Willamette Weekend

Friday, March 16

Bob Odenkirk and Tom Johnson in: A Load of Hooey
[COMEDY] The Bob half of Mr. Show (and Saul Goodman on Breaking Bad) comes to town to do some sketch comedy with his former Chicago stand-up buddy, Brody Theater director Tom Johnson. Should be great! Brody Theater, 16 NW Broadway, 224-2227. 8:30 pm Friday, 7:30 and 10 pm Saturday, March 16-17. $22.50.

Vice Device, Deathday, ASSS, Sick Jaggers DJs
[MUSIC] Local label Sweating Tapes, careful curator of synth-based gloom, celebrates the release of A Compilation. Volume 1: Portland with three of its grimmer affiliates this evening. Portland’s ASSS and Vice Device will be on hand with tenebrous throbs both danceable and vaguely unsettling, and you can rest assured the heaviness will be brought. Still, I’m betting the night’s going to belong to Los Angeles quartet Deathday, whose newly released self-titled album hypnotizes and intermittently shocks with droning, depressive post-punk. It is the menacing sort of midnight music the Cure should have continued to pursue after Pornography. Which means it is great. CHRIS STAMM. Rotture, 315 SE 3rd Ave. 9 pm. $6. 21+.


Saturday, March 17

All-Ireland Cultural Society's 73rd Anniversary and 71st Annual St. Patrick's Day Celebration
[PADDY'S DAY] If you’re looking to avoid the drunken frat boys, this is the real deal St. Patrick’s Day celebration with real-life Irish people. There will be traditional dancing, music, a live parrot show (?) and a corned-beef-and-cabbage dinner. Ambridge Event Center, 1333 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. Noon-8 pm; dinner 4:30-6:30 pm. $10 for adults, $5 for students 12-20, free for kids 11 and under with a paying adult.

NCAA Tournament in Portland
[SPORT] Watch it on your television and follow along with our wweek.com liveblog. Go sports!

The Raincoats, Grass Widow, Tombstalker, Stay Calm
[MUSIC] The story of the Raincoats is one that has some fairly strong roots here in the Northwest. Thanks to one of the post-punk outfit's most vocal fans, Kurt Cobain, the Raincoats' first three LPs of angular, scratchy pop were reissued on a major U.S. label, inspiring the original lineup to reunite for a stretch in the ’90s. And it is local imprint Kill Rock Stars that helped bring The Raincoats back to life in 2008 with a brand-new edition of its self-titled debut. This time around, the group is doing another quick U.S. tour to support its self-released remaster of the second LP, the dreamy and minimalist Odyshape. ROBERT HAM. Star Theater, 13 NW 6th Ave. 9 pm. $12 advance, $14 day of show.

Driven: The Films of Nicolas Winding Refn: Valhalla Rising
[FILM] Nicolas Winding Refn populates his world with scum: The neon-drenched, narrow corridors of his best-known works, Drive and Bronson, seethe with junkies, pushers, pimps, killers, convicts and sociopaths. Even the characters of his most unlikely film, the 2009 Christian Viking freak-out Valhalla Rising, share the same mindset: primal impulse. The most verbose characters eventually speak in simple grunts, allowing violence to punctuate their messages. At no point do they question their purpose, or weigh consequences. Brutality is Refn’s language. His 15-year arc as a director is one of constant metamorphosis, and this NW Film Center retrospective offers a much better reason than PIFF to spend two weekends in the Whitsell Auditorium. It’s a chance to get acquainted with all the nasty, impulsedriven antiheroes spawned from one of the most influential directors working in Hollywood today. NW Film Center’s Whitsell Auditorium, 1219 SW Park. Valhalla Rising screens at 7 pm Friday and 9 pm.


Sunday, March 18

Jeff, Who Lives at Home
[FILM] The title tells you a lot about what sort of movie this might be: downtrodden, acerbic, commuting between office parks and Mom’s basement. And for the first 45 minutes, it confirms those suspicions in spades. In fact, Jeff, Who Lives at Home begins to feel like the apotheosis of the festival-shopped indie comedy. It’s directed by the Duplass brothers (The Puffy Chair, Cyrus), who are more famed for spasmodic camera zooms than for any jokes. It features Hollywood clowns who’ve scrubbed off all their greasepaint to show the troubled lines on their faces. The larger film, actually, feels scoured with whatever industrial solvent they use at the end of the day in Hooters restrooms... read our full write-up here. Jeff, Who Lives at Home opens Friday at Fox Tower and Clackamas.

Classical Revolution PDX String Quartet
[MUSIC] The classical music rebels and DTQ String Quartet will perform movements from 10 string quartets submitted by Oregon composers. A panel (performer, professor, and pundit) will choose one composer to receive a professional recording of the winning quartet. It’s a chance to hear what kind of music is emerging from the next generation of Oregon composers. Community Music Center, 3350 SE Francis St., 823-3177. 7 pm Sunday, March 18. Donation.

Frank Fairfield
[MUSIC] Frank Fairfield was probably born spouting folk tunes. He's that good. And luckily for us, he's about 90 years late—considering his tunes sound like something that came out of Appalachia in the ’20s. Getting his start while busking the streets of Los Angeles, the then-21-year-old impressed Foreign Born frontman Matt Popieluch so much that he landed Fairfield a spot on tour with Fleet Foxes and a home with record label Tompkins Square. It's no wonder that opportunities just sort of find Fairfield: He plays the fiddle, banjo and guitar with the kind of touch that comes from a full lifetime of practice, if at all. Pulling from a repertoire of traditional American folk ballads as well as an array of befitting original songs, he is quite a sight to see live—and Portland gets him for seven nights in a row, starting tonight. EMILEE BOOHER. Al's Den at the Crystal Hotel, 303 SW 12th Ave. 7 pm. Free.