Scoop: Portland Band Youth Breaks Up

1. WE EVEN LOST AT COFFEE: Portland’s competitive impulses are being beaten down. The Blazers sucked, the Timbers may suck, and even our competitive coffeemakers were whupped at the U.S. Barista Championship last weekend at the Oregon Convention Center. Only Coava Coffee’s Devin Chapman made it to the final round, where his 15-minute routine—set to a Bon Iver song and yielding three coffee drinks—was only good for fourth place. A barista from New York’s Counter Culture won, with two Californians taking second and third. Read our full report here.

1. TOO YOUNG TO DIE: One of Portland’s most promising young indie-rock bands, Youth, called it quits April 18, citing creative differences. The band, which WW featured in a November 2011 story, released just one three-song EP since its 2010 formation, the excellent June, which is available for free at the band’s Bandcamp page. Three of the band’s four members will join Typhoon drummer Pieter Hilton for the summer as a group called Genders, which plans to record in the coming months. “Losing the momentum that Youth was gaining is something we all worried about,” Youth’s Maggie Morris, who will continue to play with Genders, tells Scoop. “But in the end, feeling happy, productive and creatively excited won out over the popularity of the name.”

1. TOUR DE FORCE: Kung Fu Theater, the Hollywood Theatre’s monthly showcase of crane kicks, tiger claws and batshit storytelling, is hitting the road. Programmer Dan Halsted, who in 2009 unearthed a trove of old-school martial-arts flicks from a shuttered movie theater in Vancouver, B.C., will host double features of rare 35 mm prints in Chicago, San Francisco, New York and Los Angeles, preceded by a slide show illustrating the story of how he came across the chop-socky goldmine.

1. SUPER GIRLS: Comic festivals generally feature more social anxiety-riddled dudes than they do sexy, scantily clad young women, but Stumptown Comics Fest is doing its bit to change that reputation. This Saturday, April 28, über-nerdy Portland tease troupe Critical Hit Burlesque will take to the Bossanova Ballroom stage—probably dressed as famed comic characters like Poison Ivy and Batgirl—to shake rumps for the undersexed comic-book industry. The party, dubbed Geeklesque, should be hotter and less creepy than that creepy Alan Moore book about underage sex. And easier to find, too—the show is $15 and open to the 21-and-over public. Do your bit and hook up with a lonely letterer or color correctionist tonight.

WWeek 2015