NOMINATED: 5 Tony Awards 2015
DARK COMEDY
THE STORY: After the death of his father, meek Jason finds an outlet for his anxiety at the Christian Puppet Ministry, in the devoutly religious, relatively quiet small town of Cypress, Texas.
Jason’s complicated relationships with the town pastor, the school bully, the girl next door, and—most especially—his mother are thrown into upheaval when Jason’s puppet, Tyrone, takes on a shocking and dangerously irreverent personality all its own.
Hand To God explores the startlingly fragile nature of faith, morality, and the ties that bind us.
Shannon and the Clams
The American West. America’s America. It was here in three very different worlds that Shannon and the Clams were spawned. From the dark redwood forests of Oregon emerged Cody Blanchard: singer and guitarist. The dusty walnut orchards and vineyards of northern California gave us Shannon Shaw: singer and bassist. Out of the lonely dunes of California’s central coast shambled Nate Mayhem: drummer and keys. These three talented visual artists were drawn separately to Oakland, California and it was there that the Clams began playing house parties and grimy clubs.
The band was forged in the anachronistic remote communities of the west, in some strange mixture of computer show and country fair; their music is some odd alloy of The Last Picture Show and The Decline of Western Civilization. The pioneer spirit of western life is all over this band: pushing into the unknown, blazing their own trail, creating their own destiny, with the accompanying canyon-esque loneliness and untamed joy only truly known by those with the courage to pull up stakes and head off into the big empty sunset.
Gone by the Dawn, the newest Shannon and the Clams album, is their best work to date. The music is complex, the lyrical content is emotionally raw and honest, and the production is the strangest it’s ever been. The album was written as one member was recovering from a serious breakup and another was deep in one. The lyrics reflect it, and the entire album is dripping with sadness, pain, and introspection. Shannon and Cody have not written generic songs about love or the lack of it. Instead they have written about their very own specific heartbreak, mistreatment, and mental trials. The emotion is palpable. On Gone by the Dawn the Clams have DARED TO BE REAL. They’ve exposed their true emotions, which is what’s most moving about the album. People are scared to be so real. Society does not encourage it. Folks remain guarded to protect themselves from being mocked, punished, and becoming outcast . The Clams have opted to forgo the potential tongue-clucking finger-waggers, and have instead had the artistic courage and audacity to splay their pain and struggles out for all to hear. We are lucky to hear them get so damn real.
For Gone by the Dawn, the Oakland trio hooked up with studio wizard and renaissance man Sonny Smith to record the album at Tiny Telephone Recording in San Francisco. Best known as the driving force behind San Francisco’s beloved Sonny and the Sunsets, Smith uses his refreshing production techniques to create an engaging sonic landscape without compromising the Clams’ signature Lou Christie-meets-The Circle Jerks sound. The Clams have evolved: their skills are sharper, their chops are tighter and weirder and they’ve added new instruments to to the mix. A whole new dimension of the Clams has emerged.
In the West everything is big. The mountains are towering, the rivers broad, the deserts vast, the canyons deep, and the emotions huge. The Clams have painted themselves into a massive landscape of sound and desolation. Gone by the Dawn is monumental; immense, magnificent, and unforgettable. Shannon and the Clams have pioneered their way into a lonesome land where the past still lives in the long shadows of a hot afternoon, where whispering spirits follow high along canyon walls, and if you sink your fingers into the dusty hard-packed earth you pull out hands smeared with blood.
– Dan Shaw
The Shivas:
Shivas are a rock and roll band from Portland, Oregon formed in 2006. In the 10 years since forming they have brought their raucous dance party to almost all 50 states, and over 25 countries worldwide, meanwhile releasing five full-length albums and three EPs on labels such as K Records and Burger Records. With the release of their latest - TURN ME ON (out May 12, 2017 on Burger Records/Annibale Records) they set out on spring/summer tours across North America and Europe, spending a few weeks at home in their time off to finish working on their 6th LP, set to come out in 2018. Keep an eye out for an upcoming Shivas show in your town.
For more info and the venues go to: http://pdxmakerweek.com/2017/
Portland Makers exist as a vibrantly diverse fusion of
organizations, people, places, and events that converges
during PDX Maker Week to inform, inspire, and ignite.
Round up a country band and an early R&B group with three lead vocalists, weave in a hefty amount of vocal harmony and witty turns-of-phrase, and let ‘em rock out like The Band. Comprised of Seattle-based country musician Cahalen Morrison, jam band veteran Jim Miller (co-founder of Donna the Buffalo), R&B and bluegrass-by-way-of-punk rock songwriter Ethan Lawton, pedal steel player Rusty Blake, and bassist Dan Lowinger, Western Centuries are clearly a diverse bunch. The band is collaborative in nature, but they are – albeit subtly – helmed by Morrison. After years of performing in prominent roots duo Cahalen Morrison & Eli West (whose music made fans of Tim O’Brien, Jim Lauderdale, Dirk Powell, and BBC Radio’s Bob Harris along the way), Morrison formed and led the band Country Hammer, made up of members who have mostly crossed over into Western Centuries. Skillful musicianship, innovative writing with upbeat, barroom dance numbers, lilting, introspective tunes of heartbreak, and everything in between!
Against Me!
Four years is a measurement of time that America has used for centuries to indicate change. Presidential terms last four years; high school diplomas and college degrees typically take four years apiece, too. It’s not an arbitrary thing, either: It typically takes that much time from the declaration of something changing for it to actually change.
Meet Laura Jane Grace. Four years ago, the Against Me! frontwoman came out as transgender; 18 months later, she released the band’s sixth album, the fiery Transgender Dysphoria Blues, one which she began working on before her transition and helped document the struggles she was facing. It was an intensely personal record that took on a life of its own, connecting with thousands of new listeners drawn to Grace’s honesty and complexity while still pleasing Against Me!’s dedicated fanbase.
Now, four years after Grace’s public reintroduction, Against Me! is ready to release their new album, Shape Shift With Me, September 16 on Total Treble. While much has changed in the lives of Grace and her bandmates—guitarist James Bowman, bassist Inge Johansson and drummer Atom Willard—in that time period, it’s clear that those intervening years have done wonders for creativity.
“Everything with Shape Shift With Me has been really about keeping momentum going,” she says. “In between every tour we did for Transgender Dysphoria Blues, I would have a couple songs I had written and we would demo them. At the end of two years of touring, we had an album ready to record. Usually, you come off of touring for a record and you're back at square one. But this was so fully formed it felt like there was no choice but to go ahead and record the songs.”
Shape Shift With Me has the distinction of the first album Grace has written truly from the heart, with no metaphorical cloaks cast over the lyrics. It’s an album about love, that deceptively complex emotion we all struggle with yet has somehow eluded most of Grace’s songwriting for the past 20 years.
“Tons of people have written about love. But while love is cliché, it’s infinitely relevant. For me, having always been in a punk band that was expected to be political, I never felt like I had that option to write about feelings in that way. That’s what I ended up being drawn to this time. It’s writing in a way I thought I could never write before, and not giving a shit about expectations.”
Bleached
Back to basics. Take your time. Guitars and golden noise. Meet Bleached, two sisters from LA creating rough-hewed, high-collared, melodic Rock & Roll. Formerly part of Mika Miko, Jessica and Jennifer Clavin were best known for their freewheeling '77 punk and riot girl lawlessness. In Bleached, they share the same slant towards the hard-edged, but instead veer towards a more vintage ensemble of Ramones bubble-gum, Merle Haggard country, and 60s psychedelic rock. "Months after beloved L.A. art-punkers and Smell disciples Mika Miko called it a day in late 2009, sisters Jessica and Jennifer Clavin dove right back into writing and recording together as Bleached. While they've definitely taken their sound in another direction (splenetic guitar moves have been swapped out in favor of softer, strummier, far stickier fare), the energy's not so different at all." --Spin.com
The Dirty Nil
The Dirty Nil play rock and roll. Loud, distorted, and out of control, they play like it’s a fever they’re trying to sweat out. Reveling in the din of distorted guitars, pounding drums, and desperately howled vocals, the Hamilton Ontario three-piece makes music for turntables and hi-fi’s - music for dive bars and house parties - for beer drinking and joint smoking - for road trips and barbecues - for fighting and yelling and shouting and singing and screaming and howling - for sweating and bleeding - trying and failing and trying again anyways. Gravel-in-your guts, spit-in-your-eye, staggering, bloodthirsty rock and roll. They have two 7"s available that capture the snarl and destructive noise they create. The Dirty Nil play rock and roll - cause they couldn’t do a damn thing else if they tried.
The Ape presents CAT PATROL, an hour of character-driven sketch comedy that explores bad spoken word, the creepy lives of twins, one-woman shows and the musical stylings of Darth Vader. Directed by Chris Caniglia, CAT PATROL marks the first major debut of a sketch comedy production at The Ape theater. It is also the first full length production produced, written, directed and starring the founders of The Ape - Brooke Totman (MADtv, The Benefits of Gusbandry), Alissa Jessup (The Mindy Project, True Blood) and Chris Caniglia (30 Rock, The People’s Improv Theater of N.Y.).
After years of performing and writing sketch shows in Portland, Brooke Totman was hired to cast and direct a new sketch company at a comedy club in town. Alissa Jessup came in to audition (Alissa and Chris Caniglia had just moved to Portland from Los Angeles) and immediately caught Brooke’s attention. “Alissa got on stage and I couldn’t take my eyes off of her. Her comedic timing was spot-on and she was the only person on stage creating characters!” says Brooke. “I scanned her resume and saw that like me, she trained at The Groundlings. - I knew I had found a comedy soulmate.” (The Groundlings is known as the foremost sketch comedy training ground in Los Angeles and has been the launch pad for countless careers including: Melissa McCarthy, Will Ferrell, Kristen Wiig, Phil Hartman, Lisa Kudrow, Paul Reubens, Will Forte, Maya Rudolph, and Kathy Griffin.)
The two women became fast friends and collaborators, creating sketches for the show Identity Crisis at Portland Center Stage. “After Identity Crisis, we knew we had something special and we had to make our own show,” says Alissa. “We sat down with Chris (a veteran of New York and Los Angeles comedy) and the three of us started to dream up all the things we could do if we joined forces on CAT PATROL and beyond. What if we started our own comedy-based theater? A theater where as artists, we can create the kind of acting based, character-driven comedy that we love? And while we’re at it, why don’t we kick off our debut season with CAT PATROL?” “The collaboration chemistry was immediate.” says Brooke. “Alissa and I both grew up watching funny women like, Carol Burnett, Laverne & Shirley, Gilda Radner, Lily Tomlin, and Lucille Ball.” “And then you add our Groundlings sensibilities to the mix, it’s magic.” adds Alissa, “When we write it’s so easeful. It’s like we share the same twisted comedy brain, it just works.” Chris adds, “We all offer something very different and distinct to the process. Brooke is a master of both subtle and bold, physical comedy. She can transform into a character so completely, that you literally forget she’s on stage. Alissa is an amazing actor with the comedy chops to match. Nothing is too big, too broad or off-limits. If a seemingly impossible idea is pitched, Alissa is the one to figure out how to make it work on stage” “Chris brings a very calm, intentional focus to the process.” says Alissa. “He has this knack for listening, processing and with one or two suggestions, making the entire piece stronger. He’s the CAT PATROL whisperer.”
THE APE FOUNDERS
About Brooke Totman
Brooke is an actor, writer and sketch comedy performer. After receiving a degree in Theater performance, Totman headed to the bright lights and smoggy hills of L.A. to train at acclaimed sketch and improv company, The Groundlings.
Brooke became a member of The Groundlings Sunday company, performing alongside Melissa McCarthy, Mitch Silpa and Michael McDonald. It is here that her skills for writing sketches and creating unique comedy characters were developed. Auditioning with characters created at The Groundlings, Totman was cast on MADtv as a featured cast member during its 5th season. Other selected TV credits include: The King of Queens (CBS), Less Than Perfect (ABC),Judging Amy (CBS) and Life After First Failure (The CW). She is currently starring in the critically acclaimed series, The Benefits of Gusbandry, available on Amazon Prime. Brooke is co-founder of The Ape Theater, a comedy based theater and training ground committed to creating new work that ignites, engages and entertains. She also heads The Ape’s Sketch Comedy division, teaching, coaching, producing and directing.
About Alissa Jessup
Alissa is a writer, director, and actor with over 20 years’ experience creating and working in theater, film, and television. She likes that clowns are kind of creepy. As an actor, she has performed and developed new plays with Sundance Theatre Lab, The Flea Theater, ACT Theatre, 13P, Soho Rep, P.S. 122, and Playwrights Horizons. Selected T.V. credits include The Mindy Project (Hulu), True Blood (HBO), Grimm (NBC), and The Mentalist (CBS). She has written and performed comedy at The Groundlings, Upright Citizens Brigade NYC and U.C.B. Los Angeles. In 2015, Alissa founded Growly Pictures to produce content that is made by women for women. Alissa wrote, directed, and stars in the comedic short film, ‘chickadee’, which she produced with an all-female cast and crew. Alissa is co-founder of The Ape and serves as the Artistic Director, where she also directs, teaches acting, directing, writing and collaboration classes.
About Chris Caniglia
Chris Caniglia started his improv career in 1986 with a group called Mental Floss in Miami. He performed over a crappy little garage that worked on foreign cars. After a little more seasoning and a move to the Big Apple he founded Big Black Car, New York City’s longest running long form improv team, and winner of Emerging Comics of New York’s award for best improv group. That group was Tom Ridgeley, Justin Akin, Ellie Kemper, Chris Caniglia, Megan Martin, Kristin Schaal, Scott Eckert and Matt Oberg. This was at the Peoples Improv Theater, where he was also a member of the teaching faculty. Chris has performed at The Upright Citizens Brigade Theater, The Magnet Theater in New York, where he was a member of House team Sweet Crude, directed by Armando Diaz, U.C.B. L.A., I/O West, the Chicago Improv Festival, and the D.C. Improv Festival. Chris is co-founder of The Ape and also serves as the head of its Improv division, where he coaches, teaches, produces and directs.
About The Ape Theater
With a mission of making serious sketch comedy (for people who aren’t that serious), The Ape is a comedy-based theater & training ground committed to creating new improv, sketch and theater work that ignites, engages, and entertains. Classes and workshops are offered in long-form improv, sketch comedy, writing, performance, and collaboration. The Ape’s training is deeply rooted in the belief that solid acting is the key to great comedic performances.
The Ape is an underground theater. Literally. It is located in the basement of The Alberta Abbey. The Ape is founded by working professionals with over 20 years experience working in New York City and Los Angeles in TV, Film,Theater and Comedy.
Alumni: Upright Citizens Brigade NYC & LA, The Magnet, The P.I.T., The Groundlings. www.theapetheater.com
Out May 5, 2017 via Captured Tracks
Before you ancients out there turn your heads and scoff at the premise of a twenty-something rock-and-roll goofball calling himself an old-anything, consider this: said perpetrator, he who answers to the name Mac DeMarco, has spent the better part of his time thus far writing, recording, and releasing an album of his own music pretty much every calendar flip, and pretty much on his own. The fresh meat you’re now feasting on, This Old Dog, makes for his fifth in just over half a decade—bringing the total to 3 LPs and 2 EPs.
According to the DMV, MacBriare Samuel Lanyon DeMarco is 26. But in working-dog years, ol’ Mac here could easily qualify for social security. To stay gold, turns out all he needed was some new tricks.
Though used to and pretty happy with that annual grind, it was a little space—in time, location, and method—that inspired DeMarco while making the record. Moving from his isolated Queens home to a house in Los Angeles helped give the somewhat transient Canada-native a broader base, and a few more months on his calendar to create did their job as well. Arriving in California with a grip of demos he’d written in New York, he realized after a few months of setting up his new shop—complete with a few new toys—that the gap was giving him perspective (insert tooth joke here).
“This one was spaced out,” DeMarco says. “I demoed a full album, and as I was moving to the West Coast I thought I’d get to finishing it quickly. But then I realized that moving to a new city and starting a new life takes time. And it was weird, because usually I just write, record, and put it out; no problem. But this time, I wrote them and they sat. When that happens, you really get to know the songs. It was a different vibe.”
DeMarco wrote some demos for This Old Dog on an acoustic guitar, an unusual yet eye-opening method for him. “The majority of this album is acoustic guitar, synthesizer, some drum machine, and one song is electric guitar. So this is a new endeavor for me.”
And from the outset, from the pops and clicks of the CR-78 and acoustic strums on the album-opening “My Old Man,” the synth-drenched beauty of the second track, “This Old Dog,” and that ironic recurring word itself, it’s clear that DeMarco’s bag is filled with new tricks indeed. This Old Dog is rooted more in a synth-base than any of his previous releases, but he is careful not to let that tactic overshadow the other instruments and overall “unplugged” mood of the work. In fact, DeMarco recognizes that he might share more than just a geographical flight-path with a certain Canadian-cum-Californian songwriter.
“I think what I was trying to do is make Harvest with synthesizers,” he laughs. “But I don’t think I even came close to the mark—something else entirely came out. This is my acoustic
album, but it’s not really an acoustic album at all. That’s just what it feels like, mostly. I’m Italian, so I guess this is an Italian rock record.”
Speaking of roots, while it’s known that DeMarco’s family history is complicated at best, the songs here may be the closest glimpse into his personal life and relationships with his kin he’s ever allowed. But then again, they may not be. Only one thing is certain: the titular mutt, naturally, is DeMarco himself, and as he brings us into his world, he makes sure it’s from his own hard-earned vantage point and measured post.
“This record has a lot to do with my family and my life right now and the way I’m feeling and stuff,” he says. “One of the main goals for this record was trying to make sure I retained some kind of realness. That’s the bottom line. Being in any sort of spotlight can be jarring, especially when you’re not preoccupied with touring and you’re just sitting in your house writing songs. But wherever my bedroom is, the records are gonna be whatever is happening in there. I could be in Alaska and I’m sure it wouldn’t change things much.”
Despite the changes considered during the creation of This Old Dog, Mac DeMarco’s mid-twenties masterpiece, it’s clear that the engine that motors him is in no danger of slowing down.
“As long as I feel real then there’s nothing else that matters,” he says. “Making these albums is just something that I have to do, and so I do it.”
THE GARDEN
PORTLAND, Ore. – The Portland Ballet presents a series of FREE PRE-ballet classes for ages 6-9. The series are each four classes held once a week at TPB’s studio, 6250 SW Capitol Highway.
The FREE PRE classes introduce young dancers to the fundamentals of ballet and help them decide if ballet is right for them. TPB welcomes all new dancers in these commitment-free series with the goal of giving students the basic foundations and an appreciation of dance. TPB is devoted to nurturing, student-centered ballet training.
The final class acts as a placement assessment for the Curriculum Ballet program. Students must attend the full series (all four classes) but are not required to pay an audition fee. Parents who wish to enroll their children must complete a Registration Form. Class sizes are limited, and they may be cancelled if they do not meet minimum enrollment.
Dress code: Female dancers should wear pink tights, pink ballet shoes and a leotard of any color. They should not wear skirts or tutus. Male dancers should wear black tights, a white t-shirt and black ballet shoes.
Dates and times:
- July 10, 17, 24, 31 – Mondays 4:30-5:30 p.m.
- July 15, 22, 29, Aug. 5 – Saturdays 10-11 a.m.
- September 9, 16, 23, 30 – Saturdays 11:15 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
- January 6, 13, 20, 27, 2018 – Saturdays 11:15 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
To register: theportlandballet.org or 503.452.8448
The Portland Ballet, led by artistic directors Nancy Davis and Anne Mueller, nurtures young dancers from age three to 22. TPB students are trained with professional intent by a faculty that includes some of the nation’s finest dancers and choreographers, with experience at companies such as the National Ballet, the original Los Angeles Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, Oregon Ballet Theatre, Royal Danish Ballet, Trey McIntyre Project, and BodyVox. Professionally produced performance experience is at the core of TPB training. TPB graduates have gone on to professional dance careers with companies such as Grand Rapids Ballet, Pacific Northwest Ballet, Oregon Ballet Theatre, Nevada Ballet Theatre, Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre, Sacramento Ballet, Houston Ballet, St. Louis Ballet, Royal Swedish Ballet, Batsheva, LEV, Ballet Memphis, and Ballet West
PORTLAND, Ore. – The Portland Ballet presents a series of FREE PRE-ballet classes for ages 6-9. The series are each four classes held once a week at TPB’s studio, 6250 SW Capitol Highway.
The FREE PRE classes introduce young dancers to the fundamentals of ballet and help them decide if ballet is right for them. TPB welcomes all new dancers in these commitment-free series with the goal of giving students the basic foundations and an appreciation of dance. TPB is devoted to nurturing, student-centered ballet training.
The final class acts as a placement assessment for the Curriculum Ballet program. Students must attend the full series (all four classes) but are not required to pay an audition fee. Parents who wish to enroll their children must complete a Registration Form. Class sizes are limited, and they may be cancelled if they do not meet minimum enrollment.
Dress code: Female dancers should wear pink tights, pink ballet shoes and a leotard of any color. They should not wear skirts or tutus. Male dancers should wear black tights, a white t-shirt and black ballet shoes.
Dates and times:
- July 10, 17, 24, 31 – Mondays 4:30-5:30 p.m.
- July 15, 22, 29, Aug. 5 – Saturdays 10-11 a.m.
- September 9, 16, 23, 30 – Saturdays 11:15 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
- January 6, 13, 20, 27, 2018 – Saturdays 11:15 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
To register: theportlandballet.org or 503.452.8448
The Portland Ballet, led by artistic directors Nancy Davis and Anne Mueller, nurtures young dancers from age three to 22. TPB students are trained with professional intent by a faculty that includes some of the nation’s finest dancers and choreographers, with experience at companies such as the National Ballet, the original Los Angeles Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, Oregon Ballet Theatre, Royal Danish Ballet, Trey McIntyre Project, and BodyVox. Professionally produced performance experience is at the core of TPB training. TPB graduates have gone on to professional dance careers with companies such as Grand Rapids Ballet, Pacific Northwest Ballet, Oregon Ballet Theatre, Nevada Ballet Theatre, Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre, Sacramento Ballet, Houston Ballet, St. Louis Ballet, Royal Swedish Ballet, Batsheva, LEV, Ballet Memphis, and Ballet West
The Ape presents CAT PATROL, an hour of character-driven sketch comedy that explores bad spoken word, the creepy lives of twins, one-woman shows and the musical stylings of Darth Vader. Directed by Chris Caniglia, CAT PATROL marks the first major debut of a sketch comedy production at The Ape theater. It is also the first full length production produced, written, directed and starring the founders of The Ape - Brooke Totman (MADtv, The Benefits of Gusbandry), Alissa Jessup (The Mindy Project, True Blood) and Chris Caniglia (30 Rock, The People’s Improv Theater of N.Y.).
After years of performing and writing sketch shows in Portland, Brooke Totman was hired to cast and direct a new sketch company at a comedy club in town. Alissa Jessup came in to audition (Alissa and Chris Caniglia had just moved to Portland from Los Angeles) and immediately caught Brooke’s attention. “Alissa got on stage and I couldn’t take my eyes off of her. Her comedic timing was spot-on and she was the only person on stage creating characters!” says Brooke. “I scanned her resume and saw that like me, she trained at The Groundlings. - I knew I had found a comedy soulmate.” (The Groundlings is known as the foremost sketch comedy training ground in Los Angeles and has been the launch pad for countless careers including: Melissa McCarthy, Will Ferrell, Kristen Wiig, Phil Hartman, Lisa Kudrow, Paul Reubens, Will Forte, Maya Rudolph, and Kathy Griffin.)
The two women became fast friends and collaborators, creating sketches for the show Identity Crisis at Portland Center Stage. “After Identity Crisis, we knew we had something special and we had to make our own show,” says Alissa. “We sat down with Chris (a veteran of New York and Los Angeles comedy) and the three of us started to dream up all the things we could do if we joined forces on CAT PATROL and beyond. What if we started our own comedy-based theater? A theater where as artists, we can create the kind of acting based, character-driven comedy that we love? And while we’re at it, why don’t we kick off our debut season with CAT PATROL?” “The collaboration chemistry was immediate.” says Brooke. “Alissa and I both grew up watching funny women like, Carol Burnett, Laverne & Shirley, Gilda Radner, Lily Tomlin, and Lucille Ball.” “And then you add our Groundlings sensibilities to the mix, it’s magic.” adds Alissa, “When we write it’s so easeful. It’s like we share the same twisted comedy brain, it just works.” Chris adds, “We all offer something very different and distinct to the process. Brooke is a master of both subtle and bold, physical comedy. She can transform into a character so completely, that you literally forget she’s on stage. Alissa is an amazing actor with the comedy chops to match. Nothing is too big, too broad or off-limits. If a seemingly impossible idea is pitched, Alissa is the one to figure out how to make it work on stage” “Chris brings a very calm, intentional focus to the process.” says Alissa. “He has this knack for listening, processing and with one or two suggestions, making the entire piece stronger. He’s the CAT PATROL whisperer.”
THE APE FOUNDERS
About Brooke Totman
Brooke is an actor, writer and sketch comedy performer. After receiving a degree in Theater performance, Totman headed to the bright lights and smoggy hills of L.A. to train at acclaimed sketch and improv company, The Groundlings.
Brooke became a member of The Groundlings Sunday company, performing alongside Melissa McCarthy, Mitch Silpa and Michael McDonald. It is here that her skills for writing sketches and creating unique comedy characters were developed. Auditioning with characters created at The Groundlings, Totman was cast on MADtv as a featured cast member during its 5th season. Other selected TV credits include: The King of Queens (CBS), Less Than Perfect (ABC),Judging Amy (CBS) and Life After First Failure (The CW). She is currently starring in the critically acclaimed series, The Benefits of Gusbandry, available on Amazon Prime. Brooke is co-founder of The Ape Theater, a comedy based theater and training ground committed to creating new work that ignites, engages and entertains. She also heads The Ape’s Sketch Comedy division, teaching, coaching, producing and directing.
About Alissa Jessup
Alissa is a writer, director, and actor with over 20 years’ experience creating and working in theater, film, and television. She likes that clowns are kind of creepy. As an actor, she has performed and developed new plays with Sundance Theatre Lab, The Flea Theater, ACT Theatre, 13P, Soho Rep, P.S. 122, and Playwrights Horizons. Selected T.V. credits include The Mindy Project (Hulu), True Blood (HBO), Grimm (NBC), and The Mentalist (CBS). She has written and performed comedy at The Groundlings, Upright Citizens Brigade NYC and U.C.B. Los Angeles. In 2015, Alissa founded Growly Pictures to produce content that is made by women for women. Alissa wrote, directed, and stars in the comedic short film, ‘chickadee’, which she produced with an all-female cast and crew. Alissa is co-founder of The Ape and serves as the Artistic Director, where she also directs, teaches acting, directing, writing and collaboration classes.
About Chris Caniglia
Chris Caniglia started his improv career in 1986 with a group called Mental Floss in Miami. He performed over a crappy little garage that worked on foreign cars. After a little more seasoning and a move to the Big Apple he founded Big Black Car, New York City’s longest running long form improv team, and winner of Emerging Comics of New York’s award for best improv group. That group was Tom Ridgeley, Justin Akin, Ellie Kemper, Chris Caniglia, Megan Martin, Kristin Schaal, Scott Eckert and Matt Oberg. This was at the Peoples Improv Theater, where he was also a member of the teaching faculty. Chris has performed at The Upright Citizens Brigade Theater, The Magnet Theater in New York, where he was a member of House team Sweet Crude, directed by Armando Diaz, U.C.B. L.A., I/O West, the Chicago Improv Festival, and the D.C. Improv Festival. Chris is co-founder of The Ape and also serves as the head of its Improv division, where he coaches, teaches, produces and directs.
About The Ape Theater
With a mission of making serious sketch comedy (for people who aren’t that serious), The Ape is a comedy-based theater & training ground committed to creating new improv, sketch and theater work that ignites, engages, and entertains. Classes and workshops are offered in long-form improv, sketch comedy, writing, performance, and collaboration. The Ape’s training is deeply rooted in the belief that solid acting is the key to great comedic performances.
The Ape is an underground theater. Literally. It is located in the basement of The Alberta Abbey. The Ape is founded by working professionals with over 20 years experience working in New York City and Los Angeles in TV, Film,Theater and Comedy.
Alumni: Upright Citizens Brigade NYC & LA, The Magnet, The P.I.T., The Groundlings. www.theapetheater.com
George Colligan, an internationally recognized jazz pianist and composer, has released his 28th CD as a leader on the Whirlwind Recordings label. Fresh off a European promotional tour, Colligan returns to Portland to present the tunes from the album; he is joined by an all-star rhythm section of Chris Higgins on bass and Chris Brown on drums.
ALEXANDRA SAVIOR
MÁSCARAS
COAST MODERN
Seattle-native Luke Atlas and LA-local Coleman Trapp met while working as Los Angeles-based songwriters, fellow rats in the race to land songs with mainstream pop artists. After more than two years of peddling some great, some terrible, and some very weird creations at the gates of the mainstream, they received little more than fleeting glances. Watching so many of their creations die on the operating table left the two burnt out and questioning their path.
With just a backpack and a tape recorder, Coleman escaped his over-saturated hometown for the mountainous serenity of Denver, CO. What was meant to be a quick, head-clearing vacation soon turned into months as Coleman blended into the community, taking a job at a family restaurant, and enjoying the simple pleasures of a "normal" life.
"I realized I didn't desire the trappings of music industry success that drove me for years," recalls Coleman. "I actually started thinking I might never go back." Without the pressure of writing-on-demand, he began messing around on a borrowed acoustic guitar and recording tossed-off ditties on an old cassette recorder. The pure, child-like enjoyment of writing only for himself led Coleman to a realization: maybe he'd overlooked a path that was right in front of him the whole time.
Soon, warbly tape recordings began appearing in Luke's inbox. "At first I didn't think much of them because they were so different, but they kept randomly getting stuck in my head" says Luke, who further encouraged Coleman's experiments. On a whim, Luke created a production around one of the acoustic demos and sent it back. Coleman was thrilled. "It felt like this could be something," says Luke. "I told him to get his ass back to LA." br>
Returning with renewed vigor and a rusted-out car hood after a Mile-High winter, Coleman quickly called a meeting with Luke. With their new musical experiments buzzing in their heads, the pair discussed creating a personal project based purely on the whims of their creative spark, wherever that led them. "After we stopped shooting at an invisible moving target and had no agenda, that's when the sound came," explains Luke. And Coleman, who had not so much as even sung "Happy Birthday" until a few years prior, began finding the confidence to take frontman status, lending his vocals to the tracks that began to take form through a playful, stream-of-consciousness process.
One of the first songs they plucked from the ether together was "Hollow Life." An anthem for restless souls everywhere, the lyrics drip with the same frustration the duo once felt for their city, while Coleman yearns for a simpler life away from it all. "Racing towards a dream on the horizon / Gimme something better than this Hollow Life," he sings over plinking marimba mashed up with angular fuzzy bass and booming 808 kick drums. br>
"The song is about finding distance from what is hindering you, whether it be physical or mental distance," explains Coleman. "But we're no gurus. We're just trying to let people know that we're here figuring this shit out too."
On the other end of the duo's musical spectrum is the bouncy tribute to nascent romance, "Dive" and the psychedelic, "Comb My Hair." Digging deeper, there is the group's wistful meditation on the passage of time, "Wild Things," and, "Frost," crackling with imperfection from Coleman's original Denver basement tapes. Clearly Coast Modern are capable of covering a large swath of musical territory, yet a strong, self-aware voice and a sense of groove tie them all together.
With their destiny now grasped firmly in their own hands, the duo are reveling in the freedom of their newfound artist status. At the will of their muses instead of the tidal flow of the pop world, the group can create the genuine, self-assured music that had been locked inside. Coast Modern is what happens when you let go of what you always thought you wanted and embrace the unexpected; when you stop chasing and start taking the lead.
NOMINATED: 5 Tony Awards 2015
DARK COMEDY
THE STORY: After the death of his father, meek Jason finds an outlet for his anxiety at the Christian Puppet Ministry, in the devoutly religious, relatively quiet small town of Cypress, Texas.
Jason’s complicated relationships with the town pastor, the school bully, the girl next door, and—most especially—his mother are thrown into upheaval when Jason’s puppet, Tyrone, takes on a shocking and dangerously irreverent personality all its own.
Hand To God explores the startlingly fragile nature of faith, morality, and the ties that bind us.
Join us to celebrate Portland distilling and the first-ever guidebook to spirits tasting, High-Proof PDX: A Spirited Guide to Portland’s Distilling Scene by Karen Locke on September 7th, 2017 from 5-10 PM at Bit House Saloon. This event is open to the public, 21+ and free to attend.
Come get a copy and have the author sign it. Nibbles provided, cash bar.
Other launch party highlights:
Cocktails from Portland-area distilleries
Swag from Portland distilleries
Fantastic cocktails from “Team Riff Raff” at Bit House Saloon
Raffle giveaways from distilleries and Portland Distillery Passport
AN ICE LUGE!!!
More!
ABOUT HIGH-PROOF PDX
“High-Proof PDX: A Spirited Guide to Portland’s Craft Distilling Scene” is the first-ever comprehensive guide on how to navigate the city’s local distillery and artisanal drinks scene—for when you’re lost and hungover. Forthcoming, September 12th, 2017 by Overcup Press.
Thundercat
THUNDERCAT is the alter ego of virtuosic bassist / singer Stephen Bruner. The South Los Angeles-native has released two critically acclaimed full length albums on Brainfeeder Records since 2011, and last year saw the release of widely praised mini-album The Beyond / Where the Giants Roam. The album features appearances from the legendary Herbie Hancock, fellow Brainfeeder family members Kamasi Washington, Miguel Atwood-Ferguson and Mono/Poly and production work from Brainfeeder head, Flying Lotus. 2015 also saw Thundercat make outstanding contributions to landmark albums by Kamasi Washington (The Epic) and Kendrick Lamar (To Pimp A Butterfly). His work on Lamar's recently netted him his first Grammy.
Bruner found his instrument at the age of 4. That made him a late-bloomer in the house of Ronald, Sr., who drummed with the Temptations among others. His first bass was a black Harmony, and he practiced to the Ninja Turtles soundtrack until pops played him Jaco Pastorius. He joined thrash legends Suicidal Tendencies as a teenager, and spent road and studio time with everyone from Stanley Clarke to Snoop Dogg to Erykah Badu. Eventually the name Thundercat stuck, a reference to the cartoon he's loved since childhood and an extension of Bruner's wide-eyed, vibrant, often superhuman approach to his craft.
HAIM
Even before the 2013 release of HAIM’s celebrated, best-selling debut album, Days Are Gone, the group had already started touring. And then they never stopped—in the years since, Alana, Danielle, and Este Haim have stayed on the road almost constantly, “People kept asking us to tour,” says Alana, “and it was a no-brainer, because we love playing so much.”
So when it came time to put on the brakes and make the hotly anticipated follow-up, Something to Tell You, the sisters wanted to try a different approach, taking advantage of the performing strength they had gained. “On the first record, we were messing around a lot with production and samples,” says Danielle. “Now, coming off of three years of touring, we thought. ‘Let’s just go in and record as a band, keep it a little more organic.’ That was a mission statement for the album.”
The results demonstrate the musical and emotional range of a group that continues to push its own creativity. Something to Tell You was introduced with a riveting video for the spare, intimate “Right Now,” shot live in the studio in one take by Paul Thomas Anderson, and the bass-heavy “Night So Long” continues that lonesome, late-night feel. Meanwhile, the harmonious vocals and finger snaps on “Want You Back,” contrast with its confessional lyric.
“They’re a very different band than on the last record,” says Ariel Rechtshaid, who worked as a producer on both albums. “After three years of touring, they’re on another level. The fundamentals they have are unique—they don’t reference a Chaka Khan song, but the syncopation in the bass and drums.”
It wasn’t tough for the trio to fall back into an old-school sensibility in the studio. When the Haims were still in grade school, they formed a band with their parents, playing classic rock covers at street fairs and charity functions in their native San Fernando Valley. Eleven years ago, Danielle (guitar and drums), Este (bass), and Alana (guitar and keyboards) got their own group in place, with all three sharing vocals and percussion duties. After rehearsing in their parents' living room, they began booking gigs around town, to growing notice. After seven years of honing their songs, they released Days Are Gone, which sold almost 100,000 copies in its first week.
A Top Ten hit in the US and a Number One album in the UK, the album earned the sisters a BRIT nomination for Best International Group and a GRAMMY nomination for Best New Artist. Along the way, according to Rolling Stone, they “helped to redefine what, exactly, the term ‘rock band’ can mean these days”—collaborating on an EDM single with Calvin Harris; enlisting A$AP Ferg for a remix; working the festival circuit from Coachella to Bonnaroo, Glastonbury to T in the Park; and gaining such heavyweight fans as Stevie Nicks.
But when it came time to get a new album going, HAIM first needed to come up with material.
With nowhere to live when they came off the road, they returned to familiar territory, setting up shop at their parents’ house. The living room (which can be seen in their first music video, 2012’s “Forever”) is still set up like a rehearsal space, with instruments and amps already in place. “After everything we had done, it felt nice to be back—to go home and go to my childhood room,” says Danielle. “We rehearsed there every day for seven or eight years, dreaming of playing Saturday Night Live, so to go back there now and is all very surreal, it’s so fucking crazy.”
The Haims had been working at their parent’s home for months, trying to get their compositional muscles back, when they got an offer to write a song for an upcoming movie. “It was like a homework assignment,” says Alana, “and that kick-started a song called ‘Little of Your Love.’ When we wrote that, it felt like ‘Hey, we still know how to do this! It’s happening!’ And then we finally got the ball rolling.”
Once that one was done, confirms Danielle, “it kind of opened up the floodgates,” and soon they had written dozens of new songs. They began the recording of Something to Tell You with producer Rechtshaid (who has also worked with the likes of Adele, Beyonce, and Usher), with additional production from Vampire Weekend’s Rostam Batamanglij.
Danielle’s guitar work has been brought further forward on songs like the harmony-rich “Nothing’s Wrong” and “Good for You,” a collaboration with Dev Hynes of Blood Orange, while the title track features funkier, syncopated bass and drums. “We definitely wanted some songs that would be fun to play live and that people can dance to,” says Danielle. “We love having that big dance party feel at our shows.”
Rechtshaid also noted a greater sense of honesty and clarity in the songwriting. “The lyrics have themes of finding strength, of old and new love,” he says. “There’s loneliness and vulnerability, but also empowerment. So we just wanted to focus on what is unique about HAIM, and be willing to let them be them.”
“With the first record, we learned that you really need to find people to work with that respect your musicality and ideas,” says Alana. Ariel and Rostam both really wanted to celebrate us as sisters and how serious we are about our music.
With Something to Tell You, HAIM have come further into their own, delivering on the promise of their debut. Having survived—and thrived—spending years on the road with barely a day’s rest, the sisters have now stepped up to become true bearers of the rock & roll flame.
“We’re really feeling like strong women right now,” says Danielle. “Bosses of our own fate, making our own music, not taking shit from anybody, writing every word, every chord and every song. “
“We could work on this record for another three years,” she continues, “we’re that kind of perfectionist. But now it’s time to let everyone hear what we’ve been working on —plus, we want to get back out on tour. So let’s go!”
CONOR OBERST
In Fall of 2015, and after more than a decade of living in New York City, Oberst returned to his hometown of Omaha, Nebraska, somewhat unexpectedly. Like John Lennon so famously said: “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.” After canceling a tour with Desaparecidos due to serious health issues, Oberst returned home to recuperate. The musician was unexpectedly back home at loose ends and faced with some long, cold, claustrophobic winter nights, with nothing really to do. Such conditions were the same as those that contributed to the very early songs he penned in his boyhood bedroom. This resulted in the anxious poetry, heightened self-awareness, and revealing confessionals that catalogued his doubts, demons, and nightmares.
“It wasn’t premeditated at all. I don’t know if you know what Omaha is like in the winter, but it’s just paralyzing. You’re stranded in the house. Every night I was staying up late, making a point to play the new piano I had just bought and watching the snow fall outside the house. Everybody would be asleep and I would just go into this one room, make a fire, and play all night. In November I had a whole pick-up truck full of firewood delivered and I thought, ‘I’m never going to run out of it.’ Before I knew I had gone through half of the firewood and I had five songs. By February I had burned through it all, and I had 15 songs. I had just spent the whole winter making fires and playing music.”
Making and playing music has always been a healing balm for the sometimes troubled musician. And this time it especially seemed important. It was if he was writing himself back to sanity. Back to understanding what is really important and has meaning for him. And in the same kind of immediacy with which the songs were written, Oberst realized he needed to record them right away, in order to capture the kind of raw intensity and rough magic behind them. When Oberst wrote and recorded the songs, with just voice, piano, guitar and harmonica – he intended to ultimately record them with a full band. In the midst of putting together that band – upstate New York’s The Felice Brothers plus the legendary drummer Jim Keltner (Neil Young, Jackson Browne, George Harrison, Bob Dylan, John Lennon, and many more) – the passionate responses Oberst was getting to those first solo recordings, from friends and colleagues, encouraged him to release the songs as-is, in their original sparse form, released in October 2016 as Ruminations. Pitchfork called it “a record like none other in Oberst’s catalog, stunning for how utterly alone he sounds,” and the UK’s Sunday Times called it, “The rawest album yet from the forever troubled one-time voice of a generation. Political and very, very personal,” saying Oberst is “one of the best songwriters around.”
Meanwhile, Oberst simultaneously moved ahead with his plans to record with the band, heading to the famed Shangri-la Studios in Malibu to record Salutations – co-produced with Keltner and engineered by long-time musical compadre Andy LeMaster. Guest contributions come courtesy of Jim James, Blake Mills, Maria Taylor, M Ward, Gillian Welch, Gus Seyffert, Pearl Charles, Nathaniel Walcott, and Jonathan Wilson.
Salutations includes full band versions of the ten songs from Ruminations, plus seven additional songs, some from an additional session at
Five Star Studios in Echo Park in fall 2016. Oberst says of the Salutations sessions: “Jim (Keltner) was really the captain of the ship and the spiritual leader of the project. We leaned heavy on his fifty-plus years of musical insight to get us to where we needed to be. He brought such depth and dignity to the proceedings that made everyone else involved rise to the occasion. It was a true stroke of luck that he got involved when he did.”
M. WARD
M. Ward knows how to live with rain. Having spent the last decade-and-a-half based in the perennially damp Portland, Oregon, the singer-songwriter and producer has learned how to shine through the soggy gloom by simply embracing its inevitability. For Ward, there is inspiration in a dark sky and harmony in foreboding winds. And with his new album More Rain, he has made a true gotta-stay-indoors, rainy-season record that looks upwards through the weather while reflecting on his past.
“I think one of the biggest mysteries of America right now is this: How are we able to process unending bad news on Page One and then go about our lives the way the style section portrays us?” says Ward. “There must be a place in our brains that allows us to take a bird’s-eye view of humanity, and I think music is good at helping people—myself included—go to that place.”
This album, Ward’s eighth solo affair, finds the artist picking up the tempo and volume a bit from his previous release, 2012’s A Wasteland Companion. Where that record introspectively looked in from the outside, More Rain finds Ward on the inside, gazing out. Begun four years ago and imagined initially as a DIY doo-wop album that would feature Ward experimenting with layering his own voice, it soon branched out in different directions, a move that he credits largely to his collaborators here who include R.E.M.’s Peter Buck, Neko Case, k.d. lang, The Secret Sisters, and Joey Spampinato of NRBQ. The result is a collection of upbeat, sonically ambitious yet canonically familiar songs that both propel Ward’s reach and satisfy longtime fans.
More Rain begins with an actual rainstorm, then throughout the album, guitars chime, chug, and riff with Ward’s unmistakable earthy tone, while layers of atmospheric reverb and skittering drums climb and clip in equal measures. As the cloud of noise rolls in, the layers part ever so slightly to make way for Ward’s voice, which can play wispy and whimsical in one moment (“Pirate Dial”) or crackling and smoky in the next (“Time Won’t Wait”) just as well as it can climb to clear-sky clarity (“Confession”) then drop down to smooth, soulful crooning (“I’m Listening”), each one after the other. “Girl From Conejo Valley” is a nostalgic trot through people he used to know and a place he used to be, and “Slow Driving Man” is sweeping and lush in its orchestral climb towards confident heights.
As the album ends with the self-assured swing of “I’m Going Higher,” voices join together in a chorus of rising “ah”s and, for just a second, it seems the storm outside has slowed, making room for a ray of hopeful sunlight. As Ward knows, the rainy season is sure to return, but for now, More Rain is here to help us with our perspective.
Join us for 9:00 Doors, Saturday, September 2nd at the historic Kelly's Olympian for Laugh Trackz: Blending Stand-Up Comedy, backed by DJ's & LIVE Hip-Hop!
Reserved Seating Available // Grab your ticket today!!!
Stand Up Comedy from:
Rissa Riss
Carter Anderson
D Martin Austin
Mohanad Elshieky
Shain Brenden
DJ Set from:
St. Fantasy, aka Jaz Marie
Live Performances from:
Rex Wonder, Rayvon Owens & More!
Hosted by:
Shrista Tyree
If you're interested in Performing, contact us at Booking.glmg[at]gmail.com
21+/ Tix $10 pre-sale, $13 at the door