Events

Little was said about Parquet Courts' debut effort, American Specialties. Released exclusively on cassette tape, the quasi-album was an odd collection of 4 track recordings that left those who were paying attention wanting more. A year of woodshedding live sets passed before the Courts committed another song to tape. The band's first proper LP, Light Up Gold, is a dynamic and diverse foray into the back alleys of the American DIY underground. Bright guitars swirl serpentine over looping, groovy post-punk bass lines and drums that border on robotic precision. While the initial rawness of the band's early output remains, the songwriting has gracefully evolved. Primary wordsmiths A. Savage and Austin Brown combine for a dynamic lyrical experience, one part an erudite overflow of ideas, the other an exercise in laid-back observation. Lyrically dense, the poetry is in how it flows along with the melody, often times as locked-in as the rhythm section.

"This record is for the over-socialized victims of the 1990's 'you can be anything you want', Nickelodeon-induced lethargy that ran away from home not out of any wide-eyed big city daydream, but just out of a subconscious return to America's scandalous origin," writes Savage in the album's scratched-out liner notes. Recorded over a few days in an ice-box practice space, Light Up Gold is equally indebted to Krautrock, The Fall, and a slew of contemporaries like Tyvek and Eddy Current Suppression Ring.

Though made up of Texan transplants, Parquet Courts are a New York band. Throw out the countless shallow Brooklyn bands of the blasé 2000's: Light Up Gold is a conscious effort to draw from the rich culture of the city - the bands like Sonic Youth, Bob Dylan, and the Velvet Underground that are not from New York, but of it. A panoramic landscape of dilapidated corner-stores and crowded apartments is superimposed over bare-bones Americana, leaving little room for romance or sentiment. It's punk, it's American, it's New York… it's the color of something you were looking for.

W/ OLD LIGHT, and AU DUNES

DOORS 9:00

SHOW 10:00

with Sama Dams and Wishyunu

There is a stillness between kissing lips that belies the beating hearts connected to them, a calm in the simple gesture that holds tumultuous emotions close, keeping their caprice from pulling you apart. For the past three years, Radiation City has scored the soundtrack to relationships such as these. Moments where Quiet/Bombast, Future/Past, Man/Woman, Hope/Fear are conjoined; from their use of modern electronic sounds and the restraint of classic bossa records, to the urgency and harmony of northern soul, the band has codified seemingly disparate ideas into a sound and ethos that is at once refreshing and classic. Their second LP Animals In The Median will be released May 7th.

Founded in 2009 amid the glow of one budding love affair, Radiation City quickly blossomed into a family, finding itself with a second couple and another multi instrumentalist besides. If the quintet's early live shows and debut LP The Hands That Take You quickly earned them a reputation as one of Portland, Oregon's most promising young acts, the subsequent national tours and 2011's EP Cool Nightmare made good on that promise. The band's expanding soundscape of new romanticism has drawn accolades from NPR, Time, and KEXP to name a few. 

The new full length features 12 songs recorded over the span of a year in both rural Washington and urban Portland. You can hear a focused songwriting, lush arrangements, and gorgeous harmonies. You can hear the celebration and lament of a sea change year which saw the passing of matriarchs, the betrayals and betrothals of loved ones, the baring and bruising of hopeful hearts in an increasingly dangerous world. Moreover, you can hear a band edified, coming into their own in rich and simple gesture.

W/ Focus Troup, Half Shadow, and Bed.

$7 DOS

DOORS: 8:30

SHOW: 9:00

RONTOMS SUNDAY SESSIONS
10:30p TRAILS AND WAYS (Oakland)
9:30p Us Lights (EP Release)

presented by Smoke Signals + Rontoms

SUN MAY 18TH
9PM / 21+ / FREE

PMOMA proudly presents: EFFIGY MOUNDS
Art and performance by Grant Corum

"Inspired by recent travels to Guatemala and to Leonard Crow Dog's Sundance ceremony, artist Grant Corum has created a mixed-media installation in unison with his latest album, Effigy Mounds: Ceremonial Music for Spore Alter. Musically, he describes the work as “an imagined field recording in a hallucinatory cave, where collaged snippets of tape reveal the gradual opening of a deep portal, the ingestion of strange and luminous compounds, and the rhythmic pulsation of spores entering Earth's atmosphere by way of shooting stars.” 

For the accompanying art show, Corum presents an array of screen prints and drawings, accompanied by an entry altar comprised of offerings and artifacts collected from his travels."

PMOMA http://portlandmuseumofmodernart.com/ 

MOS GENERATOR

SONS OF HUNS

2013/14 Season

Joshua Bell Plays Sibelius

Norway’s most important national holiday – May 17 (Constitution Day) – is celebrated here in Portland in an annual community-wide event which has been sponsored by Grieg Lodge Sons of Norway for generations at Portland’s Historic Norse Hall on May 17.

Doors open at 1pm, parade is at 3pm

All are welcome for authentic Norwegian food, a parade, music and Dancing!

National Dress Encouraged – Vi sees i Bunader og 17.Mai stas

FREE

The Mt. Tabor Art Walk showcases the many artists who live in this neighborhood. This annual event is sponsored by a community of artists supporting each other. It is designed to promote high-quality visual art in a variety of                       media within the unique setting of the Mt. Tabor neighborhood.

http://www.mttaborartwalk.com/

After opening for Modest Mouse earlier this month, Survival Knife plays with Hungry Ghost at Bunk Bar. Show at 9.

$8 advance, $10 at the door.

More info at http://www.bunksandwiches.com/shows/

LOOP was formed in Croydon, London, 1986 by Robert Hampson (vocals/ guitar) and partner Beki Stewart (Bex) on drums. After finding Glen Ray on bass, through an advert in Melody Maker, they began to perform live and were quickly signed to HEAD Records run by Jeff Barrett (Heavenly) who released their feedback-drenched debut 12” 16 Dreams.

Following line-up changes – the arrival of new drummer John Wills, new bassist Neil MacKay and James Endeacott on second guitar the band were to take a more primal rhythmic foundation captured on their impressive debut full-length Heavens End (1987).

The band managed to hypnotise all with their discordant trance-like spell which served as an antidote to the prevailing trend in British pop at the time – they resurrected the concept of loud out there-rock for a new era, creating droning soundscapes of bleak beauty and harsh dissonance, loosely influenced by bands such as The Velvet Underground, The Stooges, The MC5, but retaining an avant-garde and experimental edge from Can, Faust, Neu!, Rhys Chatham, Glenn Branca and minimalist systems music, to name but a few. Live shows were revelatory, Loop, allowing LOUD as a constant descriptive term, they pushed PAs to the very edge of their existence, creating a sonic pummel not really experienced since.

A collection of singles and B-sides, The World in Your Eyes, appeared on HEAD in 1987 and after the departure of Endeacott the band signed to the Chapter 22 label, releasing the Collision 12” as well their more sparse and discordant second full-length, Fade Out.

GARDENS & VILLA

Gardens & Villa is the project of five college friends from Santa Barbara, formed following the collapse of a noisier post-punk band and a hitch-hiking journey up the west coast. Members Chris Lynch, Adam Rasmussen, Levi Hayden, Shane McKillop began playing in earnest as Gardens & Villa in 2008. The name is pulled from the location of their house on Villa Street, and the property’s lovely garden to which they tend. The music they make is very much connected to coastal city they call home — the stoney bike rides, dance parties, a scene free of judgment. The band refers to this Santa Barbara feeling as “coco vibes.” For two weeks in the summer of 2010, the band camped behind visionary and now-labelmate Richard Swift’s Oregon studio. No shower, no kitchen, but all the magic you could ask for. After taking a band oath to always play all parts live — a la Talking Heads’ Stop Making Sense — the band added member Dusty Ineman to supremely execute the live incarnation of the band.

PURE BATHING CULTURE

It's a rare and beautiful thing when a band emerges fully formed, but it makes perfect sense in the case of guitarist Daniel Hindman and keyboardist Sarah Versprille's Pure Bathing Culture. Having backed folk rock revisionist Andy Cabic in Vetiver, the New Yorkers partnered up and moved West in 2011, settling in Portland, Oregon. Building off their past experiences as musical collaborators, in a short time the duo have created a sound that is undeniably their own: soaring synths, chiming keyboards, and shimmering electric guitars move in lockstep with bouncing drum machines. Sarah's crystalline voice floats on top of it all with divine purpose. It's a sound that looks back momentarily for inspiration — Talk Talk, Prefab Sprout, Cocteau Twins — but then fixes its gaze firmly on the present.

Portland Queer Documentary Film Festival: Now offering free tickets to youth!

Since 2007 QDoc has shown award-winning films fresh from Sundance, Berlin, Hot Docs, Tribeca, Amsterdam and other top-tier festivals. We have shown historical films, personal stories, artist biographies, experimental work and topical films dealing with current controversies. Visiting artists have included prominent film makers from all over the U.S. and from as far as Italy and Australia, who have participated in lively discussions after the screenings. We have hosted emerging filmmakers as well as 3 Academy Award winning directors, enabling dynamic audience interaction with artists.

Join us for an open house design engagement featuring the public reveal of our final site design. Connect with vendors, architects, and the Mercado team at Hacienda CDC to learn more about the project and how you can become involved with building Portland's first Latino-themed public market.

A Bi-monthly Mingling of Artists of all sorts to meet, discuss, blather, applaud & plot the growth of the Arts in Portland.Thursday May 15, 5-7pm: at the Double Dragon with the Portland Area Theatre Alliance, and the Museum of Contemporary Craft with XRAY DJ Keegan Meyer

Ever been curious about becoming a 501(c)3 or are on the verge of taking that leap? This panel discussion will give you a little more information on the pros and cons, things to contemplate and the 'how to's' of becoming an incorporated 501(c)3. We will hear from the local "Art Cop", locally based nationally acclaimed Arts Consultant, two small sized organizations at differing stages of being a 501(c)3 and one that decided it wasn't the right choice, at this time. The content of this panel discussion are directed toward individuals and groups who are considering, or are in the process of, incorporating as a not-for-profit 501(c)3.

We will discuss:
• Benefits of Incorporation
• Legal Definitions
• Process for Incorporating
• Organizational Structures
• Relationship of Professional Leadership and the Board
• Overview of the Role, Responsibilities and Function of a Board
• Contributed Income, Grants
• Case Examples
• Questions and Concerns.

George Thorn is the Co-Director of Arts Action Research, a national arts-consulting group. As a consultant, he works in all aspects of organizational development as well as making presentations to conferences and workshops. In parallel with his consulting activities, for eighteen years he directed the graduate program in Arts Administration at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia. He was the Associate Director of FEDAPT. Prior to these activities, he was the Executive Vice-President of the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center. George spent sixteen years in New York where he had a general management firm that managed Broadway, Off-Broadway, and touring companies. He began his career as a stage manager of Broadway productions.

In 1996, he relocated to Portland, Oregon, to open the West Coast office of Arts Action Research. In Portland, he has consulted with approximately one hundred arts and cultural organizations. Other activities include the Regional Arts and Cultural Council's Cultural Leadership Program, the NWBCA's The Art of Leadership Program, and two Convenings for the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation in Seattle and Portland.

With Nello McDaniel, he has co-authored the following publications:
An Elegant Process: The Artistic Process/The Planning Process
Leading Arts Boards
Growing Audiences
Arts Planning: A Dynamic Balance
Towards a New Arts Order: Process, Power, and Change
Workpapers II: Arts Boards--Myths, Perspectives, and New Approaches
A Special Report/The Quiet Crisis in the Arts
Workpapers I: Rethinking and Restructuring the Arts Organization

To be or not to be a 501(c)3 and how -- A panel discussion
Date: Wed., May 14, 2014
Time: 4 p.m. -- 7 p.m.
Location: Architectural Heritage Center, 701 SE Grand Ave. Portland, OR 97214
www.VisitAHC.org
Cost: $25
Panel: Kohel Haver, George Thorn, plus three representatives from small to mid-sized organizations at different stages in their careers that have experience with this process.

To register, please visit http://racc.org/resources/514-racc-workshop-be-or-not-be-501c3-and-how-%E2%80%93-panel-discussion

with Kirin J Callinan

Some musicians know where they're from and where they're going, and why. Others, such as Connan Mockasin, can only work from instinct, not only disinterested in the bigger picture as unable to see it. Take Mockasin's first album, Forever Dolphin Love, which he only wrote and recorded because his mother suggested it. Or his new album Caramel, triggered because he liked the onomatopoeic quality of the word, and the music and words just followed."To me, the word 'caramel' sounded so nice," Mockasin muses. "And as far as I know," Mockasin muses, "nobody had ever used the word for an album title."This helps explain the evolution from the labyrinthine, oddball-psych of Forever Dolphin Love to Caramel's equally inventive and unique brand of mutated, lustrous soul, almost wholly self-recorded over a month in a Tokyo hotel room.Mockasin remains what Clash Music called "a true cosmonaut of inner space" but the new album explores different regions of his galaxy, not just soul but a liquefied brew of blues, funk, ambient and folk with pronounced Oriental and Gallic timbres, all laced with an uncanny air of bliss.Oh, and it's a concept album. Of sorts. "The concept is that it's actually an album," says Mockasin. "It starts with the dolphin [from the debut album] leaving, and the boss (the man) who is so in with love with the dolphin is sad, and then it kicks into the new album, and he is happier. But there's a car race and a crash"In track terms, Mockasin's narrative starts with album intro 'Nothing Lasts Forever', shifts to 'Caramel' and later on, crash-emulating guitar shrieks that constitute part three of the five-part 'It's Your Body'. Part four, however, is all tranquil and Zen. "That was when I heard my friend was dying and I felt sad," Mockasin explains."It's just ideas in my head that I put together, and later on it might make more sense. But I don't think about the meaning at the time. Or I'm not aware of it."Mockasin is also unaware of the possibility that Caramel has hints of Scritti Politti's exquisitely stitched soul, or of Prince if the Minneapolis legend had spent time in Canterbury, the learned epicentre of South East England's progressive psychedelia during the late '60s and early '70s, where the likes of Syd Barrett and Kevin Ayers began their own musical journeys. "Prince goes to Canterbury, that's a good one!" Mockasin retorts. "Maybe Caramel is a little bitsoul. Maybe it comes a smidge more from hip hop, which to me sounds much fresher than what's called 'indie'. Sometimes I'm ashamed to be in a band, or a musician, at this point in time."Being a musician has always been a vexed issue for the man born Connan TantHosford in Te Awanga on the east coast of New Zealand's north island. Hearing his dad's Jimi Hendrix album set him on a course to play guitar, "to be the best in school," he recalls. "I was obsessed. But I went off music during high school, and I wanted nothing to do with guitar. I didn't even want to be noticed. Maybe that was puberty."Instead, the teenage Connan got a welder and built his own version of carnival rides and beach vehicles, and surfed, until high school was over, "and music came back." One of his formative bands was Grampa Moff (also a track title onForever Dolphin Love) but it was Connan And The Mockasins (named by a friend after Connan's hobby of making moccasins out of sheepskin and motorbike tyre) that first made a mark, when the quartet decided to try their luck in London in 2006. Without friends or contacts, they initially slept on park benches (luckily it was a great summer), but once settled, and with bar jobs, they found interests from record labels, but Connan backed out of an album deal. "All labels we met with began by saying we could record any way we liked, but then started saying, 'use this studio, with this producer'I could see where that was heading."Disillusioned with the record industry, and the limitations of a band set-up, Mockasin returned, alone, to New Zealand. "I decided to do nothing, or nothing to do with music. But my mum said I should just make a record. I didn't know how to record but we had a few tape machines lying around the house, so I did.I didn't expect to release it, just wanted to make a record I liked, for my ears and my mum's."With renewed passion, Mockasin retained the band name as his new surname because he liked the sound of "Connan Mockasin" and self-released his own mum-triggered album in 2010 as Please Turn Me Into the Snat.Mockasin returned to the UK before discovering that DJ/producer Erol Alkan had discovered the album and wanted to make the first release on his new Phantasy Sound label. The album was re-released, under the new title Forever Dolphin Love after its magnificently meandering ten-minute centrepiece.Ecstatic reviews followed, alongside live shows, where Mockasin would eschew set lists, "so that it felt new every time we play. The band has a couple of rehearsals to begin with, but we don't practise after that. I'd rather follow the mood of the audience playing the same songs in the same way, every night, would be so boring."Mockasin was about to record what became Caramel with his band when he rushed home when his father was suddenly taken ill. In the aftermath, he decided to retreat to Tokyo whose aura can be heard in tracks such as 'It's Your Body (Part Five)' and the chatter of young Japanese voices dotting the album, adding more levels of intrigue and imagination. "Too much of the music that I do get to hear, I find too aware, or processed," he says. "I just want to capture the first idea I have, which is always the most mysterious and attractive part."If Caramel wasn't enough, Mockasin has also been writing more material for Charlotte Gainsbourg after penning the exquisite 'Out Of Touch' for the actress/singer's 2012 mini-album Stage Whisper. Connan was already popular in France "it felt like they immediately understood what I was doing" and their ongoing collaboration will only endear him more to the French. It's another sign that Mockasin is going places, but at his own pace, just as Caramel suggests the process of melting and taking on a new shape, a new taste. That is the true sound of Connan Mockasin.