The river of soul music flows on deep and strong, and 25-year-old Leon Bridges is immersed in its life-giving current. The Forth Worth, Texas native and Columbia Records artist released his debut album, Coming Home, in the summer of 2015. "I'm not saying I can hold a candle to any soul musician from the '50s and '60s," Bridges says, "but I want to carry the torch."
Humility aside, Bridges' light is burning bright. Following the October 2014 release of two tunes that set the on-line world aflame, and accompanied by intimate solo shows from London to Los Angeles and Nashville to New York, the singer and songwriter has proved himself a rare talent who can do smoldering ballads and elemental rock'n'roll with equal aplomb. While he appears to have emerged cut from the cloth and fully formed, Bridges explains in his dulcet voice how he came to be here now.
"As a kid I grew fascinated with modern R&B. In high school I'd try singing songs by Ginuwine and Usher," he explains, "and I thought well, maybe they weren't in my range." Instead, a lithe, nimble physicality led Leon to study dance at Tarrant County College in Fort Worth. "I'd been doing hip-hop dance since I was 11 years old," he says. "I knew there was a dance program there, and I started diving into ballet and jazz and modern technique and learning choreography. I thought that's what I wanted to do."
Native inspiration soon diverted his path. "A friend of mine brought his keyboard to school every day, and we'd have these little jam sessions, improvising, and I started to find my voice." One day a female friend asked Bridges to look after her guitar while she went to class. "I asked her to show me a couple chords first. And she did: A-minor and E-minor. I fell in love with their sound, and that's when I started writing songs, from those two chords."
That Bridges compositional bedrock began in a minor mode is revealing. At a moment when popular music seems in thrall to major chord sing-alongs, the blue hues of Bridges' tunes embrace a subtlety that feels wholly refreshing. "Based on my innocence on guitar and my lack of knowledge of the technical side, my songwriting is something I have to make on-point with melody and delivery to make it shine," he explains.
With a few early compositions tucked under his belt, a seeming dichotomy surfaced: Bridges’ tunes sounded less like the modern R&B he’d grown up loving than a style he was, in fact, not very familiar with: classic soul. Furthermore, Bridges’ sleek, fastidious fashion sensibility dovetailed with the songs he was writing. He began a tenderfoot period of apprenticeship playing coffeehouses in and around Fort Worth, slowly finding and refining his voice.
A turning point soon came via a pair of selvedge trousers. One night at an Austin bar Bridges was approached by a young woman who complimented him on his snazzy Wrangler's and said that he should meet her boyfriend, a fellow with a comparable sense of style. Her boyfriend turned out to be Austin Jenkins of the band White Denim. "I hadn't heard of White Denim at the time," Bridges says, "but I went and looked them up and thought yeah, that's interesting music." After Jenkins and his bandmate Joshua Block subsequently peeped Bridges perform at a low-key local show, they insisted Leon enter the studio to cut a few tracks on their burgeoning bank of vintage equipment.
That initial three-day session, with Jenkins and Block producing, yielded the recordings that set Bridges at the center of rapturous attention from aficionados and labels alike. The buttery, seductive "Coming Home" and the piston-driven, doo-wop flavored "Better Man" demonstrated Bridges' versatility. Inking with Columbia Records, whose roster includes a certain hero named Bob Dylan, was the outcome of courtship and deliberation. "Columbia has artists I look up to like Adele and Pharrell, as well as Raphael Saadiq and John Legend," says Bridges. "They way they value artistry makes it feel like home."
The early 2015 release of another new song, "Lisa Sawyer," has further burnished Bridges' promise. With its brushed snares and glowing brass, "Lisa Sawyer" is a remarkably assured offering from so young a talent. The song, about Bridges' mother, a woman "with the complexion of a sweet praline," has the flavor of one of Allen Toussaint's productions for the great Lee Dorsey. Connecting the sacred and the secular, "Lisa Sawyer" feels natural considering Bridges' churchgoing childhood. And by writing with specificity about his own family, Bridges is creating resonant work about the African-American experience.
"I have a lot of insecurities because I don't have a big powerhouse voice," he admits. "I'm not a shouter. I rely on phrasing to get my feeling across." Bridges' delivery exudes strength through tenderness. "I guess that's why I connected with Sam Cooke."
The name Sam Cooke has appeared frequently in Bridges' early notices in the press. The point of comparison is apt, but not initially intentional. "When I wrote 'Lisa Sawyer' I didn't know anything about old soul music," Leon says. "I was asked 'Is Sam Cooke one of your inspirations?' I had to say no, because I only knew Sam Cooke's 'A Change Is Gonna Come' from the movie Malcolm X, which I'd watched with my father. But from being asked about Sam Cooke and Otis Redding I started digging deeper into soul music from the '50 and '60s and realizing this is really the root of what I'm doing."
What to make of the fact that Bridges is working in a tradition whose existence he was initially only vaguely aware of? "It speaks to the gift God placed in me," Leon says, choosing his words carefully. "It humbles and wows me to think I was pulling from something I didn't really know about."
In the striking black-and-white images that have accompanied Leon's emergence, one photograph stands out. It depicts Bridges sauntering down a sunlit sidewalk, his shadow falling not behind him but stretching out in the direction of his forward stride. The implication is that Bridges is not walking away from the past, but moving forward with both family history and the tradition of soul music in full view. His ancestors and antecedents walk with him. "They're with me at all times," affirms Bridges. Steeped in tradition, drenched with intention and desire, Leon Bridges' soul music is happening here and now.
Sleep paralysis plagues singer/songwriter Chelsea Wolfe, and that strange intersection of the conscious and the unconscious has inadvertently manifested itself within her work. Across the span of her first four albums, there is an underlying tension, a distorted and nebulous territory where dark shadows hover along the edges of the sublime and the graceful. But until now, Wolfe’s trials and tribulations with the boundaries between dreams and reality have only been a subconscious influence on her work. With her fifth album, Abyss, she deliberately confronts those boundaries and crafts a score to that realm she describes as the “hazy afterlife… an inverted thunderstorm… the dark backward… the abyss of time.”
Get tickets: http://bit.ly/CWolfePORT2016
QUEER HIP HOP DANCE PARTY EST. 2012
SPECIAL GUEST : Daniela Karina (Women's Beat League)
https://soundcloud.com/danielakarina
Club Secretary: KiKi
USUAL SUSPECTS:
II TRILL ( https://soundcloud.com/iitrill )
ILL CAMINO ( https://www.mixcloud.com/ill666camino/ )
H/IPH/OP/R/NB/T/RAP/B/OOTY/B/OUNCE
SAFER SPACE ENFORCED
Wheel Chair Accessible Entrance & Bathrooms (No Stairs)
21+ $5
Purity Ring is a Canadian electronic music duo formed in 2010 and originally from Edmonton, Alberta. The band consists of Megan James (vocals) and Corin Roddick (instrumentals).
Seeing Autolux live is like being placed on a conveyor belt at an android factory. Bit by bit, song by song, they replace the eyes, ears, limbs, and hearts of everyone in the crowd. Converting the faithful followers into a small militia of mechanical automatons. The guitars are aluminum silver, the drummer makes her own clothes, all awesome and partly from space. Funky beats and feedback. Everyone sings. Everything is distorted and distressed, without losing melodies or precision. The allure of Autolux is their ability to create dark and desolate soundscapes that still convey undertones of sensuality. Their music is immensely moving and dramatic, but also colorful. They rebel against norms without ever being impish or contemptuous. If ever there was a band deserving of comparisons to Caravaggio, Autolux is it.
The Los Angeles based trio has just recently signed to TBD Records in the US and ATP Recordings for the rest of the world, although their first record, Future Perfect, was released on T Bone Burnett's label, DMZ, under Columbia in 2004. Future Perfect began with "Turnstile Blues", featuring one of the most distinctive drumbeats and musical atmospheres of any album in recent memory. A Pitchfork review stated, "In the first 10 seconds of the album opener, Carla Azar shames most every beat-maker with her ridiculous Leibezeit-cum-Bonham percussion." The song created a vacuum of precise tumult that pulled you in, stretched you out, and spit your altered shape through a flawless cycle of songs. The album's otherworldly moods and eclectic makeup of songs made it difficult to categorize and gained the band much-deserved respect. Four and half years have passed since the band stopped touring on Future Perfect. But the space since then has been filled with activity in spite of any obstacles thrown their way, including the process of freeing themselves from Columbia and escaping with full ownership of Future Perfect.
As part of the long build up to the release of their new album, Transit Transit, they made the song "Audience No.2" available as a 'pay what you will' track on their website. Soon after, they joined PJ Harvey for a tour of Russia. During this time they also continued to play their own shows, trying out new songs live, and in some cases revisiting the recorded versions to make necessary alterations or, in some cases, total deletions. In the summer of 2009, they collaborated with the painter Kill Pixie (Mark Whalen) for 'Future Spa', an art exhibition/sound installation in Los Angeles. In more recent months, the band has toured extensively, including an appearance at All Tomorrow's Parties in upstate New York and an opening spot with Thom Yorke's Atoms For Peace.
Now, the much-awaited follow-up, Transit Transit is finally here. It begins no less uniquely than its predecessor, although this time the subtler concussion of rhythm that starts the title track is an announcement of change, and the following mood and vocal—a metaphysical sorbet. If you have been waiting, somewhat impatiently, for this record, Transit Transit has yielded an unexpected mix of material, but has everything you had hoped for. And if Autolux is a band you are just discovering, here is a deep and profound world of noise and emotion to immerse yourself in.
The band produced Transit Transit themselves with guitarist/vocalist Greg Edwards serving as engineer. Most of the record was recorded at Space 23, the band's makeshift studio in their rehearsal room near downtown Los Angeles. A few drum tracks – "Highchair," "Spots," and "The Science of Imaginary Solutions" – came from an earlier session with producer/engineer John Goodmanson. The title track "Transit Transit" (the last song to be recorded) was started in Denmark by Edwards, using a virtually unplayable upright piano and a sample of a coffin-style freezer found in a nearby basement, and then finished back in Los Angeles. There is a notable sonic progression to Transit Transit: samples, vintage synthesizers, and manipulated ambience glue central song components together. There are a lot more vocal harmonies and piano driven songs, even a bit of trumpet. Vocal duties are shared by all three members throughout the album – their voices strangely similar – but each having a definite emotional character. Bassist/ singer, Eugene Goreshter continues to innovate his bass style, effortlessly modernizing the instrument's melodic role on songs like "Census" and "Supertoys," while still providing an on-edge rawness and groove-filled momentum. Edwards' guitars serve to modulate the moods throughout the record, constantly evoking feelings found in the space between emotions. And Carla Azar's sturdy, creative drumming (a phenomenon to behold on stage) continues on record with plenty of hook beats – ferocious and orchestral, at once.
The majority of the album was mixed by Kennie Takahashi, three of the tracks being mixed by Dave Sardy, and then mastered by Bob Ludwig. Artist Kill Pixie and Carla created the artwork for Transit Transit.
Titus Andronicus
The Most Lamentable Tragedy [hereafter TMLT] is the fourth studio album by Titus Andronicus [hereafter +@] and the band's debut for Merge Records. A rock opera in five acts, it will see release on the 28th of July 2015 as a digital download, double CD, and triple vinyl LP. "[In July 2005] I turned 20 years old—I started the band and closed the door on my teenage years," says singer/songwriter Patrick Stickles, "and on July 28th this year, I'm turning 30. Putting out this record is my way of closing the door on my twenties—sharing what I have learned, sorrowing what I learned too late."
TMLT was produced by frequent collaborator Kevin McMahon and +@ lead guitarist Adam Reich. The core band is rounded out by the long-standing rhythm section of Eric Harm (drums) and Julian Veronesi (bass) plus hotshot rookie guitarist Jonah Maurer. Joining the lads throughout are veteran pianist Elio DeLuca and luminous Canadian violinist Owen Pallett, beside a colorful cast of special guests representing some of the New York scene's most exciting bands (The So So Glos, Baked, Bad Credit No Credit, Lost Boy?, etc.).
The central narrative of TMLT ("a work of fiction," Stickles says, looking away) concerns an unnamed protagonist whom we meet in the depths of his decrepit despair. Following an encounter with his own doppelgänger (an enigmatic stranger, identical in appearance though opposite in disposition), long held secrets are revealed, sending our protagonist on a transformative odyssey, through past lives and new loves, to the shocking revelation that the very thing that sustains him may be the very thing to destroy him.
Hardly the rambling mess its 29 tracks and 93:44 runtime might suggest, TMLT is a miracle of structural integrity and symmetry. The complete sequence of five "acts" will present a cohesive vision the likes of which few rock groups would have the self-esteem (let alone the chops) to even consider attempting, while the division of these acts, and the special care taken to give each its own sonic and thematic identity, will grant the listener the ability to ration or binge according to their pleasure. Across these five acts, we watch the passage of four seasons—the desolate desperation of winter melts away under the warm hope of approaching spring, just as the sticky fumes of the big city summer dissipate when autumn brings its comforting colors, and with them, the knowledge that they will fade, that all will fall and decay.
Still beyond the linear legibility of its seasonal motif, TMLT creates a universe that begs to be explored, an interlocking cycle of phases and recurrent events. "The first half is the second half in reverse—holding the first up to the mirror, we see the second," explains Stickles, feverishly. "Like our universe, it expands outward in every direction. It contains our most ornate arrangements and our most spare, our most uplifting music and our most bleak. With equal fervor we strive to show you +@ at our most beautiful and our most brutal, our most polished and our most raw." All these factors contribute to what Stickles identifies as "a certain bipolar quality."
"It should always be the dearest hope of the Artist that the Art they create could have been created by no one else," Stickles says suddenly, unprompted, "and that if it cannot be adored, it should be despised. Cast wide the poles! +@ is undaunted and TMLT will not be quietly abided."
Nor can it be denied—TMLT is the pinnacle and the missing piece, both the crown jewel of the band's discography and the legend that contextualizes their entire body of work. It reveals that +@ are what hardcore fans have said they are for years, and what the world must now recognize them to be: not merely the greatest rock and roll band of this era, but one of the greatest rock and roll bands of all time.
La Sera
You’ve worked yourself to the bone the whole month, so now it’s your time to have some fun! Come enjoy free beverages from Fat Head’s Brewery, Basecamp Brewing Co and Riunite wine all night long! Plus music, food carts, art collectives and much more! But, more importantly, come relax and leave the work for Monday.
ROI Friday is promoting on every last Friday of the month (May 27th, June 24th, July 29th and August 26th) at SE 2nd street between SE Taylor and SE Yamhill street.
Presented by Kin Living
Sponsors include:
Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI)
Fat Head's Portland
Base Camp Brewing Company
Riunite
Essentia Water
City Home
21+ / $5 suggested donation at entrance. All donations will benefit OMSI.
Discogs and XRAY have joined forces to bring some of our favorite DJs together for one night at Dig a Pony. They'll take turns selecting from their crates (playing nothing but rare vinyl) all night long. Come hang out with Discogs and XRAY and hear sets that sound like no others:
Cuica (Missisippi Records)
DDDJJJ666 (Hipsters Suck, Crossroads Records)
Morning Remorse (Blind Dates with Morning Remorse)
Rev Shines (Lifesavas, Today's Good News)
Drink Specials for XRAY Members (Bring your Membership Keychain!)
FREE
Macklemore & Ryan Lewis kick off a 2-month European Arena tour on March 8 and today they announce their North American Spring tour including a headlining performance at Bonnaroo in Manchester, TN. Support by Raz Simone.
The duo is composed of Ben Haggerty, a singer who goes by the name of Macklemore, and Ryan Lewis, a record producer, DJ, and professional photographer, who met the former at a photo shoot and they have significantly collaborated ever since.
On Friday, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis self-released ‘This Unruly Mess I’ve Made,’ the follow up to their multi-PLATINUM, award winning 2012 album ‘The Heist.’ The thirteen track LP includes PLATINUM selling single “Downtown” (featuring Kool Moe Dee, Melle Mel, Grandmaster Caz, and Eric Nally), as well as previously unavailable “Growing Up” (featuring Ed Sheeran) and “Kevin” (featuring Leon Bridges).
Flutter has been on Mississippi Ave for ten whole years, and we want to celebrate our birthday with you.
There will be prizes, giveaways, drinks and surprises, plus DJs Strange Babes to help ring in the eleventh year in style.
Wear your dancing shoes!
Soundcontrol PDX presents PAPER: a night of dark electronics
Sean Pierce
Bloom Offering (SEA)
DJ Wax/Wane
This event is FREE, live electronic projects and dark techno.
An evening of experimental sound art.
RUST PROMOTER
[Hypnotic Disturbances]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8h94zjQhaWo
YOUNG HOUND
[Sound Collage]
https://younghound.bandcamp.com/track/sonic-subway
TALC
[Loose Form]
https://soundcloud.com/shane-mcdonell
https://soundcloud.com/bobdesaulniers
Visuals by Krystal Pérez
http://www.krystalperez.net/
$5-10 Sliding scale, no one turned away for lack of funds
8 PM
+21
A coarsely-mixed blend of music from near and far.
TIG BITTY
tigbitty.bandcamp.com/
Jai Milx
OF* (OAKLAND)
oftheband.bandcamp.com
TALL GRASS (OAKLAND)
tallgrassmeow.com
Bobby Wasabi
MATTRESS
https://mattressmattress.bandcamp.com/
CHARLES B SALAS-HUMARA
(sun angle / grapefruit)
FREE
“My symphony will be unlike anything the world has ever heard!” Such was Mahler’s vision for this massive work, which waxes philosophical in a beautiful, haunting affirmation of a complex universe in which the ultimate form of being is love."
Mahler: Symphony No. 3
Carlos Kalmar, conductor
PSU and Pacific Youth Choirs
Susan Platts, mezzo-soprano
Learn about the interplay of pitch, intervals, harmony, tonality, and rhythm, in order to identify and manipulate these creative components in the music you are making or admire.
Mary Sutton is a pianist and composer based in Portland, Or. She has a lifelong curiosity and passion for music theory. She has made this predilection into a career teaching as an accompanist at the Portland Waldorf School, as well as teaching students in private lessons. She plays synthesizer in the duo Cat Mummies at the Louvre with Caley Feeney, and is in the process of recording a set of solo synth compositions.
This class is not required for Synth Library membership, but strongly recommended for anyone who has little or no experience in basic music theory. This course is open to female and non-binary individuals only, but additional courses for all will be scheduled in the future.
$5-10 sliding scale
Register here: http://s1portland.com/workshops/musictheory/
http://womensbeatleague.com/
*photo from Neybuu's Introduction to Synthesis workshop
Susan Cianciolo (b. 1969) is an artist and fashion designer. From 1995 to 2001 she released eleven collections and a number of videos under the name RUN. She lives in Brooklyn and teaches at Pratt Institute.
In April 1985 Valerie Day, John Smith, and their band Nu Shooz, released the five-song EP ‘Tha’s Right!’. Acting on a dare from a local music writer, Gary Bryan of Portland Oregon’s KKRZ put the song “I Can’t Wait” on the air. Listener reaction was strong and immediate- the kind of response known in radio jargon as ‘Instant Phones.’
But this was no overnight sensation. By the time the whole world heard about the Soul band from Oregon, they’d spent seven years onstage, four hours a night, four or five nights a week. So, when their spotlight moment came, the Shooz could get up and play.
By the end of the year “I Can’t Wait” was a regional hit. But the song really took off when it was remixed by Dutch DJ Peter Slaghuis. Atlantic Records signed the band in January 1986. “I Can’t Wait” eventually reached #3 on the Billboard Hot 100. Other hits followed. Nu Shooz was nominated for a Best New Artist Grammy in 1987.
What a long, strange, beautiful trip it's been.
Fast forward to the present…
After a lengthy hiatus from the world of pop/funk and soul, (to raise a family and play other styles of music,) Valerie and John revive the Nu Shooz sound. The husband and wife team are back on the road as part of the Super Freestyle Explosion Tour and the live eight piece band, Shoo-Horns and all, are playing shows for the first time in 25 years.
$ 20.00 General Admission
$45 VIP Tickets: Limited quantity. Ticket includes band meet & greet at sound check, signed CD, drink ticket, and special VIP area seating. Only available on the Nu Shooz ‘Bagtown’ Pledgemusic page:
www.pledgemusic.com/projects/bagtown
Not in Portland but would like to see the show?
Nu Shooz is excited to be partnering with Portland's own local event streaming company Audioglobe.
$5 Livestream on Audioglobe:
http://www.audioglobe.com/event/254/1026
Age Limit:
21+
Young Thug is Atlanta based rapper who was given the birth name of Jeffrey Williams and gained notoriety in 2013 following the release of his mixtape 1017 Thug. He was signed by Gucci Mane's label 1017 Brick Squad Records after Mane listened to his first three mixtapes I Came From Nothing Parts 1, 2, and 3. He was a part of the 25 New Rappers to Watch Out For list put out by Complex in 2013.
Doors at 7:00PM
All Ages to Enter, 21 & Over to Drink
“My symphony will be unlike anything the world has ever heard!” Such was Mahler’s vision for this massive work, which waxes philosophical in a beautiful, haunting affirmation of a complex universe in which the ultimate form of being is love."
Mahler: Symphony No. 3
Carlos Kalmar, conductor
PSU and Pacific Youth Choirs
Susan Platts, mezzo-soprano