scissor sisters cut the roseland

Lady Gaga should take notes from the Scissor Sisters. All the pent-up flamboyant energy that wasn’t satiated by her Portland show has been building inside–unable to be satisfied by hyper-sexualized dancehall reggae nor hordes of emotionally dramatic indie rock. Not even metal can whet this appetite. No, this urge must be satisfied by ravenous glam-disco-rock clubbers who know how to give an audience exactly what they want, over and over again–all night long.

Before the Scissor Sisters stepped on stage Tuesday night until after the unwelcome lights came back on, the Roseland was one constant scream. Like giddy little girls prying for their momma’s attention, everyone from 30-somethings on a girls night out to couples of all orientations and ages gyrated with abandon as the instantly infectious dance party barreled forward on stage.

Lead singers and decadent performers Jake Shears and Portland’s own daughter Ana Matronic shared the spotlight on a stage perpetually hued in shades of pink and rosé, purples and blues. When absolutely everybody wasn’t singing along to every word, they were screaming, uvulas exposed, for the front freaks’ choreographed dance moves–especially Ana Matronic’s robotic jerks–or the sweat dripping down Shears rippled, bare chest during his sexy calisthenics or Del Marquis’ untamable guitar licks. Blinding white and toxic green lasers blanketed the crowd and thunderous applause followed every song as Scissor Sisters shared cuts from all three of their albums with an emphasis on their latest Night Work.

In her bust-revealing, black plastic dress and red side do, Ana Matronic was excited as ever to be home and Portland was thrilled to have her briefly back. She bantered between songs, every sentence unnecessarily drawing massive cheers, but she did put a smile on every face when she said, “My family has been keeping Portland weird for decades” as she announced that her mom was in the balcony–the one wearing the t-shirt that read: "Mama Matronic."

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intoxicating : chromeo funks up the roseland

Chromeo is breaching new waters of popularity. With a new album, Business Casual, on the way in September and rave reviews from high-profile festivals, like Bonnaroo where they shared the stage with Daryl Hall, the Québécois electrofunk duo has officially sailed from hipster island into markedly bro-friendly waters.

Maybe it’s the fact that the tour was brought to us by Mountain Dew (and their record label Green Label Sound) or the simple irresistibility of Chromeo’s MJ vs. Prince-inspired beats, but their brand of dance is currently attracting malnourished hipsters as easily as beefy frat boys–bridging the gap between a cross-section of culture that usually sticks to their own locales: The former with their DJs and sweaty mess of Tube and later across the street at Dirty.

Yet, last night, a sold-out Roseland Theater on Friday the 13th told a different story. Amongst bro hugs and nasty grinding, there were also skinny jeaned boys and girls getting down to the same indelible guitar riffs, programmed beats, and robo talkbox.

Not just getting down, Portland was in heat last night for Chromeo: immensely uninhibited and drunk, drunk, drunk. Bikini tops galore, in neon, gold and leopard print, ran around the dance floor as bros booty slapped (each other and females), trying to garner attention from the bikinis and secure a dance partner for the funky, freaky last set.

Some snarky hipsters will be disappointed in Chromeo’s new-found demographic but you can’t knock a band for continuing to do exactly what they were created to do. And that went a little something like this:

As the lights went down and the crowd chanted “Chro-me-o, OOO,” a red neon Chromeo logo glowed on high as Dave 1 and P-Thugg entered to the same “Intro” track from their second album, Fancy Footwork. Blinding strobes pulsed, and a wall of white lights silhouetted the two standing behind their flashing, color-changing light up legs (which were hardly visible unless you were in the very front).

Focusing on hits from Fancy Footwork, a few girls bounced on shoulders as the goofy funk of “Outta Sight” sounded even sillier live. But it served to lubricate the crowd with exactly what they wanted as Dave 1 and P-Thugg tossed vocals back and forth and each grabbed sticks for quick drum breakdowns and cowbell clacks into an all-audience sing along on “Tenderoni.”

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chrome + romeo : electrofunk’s finest romantics chromeo come to the roseland

It’s been three years since Québécois electrofunk masters Chromeo showed their faces around Portland–and it’s not because they were run out of town by snarky hipsters. On the contrary, as their fame swells, so does the love they receive, now encompassing other schools including indie kids, DJs and clubbers.

Regardless of their mounting success, the two funk-heads remain down-to-earth, continuing to spend their lives studying the ’70s and ’80s grooves that populate their tunes, meticulous placing each beat, chord progression, and vocal harmony into each track.

“It’s a long process,” says P-Thugg, one half of the Chromeo duo along with childhood friend Dave 1. “It’s a true craft. We do it out of love.”

In the summer of ‘07, Chromeo was touring in support of their second, and breakout, album Fancy Footwork and played a packed house at Rotture. This time they’re headlining the Roseland Theater on Friday, August 13th and preparing to release their third studio album, Business Casual out on September 14th. When they visit Portland, they’ll be just over halfway through their North American dates and ramping up to play the Hollywood Bowl with the legendary Chemical Brothers and Portland electro-ideologists YACHT.

The team of Dave 1 and P-Thugg, self-dubbed as “the only successful Arab/Jewish partnership since the dawn of human culture,” have hit some huge career highs this past year–namely earning praise from personal idols Hall and Oates, with the former inviting Chromeo to his home to practice and perform on a webisode of Live From Daryl’s House. This experiment spawned a one-off performance of Daryl Hall and Chromeo live at this year’s Bonnaroo festival.

Revealing just two tracks so far from their upcoming release, Chromeo has remained true to their ethos giving fans glimpses of their old selves while stepping up the complexity of their music.

“We tried to balance it out between having a bit of an evolution musically and staying fun,” says P-Thugg.

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Read the rest of the interview on OMN.

q/a : holy ghost! portland two times in three months

Brooklyn-based boys Holy Ghost! grew up together on NYC’s Upper West Side as hip-hop heads and were soon picked up and groomed by electro, dance-punk DFA Records’ cohorts James Murphy (LCD Soundsystem) and Tim Goldsworthy.

Buzz began to grumble when DFA released their 2008 dance track “Hold On” as the duo of Alex Frankel and Nicholas Millhiser started to stockpile mad remixes, taking tracks from Cut Copy, Moby, MGMT, Phoenix, and more. (Check out those mixes and more on Holy Ghost!’s Winter 2009-2010 Mix Tape here.)

With an affinity for longer, building dance tracks, HG! cuts often clock in around six minutes or more. Their four-track, debut EP, Static on the Wire came out on May 18th on DFA, shows their ability to control energy and atmosphere rather than spewing breakneck radio pop jams that climax before they start. In the vintage synths of “I Know I Hear,” you can hear Daft Punk crossed with Friendly Fires (whose track “On Board” they’ve also remixed).

Releasing their EP on the same day as LCD Soundsystem’s latest (and possibly last?), This Is Happening, the duo remixed LCD’s first single off the new album, “Drunk Girls” (get it here for the cost of an email address), and takes to the road for the first time ever. Bringing along a four-piece band that includes Alex Frankel singing and playing Rhodes, Nick Millhiser on drums, Erik Tonnensen on keys, and Chris Maher on guitar, they’ll hit the Euro fests before opening for Chromeo on a month’s worth of dates from late July into August, including a (second) stop at the Roseland on August 13th with the suave synth-funk Canadians.

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Read the interview on OMN.

buddy guy beams

“Lookey here,” said a 73-year-old Buddy Guy donned in a black fedora and glistening red silk shirt on Friday night at the Roseland. “Nobody Understands Me But My Guitar.”

Charming and chastising the audience, Buddy Guy did more with one hand on the frets than Vishnu, proving his guitar-god status.

Already a man of legendary stature–a five-time Grammy winner and Rock and Roll Hall of Famer–the man is a pure entertainer, not just for his instrumental accomplishments but for his banter and dramatic to comedic crowd control, skills he’s honed since his days on the Chitlin’ Circuit.

Using that extra hand to pat his stomach, Guy pulled out the guitar gimmickry but with out pedals or effects–just showmanship.

His guitar screamed and weeped as he ran it across his chest, scribbled the strings with drumstick, stretched and switched hands on the neck, or casually propped his elbow up on an amp pairing impressive fretwork with farcical novelty.

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joy + tragedy : jónsi stuns the roseland

In front of an artistically imagined and singularly stagecrafted set, one fragile voice rang softly, slowly. Whispering in and out, incomprehensible at times but always utterly recognizable.

With ninety minutes of genuine, theatrical production, replete with an interactive set and costumes, the unearthly lead singer of Sigur Rós, Jón Þór Birgisson (Jónsi), made the fifth stop of his solo career at the Roseland Theater with a performance designed for an opera house but contained to a mid-sized theater in front of a few hundred people.

Spiritual and spectral, Jónsi strode ahead and Portland followed on his organic journey of birth, growth, and death as he told an auditory story accompanied by visually captivating animations and lights designed by 59 Productions.

The narrative ran the gauntlet from lonely sadness (as Jónsi opened the set alone on an acoustic guitar strumming “Stars in Still Water” to an awed, silent audience) to exuberant joy (“Go Do” followed by “Boy Lilikoi” at the midpoint), from violent climaxes to hopeless depths completely uninterrupted...

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q/a : mayer mawthorne learns how to sing new soul

Andrew Mayer Cohen grew up on Hawthorne Road in Ann Arbor, Michigan, just outside of The D. Listening to “the best music ever made” while riding around in his pop’s car, Motown soul and Detroit jazz became the samples for his favorite hip-hop tracks.

A singer, songwriter, producer, rapper, disc jockey, audio engineer, multi-instrumentalist and more, Mayer Hawthorne is “just trying to make music that’s timeless.” Lately, that’s been a fortunate calamity of ’60s Motown-style soul, an act that’s touring around the States as Mayer Hawthorne and The County.

Mayer is also one-third of the electro-soul-hip-hop group Now On (where his nom de guerre is Haircut), and recently, he’s been caught kicking it with Snoop Dogg.

Next up, Mr. Hawthorne comes to Eugene and Portland opening for the indie-electro (and also falsetto singing) Passion Pit...

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q/a : passing through the pretty lights

Derek Vincent Smith has been fabricating aural landscapes as Pretty Lights since his first album dropped in 2006, giving away all his music for free on his website. Supported by fan donations, touring and merchandise, the Colorado producer’s sound has evolved from hip-hop-influenced ambiance to banging glitch-inspired dubstep and electro on his latest six-track release, Making Up A Changing Mind, the first in a series of three EPs that will come out before the end of 2010–and all this comes after PL just put out album number three, Passing By Behind Your Eyes, on October 6, 2009.

The man is becoming prolific as he extensively tours including stops at this year’s Coachella and SXSW. Coming to the Roseland Theater as part of the Soul’d Out Music Festival on Wednesday, April 14th, PL does not play a DJ set. He brings along his Monome and live drummer Cory Eberhard. The duo combines machine with man–electronic tapping with crackling drums that stop and start, bend and break, always together, with ultimate precision–all backed by a euphoric multimedia show of dazzling lights and transmuting video.

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Read the rest and download a track from Pretty Light's new EP on OMN.

jónsi solo : surreal set design at the roseland

Enlisting the help of 59 Productions, Jónsi, the ethereal lead singer of Sigur Rós, brings the most fantastical and theatrical stage show that Portland will see all year–at least for a spectral rock concert that is.

Stepping out solo for the first time after more than 15 years surrounded by his Icelandic band mates, Jón Þór Birgisson (Jónsi) chose a company that designs sets for the likes of the Metropolitan Opera Company and the English National Opera to help realize his vision.

Part museum exhibit, part interactive rock showcase, this concert is the live stage experience for Jónsi’s debut release Go–an experience that intertwines film, theatrical performance, an art installation, animation, and a live gig to reflect the epic, cinematic quality of Jónsi’s music.

The construction combines a physical set based on a burnt down taxidermist shop with video content projected across the stage. But the content is truly woven into the fabric of the show rather than just televised on a video screen as images and lights appear inside windows and museum-like cases as well as on Jónsi himself.

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Read the rest and see videos of Jónsi's stage production on OMN.

lcd soundsystem + mgmt stomp through portland

The day before his gig at Sasquatch, James Murphy rolls through the Roseland on Saturday, May 29th (yes, this is also the opening day of Sasquatch where LCD Soundsystem will headline on Sunday, May 30th).

In the post-Sasquatch shockwaves that tumble through town, Portland is one of only four cities getting two nights of MGMT (the others being San Fran, London and Paris).

Taking into consideration that many PDX denizens will likely be at the Gorge until Tuesday (we like to think they care about us), MGMT crashes the Crystal Ballroom on Tuesday, June 1st AND Wednesday, June 2nd after headlining Sasquatch on Monday, May 31st.

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Get the rest of the details on OMN.

metric is full of frenzied vibrancy

An icy calm settled over the antsy Roseland crowd on Monday night as sighing space-synths floated through the flood of blue dimly lighting the stage. Head down, blonde locks dangling, Emily Haines puffed through the sedate lyrics of “Twilight Galaxy” while the rest of Metric caressed their instruments to the robotic beat. Anticipation thick, the room boiled as rough analog synths broke loose and white strobes percussed eyeballs with as much violence as the drums on stage. Breathy, sexy vocals exhaled gloomy profanities on “Satellite Mind” to the elation of the Portland audience.

During a concert that ran like their latest release, Fantasies, on random, Metric’s Emily Haines was an indie-synth diva, hooting and hopping, running end to end across the stage, stopping just long enough to give her keys some love.

Almost every song seemed to feature extended experimentation with rocking build-ups and breakdowns typified on “Empty” with Haines’ wild no-no-no head shakes...

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q/a : dj prashant brings india’s biggest bollywood dj to pdx

India is the world’s most populous country and home to Bollywood, which produces more movies per year than the rest of the world combined–that’s over 800 each year. And integral to the Indian film narrative is music.

Music once composed by musical directors, actors, and other artists is now the game of India’s DJs, producers, and remixers. On Friday, March 12th, India’s biggest Bollywood DJ comes straight from Mumbai to the Roseland.

Drawing crowds of 7,000 or greater when he tours India, DJ Suketu has been remixing Bollywood music for over a decade, infusing traditional Indian melodies with electronic and house beats and establishing the sound that the world hears in today’s Bollywood films.

But the man who brings one of India’s most famous artists to Portland came to Oregon in 2006 for a job at Intel. That lasted three years when Prashant Kakad “realized that my passion was in performing arts and educating people.”

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snoop dogg blazes the roseland

Snoop Dogg is a living, breathing character in his own life. A live action, situation comedy where Calvin Broadus plays Snoop Dogg aka Snoop Doggy Dogg aka Bigg Snoop Dogg aka Snoop D.O. Double G aka Tha Doggfather. A man who is cartoonish but hard. Cock-and-bull but real.

Sneering beneath his skull-cap and Stormtrooper-embossed, Adidas track jacket, Snoop peered down on the sold out Roseland crowd on Thursday night and asked, “What’s my muthafuckin’ name?”

The audience was all too ready to oblige. And Snoop followed the script.

The conventional Snoop Dogg themes were addressed: weed, bling, titties, weed, gin, juice, hoes, tributes to your rest in peace peers (Tupac, Biggie), weed, sex, pimpin’, 187, titties, respect for your elders (Marvin Gaye, Rick James), and weed.

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Read the rest and see some brilliant photos on OMN.

dirty, dirty south rolls the roseland with goodie mob

They just don’t make rappers like they used to. Reunited and rearing, the original members of Goodie Mob treated Portland to a night of classic Dirty South jams, rock’n'roll samples, and raw spitting–a night without auto-tune, without theatrics, without nonsense–just four MCs and one DJ.

Taking it back to 1995, when Goodie Mob coined the now-ubiquitous term “Dirty South” with a cut off their debut album Soul Food, each member fit back together like the spices in the Colonel’s special recipe from tangy to syrupy, biting to comical.

Entering to rolling calls of “Goodie, Goodie, Goodie, Goodie,” Big Gipp was all smiles, Khujo Goodie let his red-tipped braids dangle and fly, and T-Mo got absolutely wild, violently rocking the mic with pent-up energy and passion, while the hootie hoos for Cee-Lo...

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pusa + jared mees hyperactivate the roseland

It doesn’t matter if you’re in 4th grade now or you were in 4th grade 1995, everybody still loves The Presidents.

The Presidents of the United States of America kicked out the jams, got naked and famous, but snapped a rubber band in their little dune buggy at the Roseland on Thursday night.

With a knack for pure power pop, The Prez lead singer and “basitarist” Chris Ballew tongued Andrew McKeag’s guitar, played the self-indulgent invisible harmonica, jumped from the bass drum, ripped through dueling guitar solos with McKeag, and the whole band froze frame for a good 15 seconds (à la Saved By The Bell)… all during song numero uno, “Highway Forever.”

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the legendary roots crew brings raw hip-hop, soul and funk to the roseland on saturday

http://tinyurl.com/ylplnfw

very international love plays free concert with parallels this wednesday

These boys will make you shake your ass to their sleek, electro-thumping and throaty, echoing lyrics. Very International Love is the electro-dance and live experimentation of Joe Turner (tall) and Connor Dudley (small). VIL takes the stage at Peter’s Room at the Roseland Theater on Wednesday, November 18th. And it’s free to you, the electro-noise consumer.

With synths that glitter sonically and a gold-speckled guitar that sparkles physically, VIL throbs with disco-mojo as quick and catchy as any of their Aussie dance club influences (Cut Copy, The Presets, Empire of the Sun).

The pair creates an aural electro-landscape coupled with the rollercoaster climaxes and troughs of a wicked rock show.

And it gets better. Headlining, Toronto’s Parallels brings a calming wave of tranquilizing dance-ambiance. Sway to and fro with Holly Dodson’s icy-sweet vocals and faultless drumming from Cameron Findlay (who used to keep the beat on tour with Crystal Castles). New wave love stays high as we roll into another century. Show starts at 9 p.m. with DJ-duo Rude Dudes and poppy-rockers Diamond Liars. 21+

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Read this article on The Deli Portland.