Events

East Bay surf darlings Shannon and the Clams are back and they're sharing an all ages bill at Slabtown with Portland favs Marriage + Cancer.

What awaits you when the needle drops on Dereconstructed, the new album by Lee Bains lll & the Glory Fires? Nothing less than pure fucking heaven, that’s what.

Consider the record’s opener, “The Company Man.” It revs up with a riff sleazy enough to clog Rod Stewart’s stomach pump as an incantation that only a Yellowhammer can truly understand is bellowed and then screamed. Before you know it, the joint is hotter than a Birmingham soaking pit while you, the listener, are reminded, lest you forget, don’t ever trust the company man.

No shit.

Dereconstructed is a careening, road raging, all night party of a record. Informed by a distinctly southern hoodoo, it is a master class in authentic Gulf Coast choogle. Having cut his teeth in the Dexateens, Lee Bains lll has been properly schooled in how to throw down, so much so that even his hyper literate musings are no match for the blown out distortion that gives this record its blistering urgency.

Songs like “The Kudzu and the Concrete,” “Dirt Track” and the roaring, blissfully shambolic title track could be anthems looking for a stadium, but they’re also reminders as to why Lee Bains lll & the Glory Fires are such a formidable party machine. If your hometown is graced with a scuzzy dive and a few warm bodies to populate it, you’d best believe that the Glory Fires have been there, or are on their way back.

Dereconstructed is Lee Bains lll & the Glory Fires’ debut for Sub Pop Records. It is preceded by the band’s actual debut, There Is a Bomb in Gilead, on Alive Natural-Sound Records (2012).

Dereconstructed was produced by Tim Kerr, and engineered by Jeremy Ferguson at Battle Tapes, Nashville, TN.

Lee Bains lll & the Glory Fires will be featured performers at the 14th annual NONCOMMvention, hosted by WXPN in Philadelphia, PA, May 14 - 16, 2014. This performance will be followed by extensive touring, radio sessions, and in-stores throughout North America. A late-summer European tour will be announced shortly.

Lee Bains III & the Glory Fires are:

Lee Bains lll: Guitar and Vox
Eric Wallace: Guitar
Adam Williamson: Bass

The 23-year old from Kent, Ohio first performed with her family band One Way Rider at the age of 8. At age 15, she recorded her first album White Lies in her brother’s bedroom, printing only 100 copies. One of those copies fell into the hands of Dan Auerbach (The Black Keys). After an introduction, Mayfield and Auerbach hit the studio, laying the foundation for her debut album With Blasphemy So Heartfelt. Says Auerbach of the recording experience, “I think she’s dark and moody in a mysterious way.” He adds, “I’m just always really excited to make music with her.”

Mayfield’s second and most recent album, Tell Me, is a stunningly forthright 11-song set that addresses late night longing, serial heartbreak, and intoxicatingly dangerous liaisons conducted in dimly lit barrooms or roadside motels. By the end, the only heart intact is Mayfield’s own. It’s as if she’d stripped the sentimentality and ruefulness from a bunch of classic country songs, leaving only stark emotion. Auerbach also produced and engineered Tell Me at his Easy Eye Sound System studio in Akron, Ohio, matching Mayfield’s candor with eerily minimal, brilliantly constructed tracks that keep her mesmerizing, unadorned voice front and center.

The New York Times hailed the album a Critics’ Pick, while the Associated Press calls Tell Me “the portrait of a precocious girl growing into self-assured womanhood and a producer reaching the peak of his powers. It is a dark and moody album, full of delights throughout, and if it doesn’t make Mayfield a star, that too will be heartbreaking.”

One night, three rising talents in the Portland music scene, zero dollars. Hear what's next right now.

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.

Portland's legendary garage-punk trio Dead Moon, fronted by the husband-wife team of Fred and Toody Cole, conjures images of hard-luck easy riders and lovers against the world. While their sound alternates between moody and aggressive, it is always remarkably genuine and energetic.

Fred began his enduring musical career at the very young age of 15. Many years and many bands later (after living through experiences as varied as homesteading in Alaska, dodging the Vietnam War draft, and hunting bears), the two formed a punk band called the Rats. Later, after adding Andrew Loomis on drums, Dead Moon was formed in 1987.

For almost a decade, Dead Moon released LPs on their own Tombstone label. All of those releases are vinyl-only and were cut on the same lathe that the Kingsmen's version of "Louie Louie" was cut on back in 1963. In 1991, they began to re-release the vinyl-only albums onto CD through Music Maniac in Europe and eMpTy in the United States, an effort that continued into the new millennium. Sub Pop released the retrospective Echoes of the Past, a collection of Dead Moon songs handpicked by Fred Cole, in 2006.

Celebrate New Year's Eve 2014 in style at the White Owl Social Club! With awesome winter cocktails, craft beers on tap, and DJ Doc Adam set to bring the house down, what else is there to say? Hey buds—STAY BUZZED.

RSVP on Facebook by clicking here.

Get $8 tickets at Stranger Tickets by clicking here.