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| Arthur Parker performing with The Nowhere Band on the final night of the White Album Christmas at the Alberta Rose Theatre this past December. Photo by Autumn Andel. |
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| Treasure Island 2011 |
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| Passion Pit's Michael Angelakos at the Crystal Ballroom during MFNW 2012. Photo by Anthony Pidgeon. |
Funny how the years of the 2000s coincide with the number of years MusicfestNW has been in action—like they planned it or something. Well, in its 12th year, MFNW 2012 continues its reign as Portland's largest, completely citywide fest. And, apparently, it's also the nation's third largest indoor fest, according to Wikipedia.
While Wikipedia's numbers may be slightly out of date as they fluctuate each year, the 2012 fest's tally is currently at 172 bands at 17 venues from Wednesday, September 5th until Sunday the 9th. For all your ticketing needs, go here... otherwise, here's who not to miss at MFNW 2012:
Wednesday, September 5th
After experiencing a nervous breakdown immediately prior to the release of their debut album, Manners, Passion Pit frontman Michael Angelakos was able to preserve and propel his band "higher and higher and higher." Yet, the singer used this experience and his continued struggle with bipolar disorder, stress and chronic fatigue as inspiration to create a record that's more than intimate—it's like eavesdropping, as bio writer Brent DiCrescenzo put it so well. The amazingly complex process of crafting that new album means:
"The songs on Gossamer carry anywhere from 60 to 200 instrumental tracks, according to Michael. If you ask Alex Aldi, Michael’s engineer, the number 80 to 120. (The maximum output on their version of ProTools is 120 tracks.) Whatever, it’s a fuckton."
Listen to it for yourself on "Take A Walk," the first single from Gossamer, and see how the Massachusetts five-piece recreates these sounds live as they kick off MFNW with LP on Wednesday night and follow that up with an encore performance on Thursday with The Hundred In the Hands, both at the Crystal:
Portland's proudest heavy rock exports Red Fang continue to top the local scene with their leaden, beer-soaked stoner metal—when they're around that is. Lately, it seems like they're either raging in Europe, supporting Mastodon or The Sword, or about to kick off another US jaunt with Black Tusk. We just ask them to come home long enough to record another album, film some more ridiculous music videos, and, hopefully, host another air guitar contest or some other such nonsense... here's in honor of bassist Aaron Beam's cat, "Hank Is Dead":
Thursday, September 6th
What began as a Gobble Gobble side project has become a known quantity and a burgeoning electro success in the year since Montreal's Purity Ring last played MFNW. The duo of beatmaker Corin Roddick and vocalist Megan James played Sasquatch in May, released their debut album, Shrines, on 4AD in July, and are now headlining their own set Ted's Berbati's Pan for MFNW. Check out the glitchy beauty of "Fineshrine":
For an avant-garde retro oddity that's contemporary, check out John Maus' set of late night synthpop at the Doug Fir. It'll be smart but danceable, a tad existential with a touch of disco, and dangerously intense from a man that's been releasing music since 1991, as well as playing keys for the likes of Panda Bear and Ariel Pink—if that gives you a little frame of reference. And to understand a little more, listen to "Head for the Country" from Maus' 2011 album We Must Become the Pitiless Censors of Ourselves:
If you just returned from Sasquatch, you may have caught a few of the 2012 MFNW headliners at the Gorge. That and you may not be ready for another festival already.Don't fret, the 12th annual edition of MusicFestNW doesn't start till September 5th. And it'll run until September 9th in venues across town. Plus, it's heavy on the hometown acts.
There's no full schedule yet but we do know that the three nights of music in Pioneer Courthouse Square include Beirut (Friday, September 7th), Girl Talk (Saturday, September 8th), and Silversun Pickups (Sunday, September 9th)—for your Sassy reprise. And Passion Pit kicks off the fest at the Crystal on Wednesday, September 5th plus plays a second show on Thursday, September 6th.
Other artists with dates attached include Old 97's performing Too Far To Care in its entirety at the Roseland and Trampled By Turtles at the Aladdin on Thursday, September 6th. Friday, September 7th brings The Helio Sequence to the Crystal, Yelawolf to the Roseland, and Trampled By Turtles (again) at the Aladdin. And Saturday, September 8th is Typhoon at the Aladdin, Dinosaur Jr. at the Roseland, and The Tallest Man on Earth at the Crystal. Advance tickets for all of the above can be found on Cascade Tickets.
Besides the Oregon-oriented Ninkasi Northwest Local Outpost Presented by In Music We Trust, plenty of other Oregonians and PDXers will be headed (or are already on their way) to Austin for this year's SXSW. As OMN's Stephanie Salvey recently wrote:Portland and Austin share many things in common, such a wicked, healthy and nurturing independent music scene. Parts of each town even resemble the other. South Austin feels like inner-eastside Portland as it is the Texas capitol’s bohemian part of town with all its taquerias, art shops, funky, yummy cafes, and fabulous dive bars—many of which blossom into make-shift concert venues each March.This March 13th through 18th Oregonians, by birth and naturalization as well as those who have moved onto to sunnier cities, will take the dive bar, music biz party, and official showcase stages of Austin. Here are a few notables that have come through the OMN inboxes (and a zillion more that we're not intentionally omitting!).
PDX via New Zealand's Unknown Mortal Orchestra will bring some fuzzed-out delight to many stages including the Force Field PR and Terrorbird Media day party on March 14th (RSVP here)—playing before UMO will be PDX's AU (don't get them confused)—as well as headlining an official SXSW showcase that same night. You'll be sure to hear "Strangers Are Strange," which has a new vid that we're absolutely loving:
And March 14th is the big Portland... well, it's The Portland Party. Duh. RSVP here. At The Grackle on 6th Street (1700 E. 6th St., Austin, TX 78702).
As Portland brings our own showcase to Austin from 12pm to 2am on Wednesday, there will be two stages—the Portland Stage from 12pm-2am (indoors, 21+) and the Tixie Stage from 12pm-6pm (outdoors, all ages).
Plus free beer, free coffee, and free vodka. Mixed. Together. Just ask for a Bridgetown Nip.
Here's the important info—the free booze power hours—free Stumptown Coffee and Bloody Mary's with 360 Vodka from 12pm-1pm followed by free Deschutes beer and vodka specials from 6pm-7pm.
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Get the complete Portland Party lineup and more on PDX acts at SXSW on OMN.
Plus Portlanders M. Ward, Wild Flag, Portlandia The Tour, Greylag, and The Helio Sequence.
Headliners include Jack White, Beck, Bon Iver, Pretty Lights, Tenacious D, Beirut, Girl Talk, The Roots, Feist, Metric, The Head & the Heart, Explosions in the Sky, Mogwai and so, so many more.
And some other selections that are personally exciting are Spiritualized, Little Dragon, SBTRKT, Felix Cartal, Charles Bradley & His Extraordinaires, Com Truise, and Seattle groups Pickwick and Hey Marseilles.
As Portlanders were faced with the demise of one Sellwood clubhouse, another is destined to rise, nearby, from its ashes. And again, much of the appeal of this new venue is the uniqueness of the establishment: Modcott Pianos by day and The Piano Fort by night.
Enter Modcott during business hours and you'll be greeted by the full-bearded, easygoing, polite owner Sam Evans and his feisty, beige-and-white, miniature Italian greyhound Stella, who'll not doubt excitedly paw at your calves and thighs.
Discarded piano parts line the walls, providing decoration for the spacious warehouse located a block from the intersection of Milwaukie and 17th on Spokane St., and the chalk, A-frame sign out front reads: "Piano Repair, Transport, Tuning, Rebuilding, Art & Music."
It's that last bit we'd like to focus on. While piano restoration is most definitely an art, and a craft Evans has been perfecting for 16 years, The Piano Fort is a fairly recent development in the history of the one-year-old shop. Modcott, an abbreviated take on the name modern cottage, referring to the original upright, cottage-style piano, threw its first show on June 18th and has been averaging about one per month since then, with six or seven shows now in the books.
Friend and multi-instrumentalist for Blitzen Trapper, Marty Marquis, first suggested that Evans host a show. The thought had crossed the piano tinker's mind before and his consent resulted in a successful benefit concert featuring Lone Madrone, Seth Kenzie, and Marquis.
But the inaugural performance at The Piano Fort would not simply be performed in the corner or even on top of a makeshift stage. No, the structural integrity of the stage would be founded upon the sturdy cases of grands themselves.
"Grands are actually supporting the music," Evans grins as he steps from stair to piano bench to keys--producing a discordant mash of notes--before taking the stage built on top of pianos. With five pianos (four grands and a spinet) bearing the load, Evans ensures that the strength of the cases leaves the solid instruments unharmed, except for the spinet used as a stair, which he assures is garbage anyways. Proving his point, he demonstrates that two of the supporting pianos are perfectly functional, allowing audience members to include themselves in the action if so moved. Another level above the stage sits a drum kit and bands have been known to employ the space for a horn section, keys or wicked guitar solos.
Enter The Piano Fort on the night of a show and you'll encounter an atmosphere that embodies the Portland DIY, house scene. The Fort's policies include a small door charge (often $5 to simply cover expenses), all ages welcome, BYOB if you're 21+, and respect the space--it is a functional workshop replete with tools hanging from pegboards and piano parts hiding in the recesses.
If you look closely, you may recognize that these Montrealers (or if Québécois you're trying to sound fancy) have been around Portland. The husband and wife duo of Handsome Furs have a PDX connection in the form of director/actor (Mulholland Drive, Inland Empire) Scott Coffey, who directed the NSFW video for the single "What About Us," as well as the past Wolf Parade video "Yulia.""What About Us" is sexually fueled and dark, full of despondent lust in hotel rooms, psychotic drivers, and voyeurs in the gloom spying frontal nudity from both genders. Coffey said, "It was all shot in Portland, Oregon in the cold and rain. But that’s good for nipple boners."
Maybe you'll recognize the MAX line, your room at the Palms, or the descending underbelly of the Fremont Bridge like a concrete maze above your head.
Plus get "Repatriated," the second single from Sound Kapital:
Or download both via this handy Sub Pop widget:
Last January, Oregon Music News curated the first-ever Portland Music Videos showcase, in conjunction with the Northwest Film Center’s Reel Music Festival 28, and for the 29th edition, we’re proud to have Portland director, photographer, musician and former booker Alicia J. Rose selecting the clips. Last year we gave the nod to Rose by showing her music video for Loch Lomond’s “Blue Lead Fences,” and in just the last eight months alone, Rose has released gorgeously intriguing videos for Portland locals like AgesandAges, Menomena, and Holcombe Waller, among others.
On Tuesday, October 11th at the Mission Theater, Rose, alongside Sara Lund, will show her selection of Portland Music Videos, a presentation dubbed That Was Then, This Is Now–the theme is “a hand-picked selection of vintage and current music video offerings created by a host of talented directors and animators who call Portland home,” and Then includes videos from Elliott Smith (Jem Cohen), Nirvana (Lance Bangs), and Sleater-Kinney (Miranda July), while Now selections include Menomena (Stefan Nadelman), Fleet Foxes (Sean Pecknold), Modest Mouse (Nando Costa), The Decemberists (Dennis Fitzgerald & Greg Brown), Death Cab For Cutie (Lance Bangs), Miracles Club (Judah Switzer), Sallie Ford (Matthew Ross), and many more as well as the world premiere Rose’s own video for Talkdemonic’s “City Sleep.” The complete line up of videos is listed at the end of this article.
Always a crowd-pleaser, watch Whitey McConnaughy’s selection for Red Fang’s “Wires” and read bassist Aaron Beam’s comments on creating the video:
Alicia J. Rose answered a few questions for OMN on her theme, process, and new music video.
Tell us about your theme–That Was Then, This Is Now–and why you chose it.
I wanted to curate a video program that encompassed the spirit of the past and the present. Creatives have been flourishing wildly in basements around Portland for years, making music and film that defies both budgetary and logical means. To me there’s a connection between the scene in the early ’90s and what’s going on today. A certain authenticity and heart of expression has driven a palpable evolution in both artistic arenas.
I moved to Portland in 1995 after stopping through on tour in the early ’90s. I found out about the scene from working at college radio and booking The Chameleon in the early ’90s in San Francisco. I was a giant fan of bands hailing from here–Hazel, Unwound, Elliott Smith, etc. There was something really special going on. All the bands I saw from Portland had a certain kind of earnest passion that I instantly connected to. The videos I chose for the Then part of my program represent an overview of the cream of the crop. The Now portion is a sampling of the incredible directorial and musical talent that has been emerging since the “SLR revolution” and the crazy interwebs. Now, there is a new ease and motivation to creating video work and Portland is ripe with juicy locations and skilled crewfolk. Just like bands can now make records with their computers, directors can now make videos with their regular cameras. Whoah.
What were the criteria?
With only a couple exceptions, I stuck to Portland bands and Portland directors. The Then program was ’90s based, and the Now program, I wanted to keep more current–2000-ish forward. There are two directors that have videos in both sections–Zak and Lance–and they still live and work here. But of course I made a few choices that had only one side covered…
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Brandon Ellison and I recently attacked both Seattle's Bumbershoot and Portland's MFNW in consecutive weeks. After a straight week of seeing concerts every day and every night, here are the fruits of our (and a few others including some amazing photogs) labor from Bumbershoot 2011 and MFNW 2011. Get the daily recaps from the former (day one, two and three) and a great MFNW festival diary written by #bonerjam Numero Uno.
It’s the 11th edition of MusicfestNW and like usual, there’s way more than live music than you can possibly devour so it’s best to choose your plan of action for each night and see if you can stick to it. This is the one time of year where every lineup is absolutely stacked with your favorite bands, local and otherwise. The Pioneer Courthouse Square showcases are back as are the free Nike gigs at the Wonder on Thursday (The Joy Formidable and Brand New) and Friday (Reptar and MSTRKRFT). The five-day extravaganza kicks off on Wednesday, September 7th and runs through the weekend, Sunday, September 11th. Some tickets to individual shows are sold (or selling) out but some all-fest wristbands are still floating around, so check out your remaining options here to make sure you can get into the gigs you need to see.
With 190+ acts at 20+ venues, here are a few of the acts OMN will not miss at MFNW 2011:
Opening night at MFNW might offer the fewest options but those with wristbands will be rearing to go and locals like Sean Flinn & The Royal We will provide the lighter yet captivating, emotive folk fare at Bunk Bar while riot grrl become riot woman Corin Tucker (formerly of Sleater-Kinney) will headline with her band, which includes Sara Lund (Unwound) and Seth Lorinczi (Golden Bears), at Mississippi Studios. Right click to download the first single, “Doubt,” from The Corin Tucker Band’s Kill Rock Stars debut, 1,000 Years.
Also, for more familiar faces in a new band, one of the Corin Tucker openers is Hurry Up, a new effort from Kathy Foster and Westin Glass of The Thermals with Maggie Vail (K Record, DJ Magic Bean, Bangs).
OMN will be hitting Bumbershoot this weekend to get an early glimpse of The Kills but you catch them at the Crystal Ballroom, which is sure to fill to capacity so get there early and be prepared to wait in line. You may know Alison Mosshart from her time with Jack White’s The Dead Weather, but she really shines in the minimalism beside guitarist Jamie Hince. Releasing their fourth album, Blood Pressures, in April, allow the bluesy, garage rockin’ duo to blow what’s left of your right mind.
Must-see local openers: Who cares if you stay for the headliners, here are some OMN favorites that open gigs on Thursday.
Aiming “to make the best record that we could,” the husband and wife combo of Viva Voce released their fifth, full-length studio album, The Future Will Destroy You earlier this summer and you can hear a sampling below. Of course, you could stick around for the freshly reunited Archers of Loaf if you must.
Brainstorm helped shut down this year’s PDX Pop Now! fest with an amalgamated punch of styles, and now that the duo has added a friend (Aidan Koch from The Bubs on synths) expect even more noise from these bombastic blenders. Plus they’ll hold down the Doug Fir stage with samplistic electro-poppers Purity Ring (a new project from Corin Roddick, of New York’s Gobble Gobble, with vocalist Megan James) and White Arrows, who are set to release the RAC-produced “Get Gone” (below) and a debut record (also produced by Portland via Porto RAC-founder Andre Anjos) in the near future. Headlining the not-too-shabby bill are MFNW 2010 performers Phantogram.
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Oregon Music News launched our first piece of mobile technology today. The mobile site (wbf.oregonmusicnews.com) is a festival guide for the 2011 Waterfront Blues Fest, which takes place in downtown Portland over 4th of July weekend. The site will give users real-time access to the music schedule, artist bios, and live OMN content as our team will be there writing and publishing stories and photographs live.
Although it's not a complete mobile site for OMN nor an app, the potential is huge as we will be rolling out another edition in mid-July for the 2011 PDX Pop Now! festival. As we continue to smooth out the kinks, already thinking about modifications in functionality for future fests, the current mobile site is an amazing start that was pushed along by the whole OMN crew with major props going out to developers Mark Niemann-Ross and Kevin Tomanka--also OMN writers and photographers. More info from them on the mobile site here.
We're also using a QR code to promote the site; you can find it printed on flyers, posters and even t-shirts around the fest. Can't wait for this one! Come find OMN at the 2011 WBF in The Delta Music Experience Louisiana Pavilion.
Although the soulful jazz saxophonist and vocalist Patrick Lamb is a Grammy-nominated, Muddy award winning, multifaceted force, he's hardly got it all figured out. What he has learned after traveling the world sharing sold-out stages with multi Grammy-winner Diane Schuur, Bobby Caldwell, Gino Vannelli, and the Tower of Power Rhythm Section is that life is a journey and you can redefine yourself along the way as long as you stay true to yourself.
And as each year passes, Lamb is still trying to figure out what kind of artist he wants to be. One thing that has not changed is Lamb's unwavering focus and dedication to his craft. As a band leader and multi-instrumentalist playing an energetic mix of R&B, soul, blues, funk, and jazz, Lamb is ready to release his first "great saxophone record" titled It's All Right Now--his first effort recorded outside of Portland and which features celebrity players like Alex Al (Michael Jackson), Little John Roberts (Janet Jackson), Dave Weckl (Chick Corea, Robert Plant, Diana Ross), Paul Jackson Jr. (Tonight Show), Michael White (Steely Dan), Dwight Sills (Anita Baker, Babyface, Kirk Whalum).
Yet Lamb maintains that music does not define him. He's been recognized for his community service, and he tries "to be as healthy as I can" staying active with soccer and running. Believing that "opportunity knocks softly," "I try to remain open because life changes. Music defines me in a lot of ways but you never want to get comfortable. It's dangerous to be defined by what you do." Also an entrepreneur at heart, Lamb notably launched the multi-million dollar Tickets Oregon several years ago.
Born to teachers in Mississippi, Patrick Lamb "literally moved every single year until we moved to Oregon" in 1983. A Portland native since, he first picked up the sax in middle school band class and has clung to it ever since because moving every year "can be kind of lonely. As soon as I found music I just went there."
Who first introduced you to music?
My dad took care of the family basically playing piano and honky tonks and weddings and little private parties and outdoor concerts. I would travel around with him. We had a little green Datsun 220 and he had a Rhodes piano stuck in the back and there was just enough room for me to fit in the back and we would go out and play. He also had great records playing all the time--Ray Charles, Phoebe Snow, Coltrane, Charlie Parker, Joe Cocker, Frank Zappa, really a wide range of stuff.
How did you become hooked on the sax?
I just jumped into the saxophone and I went through all the beginning band books in the first few months. And then my dad thought I was getting kind of cocky so one day he brought back this book called the Charlie Parker Omnibook and was like, "Okay, you think you're pretty good? Well check this out, see if you can learn some of these solos."
I started learning some of those solos and then after I learned three or four of those he took me out to the Jazz Quarry jam session--that's where all kinds of people were coming through, and I sat in and that's what really put a fire under me. I started playing, and when you're playing around town, you either do or you don't get a name for yourself or not. Somehow I started getting gigs and then I started getting calls for touring with Diane Schuur. My first gig with her was at Schnitzer Hall after she had won a Grammy and it was sold out.
After spending a career backing others as a sax-for-hire, how have you found our own sound and style on your most recent recordings?
It's definitely not some kind of concocted thing. It's a journey like anything else. Every year is a little bit different; I'm sort of like a kid, I get bored with one thing, don't we all? I've been a mercenary of sorts for the last ten years or so, just touring with different people.
I haven't really had a record that was produced outside of Portland until now. I decided that I wanted to make that next step, that next jump to another level, and by everything I could decipher, I really had to start working with people outside of Portland. So that's what I started doing. I haven't really had a great saxophone record to date so this next record is more of a saxophone record, it has one song that I sing on, but the rest of is kind of Maceo meets The Crusaders meets some of my other influences.
Your last record (2007's Soul of a Free Man) was the first record that you'd ever sang on but now you've taken a step away from the vocals to focus on the saxophone.
I spent about six months trying to figure out how to meld the two. It's really difficult because I sing all the time at different concerts, [and] I obviously play saxophone but I wanted to put out another record with me singing and also writing songs. I eventually decided to do two separate records. This [It's All Right Now] is one of a two part series. It's setting a new precedent for me; from now on I'm going to work with people in Los Angeles and New York and press forward with outside producers. When you go and work with someone who's produced India Arie and worked with Michael Jackson it's different, inherently different.
Does that have something to do with the fact that for as many studios and producers as Portland has, there aren't many internationally renowned or celebrity producers in town? Where New York, LA and Nashville have long-standing reputations and there's something that comes with that territory...
Yes. I'm just over simplifying of course, but all these studios have the same stuff in them. If you went to five studios here and then you went to LA and looked at five studios there, they practically have all the same stuff. It's not the gear, it's the ear--the person running it, the producer. That's what's taken me a lot of time and, frankly, a lot of money to figure out.
How much of this is meeting new people and moving outside of your normal group and comfort zone to see what these new collaborations can inspire?
Absolutely. I'm always about moving outside of your circle because whenever you stay there you get comfortable, you get bored, you get stagnant, you get placid, you just don't really make great or interesting stuff. It really comes down to who's on board not where you're going. Because if you have the right crew on board, then you can take a tiny bit of opportunity and knock it out of the park. If you have the wrong crew on board, you can spend $100,000 and you're gonna sink any major opportunity like the Titanic.
Have you finally discovered what works for yourself?
I've never had a giant record deal, I've never had some huge, super break that's happened overnight and catapulted me, like some artists have. My career thus far has really been incremental, but it's been slow and steady and I feel very happy now because we have a great fan base. Our fans our great, I'm debt free, I have a beautiful home, I tour the world with different people, and musically, the giant marketing machine, that used to wag the dog and make people famous whether they deserved it or not, doesn't really work anymore. For better or for worse, the only thing you can depend on is yourself and your fans and connecting with them. For me it really works because anytime we play at Jimmy Mak's, we play a couple of shows, we sell them out, and we make great money. Life is good but I'd like to be able to expand where I travel with my own band and I want to get out great new records so I can go travel internationally under my own name.
Speaking of connecting with your fans and marketing yourself, tell me about how you're funding the some of the new album with Kickstarter.
What I love about Kickstarter is that there's an element about it that's so inexplicable and unexpected. What I mean by that is, as an artist, you're generally aware of who, where and what your fan base is if you want to survive. The thing that's been fascinating about Kickstarter is that some of the fans that you think are going to be incredibly active and supportive and put a lot of money towards it, don't. Then on the other side of things, people that you are just sort of subliminally aware of step up and put in a $1000. I woke up this morning and looked at Kickstarter and it was up $1500 since last night and one of the people I didn't even know. And I'm still really, really curious [laughs]. The thing about Kickstarter is putting yourself out there and that's really what people want. They want it to be personal; they [don't want to be] subject to this kind of marketing machine anymore. They get it. If they hear some kind of crazy marketing sales pitch, they're immediately turned off. You can really connect with people personally by filming a video that just shows who you are and appealing to people to help you with your project.
The way we're funding this project is a hybrid way. The project's really expensive, so it's not like something I'm producing in the basement. The dollars that are needed are higher, just the personnel dictates that. I have friends that have executive produced the basic recording of the tracking and then I'm using Kickstarter to finish up mixing, mastering and some other things like graphics, duplication.
With Kickstarter you're able to honestly put yourself out there and let your fans share in every step of your process.
It makes or breaks you. That's what the reality is today. When I put something up on Kickstarter I pray that it's authentic and people connect with it. There's no BS because people don't want that. People typically connect with Kickstarter because they really feel that there's something meaningful about your project… or people just like you. You can appeal to all those different reasonings for participation from $10 to $25,000 and everything in between. That makes it interesting because it's not just one way to participate for one demographic. It opens it up to a lot of possibilities.
You mentioned splitting this project into two parts: a sax record and a vocal one. Did you end up writing or recording any music that will end up on the vocal album?
No. We went into this with a laser focus. We did it old school. I went down [to LA] in January and I spent the first week writing, and then the second week we recorded. The goal was to do a saxophone record and maybe one vocal track. That was really important going into this, to have focus. The difficulty for me over the last couple years has been trying to figure out that: What kind of artist am I going to be?
I do a lot of different things. When I go out on the road with Bobby Caldwell, I play strings. I sing backgrounds with most of the artists I travel with. The reality is that a lot of people here, and fans, know me as a saxophonist. And for people that I tour with, I think that it's important when I go in to different cities that I'm just playing as a saxophonist [under my own name], it's great for me to have a saxophone record for my saxophone fans. It just makes sense. That doesn't mean I'm not committed to the vocal stuff but I think I'm going to work with a different producer on the vocal record; someone who has a different angle so it'll have a different sound.
It sounds like you're defining and refining who you are right now.
You know, it's a cliche, but cliches are cliche for a reason because there's a lot of truth in them. Following your journey and wherever it takes you. It's really important for me to have a saxophone record, even if just to give to people I'm touring with for other touring possibilities. And to be able to give them a record that I'm actually proud of is important. You need something that you're proud of that you can give to people.
It's not just your art, it's your resume...
It's your business card too [laughs].
Give me a piece of advice for aspiring musicians.
Being a musician is kind of like the Olympics. You have to be committed to do what it takes to be in the top two percentile or you're not going to make it--not make a living. You have to have a laser focus and you have to be healthy.
Surround yourself with people who are much smarter and have already had extreme success in the business.
Patrick Lamb celebrates the release of It's All Right Now with two shows on June 18th at Jimmy Mak's with special guest and producer Jeff Lorber.
The first taste of YACHT’s upcoming full-length, Shangri-La, on DFA Records–the second on the renowned NYC dance label but fifth album overall–is here. The socially conscious “Dystopia (The Earth is on Fire)” is a song about disaster, natural and otherwise, in a world of earthquakes, floods, tsunamis, and oil spills–the song was actually written last May “around the time of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill,” says YACHT. The message is clear, warning that the tides are rising, the skies are darkening, and our overconsumption will be our demise, but telling us in a synthesized, rocking disco boogie with analogies to jackals and lions, stuttered vocal deliveries from Claire L. Evans, and emphatic declarations of “Let the mother fucker burn.”
YACHT, along with their backing band The Straight Gaze (featuring Bobby Birdman and Jeffrey Jerusalem), is becoming a finely tuned machine and this first listen of their new album might hint that the rough edges have finally been sanded into smooth corners. Or maybe not. YACHT likes to defy our expectations.
Shangri-La, due out on June 21st, “was produced, mixed, recorded, and performed by Jona Bechtolt and Claire L. Evans with our frequent collaborator and touring member Bobby Birdman, at the Marfa Recording Company, Jackpot! Studios, and in our temporary living quarters in Los Angeles, California.” And you can catch them in Oregon for the last two dates of their upcoming tour, May 14th at Portland’s Wonder Ballroom and May 15th at the Fort George Brewery in Astoria.
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"When you think of Portland, Oregon, you don’t think one of the world’s great movie towns, even though I would argue that it is," matter-of-factly states Oregonian film critic Shawn Levy. "But more from an exhibition than a production standpoint."Portland is approaching "film museum" status, according to Levy. A land where many independent films run for weeks, even months, longer than any other national market.Self-described by his Twitter handle as: "Writer. Dad. Film guy. Soccer Fan." the Brooklyn-born but present-day Portlander has been writing for The Oregonian since 1992 and serving as the paper's chief Film Critic since 1997.Under the early tutelage of a father who was a comedic writer turned florist, but truly an old school film buff at heart, Levy knew that "writing was what I always wanted to do."Publishing six entertainment-related books while working at a daily newspaper, Levy has delved into subjects like The Rat Pack, Paul Newman and Jerry Lewis and he's currently at work on a biography of Robert De Niro, slated for tentative release in 2013.Feeling "fortunate to write about a subject that I'm passionate about and still entertained by after 25 years," About Face asked Shawn Levy:Why is Portland a great movie town?If you draw a line from City Hall to the Hollywood Theatre and make that the radius of a circle, in that circle you have more screens dedicated to independent, alternative, documentary, avant-garde, and experimental cinema than you do Hollywood studio films. And that is a unique situation for an American downtown. There may be more screens dedicated to those things in New York, LA, San Francisco, Chicago, but they are spread out all over the place. And in that spread they incorporate many multiplexes. We have a situation where, in that area I described, there are five commercial multiplexes but one of them is dedicated to this type of film (The Fox Tower). Then you have things like the Hollywood and the Laurelhurst and the Living Room and about a half a dozen single screen theaters.So, what happens in Portland is a picture like the Stieg Larsson movies, The Girl With the… whatever the hell she has opens at Cinema 21 and plays for a week or two and then he replaces it. But then it can play at one of these neighborhood independent theaters for weeks and weeks and months. There are movies that have lasted in Portland longer than they have played anywhere else in the country. The filmmakers come here. Last year, The Secret of Kells, the Irish animated film that was up for an Oscar, played in Portland for like five months, and at a certain point, the director [Tomm Moore along with art director Ross Steward] flew over from Ireland to come to Portland to do a Q&A at a screening because he was so overwhelmed by the support the film had here.Truly the only city on earth that I can think of where there are more central city screens dedicated to alternative than mainstream film is Paris, France, which to me is the best movie city in the world. You go to Paris tonight and you can see twenty Hollywood classic films in the original English with French subtitles--Westerns and film noir and musicals and they’ll have a Peter Lorre series or Lana Turner series. It’s like the city is a film museum and Portland approaches that.The average American sees around 5 to 8 movies in the theater per year. How many do you see per week?I see as many in a week as people see in a year. I see about 300 new movies a year--that’s an average year.Many people fantasize that watching movies all days would be a dream job. Is it your dream job?Yeah, it’s a dream job. But when you wake up, the reality of the job is that it’s only partly about watching movies. The real job is writing accurately, entertainingly, and on deadline constantly. In a film market like Portland, which is pretty robust, we get about 800 new movies a year. And when you start talking about 800, you’re not talking about kicking back and watching a movie. You’re talking about cobbling shoes or moving bricks from one end to the yard to the other. It’s just becomes like a labor at a certain level. And, particularly with newspapers shrinking down, there are fewer hands on the oars, and since we’re online and in print, there’s more work to be done. I know for a fact, I have a great job. But, it is definitely a job; it is not a golf vacation in Hawaii.What’s your first memory of film?It was definitely from my dad. I don’t know what anyone was thinking, but when I was about eight or nine, In Cold Blood came on TV and they [my parents] let me watch this movie. I fell asleep before it was over so I had no idea those bastards were hung or caught and for years I had nightmares. I mean nightmares! Dick and Perry were going to come in my house. It wasn’t until [laughs] I was in college that I saw the whole movie and I was like, “You mean they’re dead!” My parents didn’t sensor what I saw. I was allowed to see a lot of things.I grew up in an era when there were no VCRs, no cable TV, and if you wanted to see a movie you had to wait for it to show on television and of course it would be chopped up and in black and white on a tiny screen. But my dad was really a film buff of the classic Hollywood era, and he would lead me to different films. He’d say things like, “Why don’t you take a nap after school so you can stay up and watch On the Waterfront with me.” I have specific memories of watching things with him, but I am never sure what films they were. I know what sort of films: Bogart and John Wayne and James Cagney.It was also a time for a movie buff where you used the library. You read about movies and then you would pour over the TV Guide to see what was showing that week because you had these movies that you’d read about your whole life that you’d never had a chance to see--even in New York City where there were these great repertory cinemas that showed programs of Fellini films and film noir and all these other things--you could go ten, fifteen years waiting to see a particular film.We live in a golden age. You can watch thousands of movies without getting out of your chair. I remember it was decades before I got a chance to see [Orson Welles’] Touch of Evil. Same with The Manchurian Candidate or certain foreign films that you would read about but you just never saw [in theaters]. It was a different time and a challenge to be a film buff.Has something been lost with all this convenience?Oh, I don’t know. I suppose it winds up throwing all movies into the same pool, but I think we’re better off being able to see things. If I get interested in Carl Theodor Dreyer, or some obscure director, I can see most of his work without traveling to Denmark. It’s kind of overwhelming, but it’s definitely better.What influenced you to become a film critic?I was always steeped in journalistic writing and I always wanted to be a writer. [As a child,] The writers that drew me were columnists and opinion writers--the people who had their little picture in the paper seemed to carry more authority than the guys who just had their names.But it wasn’t until after graduate school that I started writing about film. My first gig was about 26 years ago, and it barely paid. I mean barely. I was lucky because I was in Southern California and even though I didn’t have any relevant degree or experience, there were a lot of entry-level jobs at entertainment publications.I got hired by a magazine called Boxoffice, which is a trade publication for theater owners. We wrote articles about peanut or coconut oil for popcorn. "Cup holders: Are they the new thing?" But we also reviewed every movie, including porn.How was that?
Well, I didn’t do it, we had correspondents. The mail would come and the other editors and I would look at it and say, “Do we draw straws to see who touches that thing?”We were a very active magazine and I got to do all sorts of reporting, writing, interviewing, and reviewing. It was a real introduction to the field and within about a year and half I went to a much better magazine called American Film where I was senior editor. Before I was there, it was owned by the American Film Institute and everyone in Hollywood was a member of the AFI so they all got American Film Magazine.We would get letters, not for publication, from Charlton Heston, Gregory Peck, Steven Spielberg, Spike Lee. These people would call if they saw something they didn’t like or they would try and get things into the magazine that they were interested in.On one hand, that was a kind of pressure. On the other hand, it meant that if we wanted to send a reporter to a set or get an interview, we had a lot of good fortune. We were very successful even though we weren’t a massive magazine like Premiere or Entertainment Weekly. We were prestigious. We weren’t interested in gossip. We weren’t interested in who is making how much money. We were interested in the art of films so people felt safe talking to us. I interviewed Akira Kurosawa and Pedro Almodóvar and Wim Wenders. You could get these people on the phone because you were American Film.Give me a highlight from your time with American Film—whether it was someone you interviewed, a celebrity you met, or maybe even if Spike Lee called you to bitch.All those things happened.I was invited to the opening gala for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Library--the people who give the Oscars. It was the most star-studded thing I have ever been to and I’ve covered the Oscars. But this was like a cocktail party and you were surrounded by legends. It was still the late '80s, so in the room were Elizabeth Taylor and James Stewart, Gregory Peck and Shelley Winters and lots of contemporary stars, but I saw those people all the time. These people were done making movies and you never saw them out.As I said, I got to interview Akira Kurosawa, which was a crazy interview. He was in Japan, I was in Los Angeles, and we were conducting the interview via fax. I would fax a question and he would fax an answer. He was so kind about the whole thing that afterwards, I didn’t ask for it, he sent me a copy of his autobiography in Japanese, autographed.What gets you excited in today's film world?There are a couple of dozen filmmakers that I get excited by. Not so much actors anymore. Actors I enjoy, but actors are kind of like pitchers on a baseball team. If it’s a good baseball team, you could pitch a good game and if your team scores nine runs and doesn’t make any errors, you’re the hero. But you pitch the exact same game and you have a shitty team that doesn’t score and they keep dropping the ball, you’re gonna lose. That’s the way it is with actors.In Portland, the directors whose work I always look forward to include Todd Haynes, Gus Van Sant, Aaron Katz, and increasingly Kelly Reichardt. Then people like Almodóvar, Scorsese, Soderbergh, Wes Anderson, Bryan Singer, the Coen brothers, David Lynch, Sam Raimi, Spielberg. There are so many.How do you view new films? Do you physically go to a theater for a screening or do you get a lot of DVDs?Both. I would say maybe 40% of the movies that we review are from [DVD] screeners. But, the major studios do not release screener copies of their films because they are so worried about bootlegging. For studio films, we’ll see them anywhere from two weeks to three days in advance of opening day.And when you watch a screening in a theater, do you always sit in the same place?Left side aisle, about two-thirds of the way back. I’m fidgety. I am really fidgety if I don’t like the movie.What's your best advice for aspiring writers?You can't follow everyone out of the bookstore and explain what you meant. What you meant has to be on the page, otherwise you're not doing your job. Publication is a form of letting go and when you let go, the words are subject to scrutiny. You may not always like what the scrutiny brings, but that’s the job. If you're writing for readers, then readers do have the last say.---
Although in the cable TV world it may seem that Jersey Shore killed the video star, bands continue to make music videos by the thousands, and Portland is no exception. With our loads of local artists, from the screen to strings (and other instruments), we have an environment ripe for music video making. From shot-and-edited-in-a-day on whatever gear and budget the vocal and visual artists could cobble together to incredibly polished, professionally labored works, Oregon Music News has poured through the reels (and by reels we mean YouTube and Vimeo) and came up with a list of Portland Music Videos, which we will present at Mississippi Studios on Sunday, January 16th at 7 and 10pm. The first showing will include introductions and anecdotes from directors and artists while the second showing will feature several additional videos.
We bring to the theater a swath of videos that represent Portland’s diverse scene. There’s the Portland Cello Project’s delicate plucking and bowing set to an entomological marionette (below) contrasted by good ole PDX rock’n'roll from The Dandy Warhols, Viva Voce, The Thermals (in a video that features Portlandia star Carie Brownstein), and Blitzen Trapper. We have amazing songwriters’ stories married with film from folk-inspired, indie-pop collectives like Y La Bamba, Loch Lomond, and Nick Jaina. There is live footage and documentary-inspired live takes from Into The Woods bouncing off electro-dance makers Glass Candy (with their first-ever video after 11 years together!), YACHT, and Copy. And there’s even the Pink Martini contest winner from a filmmaking fan.
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See the complete list of videos and directors on OMN and find all the music videos streaming here.
As you've likely heard, Portland's famed scummy rock 'n' roll club Satyricon is closing it's doors. This time for good as it is destined to be demolished by the neighboring MacDonald Center, which plans to build new facilities for our city’s disadvantaged.
