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Friday, July 13
The Bronx Legends Tour
[MUSIC] "The story is to be told, not to be sold," reads the headline of the Bronx Legends Tour's website. The line is poignant, considering that none of the tour's headlining acts ever reached much mainstream fame, even if they danced and rapped alongside it. Hailing from Brooklyn, the all-but-undisputed birthplace of hip-hop, host Coke La Rock and his accompanying DJs and rappers represent the first generation of America's most recent culture-shifting artistic wave. Coke rapped over the now-mythical DJ Kool Herc's beats; rapper Busy Bee Starski gained his renown from an incendiary 1981 rap battle with Kool Moe Dee; Percee P was one of the original Fast Rappers. The tour features a few newcomers deemed worthy to perform with their esteemed elders, as well—it's the Legends' story, however, that should not be missed. Ted's (at Berbati's), 231 SW Ankeny St. 9 pm. $15. 21+.
Alepenrose Velodrome Challenge
[BIKES] Like an amusement park's rotor ride, a velodrome track uses centrifugal force to stick cyclists on its 43-degree banked walls. Drop below 12.5 mph, and they'll fall. Racers from around the world compete on one of the nation's most challenging tracks. Alpenrose Dairy, 6149 SW Shattuck Road, alpenrosechallenge.com. Friday-Sunday, July 13-15.
Opera Theater Oregon
[MUSIC, FILM] The plucky, alternative opera company winds up its delightful Opera vs. Cinema series, which pairs classic silent films with a live soundtrack improvised from the score of a famous opera, with F.W. Murnau's 1927 silent masterpiece, Sunrise. Portland State University music-faculty members saxophonist Kim Reece and pianist Douglas Schneider, both veteran solo performers, and singer Helen Funston will spontaneously create a new soundtrack from Puccini's music for the opera La Bohème, which shares themes with the movie.
1624 NW Glisan St. 7 pm. $9-$12.
Taxi Driver
Saturday, July 14
Mississippi Street Fair
[BLOCK PARTY] Kitschy crafts, fried foods and a sea of dads with sunglasses on their heads: It's getting harder to tell the Mississippi Street Fair from an average day on the block, but the music helps. This year's highlights include blues/gospel queen Linda Hornbuckle, autoharp-driven jam-rock act Old Light and catchy up-and-coming trio Fanno Creek. North Mississppi Avenue between Fremont and Skidmore streets, mississippiave.com. 10 am-9 pm. Free.
Bastille Day
[LE FESTIVAL] Portland celebrates Bastille Day. We can't tell you why—there hasn't historically been any significant French presence here—but we do. Paris had a Portland festival recently, so it seems only fitting we should return the favor. Grab your Nicolas Batum jersey, a copy of Camus' Le Mythe de Sisyphe and a pack of Gauloises to surrender your July 14 to France. Read our full guide to Bastille Day in Portland here.
Woody Guthrie Tribute: Corin Tucker Band, Holcombe Waller, Ben Landsverk, Rachel Taylor Brown, Buoy LaRue, Wendy & the Lost Boys, Josh Lava, Danny Seim
[MUSIC] As if further testament were needed, the performers at this tribute provide an indisputable argument for the truism that folk-Americana progenitor Woody Guthrie influenced almost all corners of modern popular music. From Holcombe Waller's acoustic romanticism to the Corin Tucker Band's bare-knuckled rawk and the computer-bent perversities of Danny Seim's glitch spirituals, this lineup plays like a real-time guide to the best ways in which Guthrie's Okie influences have mutated in the century since his birth. Pop music remains largely a folk tradition, and this church-hosted show offers both an education in and a celebration of its stylistic bedrock. SHANE DANAHER. Trinity Episcopal Cathedral, 147 NW 19th Ave. 7 pm. Free with donations accepted. All ages.
The Poetic Pen
[VISUAL ARTS] Calligraphy is a lot more than the fancy lettering you see on diplomas and wedding invitations. At its best, it captures the emotional core of the written word in ways that exploit the physical contours of alphanumeric characters to suggest metaphysical qualities. In this exhibition, 36 artists from around the world display works that set poetry to calligraphic text, blending the two art forms. RICHARD SPEER. 23 Sandy Gallery, 623 NW 23rd Ave.
Beasts of the Southern Wild
[FILM] In the Bathtub—the fictional Louisiana bayou settlement that forms the backdrop and lifeblood of the enchanting Beasts of the Southern Wild—the price of existing off the grid is living in waterlogged squalor... read the full write-up. Cinema 21, 616 NW 21st Ave. Multiple showtimes.
Sunday, July 15
Ray Davies Day
[MUSIC] Proving again that our city is batshit crazy—and has impeccable taste—Portland celebrates Ray Davies Day, which begins with a 3 pm reception for Davies at the Hollywood Theatre followed by a 4 pm screening of the Kinks frontman's 1984 film, Return to Waterloo; moves to the Aladdin Theater at 8 pm, where Davies will play a show; and wraps up at Holocene for British Invasion cover acts, including Kinks tribute band Young Eduardians.
Turn Me On, Damnit!
[FILM] When Turn Me On, Dammit! arrived at the Portland International Film Festival in February, it felt far truer and more difficult to assimilate than any of the self-conscious artistic gestures visited upon us by a crop of ironical Greeks and ponderously meditative Thais. The film centers on a very, very horny 15-year-old girl named Alma (played with tender naiveté by amateur actress Helene Bergsholm), who is ostracized with all of adolescence's wild cruelty after she tells a friend about the aforementioned dick-poking by her love interest, Artur. No one believes her, he denies it, and she descends into a leprous social Coventry, seeking comfort from phone-sex operators while battling her own distracted mother... read the full write-up. Living Room Theaters, 341 SW 10th Ave. Multiple showtimes.
WWeek 2015