Ben Meyercord's Live Music Picks for Wednesday, January 26th

Hello Dear Readers,

"What's up? You see that thing with the other thing the other day? I know. That was crazy." This is how I would talk to you if I saw you in person. Alas we are stuck here with our screens. Not interacting. The only thing I do is go to shows sometimes. When I don't wimp out. My excuses usually range from "it's too cold outside" to "I'm tired"** . Anyways, here shows happening in Portland tonight. Ween is playing. They are kinda incredible. But at $35 a ticket, I will be missing that show. Here are some shows that are a bit more Portland-centric and a bit more affordable:

Backspace is having a show with Pocketknife, Towering Trees, and Padriac Finbar Hagerty-Hammond. Pocketknife are a upbeat synth heavy danceable pop band. I have not seen them but rumour has it that they are good live too. Towering Trees used to play as William Carpenter's Towering Trees. The band is ion fact led by one Will Carpenter. I remember writing about them way back. Then I have not heard from them in a long time. I remember them being kinda folky. But I guess they changed their name and started to sound pretty poppy. In fact they now sound down right jangly. You can get their FREE Proto EP right here. The thing that caught my eye the most about this show is Padriac Finbar Hagerty-Hammond. He is one of my favorite song writers. Just go and listen to his songs. They will make you laugh and cry. The ALL AGES show is $5 and starts at 8 PM.

The Secret Society is having a show with Inside Voices. Inside Voices has been laying kinda low. I thought that the bass player moved away to go to law school or something. But I have seen that they sometimes play at the Secret Society. If you have not heard them, you should they are crazy good. The drummer is amazing. He is probably my favorite drummer to watch in Portland. The songs are great. Umm... just check it out. The show is FREE and starts at 9 PM.

Rotture is having a show with The Greys, Ghost to Falco, EMA, Tara and Brian (Tara Jane O'Neil and Brian Mumford). The Greys are a noisey band. They sound like they would just fill any venue to the brim with their layers of distorted and verbed out everything. Ghost to Falco is the vision of a guy named Eric. I have seen it as a band. I have seen it as a dude with a guitar and a looping pedal. I have seen several broken television sets on stage. I have seen something interesting when he plays. EMA is the music outlet of Erika M. Anderson. There is a lot of stuff on her website. I can't really tell you much about the music. The thing that grabbed my attention for this show was the thought of Tara Jane O'Neil and Brian Mumford collaborating. I like them both a lot separately. I imagine a collaboration would be pretty cool. And probably pretty far out there knowing that both had interests in pushing boundaries. The show is $5 and starts at 9 PM.

Mississippi Pizza is having a show with Cody Votolato (Seattle) and The We Shared Milk. Cody is that dude that was in Jaguar Love and Blood Brothers. This is being billed a special acoustic set. It is hard to imagine him quiet as his other bands have been crazy and high energy. But then again his actual brother has made a name for himself doing acoustic stuff. The We Shared Milk is a band that I have yet to see. Obviously they are on my radar as I have written about them a couple of times. The show is

If you see me at any of these shows please say, "Hi". That would be most charitable of you.

-Ben


Padriac Finbar Hagerty-Hammond will be playing at Backspace tonight. It will look and sound like this

* Most shows are indoors.

** I can sleep when I'm dead.