RESCHEDULED FROM 1/19/23!
DJ Klyph Productions brings a Portland Music Month special, in partnership with XRAY & Music Portland.
Pigeon John
is an underground MC with a genre-fusing style and positive lyrics. He is sometimes labeled a Christian rapper because of his hopeful messages and references to God, but with easily relatable subject matter and musical influences drawing from across the spectrum of rock and pop music, he aims to reach as wide an audience as possible. Active since the early 1990s, he made an impact on the hip-hop world as a member of the L.A. Symphony collective, as well as acclaimed solo efforts like 2003's Pigeon John Is Dating Your Sister. Subsequent albums like 2010's Dragon Slayer incorporated more live instrumentation and sung vocal hooks, and he received mainstream exposure as several of his songs were featured in advertisements, including the 2011 single "The Bomb" and 2019's "They Don't Make Em Like Me." He continued delivering uplifting vibes with 2020's Gotta Good Feelin', drawing influence from Motown, reggae, alternative rock, and dance music.
VURSATYL
is an MC and Singer/Songwriter who came to international attention as a member of the Portland, Oregon based Hip Hop group Lifesavas. With the group and as a solo artist, Vursatyl has toured extensively with De La Soul, Talib Kweli, Slum Village and Little Brother to name just a few. As well as collaborating and recording music with George Clinton, Smif-N-Wessun, Digable Planets’ lead MC Ishmael, Camp Lo, Dead Prez and most recently Run The Jewels. After honing his craft for over 25 years in the music business VURSATYL is a seasoned veteran in his own right.
Donte Thomas
is known for his pristine penmanship, charismatic voice and unique take on life growing up in his hometown Portland, Oregon. Born May 17th, 1994, Thomas spent years embracing the culture of Hip-Hop. While in high school, he released 3 projects under the name "Don" which gave him a name and made him a familiar face amongst his peers and the local music scene. He is also the CEO of the independent music organization Success That's Recognized At Youth (STRAY).
Soop Dread
Having amassed a prolific catalogue of underground music dating back to 2008, the term ‘Humbled into Obscurity’ captures Soop Dreads DIY/ punk rock approach to making music left for listeners to discover on their own. The earliest recordings scattered about the internet have the lo-fi production quality of early reggae yet the charisma of DOOM and Jay Electronica. Originally from South Central LA, Soop has spent the last decade in Portland Oregon. While nomadically wandering on psychedelics and binge reading science fiction, his early roots in Rastafarianism and Hiduism have manifested into a perspective unlike any rapper of his caliber. On top of being self taught multi-instrumentalist, it’s his tongue in cheek approach that will resonate with listeners the most.
(Rescheduled from January 15th due to snow & ice conditions)
In-Person Event: 12-4pm, XRAY On-Air Broadcast 12-2pm.
All Ages // Suggested donation of $5 or 5 cans of non-perishable food items
XRAY will continue our annual live broadcast from the event--more details to come!
World Arts Foundation’s presents the 39th annual tribute to Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. This family-friendly event celebrates Oregon’s African-American community, on stage and through community-building in the event’s Victory Village marketplace. Here’s a link to a historical film documenting the program’s legacy.
This year’s program features:
Speakers Dr. James Mason (Care Oregon), George Hocker (Community Activist), and Lifetime Achievement awardee Ken Boddie (KOIN News)
Performances by the MLK All-Star Band directed by Charlie Brown III ft. Andy Stokes, Tahirah Memory, Danielle Barker, and Eli Hardy; KairosPDX Learning Academy
31 days. 28 venues. 100+ shows. Discover your next favorite.
LIVE ON AIR!
Commodore Theodore will be spinning a very special heavy soul-themed show (with minimal talking) of Head East on NYE from the normal show time of 10pm extended to past midnight to help you dance your way into the new year and provide the perfect jams for your NYE party!
21+ // Doors 7 PM, Show 8 PM
TICKETS $35
Fruition’s newest album, Broken at the Break of Day, may be hard to categorize, yet it feels complete because of their dedication to honesty as well as harmony. Influenced equally by acoustic music and rock ‘n’ roll, the Portland, Oregon-based band is composed of Jay Cobb Anderson (electric guitar, vocals), Kellen Asebroek (piano, acoustic guitar vocals), Jeff Leonard (bass), Mimi Naja (mandolin, electric guitar, vocals) and Tyler Thompson (drums). Their unmistakable vocal blend first revealed itself in 2008 when Anderson tagged along with Asebroek and Naja for an afternoon of busking in Portland. Since that time, they have opened shows for the Wood Brothers, Greensky Bluegrass, and Jack Johnson, and at appeared at festivals like Telluride Bluegrass, Bonnaroo, and DelFest. Broken at the Break of Day follows the band’s exceptional 2019 album, Wild as the Night.
*Also with special guests the Rose City Horns on 12/31!
21+ // Doors 7 PM, Show 8 PM
TICKETS $35
Fruition’s newest album, Broken at the Break of Day, may be hard to categorize, yet it feels complete because of their dedication to honesty as well as harmony. Influenced equally by acoustic music and rock ‘n’ roll, the Portland, Oregon-based band is composed of Jay Cobb Anderson (electric guitar, vocals), Kellen Asebroek (piano, acoustic guitar vocals), Jeff Leonard (bass), Mimi Naja (mandolin, electric guitar, vocals) and Tyler Thompson (drums). Their unmistakable vocal blend first revealed itself in 2008 when Anderson tagged along with Asebroek and Naja for an afternoon of busking in Portland. Since that time, they have opened shows for the Wood Brothers, Greensky Bluegrass, and Jack Johnson, and at appeared at festivals like Telluride Bluegrass, Bonnaroo, and DelFest. Broken at the Break of Day follows the band’s exceptional 2019 album, Wild as the Night.
A LIVE holiday performance!
20 December 2023
Season 11, Episode 12L
Every year since 2013, Re-Imagined Radio has offered "A Radio Christmas Carol." It's become an annual community tradition, bringing joy and festivities to the seasonal holidays. This year, our 10th Anniversary, we are pleased to welcome the Willamette Radio Workshop, directed by Sam A. Mowry, and The Holly Jolly Singers, for a live performance of "A Radio Christmas Carol," in Vancouver's historic Kiggins Theatre. Yes, the holiday magic returns! Broadcast and live stream by KXRW.FM (Vancouver, WA) and KXRY.FM (XRAY.FM, Portland, OR).
All Ages until 8pm, 21+ after 8pm
Join XRAY DJs, staff and friends for a Holiday Happy Hour at Dream House on Beech Street!
Featuring a live DJ set from the Wayward Girls Soul Club (The 'IN' Crowd, Saturdays 2-3pm) from 6-9pm followed by Dream House's regularly scheduled programming with DJ Kyle Reese (VCR TV, Fridays 12-1am) from 9pm-1am.
Join us for an afternoon of music and collaboration on December 10th featuring amazing performances from youth artists showing off their musical craft from seven nonprofit organizations!
MVM has opened up the doors to their annual holiday event at their new music center at SE 89th/Stark to highlight the work of youth served by several organizations and Give!Guide partners amplifying young voices across our community.
Get to know the organizations at their tables throughout the space while enjoying dynamic performances from young artists pouring their passion into music. Your presence at this event supports the collective effort to empower and uplift young voices throughout our community.
Synth Library Portland will be tabling for hands-on synth fun before, during, and after the showcase performances for all ages and skill levels to play with modular synthesizers and other electronic music equipment.
Event Info on MVM website
https://myvoicemusic.org/events/2023youthmusicshowcase
Facebook Event
https://www.facebook.com/events/1418921845355128
All Ages // FREE
Complimentary wine and light fare will be served for the event. Please note: Studios are not ADA accessible and require going down a flight of stairs.
Come check out the wonderful community of artists we're apart of and see the XRAY studios firsthand! If you didn't know, we're housed in a community of creative studios that doubles as an art gallery of their creations, with magnificent creations from floor to ceiling through the entire area.
Our studios will be open for this annual tradition alongside the dozens of artists we call neighbors including sculptors, painters, multimedia artists, singers and musicians, screenprinters, and many more we share the space with.
All Ages // $20 Advance, $25 Day-Of // TICKETS
Doors 6:30pm, Show 7:30pm
The Old Church invites you to be part of a series that celebrates intentional healing through sound, and creative visuals, and presence of mind. Each concert in the series is carefully booked to coincide with either the Full or New Moon.
This sound bath celebrates the Full Frost Moon on November 26th, 2023.
Ora Cogan is a recording artist based on Vancouver Island. She is known for her singular voice and cinematic compositions. Cogan has released seven albums to date while collaborating with a multitude of artists and touring extensively. She has performed at numerous festivals throughout Europe & North America while sharing the stage with the likes of Grouper & Mazzy Star. Her latest EP, Dyed, was released October 21, 2022 and her new full length record will be out in 2023.
“Ora Cogan draws from a wide web of influence, but – truly – she sounds like no other.” CLASH Magazine
“Spent many nights listening to this captivating music.” - Hope Sandoval, Mazzy Star
Cogan can be strikingly sparse and overwhelmingly composed in the same sublime breath. She summons orchestral waves of violins and rolling psychedelic guitars, propelled forward by a voice that sweeps audiences away under a tsunami of blissful sonic complexity. - Sled Island Festival
Multi-instrumentalist Ora Cogan makes gorgeous experimental folk compositions laced with hints of psychedelia, chamber pop, and rock. - She Shreds
While her lyrics focus on corporate greed and environmental degradation, her transcendent arrangements provide relief and hope. - Bandcamp
Ora’s music is effortlessly extravagant. This is not music made for passive listening, rather, it is something that needs to be experienced. Discorder Magazine
“Cogan’s drawl evokes the tone of Karen Dalton and the technique of John Martyn.” - The Wire
Tispur is a chamber-folk project fronted by Samwise Carlson from Boise, ID, now located in Portland, OR. Known for their intricate guitar-work, dream-like vocals, and ornate lyricism that excite evocative imagery of imaginary worlds; Samwise creates gently hypnotic, moving performances akin to the spirits of Nick Drake, Vashti Bunyan, and Joanna Newsom.
Alexis Mahler explores her softness through the dark and earthy colors of the cello, a somber strum comforted by delicate lyrics and playful melodies. Her debut EP, Low Moon, innocently reaches for the most tender and heartful listener, while following intricate, moving layers of cello, violin, and distant vocal harmonies that seem to fall exactly where they should.
21+ | Orchestra $55.50, PDX Jazz Members $50.50 | TICKETS
Doors 7pm, Show 8pm
One of the most lyrical and intimate voices of contemporary jazz piano, Brad Mehldau has forged a unique path, which embodies the essence of jazz exploration, classical romanticism and pop allure. From critical acclaim as a bandleader to major international exposure in collaborations with Pat Metheny, Renee Fleming, and Joshua Redman, Mehldau continues to garner numerous awards and admiration from both jazz purists and music enthusiasts alike. His forays into melding musical idioms, in both trio (with Larry Grenadier on bass and Jeff Ballard on drums) and solo settings, has seen brilliant re-workings of songs by contemporary songwriters like The Beatles, Cole Porter, Radiohead, Paul Simon, Gershwin and Nick Drake; alongside the ever evolving breath of his own significant catalogue of original compositions. With his self-proclaimed affection for popular music and classical training, “Mehldau is the most influential jazz pianist of the last 20 years” (The New York Times).
Bundy’s unique career has brought him across the world, with concerts in 28 countries and counting-from high-tech performance halls in South Korea and Italy, to remote villages in Zimbabwe and Guatemala. He has independently sold over 150,000 albums on his record label, Honest Ninja Music. His video clips circulate virally at astonishing speed, with over 45million YouTube views to date.
Jimmy Leslie at Guitar Player Magazine blogs “It was easy to see why Bundy plays bigger venues on each tour. In his hands, the acoustic guitar is an imagination station, and there was no telling where he is going take the audience at any given turn. Thrilling stuff.”Audiocast Magazine from Austin, TX agrees: "Bundy's live show is without a doubt an event that needs to be witnessed rather than told about. With such a jaw-dropping performance, Bundy's live concert is a slap in the face that would leave a palm print on the memory of everyone in the audience.
All Ages // $20 Advance, $25 Day-Of // TICKETS
Doors 7pm, Show 7pm
Legendary Irish folk singer Karan Casey has released 11albums to date. She has toured extensively throughout North America, Europe and Japan, singing songs charged with a sense of social responsibility in a career spanning over 25 years. Karan is joined by Niamh Dunne on fiddle and vocals, and guitarist and accordionist Sean Óg Graham (both of the
Irish folk band Beoga). The evocative trio have toured together for several years and this show premieres new material developed and recorded since the start of the pandemic as well as favourites from Karan’s back repertoire. The songs draw inspiration from a wide range of sources from the personal to the historical and political, touching on themes of family, loss, love, the empowerment of women and Irish revolutionary struggle.
Lindsay Clark finds balance between traditional and english folk, country, and her own version of experimental folk that seems to come from within. Exquisite and pitch perfect, her music speaks of quiet revelation, with a background of (usually her own) multi-tracked vocal arrangements. With influences ranging from the Beach Boys, Elizabeth Cotton, Joni Mitchell, Appalachian folk, her classical upbringing, and her father's record collection, she blends many worlds into a uniquely warm sound. She has carved out a vibrant place as an artist with a penchant for poetry, rich harmony, and a style of self-taught fingerpicking influenced by Nick Drake, John Fahey, and others.
DOORS 6:30 — SHOW 7:30
Listen to our on-air chat with BACKFENCE PDX about this very event! (Begins at the 30 min mark)
BACKFENCE PDX: ROULETTE, hosted by Frayn Masters and Mindy Nettifee, is a high-risk high-stakes night of storytelling. With the spin of a giant gameshow wheel of prompts, storytellers get just 5-minutes to conjure a true story based on the fickle fate of where the wheel stops.
MUSIC by XRAY's own DJ JOHN B. JONES (Hello Cruel World, Thu 3-4pm)
STORYTELLERS:
- KATIE NGUYEN
- CANDACE MOLATORE
- NARIKO OTT
- RENEE JENKINSON
- LEATHER STORRS
For ADA/Arts for all tix email: info@backfencepdx.com
All Ages // $25 Advance, $30 Day-Of // TICKETS
Doors 6:30pm, Show 7:30pm
Named one of Variety's Top Ten Comics to Watch, comedian Jenny Yang tours her unique blend of personal storytelling and social commentary through her standup comedy and hit stage show SELF HELP ME, a competitive self-care comedy show. She has been featured at Just For Laughs Montreal, headlined at San Francisco Sketchfest, and has shared the stage with such legendary comedians as Maria Bamford, Margaret Cho, Sarah Silverman and Chelsea Handler. Jenny voices Clarissa on Fox's The Great Northand will star opposite Michelle Yeoh in the Netflix action-drama television series, The Brothers Sun. Her perspective as a food-obsessed, former labor organizer, and Asian American community activist working in comedy and entertainment is a sought-after voice in media projects covering the most pressing political and cultural issues of the day.
Jenny is a proud union member of the Screen Actor’s Guild (SAG) and the Writers Guild of America (WGA). As a television writer, Jenny has penned scripts for HBO Max’s “Gordita Chronicles,”Netflix’s Peabody-award winning animated show, City of Ghosts, two seasons of Fox’s “Last Man Standing''and E!’s late-night talk show “Busy Tonight” with Busy Philipps.
Taiwan-born and Southern California-raised, Jenny was honored by President Obama as a “White House Champion of Change” for her leadership in “Asian American and Pacific Islander Art and Storytelling." Yes, she shook hands with him, and yes, his hand felt firm and supple.
Subscribe to her Substack newsletter “everything’s fine with Jenny Yang” for stories and essays to find joy in an unjust world. Find her online at jennyyang.tvand on all social media at @jennyyangtv.
With a quarter million miles under her belt and counting, North Carolina native Emily Scott Robinson travels the dusty highways of America's wild country, capturing the stories of the people she meets and expertly crafting them into songs. Robinson received critical acclaim for her debut album Traveling Mercies-- Rolling Stone named it one of the “40 Best Country and Americana Albums of 2019.”
In 2021, Robinson signed with Oh Boy records, the label founded by the legendary John Prine, and released her follow-up album American Siren. It made numerous “Best of 2021” lists including NPR, Rolling Stone, American Songwriter, and No Depression. In 2022, Robinson released a collaboration for theater called Built on Bones, a song cycle written for the Witches of Shakespeare's Macbeth, featuring artists Alisa Amador and Violet Bell.
“Colorado singer-songwriter Emily Scott Robinson mixes folk and country with gorgeous, clear-eyed examinations of faith, hope and regret.” --NPR.
“Country-folk songs about America in all its pain and glory with the literate, Southern gothic sensibility of Flannery O’Connor.” -- Rolling Stone.
With masterful strokes, she takes her Fender Rhodes, guides it through an echo pedal, giving birth to extra layers of atmosphere & rhythm . Lush layers of French horn infuse her music with an otherworldly aura, while throwback drum grooves ground each beat with that good nostalgia - to top it all off Megan sprinkles in spacey-racey pedal steel guitar for an extra touch of cosmic beauty.
But she doesn't stop there. Megan is currently engrossed in releasing her highly anticipated second album - "Cabin Fever" at the beautiful Old Church in her hometown of Portland, Oregon. Delving deeper into uncharted realms of musical invention, pushing boundaries and dancing under any disco ball she can find (or bring to the venue). Let’s Boogie!
"When music journalists say things like 'this artist is a fixture in Seattle music,' there's probably no one right now who fits that title better than Nakayama." - KEXP
Born in Japan and raised in Seattle, Washington, Tomo Nakayama is an artist whose melodic, complex and emotionally compelling music has been praised by NPR, New York Times, and The Stranger. After two critically acclaimed indie-folk albums "Fog on the Lens" and "Pieces of Sky" (named "Best Folk Act" by Seattle Weekly), he surprised his fans by releasing the synthpop album "Melonday" (on Seattle label Porchlight Records). Co-produced by Yuuki Matthews (The Shins, Teardrops, Sufjan Stevens) and mastered by Dave Cooley (M83, Paramore, Tame Impala), "Melonday" was named one of the Top Albums of 2020 by Seattle Times, KEXP, and Seattle Met Magazine, and debuted at #1 on KEXP's NW Charts. He has toured across the US and Japan, sharing the stage with Built to Spill, Thao, Daði Freyr, Fleet Foxes, Michael Hurley, Sons of Kemet, Ben Gibbard, Damien Jurado, Wye Oak, and Cornelius. He has collaborated with Dave Matthews, Sera Cahoone, Jherek Bischoff, and Jeremy Enigk (Sunny Day Real Estate). He also composed music and appeared as an actor in the Lynn Shelton film "Touchy Feely" with Elliot Page and Rosemarie DeWitt.
Mauro -
Mauro Samaniego is one of the most influential artists in the Ecuadorian scene of the last decade. He is mainly recognized for being the leader of Da Pawn and Tripulación de Osos, two precursor bands of the Ecuadorian indie rock scene.
Samaniego is an exceptionally skilled guitarist who became a singer over the years. This fact outlines his work with wide dynamics and unexpected musical structures. Between folk, rock, electronic sounds and even orchestral movements, he manages to completely separate himself from the classic mold of the “Latin American singer-songwriter."
All Ages // Free to Attend
- 4-6 pm, DJ Theo Craig with Take It To the Bridge!
- 6-8 pm, DJ Nate C (Heavy Metal Sewing Circle) & DJ Primitiva! (Last Schmaltz on the Left)
Join the XRAY crew as the community comes together to work towards our final goal for the Fall Drive!