOU ON? After over eight years of international touring and 1,000+ shows, the Detroit-based Koffin Kats’ new home is on the road. Koffin Kats take the Motor City attitude and mix it into a toxic blend of hair grease, tattoos, and psychobilly punk ‘n’ roll. Now the Koffin Kats have released ‘Our Way & The Highway’ with their rich history, road scars, and outlaw-psycho punk blood running furiously through every ear-ripping track.
KOFFIN KATS
OUR WAY & THE HIGHWAY ON SALE $10.99 CD
OFFER GOOD THRU: 2/29/12
24
First Aid Kit is Swedish sisters Klara and Johanna Soderberg. The first single and title track to their sophomore album, ‘’The Lion’s Roar’’, was recorded with producer Mike Mogis (Bright Eyes, Monsters of Folk, Jenny Lewis) in Omaha, NE. The record sees the band exploring a bigger sound and more instrumentation than on their debut album ‘’The Big Black and the Blue’’, but maintains the signature storytelling and harmonies they have become renowned for.
LEONARD COHEN OLD IDEAS
Willamette Week FEBRUARY 1, 2012 wweek.com
[ELECTRONIC DANCE CATASTROPHE] In writing up Superfresh, it’s tempting just to copy and paste the bullet points from the festival’s summertime equivalent: Superfest. Both “-fest” and “-fresh” are hosted at Branx, organized by party-rock madman Manny Reyes, and offer a cornucopia of ass-shaking tunes both to the under-21 crowd and to those of drinking age (who, just for the record, probably shouldn’t be standing so close to the former group). This third iteration of Superfresh has front-loaded its lineup with a list of party starters more than capable of extending the Supers’ reputation as places conducive to the happening of crazy shit. Wampire, having passed through a period of transition and straight into an age of creative fluorescence, headlines the opening night. Rightfully ascendant indierock sensation Radiation City takes over headlining duties for night two, with the thunder-punk beat wizards of Brainstorm open the second evening. Once again, at 10 bucks combined, the two nights of Superfresh offer more ass shakes per dollar than just about anything
GO FLY A KITE – AVAILABLE 2/7 ‘Bitches’ is a pop-inspired concept album infused with modern jazz and neo-soul. Grammy Award winner Nicholas Payton plays every instrument, composed all the songs, wrote all the lyrics, produced each track, and sings and plays trumpet throughout this record. Guest vocalists include: Cassandra Wilson, Esperanza Spalding, N’dambi, Chinah Blac, and Saunders Sermons.
NICHOLAS PAYTON BITCHES ON SALE $12.99 CD
YA N N I C K G R A N D M O N
ESSENTIAL PHIL SPECTOR
AEROSMITH HARRY BELAFONTE BYRDS JOHNNY CASH ROSANNE CASH JOHN DENVER NEIL DIAMOND BOB DYLAN
Superfresh 3: Wampire, Strategy, Truckasauras, Jonny X and the Groadies, Litanic Mask, Vice Device, Light House, DJ Maxx Bass
ESSENTIAL WILLIE NELSON
PHIL SPECTOR
FRIDAY else you can do this season. And I’m pretty sure I used that last sentence in my write-up for Superfest six months ago, but you know what? Still true. SHANE DANAHER. Branx, 320 SE 2nd Ave., 234-5683. 7 pm. $7 or $10 for both nights. All ages .
The Murder City Devils, P.R.O.B.L.E.M.S., Sassparilla (Dante’s 12th anniversary)
[ROCK] Most Portland venues are wary of being pigeonholed as “rock clubs.” But while Dante’s hosts its share of other genres, the downtown institution will always be a rock club through and through. Maybe it’s the flames on the walls or the tattooed bouncers or the occasional cage-dancing girls, but this place just oozes rock ’n’ roll. So it’s fitting that the club would bring in Seattle’s Murder City Devils to celebrate its 12th birthday. The riffs, the scream-sing vocals—and, yes, the tattoos—rock people love this stuff. The Devils may not have had a proper release in eight years (it’s never entirely clear whether they’re broken up, regrouped or are just playing an endless string of reunion shows), but I can hardly think of a group Dante’s regulars would go more apeshit for. This one’s going to be sweaty, raucous and just plain loud. Which is pretty much how I’d describe Dante’s on a good night. CASEY JARMAN. Dante’s, 350 W Burnside St., 226-6630. 9 pm. $20 advance, $25 day of show. 21+.
The Builders and the Butchers, Quiet Life, Turbo Perfecto
[GALLOWS FOLK] It seems just yesterday that the Builders and the Butchers were filling tiny venues, handing out instruments to eager fans and leading death marches out into the streets. Seven years and four albums (including last year’s solid Dead Reckoning)
PRIMER
CONT. on page 28
BY SHA N E DA N A HER
THEE SILVER MT. ZION MEMORIAL ORCHESTRA Formed: 1999 in Montreal. Sounds like: Orchestral punk epics drawn from sorrow, desolation and unease. For fans of: Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Mogwai, Explosions in the Sky, Mount Eerie, Brian Eno, Philip Glass Latest release: Kollaps Tradixionales, which features two songs over 14 minutes in length, a rare explosion of jagged vocals from group founder Efrim Menuck and songs ranging in structure from three-part suites to straight-up four-on-the-floor rockers. Why you care: The history of Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra is so byzantine as to require book-length exegesis, so in this format, the CliffsNotes version will have to suffice. Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra (hereafter referred to as SMZ, for reasons that will become apparent) was founded in 1999 by Menuck, then guitarist for seminally gauche orchestral collective Godspeed You! Black Emperor. Menuck thought his ideas were a bit too experimental for GY!BE, which is telling, seeing as that band viewed experimentation as its one enduring virtue. Since its formation, SMZ has produced six albums, had 10 lineup changes and at least a half-dozen variations in moniker. At certain points, Menuck and company have also referred to themselves as A Silver Mt. Zion, Thee Silver Mountain Reveries and The Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra & Tra-La-La Band. SMZ’s music is a constantly shifting amalgam of Godspeed’s orchestral mood pieces, post-rock’s supersized epicness and punk’s unrelenting ambition to make dirty things simply for the sake of dirtiness. Frequently eschewing vocals, approachable song lengths, and any attempts at pigeonholing, SMZ has proven to be one of the 21st century’s first and most dedicated outliers. SEE IT: Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra plays Mississippi Studios on Saturday, Feb. 4, with Total Life. 9 pm. $14. 21+.
DOUBLETEE.COM / ROSELANDPDX.COM
THE X TOUR
SATURDAY NITE!
FeB 2nd • roseland • 8pM • all ages
NEXT WEEK!
the
TOMORROW NITE! LIQUID STRANGER LUCKY DATe • Jaden
sat Feb 4th • roseland • 9pm • all ages
JAYHAWKS
ABIGAIL WASHBURN WITH KAI WELCH
Feb 7th • roseland • 8pm • 21+ NEXT WEEK!
VS.
February 7th • dante’s • 9pm • 21+ STEADY MADE MUSIC PRESENTS
STEADY THE BOSS • DJ CHILL
sat feb 18th • roseland • 9PM • all ages
Feb 21st • dante’s • 9pm • 21+
NEXT WEEKEND! Feb 10th • roseland • 8pm • all ages
NEW DATE!
Foxy Shazam Crown Jewel Defence
FeB 23rd • roseland • 8pM • all ages
March 1st • roseland • 8pM • 21+
balkan beat box march 14th • roseland • 9pm • all ages
Hypster • Joe Garston • Evan Alexander FeB 28th • peter’s rooM@roseland • 8pM • all ages
with
Penguin Prison april 11 • roseland • 8pM • all ages
MICHAEL SCHENKER GROUP march 15th • roseland • 8pm • all ages
FrIday Feb 17th • dante’s • 9pm • 21+
THE END IS NEAR TOUR Fri March 2nd • peter’s rooM@roseland • 9pM • all ages
The Dead Meat Tour
STEVE AOKI DATSIK
March 13th • roseland • 8PM • all ages
advance tIckets through all tIcketsWest locatIons, saFeWay, musIc mIllennIum. to charge by phone please call 503.224.8499 Willamette Week FEBRUARY 1, 2012 wweek.com
25
Now ServiNg our o wN Beer At A ll 3 l ocAtioNS!
Mark
Farina (APT, Great Lakes)
Sat. Feb.11th
PortlandWings.com
Mercedes
(All Ours)
Dj
New Fremont location features: full-bar, pizza, garlic knots and calzones. 1708 E. Burnside 503.230.WING (9464)
Big Room Sound & Interactive Lighting
Sappho
*Live Art *Live Silkscreening
(Alga-Rhythms)
Mr.
Wu
(Rythmatix)
Restaurant & Brewery NE 57th at Fremont 503-894-8973
4225 N. Interstate Ave. 503.280.WING (9464) 21+ with ID // Pre-Sales thru EventBrite
m cm enami ns m u s i c
CRYSTAL
THE
M
C
M
E
N
A
M
I
N
S
.
C O
M
836 N RUSSELL • PORTLAND, OR • (503) 282-6810
HOTEL & BALLROOM
The historic
MISSION THEATER
CRYSTAL BALLROOM
1624 N.W. Glisan • Portland 503-223-4527
14th and W. Burnside 97.1 Charlie FM presents
LIVE STAGE & BIG SCREEN!
ANNUAL HER HUMAN RIGHTS CAMPAIGN
FRI FEB 3 21 & OVER
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 1
WORLD’S FINEST FREE
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 2
DANCE PARTY BENEFIT
5:30 p.m. is “eagle time” • free
WILL WEST & TANNER CUNDY
feat. DJ Anjali
KEVIN MARCOTTE BAND FREE
Breakdancing Contest, Silent Auction, Bhangra lessons and dancing
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 3 5:30 p.m. is “eagle time” • free
REVERB BROTHERS
FRI FEB 3 7 p.m. • 21 & over • LOLA’S ROOM
B++ RICH LANDER GABRIEL TREES
FRI FEB 17 21 & OVER
PURLING HISS MON FEB 13 ALL AGES
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 4 5:30 p.m. is “eagle time” • free
THE STUDENT LOAN
Big Head Todd and the Monsters PERFORMING "MIDNIGHT RADIO" IN ITS ENTIRETY special guest
Roger Clyne
“FOOD FOR THOUGHT”-lola’s 2/10 LITTLE HURRICANE-sold out! 2/14 CHALI 2NA-lola’s 2/22 THE FRAY pdx jazz festival: bill frisell 2/25 pdx jazz festival: vijay iyer, prasanna & nittin mitta (3 pm) 2/25 pdx jazz festival: charlie hunter (9:30 pm) 3/2 & 3 RAILROAD EARTH 3/4 march fourth marching band 3/9 JAY FERRAR 3/14 let’s dance for harper 3/15 needtobreathe 3/16 GEORGE CLINTON 3/21 drive-by truckers 3/22 kaiser chiefs 3/23 of montreal 3/24 GALACTIC 3/30 carolina chocolate drops 3/31 dark star orchestra 3/31 jai ho!-lola’s 4/11 gotye-sold out! 4/18 & 19 jeff mangum 4/27 WILD FLAG 5/2 snow patrol 5/25 trampled by turtles 2/9
2/24
DANCEONAIR.COM
DOORS 8pm MUSIC 9pm UNLESS NOTED
KIP LENDIG AND JOHN SHEPSKI (OF WHISTLEPUNK!) THE PITCHFORK REVOLUTION RUBELLA GRAVES SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 5
OPEN MIC/SINGER SONGWRITER SHOWCASE FEATURING PORTLAND’S FINEST TALENT 6:30 P.M. SIGN-UP; 7 P.M. MUSIC· FREE
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 6
SARAH GWEN PETERS MICHAEL JODELL MIKE COYKENDALL MATT BROWN FREE
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 7
FRIENDS AND FAMILY NIGHT BENEFITTING THE SUNSHINE DIVISION ANTS IN THE KITCHEN FREE
MUSIC AT 8:30 P.M. MON-THUR 9:30 P.M. FRI & SAT (UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED)
Friday, February 3, 10, 17, 24 Portlandia (7 & 10pm)
also Friday Night TV Party
Sunday, February 5
Super Bowl XLVI
Saturday, February 11
Miz Kitty’s Parlour
Saturday, February 11
Opera vs. Cinema: Masterclass: The Art of Film Accompaniment
Monday, February 13
History Talk
Tuesday and Wednesday, February 14 & 15
Mortified Portland
AL’S DEn at CRYSTAL
HOTEL
FREE LIVE MUSIC nIghtLy · 7 PM 2/1-4
MARTY MARQUIS
(of Blitzen Trapper)
DJ’S · 10:30 PM 2/2 DJ Anjali & the Incredible Kid 2/3 DJ E3 2/4 DJ Stargazer
2/5-11
KENNY BROWN
CRYSTAL HOTEL & BALLROOM Ballroom: 1332 W. Burnside · (503) 225-0047 · Hotel: 303 S.W. 12th Ave · (503) 972-2670
CASCADE TICKETS 26
cascadetickets.com 1-855-CAS-TIXX
outlets: crystal ballroom box office, bagdad theater, edgefield, east 19th st. café (eugene)
Willamette Week FEBRUARY 1, 2012 wweek.com
Find us on
Wednesday, February 22
OMSI Science Pub
Sunday, February 26
84th Academy Awards
Bookmark this! McMenamins music & events on your mobile
Call our movie hotline to find out what’s playing this week!
(503) 249-7474
Event and movie info at mcmenamins.com/mission
MUSIC
friendly. sounds great. best burger. independent. musician-owned /operated
PA R K E R F I TZG E R A L D
PROFILE
503.288.3895 info@mississippistudios.com 3939 N. Mississippi
all shows 21+ 8pm doors 9pm show (except where noted)
Woodchuck Cider Sweet ‘n Local presents
PAPER/UPPER/CUTS
Finding inspiration in the Delta Blues of the Mississippi, David Jacobs-Strain pulls from the blues of his youth, along with a myriad of influences, from Afro Pop star Salif Keita to John Lennon
GULLS
MICHAEL BRUCE +ANIMAL
STITCHES
WED FEB 1st
$5 Adv
Portland’s own folk chanteuse returns with a remarkable new album, La Grande, out January 24, 2012
DAVID JACOBS-STRAIN JAMES APOLLO +MIKE BROWN & THE SWEET UNKNOWN
7:30 Doors, 8:00 Show
THUR FEB 2nd
$13 Adv
Illustrious experimental rock band hailing from Montreal, Quebec bring us dynamic songs of wonder
LAURA GIBSON THEE SILVER
MT. ZION
BREATHE OWL BREATHE
THE LION AND THE LAMB LAURA GIBSON LEARNS A FEW LESSONS FROM ROCK ‘N’ ROLL...AND BASKETBALL. BY C AS E Y JA R M A N
cjarman@wweek.com
Laura Gibson seemed an unlikely candidate to show a beastly side when she competed in And And And’s basketball tournament last year. The slender, soft-spoken singer-songwriter is known for swaying gently onstage, sporting cowboy boots and cotton dresses. Her best-known song was used in an ad for the Humane Society. But Gibson doesn’t fuck around on the court. “As soon as the game started, I was like ‘Rahhrrr!’” she says of her team’s Rigsketball run. “And it’s funny, because I don’t think a lot of people had seen that side of me. It was fascinating how fast I lost myself to just, like, be in it.” Gibson learned how to play basketball long before she learned how to play music. She was a Red Devil at Coquille High School and a Wildcat during her first year at Linfield College. But confidence on the court didn’t immediately translate to confidence in her music. Before taking the stage for the first time as a Linfield senior, Gibson lost her voice. “I swear it wasn’t a mental thing,” she says now. “But it felt like it.” When she moved to Portland after college, Gibson started following indie music for the first time, but the scene seemed intimidating. Instead of pursuing local labels, she found a creative outlet playing “informal music therapy” for latestage AIDS patients. “I thought that’s what music would be for me,” she says. But when she heard a Hush Records-signed folk-pop act called Norfolk & Western, Gibson felt a deep kinship with the band’s music. She wrote frontman-producer Adam Selzer and asked him to help her record. He agreed. But in the studio, when Selzer asked Gibson for direction, she’d defer back to him. “She knew what she didn’t want,” Selzer says now, “but not so much what she wanted. There was a lot of trial and error on the first record.” “I had no idea that it was possible for me to make production decisions,” Gibson says. “It was far from what I had identified as my skill set.” In the five years since that record came
out, Gibson has vastly improved that skill set. She’s still soft-spoken in concert, but confident enough to lead the crowd in singalongs and crack jokes during the pauses. Her 2009 full-length, the Tucker Martine-produced Beast of Seasons, was a courageous departure that opened with a white noise-filled, 7½-minute opening tune and veered experimental throughout. Gibson’s new disc, La Grande, is a different kind of departure. It finds the singer-songwriter tackling rowdy country tunes, charming sambas and Dixieland-influenced ballads. Her new songs cover love and sex and death and nature. But on songs like “Lion/Lamb,” “The Fire” and “Time is Not,” there’s another theme that comes to the fore—an embrace of the current moment and taking control of one’s own life. “There’s the type of intimacy that’s like sitting next to you and whispering in your ear, and then there’s this type of intimacy where you’re able to feel very free in front of an audience,” Gibson says. “I wanted to enter into this experiment to see if I could end up at the same place of intimacy and sincerity, but to achieve it by being completely uninhibited— and offering that to the listener.” The sentiment is a little more rock ‘n’ roll than what we’re used to from the once-shy Gibson, but it makes for her most engaging, brilliant full-length to date. It also helped her make decisions in the studio. “This time I was like, ‘I’m in charge, I’m the boss,’” Gibson says, laughing as she describes her second go-round with Selzer. The production on La Grande was more collaborative than last time, and Gibson felt freed up to try new things in the studio (vocal effects and horn arrangements pepper the disc). The emergence of a bolder Laura Gibson couldn’t have come at a better time: La Grande is the singer’s first effort for respected indie label Barsuk Records, which sent Gibson on a headlining tour of Europe last month. These days, Gibson doesn’t lose her voice before shows. “It’s not so much that I have learned to appear confident, I just trust the people who are listening a little bit more,” she says. “I think that’s where shows become a little magical, in that letting go.” SEE IT: Laura Gibson plays Mississippi Studios, 3939 N Mississippi Ave., on Friday, Feb. 3, with Breathe Owl Breathe. 9 pm. $12. 21+.
+MIKE MIDLO of Pancake Breakfast
FRI FEB 3rd
$10 Adv
“The Tennessee indie-rock foursome peppers its third album, Wilderness, with keyboards, energetic drum riffs and hand claps to spur along front man Matt Pelham’s plaintive wails. But the important thing is this: The Features can rock.” -Time magazine The
MEMORIAL
ORCHESTRA +TOTAL LIFE
SAT FEB 4th
Affecting pop from an intimate and lyrically captivating performer, with band members from MGMT, Caribou and Be Your Own Pet
ELEANOR
FEATURES
OH DARLING +WE ARE NOT SHADOWS $6 Adv MON FEB 6th A benefit for the Village Free School
HURRY
FRIEDBERGER of the Fiery Furnaces
+DOMINANT LEGS
TUE FEB 7th
THE
ADVENTURE GALLEY +FATHER FIGURE
7:30 Doors, 8:00 Show
$5-10 Sliding Scale
A Sinatra-style crooner who brings the dreamy Rat Pack back to life with classic swing and jazz
Nicky Croon
& THE SWINGIN’ RICHARDS
FRI FEB 10th
$12 Adv
Kzme presents: Portland folk artist whose lo-fi songs reverberate with personal grace
JARAD MILES
DRUTHERS
JENNA ELLEFSON
RECORD RELEASE SHOW
+THE JACKALOPE SAINTS $6 Adv THUR FEB 9th Square Peg Concerts presents: a solo acoustic tour from Matthew Good, hailing from one of Canada’s most successful alt/rock bands
MATTHEW
GOOD +EMILY GREENE
SAT FEB 11th
$17.50 Adv
Sweet, free Valentines show
HOUNDSTOOTH
PURE BATHING CULTURE +THE SOFT HILLS
SOLVENTS +DOGTOOTH
SUN FEB 12th
$10 Adv
Local music chanteuse releases a delightful country and folk inspired album with “In The Morning”
UP
WED FEB 8th
$14 Adv
$5 Adv
TUE FEB 14th
FREE
Coming Soon: 2/16 - ETERNAL TAPESTRY 2/17 - WITCH MOUNTAIN Record Release 2/18 - SCHOOL OF ROCK (early) MRS. w/ DJ BEYONDA (late) 2/19 - NATASHA KMETO 2/21 - AMERICAN ROYALTY 2/22 - NEUTRAL UKE HOTEL 2/23 - CATE LE BON 2/24 - QUASI 2/25 - TEZETA BAND
www.mississippistudios.com Willamette Week FEBRUARY 1, 2012 wweek.com
27
Present that night’s show ticket and get $3 off any menu item Sun - Thur in the dining room
DOUG FIR RESTAURANT + BAR OPEN 7AM - 2:30AM EVERYDAY SERVING BREAKFAST, LUNCH, DINNER, LATE-NIGHT. FOOD SPECIALS 3-6 PM EVERYDAY COVERED SMOKING PATIO, FIREPLACE ROOM, LOTS OF LOG. LIVE SHOWS IN THE LOUNGE...
ELEGANTLY ATMOSPHERIC BALLADRY FROM DENMARK
THURSDAY!
TEITUR
+AUNT MARTHA
Doors at 7pm, Show at 8pm - EARLY SHOW! $12 ADVANCE
THURSDAY FEBRUARY 2 •
AN ALBUM RELEASE EXTRAVAGANZA WITH PDX BUZZ-BUILDERS
LOST LANDER SATURDAY!
FIRST NIGHT OF MONTHLY SERIES OF ROVING R&B/SOUL DANCE PARTIES CURATED BY
DJ COOKY
FRIDAY!
PARKER
+DJ BEYONDA
FRIDAY FEBRUARY 3 •
$5 ADVANCE
INDIE DREAM POP FROM LONG ISLAND
TWIN
SISTER AVA LUNA
+PURE BATHING CULTURE
YOURS
+HOUNDSTOOTH
SATURDAY FEBRUARY 4 •
MONDAY FEBRUARY 6 •
$10 ADVANCE
$8 ADVANCE A LOG LOVE EVENING OF UNIQUE PDX TALENTS
TWO NIGHT EXTRAVAGANZA WITH WELSH INDIE ROCKERS
WAX
FINGERS SUN ANGLE +GLASS KNEES
LOS CAMPESINOS! +PARENTHETICAL GIRLS
TUESDAY FEBRUARY 7 & WEDNESDAY FEBRUARY 8 • $14 ADVANCE
THURSDAY FEBRUARY 9 •
$6 ADVANCE
AN ALBUM RELEASE CELEBRATION FEAT. MEMBERS OF WEINLAND, M. WARD AND NORFOLK & WESTERN
ALIALUJAH
CHOIR RYAN SOLLEE
MIKE COYKENDALL
& CARLOS FORSTER DUO
+SHELLEY SHORT
SATURDAY FEBRUARY 11 •
$10 ADVANCE
AN EVENING OF INDIE-FOLK FROM 3 RISING TALENTS
FRIDAY FERUARY 10 •
CHRISTOPHER
$14 ADVANCE
MARSHALL
IN MUSIC WE TRUST PRESENTS
PINEHURST KIDS
& THE AUGUST LIGHT
EZZA ROSE
+PATTI KING
WEDNESDAY FERUARY 15 • BLOOD OWL +DEAD REMEDY
SUNDAY FEBRUARY 12 •
$5 AT THE DOOR
$6 ADVANCE
A NIGHT OF HIGH ENERGY BOOTY SHAKING
YOGOMAN BURNING BAND
THREE INTIMATE NIGHTS OF EPIC INDIE-ROCK FROM THE LBC
COLD WAR KIDS VTRN
+LARRY YES
THURSDAY FEBRUARY 16 •
+SUPERHUMANOIDS
SUNDAY FERUARY 26 MONDAY FERUARY 27 & TUESDAY FERUARY 28 •
$20 ADVANCE
$8 ADVANCE
VETIVER - 3/18 OF MONSTERS AND MEN - 3/24 AMY RAY - 3/27 EMANCIPATOR - 3/30 TENNIS - 4/28 GREAT LAKE SWIMMERS - 5/14
All of these shows on sale at Ticketfly.com
AND AND AND 2/18 •SEE A LITTLE LIGHT WITH BOB MOULD 2/19 THE FRESH & ONLYS 2/20 • JENNY OWEN YOUNGS 2/21 • VERONICA FALLS 2/22 CRAIG FINN 2/23 • NO KIND OF RIDER 2/24 • HOWLIN’ RAIN 2/25 ADVANCE TICKETS AT TICKETFLY - www.ticketfly.com and JACKPOT RECORDS • SUBJECT TO SERVICE CHARGE &/OR USER FEE ALL SHOWS: 8PM DOORS / 9PM SHOW • 21+ UNLESS NOTED • BOX OFFICE OPENS 1/2 HOUR BEFORE DOORS • ROOM PACKAGES AVAILABLE AT www.jupiterhotel.com
28
Willamette Week FEBRUARY 1, 2012 wweek.com
MUSIC
FRIDAY-SATURDAY
later, the macabre folk outfit has gained an international touring base. But it’s hometown shows like this Hawthorne Theatre gig that demonstrate how our love affair started. The band isn’t just a quintet—its ranks swell with each audience member in attendance. In larger venues, the music remains powerful, but some magic is lost in the ether. At a smaller venue such at the recently remodeled Hawthorne— whose grand reopening party the Butchers kick off tonight—we’re all marching to the gallows together. AP KRYZA. Hawthorne Theatre, 3862 SE Hawthorne Blvd., 233-7100. 8 pm. $13 advance, $15 day of show. 21+.
PROFILE COURTESY OF NEAL MORGAN
MAKE IT A NIGHT
Megaton Leviathan, Winter in the Blood, Cult of Zir, Barrowlands
[METALGAZE] Except when it comes to sex and money, less is more. That being the case, Cascadian flag waver Megaton Leviathan has come to terms with being a duo after many fitful attempts at expanded lineups. Simple and elegant, there’s a sublimity in its shoegazing darkness that should interest fans of Jesu, Nadja and last year’s Megaton tourmates Wolves in the Throne Room. Main support act Winter in the Blood plays a more muscular form of blasting, hedonistic black metal, perfect for those rainy, bone-chilling February nights. NATHAN CARSON. Plan B, 1305 SE 8th Ave., 230-9020. 8 pm. $6. 21+.
The Bender: Trashies, Top Ten, Unnatural Helpers, Stan McMahon, Denizenz, TacocaT, Hot Stuff Magazine, Needful Longings, Arctic Flowers, Billions & Billions, MOM
See Saturday listing. Slabtown, 1033 NW 16th Ave., 223-0099. 5 pm. $10.
SATURDAY, FEB. 4 The Liv Warfield Experience
[RENEGADE SOUL] I’ve seen Liv Warfield perform twice in the last couple of months: The first time she was singing backup and dancing with Prince, and she obviously killed it (because Prince just cuts you from his band if you don’t kill it). But the second time was on her own, at Warfield’s Doug Fir homecoming party in December, and I’ve got to say, the Portland R&B queen was greatly impressive there, too. Between tackling reworked favorites from her fine 2007 album, Embrace Me, and trying out more adventurous new material (epic guitar solos abound and there is synchronized dancing), Warfield showed a combination of mammoth stage presence and the rare ability to converse with the audience as if it were filled with family and friends. Of course, there were a lot of family and friends in attendance that night—this show at the larger and more formal Alberta Rose Theatre should present yet another side of this city’s finest diva. Expect big things. CASEY JARMAN. Alberta Rose Theatre, 3000 NE Alberta St., 719-6055. 8 pm. $10. 21+.
Superfresh 3: Radiation City, Brainstorm, Operative, Tunnels, $kull$, Toning, Bruxa, DJ Linoleum
See Friday’s listing. Branx, 320 SE 2nd Ave., 234-5683. 7 pm. $7 or $10 for both nights. All ages .
Lagos Roots Afrobeat Ensemble, Euforquestra
[AFROBEAT] The Pacific Northwest seems poised for a 1970s-style Afrobeat resurgence, with local groups from Jujuba and Dusu Mali Band to national and international orchestras packing local venues. So how do you sort the good from the suburban hippie imitators? Well, any band boasting 15 members, some of whom played with godfathers Fela Kuti and Sonny Okosun, is a safe bet. Berkeley’s Nigerian army Lagos Roots Afrobeat Ensemble is
CONT. on page 30
NEAL MORGAN SUNDAY, FEB. 5 All Neal Morgan wants to do is play drums and sing. Good thing he sounds amazing doing just that.
[DRUM-’N’-VOICE] When Neal Morgan walks into Stepping Stone Cafe for our interview, his body freezes and his face tightens with puzzlement. Then he points a finger into the air and his face loosens into a knowing smile. Smog’s “A River Ain’t Too Much to Love” is playing through the overhead speakers. For the past few years, Morgan has been playing these songs alongside Smog’s Bill Callahan, perhaps the most critically adored songwriter of his generation. Pretty artsy stuff for a guy with a business degree. “My dad suggested it,” Morgan says of studying at UC Berkeley. “He said, hey, if you’re going to be an artist, you might as well study business. I thought that made sense. But, oh man, what a waste of time.” It’s hard to imagine Morgan—unkempt and contented, he speaks in circular sentences that hint at his upbringing in weed country—in a suit and tie, but he did take a crack at the nine-to-five world, working his way up the ladder at San Francisco’s Museum of Modern Art. “[My bosses] were so supportive of me having [visual art] as my career,” he says now. “But somewhere around 2004 or 2005 I realized that what I was doing was 10 percent drumming and 90 percent other things, and I wanted to flip that around.” That’s when Morgan moved home to Nevada City, Calif.—“there are no basements in San Francisco,” he says—and teamed up with childhood friend Joanna Newsom, the child-voiced singersongwriter who was already making a name for herself in indie music. He has been her drummer ever since, and that role led to one with Callahan. He calls both gigs “extremely rewarding,” but touring and recording in a supporting role doesn’t entirely scratch Morgan’s creative itch. “I love drumming, I love singing, and that’s it,” says Morgan, who moved to Portland in 2008. Early incarnations of his solo project involved making four-track recordings with guitar and piano, but none of it felt quite right. “It took me a while to figure out that I could do only what I love doing and make art that way.” The recently released In the Yard is Neal Morgan’s second record made exclusively with drums and vocals. Upon listening, though, one rarely notices the limitations. Sometimes, as on “Father’s Day” and “The Evidence,” Morgan’s sharp, engaging singing voice tumbles over itself to create an orchestra of voices backed by tribal percussion; on other tracks, he speak-sings descriptive passages from tour journals, with tweets and train whistles off in the distance. The tapestry of sound Morgan can create seems limitless; lo-fi production techniques (overdriven drums, tinny backing voices captured by a laptop microphone) effectively become extra instrumentation. For Morgan, performing these songs—written on instinct, as he has no formal musical training—alone onstage with his drum kit is an entirely different exercise than backing a singer-songwriter. But the jarringly intimate shows may be more intense for audiences than they are for Morgan, who was born without the nervous gene. “It seems like it would get dangerous, artistically, if you started thinking of whether it was good or bad,” he says, as if contemplating his audience’s opinion for the first time. “I would assume that those are thoughts that create nervousness.” CASEY JARMAN. SEE IT: Neal Morgan plays Holocene, 1001 SE Morrison St., on Sunday, Feb. 5, with White Hinterland, Marisa Anderson, Pwrhaus and Sean Pecknold. 8 pm. $5. 21+.
Willamette Week FEBRUARY 1, 2012 wweek.com
29
MUSIC
SATURDAY-SUNDAY
a genuine thrill, a frantic, polyrhythmic explosion of all things kinetic and funky, at once paying homage to the genre’s heyday and moving it forward, one booty at a time. AP KRYZA. Goodfoot Lounge, 2845 SE Stark St., 503-239-9292. 9 pm. $12. 21+.
The Bender: Wreckless Eric, Head, Chuck Chuck and the Chuckleberries, Guantanamo Baywatch, Tripwires, The Courtney Crusher Band, Primitive Hearts, Polaroids, Pity Fucks, White Fang (5 pm); The Cry!, Di Di Mau, Boom, Queued Up, Flash Flood & the Dikes (noon)
BOOKS, LECTURES AND MORE!
PAGE 38
[PUNK/GARAGE/LOUD] Most of Portland’s best punk bands are playing this year’s Slabtown Bender, a three-day fest dedicated to punk rock and all of its tentacles. Bands like Arctic Flowers, the Pity Fucks and Autistic Youth just shouldn’t be missed. National acts like punk rock all-star group Kid Congo and the Pink Monkey Birds (which features members of Gun Club, the Cramps and the Bad Seeds) or San Francisco’s Trashies are great draws, too. But there’s a legend walking among all these punk rock outfits, and it’s Wreckless Eric, the snarling Stiff Records mainstay who wrote a number of great anthems (“Walking on the Surface of the Moon” and “A Pop Song” among them). Of course, when you write one of greatest love songs of all time, people tend to focus on that. Wreckless Eric’s crusty and brilliantly naive “The Whole Wide World” is that song. There are rumors flying of a local allstar band backing Eric tonight, but no matter how you cut it, this should be a special day for Slabtown made all the more special because today is Slabtown owner Brinda Coleman’s wedding day. Congrats, Brinda! CASEY JARMAN. Slabtown, 1033 NW 16th Ave., 223-0099. Noon (free matinee), 5 pm (main show). $10 daily/$25 weekend pass. 21+.
Alda, Hallow, Chasma, DJ Nate C
[TEVA METAL] As befits a band that cites “the Cascadian bioregion” as an interest, Tacoma’s Alda rides Agalloch’s southerly gusts into black metal’s arboreal realm, where epic song lengths allow for dour ambles into folky swamps and blinding fogs. It’s the kind of stuff the Northwest metal scene is now somewhat famous for—I’m thinking of a rather rustic Throne Room as well—and Alda is an especially adept transducer of epic geography into soaring sound. Last year’s Tahoma cassette is a glorious primordial artifact, a brutal and pretty thing that could very well have been discovered in a million-year-old mud puddle at some volcano’s base. The vibes, they are good here. CHRIS STAMM. The Know, 2026 NE Alberta St., 473-8729. 8 pm. Cover. 21+.
SUNDAY, FEB. 5 My Autumn’s Done Come, No Kind of Rider
[BRIDGE CITY SOUL] My Autumn’s Done Come gave the Burnside, Fremont and Broadway bridges more than enthusiastic shout-outs on its late 2011 full-length album, Paper Flowers (three out of nine songs on the album were named after the structures). The jangling, carefree bunch trickled into Portland from Eugene a few years ago, and four out of five of them spent time playing together before the move. Once everyone was nice, comfy and relocated, they started MADC, a classic Portland band with boy-girl duets, loud flashes of pop, plenty of repetition and lo-fi guitar riffs. Playing alongside the outfit tonight is No Kind of Rider, a moody, altrock outfit with a chaotic straitjacket sound that’s quite the contrary. NIKKI VOLPICELLI. Rontoms, 600 E Burnside St., 236-4536. 9 pm. Free. 21+.
CONT. on page 34 30
Willamette Week FEBRUARY 1, 2012 wweek.com
ALBUM REVIEWS
THE SENTIMENTS SELF-TITLED EP (SIMMERDOWN PRODUCTIONS) [SKA] People hate what they don’t understand. That would explain why ska—a genre Frankensteined into all sorts of obnoxious incarnations in the mid- to late-’90s “third wave” boom years—was, until dubstep came along, the genre American music fans and critics just loved to hate. But for those who never fell out of love with the genre—like the Sentiments’ Matthew Griffin, who has hosted his Rude Boy’s Revenge & Coffee Hour radio show on KPSU for over 17 years—the Jamaican groove still moves. Enter Griffin’s band, the Sentiments. The Portland group focuses on the roots, playing R&B classics and traditional ska tunes with a decidedly soulful bent. The band doesn’t try to replicate the sound of a crackling old 45 and frontwoman Erin Wallace doesn’t have a Jamaican accent, but everything else about this music comes from a deep appreciation of roots reggae and original ska. Opener “Love Me” lays smooth horns over a mellow groove and sharp blasts of Hammond organ, but Wallace’s crystal-clear voice is in the driver’s seat, dictating the Sam Cooke cover’s languishing pace. The song almost feels too clean for its subject matter, though, if only in contrast with its Jamaican counterparts. The other songs on the EP—all of them old-school covers—do a better job of blending Wallace’s vocals into the mix, especially the band’s bouncy take on Jackie Opel’s “Turn Your Lamp Down Low” and its quite brilliant version of the Skatalites’ “What a Day,” which all but demands a spring-loaded dance floor. The Sentiments are one of a handful of great ska acts attempting to clean the residue from some of the ’90s’ silliest acts out of listeners’ ears, and this EP serves as a sort of exploratory expedition into establishing a new ska colony in the Northwest. Question is, can any band get young folks skanking again, or is contemporary American ska destined to serve as nostalgia for a lost generation? CASEY JARMAN.
THE GOLDEN BEARS WRITE IT LIKE YOU FIND IT
(JEALOUS BUTCHER)
[POP OUT OF PLACE] In a strange way, the cover of the Golden Bears’ second album resembles that of Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours. Hear me out. Like Rumours, the art for Write It Like You Find It features two humanoid figures—a female and a male, presumably— against a white background, one positioned lower than the other. Swap the genders, invert the picture, replace Mick Fleetwood and Stevie Nicks with an illustration of a rabbit in a blue suit and a woman wearing a bird mask, and it’s practically the same image. All right, maybe that’s a stretch. Still, with Write It, the married duo of singer-drummer Julianna Bright and multi-instrumentalist Seth Lorinczi—the latter a member of the Corin Tucker Band— have made a record of “classic” quality. Write It could have shared shelf space with Rumours in the late ’70s; or, in its more pastoral moments, with Fairport Convention’s Unhalfbricking in 1969. Which isn’t to say it’s “retro” in the fetishistic sense, just that Bright and Lorinczi are mature enough as songwriters to make an album that stands outside its own time. Write It mostly comprises piano ballads (“How Good”), gentle folk songs (“Wine and Want”) and a few loose-limbed rave-ups (“Do You See It”), but its best tracks are the mid-tempo rockers: “Lightning,” driven by tumble-down drums and “Misty Mountain Hop”-style Rhodes keyboard; the slow-burning march of “The Rushes,” which builds to an explosive coda. It’s a very adult album— Bright and Lorinczi are parents in addition to being musicians and husband and wife, and the whimsical “All the Birds” is a lullaby for their child—but there’s a young heart beneath its grown-up veneer. “And rock and roll, am I not your loyal sinner?” Bright sings in her strong, sagelike voice on the come-hither “Wine and Want.” “Your faithful child, your eternal beginner?” MATTHEW SINGER. SEE IT: The Sentiments play Plan B, 1305 SE 8th Ave., 230-9020, on Thursday, Feb. 2, with the Toasters. 8 pm. $10. 21+. The Golden Bears play Bunk Bar, 1028 SE Water Ave., on Tuesday, Feb. 7, with 1939 Ensemble. 10 pm. $3. 21+.
MUSIC CALENDAR Gypsy Jazz Jam
= WW Pick. Highly recommended. 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. For more listings, check out wweek.com.
WED. FEB. 1 Al’s Den at the Crystal Hotel
303 SW 12th Ave. Marty Marquis (of Blitzen Trapper), Evan Way (of the Parson Red Heads)
Alberta Street Public House 1036 NE Alberta St. Open Mic
Andina
1314 NW Glisan St. Toshi Onizuka
Ash Street Saloon
225 SW Ash St. Crooked Toad, The Hinge, The Warshers, Cement Season
Biddy McGraw’s
6000 NE Glisan St. Half-Step Shy
Buffalo Gap Saloon
6835 SW Macadam Ave. Sam Densmore
Camellia Lounge
510 NW 11th Ave. Open Jazz Jam with Errick Lewis and the Regiment House Band
Dante’s
350 W Burnside St. Couch, AM Interstate
Duff’s Garage
1635 SE 7th Ave. Suburban Slim’s Blues Jam
Ella Street Social Club 714 SW 20th Place Sioux Falls, The Steven Lasombras, Threadbear
Goodfoot Lounge
2845 SE Stark St. Pocket, Trio Subtonic
Ivories Jazz Lounge and Restaurant
1435 NW Flanders St. Farnell Newton: The Music of Wayne Shorter
Jade Lounge
2346 SE Ankeny St. Hazel Rickard
Jimmy Mak’s
221 NW 10th Ave. Peter White with The Patrick Lamb Band
Kells
112 SW 2nd Ave. David Ross
Kelly’s Olympian
426 SW Washington St. Eggplant, Magic Hans, The Crenshaw
LaurelThirst
2958 NE Glisan St.
[FEB. 1 - 7]
Poor Boy’s Soul, All Seeing Eye Dog Band (9 pm); Casey Neill & The Norway Rats (6 pm)
Lents Commons
9201 SE Foster Road Open Mic
McMenamins Edgefield Winery 2126 SW Halsey St., Troutdale John Henry
McMenamins Rock Creek Tavern
10000 Old Cornelius Pass Road, Hillsboro Billy D
Mississippi Studios
3939 N Mississippi Ave. Paper/Upper/Cuts, Gulls, Michael Bruce, Animal Stitches
Muddy Rudder Public House 8105 SE 7th Ave. Sleepy Eyed Johns
Palace of Industry
5426 N Gay Ave. Flat Rock String Band
Plan B
1305 SE 8th Ave. Brain Capital, Bath Party, The Happening
Roseland Theater
Someday Lounge
125 NW 5th Ave. Andrews Ave., Animal Eyes, The Ecology
Sundown Pub
5903 N Lombard St. Busfolk, Profane Sass, Migi Artugue
The Blue Diamond
2016 NE Sandy Blvd. The Fenix Project Blues Jam
The Grand Cafe
832 SE Grand Ave. Thief Sicario, Mz Lala
The Know
2026 NE Alberta St. The Woollen Kits, The Woolen Men, Zotz
The Old Church
1422 SW 11th Ave. Ronn McFarlane
Thirsty Lion
71 SW 2nd Ave. Ground Control
Touché Restaurant and Billiards 1425 NW Glisan St. Nancy King with Steve Christofferson
Vie de Boheme 1530 SE 7th Ave.
836 N Russell St. World’s Finest
Wilfs Restaurant & Bar 800 NW 6th Ave. Ron Steen Trio
THURS. FEB. 2 Al’s Den at the Crystal Hotel
303 SW 12th Ave. Marty Marquis (of Blitzen Trapper), Heartwarmer, Birger Olsen
Aladdin Theater
3017 SE Milwaukie Ave. Soul Salvation
Andina
1314 NW Glisan St. Tracy Kim Trio
Andrea’s Cha Cha Club 832 SE Grand Ave. Pilon D’Azucar Salsa Band
Ash Street Saloon
225 SW Ash St. The Johnson Creek Stranglers, The Cheatin’ Hearts
Biddy McGraw’s
6000 NE Glisan St. John Ross
Branx
320 SE 2nd Ave. Scale the Summit, Elitist, Day of Days, Sisyphean Conscience
Brasserie Montmartre 626 SW Park Ave. John “JB” Butler & Al Craido
Camellia Lounge 510 NW 11th Ave. Roxi Copland
Clyde’s Prime Rib
5474 NE Sandy Blvd. Mesi & Bradley
Crystal Ballroom
1332 W Burnside St. Portland Opera to Go: Hansel & Gretel
Doug Fir Lounge
830 E Burnside St. Teitur, Aunt Martha
Duff’s Garage
1635 SE 7th Ave. Guy Davis, Lauren Sheehan
East End
203 SE Grand Ave. Sistafist, Magic Mouth, Boys on the Storm
Ella Street Social Club
714 SW 20th Place Charts, My Life As a Dog, Ugly Flowers
Ford Food and Drink 2505 SE 11th Ave. Kathryn Claire
Goodfoot Lounge 2845 SE Stark St. Philly’s Phunkestra, Tapwater
Holocene
1001 SE Morrison St. Weinland, Gideon Freudmann, St. Even
Ivories Jazz Lounge and Restaurant 1435 NW Flanders St. Jim Templeton & Mike Snyder (8:30 pm); Kit Taylor (5:30 pm)
Jade Lounge
2346 SE Ankeny St.
Chris Juhlin
Jimmy Mak’s
221 NW 10th Ave. The Mel Brown B3 Organ Group
Kells
112 SW 2nd Ave. David Ross
Tony Starlight’s
3728 NE Sandy Blvd. Sing for Your Supperclub with the All-Star Horns
Twilight Café and Bar 1420 SE Powell Blvd. Ali, Brothers and Band
Vie de Boheme
Kelly’s Olympian
1530 SE 7th Ave. The Rob Scheps Big Band with Greg Gisbert
Kenton Club
Vino Vixens Wine Shop & Bar
426 SW Washington St. The Ol’ Devils 2025 N Kilpatrick St. Zodiac Death Valley, White Fang, Not Right Now
LaurelThirst
2958 NE Glisan St. Brown Chicken Brown Cow Stringband (9:30 pm); Lewi Longmire Band (6 pm)
2929 SE Powell Blvd. Amy Bleu
White Eagle Saloon
836 N Russell St. Kevin Marcotte Band (8:30 pm); Will West & Tanner Cundy (5:30 pm)
Wilfs Restaurant & Bar
McMenamins Edgefield Winery
800 NW 6th Ave. Mike Horsfall, Karla Harris, Todd Strait
McMenamins Rock Creek Tavern
Al’s Den at the Crystal Hotel
2126 SW Halsey St., Troutdale Steve Lockwood
10000 Old Cornelius Pass Road, Hillsboro Lynn Conover & Gravel
Mississippi Pizza
3552 N Mississippi Ave. Nombres Sin Hombres (9 pm); Lost Creek Bluegrass Band (6 pm)
Mississippi Studios
3939 N Mississippi Ave. David Jacobs-Strain, James Apollo & The Sweet Unknown, Mike Brown
FRI. FEB. 3 303 SW 12th Ave. Marty Marquis (of Blitzen Trapper), Thousands, Tom Bevitori
Aladdin Theater
3017 SE Milwaukie Ave. The Wood Brothers, Sarah and Christian Dugas
Alberta Rose Theatre
3000 NE Alberta St. Alice Di Micele, Jeff Pevar, Damian Erskine
Mock Crest Tavern
Alberta Street Public House
Mount Tabor Theater
Andina
3435 N Lombard St. GodScience
4811 SE Hawthorne Blvd. Boondox, Cousin Cleetus, Amerakin Overdose (main stage); Cats Under the Stars (Jerry Garcia Band tribute, Sideshow Lounge)
LAUREN DUKOFF
8 NW 6th Ave.
In Flames, Trivium, Veil Of Maya, Kyng
White Eagle Saloon
Music Millennium
3158 E Burnside St. Laura Gibson
Original Halibut’s II 2527 NE Alberta St. Terry Robb
Plan B
1305 SE 8th Ave. The Toasters, Georgetown Orbits, The Sentiments, CBK
Red Room
2530 NE 82nd Ave. Boston Rex, Sindicate, Part One Tribe, Fredrick Douglas and the Dub Stepping Stones
Roseland Theater 8 NW 6th Ave. O.A.R., Parachute
Sellwood Public House 8132 SE 13th Ave. Open Mic
Spare Room
4830 NE 42nd Ave. Sam Densmore
Star Bar
639 SE Morrison St. Youthbitch, DJ Jonny Cakes
The Blue Diamond
2016 NE Sandy Blvd. Tom Grant Jazz Jam
The Blue Monk
3341 SE Belmont St. Alan Jones Jam
The Crown Room 205 NW 4th Ave. Versus, Treyzilla
Thirsty Lion
71 SW 2nd Ave. Hair Assault
Tonic Lounge
3100 NE Sandy Blvd. Dead Remedy
1036 NE Alberta St. MIkey’s Irish Jam 1314 NW Glisan St. John Butler Trio
Ash Street Saloon
225 SW Ash St. Marca Luna, Shouter, Opie, Tinzen
Ava Roasteria-Beaverton
4655 SW Hall Blvd., Beaverton Jessie Rae
Beaterville Cafe
2201 N Killingsworth St. Lorna B. & The B. Band
Biddy McGraw’s
6000 NE Glisan St. Billy Kennedy
Branx
320 SE 2nd Ave. Superfresh 3: Wampire, Strategy, Truckasauras, Jonny X and the Groadies, Litanic Mask, Vice Device, Light House, DJ Maxx Bass
Brasserie Montmartre 626 SW Park Ave. George Colligan Trio (9 pm); Tablao (5:30 pm)
Buffalo Gap Saloon
6835 SW Macadam Ave. Dreaming in Colors
Camellia Lounge
510 NW 11th Ave. Andre St. James Trio
Clyde’s Prime Rib
5474 NE Sandy Blvd. Muthaship
Dante’s
350 W Burnside St. The Murder City Devils, P.R.O.B.L.E.M.S., Sassparilla (Dante’s 12th anniversary)
Duff’s Garage
1635 SE 7th Ave. The Lonesomes, Los Olvidados
Ford Food and Drink 2505 SE 11th Ave.
CONT. on page 32
THE WORLD’S A DRESS: Dengue Fever plays Dante’s on Tuesday. Willamette Week FEBRUARY 1, 2012 wweek.com
31
MUSIC
CALENDAR
BAR SPOTLIGHT
Tony Starlight’s
ROSNAPS.COM
3728 NE Sandy Blvd. Signatures
Touché Restaurant and Billiards 1425 NW Glisan St. Bobby Torres Trio
Twilight Café and Bar 1420 SE Powell Blvd. DaBerryBrothers
Vie de Boheme 1530 SE 7th Ave. Pete Petersen
Vino Vixens Wine Shop & Bar 2929 SE Powell Blvd. Rich Layton and the Troublemakers
White Eagle Saloon
836 N Russell St. Gabriel Trees, Rich Lander, B++ (9:30 pm); Reverb Brothers (5:30 pm)
FISH AND SPACESHIPS: For those of you who don’t have BBC America, Doctor Who is a long-running TV show about a timetraveling alien. So if you fancy some sci-fi geekery and a chance to get off with some authentic fish and chips, pay a visit to the TARDIS Room bar at The Fish & Chip Shop (1218 N Killingsworth St., thefishandchipshop.com). Owner Mick Shillingford recently cleaned out the back of the restaurant and drenched the walls with black paint. The space now includes a revamped bar and billiards room. On the walls is various Doctor Who paraphernalia—a poster of K-9, a cutout of actor David Tennant—that will come in handy when the Whovians arrive to play trivia. If you’re looking for a TARDIS—the ’60s British police box that concealed Doctor Who’s time machine—that’s here, too. But it won’t take you to the future, just to the loo. AARON SPENCER.
Strange Language (8 pm); Darlin’ Blackbirds (5 pm)
Glenn & Viola Walters Cultural Arts Center 527 E Main St., Hillsboro Mitsuki Dazai with Joe Powers
Ground Kontrol
511 NW Couch St. DJ Epor
Hawthorne Theatre Lounge 1503 SE 39th Ave. Wendy and The Lost Boys
Hawthorne Theatre
3862 SE Hawthorne Blvd. The Builders and the Butchers, Quiet Life, Turbo Perfecto
Ivories Jazz Lounge and Restaurant
1435 NW Flanders St. Gary Hobbs Trio (8:30 pm); Kerry Politzer (5:30 pm)
Jade Lounge
2346 SE Ankeny St. The Darlin’ Blackbirds (8 pm); Jason Beem (6 pm)
Jimmy Mak’s
221 NW 10th Ave. The Eddie Martinez Band
Katie O’ Brien’s
2809 NE Sandy Blvd. The Food, Pitchfork Motorway, Thundering Asteroids, The Anxieties
Kells
112 SW 2nd Ave. Pass the Whiskey
Kelly’s Olympian
426 SW Washington St. Fanno Creek, Tiger House, Pheasant
Kenton Club
2025 N Kilpatrick St. The Correspondents, Lord Master, Marc and the Horse Jerks, The Chair Project
LaurelThirst
2958 NE Glisan St. Lewi Longmire Band, Meridian (9:30 pm); James Low Western Front (6 pm)
32
McMenamins Edgefield Winery 2126 SW Halsey St., Troutdale Richard Cranium & the Phoreheads with Margaret
McMenamins Rock Creek Tavern
10000 Old Cornelius Pass Road, Hillsboro Jon Koonce & One More Mile
Mississippi Pizza
3552 N Mississippi Ave. Redray Frazier, The My Oh My’s (9 pm); Jenny Sizzler (6 pm)
Mississippi Studios
3939 N Mississippi Ave. Laura Gibson, Breathe Owl Breathe, Mike Midlo
Mock Crest Tavern 3435 N Lombard St. Joe McMurrian
Mount Tabor Theater
Press Club
2621 SE Clinton St. Lara Michelle and Lisa Stringfield
Red Room
2530 NE 82nd Ave. Stolen Rose, From Smoke, Ergot, Onoe
Secret Society Lounge 116 NE Russell St. Get Rhythm (9 pm); Swing Papillon (6 pm)
Slabtown
1033 NW 16th Ave. The Bender: Trashies, Top Ten, Unnatural Helpers, Stan McMahon, Denizenz, TacocaT, Hot Stuff Magazine, Needful Longings, Arctic Flowers, Billions & Billions, MOM
Someday Lounge
125 NW 5th Ave. Glassbones, Crown Point, A Happy Death, Justin Klump
4811 SE Hawthorne Blvd. Mother Hips, The True Spokes, Jimmy and Kenny Duo
Spare Room
Muddy Rudder Public House 8105 SE 7th Ave. Jerry Zybach
231 SW Ankeny St. Marty Dread, Alcyon Massive (Bob Marley tribute)
Music Millennium
The Blue Diamond
4830 NE 42nd Ave. Papa Dynamite
Ted’s (at Berbati’s)
Wilfs Restaurant & Bar 800 NW 6th Ave. Richard Arnold & Groove Swingers
SAT. FEB. 4 15th Avenue Hophouse 1517 NE Brazee St. Switchgrass
Al’s Den at the Crystal Hotel
303 SW 12th Ave. Marty Marquis (of Blitzen Trapper), John Totten, Mike Coykendall
Aladdin Theater
3017 SE Milwaukie Ave. Winterfolk: Tracy Grammer, Kate Power and Steve Einhorn, Donna Lynn and Terry Davis, Brooks Robertson, Tom May Trio, Lauren Sheehan, Peter Yeates, Mike Beglen and Bob Soper (Sisters of the Road benefit)
Alberta Rose Theatre 3000 NE Alberta St. The Liv Warfield Experience
Alberta Street Public House
1036 NE Alberta St. Emily Otteson (9:30 pm); Beltaine (6:30 pm)
Andina
1314 NW Glisan St. Borikuas
Ash Street Saloon 225 SW Ash St. Sean Vocab Harvey, Kandy Kane, Zito, J. Burns, The Team
Beaterville Cafe
2201 N Killingsworth St. Style
Biddy McGraw’s
6000 NE Glisan St. The Barkers
Branx
320 SE 2nd Ave. Superfresh 3: Radiation City, Brainstorm, Operative, Tunnels, $kull$, Toning, Bruxa, DJ Linoleum
Brasserie Montmartre
2016 NE Sandy Blvd. Terry Robb
626 SW Park Ave. Djangophiles (9 pm); Tablao (5:30 pm)
Nel Centro
The Blue Monk
Buffalo Gap Saloon
Noho’s Hawaiian Cafe
The Know
Camellia Lounge
3158 E Burnside St. River Project 1408 SW 6th Ave. Dave Captein 4627 NE Fremont St. Traditional Hawaiian Music
Noho’s Hawaiian Cafe 4627 NE Fremont St. Hawaiian Music
Oregon Stamp Society Building 4828 NE 33rd Ave. Dick Hensold
Original Halibut’s II 2527 NE Alberta St. Lloyd Allen
Plan B
1305 SE 8th Ave. Megaton Leviathan, Winter in the Blood, Cult of Zir, Barrowlands
Willamette Week FEBRUARY 1, 2012 wweek.com
3341 SE Belmont St. Devin Phillips Band 2026 NE Alberta St. Rolling Through the Universe, The Hand That Bleeds, Foal
The Lovecraft
421 SE Grand Ave. Tess Records Showcase
Thirsty Lion
71 SW 2nd Ave. Brian Odell, DJ Soulshaker
Tiger Bar
317 NW Broadway Charming Birds, Objects in Space, Wizard Boots
Tonic Lounge
3100 NE Sandy Blvd. Distracked, Swamp Surfer, Shot of Mercury
6835 SW Macadam Ave. The Ken Hanson Band 510 NW 11th Ave. Kinzel & Hyde
Clyde’s Prime Rib
5474 NE Sandy Blvd. Cool Breeze
Dante’s
350 W Burnside St. The Left, Worth, Roads, Phillip Roebuck
Doug Fir Lounge
830 E Burnside St. Lost Lander, Yours, Houndstooth
Duff’s Garage
1635 SE 7th Ave. The Buckles
Ella Street Social Club 714 SW 20th Place
Pink Widower, Otis Heat, Coronation
Goodfoot Lounge
2845 SE Stark St. Lagos Roots Afrobeat Ensemble, Euforquestra
Hawthorne Hophouse 4111 SE Hawthorne Blvd. Sons of Malarkey
Hawthorne Theatre
3862 SE Hawthorne Blvd. Everyone Dies in Utah, Legacy, Call Us Forgotten, Verah Falls, Delta!Bravo
Ivories Jazz Lounge and Restaurant
1435 NW Flanders St. Mike Prigodich Ensemble (8:30 pm); Kit Taylor (5:30 pm)
Jade Lounge
2346 SE Ankeny St. Rose Gerber and Little Hexes (8 pm); Her Ghost, Jaime and Becky (6 pm)
The Bender: Wreckless Eric, Head, Chuck Chuck and the Chuckleberries, Guantanamo Baywatch, Tripwires, The Courtney Crusher Band, Primitive Hearts, Polaroids, Pity Fucks, White Fang (5 pm); The Cry!, Di Di Mau, Boom, Queued Up, Flash Flood & the Dikes (noon)
Someday Lounge 125 NW 5th Ave. White Out
Spare Room
4830 NE 42nd Ave. Teri and Larry
Ted’s (at Berbati’s) 231 SW Ankeny St. ManimalHouse, DJ Weather
The Blue Diamond
2016 NE Sandy Blvd. Lloyd Allen Sr.
The Blue Monk
Jimmy Mak’s
3341 SE Belmont St. Saloon Ensemble
Kells
2026 NE Alberta St. Alda, Hallow, Chasma, DJ Nate C
Kelly’s Olympian
71 SW 2nd Ave. Gentlemen’s Club
Kenton Club
317 NW Broadway The Heroine, Static Parallel, Vile Red Falcons
221 NW 10th Ave. Wheels in the Sky, Stimpak 112 SW 2nd Ave. Pass the Whiskey 426 SW Washington St. Monoplane, Hooker Vomit, The Ax 2025 N Kilpatrick St. Minoton, Gaytheist, X’s for I’s
LaurelThirst
The Know
Mississippi Pizza
3552 N Mississippi Ave. Rocket Stove Workshop (9 pm); Whiskey Puppy (6 pm); Shoehorn Kids Show (4 pm)
Mississippi Studios
3939 N Mississippi Ave. Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra, Total Life
Mock Crest Tavern 3435 N Lombard St. Donna and the Side Effects
Muddy Rudder Public House 8105 SE 7th Ave. John Eric Kaiser
Nel Centro
1408 SW 6th Ave. Tim Gilson
Noho’s Hawaiian Cafe 4627 NE Fremont St. Hawaiian Music
Original Halibut’s II 2527 NE Alberta St. Reggie Houston with Janice Scroggins
Plan B
1305 SE 8th Ave. Zeke, Burning Leather, Motorthrone, Tweakin Like Matty
Press Club
2621 SE Clinton St. Casey Neill and Ezra Holbrook
Red Room
2530 NE 82nd Ave. Skatter Bomb, Chase the Shakes, Mouthwash Enema, Ether Circus, Yo! Adrian, Random Axe
Secret Society Lounge 116 NE Russell St. AnnaPaul & The Bearded Lady, Eric Stern, Russell Bruner (9 pm); Eric John Kaiser (6 pm)
Slabtown
1033 NW 16th Ave.
Mississippi Pizza
3552 N Mississippi Ave. Lucky Lincoln, Sarah Peacock
Mount Tabor Theater
4811 SE Hawthorne Blvd. Chuck Fenda, I-Wayne, Ikronic Band, Chalice Row, Small Axe Intl., Soljah Sound
Muddy Rudder Public House 8105 SE 7th Ave. Irish Music
NEPO 42
Tonic Lounge
1033 NW 16th Ave. The Bender: Kid Congo and The Pink Monkey Birds, Don’t, P.R.O.B.L.E.M.S., Forever Baby, Cyclops, Blood Beach, Knifey Spoony, Diskords, Chemicals, Autistic Youth (5 pm); Bellicose Minds, Shark Pact, VAJ, Memories (12 pm)
Touché Restaurant and Billiards
10000 Old Cornelius Pass Road, Hillsboro The Brothers Jam
10000 Old Cornelius Pass Road, Hillsboro Hanz Araki & Kathryn Claire
600 E Burnside St. My Autumn’s Done Come, No Kind of Rider
McMenamins Edgefield Winery
McMenamins Rock Creek Tavern
McMenamins Rock Creek Tavern
1001 SE Morrison St. Dill Pickle Club benefit: Denver, Pete Krebs, DJ Anjali and the Incredible Kid
2126 SW Halsey St., Troutdale Steve Bradley, Scott Cronin
Tiger Bar
Tony Starlight’s
3728 NE Sandy Blvd. Neil Diamond Tribute
1425 NW Glisan St. Kelley Shannon
Twilight Café and Bar
1420 SE Powell Blvd. The Sindicate, Devolved, The Working Class Zeroes
Vie de Boheme
1530 SE 7th Ave. Rob Scheps’ Core Tet
Vino Vixens Wine Shop & Bar 2929 SE Powell Blvd. Carlyle (8 pm); Portland Casual Jam Group (2 pm)
White Eagle Saloon
836 N Russell St. Rubella Graves, The Pitchfork Revolution, Kip Lendig and John Shepski (9:30 pm); The Student Loan (4:30 pm)
SUN. FEB. 5 Al’s Den at the Crystal Hotel 303 SW 12th Ave. Kenny Brown
Alberta Street Public House 1036 NE Alberta St. Finn McGinty Benefit
Andina
1314 NW Glisan St. Danny Romero
Ash Street Saloon
225 SW Ash St. Moon by You, Siren and the Sea, Leafeater
Clyde’s Prime Rib
5474 NE Sandy Blvd. Ron Steen Jazz Jam
Dante’s
350 W Burnside St. Shine
Ella Street Social Club 714 SW 20th Place Moniker, We Are Like the Spider, Renfield
Holocene
1001 SE Morrison St. Neal Morgan, White Hinterland, Marisa Anderson, Pwrhaus, Sean Pecknold
Jade Lounge
2346 SE Ankeny St. Joaquin Lopez
LaurelThirst
2958 NE Glisan St.
Hawthorne Theatre
McMenamins Edgefield Winery
5403 NE 42nd Ave. Open Mic
3100 NE Sandy Blvd. Deathtrap America, Vises, Ramona the Band
Open Mic 3862 SE Hawthorne Blvd. Maylene and the Sons of Disaster, Lionize, Dear Assassin, Dirtnap
Thirsty Lion
2958 NE Glisan St. Bingo Band (9 pm); Tree Frogs (6 pm)
2126 SW Halsey St., Troutdale Mr. Casual
Dan Haley & Tim Acott (9:30 pm); Freak Mountain Ramblers (6 pm)
Rontoms
Slabtown
Someday Lounge
125 NW 5th Ave. Hannah Glavor, The Olive Grove, Anna Blair
The Blue Monk
3341 SE Belmont St. Kerry Politzer Group
Valentine’s
232 SW Ankeny St. Mattress, Prescription Pills
Vino Vixens Wine Shop & Bar 2929 SE Powell Blvd. Teri Untalan
White Eagle Saloon 836 N Russell St. Open Mic/Songwriter Showcase
MON. FEB. 6 Al’s Den at the Crystal Hotel 303 SW 12th Ave. Kenny Brown
Alberta Street Public House 1036 NE Alberta St. Sarah Peacock
Andina
1314 NW Glisan St. Pete Krebs
Ash Street Saloon 225 SW Ash St. Open Mic
Backspace
115 NW 5th Ave. Battery-Powered Music
Dante’s
350 W Burnside St. Karaoke from Hell
Doug Fir Lounge
830 E Burnside St. Twin Sister, Ava Luna, Pure Bathing Culture
Duff’s Garage
1635 SE 7th Ave. Lily Wilde
East End
203 SE Grand Ave. Pinkzilla vs. Alabama Black Snake (Portland Metal Winter Olympics)
Ella Street Social Club 714 SW 20th Place Still Caves, Zodiac Death Valley, Bath Party
Goodfoot Lounge 2845 SE Stark St.
Holocene
Jade Lounge
2346 SE Ankeny St. Elie Charpentier
Jimmy Mak’s
221 NW 10th Ave. The Dan Balmer Band
Kelly’s Olympian
426 SW Washington St. David Gerow
LaurelThirst
2958 NE Glisan St. Kung Pao Chickens (9 pm); Portland Country Underground (6 pm)
McMenamins Edgefield Winery 2126 SW Halsey St., Troutdale Skip vonKuske with Cellotronik
McMenamins Rock Creek Tavern
10000 Old Cornelius Pass Road, Hillsboro Bob Shoemaker
Mississippi Pizza
3552 N Mississippi Ave. Veridite (9 pm); Mr. Ben (5 pm)
Mississippi Studios
3939 N Mississippi Ave. The Features, Oh Darling, We Are Not Shadows
Muddy Rudder Public House 8105 SE 7th Ave. Lloyd Jones
Music Millennium
3158 E Burnside St. Songwriters Circle
O’Connor’s Vault
7850 SW Capitol Highway Cal Scott and Richard Moore with Kathryn Claire
O’Connor’s Vault
7850 SW Capitol Highway Kathryn Claire, Cal Scott
The Know
2026 NE Alberta St. Antikythera, Billions and Billions, Palo Verde, DJ Just Dave
Tiga
1465 NE Prescott St. DJ Valkyrie, The Dead Guy Quartet
Tonic Lounge
3100 NE Sandy Blvd. Idrive, Little Kiddies, OR-7
Valentine’s
232 SW Ankeny St. Petoskey, Electro Kraken, Edna Vasquez
White Eagle Saloon
836 N Russell St. Sarah Gwen Peters, Mike Coykendall, Michael Jodell, Matt Brown
TUES. FEB. 7 Al’s Den at the Crystal Hotel 303 SW 12th Ave. Kenny Brown
Andina
1314 NW Glisan St. Neftali Rivera
Ash Street Saloon
225 SW Ash St. Bottles and Cans, Aux. 78
Buffalo Gap Saloon
6835 SW Macadam Ave. Open Mic with Frame by Frame and Chris Margolin
Bunk Bar
1028 SE Water Ave. Golden Bears, 1939 Ensemble
Camellia Lounge 510 NW 11th Ave.
CALENDAR Tom Wakeling, Steve Christofferson, David Evans, Todd Strait
Dante’s
350 W Burnside St. Secret Chiefs 3, Dengue Fever
Doug Fir Lounge
830 E Burnside St. Los Campesinos!, Parenthetical Girls
Ivories Jazz Lounge and Restaurant 1435 NW Flanders St. Jazz Jam with Carey Campbell
Jade Lounge
2346 SE Ankeny St. Mimi Naja and Jay Cobb Anderson (8 pm); Emily Stebins (6 pm)
Jimmy Mak’s
Duff’s Garage
221 NW 10th Ave. The Mel Brown Septet (8 pm); Partners in Jazz (6:30 pm)
Ella Street Social Club
Kelly’s Olympian
1635 SE 7th Ave. Dover Weinberg Quartet (9:30 pm); Trio Bravo (6 pm) 714 SW 20th Place Invisible Path, Tigerbitch, KWJAZ, Indigo Gnosis
426 SW Washington St. Verdelite, Bevelers, Melville
Goodfoot Lounge
2958 NE Glisan St. Bingo (9 pm); Jackstraw (6 pm)
2845 SE Stark St. Scott Law Reunion Band; Erskine, Fulero and Kleiner
Hawthorne Theatre Lounge 1503 SE 39th Ave. Bad Assets
Open Bluegrass Jam
Mississippi Pizza
3552 N Mississippi Ave. Daniel Flynn
Mississippi Studios
3939 N Mississippi Ave. Eleanor Friedberger (of the Fiery Furnaces), Dominant Legs
Mock Crest Tavern
3435 N Lombard St. Johnnie Ward & Eagle Ridin’ Papas
Music Millennium
3158 E Burnside St. Drunken Prayer
Plan B
LaurelThirst
1305 SE 8th Ave. Battle Axe Massacre, Stonecreep, The Festering
McMenamins Edgefield Winery
8 NW 6th Ave. The Jayhawks, Abigail Washburn with Kai Welch
2126 SW Halsey St., Troutdale Caleb Klauder & Sammy Lind
McMenamins Rock Creek Tavern 10000 Old Cornelius Pass Road, Hillsboro
Roseland Theater
Someday Lounge
125 NW 5th Ave. Balto, Rabbit Foot, Copperfox, I Hate You Just Kidding
Swift Lounge
1932 NE Broadway DJ Joe Nasty
WED. FEB. 1 440 NW Glisan St. Knxwledge, The Great Mundane, DTCPU, Bones, Rap Class
Ground Kontrol
511 NW Couch St. TRONix with Bryan Zentz
Holocene
1001 SE Morrison St. 13 Months of Sunshine: Brainstorm (DJ set), DJ Jason Urick, DJ Cuica, DJ Spencer D
Matador
1967 W Burnside St. DJ Whisker Friction
Star Bar
639 SE Morrison St. DJ Krillim
The Crown Room
205 NW 4th Ave. Pop-Up Club: Lionsden, DJ Nick Dean
Tiga
1465 NE Prescott St. DJ Flip Forage
Tube
18 NW 3rd Ave. Paint it Black with Freaky Outy (10 pm); DJ Loyd Depriest (early set)
Valentine’s
232 SW Ankeny St. DJ Nine Inch Nilina
Yes and No
20 NW 3rd Ave. Death Club with DJ Entropy
THURS. FEB. 2 Fez Ballroom
316 SW 11th Ave. Shadowplay: DJs Ghoulunatic, Paradox, Horrid
Someday Lounge
125 NW 5th Ave. Mixer: Perfect Cyn, Tom Mitchell, Mercedes, Keane, Mr. Romo, Darling Instigatah, Grimes Against Humanity
Someday Lounge
125 NW 5th Ave. The Fix: Rev. Shines, DJ KEZ (9 pm); Davis Cleveland (4 pm)
Swift Lounge
1932 NE Broadway DJ Gwiski
The Know
2026 NE Alberta St.
DirtBag with DJ Gutter Glamour
Tiga
1465 NE Prescott St. DJ Cuica
Trader Vic’s
1203 NW Glisan St. DJ Drew Groove
Tube
18 NW 3rd Ave. Fast Weapons Night: Flexions, DJ Casual Sax, DJ Linoleum (10 pm); 2Arm Tom (7 pm)
FRI. FEB. 3 Crystal Ballroom
1332 W Burnside St. ‘80s Video Dance Attack
Doug Fir Lounge 830 E Burnside St. DJ Cooky Parker
Fez Ballroom
316 SW 11th Ave. Decadent ‘80s: DJ Non, Jason Wann; Rewind with Phonographix DJs
Goodfoot Lounge 2845 SE Stark St. DJ Magneto
Holocene
1001 SE Morrison St. FRESH.: Free the Robots, Mux Mool, Chaach, Montel Spinozza (9 pm); Aperitivo Happy Hour with DJ Iron Chicken (5 pm)
Lola’s Room at the Crystal Ballroom 1332 W Burnside St. DJ Anjali
Mount Tabor Theater
4811 SE Hawthorne Blvd. Free Up Fridays: Soljah Sound, Small Axe Sound, XACT Change Hi-Fi, Jagga Culture
Palace of Industry 5426 N Gay Ave. DJ Holiday
Rotture
315 SE 3rd Ave. Deep Cuts: DJs Bruce LaBruiser, Kasio Smashio, Chelsea Starr
Sassy’s Bar and Grill 927 SE Morrison St. DJ HazMatt
Star Bar
639 SE Morrison St. Blank Fridays with DJ Paultimore
The Blue Monk
3341 SE Belmont St. Pagan Jug Band
Thirsty Lion
71 SW 2nd Ave. PX Singer-Songwriter Showcase
Tiger Bar
317 NW Broadway Sarah Moon & The Night Sky
Tony Starlight’s
3728 NE Sandy Blvd. Piano Bar with Bo Ayars
Twilight Café and Bar
1420 SE Powell Blvd. Open Mic with The Roaming
Valentine’s
232 SW Ankeny St. Au Dunes, Same Same
Vino Vixens Wine Shop & Bar 2929 SE Powell Blvd. Arthur “Fresh Air” Moore with Jim Mesi
White Eagle Saloon 836 N Russell St. Ants in the Kitchen
The Whiskey Bar
The Crown Room
31 NW 1st Ave. Johnny Monsoon, Jamie Meushaw, Evan Alexander
The Lovecraft
1465 NE Prescott St. DJ Bikini Briefs
205 NW 4th Ave. House Party: Avery, Kellan
Groove Suite
MUSIC
421 SE Grand Ave. Brickbat Mansion
The Whiskey Bar
31 NW 1st Ave. Heatesca, Julius, Theme Night, Dubadank
Tiga
1465 NE Prescott St. DJ Ikon
Tube
18 NW 3rd Ave. Hot Mess with Doc Adam (10 pm); DJ Neil Blender (7 pm)
Valentine’s
232 SW Ankeny St. Sex Life DJs
SAT. FEB. 4 Beauty Bar
111 SW Ash St. Fever Disco: Julius, Heatesca, Lionsden
Fez Ballroom
316 SW 11th Ave. Popvideo with VJ Gigahurtz
Holocene
1001 SE Morrison St. Booty Bassment: Ryan & Dmitri, Maxx Bass, Nathan Detroit
Palace of Industry 5426 N Gay Ave. DJ Pippa Possible
Refuge
116 SE Yamhill St. Fractal Dimensions: Kilowatts, Bird of Prey, Phidelity, XX, Merchants of Anden
Roseland Theater
8 NW 6th Ave. Excision, Liquid Stranger, Lucky Date, Jaden
Rotture
315 SE 3rd Ave. Andaz with DJ Anjali & The Incredible Kid
Star Bar
639 SE Morrison St. Go French Yourself! with DJ Cecilia Paris
Swift Lounge
1932 NE Broadway DJ Sknny Mrcls
The Crown Room
205 NW 4th Ave. R.A.W.: DJ Nature, Doc Adam, Ronin Roc
The Lovecraft
421 SE Grand Ave. Glam Night
Tiga
Tube
18 NW 3rd Ave. Saturdazed: DJs GH, Czief Xenith
SUN. FEB. 5 Matador
1967 W Burnside St. Next Big Thing with Donny Don’t
Plan B
1305 SE 8th Ave. Hive with DJ Owen
The Lovecraft
421 SE Grand Ave. DJs He-Slayer, Witchthrone
Tube
18 NW 3rd Ave. Hootchie Koo with Danny Dodge (10 pm); Honky Tonk Happy Hour with Tennessee Tim (7 pm)
MON. FEB. 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
Tube
18 NW 3rd Ave. DJ Toilet Love
TUES. FEB. 7 Star Bar
639 SE Morrison St. DJ Bradley
The Crown Room
205 NW 4th Ave. See You Next Tuesday: Kellan, Avery
The Lovecraft
421 SE Grand Ave. Tom Waits Night
Tiga
1465 NE Prescott St. DJ Party Dad
Tube
18 NW 3rd Ave. Tubesday (10 pm); DJ Dirty Red (7 pm)
JIMMY MAK’S “One of the world’s top 100 places to hear jazz” - Downbeat Magazine TONIGHT!
Peter White & the Patrick Lamb Band 2 shows, 7 & 9:30 pm tickets at TicketsOregon.com THURSDAY, FEB 9
Bobby Broom & The Deep Blue Organ Trio Chicago’s version of Mel Brown’s B3 Organ Group, now touring to support their Stevie Wonder tribute CD, “Wonderful!”: #15 on the 2011 JazzWeek Top 100 chart! The Boston Globe says“Wonder’s songbook fits a groove-jazz trio as comfortably as does Jimmy Smith’s music”
tickets at TicketsOregon.com VALENTINE’S DAY; TUES, FEB 14
The Mel Brown Septet with Shirley Nanette 2 shows, 7 & 9:30 pm tickets at TicketsOregon.com COMING SOON!
Eddie Martinez FEB. 3 Wheels in the Sky/Stimpak FEB 4 Lisa Mann CD release FEB 10 Bobby Torres FEB 11
Yes and No
20 NW 3rd Ave. Idiot Tuesdays with DJ Black Dog
Mon-Sat. evenings: Dinner from 5 pm, Music from 8 pm 221 NW 10th • 503-295-6542 • jimmymaks.com Willamette Week FEBRUARY 1, 2012 wweek.com
33
Thursday Feb. 2 BOONDOX AMERAKIN OVERDOSE KNOTHEAD BOBBY SIK TRAGEDY
SUNDAY-TUESDAY M A R I N A C H AV E Z
MUSIC 13 topless bartenders & 80 dancers each week!
7pm • All Ages in the ConCert hAll
CATS UNDER THE STARS: A TRIBUTE TO THE JERRY GARCIA BAND 9pm • 21+, Free! in the sideshow lounge
Open Every Day 11am to 2:30am www.CasaDiablo.com (503) 222-6600 • 2839 NW St. Helens Rd
Friday Feb. 3 MOTHER HIPS THE TRUE SPOKES
(FORMERLY FLOWMOTION) SPECIAL GUESTS
JIMMY RUSSELL
(QUICK AND EASY BOYS) AND KENNY LINER (THE BRIDGE) AS “JIMMY AND KENNY DUO” 8pm • 21+ in the ConCert hAll
DSL COMEDY NIGHT
9pm • 21+ Free! in the sideshow lounge
FREEUP FRIDAYS!
DJS SPINNING REGGAE, DANCEHALL, DUB AND MORE! 10:30pm • 21+ Free! in the sideshow lounge
Saturday Feb. 4 THE CRY!
8pm • 21+ in the ConCert hAll
STAHLWERKS
DJ NIGHT WITH INDUSTRIAL, GOTH AND HARD DANCE 10pm • 21+ in the ConCert hAll
Sunday Feb. 5 BOB MARLEY BIRTHDAY BASH FROM JAMAICA: I-WAYNE AND CHUCK FENDA
BACKED BY: IKRONIK BAND plus top sounds: CHALICE ROW • SMALL AXE INTL SOLJAH SOUND 8pm • 21+ in the ConCert hAll
JAY CHALKS: The Jayhawks play Roseland Theater on Tuesday, Feb. 7.
The Bender: Kid Congo and The Pink Monkey Birds, Don’t, P.R.O.B.L.E.M.S., Forever Baby, Cyclops, Blood Beach, Knifey Spoony, Diskords, Chemicals, Autistic Youth (5 pm); Bellicose Minds, Shark Pact, VAJ, Memories (noon)
See Saturday listing. Slabtown, 1033 NW 16th Ave., 223-0099. Noon (free matinee), 5 pm (main show). $10 night/$25 weekend pass. 21+.
MONDAY, FEB. 6 Twin Sister, Ava Luna
[TRUE INDIE SOUL] Sure, Long Island’s Twin Sister and its dreamsoft dance music headline tonight, but that’s not the highlight. That would be the opener, Twin Sister’s crosstown New York neighbors Ava Luna. Imagine the Dirty Projectors with more soul and less of a penchant to make every song so obtuse. Or, as critic Christopher Weingarten once described the band, “Stax-meets-Kraftwerk.” At this point, the Brooklyn septet has put out only two (excellent) EPs showcasing its mix of three-part girl-group harmonies, James Brown hollering and rhythmic, synthesized craziness, but a full-length is on the way this year. See the band now, so you can say you saw them when. MATTHEW SINGER. Doug Fir Lounge, 830 E Burnside St., 2319663. 9 pm. $10 advance, $12 day of show. 21+.
Still Caves, Zodiac Death Valley, Hidden Knives
[SANDY AND PSYCHEDELIC] Still Caves is dark and chaotic. The foursome manages to blast open the boundary between garage and surf rock, carving out a seat somewhere in between And And And and Seattle’s Beat Connection. The guys have played through local venues alongside Guantanamo Baywatch and Ty Segall, pounding psychrock percussion at an often rapid, always unsecured speed. Check out “Dutch” and “Great Recession,” two of the outfit’s 2011 singles, both of which share muddy, faraway vocals and the same careless, raw and gritty je ne sais quoi. NIKKI VOLPICELLI. Ella Street Social Club, 714 SW 20th Place, 227-0116. 10 pm. $5. 21+.
Dill Pickle Club benefit: Denver, Pete Krebs, DJ Anjali and the Incredible Kid
tickets and info
www.thetabor.com • 503-360-1450
facebook.com/mttabortheater 34
Willamette Week FEBRUARY 1, 2012 wweek.com
[SALOON SONGS] Last fall, Michael Elias and friends released Denver, the band’s eponymous and highly anticipated debut. While incorporating some of the polished folk of
brethren band Blitzen Trapper (as well as some of that band’s personnel), Denver has a powerfully organic, almost weathered character that gives its sound potency. Stylistically, Denver is sometimes called loose, but it’s that halfdrunken nonchalance that makes the group’s full-bodied Americana so damn fetching. Show up early for a pickle tasting to benefit the Dill Pickle Club, which promotes education initiatives in the area. MARK STOCK. Holocene, 1001 SE Morrison St., 239-7639. 6 pm. $10. 21+.
DJ Valkyrie, The Dead Guy Quartet
[BAR-OQUE] The dream of the 1690s is alive in Portland—thanks to classical music boosters such as Classical Revolution PDX that are bringing all the great common-practice-period hits into bars and other nontraditional venues for the enjoyment and edification of us uncultured whippersnappers. Credit also goes to Dan Wilson, a.k.a. DJ Valkyrie (as in, “Ride of the”), who spins all classical records, from Wagner to Glass, every first Monday of the month at Tiga. Accompanying Wilson tonight—and shaking up an undersized, usually DJ-only establishment—is the live Dead Guy Quartet. JONATHAN FROCHTZWAJG. Tiga, 1465 NE Prescott St., 288-5534. 9 pm. Free. 21+.
TUESDAY, FEB. 7 Secret Chiefs 3, Dengue Fever
[ALL OVER THE MAP] More a concept than a band, Secret Chiefs 3 actually encompasses seven stylistically discrete incarnations involving 50 musicians, most associated with one or another form of avant-garde music, in 17 years. Superficially tarring composer and multi-instrumentalist Trey Spruance’s California-based Mr. Bungle spinoff as “prog” doesn’t do justice to Secret Chiefs’ psychedelic mélange of death metal, grindcore, historical mysticism, filmscore sounds, Persian and other Middle Eastern music and instruments, indecipherable time signatures, Pythagorean tunings and surf rock. Dengue Fever fuses the Holtzman brothers’ L.A. psychedelic rock-Ethiopian jazz-’60s Cambodian pop mix, delivered by one of Cambodia’s great singers, Chhom Nimol. BRETT CAMPBELL. Dante’s, 350 W Burnside St., 226-6630. 9 pm. $17. 21+.
Los Campesionos, Parenthetical Girls
[THE GIVING TWEE] Initially beloved for a sort of cutesy grandeur—early albums of Los Campesinos! resemble gingerbread
Versailles crafted to full scale— the sprawling instrumental busyness and adenoidal energies of this seven-piece Welsh troupe haven’t exactly muted with age (for all the wry self-deprecation, the band’s titular exclamation point was never ironic). Fourth album Hello Sadness, though, betrays some maturation. While indie-pop crescendos still swell tumescent as Gareth Campesinos luxuriates in a retelling of love’s unkindnesses, there’s a sharpened focus to the arrangements, a new fullness to the vocalist’s peculiar register and a welcome recognition that morbidity needn’t be quite so adorable. JAY HORTON. Doug Fir Lounge, 830 E Burnside St., 231-9663. 9 pm. $14 advance, $15 day of show. 21+.
Eleanor Friedberger (of the Fiery Furnaces), Dominant Legs
[SOLO FURNACE] The long and lean Eleanor Friedberger could’ve taken a well-earned rest as Matthew, her brother and fellow Fiery Furnace, explored the fringes of avant pop with his series of solo releases. Instead, Eleanor grabbed a new label (Merge Records) and unleashed Last Summer, an album that exudes humility in both title and execution. Free of the cut-andpaste aesthetic of the Furnaces, she indulges in ’70s-style pop that shuffles, swings and stomps comfortably, edged with sparkling postproduction touches. What hasn’t changed an iota are Eleanor’s labyrinthine lyrics that piece together seemingly random imagery into a glorious widescreen collage. ROBERT HAM. Mississippi Studios, 3939 N Mississippi Ave., 288-3895. 9 pm. $10. 21+.
The Jayhawks, Abigail Wahburn, Kai Welch
[TODAY THE GREEN GRASS] The first item I ever wrote for this rag was a review tearing the second CD the Jayhawks made—sans Mark Olsen—a new center hole, comparing the absent Olsen’s enigmatic lyrics to Zen koans and saying the current album instead asked, “What’s the sound of one band crapping?” Well, both my mitts are applauding now that Olsen’s back in the fold. His exquisite harmonies with co-frontman Gary Louris are the closest thing the ’90s had to the Everlys, and crossing their pens once more has yielded a fresh batch of solid songs. Mockingbird Time reprises the band’s classic sound— which helped define the alt-country movement—in the manner of the eponymous avian, at moments equaling the original. JEFF ROSENBERG. Roseland Theater, 8 NW 6th Ave., 224-2038. 8 pm. $25$35. 21+.
FEB. 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 Baba Yaga
Tears of Joy presents a puppet play about the witch in the chicken-legged house, with music by Richard E. Moore. Winningstad Theatre, Portland Center for the Performing Arts, 1111 SW Broadway, 248-0557. 7:30 pm Friday, Feb. 3; 11 am Saturdays and 2 and 4 pm Sundays through Feb. 12. $17-$20.
Big Plastic Heroes
[NEW REVIEW] A stripped-down showcase of top-notch storytellers, Big Plastic Heroes explores childhood idols and the pitfalls of trying to emulate those idols. Comic performer and Second City alum auGi recounts his desire at 17 to become Rambo, and the misguided tactical missions that earned him four felony charges. New York performer Slash Coleman embodies himself at age 7, when an obsession with Evel Knievel convinced him the only way to win the affection of his third-grade teacher was to be seriously injured. In between, two local performers share their own childhood role models, with different special guests each night of the show. Managing to be both laugh-out-loud funny and genuinely touching, Big Plastic Heroes presents a childhood where a belief in heroes leads not just to destruction and serious injury but also to greater truths uncovered. As Coleman points out after receiving 144 stitches and a skull puncture shaped like a comma: “Every dream should come with a comma so we can keep adding to it.” PENELOPE BASS. Sanctuary at Sandy Plaza, 1785 NE Sandy Blvd., 804-353-3799. 7:30 pm Friday-Saturday, Feb. 3-4. $15-$17.50.
Bunkin’ With You in the Afterlife
BroadArts presents Jody Seay’s musical about lesbian cowherds in southern Oregon. Ethos/IFCC, 5340 N Interstate Ave., 288-5181. 8 pm Fridays and Saturdays through March 10. $8-$10.
Cowboy Little’s Big Wild West Show
A new cowboy-themed monthly showcase, with country music and cowboy stories. Funhouse Lounge, 2432 SE 11th Ave., cowboylittle.com. 8 pm the first Friday of every month. $13-$18. 21+.
Famished
Eugenia Woods nibbles away at our food neuroses in this new drama, presented by Portland Playhouse as part of the Fertile Ground festival. A mash-up of recorded interviews, composed scenes and striking, silent movement, the performance encompasses every imaginable food hang-up: anorexia and stress bingeing; the irrational pickiness of children and the moralistic pickiness of adults; the conflation of feeding and love, hunger and lust. The narrative portion of the play follows a family through three generations’ evolving food hang-ups, exploring the ways emotions and food are intertwined, for better or worse. Presiding over the story is Our Lady of Insatiable Desire, a dancer (Jessica Wallenfels) in a doll-like white dress adorned with an outline of the alimentary system in bright LEDs, who performs the characters’ unspoken hungers. Not all of the story makes sense—the heavyset husband’s affair with a taco-truck cook is nonsensical and verges on overt racism—but much of it rings true. BEN WATERHOUSE. Imago Theatre, 17 SE 8th Ave., 205-0715. 7:30 pm Thursday-Friday, 2 and 7:30 pm Saturday, 2 pm Sunday, Feb. 2-5. $12-$23.
Grand Guignol 4: Psychosis
The Grand Guignol was a Parisian French theater that reveled in the kind of horror you’re not supposed to like but do. The fourth installment of Third
Eye Theatre’s experiment with the genre features eye gouging, the mentally disabled, and a guy who thinks he’s a glass of orange juice. The four acts in the production don’t exactly inspire fear, but the venue, the Kenton Masonic Lodge, is just secluded and creepy enough to make any performance feel like a stroll through your dead grandmother’s house. The “stage”—actually the floor of the lodge’s huge ballroom—has sparse, improvised seating that would make you feel isolated if it weren’t for all the awkwardness in the room. The performers are zany, and the show is, at times, interactive. So your real fear is of what these crazy people might do to you out here in Kenton. AARON SPENCER. Kenton Masonic Lodge, 8130 N Denver Ave., 970-8874. 8 pm Fridays-Saturdays, 7 pm Sundays. Closes Feb. 12. $12-$15.
Hunter Gatherers
The reunion begins with a sacrifice. Milquetoast computer programmer Pam (Kerry Ryan) arrives home to find her metalworker-novelist husband, Richard (Mario Calcagno), preparing a lamb for slaughter in the middle of their living room. Their high-school friends Wendy (Brooke Fletcher) and Tom (Joel Harmon), with whom they shared a double wedding and terrible secrets, are coming to celebrate their mutual anniversary, and this dinner will be very special. In Hunter Gatherers, San Francisco playwright Peter Sinn Nachtrieb adds to the spate of plays exposing the hidden savagery of modern life and tops them all. His characters are not merely shown to be hypocrites—in 90 minutes, they devolve into a state of near-incoherent Paleolithic savagery. The show has a little something for everyone: For foodies, there’s roast lamb; for action fans, there’s light maiming; for Europeans, there’s sex; and for Stieg Larsson readers and Rick Santorum voters, there’s even some anal rape. Theatre Vertigo’s finest productions have been chaotic, absurdist farces, and this one is no exception. Director Tom Moorman and his cast exploit every possible sight gag, every insult and outburst and every opportunity for gross-out excess. I don’t know that there’s much great art to be found in the sight of Calcagno and Fletcher feeding feverishly on a whole roast lamb, but I haven’t laughed so hard in the theater all season. BEN WATERHOUSE. Theater! Theatre!, 3430 SE Belmont St., 306-0870. 8 pm Thursday-Saturday, Feb. 2-4. $15. Thursdays are “pay what you will.”
(I Am Still) The Duchess of Malfi
Joseph Fisher’s ebulliently sordid play is less an updating of John Webster’s Jacobean revenge drama Duchess of Malfi than it is a romp in its macabre sandbox. The plot and characters have been jumbled and streamlined into a violently dissonant two-act that winkingly borrows tropes from camp and noir. Thus, the title amounts to an interesting bit of sport on the play’s identity; it, like the titular duchess, slyly insists on remaining itself. The widowed duchess of Malfi (Sara Catherine Wheatley) is forbidden ever to remarry by her two brothers, the insane Ferdinand (Jake Street) and the sociopathic cardinal (Todd van Voris, in a beautifully deadpan performance), but nonetheless secretly marries her poised steward, Antonio (Vin Shambry). Retribution ensues. In Fisher’s take, Bosola (Chris Murray), the instrument of that retribution, is reimagined as a wisecracking, immoral war vet with posturing straight out of The Wild One; the duchess vamps like a celebutante; and once-stolid confidant Delio (Nicholas Hongola) is recast as a comic, dandified Perez Hilton figure in cahoots with the audience. In director Jon Kretzu and set designer Daniel Meeker’s staging,
the duchy of Amalfi is a steampunk assemblage of Gothic past and present, where a church and a discotheque amount to essentially the same thing—red, black, white and flickering light. The play’s second act tilts more serious—the punch line comes first and the fall second, in the old Italian style—and here only some of the characters survive, literally and figuratively. MATTHEW KORFHAGE. Artists Repertory Theatre, 1515 SW Morrison St., 241-1278. 7:30 pm TuesdaysSaturdays, 2 and 7:30 pm Sundays. Closes Feb. 12. $25-$50, $20 students.
Kimberly Akimbo
Portland Civic Theatre Guild’s February reading is David LindsayAbaire’s delightful comedy about progeria. The Old Church, 1422 SW 11th Ave., 222-2031. 10 am Tuesday, Feb. 7. $6.
The Magic School Bus Live: The Climate Challenge
Oregon Children’s Theatre sends Ms. Frizzle and the gang around the world to learn about global climate change. Newmark Theatre, 1111 SW Broadway, 228-9571. 2 and 5 pm Saturdays, 2 pm Sundays. Closes Feb. 19. $13-$30.
The North Plan
In this world premiere comedy by Jason Wells, the U.S. government is torn asunder by a military coup and the flag-waving goons behind it begin rounding up anyone who might be a threat to the regime. The only hope for the future is a single State Department employee (Brian Patrick Monahan), who’s ready to go public with the enemies list. But he’s stuck in a smalltown jail, and his only hope is the foulmouthed redneck waitress (Kate Eastwood Norris) he begs to sneak the list out from under the noses of a pair of Homeland Security thugs and expose the plan. It’s light entertainment at heart, leaning on creaky stereotypes and well-timed vulgarity for laughs and textbook thriller tropes for tension. All that elevates it above a Steven Soderbergh-directed Greater Tuna, besides Norris’ endless bouncy energy and Tim True’s spot-on performance as a small-town cop, is its awful plausibility. You should leave the theater worried. BEN WATERHOUSE. Gerding Theater, 128 NW 11th Ave., 445-3700. 7:30 pm WednesdaySaturday, 2 and 7:30 pm Sunday, Feb. 1-5. $20-$64.
Pump Boys and Dinettes
Broadway Rose presents a low-minded spoof of ’50s clichés. Broadway Rose New Stage Theatre, 12850 SW Grant Ave., Tigard, 620-5262. 7:30 pm Thursdays-Saturdays, 2 pm Sundays. Closes March 4. $20-$40.
Rapunzel Uncut!
Northwest Children’s Theatre premieres a rock-’n’-roll musical adaptation of the tale of the girl with the very long hair, written by brothers James and Richard E. Moore. NW Neighborhood Cultural Center, 1819 NW Everett St., 222-4480. 7 pm Fridays, 2 and 6 pm Saturdays, 2 pm Sundays. Closes Feb. 19. $15-$20.
Shakespeare’s Amazing Cymbeline
Portland Center Stage director Chris Coleman tries to get at the heart of Shakespeare’s strange and fantastical romance about ancient kings in a stripped-down, five-actor production (featuring our own, supremely talented John San Nicolas) with original music. Gerding Theater, 128 NW 11th Ave., 445-3700. 7:30 pm Tuesdays-Fridays, 2 and 7:30 pm Saturdays-Sundays. Closes April 8. $20-$41.
They
It’s no wonder Polish playwright and painter Witkacy wrote a play called They about art’s idiosyncratic, transgressive nature. The man was bounds ahead of his time, anticipating absurdist theater by a generation; “they” labeled him eccentric and denied him recognition until his death. Buck Skelton’s production of Witkacy’s 1920 work is the play’s American premiere, and it’s a shame it took so long: It’s an intriguingly strange, blackly funny piece. They’s single act unfolds
in the villa of aesthete and windbag Callisto Balandash (played to overdone perfection by Brian Allard) and tracks developments after Balandash gets new neighbors: a shadow-government committee to whom Cubism is a stumbling block on the path to a society of “automation.” Peering from behind beautifully wrought commedia dell’arte masks, They’s characters pinball in dialogue from intellectual trend to intellectual trend, decimating each with vapidity and contradiction. In the end, only one truism (and only one of Balandash’s Picassos) is left standing: “Art is social lawlessness” and, perpetually and in all places, the law is coming to town. JONATHAN FROCHTZWAJG. The Back Door Theater, 4319 SE Hawthorne Blvd., 236-8734. 8 pm Thursdays-Saturdays through Feb. 18. $15.
COMEDY Late Night Action with Alex Falcone
A new live talk show featuring local luminaries, bands and comedians. Action/Adventure Theater, 1050 SE
Clinton St., 380-8679. 8 pm FridaysSaturdays through Feb. 18. $7.
Irregardless
[NEW REVIEW] The most memorable segment this one-woman show from Curious Comedy founder Stacey Hallal isn’t funny and isn’t supposed to be. Well, maybe it’s a little funny. Hallal tells a story about floating in Lake Michigan, tripping on some hallucinogen and having an epiphany: Though we’re all adrift in this grandest scheme, her motivating force is joy. Happiness—how to attain it and what it even is—is a theme to which Irregardless keeps bobbing back as it eddies from monologue to video skit to comedy sketch. It sometimes seems as if Hallal, who has a Liz Lemon-esque faux-pathetic charisma, is trying out material on the audience, and she probably is: Irregardless premiered during the Fertile Ground festival (showing through Feb. 18) as a work in progress. A couple of sections feel underdone—most conspicuously a near-complete retelling of The Ten
CONT. on page 36
REVIEW SHERI EARNHART
PERFORMANCE
GAVIN HOFFMAN
THE TRIPPING POINT (SHAKING THE TREE) There’s a reason fairy tales have been plumbed for art’s sake so deeply: they’re bottomless. Murky with our fears, desires and other shadowy drives, the stories of the Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Andersen and the like consist of just the sort of muck in which artists love to play. The Tripping Point, directed by Samantha Van Der Merwe, lets eight playwrights run wild in the stuff—yet the production that emerges is almost immaculate. In this “exhibition of fairy tale installations,” audience members move from partitioned space to partitioned space to watch eight approximately 10-minute-long monologues, each based on a different story and penned by a different playwright and performed simultaneously. It’s fun—fast-paced without being frivolous. The performance spaces, meticulously designed by Sheri Earnhart, are tiny; this, along with the fact that the audience is divided among eight performances, makes the monologues intimate affairs, experienced only feet from the actor and shared with just a handful of fellow attendees. The Tripping Point’s writers use their fairy tales less as outlines than as prompts, thematic starting points from which they proceed in very different directions. Nick Zagone’s “Kingdowm” (based on the lesser-known Grimm tale “Iron Hans”) grapples with masculinity; “To Cape,” Matthew B. Krebski’s take on “Little Red Riding Hood,” tackles sex and power (and features a vigorous performance from Gavin Hoffman); and Andrea Stolowitz’s “The Red Shoes” treats the age-old individual-vs.-society conflict. There’s even a wordless “monologue,” Patrick Wohlmut’s “Bluebeard”; it’s a sober meditation on passionate violence played with quiet power by Beth Summers. Sometimes not quite lucid and always fleeting, these dreamlike pieces speak to something that’s beyond intellect and deeply personal. Not every one hits home for every viewer, but this much is clear: Everybody behind The Tripping Point has approached their source material with earnestness, imagination and ability. JONATHAN FROCHTZWAJG.
Who’s that I see walkin’ in these woods?
SEE IT: Shaking the Tree Studio, 1407 SE Stark St., 235-0635, shaking-the-tree.com. 7 pm Thursday-Friday, 2 and 7 pm Saturday, 2 pm Sunday, Feb. 2-5. $15-$17. Willamette Week FEBRUARY 1, 2012 wweek.com
35
Never a cover!
PERFORMANCE
FEB. 1-7
DUANE MORRIS\PORTLAND OPERA
Since 1974
Buffalo gap Wednesday, february 1st
local attic Showcase feat. Sam Densmore
Thursday, february 2nd
RetroHead
(Retro Tunes from NorthHead) Hosted By: Joe Randolph friday, february 3rd • 9pm
Dreaming In Colors (alt pop)
Saturday, february 4th • 9pm
Ken Hanson Band (blues funk)
Sunday, february 5th • 2pm
Superbowl Celebration Tuesday, february 7th • 9pm
open Mic Night WIN $50!!!
Hosted By: Scott gallegos 6835 SW Macadam Ave | John’s Landing
PORTLAND OPERA’S MADAME BUTTERFLY Commandments’ plot in a vaguely New York accent. On the whole, however, Irregardless is funny, well-conceived and, for a comedy show, unexpectedly poignant. JONATHAN FROCHTZWAJG. Curious Comedy, 5225 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., 477-9477. 8 pm Fridays-Saturdays through Feb. 18. $12-$15.
The Liberators
Good improv comedy. Brody Theater, 16 NW Broadway, feb2012liberators.eventbrite.com. 8 pm Saturday, Feb. 4. $12-$16.
Micetro
The Brody Theater revives its popular elimination-competition improv format. Brody Theater, 16 NW Broadway, 224-2227. 8 pm Fridays through Feb. 24. $9-$12.
UTV
ON SALE NOW
Willamette Week’s
CLASSICAL
LLEONARD COHEN Old Ideas
45th Parallel Quartet
$12.95-cd/$23.95-lp
Cohen’s first album of new material since 2004 is everything you want from him – songs of sexuality, loss and mortality. Vinyl version includes copy of the cd.
VARIOUS ARTISTS V
Chimes Of Freedom: Songs of Bob Dylan
$20.95-4xcd
Avett Brothers, Patti Smith, Gaslight Anthem, My Morning Jacket, Diana Krall and dozens more contribute to this 73-track Amnesty International benefit cd. All tracks are new recordings specifically for this release.
Get on your bike and ride!
February 22nd, 2012
Rising young violin star Stefan Jackiw joins the orchestra for Max Bruch’s popular Scottish Fantasy and the orchestra plays another work based on folk tunes, Benjamin Britten’s English Folk Song Suite, Brahms’ Academic Festival Overture and Beethoven’s sometimes overlooked Symphony No. 4. Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, 1037 SW Broadway, 228-1353. 7:30 pm Saturday, 8 pm Monday, Feb. 4 and 6. $15-$92.
Born To Die $9.95-cd
Lana, not afraid to name herself after the screen siren, calls herself the “gangsta Nancy Sinatra.” Her song “Video Games” was named best new track by Pitchfork Media. Sale prices good thru 2/12/12
NEW RELEASES
Ringo Starr • Imperial Teen • The Internet Lila Downs • Del McCoury Band • John Zorn OUT NOW: Mike Doughty • Asteroids Galaxy Tour
USED NEW &s & VINYL VD CDs, D
Everything you need to know
to Go by Bike!
Deadline to reserve space: Thursday February 16th at 4pm Ad materials due: Friday February 17th at 5pm
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 OPEN EVERYDAY AT 9 A.M. | WWW.EVERYDAYMUSIC.COM Willamette Week FEBRUARY 1, 2012 wweek.com
A foursome of Portland’s top classical players, from the Oregon Symphony, Portland Baroque and others, convene to perform Dvorák’s “American String Quartet,” Schubert’s “Death and the Maiden,” a quartet arrangement of Guns N’ Roses’ “Sweet Child o’ Mine” and more—including an appearance by Dirty Martini singer-songwriter Stephanie Schneiderman. Alberta Rose Theatre, 3000 NE Alberta St., 719-6055. 7:30 pm Sunday, Feb. 5. $15.
Oregon Symphony
LLANA DEL REY
36
The Unscriptables perform improvised spoofs of TV shows and commercials. Funhouse Lounge, 2432 SE 11th Ave., theunscriptables. com. 8 pm Saturdays through Feb. 11. “Pay what you want.”. 21+.
Please call your Account Executive for more details 503-243-2122
Portland Opera
In turn-of-the-20th-century Nagasaki, Japan, East meets West and the encounter doesn’t end well when a carefree American sailor loves and then leaves a smitten Japanese teenager. The Opera revives its 2005 production, which originated in New York in the 1960s, of Puccini’s 1904 classic (based on a play that was based on a story that was based on a real event), Madame Butterfly. Veteran Christian Smith comes out of retirement to direct the piece again for the 22nd time. Anne Manson, who turned in impressive work on the Opera’s Orphee last year, conducts the Orchestra, with
acclaimed soprano Kelly Kaduce as the title character, Cio-Cio-San, mezzo Kathryn Day, tenor Roger Honeywell and baritone John Hancock in the leads. Look for a brief review Monday on wweek. com. Keller Auditorium, 222 SW Clay St., 241-1802. 7:30 pm Friday, Feb. 3, 2 pm Sunday, Feb. 5. 7:30 pm Thursday and Saturday, Feb. 9 and 11. $20-$135.
University of Oregon Chamber Choir, Portland State Chamber Choir, Pacific Youth Choir
Famed veteran Harvard University choral conductor Jameson Marvin leads three of the state’s finest young choirs in this concert featuring music by Brahms and Renaissance and early Baroque composers and contemporary spirituals. Lincoln Hall, Portland State University, 1620 SW Park Ave., 725-3307. 8 pm Friday, Feb. 3. $7-$12.
DANCE Esther LaPointe
Emerging artist Esther LaPointe’s first full-length contemporary dance piece, Reasonable Doubts, examines how one’s beliefs affect one’s choices and interactions with people. Conduit Dance , 918 SW Yamhill St., Suite 401, 221-5857. 8 pm Thursday-Saturday, Feb. 2-4. $10-$15.
Geeklesque Sallies Forth!
Witness the unholy union of burlesque and Ren faire-style fantasy at Geeklesque Sallies Forth, where the dress/undress code includes chain mail and swords. The Mad Marquis hosts; performers include Charlotte Treuse, Sophie Maltease, Angelique DeVil, the Infamous Nina Nightshade, Burlesquire, plus fusion belly dancer Elise and San Francisco export Pickles Kintaro. Star Theater, 13 NW 6th Ave. 7:30 and 11 pm Saturday, Feb. 4. $12-$15. 21+.
Skinner/Kirk Dance Ensemble
Two premieres and two revivals are slated for the Skinner/ Kirk Dance Ensemble’s upcoming contemporary-dance program. The new works include Portland choreographer Josie Moseley’s Flying Over Emptiness and an as yet untitled piece from artistic codirectors Eric Skinner and Daniel Kirk (whom you might also know as BodyVox dancers). Making a return appearance are the lovely trapeze duets One and Obstacle Allusions, an ensemble piece performed by the directors and a few BodyVox alums, and accompanied live by pianist Bill Crane. BodyVox Dance Center, 1201 NW 17th Ave., 229-0627. 7:30 pm, ThursdaySaturday, Feb. 2-4 and ThursdayFriday, Feb. 9-10, 2 and 7:30 pm Saturday, Feb. 11. $36-$59. All ages.
For more Performance listings, visit
VISUAL ARTS
FEB. 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.
exhibit of prints by British Pop artist David Hockney. Perhaps best known for his homoerotic poolside paintings, Hockney has also been a prolific printmaker. Drawing from more than 30 years of the artist’s output, Augen director and print expert Bob Kochs has assembled a collection of prints that covers a wide range of subject matter. Feb. 2-25. Augen DeSoto, 716 NW Davis St., 224-8182.
Facture: Artists at the Forefront of Painterly Glass
31 INCH BY JIM NEIDHARDT AT BLACKFISH GALLERY
NEWS NYT Profiles Nafziger
Portland and Southwest art mecca Marfa, Texas, have been swapping a lot of spit recently. Gallery Homeland did an art exchange between local and Marfa artists, and local curator-artist Jeff Jahn immersed himself in Marfa’s Donald Judd culture as prep for his wellreceived Judd show in 2010. Now, longtime Portland artist (and recent Marfa transplant) Ann Marie Nafziger, who showed with Mark Woolley Gallery for years and still uses Oregon motifs in her work, is profiled in The New York Times’ current Style magazine. Congrats to Nafziger on the honor. We like it when Portland artists go on to do noteworthy things elsewhere.
NOW SHOWING Anodized Aluminum
Veteran sculptor Mel Katz is best known for his large-scale aluminum sculptures, but for this goround at Laura Russo, he translates his sculptural vision into works that hang on the wall. Like his freestanding pieces, these works are made of anodized aluminum and feature bold colors and biomorphic shapes reminiscent of Henri Matisse’s late-career gouache cutouts. Katz’s works survive the floor-to-wall translation with verve and visual wit intact. Feb. 2-25. Laura Russo Gallery, 805 NW 21st Ave., 226-2754.
Asia 2011
Inveterate globe-trotter Larry Cwik has long brought his colorful travelogues to viewers in Portland and across the country. Artgoers with long memories will remember his 2004 exhibition at Gallery 500, showcasing elegant idylls from Morocco. Cwik has also taken us along on his treks through Mexico and Antarctica. Now, in his first major Portland show since 2008, he shows us sights from his recent journey across Asia. As always, the photographer imbues his imagery with vibrant color and a sense of humanity that distinguishes his work from that of other travel photographers. Through Feb. 25. Milepost 5, 900 NE 81st Ave., 729-3223.
Clouds Enclose Comets: The Envelope
It is a utilitarian object that is fast becoming obsolete: the envelope. This piece of folded paper, designed to hold more important pieces of folded paper, grows less relevant and more nostalgic in this era, when almost any communication of note happens by email. For this novel, themed group show, gallery owner Jane Beebe asked 17 artists to reinterpret the envelope as a formal and conceptual entity. Through Feb. 25. PDX Contemporary Art, 925 NW Flanders St., 222-0063.
David Hockney: Prints 1965-1998
After a stellar group print show with standout works by Joan Mitchell and Adolph Gottlieb, Augen Gallery keeps it comin’ with a bravura
When we think of painting, we think of oils, acrylics and egg tempera. But for a sextet of artists in Bullseye’s new show, painting brings to mind a different medium: glass. Kari Minnick, Martha Pfanschmidt, Ted Sawyer, Jeff Wallin, Abi Spring and Michael Janis all use glass to mimic the liquidity, texturality and other surface effects we normally associate with paint. Using a variety of techniques, they aim to prove glass every bit as worthy as other media to enter the pantheon of painterly media. Of particular interest will be Abi Spring’s minimalist studies and Ted Sawyer’s evocative channelings of Abstract Expressionism. Through Feb. 25. Bullseye Gallery, 300 NW 13th Ave., 227-0222.
Gargantua
If you thought it wasn’t possible for the Jupiter Hotel to get any cooler, now comes word the Jupiter is getting into the fine-art business. With a February First Friday grand opening, Gallery @ The Jupiter is kicking off regular programming with a series of paintings titled Gargantua by Christopher St. John. We’re eager to see how the ever-hip and design-conscious hotel transitions into the art scene. Feb. 3-March 1. Gallery @ The Jupiter, 800 E Burnside St., 230-8010.
LAURA GIBSON – THURSDAY 2/2 @ 6PM
Laura Gibson’s previous record ‘Beasts of Seasons’ was split into two parts (Communion Songs and Funeral Songs), and its confidence and scope caught the ear of a wide audience. La Grande is a town just east of the Wallowa Valley in northeastern Oregon where Laura Gibson found inspiration while writing the songs that would become her new album of the same name.
THE RIVER PROJECT – FRIDAY 2/3 @ 6PM The River Project, comprised of Jay Kennedy, Garth Ankeny, Patrick Brewer and Mateo Bevington, plays smooth acoustic rock that lends itself nicely to long drives in the desert or along a winding stream searching for elusive trout. Their new album ‘Solar Controller’ touches on dreams, love, loss, travel and addiction.
SONGWRITERS CIRCLE – MONDAY 2/6 @ 7PM Elaine Romanelli’s music melds lyrical melodies, intimate storytelling, catchy pop choruses, wry humor, and a hint of Celtic lilt. On her new album ‘Real Deal’ Elaine’s clear voice, sassy spirit, and earthy song-writing meld in songs about doubt, love, and keeping going. Alexa Wiley plays in local bars and coffee houses throughout the Pacific Northwest, Colorado, Massachusetts, Washington and California. On her album ‘Eating That Way’ Alexa captures her audience, carrying us into a waking dream with her riveting guitar work and sure voice. 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).
DRUNKEN PRAYER – TUESDAY 2/7 @ 6PM
Morgan Christopher Geer, who performs under the moniker Drunken Prayer, wrote and arranged many of Drunken Prayer’s first compositions while wood-shedding on a farm in Sonoma County, California, before moving to Portland. His songs are a hefty mix of blues, country and alternative. In February, Drunken Prayer will release its highly anticipated second full-length CD ‘Into the Missionfield.’
DANIEL ELLSWORTH & THE GREAT LAKES THURSDAY 2/9 @ 6PM
Modern Screen
When geometric abstraction meets cultural commentary (see Peter Halley’s current show at Disjecta), you’re apt to find artwork that’s both compositionally and sociologically piquant. Jim Neidhardt paints black rectangles over an inked canvas made to resemble newsprint. The works are pretty to look at, but their theme is not so pretty: the insidious vacuity of popular media culture. Neidhardt proportions his rectangles in ratios that mimic the screen sizes of cellphones and television/computer monitors. The mock-text backgrounds appear to represent the nonstop din of the information superhighway, while the mute black shapes represent the intellectual content of much of what populates that superhighway—which is to say, an empty void. Ouch. Through Feb. 25. Blackfish Gallery, 420 NW 9th Ave.
AVA LUNA W/ TWIN SISTER
Monday, Feb 6 doug fir lounge doors 8pm/show 9pm, $12 CROPPED BY MEL KATZ AT LAURA RUSSO GALLERY Willamette Week FEBRUARY 1, 2012 wweek.com
37
WWeek ad 4S Pops 2/Goodman runs 2-1 & 8
BOOKS
FEB. 1-7
= WW Pick. Highly recommended.
WIN TICKETS TO
By MARIANNA HANE WILES. 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.
NEWS Pet Love
What dog through yonder window barks? It is the East, and the pooch is your one. Perhaps you can write a better 50-word soliloquy in honor of your pet. Willamette Week invites you to try and to submit it at wweek.com/ petlove or by email to petlove@ wweek.com. The best will be published in our Feb. 8 issue.
Groups of 10 or more save :
503-416-638
every Monday at the horror-themed Lovecraft bar. RUTH BROWN. The Lovecraft, 421 SE Grand Ave., 971270-7760. 8 pm. Free. 21+.
0
WEDNESDAY, FEB. 1
A Tribute to Benny Goodman
FEB. 13 @ CRYSTAL BALLROOM
Sat Feb 11 | 7:30 pm & Sun Feb 12 | 3 pm Dave Bennett, clarinet
A tribute to the King of Swing himself – the great dance band leader who launched so many careers and took jazz and swing to Carnegie Hall. Remember Let’s Dance, I Got Rhythm and Sing, Sing, Sing?
Tickets start at just $21
SCAN TO ENTER
Jeff Tyzik, conductor
Authors in Pubs
Call: 503-228-1353 Click: OrSymphony.org
ARLENE SCHNITZER CONCERT HALL
Five poets whose work has been published by Finishing Line Press come together for a reading in the U.S. Bank room. The featured writers are Don Colburn, David Hedges, Joseph A. Soldati, Leah Stenson and John Sibley Williams. Central Library, 801 SW 10th Ave., 988-5123. 6 pm. Free.
THURSDAY, FEB. 2
SPONSORED BY
Come in: 923 SW Washington | 10 am – 6 pm Mon – Fri
Five Poets Visit
GO TO WWEEK.COM/PROMOTIONS
Authors in Pubs aims to boost the confidence of writers by bringing them into bars to share their work and receive feedback. With a booze-soaked audience hanging onto their every word (between ordering onion rings and checking the Blazers’ score), what could possibly go wrong? Still, it sounds like a worthy cause. February’s featured authors are Michael Mickow, Terry McLean, Dan Leahy and Bethany Weidner. Joe’s Cellar , 1332 NW 21st Ave., 223-8825. 8 pm. Free. 21+.
SATURDAY, FEB. 4 Kevin Renner on Fatherhood
Nervous new fathers with young daughters, listen up: Local dad Kevin Renner turned his own insecurities about fatherhood into a quest for knowledge. He interviewed 50 women from around the world about their experiences— good and bad—with their fathers, and combined their responses to create In Search of Fatherhood: A Mother Lode of Wisdom From the World of Daughterhood. Central Library, 801 SW 10th Ave., 9885123. 1 pm. Free.
TUESDAY, FEB. 7 Gary Geddes
Gary Geddes traveled the African continent interviewing child soldiers, freedom fighters and women infected with HIV as a result of rape. His book, Drink the Bitter Root, examines the ethical and environmental footprints other nations are leaving in Africa in their efforts to destabilize and loot the continent. Broadway Books, 1714 NE Broadway, 284-1726. 7 pm. Free.
Oregon Archaeological Society
Geek out about ancient contraceptives at this month’s Oregon Archaeological Society meeting. Dan Martin’s lecture, “Like a Sore Thumb: The Material Culture of Sexual Hygiene From the ‘Restricted District’ of Sandpoint, Idaho” will discuss his findings about historical contraceptive measures and treatment of sexually transmitted diseases. OMSI, 1945 SE Water Ave., 797-4000. 7 pm. Free.
SUNDAY, FEB. 5 Atkinson: Pioneer Oregon Educator
Author Donald Sevetson spent 10 years researching the life of George Henry Atkinson, a Massachusettsborn missionary who is known as “The Father of Public Education in Oregon.” What is it they say about looking to the past to plan the future? School-board members, take note. First Congregational Church (in the chapel), 1126 SW Park Ave., 228-7219. 9:30 am. Free.
MONDAY, FEB. 6 Story Time for Grown-ups: For the Love of Dog
We’re never too old to have someone read to us. David Loftus, longtime host of Story Time for Grown-ups (who has read stories on OPB and at Powell’s) will lend his theatrical voice to stories about man’s best friend. Grendel’s Coffee House, 729 E Burnside St., 5959550. 7:30 pm. Free.
Drunk Poets Society
This poetry open mic takes place
38
Willamette Week FEBRUARY 1, 2012 wweek.com
Romance Writing with Minnette Meador
Just in time for Valentine’s Day, Willamette Writers’ February meeting features novelist Minnette Meador, who will lecture on “Creating Romantic Friction Between the Sheets...of Paper.” Meador will discuss the challenges of creating sparks between fictional characters, using her own historical novel The Centurion and the Queen as an example. The Old Church, 1422 SW 11th Ave., 2222031. 7 pm. Free for Willamette Writers members; $10 non-members and $5 students.
For more Words listings, visit
FEB. 1-7 FEATURE
= WW Pick. Highly recommended.
UNIVERSAL PICTURES
MOVIES
Editor: AARON MESH. 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: amesh@wweek.com. Fax: 243-1115.
Albert Nobbs
40 The gender-bending Albert Nobbs
offers a buy-one-get-one-free coupon of butch, with two central heroines masquerading as dudes. The titular Albert (Glenn Close) is an awkward, finicky little man, while Albert’s inspiration, Hubert Page (Janet McTeer), is strong and, well, normal. Albert should, by all rights, be a sympathetic character. He’s damaged and frightened by the Dublin around him, desperately hanging on to his secret identity in a way that has stifled his ability to actually live. But poor Albert is so onedimensional the film surrounding him becomes a complete and utter drag. Perhaps it’s the 42-year age difference between Close and Mia Wasikowska, who plays the object of Albert’s attentions, that makes the proposal seem overtly creepy, or perhaps it’s Albert’s complete lack of romantic affection. Whatever it is, watching Close and Wasikowska kiss is about the most asexual, uncomfortable thing to hit the screen since the ponytail-fucking in Avatar. Where Albert should arouse pity in viewers, he instead skeeves them out with his creepy plastic face and old-man perving on a young, naive girl. Albert Nobbs is an obvious awardbaiting film for Close, and while it has received a handful of nominations, it’s utterly forgettable as a flick, lacking either the drama to make it great or the camp to make it a joy. R. PATRICIA SAUTHOFF. Fox Tower. Call theaters for additional locations.
Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked! Dancing rodents on an island. WW did not brave the horror. G. Clackamas, Movies on TV.
The Artist
64 Repressed memories drive The Artist. It’s a silent-film homage to silent films—or, rather, the fond, slightly condescending recollection of silent films. Already the Oscar front-runner, the comedy from Michel Hazanavicius (who directed the two OSS 177 spoofs) is yet another take on A Star Is Born, with a slam-bang energetic Jean Dujardin trading places in the spotlight with flapper Bérénice Bejo at the cusp of talkies. The period is apt, since most of the movie’s charms are technical gimmicks: the interstitial cards, the tight aspect ratio on glamorous black-and-white marquees, and the sneaky intrusion of ambient noises into the soundtrack. Days after seeing The Artist, I find it hard to place any individual moments that resonated (aside from the doggie heroism), and I suspect that, title aside, the movie feels a complacent cynicism toward art. PG-13. AARON MESH. Fox Tower. Call theaters for additional locations.
NEW
B-Movie Bingo: Angel of Fury
[ONE NIGHT ONLY, BINGO] The Wolf Choir crew and its playing cards confront a 1992 movie with a baddie known as “The Terrorist Who Strikes Like Lightning.”Hollywood Theatre. 7:30 pm Tuesday, Feb. 7.
Beauty and the Beast 3D
Tie your napkin ‘round your neck, cherie, and we’ll POKE YOU IN THE EYE. G. Lloyd Mall, Cedar Hills, Eastport, Clackamas. Call theaters for additional locations.
Carnage
76 Considering the standard result in Roman Polanski movies of yuppies breeding in fancy New York apartments—birthing the spawn of Satan in Rosemary’s Baby, that sort of thing— it’s a wonder little Zachary Cowan has merely knocked out two of his classmate Ethan Longstreet’s teeth with a stick to begin Carnage. The bitter comedy, which observes the hostilities that escalate when the Cowan parents visit the Longstreet pad to make a formal apology, has likewise been already consigned to the status of minor Polanski. But an opportunity for a quartet of actors—Jodie Foster, John
C. Reilly, Kate Winslet and Christoph Waltz—to play self-regarding louts hasn’t been grabbed with such relish since Mike Nichols made Closer. R. AARON MESH. Fox Tower, Hollywood Theatre. NEW
Chronicle
Portland may have won the Northwest Regional Barista Championships, but the kids in Seattle can move cars with their minds. Not screened for critics by WW press deadlines; look for a review on wweek.com. PG-13. Lloyd Center, Living Room Theaters, Cedar Hills, Tigard, Eastport. Call theaters for additional locations.
Contraband
37 A thriller about the exciting, mentally challenged world of international smuggling, directed by Baltasar Kormákur, which is Icelandic for “Tony Scott.” Kormákur starred in the European version, called ReykjavikRotterdam; in the New Orleans remake, he is replaced by Mark Wahlberg as the retired smuggler. We know his trade because people are often mentioning it in awkwardly unambiguous ways. (“You are such a good smuggler!” “That’s why I love smuggling!” And so on.) Wahlberg is always a credible lunkhead, and for 60 minutes Contraband hovers just above boring thanks to his pissed-off brah routine and the outlandish accents of co-stars Giovanni Ribisi (Cajun lizard) and J.K. Simmons (Foghorn Leghorn). But at a certain point—the point where Diego Luna shows up in a duct-tape mask for a Panamanian gun battle, actually—the film crosses into the hopelessly ridiculous. R. AARON MESH. Lloyd Mall, City Center, Clackamas, Eastport, Evergreen. Call theaters for additional locations.
A Dangerous Method
81 So...tell me about your father. The
new David Cronenberg film about the salad days of psychoanalysis, A Dangerous Method isn’t a horror movie until you consider what isn’t shown. There are terrible memories of childhood beatings, recounted by Keira Knightley as Carl Jung’s patientturned-protégée Sabina Spielrein, as the specter of European genocide looms over the talking cures. The movie’s first 30 minutes take place in nearly unbroken sunshine, in the setting of Swiss lake holidays, punctuated by screaming. (Some of Knightley’s fits push the film toward a Gothic melodrama that is embarrassing in its own way; the picture is better when it’s more repressed.) What makes Method the most engrossing of the season’s releases is how the characters are grappling with bestial parts of themselves through ornate words— and often justifying savage betrayals or king-of-the-jungle pride the same way. “All those provocative discussions helped crystallize a lot of my thinking,” Michael Fassbender’s Jung tells Viggo Mortensen’s Freud. And while the movie includes lots of sex and spanking, it’s chiefly about the thrills, arousals and perils of conversation. R. AARON MESH. Fox Tower, Hollywood Theatre.
The Descendants
72 George Clooney, who may be the
closest thing we now have to a Cary Grant, seems of late to be reversing Grant’s career trajectory. While Grant went from pratfalling acrobat to ironically self-aware sex symbol, Clooney has recently made room in his usual Teflon-suave scoundrel persona for roles that place him more as a bruised emotional clown. In Alexander Payne’s The Descendants, Clooney puts in a nuanced, wincing performance as the Dickensianly named Matt King, a workaholic real-estate lawyer and haole heir of Hawaiian royalty, who finds himself suddenly at sea when his wife of many years is knocked into a terminal coma by a high-speed motorboating accident. Not only does he
CONT. on page 40
CRUCIFY HIM: Arnold Schwarzenegger has a way with the maids.
BEER BASH SERIOUSLY, WHO PICKED THE FLICKS FOR THE 2012 BEER AND MOVIE LINEUP? 1000101011101010101. That’s the opening pixel of Conan the Barbarian as it will appear to future audiences. Good ol’-fashioned film is dying, fast, as cheaper, digital projectors now control almost every screen in town. If you want to see a roidy Arnold Schwarzenegger tussle with a pathetically low-tech animatronic vulture screened on celluloid in Portland, the 2012 Beer and Movie fest is probably your last chance. Whether this is a good or bad thing depends on how much you enjoy seeing the future Governator grunt simple English phrases while wearing a fur codpiece. Aaron Mesh, WW’s esteemed movie editor, enjoys it very much, which is presumably why Conan is in BAM. As Mr. Mesh planned the event with film curator Jacques Boyreau and has a fiduciary interest in its success, he agreed to stand aside as other WW writers take their best shots at this year’s lineup. Thankfully, the task proved fairly easy.
2001: A Space Odyssey
A summary: Some monkeys figure out how to kill each other with the leftover parts of other monkeys, and then a computer kills some people, and then an astronaut kills a computer and becomes a space baby. Also there’s a rectangle. It hovers. And it’s made of LSD. So much for plot, people. In essence, 2001 is Kubrick’s sci-fi vision of the badly curdled romance between an autistic man and a gay computer—Lars and the Real Boy meets Battlestar Galactica—told in the reverent tones and incomprehensible language of a Catholic high Mass, complete with a glowing infant Jesus conceived from the corpse of a de-sexed old man. You can watch it if you want, and feel less than you ever did, and somehow be proud of yourself for that. Have fun. MATTHEW KORFHAGE. 6:30 pm Friday-Thursday, Feb. 3-9.
Conan the Barbarian
It’s tempting to argue that this turgid 1982 Schwarzenegger vehicle—penned, believe it or not, by the guy who wrote Apocalypse Now— deserves a post-9/11 reassessment. There’s a lot to read into the tale of an unbelievably muscular white guy who speaks mostly in grunts and travels through central Asia in pursuit of a murderous religious fanatic. But not even a forced Taliban metaphor can save the film from its own
awful dullness. The art direction’s nifty, James Earl Jones is James Early Jonesy, and there’s a big-ass snake, and those are the only moments of interest amid two hours of flexing and glaring. Those aren’t lamentations of women you hear, Conan—they’re snoring. BEN WATERHOUSE. 9:40 pm Friday-Thursday, Feb. 3-9.
The Untouchables
That The Untouchables is frequently mentioned in the same breath as Coppola and Scorsese is a travesty. Sure, the scene where De Niro’s Al Capone plays T-ball with a dude’s head is giddily unhinged, but this is otherwise a film devoid of originality. Celebrated hack director Brian De Palma—whose career-spanning confusion of “homage” with “rip-off” is represented here by an exceedingly goofy Battleship Potemkin shootout in a train station—is completely tone-deaf, drifting between the comic-booky do-goodery of Kevin Costner’s Eliot Ness, Sean Connery sleepwalking through speakeasies, and mismatched action sequences. Never mind The Godfather. The 1991 Christian Slater-Richard Grieco opus Mobsters is The Untouchables’ closest relative. AP KRYZA. 4:45 pm FridayThursday, Feb. 3-9.
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
been between Kirk and Spock. But the doctor? Eww. Bones is (metaphorically, of course) up in Kirk’s ass throughout this movie, throwing a little bitch fit about everything Jim does. I guess there needed to be some drama, seeing as there ain’t much in the plot. Khan is all pissy—er, “wrathful”—hunting down Kirk with some weak excuse about Kirk killing his wife. Grow up, ladies, and stop fighting over a big, shiny phallus. It’s unbecoming, like Kirk’s O-face when he screams, “Khaaaaan!” Is that the face Kirk makes when he gets earfucked with that brain-control worm thing? Stick that in Kirstie Alley’s head instead and control her off the ship and back to Cheers. PATRICIA SAUTHOFF. 7:15 pm Friday-Thursday, Feb. 3-9.
Boogie Nights
There’s nothing wrong with Boogie Nights in and of itself. Except it’s the movie that tricked Hollywood into thinking Mark Wahlberg is a legitimate actor. If Paul Thomas Anderson hadn’t cast him to play Dirk Diggler, Marky Mark’s single memorable cinematic moment would’ve been fingering Reese Witherspoon on a roller coaster, and that would’ve spared us an entire decade-plus of his permanently furrowed brow ruining everything from The Fighter to the Planet of the Apes franchise. That makes PTA the Baby Hitler of film: Set a time machine to 1970 and I’ll smother him in his sleep. C’mon, you’d sacrifice There Will Be Blood to stop Entourage from existing, right? MATTHEW SINGER. 9:25 pm FridayThursday, Feb. 3-9.
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was supposed to have tarnished the legacy of a great franchise, but Indiana Jones was awful from the start. A startlingly dull bit of nostalgia for the bygone dreck that Steven Spielberg rubbed himself up against as a lad, Raiders of the Lost Ark has ossified into a totem worshipped by man-babies who can’t say goodbye to childhood; revered by dunderheads who mistake Harrison Ford’s smug mug’s war against charisma for something resembling magnetism; and overrated by pretty much the entire world. Watch it with adult eyeballs—you’ll see what I mean. CHRIS STAMM. 1:30 and 4 pm FridaySunday, Feb. 3-5. 4 pm MondayThursday, Feb. 6-9.
GO: Beer and Movie screens at the Academy Theater, 7818 SE Stark St., bambeerandmovie.com.
Wait, when did Kirk and McCoy start fucking? The man-love has always
Willamette Week FEBRUARY 1, 2012 wweek.com
39
FEB. 1-7
not know how to relate to his two daughters—stock indie-quirky 10-yearold Scottie (Amara Miller) and acidtongued boarding-school teen Alex (Shailene Woodley)—but he is left to discover that his lonely, stay-at-home wife had fallen in love with another man behind his back. Clooney makes the most of his underwritten role—it is a comedic wonder to watch him lope awkwardly in flip-flops, or register his polite, pride-sucking pain over and over—but it is difficult nonetheless for the viewer to invest emotionally in the film, despite its easy charisma. R. MATTHEW KORFHAGE. Fox Tower, Lloyd Mall, Moreland, St. Johns Twin Cinema-Pub. Call theaters for additional locations. NEW
Did You Kiss Anyone?
[ONE NIGHT ONLY, DIRECTOR ATTENDING] Local filmmaker Mike Vogel premieres his comedy about a married couple who permit each other a one-night stand. Bagdad Theater. 7 pm Tuesday, Feb. 7. NEW
Hertzfeldt
An Evening with Don
[ONE NIGHT ONLY, DIRECTOR ATTENDING] The marvelous Portland animator shows his distressed “Bill” trilogy on 35 mm, premiering the conclusion, It’s Such a Beautiful Day. Hollywood Theatre. 7 pm Saturday, Feb. 4. $12.
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
15 Thomas Horn plays Oskar Schell, a nerdy 9-year-old who recently lost his beloved father (Tom Hanks) in the Sept. 11 attacks. Oskar looks and moves like a normal boy—first-time actor Horn is naturally precocious onscreen—but he talks like Woody Allen, with a neurotic, atheist superiority. People who condescend to children or religion may find this faux naïf rather adorable. A blue-state holy fool, he touches the lives of lonely grownups in the vague, cloying fashion of many stories about cute kids. So it’s not surprising that Oskar’s father is played by Forrest Gump, and that the screenplay is by Eric Roth, who wrote that movie about a red-state holy fool. Like the American history in Forrest Gump, in this movie, 9/11 is not a reality to be examined, but instead, a boy’s symbol of adult tragedy, what Oskar calls “the worst day.” For Warner Bros.’ two-hour blockbuster version of Jonathan Safran Foer’s book, director Stephen Daldry knows how to do proud artiness. He concentrates, as usual, on rosy skin, maudlin musical montage, and look-at-me camera effects. These include Oskar’s visions of his father’s death, which are like a morbid picture book that doesn’t teach you anything. You almost expect to see that dastardly airplane peeking impishly around a corner, or Rudy Giuliani. PG-13. ALISTAIR ROCKOFF. Fox Tower, Lloyd Center, Cedar Hills, Tigard, Eastport. Call theaters for additional locations.
NEW
Fight Life
[ONE WEEK ONLY, DIRECTOR ATTENDING] A documentary on ultimate fighting. Clinton Street Theater. 7 and 9 pm Friday-Thursday, Feb. 3-9. Director James Z Feng will attend screenings Friday-Saturday, Feb. 3-4.
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
David Fincher’s take on Stieg Larsson’s froth of woman-killing and woman’s revenge is less repellent than the flat nose-rubbing of the Swedish version, maybe because Fincher mostly gets his jollies from digital showboating. The movie looks like somebody found the pornography stash of Steve Jobs; the snow and the torture chamber both look like they were designed by Apple. The enterprise has a necrotic vibe that is distancing, and in some shots, the characters’ skin is nearly purple. Fincher’s best jokes are all sick ones: A killer carves his victims to Enya, the opening credits are a Bond montage caked in a spew of power cords and crude oil, and he gets us awfully attached to that cat. The only human element is Rooney Mara. As the hacker detective Lisbeth Salander, she benefits from lucky miscasting: Her big, emotive eyes belie the hero-
40
ine’s traumatized unfeeling. R. AARON MESH. Pioneer Place, Lloyd Mall, Tigard, Clackamas, Bridgeport. Call theaters for additional locations.
Haywire
91 Are actors necessary? Many of cin-
ema’s powerhouse directors, from Hitchcock to Kubrick, preferred to think of their performers as nonessential furnishings, but only Steven Soderbergh has tried to eliminate them entirely. In espionage thriller Haywire, his weapon of choice is Gina Carano: an ultimate-fighting champion uncaged to destroy Ewan McGregor, Michael Fassbender and Antonio Banderas. It’s as if Soderbergh sent a bouncer to clear out Wolfgang Puck’s Oscar afterparty. Haywire is a sly triumph. Carano, who plays a black-ops mercenary and resembles a beefed-up Danica Patrick, struggles in early dialogue exchanges—but then Channing Tatum attacks her with a coffee mug and she’s freed to communicate with her thighs, which she uses to put GQ cover boys in lethal headlocks. Her native expressionlessness ups the ante on the macho inscrutability affected by would-be Bonds, and her onslaught against debonair foes (all of them at their most iconically suave) feels like a sabotage of male ego. Other than the gender somersault, this is an unremarkable action script: double-cross and revenge, studded with fights. Its delights are all in the deployment of style. With its sequences divided into different color and location motifs—blue mesa, golden Dublin, pink Mexico—Haywire is Soderbergh making a remix of the spy flick. R. AARON MESH. Fox Tower, Cedar Hills, Lloyd Center, Eastport, Clackamas. Call theaters for additional locations.
Hugo
80 Martin Scorsese’s decision to
helm the 3-D adaptation of Brian Selznick’s Caldecott-winning novel, The Invention of Hugo Cabret, seemed an odd and possibly addled one at first blush. But look at Scorsese’s filmography sideways and this august director’s late-career digression into family-friendliness makes a strange sort of sense, for beneath the blood and unpardonable French of films like Goodfellas and Casino, one finds a freewheeling and wide-eyed reverence for the antic, the cartoonish, the downright silly. (Two words: Joe Pesci.) Set in a vivid version of 1930s Paris so edibly adorable it might as well have been born in a crocodile tear sliding down Amélie’s pristine cheek, Hugo drapes its bittersweet study of broken dreams over a plot of fairystory simplicity. Scorsese pulls off a few wonderful tricks with Hugo. It is a film populated by uncanny visions— dreams, films, dummies, trompe l’oeil expanses—and resonant with wonder, dolor and regret. The message: Life, though brief, admits of magic. The messenger: a master magician still. PG. CHRIS STAMM. Living Room Theaters, Lloyd Center. Call theaters for additional locations. NEW
The Innkeepers
70 Ti West is obsessed with creating
bumps in the night. This is a director who shot a film that consists almost exclusively of a babysitter slowly walking through an old mansion and peeking around corners into nothingness. Yet House of the Devil was brilliant in its ability to translate every footfall, creak, howl of wind and far-off voice into utter dread, making its manic payoff all the more jarring after an hour of relative stagnancy. With old-school haunted-house drama The Innkeepers, West is up to his old tricks with the story of two spunky young hotel workers (Sara Paxton and Pat Healy) obsessed with contacting and videotaping the spirit of a murdered bride who walks the antiquated halls, and who may or may not have a connection to the creaky hotel’s only two guests (including New Agey ghost whisperer Kelly McGillis). Like Devil, The Innkeepers is slow and methodical, building to an effectively chilling finale. But despite its splendidly gothic aesthetic and ghastly specters, The Innkeepers never transitions into fullblown fear. Once again, tension builds
Willamette Week FEBRUARY 1, 2012 wweek.com
with every second, generating constant discomfort. Trouble is, this time West’s big bang isn’t nearly as lethal as the anticipation promises. R. AP KRYZA. Hollywood Theatre. Following the 9:30 pm show on Friday, Jan. 3, the Portland Oregon Paranormal Society will conduct a ghost hunt at the venue. The hunt is sold out.
The Iron Lady
35 Give The Iron Lady points for trans-
parency: The film’s centerpiece is shots of Meryl Streep practicing her accent, the foundation of her biennial Oscar bid. She’s been Danish and Polish and Australian and whatever Julia Child was—she’s like a sailor with a different drawl in every port. This time out, she’s playing Margaret Thatcher, who in fact did train to lower her register in the 1979 prime minister campaign. So we get a montage of Streep bellowing like she’s rehearsing British Channel whale songs. It is a gesture toward the essential falseness of Thatcher (who had to practice to sound like a no-nonsense mum) and an inadvertent reminder of the vaunted hollowness of Streep. She does impressions. At least half the picture is dedicated to an elderly Thatcher wandering through her quarters in a housedress, like Kermit the Frog at his mansion in The Muppets, talking to her late husband Denis (Jim Broadbent). The Iron Lady’s failure of taste is even more incredible when you remember that Thatcher is alive. The only equivalent I can imagine is if somebody made a Ronald Reagan movie in 1994 called The Gipper’s Got Alzheimer’s. PG-13. AARON MESH. Fox Tower. Call theaters for additional locations.
who looks like Ed Harris—oh my god, that is Ed Harris) in Man on a Ledge, a hacky patchwork of thriller clichés (which wire do I cut and how do I disarm this motion detector and where are my pants, goddammit?) that is not not fun in the way being alive is often not not better than being dead. There’s this man. He’s on a ledge. A few days before being on a ledge he was in prison for stealing a huge diamond, but then he escaped and made his way to a ledge. Dude did not steal that diamond, is what the whole ledge thing is about. He cooked up this suicidal stunt—this ledgerdemain, if you will—to draw attention from a nearby heist that will prove both his innocence and Ed Harris’ guilt. Everything you think is going to happen happens, and myriad tricks of the cinematic trade are employed to create a fairly convincing version of a world in which something
stupid like what’s in this stupid movie might happen, and my eyeballs did not burn too much, nor did my brain suffer any damage, but I have to warn you: Ed Burns doesn’t die. I’m very sorry. PG-13. CHRIS STAMM. Pioneer Place, Looyd Center, Cedar Hills, Tigard, Eastport. Call theaters for additional locations.
Melancholia
90 A planet called Melancholia hur-
tling toward Earth at 60,000 mph while a Wagner plaint plays the entire species off and Kirsten Dunst scowls? Ridiculous, I know. But listen: There really are soul-searing kinds of sadness that can stretch minds to cruel and impossible limits, and perhaps such states can only be comprehended with the help of something as absurd and terrifying as a new blue planet rising on Earth’s horizon. R. CHRIS STAMM.
REVIEWS HABIB MADJIDI
MOVIES
Joyful Noise
31 And lo, the Lord said, “Let ye not be resigned to watch that worn-out VHS copy of Sister Act during church lock-ins and charter-bus trips to the casino. Let thou enjoy the musical styling of the prophets Sly Stone and Usher, with their hymns reconfigured to substitute My name in the place of drugs and fornication in soaring gospel numbers. And we shall see miracles like break-dancing redneck gingers and the rise of the Queen of Latifah as she and St. Parton of Dollywood—the patron saint of Botox—unite to saveth a beloved choir from demise and win the national singing championship. And it will be mediocre at best.” Amen. PG-13. AP KRYZA. Lloyd Mall, Eastport, Clackamas.
Le Havre
60 Aki Kaurismäki is a vital stepping stone on the footbridge to formalist quirk: He’s seen every crime picture featuring Alain Delon, and no way Wes Anderson and Jared Hess haven’t studied everything he’s made since Leningrad Cowboys Go America. His latest work, Le Havre, stays in close proximity to industrial shipping containers and outcast oddballs in modernist bars, but moves that setting from Finland to France. It’s a disappointing leap: The trademark stoicism of Kaurismäki’s heroes doesn’t translate into French bonhomie, and the project ends up feeling ruinously whimsical. To Le Havre’s credit, the story—about a chain-smoking shoeshiner (André Wilms) trying to smuggle an African immigrant child (Blondin Miguel) to London—is engaged with contemporary worries and closer to the true spirit of silent melodrama than The Artist. But none of the characters is sketched with the care Kaurismäki showed in The Man Without a Past, and the movie may mark the point where directorial distinctiveness crosses into affectation. It’s certainly patience-trying. Probably all you need to know about the movie is that the fate of the boy hinges on a charity concert performed by an aged rockabilly singer called Little Bob. Here the cowboys go again. AARON MESH. Living Room Theaters.
Man on a Ledge
49 James Cameron’s Avatar plaything Sam Worthington, future recipient of the Tom Berenger Lifetime Achievement in Bruised Lumpiness Award, “stars” alongside a cast of fleshy hood ornaments (Kyra Sedgwick, Ed Burns, some old man
I DIVORCE YOU: Leila Hatami (left) and Peyman Maddi.
ARAB SPRING AWAKENINGS No justice, no peace. But mostly no peace.
Scheherazade, Tell Me a Story 63 Docking in Portland as the openingnight selection of the 22nd Annual Cascade Festival of African Films, this 2009 picture from Egypt contains a number of images presaging Tahrir Square. Most obviously, a lone woman holds a banner aloft as a riot squad encircles her with its shields. But the more memorable shot is of a virgin-deflowering con artist and political attaché (Mahmoud Hemida) so delighted by his latest blackmail that he ballroom dances across a parking garage. If director Yousry Nasrallah is channeling the muse of One Thousand and One Nights storyteller Scheherazade, he is doing it through nickelodeon melodrama, with calculating villains betraying virtuous women. This is history written in TV soap; the framing device is a daytime talk show run by Hebba (Mona Zaki) that undercuts the chauvinist establishment. But by the time we get to the story of three sisters competing for the same man—a story that ends with one of them setting the suitor on fire and asking, “Tell me, Saïd, how does hell feel?”—the talk show has earned the name “Dusk to Dawn.” First the blood and sex, then the revolution. AARON MESH. Hollywood Theatre. 7 pm Friday, Feb. 3. Free. The Cascade Festival of African Films continues at Portland Community College’s Cascade Campus through Thursday, March 1.
A Separation 90 Thanks in no small part to Jafar Panahi, Iranian cinema keeps its ear to the ground, preferring close observation of unfairness to broad political fusillade. With Panahi a political prisoner, that mantle falls to Asghar Farhadi, whose A Separation is rightly favored for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar. This sounds like a downer, as does the plot: A marriage is all over but the shouting, and there’s a lot of shouting. But the movie is riveting, even exhilarating. Farhadi tracks the fallout between Simin and Nader (Leila Hatami and Peyman Maadi) as it extends to the pregnant caretaker (Sareh Bayat) whom Nader distractedly hires for his Alzheimer’s-stricken father. The film watches each character’s mixed motivations as if preparing a legal brief. Indeed, all the players are soon arguing to a beleaguered magistrate who longs for his teatime. Cinema typically strains for the recognizable, so we don’t have to think, but in A Separation everyone has their reasons, and it does not matter if those are anyone else’s—let alone yours. PG-13. AARON MESH. Opens Friday at Fox Tower.
MOVIES BITTER FILMS/DON HERTZFELDT
FEB. 1-7
Mission: Impossible— Ghost Protocol
83 In only three magnificent films— The Iron Giant and Pixar smashes The Incredibles and Ratatouille— director Brad Bird has honed an eye: one of uncanny imagination, one that envisions a chaotic urban battlefield and a small kitchen as scenes of similar peril. That’s essential to a film in which crawling through a ventilation shaft and dangling from the world’s tallest building are equally dangerous. Luckily, Bird’s eye for the real world more than matches his animated ingenuity. Mission: Impossible—Ghost Protocol finds Tom Cruise’s generic super-agent Ethan Hunt sprinting from set piece to set piece to stop a madman from blowing up the world. That’s it. No talky exposition. Just kinetic action (much of it shot in glorious IMAX), gadgetry of the Wile E. Coyote variety and the requisite goofy disguises. Ghost Protocol starts with a Russian prison break and immediately Cruise, comic relief Simon Pegg, vixen Paula Patton and heir apparent Jeremy Renner are framed for blowing up the Kremlin (a nice nod to the series’ Cold War origins) and forced to kick ass and clear their names. Bird fluidly guides the mayhem with the eye of an animator and the humor of a child unleashed on a new playground. With Ghost Protocol he accomplishes the unlikely by taking a stagnant franchise and molding the best action film of the year. PG-13. AP KRYZA. Lloyd Mall, Clackamas, Eastport, Cedar Hills, Bridgeport. Call theaters for additional locations.
One for the Money
Katherine Heigl, bounty hunter. Why was this not screened for critics? Inexplicable. PG-13. Pioneer Place, Lloyd Center, Tigard, Eastport, Cedar Hills. Call theaters for additional locations. NEW
Paul Goodman Changed My Life
A documentary about the countercultural hero. Living Room Theaters. NEW Paul McCartney: The Love We Make
95 [THREE NIGHTS ONLY] “What do Paul McCartney and 9/11 have in common?” probably sounds like the set-up of a blue joke. I mean it as an honest inquiry. Was there really any reason to make a movie that simultaneously chronicled the aftermath of the terror attacks on New York and the lead-up to Sir Paul’s star-studded 2001 NYC benefit concert? I can think of a few, actually. A behind-the-scenes look at how a concert of this magnitude came together might have proved fascinating; A meditation on artists’ responsibility in the face of national tragedy even more so. But The Love We Make is neither. This Showtime-produced verite-style doc features nothing particularly thoughtful because its subject— who felt a connection to 9/11 after being grounded on a New York airplane that September morning—isn’t particularly thoughtful. In his best moments he’s a Chauncey Gardiner character, bobbing around the Big Apple singing “doobie doobie doo” and making insufferable kissy faces as passerby beg for autographs and hugs. It’s backstage at the big show, while McCartney mutters incoherently about “the huddled masses” and explains his shallow new single “Freedom” to his fellow superstars, that the movie stumbles into its true message: The celebrity world, in all its isolation, is even less prepared to react to large-scale tragedy than the rest of us. The best they can do is put on a big dumb concert. CASEY JARMAN. NW Film Center’s Whitsell Auditorium. 7 pm Friday-Sunday, Feb. 3-5.
Pina 3D
95 Up to now, 3-D in film has been
an enterprise largely extraneous to the character of film itself: moviedom’s version of the 10,000 lovefattened cherubs overwhelming the interior of a baroque church.
FREE WILL
astrology
AN EVENING WITH DON HERTZFELDT German auteur Wim Wenders’ Pina—an elegiac documentary about the work of late, iconoclastic choreographer Pina Bausch—is something else altogether, a brokenhearted Billie Holiday to the 3-D form’s usual emptily virtuosic Ella Fitzgerald. “I’m not interested in how people move,” Bausch has famously said. “I’m interested in what makes them move.” In Wenders’ film, the viewer is placed not only inside the space of that movement but into the feeling that animates it. Pina is, in fact, the most emotionally affecting film I saw last year. But Wenders also convincingly sets up the 3-D stage as an actual, near-tangible reality; we are asked at every turn to accept it as such, and the highly physical medium of dance does uniquely lend itself to treatment in three dimensions. Wenders’ film about his longtime friend was begun before her death and so was not originally meant as an elegy, but in retrospect the film has now become much the same thing: a wake that succeeds in bringing the dead around for one last dance. PG. MATTHEW KORFHAGE. Cinema 21. NEW
Portlandia Season 2
[TV ONSCREEN] Portlandia’s new season features the Carrie Brownstein and Fred Armisen characters—some new ones, most recurring from the first run—in many settings. They drink cocktails at Central, go tubing on the Sandy River, and attempt a wedding in Cathedral Park. What they never do is work. With the exception of two newscasters covering an Allergy Pride Parade, the only visibly employed protagonists are Toni and Candace, the feminist bookstore owners who do everything in their power to avoid moving retail. In an era when the best TV comedies— The Office, Party Down, Parks and Recreation—have centered on the workplace, Portlandia reaches back for the dream of the ’90s as represented by Seinfeld and Friends. It’s set in a lifestyle destination where people take their leisure gravely seriously. AARON MESH. Hollywood Theatre. 10 pm Friday, Feb. 3. Mission Theater. 7 and 10 pm, with variety show “The Friday Night TV Party & Theater Club Neighborhood Association” in between.
Red Tails
45 Apparently tired of meddling with his own history, with Red Tails, George Lucas goes ahead and fucks up actual history. Sorry, that’s not totally fair. In truth, Lucas has been trying to get this film about the Tuskegee Airmen—the first AfricanAmerican fighter pilots to serve in the U.S. Armed Forces during World War II—off the ground since the late ’80s, back when the only thing fanboys held against him were Ewoks. As a rare Hollywood blockbuster with an all-black cast and a subject that does not equate to easy profit, it’s the very definition of a “passion project.” Here’s a question, though: Why, after having 20 years to consider how to honor these barrier-breaching, pre-civil-rights-era heroes, did he conclude the best route would be turning them into a live-action cartoon? Not even
a good cartoon, either; more like an outdated comic book from the 1940s. The problem is not that it’s an old-fashioned action flick; frankly, if the goal was to reach a younger audience, packing the film full of whiz-bang aerial dogfights—which, to be honest, only look decent— is probably the best way to get its attention. The problem is, whatever attention the movie earns, it does nothing with it. PG-13. MATTHEW SINGER. Pioneer Place, Lloyd Mall, Cedar Hills, Tigard, Eastport. Call theaters for additional locations.
p. 45
NEW Rockaday Ritchie and the Queen of the Hop
[ONE NIGHT ONLY, REVIVAL, DIRECTOR ATTENDING] George Hood and Don Gronquist’s elusive 1975 filmed-in-Portland opus is based on the same Charlie Starkweather story that inspired Badlands. Look for a review on wweek.com. NW Film Center’s Whitsell Auditorium. 7 pm Monday, Feb. 6. Hood and Gronquist will attend the screening. NEW
Rural Route Film Festival
[THREE NIGHTS ONLY] A weekend of features and shorts about going to the country. Promising entries include Truck Farm (9:30 pm Saturday, Feb. 4), a documentary from a director of King Corn about, well, planting a farm in a pickup truck. 5th Avenue Cinema. 7 and 9:30 pm Friday-Saturday, Feb. 3-4. 3 pm Sunday, Feb. 5.
Shame
86 “I find you disgusting.” These
are the first substantive words spoken in director Steve McQueen’s sex-negative new film, aptly titled Shame. They are a misdirection, delivered after a crafty cut to a luxe office meeting, but they are spoken immediately after the film’s subject—Brandon Sullivan, played by a Bale-intense Michael Fassbender— has bought himself a high-end prostitute. And thus, the main focus and dichotomy in the movie: a constant swing between Sullivan’s clinically posh New York life and his lonely, seamy, uncontrolled sexual obsessions. In early scenes, his life amid stylized, minimalist spaces is a hyperaestheticized odyssey through the pages of Dwell magazine or unhappyhipsters.com, albeit one with lots of full frontal nudity. And it all proceeds terribly slowly. As in Hunger, McQueen’s first movie, we are made to live through onscreen extremity in all its sometimes tedious detail. But the ugliness remains so lovely that we are not only at its mercy but wholly compelled by it. NC-17. MATTHEW KORFHAGE. Living Room Theaters.
wweekdotcom ACADEMY AWARD® NOMINEE
B E S T D O C U M E N TA RY F E AT U R E WINNER q CINEMA EYE HONORS q OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN PRODUCTION N O M I N E E - W G A D O C U M E N TA R Y S C R E E N P L AY AWA R D N O M I N E E - B A F TA F I L M N O T I N T H E E N G L I S H L A N G U A G E AWA R D
‘‘A KNOCKOUT. THE MOST EXCITING USE OF 3-D SINCE ‘AVATAR.’ THE RESULTS ARE BEYOND WORDS.’’ Kenneth Turan, LOS ANGELES TIMES
‘‘FILLED WITH SUCH POWERFUL BEAUTY.’’ Shawn Levy, THE OREGONIAN
Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows
42 Holmes (Robert Downey, Jr.) and Watson (Jude Law) are here polymathic Victorian fratboys, prone to pranking, with earnest do-gooder Watson terminally at the mercy of his sociopathic-with-a-heart-ofgold, game-obsessed friend. This is not a Holmes who first discovers a
CONT. on page 42
A 3-D film for PINA BAUSCH by Wim Wenders
NOW PLAYING
CINEMA 21 THEATRE 616 NW 21ST AVENUE (503) 223-4515 PORTLAND
WWW.SUNDANCESELECTS.COM
Willamette Week FEBRUARY 1, 2012 wweek.com
Willamette Weekly Wednesday, 2/1
41
MOVIES
FEB. 1-7
mystery and then sets about solving it with uncanny precision; Downey is a dimly wisecracking blunderbuss whose main talents seem to be intellectual bullying, all-around asskicking and the art of disguising himself as women or furniture. And so we travel from action-packed setpiece to action-packed set piece along a distressingly loose causal chain, and with any luck we don’t care much why. PG-13. MATTHEW KORFHAGE. Pioneer Place, Lloyd Mall, Cedar Hills, Eastport, Clackamas. Call theaters for additional locations.
marked (or unreiterated), and with Matt Damon playing a newly single parent trying to salve his kids’ bereavement, it’s essentially The Descendants for people who don’t get subtlety. PG. AARON MESH. Cascade, Movies on TV, Hilltop.
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
REVIEWS
NEW
Lloyd Center, Cedar Hills, Tigard, Eastport. Call theaters for additional locations. NEW
Young Goethe in Love
A German biopic about the author’s sorrows. Living Room Theaters.
The Woman in Black
UNIVERSAL PICTURES
Harry Potter and the chamber of secrets. Not screened by WW press deadlines; look for a review on wweek.com. PG-13. Pioneer Place,
23 British author John le Carré
answered James Bond fantasy with his realistic sense of class politics and moral disillusionment in a faded empire. His 1974 novel, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, filled six hours when the BBC adapted it for television. In this version, a mere two hours are supposed to convey agent George Smiley’s search for a Soviet mole among his colleagues at MI6, or “the Circus.” Because the English actors look distinctive, you can almost follow the plot, beginning with Mark Strong as a fellow agent who gets ambushed in Budapest. Before we know anything about the guy, we’re expected to fear for his life because the film’s director, Tomas Alfredson (Let the Right One In), turns up the earthquake sound effects. Like many young boys, Alfredson seems enamored with the movies of David Fincher, in which pale, paranoid men discover horrible corpses, and all the politics and emotions of adult life have conveniently taken place off camera. This English spy version is especially disingenuous. Again, like a young boy, we’re supposed to be impressed by the men’s cool emotional repression, but also impressed with ourselves for leading happier lives than theirs. Their personal history together is summarized in flashback rather than being explored in drama and decors we can really feel. R. ALISTAIR ROCKOFF. Fox Tower, CineMagic, Lake Twin. Call theaters for additional locations.
Underworld: Awakening 3D
Kate Beckinsale finds Lycans and POKES YOU IN THE EYE. Not screened for critics. PG-13. Pioneer Place, Cedar Hills, Tigard, Eastport, City Center. Call theaters for additional locations.
War Horse
48 Steven Spielberg has directed a twin bill of holiday films, but the ostensibly more mature entertainment, War Horse, has the exact same plot as a children’s film: 1945’s Son of Lassie. In both pictures, a British Isles pet—substitute plow horse for collie—is dropped behind German enemy lines, and has encounters with innocents who promptly die. The echoes may be accidental, and are partly the responsibility of War Horse’s book and Broadway lineage, but Spielberg has very consciously made a 1940s family picture. The Irish greenscapes are as gossamer and fake as the sets of Brigadoon. It is typical of Spielberg to make a World War I picture in which the central players emerge unharmed, like E.T. and Elliott on the Western Front. Even without the stage version’s famed puppets, War Horse has moments of wordless power—a cavalry changing into a Gatling gun, the mounts galloping on, riderless— but it is skill devoted to grating nonsense. PG-13. AARON MESH. Tigard, Eastport, Evergreen, Cascade. Call theaters for additional locations.
We Bought a Zoo
70 Everybody feels oh so very
much in We Bought a Zoo, but that’s to be expected from Cameron Crowe, whose heart has been perpetually on his sleeve since Say Anything. The movie is explicitly about risking embarrassment: the possibility of ridicule that comes from carrying a capuchin on your shoulder, playing Cat Stevens songs loudly, or...well, buying a zoo. It’s not quite the glop of Elizabethtown, but no humane sentiment goes unre-
42
Willamette Week FEBRUARY 1, 2012 wweek.com
50 FIRST DATES: Drew Barrymore and a whale.
HALF-BAKED ALASKA Big Miracle 58 About 15 minutes into the new inspirational family film Big Miracle, an insufferable Drew Barrymore exclaims, “But this is different— whales are in danger!” I rolled my eyes so hard I almost had a seizure. Playing a Greenpeace activist fighting to help free a family of gray whales trapped in the rapidly freezing Arctic Ocean, Barrymore oozes with maudlin sap while still managing to be an obnoxious bitch—and I like Drew Barrymore. The otherwise enjoyable cast includes cute-as-a-button John Krasinski playing the small-town reporter who breaks the story and Ted Danson— who lately can do no wrong—as a northern Alaskan oil baron (who is still more likable than Barrymore’s activist). Based on the true story that became international news in 1988, Big Miracle benefits from an impressive series of events and some cool archival news footage, including a young Tom Brokaw. In what was primarily a political stunt, the Reagan administration deployed the National Guard and even reached out to the Commie Russians for help freeing the whales. The expense was surely exorbitant, but when people work together despite their differences (cue orchestra’s sentimental crescendo) that warm, blubbery feeling is priceless. PG. PENELOPE BASS. Opens Friday at Lloyd Mall, Cedar Hills, Tigard, Eastport, Clackamas, Evergreen, Bridgeport and Division. Movies that can see Russia from their house.
The Grey 56 Liam Neeson’s latest box-office smash is essentially the John Milius-penned USS Indianapolis speech in Jaws—“so, eleven hundred men went in the water; 316 men come out, and the sharks took the rest, June the 29th, 1945”—if you culled the initial survivors down to seven, replaced the sharks with wolves, and replaced John Milius with nobody. Neeson is working as a wolf sniper on a Yukon pipeline and thinking about shooting himself in the face (say what you will about Liam’s recent testosterone surge, when you get Oskar Schindler to anchor your action flick, you get a guy with a flair for looking like he wants to shoot himself in the face), but he boards the wrong charter plane home. The inevitable plane crash is extremely loud and incredibly gross. Because The Grey is not based on a true story, there’s none of the usual survival-tale compunction about getting intimate with severed body bits. Director Joe Carnahan (Smokin’ Aces) homes his camera in tight as the doomed men give the dogs their bones. It’s unsettling and only somewhat undermined by the dialogue, which I believe Carnahan achieved by asking a drunken child to read Jack London aloud. Anyway, Neeson delivers the bombs. R. AARON MESH. Opened last Friday at Fox Tower, Lloyd Center, St. Johns Twin Cinema-Pub, Cedar Hills, Tigard, Eastport, City Center, Clackamas, Oak Grove, Evergreen, Bridgeport and Division.
MOVIES
FEB. 3-9
BREWVIEWS
SILLY PUTTY: Everybody’s bustin’ on my Beer and Movie Fest, so why not allow Vincent Canby to join in the fun? He said John Carpenter’s The Thing “aspired to be the quintessential moron movie of the ’80s.” Who dares argue? The Thing, which opens BAM’s spring Laurelhurst engagement, isn’t the rocket scientist of sci-fi pictures. Its suspense boils down to an Antarctic dorm game of “Mafia,” and its creature effects suggest Carpen-
ter wished Alien had looked more like Little Shop of Horrors. But who goes to the movies to think? We go to feel, and if you don’t sense how Cronenberg and a generation of J-horror savants let The Thing’s elastic mutations split their heads, you’re a moron. AARON MESH. Showing at: Laurelhurst. Best paired with: New Belgium Clutch Dark Sour Ale. Also showing: The Muppets (Academy, Bagdad, Kennedy School, Laurelhurst, Mission).
Academy Theater
Living Room Theaters
341 SW 10th Ave. 971-222-2010 CHRONICLE FRI-TUES 11:50 1:50 3:50 6:00 8:00 9:50 HUGO 3D FRI-TUES 1:10 4:00 7:00 9:30 THE ADVENTURES OF TINTIN 3D FRI-TUE 12:10 4:50 7:15 SHAME FRI-TUE 2:30 9:40 LE HAVRE FRI-TUE 12:20 3:00 5:10 7:30 MELANCHOLIA FRI-TUE 3:40 9:00 YOUNG GOETHE IN LOVE FRI-TUE 11:45 2:00 4:15 6:30 8:45 PAUL GOODMAN CHANGED MY LIFE FRI-TUE 11:40 1:40 6:45 9:35
Regal Fox Tower 10
846 SW Park Ave. 800-326-3264 THE GREY FRI-TUE 12:00 2:30 5:05 7:35 10:05 EXTREMELY LOUD & INCREDIBLY CLOSE FRI-TUE 12:30 3:10 7:05 9:45 THE DESCENDANTS FRI-TUE 12:10 2:40 5:10 7:45 10:10 HAYWIRE FRI-TUE 12:20 2:45 5:00 7:30 9:40 THE IRON LADY FRI-TUE 11:55 2:15 4:30
7:15 9:30 THE ARTIST FRI-TUE 12:15 2:25 4:35 7:10 9:35 A DANGEROUS METHOD FRI-TUE 12:05 9:55 TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY FRI-TUE 12:35 3:15 7:20 10:00 ALBERT NOBBS FRI-TUE 11:50 2:20 4:50 7:25 9:50 CARNAGE FRI-TUE 2:35 5:15 7:40pm
A Separation
FRI-TUE 12:25 3:20 7:00 9:50
Regal Pioneer Place Stadium 6 340 SW Morrison St. 800-326-3264
MAN ON A LEDGE FRI-TUE 1:30 4:30 7:10 9:50 ONE FOR THE MONEY FRI-TUE 1:10 4:20 7:30 10:00 RED TAILS FRI-TUE 1:00 4:10 7:20 10:10 UNDERWORLD: AWAKENING 3D FRI-TUE 1:45 4:00 7:00 9:40 THE WOMAN IN BLACK FRI-TUE 1:20 4:40 7:40 10:20pm SHERLOCK HOLMES: A GAME OF SHADOWS FRI-TUE 1:15pm THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO FRI-TUE 4:15 7:45pm
7818 SE Stark St., 503-252-0500 PUSS IN BOOTS FRI-SUN 2:45 RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK FRI-TUE 4:00, FRISUN 1:30 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY FRI-TUE 6:30 BOOGIE NIGHTS FRI-TUE 9:25 THE UNTOUCHABLES FRITUE 4:45 STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN FRI-TUE 7:15 CONAN THE BARBARIAN FRI-TUE 9:40 THE MUPPETS FRI-TUE 4:35 MY WEEK WITH MARILYN FRI-TUE 7:00 MONEYBALL FRI-TUE 9:10
Laurelhurst Theater
2735 E Burnside St., 2325511 MIDNIGHT IN PARIS FRISUN 6:50. SAT-SUN 1:20 MELANCHOLIA FRI-TUE 9:00, FRI-SUN 4:00 THE MUPPETS FRI-TUE 7:30, FRI-SUN 4:25, SATSUN 1:40 THE THING (1982) FRI-TUE 9:45 MY WEEK WITH MARILYN FRI-TUE 7:15, SAT-SUN 1:50 DRIVE FRI-SUN 4:40, 9:30 IDES OF MARCH FRI-SUN 4:10, 6:40 SHAME FRI-SUN 9:15
CineMagic Theatre
2021 SE Hawthorne Blvd., 503-231-7919 TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY FRI-SUN 5:30 8:15pm
Cinema 21
616 NW 21st Ave., 503-238-8899 PINA IN 3D FRI-TUE 4:30, 7:00, 9:15 plus Sat-Sun 2:00
Regal Lloyd Center 10 Cinema
1510 NE Multnomah St., 800-326-3264 THE GREY FRI-TUE 1:00 3:50 7:05 10:05pm MAN ON A LEDGE FRI-TUE 12:05 2:40 5:15 7:50 10:25pm ONE FOR THE MONEY FRI-TUE 12:50 3:55 7:30 10:15pm EXTREMELY LOUD & INCREDIBLY CLOSE FRI-TUE 12:40 3:40 6:50 9:55pm CHRONICLE FRI-TUE 12:10 12:45 2:25 3:00 4:40 5:20 7:00 7:45 9:35 10:20pm THE WOMAN IN BLACK FRI-TUE 12:00 2:20 4:45 7:15 9:45pm HAYWIRE FRI-TUE 12:25 2:45 5:05 7:35 10:00pm HUGO 3D FRI-TUE 12:30 3:30 6:45 9:50pm UNDERWORLD: AWAKENING: AN IMAX 3D EXPERIENCE FRI-TUE 12:20 2:35 4:55 7:20 9:40pm
SUBJECT TO CHANGE. CALL THEATERS OR VISIT WWEEK.COM/MOVIETIMES FOR THE MOST UP-TODATE INFORMATION. FRIDAY-THURSDAY, FEB. 3-9, UNLESS OTHERWISE INDICATED.
Willamette Week FEBRUARY 1, 2012 wweek.com
43