Ben Meyercord's Live Music Picks for January 12th to 14th

Hello Dear Readers,

Check it out...I actually have started to regularly. Its crazy I know, but I went to a show on Saturday night AND Sunday Night. What's more is that I intend to see a show tonight as well.

Basically On Saturday wasn't going to go to a show. I had band practice and then was somewhat "beat". But when I got home I remmebered that I locked my keys in my apartment that morning. So I had to go back downtown to get my roomates keys. When I was down there I walked by Backspace and suddenly realized I was five minutes away from a show that I actually really wanted to see (DoubleDutch, Reporter and Maggie Morris). So it was basically fate telling me that I should see this show and I am very glad that I did. DoubleDutch who I had seen once before played much better than I when I saw them before. With the exception of a technical diffuctly in the middle of the set (which allowed singer Jordan to do a lovely solo song) everything was much tighter. They are starting to acheive some of their potential. Typhoon, as always, brought it. They really need to play more often. I should mention that they also played the set with Maggie Morris as her backing band and were excellent.

Sunday night I went to the MusiCares benefit and good lord it was good. I have never seen Ritchie Young by himself and was pleased to see that he completely held his own. Using only one,very nice, mic he strummed out his songs on his acoustic or violin. He is the only person I can recall strumming his viloin at this moment. Heather Woods (Broderick) did a set with Eric Early (frontman of Blitzen Trapper) performing lead guitar/banjo and some vocals (these two sound great together). Amanda Lawrence (of Loch Lomond and Sabertooth, who played pretty solid set later) also provided some vocals on the first few of Heather's songs. But the real gem (or gem among gems rather) here was Musee Mechanique. They just blew me away with howw good it was. These boys know how to arrange the crap out of a song. They kinda sound like Grandaddy mixed with Blonde Redhead with some folk mixed in. Really good. Any who, there are some more great shows this week.

Monday, January 12th

There is only one show I could find, but it is a great one.

Valentine's are having a show with The Old Believers, Black Heart Moon, and St. Frankie Lee. The Old Believers released a really good album last year entitled "Eight Golden Greats". You should go buy it, now. Black Heart Moon is a newish band featuring members of Hide and Go Hustle doing something completely different. And St. Frankie Lee is what would happen is what would happen if Calvin Johnson were in a male/female country band. This bad boy is FREE! It starts at 9 PM.

Tuesday, January 13th

I originally couldn't find andything but then I saw this...

Electroacoustic artist Ethan Rose will be performing at Oaks Park Roller Rink for the release of his new album "Oaks" which is based around the use of the 1920's Wulitser organ located in the roller rink. It is presented by PICA and Holocene Music, so I bet that if one were to want more information, one could click on these links to find out more information. This will be one of two releases for Ethan this year. The other is a collaboration with Laura Gibson witch I cannot wait to hear. Anyways, the show is $10 for memebers and $12 for the general public. I should mention that the cover also includes skate rentals (sweet!). The ALL AGES event opens doors at 7 PM and starts at 8 PM.

Wednesday, January 14th

Rotture is having a sick show with CIMTB favorites: Westfold, Aristeia, and Carcrashlander. From the socio-core tunes of Westfold, to the vast instrumental post-rock exploits of AristeiA (I play bass in this group. Whatevs!), to the downer sober rock of Carcrashlander it is all good. Seriously, this show is not to be missed. It is a mere $5 and starts at 9 PM.

Dunes is having a show featuring people of the Lions & Eagles, Dinner Pelonca, and Nick Mamula. The show is $5 and starts at 10 PM.

Holocene is having something called Six. It is apparently some sort of experimental sound design. This is what Holocene's website said about it, "hree dimensional music is back, courtesy of Portland's ONLY multi-channel performance environment event, SIX!!! For those of you tired of the flat, ordinary, life of stereo sound systems we bring you a high-end, Holocene-sized six channel sound system. Multi channel performances recontextualize the audience's physical relationship to the music -putting the audience at the center of the experience, literally-- and force the musicians to rethink issues of directionality, space, and conventional music making in a completely new way. This is music you can only hear in this unique live setting, not reproducible in any other environment, with compositions tailor made for this sound system by the city's leading experimental artists. Multi-channel sound performances are usually relegated to exclusive European sound galleries, electronic music PhD programs at faraway universities, etc...But now it's here for Portland, for everyone to experience and enjoy. In 2007, SIX provided a midsummer foray into contemplative and immersive listening. SIX Part Two is proud to bring you some returning artists as well as new angles. Celebrated local DJ, experimental music guru, and producer DJ Brokenwindow has devised a three-turntable, six-channel DJing configuration, and will be providing music between sets all evening. The elusive Jetfinger will return with his ever-growing, ever changing magnificent home built modular synthesizer, possibly one of the largest and most comprehensive systems in the city. Portland's ambassador of reverberant inner space music Grouper (Type Records) will join us for her first ever multi-channel performance! Computer music artist and SIX chief curator Cloudburst will be joined by fellow traveller Robert Deeble while returning SIX artist map~map will collaborate with Portland's own Gasp. Rounding out the night will be a rare solo live set from futuristic mischief maker Strategy. Please join us for another wonderful experiment in new sound system experimentation!" There will be several musical participants using the system to the best of theor abilities. Specfically: Strategy, Grouper, Cloudburst, [[ Gasp + map~map ]], Jetfinger, DJ Six Broken Windows aka DJ Brokenwindow (Get it?). The show is $6 (get it?) and starts at 9 PM (what do you get when you turn 9 upside down? hmmm...).

So that is the first half of the week for you. If you see me at any of these shows, do not hesitate to approach me with a "Hi". I will most assuredly say "Hi"back.

-Ben


The Old Beleivers play tonight. I will be there. You Should be there too. Just Sayin'