Old Time Relijun rocked! City Hall successfully finished
Posted by: Greg
Old Time Relijun just totally blew the non-roof off this place! Double Sax! Recorder! Disco/swamp-stomp! I'm about to be chased out of here, but dig on this:
Watery Graves finished, OTR getting setup
Posted by: Greg
The Watery Graves just finished a diverse set of mellow improv, pounding rock freakouts (with Adrian Orange mumbling into a megaphone aimed at the bottom head of his tom and then interviewing some crowd members on it), and elegiac jazz featuring a cameo appearance by Old Time Relijun's sax player.
I'm getting low on battery juice and that growling sound probably means that OTR are starting their sound check so I'll sign off for now and come back with another quick final update at the end.
2nd Annual PDX Pop Now! City Hall Show getting started!
Posted by: Greg
Sitting on the grass outside of City Hall listening to Little Sue! After a bit of a delay getting started and Commissioner Sam Adams enthusiastic intro, our second annual City Hall show is underway!
There's a bunch of people around (including lots of families), the weather's beautiful and I'm psyched about seeing the Watery Graves and Old Time Relijun. Come on down!
Cool Nutz, Strategy, Copy, and Ohmega Watts bring the festival to a close with a giant dance party!
Posted by: Greg
As some of you seem to have noticed, I didn't manage to blog the last set of the festival the next morning as planned. In my total exhaustion, I decided to take the day off from work and ended up sleeping the late afternoon.
Anyway, one thing lead to another and it's been a few days. But now I think I'm finally rested and recovered enough to give it a shot. We had a festival organizers' swim party up off of Skyline. I collected some great photos of the last set from excellent Portland music photographer Jason Quigley (I was too busy dancing my butt off to get any of my own, but more on that in a minute). So, here goes:
In a gutsy move, that brought a definite payoff, this year's booking committee decided to end the last night of the fest with a full block of dance and hip-hop -- no guitars were to be seen. Somewhere along the line, we started referring to it as "the pdxpop dance party" and that's totally what it was.
Longtime Portland MC Cool Nutz, got the party started off with a set that did double-duty as a kind of hip-hop academy. Nutz refused to let the crowd do the normal indie rock immobile arms-folded slouch, constantly calling on us to wave our arms back and forth, shout out in call-and-response choruses, and actually move our feet in something that resembled dancing. He refused to stop until he had every last person with him, even singling out particular audience members who weren't getting involved. In one particularly poignant moment, he asked for a show of hands by "everyone who'd ever lost someone" before launching into a song about dead friends.
Cool Nutz also seemed to really get the spirit of the festival, pimping the pdxpop comp by suggesting that everyone should buy three or four copies so that they'd have extra to give away to panhandlers at the side of freeway offramps. This set went by far too fast.
Next up was Strategy, a pretty legendary Portland IDM DJ (I hope I'm getting that genre right, I definitely don't have a very strong grasp on all the many fine distinctions within dance and electronic) who almost never plays out anymore -- during his set he explained that the reason for this is that he's been working full time on an album that he can never finish and then went on to play the central track from that album.
Charmingly, Strategy seemed nervous, accidentally putting his trucker-mic down in such a way as to cause horrible wails of feedback followed by sheepish apologies a couple of times. It took a little while, but by the end of his set the crowd was definitely starting to get warmed up for the serious dance workout it was about to get.
While Strategy's set was great (and especially fascinating for those of us who were previously less clued in to the Portland electronic scene), it was Copy's relentless 8-bit beats and blips that really got the kids jumping around and shaking it (that great portrait of him in action is courtesy of Jason Quigley, by the way). Pretty much immediately after he got started a big many-armed and legged cluster of teenagers pushed its way to the center of the crowd and started to boogie. Their enthusiasm quickly spread to the rest of the crowd and after that, the dance party was unstoppable.
It took some cajoling, but during this set we managed to get most of the core PDX Pop crew of volunteers and organizers out on the dancefloor. For most of us, this is nothing like our natural habitat, so this was something of an achievement. It was also a total blast, a great way to blow off all of the stress and effort that weant into making this event happen, and a fittingly fun celebration of what we've achieved. (Not everyone was out of their chairs yet when Quigley snapped this shot, but that's definitely my hairy arm on the right.)
And then there was one. Breakout Portland MC, Ohmega Watts is a multiple threat, producing, arranging, and graphic design sitting side by side in his arsenal with rapping. In fact, Watts is so busy right now trying to finish up his new album before leaving for a stint on this year's edition of Lollapalooza on Friday, that he arrived for his after-midnight festival slot directly from the studio.
If Watts was harried though, you'd never have known it. I don't think I've ever seen another performed more relaxed on stage. It was as if we were all hanging out in his living room and he was just spinning records and talking to us. Combined with his non-stop rapid-fire rhymes, this laid back attitude comes across as less slacker and more simple charisma confidence. It was hard to avoid the thought that Watts is going to be a big star.
He also turned out to be just about the nicest artist we've ever dealt with, sticking around for a long time after his set to talk to fans and chat with volunteers as we cleaned up trash, put away the merch, and packed up the decorations (which are still filling my car's trunk and backseat, I just realized).
But, before we get to tear down and tears at the festival's end, there's one more awesome thing to describe. As his set ended, Watts got the crowd to form a big circle in the middle of the room and introduced us to his b-boy crew. He went on to spin a few Bob Marley remixes he'd made while they hit the floor, spinning, jumping, and flipping the crowd into a frenzy. I shoved Quigley in front of me to make sure that someone got a great shot of the action and he came through:
The b-boys were still going strong when Watts' record of remixes ran out and, sadly, one of them had to leave disappointed since he was calling for another track (it looked like he had some serious moves planned -- they been kind of upping the ante with each go 'round).
Anyway, I couldn't think of a more fun way to end this year's fest. So, thnks to all of you that came out this year. Be sure to visit pdxpopnow.com to keep track of our activities and to volunteer to help out. I'll be seeing at next year's fest and out listening to lots of Portland music between now and then!Wet Confetti at PDX POP NOW!
Posted by: Greg
Ladies and gentlemen, a report from the Wet Confetti set, by Merch Master and all-around PDX Pop all-star Mike Fuchs:
As always Wet Confetti hit the stage ready to bring their danceable sound to their fans and curious onlookers. Opening with old material they played with more comfort, fun, and presence than last year. After dedicating a song to the volunteers, recieving a custom made Wet Confetti skate board from a fan, and cajoling people into dancing they debuted two new songs, making me excited to hear their new album. Having danced myself out I moved my sweaty self back to the merch booth to have discovered that Cool Nutz had wasted no time in getting started. Knowing Greg he probably pulled down his pants, dawned his bling, and is sporting a bandana ballin with the rest of the Hip Hop dance crowd."
Wilding and Merch Booth Duty
Posted by: Greg
Well we're definitely nearing the end. People are getting tired (happy but tired). All the volunteers are getting a little loopy. In my burst of blog enthusiasm just before, I ended up missing all of The Swallows' set.
I did manage to get up there to catch Wilding, though, before coming back down to work a shift running the merch booth. All the Merch Kids are totally nuts about Wet Confetti who are on right now, so I made them promise to blog in exchange for working. They'll be down in a minute.
Meanwhile, a few words about Wilding: Gus is a very fluently melodic bass player and it's neat to watch him put his beats and sounds together through his incredibly complicated live setup (this is what happens when you let engineers make music). This morning's opener, Sleepyhead also made a compelling guest appearance.
OK. Here comes everybody in the world down the stairs, which means it must be time for the beginning of the last set and so I'm going to run! Look for more from the Merch Kids and a final wrapup post from me tomorrow.
Old Growth, White Rainbow, Evolutionary Jass Band
Posted by: Greg
Well, that was exactly what I needed. At the start of this block, I was definitely feeling tired and music saturated. Old Growth started and I could really hear or understand them, even though they were incredibly loud. They come from the Santa Cruz transplant, Drive Like Jehu-influenced, noise rock world and they have a bit of an early punk feeling (a fact I reconstructed afterwards from eye witness reports). But it wasn't really registering.
And so I started to get worried. There's still quite a bit of great and exciting music still to come and I didn't want to feel like this for the rest of it. Luckily, the one two punch of White Rainbow and Evolutionary Jass Band came along and sorted me right out.
White Rainbow is part of the Jackie O' Motherfucker family of bands. A duo, they started with a low rumble of synth and mic-looped noise, eventually adding percussive clicks and thwacks, near-static effected guitar and singing, and assorted other mysterious sounds and noises. It's the kind of music where at first glance it feels like all one sound, but gradually, as you listen deeper and get sucked in, you start to hear all little bits of melody and rhythm emerging, you start to hear what the players are hearing.
This immersive experience was just what I needed. It cleared my head.
After the rejuventating White Rainbow set, Evolutionary Jass Band was pretty much the fathest distant extreme possible. Where White Rainbow made totally free music out of what are normally pop instruments, EJB took an approximately free jazz format and made it totally spellbinding and catchy.
This is what I love about pdxpop, seeing such radically different music all in the same place and thinking of it all as pop. Seeing a team of teenagers run over to the merch booth to buy EJB's record just does my heart good.
Treva Jackson, Tea for Julie, and Alan Singley and Pants Machine
Posted by: Greg
Just got downstairs from a great set that made it totally easy to make it through the middle of the day and into the homestretch. First off was Treva Jackson. Her song, "Drive", a catchy buzzy throwback to the halcyon days of the birth of indie rock, was one of my favorites on this year's comp and this set didn't disappoint. Jackson is part Mary Timony and part ethnic pixie and at their best her songs have the effect of those early Sebadoh and Helium efforts of making relatively straightforward heartfelt pop sound fresh and exciting.
Tea For Julie features PDX Pop's own Michael Deresh and so it's hard for me to be objective. I can say that since their appearance at the first year of the festival, they've significantly matured. They play tighter and their songs seem to derive from more diverse sources: there was a lot of The Cure in this set, a surprising and satisfying ingeredient to hear from a band that I've previously thought of as cast solely from the U2, anthemic stadium rock mold.
The block closed down with a terrific set from Alan Singley and Pants Machine. Since playing the festival last year, the Pants Machine have put out by far their best record, Lovingkindness, on the newly transported to Portland label Slow January. Alan is a really fun combination of Burt Bacharach and a crazy little kid. His songs are intricate, harmonically dense, and catchy as hell.
During the set, most of the upstairs filled up with people and by the end just about all of them were singing along to Highways of Your Mind, the leadoff track from Lovingkindness. Afterwards, there was fairly a stampede downstairs and a feeding frenzy at the merch table. In fact, Mike Fuchs, our Merch Master just told me that Lovingkindness is on the verge of selling out. Pants Machine: this year's breakout hit?
Quiet Countries, Garland Ray Project, and lunch
Posted by: Greg
Just saw a nice pair of solo artists downstairs before having to grab some lunch. Unfortunately I'm missing The Whips and Whales right now, but it's going to be a long night and I needed to dig in (I can kind of hear them from where I'm sitting (they're definitely blues rock), but not well enough to pass any judgements or make a run at a description.
Anyway, earlier we had Quiet Countries, which is Leb Borgerson's guitar and electronics one man band. Leb, who as guitarist in Pants Machine is doing double duty today, does something that's refreshing for this kind of act: actually plays in all the loops and does all the effects processing himself in real time. Once he gets a big swell of guitar and synth going, he sings soaringly over it in a voice that, I just realized, sounds spookily like Bright Eyes, but without the teenybopper crybaby-ness.
After Leb, Garland Ray took the stage. She played dark caberet numbers (apparently she performs in a full-on cabaret "revue" occasionally) and sung in a kind of PJ Harvey meets Jessica Rabbit style. Her multi-octave range and bag of vocal tricks, pops, and squeaks kept the stylistically unifrom songs interesting. Also, she closed with a cabaret-style cover of Born in the USA, which was cool.
Treva Jackson just got started upstairs and the noises coming through the ceiling sound cool, so I'm going to run. . .
PRA Mural
Posted by: Greg
Also, I just noticed that sometime during the night a PRA associate painted a totally kickass mural behind their booth upstairs. Check it out:
Sleepyhead, Y.A.C.H.T., and I Can Lick Any Son of a Bitch in the House
Posted by: Greg
Off to a laid back and rad start here. I decided to stop for some coffee, a banana, and a non-fat organic blueberry yogurt on the way (hunger management is key to festival enjoyment) so I only caught the last ten minutes of Sleepyhead's set. He was the perfect flavor for a Sunday morning: mostly mellow laid back hip-hop with enough excitement to get the small crowd's blood pumping.
Next came Y.A.C.H.T. Jona was added to the bill at the last minute after a conflicting gig fell through. He offered to do "magic" and we took him up on the offer. So, of course, he brought a David Copperfield DVD and read us the contents -- including such highlights as "Test of Knives" and "Romantic Interlude" -- during a lull caused by technical difficulties. Jona brought his usual fake-bearded dance-tastic theatrical glitch pop and got the crowd involved through trust falls and microphone cord jump-rope.
And, for something completely different, the set closed up with I Can Lick Any Son of a Bitch in the House. Rocking it Outer Southeast style, Son of a Bitch played all out kentucky fried blues-based classic butt rock with super politicized liberal protest lyrics. They finished their set off with a rolicking cover of Keep On Rocking in the Free World that summed up both their politics and their sound quite nicely.
Dykeritz, Shaky Hands, Dahlia, 50 Foot Wave and the end of Saturday
Posted by: Greg
Good morning. I'm coming to you live once again from my bed. It's a little bit before 11 which gives me an hour to get you caught up on the total madness that went down last night since my last post, shower, dress, pick up bagels and coffee, and get to the Loveland. Are you ready? Here goes:
I only caught the very end of Dykeritz' set. I was big exhausted at that point, trying to save my energy for the big last push. Plus, I had to spend some time downstairs at my blogging station getting things down. Oh, the sacrifices I make for you people! Anyway, I'd seen Dykeritz a bunch of times before (we'd even played a show we them once), but not since they slimmed down their lineup. They also made sunny fun fractured music. And there used to be a lot of them, so it was always a party up on stage. Somehow having a third as many people in the band didn't seem to take away from the size of their sound or the fun of their presentation. Their newly laptopified sound did add a bit of eighties gloss, though, making their music feel more like it belonged over the closing credits of Ferris Beuler's Day Off, which is cool.
At this point in the night the crowd was seriously starting to get huge and we all tramped down to the cavernous first floor which was starting to feel really full. At that point the Shaky Hands took over. The Hands' music is tough to describe. Maybe the closest band to them in the festival was The Conductors, but the Hands lie on the other side of the College Rock/Alternative Rock divide. They also had a loose jam band aspect, that was amplified by their bass player's scruffiness.
I don't think anything, even the evening's earlier decadence, could have prepared the crowd for Fleshtone. Fleshtone consisted of two djs, three scantily clad dancers, one scantily clad singer (I guess the normally perform topless, but fleshtoned it down a bit for our all-ages crwod), and one guy who dressed variously in: a jock strap, a diaper, and raver gear. They performed a long narrative cycle of songs about drugs and sex, huffing and penises, with music that merged 8bit with 80s stadium pop metal accompanying lascivious dance routines of the kind slutty girls choreograph to Britney Spears at high school talent shows. While a very few people were offended enough to leave, the great majority of the crowd, including all of the high school-aged kids there, was totally into it.
Next up, with almost no switchover time, was former Portland fixture and now re-transplant, Dahlia. Just back from spending a period of time in NY, Dahlia's music used to be a mixing pot for a deverse series of styles. Depending on who you'd ask you'd hear about her as chick-power singer-songwriter in the mold of Ani DiFranco or about her trance-inducing weekly gig at the Ohm. Her time back East seems to have been spent in the New York club world and that influence was super evident in her deafeningly loud laptop driven set.
Finally, there was 50 Foot Wave. I'd never had the opportunity to see Kristin Hirsh live before a couple of weeks ago at a quiet acoustic (actually totally unamplified or mic'ed) solo set at Mississippi Studios. There, her songs were interlaced with confessional and funny banter about her past and family. It made for incredibly intimate and personal music making.
Last night, could not have been more different. As soon as the band plugged in Kristin got this blankly agressive stare in her eyes and they just totally tore into a half-hour of roaring blistering hard rock over which Kristin's voice roared and screamed in ways I never would have thought possible after seeing her in that other setting. There was a large group of kids moshing like crazy up front the whole time and while the late hour caused some attrition, those lucky enough to have stuck around were treated to an appropriately intense end to yesterday's long day of music.
Ok, I've now blogged so long that I'm going to have to hustle not to be late to this morning's first set. There's going to be all kinds of great music all day today, so be sure to stop on by. If you miss it, you'll have to wait until next year!
Decadence: Stength, Guau Guau, and Reverse Dotty and the Candy Cane Shivs
Posted by: Greg
I think we just had decadence hour.
First, it was Strength downstairs. Just back from touring behind their brand new long-overedue record, this straight up un-ironic disco band has picked up a lot of confidence since their pdxpop show last year. Bailey, their mullet-haired singer, dove out into the crowd to lay a big fat hug on some dude adding a good dose of mosh pit to their already bumpin dancefloor.
In a totally different direction upstairs was the unpronounceable Guau Guau. Lke Chuck Berry just having crawled out of a swamp, they brought a dented low down dirty Jon Spencer-y approach to good old 50s-style rock songs. Their shambolic, child-like stage banter totally won over the rapidly growing crowd upstairs.
Finally, I just came down from Reverse Dotty and the Candy Cane Shivs. As weird as their name, this sextet, played psychotic sexed-up 80s-club-hit style. Reminiscent of nearly no one currently operating (except maybe The Knife, the Swedish group that recently came to fame with Jose Gonzalez's cover of their great song, Heartbeats). The Shivs perectly evoked the dark drug and sex-soaked milieu of dance clubs like Studio 54 with choruses like "Aderol, casual, sexual" and "I wanna fuck you in the face". Combined with the mosh pit of sweaty teenagers up front, this was an intense set.
It sounds like Dykeritz is getting started up there and I could definitely use some of their sunny pop right about now. And then, after that we'll be into the homestretch. . ."
Nice Nice ..worms
Posted by: Greg
So, as promised, Nice Nice: they seemed to be in a little lighter and funkier mood than last year, pushing the world beat part of their sound so far that a few moments sounded like they could be outtakes from Graceland (but much louder). It's amazing the amount of sound this band makes with just two dudes -- and about a thousand effects pedals. It's beyond time for them to put out a new record that reflects how great they are live, Portland needs it!
Following Nice Nice was ..worms. Maybe the single strangest band of the festival so far ...woms puts together Minutemen-like miniatures of spazzy loudness with shouted freaked-out vocals. They're a little bit like what you would get if you put the entire Aphetamine Reptile catalog in a shredder and then pulled out a bunch of little tiny pieces one at a time. This may be too obscure of a reference even for this crowd, but if you're a fan of the batch of Portland weirdos that calls themselves Drats, this is probably right up your alley.
Ok. Strength just went on and so the party's definitely getting started. So, I'm going to go out and do a little bad white-man dancing and I'll talk to you in a bit.
Upstairs pt2: Thanksgiving and Parenthetical Girls
Posted by: Greg
Ok, Nice Nice just totally rocked it, but more on that in a minute. First, where was I? Oh, yeah. . .
Thanksgiving is a hybrid Portland/Olympia band that comes across as something like The Microphones meets Chicago -- big horn soul crossed with shambling intimacy and a bit of hippie drum circle. A lot their their songs have a bit of "Native American" pop feeling (an effect that was advanced by their dancer/tambourine player wearing a prarie dress and a bandana over her face like a wild west villain). They also managed to cram more people onto the upstairs stage than I've ever seen at the festival (I think they maxed out a ten) and to put together the most exciting set ending of any act so far: a big chaotic noice followed by a horn punch and ten people jumping into the air. Awesome!
Wrapping up the upstairs set was Parenthetical Girls, fronted by sometime Portland music journalist Zac Pennington. Parenthetical Girls are definitely of a family with Xiu Xiu and Les Mouches, those rare bands that manage to be both loud and sensitive, even fay, at the same time. It's a spooky effect. Parenthetical Girls replaced those other bands' textural and dynamic experiments with a greater song-writerly-ness, adding a little bit of Stephen Merrit or The Decemberists into the mix (the second comparison especially comes to mind because of how closely Pennington's voice resembles Colin Meloy's). Also, all of their songs seemed to be about giving birth. That or dead mothers.
...worms are starting now and man are they loud (one of our merch dudes, Teddy, just shouted "makes the eardrums bleed!" I'm going to go check that out and then I'll be back with that and the good word on Nice Nice.
Alela Diane and. . .
Posted by: Greg
Wow! That upstairs block just reminded me a lot of the identical scheduling chunk from the first year, which featured Per Se, Modernstate, and a career-making set by Talkdemonic. They were three very different, and relatively unkown (at least to me) acts, each of which totally mesmerized a pliant afternoon crowd.
First up was Alela Diane, the most accomplished folk-y I think we've ever had at the festival. I've never heard such a big voice come out of such a slight person, especially one with feathers woven in her hair. That voice, with its amazing vocabulary of controlled cracks and quavers, floats perfectly atop Diane's intricate fingerstyle guitar work.
Oops! I totally want to write about the rest of those upstairs bands, but Nice Nice is starting right now, and I'm not going to miss that! Back in a sec.
Super Rock Block
Posted by: Greg
Since my last post, it's turned into a good afternoon for those pdxpopsters who were feeling like they weren't getting enough Vitamin Rock in their festival diet. The appropriately named Boy Eats Drum Machine (they apparently finished the job so thoroughly that no shred of the machine was to be found amongst the guitars, keys, turntable, and drum kit that made up their actual instrumentation) provided a helping of straightforward 80s-ish rock. Unlike The Upsidedown before them though, the 80s that seeped into BEDM's music was more synth pop-y, making them feel, at their best, like a second cousin of The Postal Service, not Gang of Four.
With The Conductor's set we seem to have left the 80s and firmly entered the 90s. This foursome plays classic East Coast College Rock a la The Replacements, Throwing Muses, and The Pixies. There's surprisingly little of this type of music in Porland and The Conductors definitely did it justice with their catchy well-harmonized tunes and rock solid rhythm section.
Unfortunately, I only caught the very end of Holcombe Waller's set. After The Conductors, I decided I'd be much happier the rest of hte evening if I ran out and got coffee. PDX Pop PR Master Brent and I went walking around inner Southeast in search of java, which turns out to be a tougher prospect than you might expect. When we finally found our way back, Waller was just finishing up. From what little I saw, this solo acoustic singer-songwriter seemed a little folky and a little country and perfect for the incredibly nice summer day it is outside (if not the dark intense Music Hole it is in here).
This Super Rock Block is being rounded out right now as I write this by The Dimes, who seem (from my Blog Station in the corner behind the merch booth) to be putting a little more of a U2, big stadium spin on it.
As soon as they're done, I'm going to run upstairs and stake out a good spot for the super eclectic trio of Alela Diane, Thanksgiving and Parenthetical Girls that's coming up next.
Picking Up Kegs for the After-Party
Posted by: TRMW
Not sure if this is really exciting enough to blog the shit out of, but yeah, I'm totally about to pick up 4 kegs of free (thanks guys!) Widmer Brothers beer, with my co-conspirator Hannah Carlen. These will be tapped at the rad little (pre)afterparty we're putting on tonight.
Here's the flyer:
GOOOOOD TIMES!
Bagels and The Upsidedown
Posted by: Greg
Junior Private Detective's opening set. D'oh! Even though I have seen them at the last two festivals, I was looking forward to checking out their new bass-less lineup, especially after the hearing their new album, which was recorded by secret Portland music scene svengali Skyler Norwood, who worked on the Talkdemonic, Alan Singley, Horsefeathers and Point Juncture Washington records.
The first band of the day that I did catch was The Upsidedown. In their best moments, they sound like the kind of dark dancey 80s New Wave that wouldn't be out of place in the Marie Antoinette trailer. And they have six members including two girls and two guys in shorts and cowboy boots, so you can't really complain about that.
That rumbling from above is probably Boy Eats Drum Machine getting so started, so I'm going to head up and check that out. It's still very early and we've got quite a lot of great music ahead of us. . .
Old Time Relijun and Viva Voce bring Friday night to a close
Posted by: Greg
Well, I'm home now and in bed, but I've still got thoughts of Portland music dancing in my head. Specifically of Old Time Relijun and Viva Voce, tonight's last two bands.
Old Time Relijun reminded me a lot of the great set The Planet The played at last year's festival and the fact that I can say that about a band with an upright bass in it is pretty strange. Their singer has the same crazy-eyed look on stage as Charlie from The Planet The and the two bands shared a wild onstage energy. Another act that came to mind was Primus with whom OTR shares that special kind of countrified insanity. As an added bonus, one of their members played two saxophones at once! Don't believe me? Check out the proof. Anyway, they're definitely a welcome addition ot the Portland music community.
And last, but definitely not least, we had festival stalwarts Viva Voce in their third consecutive performance. Two of the sweetest folks you ever could meet, Viva Voce is a married couple: Kevin and Anita. Tonight they brought along a friend who played acoustic guitar and bass. This seems to be a trend -- traditonally two piece bands adding a third member -- if you're keeping track of your pdxpop trivia, Joanna Bolme (of the Jicks et al) joined Sam and Janet of Quasi on stage at City Hall last week.
Anyway, Viva Voce did a great job squeezing every last remaining bit of energy out of the incredibly commited crowd that hung around past midnight to see them, playing mostly songs from their upcoming new record.
I could probably think of more things to say about Viva Voce, but in six minutes only eight hours will remain until the festival resumes, so I better start looking to salvage what sleep I can. I'm exhausted enough, that I'll probably be asleep by the time this hits the internets. So, thanks for reading and I'll see you tomorrow at PDX Pop!
Whoa!
Posted by: Greg
Man, we're only halfway though this last set and my energy's definitely flagging, but I just had to come blog something about how intense those two bands just were.
Please Step Out of the Vehicle is a six piece Portland all-star band, featuring members of The Snuggle Ups and Prime Meridian making a hell of a lot of noise on: flute, guitar, keyboards, trombone, and dueling drum kits (at least I think there were six of them, it could've been more). Their set featured the first mosh pit I've ever seen made up of mostly 16 year old girls. The band responded by winging water balloons at the crowd, which cooled them off, but didn't seem to calm them down much.
Siren's Echo, a live-instrument hip-hop six piece fronted by three female singers/mcs didn't give the crowd much chance to rest, opening their blistering set with a hard rocking hip-hop version of The White Stripes' Seven Nation Army and not slowing down one bit through the rest of their set.
Old Time Relijun is starting to soundcheck now (they just announced their recent move to Portland from Olympia to the crowd, which was greeted with much cheering). I'm going to head back out there. . .I'll come back once more for a recap at the end of the night, I promise.
First Upstairs set a hot sweaty success
Posted by: Greg
Whew, it's hot up there! Sexton Blake are finishing up the last upstairs block of the night right now, so I snuck down to get some cool and blog before the big closing roundout explosion of Please Step Out of the Vehicle, Old Time Relijun, Viva Voce and Siren's Echo.
So, let's see. . .what did we just have?Dramady:
Why are two pieces always so good in this town? This muscular duo of bass and simultaneous drums/keys played the kind of punk-disco hybrid that, like so mayn good mergings of opposites, somehow never seems to lose its power. They told me that they haven't played that many shows and thy seemed both super nervous and highly psyched. Also, there was totally a line of awesome punker high school kids kicking it throughout this whole set.
We're From Japan:
Festival veterans, these classic Portland shoegazer-types did better in the more intimate and densely packed upstairs than they had downstairs, which can feel a little lonely when it's not actually over official capacity. This year they this also brought something of a lighter more intricate touch to what can sometimes seem like Portland's favorite genre of music: a bunch of dudes playing loud, effect-washed, lushly layered guitar atop battering drums in a style that ranges all the way from My Bloody Valentine to Godspeed You Black Emperor. This set, by contrast, was far more melody driven and extroverted, which is a good thing.
Sexton Blake:
Maybe the most actually pop of any group so far, Sexton Blake played this set of catchy, sunny songs with their keyboards balanced on upturned garbage and recycling cans from the green room. They make a big buzzy sound (they may have been had some technical problems, the sound guy kept apologizing) which really sets off their delicate glowing harmonies.
Anyway, that's all for me right now. Please Step Out of the Vehicle is getting started and I've got merch booth duties to attend to. Hmm. . .maybe I'll blog this last set of bands from my bed when I get home after the end of tonight; it's been a long day and there's still so much rocking yet to be done. . .
Horsefeathers and Small Sails
Posted by: Greg
We're just about to finish the first downstairs block. Horsefeatheathers did an amazing thing for a quiet acoustic bands: just totally commanded a big crowd (we're up to maybe 150, pushing 200) in a cavernous room with their alt-country take on Jose Gonzalez or Nick Drake-style folk. Plus one of their members played violin and drums at the same time, which is impressive!
Oh boy, Small Sails just launched into their song from this year's comp. They're way more physical live than on record, closer to Sigur Ros (but upbeat and with dancing) than something more traditionally "electro". Lots of neat "vocals" coming from laptop-y sounds being modified with a talk box (or some other high tech gadget).
In other news, it's stayed surprisingly cool in here, which is delightful and puts everybody into a much better mood. Time to run upstairs for the next set. . . back in a jiff.
Officially underway!
Posted by: Greg
It's 6:45 and Stars of Track and Field just kicked into their thrid song. PDX Pop Now! 2006 is officially underway! Most of our board memembers have been at the Loveland on and off for the last 24 hours or so decorating and getting things set up. Thanks largely to Decorating Madam Anne Adams and our own Logisitics Master Ross, the place looks terrific. We've got kind of a "recycled superhero" thing going. I'm posting some photos to flickr now, so I'll come back and put them here once they go through (Note: done).
There's already lots of people here (I'd say 80? 100?). People are buying shirts and comps. And they seem to be really enjoying the heck out of Stars of Track and Field. The set is finishing up now so I'm going to run and do some listening. I'll be back with more after this block. Stay tuned!
Be back with more after this block.
PDX Pop Now! Festival Begins Now
Posted by: kmikeym
It's time for the second official UrbanHonking foray into "Blogging The Shit Out of It" and this time we'll be covering all the angles of the PDX Pop Now! music festival! Things get started tomorrow with the festival kick-off at City Hall:
PDX POP NOW! 2006 FESTIVAL KICK-OFF
an after-work outdoor show featuring:
QUASI
THE MINDERS
PSEUDOSIX
with an intro by Mayor Tom Potter
Wednesday, July 19, 2006
Outdoors in front of Portland City Hall
1221 SW Fourth Ave.
5:30 p.m. - 8:30 p.m.
FREE - ALL AGES
