• FUR PARTY: Montreal duo Handsome Furs created a bit of a stir recently upon revealing the album art for its forthcoming record Sound Kapital—a dark, moody photo of a tattooed naked woman standing beneath the east end of Portland’s Fremont Bridge, taken by local director Scott Coffey. It’s a still from the band’s forthcoming video for first single “What About Us.” The soon-to-be-released video, Coffey promises, will absolutely feature more nudity. Coffey says he shot it just a few weeks ago while the band was visiting Portland. “We shot without a permit so it was scary and very cold,” he says. Coffey says the Furs are also scoring a movie he’ll be shooting this fall. And, he adds (yes, in all caps), that “THE NEW RECORD IS SO SO SO SO GOOD.”
  • SAUSAGE SOZZLE: 82nd Avenue may soon see its first distillery—or at least its first licensed distillery—which, pending the Oregon Liquor Control Commission’s approval, will be turning out artisan, high-proof sausage. According to owner Yun Yue Ho’s application, EC Kitchen (6335 SE 82nd Ave.) will “mainly sell Chinese sausage,” the production of which requires “Chinese grain liquor of 50 percent or more alcohol by volume as one of the main spices...and the liquor cannot be found in Oregon.” >> In other OLCC application news, Base Camp Brewing is coming to 922 SE Oak St. and Mac, a macaroni and cheese-centered eatery—with liquor!—is coming to 3936 N Mississippi Ave-—just a couple miles from the other mac-and-cheese-centered eatery Baked! on Northeast Alberta Street.
  • SURVIVOR: CHEF EDITION: The Food Network has announced a new cooking reality show called Extreme Chef, which it says “pushes three chefs to their physical and mental limits as they must adjust to extreme conditions and unpredictable curveballs such as swimming across a lake for ingredients and using a car engine as a makeshift stove.” Two Portland chefs will appear on the first season (provided it isn’t canceled after a few episodes): Gregory Gourdet of Departure and Leather Storrs of Noble Rot. “Chef reality cooking shows are kind of silly anyway, so I think it was cool to compete in the most extreme,” Gourdet told WW.
  • PUT A CELEBRITY ON IT: Oregon Episcopal School has managed to secure Portlandia’s Fred Armisen to deliver the commencement address for its 2011 senior class (high schools have commencement addresses now?). A senior student came up with the idea to fit in with the class theme (theme?) of “Ho11ywood.” After finding a connection in the local film industry, they made a few calls and Armisen was secured for the speech. “[Armisen’s] work has been contributing a lot of focus on Portland, so I think it’s good he wants to be a part of the community like this,” Marty Jones, OES’s director of communications and marketing, told WW.