If “gay rapper” is an oxymoron where you come from, how to get your head around the notion of a gay rapper performing in a sports bar? What in most cities might seem plausible only as some sort of Sacha Baron Cohen-style provocation is just another weeknight in the cultural Galapagos that is New Orleans. Sometime after midnight on the sweltering Thursday before Memorial Day , the giant plasma-screen TVs at the Sports Vue bar (which “proudly airs all major Pay Per View events from the world of Boxing and Ultimate Fighting”) were all switched off, and the bar’s backroom turned into a low-lit, low-ceilinged dance club, where more than 300 people awaited a return engagement by Big Freedia, who by day runs an interior-decoration business and who is, to fans of the New Orleans variant of hip-hop music known as “bounce,” a superstar.
Legendary punk/noise/pop combo from the Bay Area
DEERHOOF
BUSDRIVER, GO DARK
November, 20th, 2014
Doors: 8:00 pm / Show: 9:00 pm
Join XRAY as we sponsor a screening of the British documentary Beautiful Noise, a film that explores shoegaze artists My Bloody Valentine, Cocteau Twins, the Jesus and Mary Chain, Slowdive, Ride, Chapterhouse, Lush, Curve, Swervedriver, and others.
You can watch the trailer here.
DIRECTOR: ERIC GREEN
Beautiful Noise features interviews with many interesting characters including Billy Corgan, Wayne Coyne, Robert Smith, Trent Reznor, and several others.
“An in-depth exploration of the dense, sensuous, and extremely loud movement
in ‘80s/’90s U.K. rock tagged “shoegaze” by the British press. Tracing its influences back to the Cocteau Twins’ ethereal ambiance and the Jesus and Mary Chain’s brash guitar sound, the film explores how bands like My Bloody Valentine, Ride and Lush fused these two disparate sounds together to create a distinctive, new musical style that furthered the genre’s ideals of sonic experimentation without the grandiose stage personas of traditional pop stars. First-time director Eric Green scores a coup by getting this notoriously press-shy bunch to open up about the class politics behind the genre’s poor treatment in the British press, MBV’s infamous falling-out with Creation Records, and how that band became sonic innovators whose music is only now truly receiving its due respect.”—Seattle International Film Festival. (90 mins.)
More on the Reel Music Festival can be found here: NW FIlm Center
Welcome to our 32nd edition of Reel Music. We’ve been on the lookout all year for new works—and timely classics— for this annual celebration of sound and image, music and culture, and the origins of sounds infused in our experience. Whether your passion is jazz, blues, rock, soul, folk, funk, or punk, we hope you find this mixture of old and new, familiar and strange, to be full of inspiration and discovery. As always, our special thanks go to Music Millennium, Willamette Week, Walker, Day & Koch LLP, Oregon Music News, KINK.fm, MusicFestNW, All Classical Portland, KIND Healthy Snacks, XRAY.FM, KMHD, PDX Pipeline, Yelp!, Vortex Magazine and Portland Radio Project.
Unless otherwise noted, all movies are shown at the Whitsell Auditorium, in the Portland Art Museum.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. are an American indie-pop band from Detroit, Michigan, consisting of Daniel Zott and Joshua Epstein. Zott and Epstein met each other while playing in other Detroit music projects and began recording in Zott’s basement in Royal Oak, Michigan.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. was formed in late 2009 by members Joshua Epstein and Daniel Zott. The band also includes drummer Mike Higgins and the group’s newest addition, keyboardist Jon Visger. The band initially began as a basement recording project with few intentions of reaching the public.
In July 2010, the band released Horsepower EP via Quite Scientific Records. The Horsepower EP consisted of songs “Nothing But Our Love,” “Vocal Chords,” “Simple Girl,” and a cover of The Beach Boys’ “God Only Knows.” Months after their EP was released the band’s genre was described as ‘psych-retro pop,’ ‘an inspired mix of hip-hop and folk,’ ‘minimalist altera-pop,’ and ‘beach wave.’ The band came out with a second EP titled My Love Is Easy: Remixes Pt.1 via Quite Scientific Records on November 2, 2010. Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. was noted as ‘one of the best new bands’ of 2010 and became very well-liked from various sources such as Stereogum, SPIN, Under the Radar, Real Detroit, and The Metro Times. The band later came out with We Almost Lost Detroit EP via Warner Bros. Records and Quite Scientific Records on April 21, 2011. Dale Earnhardr Jr. Jr. released two singles, “Morning Thought” and “Simple Girl” on April 8, 2011 and September 9, 2011; respectively.
Rose Windows is an American psychedelic rock band from Seattle, Washington, United States.
The band was started by songwriter Chris Cheveyo in the fall of 2010 in the Central District of Seattle, Washington. The project began with a few rough demos done alone at home and slowly began to take shape as the band amassed members. Bandmates were primarily friends of Christ Cheveyo. Rabia Shaheen Qazi began provides vocals, David Davila performs on piano and organ. Former bandmates of Cheveyo, Nils Petersen and Pat Schowe were enlisted for electric guitar and drums. Richie Rekow and Veronica Dye play bass and flute respectively.
Label-less at the time, Rose Windows began making plans for recording The Sun Dogs in November 2011. The band sought out local producer Randall Dunn based on his past success with Sunn O))) & Boris, Earth, and Master Musicians of Bukkake. Other local musicians were later brought on board to add harp, pedal steel, viola, and cello.
In June 2013, Rose Windows released their debut album, The Sun Dogs, for Sub Pop Records.
The band follows standard Western traditions in their instrumentation, using the basic tools employed in past decades of American and British rock music. Elements of The Band’s folk-infused rock, The Doors organ-driven psychedelia, and Black Sabbath’s blues-based dirges can be heard in Rose Window’s debut album The Sun Dogs.
Melvins are a rock band that formed in Montesano, Washington, United States in 1983. The band currently consists of Buzz Osborne (vocals, guitar), Jared Warren (bass), Dale Crover (drums) and Coady Willis (drums). Osborne is the only remaining original member, although Crover has been a member since early in the band’s career.
In the early days of their career their dark, heavy, oppressively slow sound made them innovators of genres like sludge, grunge, and doom metal. Melvins’ music is influenced by Flipper, Black Flag’s My War-era hardcore punk and Black Sabbath-style heavy metal, but their idiosyncratic approach, bizarre sense of humor, and experimentation make neat categorization difficult. Singer/guitarist Buzz Osborne (aka “King Buzzo”) and drummer Dale Crover are constant members while several bass guitarists have cycled through the group. Melvins usually performed as a trio until 2006 when two members of Big Business became permanent members of the band.
The band was named after a grocery clerk at the Thriftway in Montesano, Washington where Osborne was employed. Melvin was the most-hated fellow employee and the band felt it to be an appropriate name. Like SF noisenik predecessors Flipper, their love of slow tempos and sludgy sound were a strong influence on grunge music, especially Nirvana and many other bands from Seattle. Their protegés, however, tended to use more conventional musical structures with this sound.
XRAY.FM PRESENTS SUDANESE ARTIST SINKANE, WHOSE MUSIC IS A MIX OF SUDANESE POP, KRAUTROCK AND EARLY '70S FUNK SINKANE
You can listen to my new album “Mean Love” on NPR right now.
DOORS: 8:00 PM / SHOW: 9:00 PM
"You know I love you, but you're mean."
Here's one of those eternal refrains. Nobody owns it; it's been in the air since forever. Maybe it was initially uttered by a songwriter toiling deep in the Brill Building, or first sung by a girl group.
Because it carries the essential DNA of the done-me-wrong song, such a familiar sentiment can be a test: Whomever is singing has to sell the slight, and the hurt, and the story behind it. Ahmed Gallab, Sinkane's singer and leader, understands this mission. In the title track of his suave and eclectic third record (his second under the Sinkane name), Gallab brings a slight quiver to the verses — and then, gathering all the resolve his thin and perfectly rounded voice can muster, he delivers the tagline as a straightforward declaration. It's like he's resigned to his plight and no longer cares about editorializing it by appearing too vulnerable. He sings about it plainly, with little in the way of garish ornamentation. His voice offset by weepy steel guitar, he repeats the line, sometimes adding the words "mean to me" as punctuation, and by this point any hint of contrivance is erased: To the Sudan-born, Ohio-raised, Brooklyn-based Gallab, this is less about singing a pop song than telling a truth.
It's an art, being believable in this way, and Gallab has it nailed: Whether riding the waves of a brisk African dance ("New Name") or working through a tightly woundCurtis Mayfield-conjuring funk vamp ("Hold Tight"), he infuses the vocals with unusual intimacy, the desire to be felt first and understood later. Even if, as happens throughout Mean Love, the refrains start out simple and veer toward the blunt. At first, this seems like lowballing, but there's wisdom in the approach: As on Sinkane's previous album Mars, the backdrops are a thick stew, with elements of both East and West African music, James Brown, free jazz and shoegaze. Gallab recognizes that Sinkane's broad range of influences can come across as busy — or, worse, muddled. So he places the focus on terse, easily repeated catchphrases, many written by his lyricist collaborator Greg Lofaro. These cut to the core message of the (often love-minded) narratives, and their simplicity contrasts with the oscillating, ever-changing mix-and-match accompaniment schemes in the background. The result is a formidable type of persuasion: Clear, earnest voice meets memorable hook over wickedly inventive groove.
This streamlined approach to songwriting is one of the ways Sinkane has grown since Mars first broke through. There are moments when Sinkane lunges in the direction of recent exotica-spiced hits by Bruno Mars, and moments when the glances are all in the rearview, toward the volcanic soul of the '60s and '70s. There are also more overt and confident evocations of African music — Gallab served as the musical director for a star-filled celebration of Nigerian iconoclast William Onyeabor earlier this year. The most gripping of these include the last song, "Omdurman," named for Gallab's hometown in Sudan. Unfolding with a calm, hymn-like grace, it expresses the universal frustration of the young and rootless with likes like, "Where, if I should settle down, will I finally settle?" But the refrain that's likely to get the most attention appears in "Son." It's a vow, sung with extraordinary resolve: "I will not forget where I came from." Gallab again doesn't do too much with it, and he doesn't have to: As happens frequently on Mean Love, the music around him echoes and affirms those words in quietly breathtaking ways.
EX HEX
It's what your babysitters listened to, and it's what stuck with me.
Ex Hex is a power trio: guitar, drums, and bass.
"Mary Timony has quietly started a new band, and their first song online isn't quiet at all. Timony, last seen portraying a motel housekeeper in Mikal Cronin's "Peace of Mind" video, has already played in an impressive array of indie-rock groups: most recently Wild Flag, but also '90s luminaries Helium and Autoclave. Her latest outfit, Ex Hex, takes its name from the 2005 album she released with solo-artist billing, a move that perhaps coincidentally brings to mind Kathleen Hanna's use of an old solo-project moniker for current ensemble the Julie Ruin. "Hot and Cold," Ex Hex's initial offering, is below, and it's a guitar-blazing come-on with fuzzed-out power-pop DNA." --SPIN
SPEEDY ORTIZ
Their debut album Major Arcana, named Best New Music by Pitchfork, saw the evolution of Speedy Ortiz from a lo-fi project into a wholly collaborative effort, marked by Darl Ferm's thick bass lines, drummer Mike Falcone's boisterous fills, and the counterbalance between guitarist Matt Robidoux's anti-melodic playing and frontwoman Sadie Dupuis's angular riffing. The end result is a band able to distill their influences and impulses into something at once dissonant and melodic.
For their Real Hair EP, Speedy Ortiz has teamed up with Paul Q. Kolderie once again, resulting in a collection brushed with effected guitars and pop-conscious vocals. Here Dupuis attempts to untangle concerns about misrepresentation of identity in four songs delivered with the band's signature abrasive clarity.
They're called PUP. They're from Toronto. They play loud music. You'll like it. Or maybe you won't.
Screaming Females' seven years as a band, four full-length albums and 700 globe-spanning live shows has made them difficult to miss. Through it all, the New Brunswick, New Jersey trio have continued to exude a frenetic energy which is built upon the zeitgeist of America's punk and indie underground yet has always remained forward-looking. Fittingly, for Screaming Females' 5th album Ugly, the band enlisted legendary recording engineer Steve Albini, famed for his unique ability to capture the ferociousness of a live performance while delivering gorgeous sonic clarity. The album's 14 tracks reaffirm the touchstones of the band; they can still shred and front-woman Marissa Paternoster can still unleash a powerful howl. But it doesn't end there. The album ushers in new explorations for the band, a truly remarkable feat considering their already prolific output. Ugly has the perfect combination of raw energy and honed musicianship that produces the type of rock & roll which is still a force to be reckoned with.
Backfence and XRAY are excited to be a part of Design Week Portland! This show will feature all kinds of designers and others telling stories based off of an array of prompt, largely focused on design.
Storytellers include: The winner from our August show from 105.1 The Buzz, DARIA ELIUK (PDX), along with returning storytellers Write Bloody Publisher, DERRICK BROWN (AUS), New York Times Bestselling Author, BETH LISICK (NY), Owner and Chef at Noble Rot plus two time past Russian Roulette winner, LEATHER STORRS (PDX) Nationally Acclaimed Fashion Designer, ADAM ARNOLD (PDX) along with newcomers — the Designer Behind Much Adored betsy + iya Jewelery, BETSY CROSS (PDX), Graphic Designer + Songwriter, EMILY OVERSTREET (PDX), and Co-Founder of Buy Olympia + Curator of Land Gallery, PAT CASTALDO (PDX)!
Hosted by B. FRAYN MASTERS & MINDY NETTIFEE
Music by BOBBY from Sex Life DJs
SAINT CUPCAKES are back and will be served at intermission!
$15 ADVANCE | $18 DOOR
More about RUSSIAN ROULETTE…
How it works: each show begins with a full wheel of juicy story prompts. One of the 8 storytellers will be randomly drawn. They spin the wheel to decide the prompt for their story. They can play or pass. If they pass another teller can steal their prompt. Then the risky part…each storyteller has only 5 minutes to come up with a true 5-minute story based on that prompt! It’s like we invented a new game called truth AND dare.
At the end of the night, the audience will select a winner who will receive 50 bucks and some other cool prizes, like bragging rights for life. The winner will be invited to come back to the next show! And one lucky audience member will also win some prizes!
*Storytellers subject to change without notice. Stories may contain explicit language and/or subject matter.
Sat OCTOBER 11, 2014
DOORS 7:00PM | SHOW 8:00PM 21+
Back Fence PDX: RUSSIAN ROULETTE
DISJECTA
8371 N INTERSTATE AVE
Friday, October 10! Nasalrod, Die Robot, Needles and Pizza and Kim DeLacy will be there to make you dance and blow your mind! The event is free, but they will be accepting donations for Ethos, a local non-profit that organizes music lessons, classes, camps and workshops for children as young as two.
Both BBQ and King Khan had previously collaborated together while the two were members of the Montreal-based Spaceshits, however, following a European tour, Blacksnake (the then-current alias of King Khan) opted to remain in Germany on a permanent basis, resulting in the ultimate breakup of the Spaceshits, who chose not to continue without Blacksnake. Following the breakup of the Spaceshits, Mark Sultan started another Montreal-based band, Les Sexareenos, before venturing off on his own as a one-man band under the pseudonym BBQ. It was as BBQ that Mark Sultan re-established contact with Blacksnake, playing alongside Blacksnake’s new band, King Khan & The Shrines. The two began writing songs together at Blacksnake’s apartment in Germany, playing them live at sporadic shows around Germany and Spain.
GENDERS
Genders is a four-piece casual rock and roll band from Portland, Ore. Finding a balance between shredding your clothes off and weeping softly in the corner, Genders’ performance will move you…be it physically or emotionally. Want your face melted? Want your toes tapping? Want to hold hands with your sweetie? Come to a Genders show and have the night of your life.
Genders is comprised of Stephen Leisy on guitar, Matt Hall on bass, Katherine Paul on drums, and Maggie Morris on guitar and vocals.
GRANDPARENTS
THE DOMESTICS
XRAY is loving the amazing S (Jenn Ghetto) brand new album, Cool Choices.
S plays Valentine's with Raymond Byron (Castanets/White Freighter) x Satsuma. Come early to ensure entry!
Jenn Ghetto decided to name her band S long before Internet searching had become the dominant means of information-gathering. By the time she realized the simple name she’d chosen could be troublesome, it was too late. She’d unintentionally selected an un-Googleable band name. “You can’t even put S into iTunes,” she says with a laugh.
But a lot has changed since the late ’90s, and not just with the Internet. S, which started as a bedroom side project while Ghetto was fronting Seattle sadcore stalwarts Carissa’s Wierd, has become her main musical focus now that that group’s breakup is more than 10 years in the rearview. Cool Choices, out this week, is the first S record to feature a full band and the first to be produced outside her bedroom.
Though the songwriting for the album began after a breakup, Ghetto decided she wanted to make a big record. She started playing with a drummer and began e-mailing her old friend Chris Walla (of Death Cab for Cutie) to produce it. “I think I was in a manic state for a while,” she explains, which sparked her enthusiasm to collaborate, especially with Walla, whom she deemed the ideal candidate to keep things intimate while increasing the scope. She was right.
Crisp, clear guitar tones provide the perfect foundation for Ghetto’s vocals on Choices, with the rest of the band given plenty of room to breathe. Despite its overall somberness, the album is beautiful. “Pacific”—just Ghetto and a piano—is the kind of delicate heartbreaker Cat Power does so well, while “Vampires” is a jangly rocker that makes her melancholy downright danceable. Ghetto, it seems, relishes such dichotomies, like with the title Cool Choices. “You can say it in any circumstance,” she offers, “Good or bad. ‘You’re making a lot of cool choices there, I see.’ Or it could be like, ‘Oh, cool choices!’ ” Out now via Hardly Art Records, hardlyart.com.
Wednesday, October 8
The New Pornographers featuring A.C. Newman, Neko Case and Dan Bejar (Destroyer)The Pains of Being Pure at Heart
7 p.m. doors, 8 p.m. show
All ages welcome
$26.50 advance, $30 day of show
Presented By: True West presents
Red Bull Sound Select x Portugal. The Man Present:
Shaprece x SZA x Magic Fades
October 7th // Holocene Portland
21+ // $3 (w/ RSVP)
It's DESIGN WEEK! Join XRAY.fm DJ Bobby D (Nightschool) and an evening of talks about Portland's architectural landscape.
What do the buildings we choose to construct, demolish, restore, and inhabit tell the world about us? How does Portland's character find voice in our buildings and the relationships between them?
What's our story? Where's it headed?
Words music pictures.
with
Joe Zehnder (chief planner, City of Portland)
Tyler Robinson (art director, Portlandia)
David Staczek (principal, ZGF Architects)
Reiko Hillyer (historian, Lewis & Clark College)
Peggy Moretti (executive director, Restore Oregon)
Courtenay Hameister (head writer, Live Wire Radio)
Dave Weich (founder, Sheepscot Creative)
With XRAY's DJ Bobby D. spinning songs about buildings and cities
http://www.designweekportland.com/events/portland-past-present-future-our-architectural-narrative
Oakland poet Hollie Hardy joins Portland writers Lizzy Acker, Maria DeLorenzo, and Martha Grover for an evening of sharp poetry, wicked prose, and cheap margaritas.
Monday, October 6, 2014
7PM
The Waypost
3120 N Williams Ave
Portland, OR
BIOS
LIZZY ACKER's work has been published in The Rumpus, Nano Fiction, We Who Are About To Die,sPARKLE & bLINK, PolicyMic and elsewhere. She was a blogger for KQED Arts and the co-creator and former co-editor and writer for KQED Pop and is currently a co-editor and writer for The Tusk. She was the co-creator/curator, with Amira Pierce, of the popular San Francisco reading series Funny/Sexy/Sad and she has read with Bang Out,RADAR, Quiet Lightening and others. Her first book, Monster Party, was released in December of 2010 by Small Desk Press.
She was born in Oregon, lived in San Francisco for almost 8 years and then moved back to Oregon, just like everyone always knew she would.
MARIA DELORENZO is a writer, editor, and pretend detective. She works in a big tall building in downtown Portland doing things on computers (for money). She is working on a futuristic coming-of-age novel which aims to combine nostalgia for the 80’s and the romance of Judy Blume paperbacks, called “The Margarets.” We will see if this novel ever comes of age. She has written many things published in her journal and inside her computer and consumed by a select few. She sometimes does stand-up comedy in her kitchen with no pants on.
MARTHA GROVER was raised in Corbett Oregon with her six siblings. She is the author of the memoir One More for the People and has been publishing her zine, Somnambulist for ten years.
martha grover somnambulistzine.com po box 14871 portland oregon 97293
HOLLIE HARDY is the author of How to Take a Bullet, And Other Survival Poems (Punk Hostage Press, 2014) available now at: https://www.createspace.com/4836108.
She holds an MFA in Poetry and teaches writing classes at San Francisco State and Berkeley City College. An active participant in the Bay Area literary scene, Hardy is co-host of Saturday Night Special, venue coordinator for Oakland’s Beast Crawl Literary Festival, and curator of Litquake's Flight of Poets. Her work has appeared in lots of journals you've probably never heard of. Her website is www.holliehardy.com
Carl Wolfston, who holds a M.A. in political science from UCLA, began collecting buttons while volunteering for Jimmy Carter's presidental bid in 1976. "Carl in the Morning" can be heard on XRAY.fm. On air, Wolfson covers national and local politics and conducts in-depth interviw with A-list guests. Prior to his radio career, Wolfson was one of the country's top headlining comedians, specializing in current-events humor.