Skip to main content[CHAOTIC POP] Toward the end of basement-pop outfit And And And's November '09 live debut at Northeast Portland dive Red Room, keyboardist Berg Radin picked up a snare drum and dove straight into the crowd. After rolling on the ground and knocking over various instruments and microphones, Radin and the band were cut off by the soundman and kicked out of the club before they finished their first set.
"Afterward we had a band meeting where we decided to tone it the fuck down," Radin says, retelling the story. "And then we played at Valentine's and I climbed up on the balcony, banging on the snare again. We've been wreaking havoc since day one."
The six-piece group—named after a line from the 1991 Irish film The Commitments—is slowly making a name for itself in Portland by virtue of its chaotic live performances and two excellent records. The band's sophomore effort, A Fresh Summer With And And And, is coming out just three months after its ramshackle debut, We'll Be Better Off With the Plants. Opening with the killer one-two punch of "Is it Any Wonder" and "The 2nd Proposition," the record mixes co-vocalist Nathan Baumgartner's unchained wail—a slightly less theatrical version of Frog Eyes' Carey Mercer—with Tyler Keene's more nuanced stompers. The songs are mammoth, often spiraling into messy, trumpet-led crescendos, but they're recorded with a homemade charm that few local acts pull off so well.
A Fresh Summer was constructed in much the same way as the first record, Keene and Baumgartner bringing in songs for the six-piece to flesh out live at Bongo Fury, a rehearsal space in Beaverton used mostly by, as Keene puts it, "terribly loud metal bands." Baumgartner is quick to admit that half the songs on A Fresh Summer were written and recorded just two weeks ago. The band works so quickly because its core (Baumgartner, Radin, multi-instrumentalist/producer Ryan Wiggans and bassist Jonathan Sallas) previously played together in the Eugene-based dance group Super Dream. Drummer Bim Ditson and Keene joined last fall, and the band has been wrecking clubs since.
"Our sets have toned down about 92 percent since the beginning," Baumgartner jokes. "But we never want to sacrifice anything just for the sake of playing a safe show."
And And And plays Saturday, June 19, at Berbati's Pan. 8:30 pm. $6 advance, $8 day of show. All ages.
WWeek 2015