Willamette Weekend: 16 Things to Do and See in Portland, Feb. 22-24
CHEESE BAR - IMAGE: leahnash.comFriday, Feb. 22
Stout Summit
[BEER] No, it's not a gathering of well-fed men... although, come to think of it, it's probably that, too. Since 3 pm today and until the end of the weekend, Roscoes will be hosting 14 stouts including these: Upright Brewing (Chocolate Stout), Oakshire (The Highly Anticipated Hellshire III, Heaven Hills Barrel Aged Stout), AleSmith (2012 Speedway Stout), North Coast (Barrel- Aged Old Rasputin XV), 10 Barrel (2012 American Stout, from the actual batch that took silver at GABF), Deschutes (2011 The Abyss), Boneyard (Suge Knite), Anderson Valley (Sour Stout), Mikkeller (Vintage keg of Beer Geek Breakfast), Fort George (Rye Barrel Aged Cavatica), Laurelwood (Bourbon Barrel Aged Espresso Stout), and more. We'd keep going, but we're so, so fat and drunk already. Feb. 22-24, Roscoe's, 8105 SE Stark St., 255-0049.
Heckle Our Writers
[COMEDY] Staff reporter Aaron Mesh will be getting heckled by comedian Ed Forman and hot cop Sgt. Brian O'Naughtington underneath the Crystal Hotel tonight. Al's Den, 303 SW 12th Ave, 10:30 pm.
Black Out Beer Fest
[BEER] Indulge your dark side with the
richest dozen from Lompoc and
guest brewers including Breakside
Brewery, Columbia River and the
Green Dragon. Lompoc reveals its
Cherry Stout after 16 months, 45
pounds of sour cherries and a lot of
merlot barrels. Multi-instrumentalist
Marty Marquis plays at 7. Get ready
to black out. 5th Quadrant, 3901-B N Williams Ave., 288-3996. 4-11 pm. Free.
Portland Jazz Festival:
Javon Jackson, Bobby Watson,
Curtis Fuller, Eddie Henderson,
Buster Williams, Lewis Nash
[JAZZ] A list of
the dozens of distinguished alumni
who emerged from drum master
and band leader Art Blakey’s Jazz
Messengers would include a high
percentage of the greatest names in
the music’s history—Shorter, Silver,
Jarrett, Golson, Garrett, Mobley,
Morgan, Brown, Hubbard, Marsalis,
Eubanks—and fill this page. So
would the list of jazz classics generated
by Blakey’s celebrated,
ever-evolving finishing school of
jazz from the early 1950s through
the late ’80s. We’re unlikely to experience
a finer collection of erstwhile
Messengers than this glittering
group of latter-day jazz stars, all of
whom developed their skills under
the master’s sharp eye and subsequently
created superb music on
their own; they’ll be delivering some
of that all-star ensemble’s greatest
messages, enhanced by everything
they’ve since learned. BRETT
CAMPBELL. Newmark Theatre, 1111
SW Broadway, 248-4335. 7 pm. $28-
$58. All ages.
Usnea, Ephemeros,
Stoneburner
[DOOM METAL] When it comes to
doom, cookie-cutter approaches
and Xeroxed copies of copies have
been the rule of late. Everyone is
influenced by Black Sabbath and its
disciples with such intricately diminishing
returns that there’s no room
left to improve what’s gone before.
Luckily, local band Usnea takes a
more progressive approach, lending
the supreme down-tuned riffage of
Cathedral a seriously psychedelic
edge. And by that, I mean guitar
effects that swirl these 15-minute
tunes right to the center of a black
hole. Tonight is the release show
for the band’s eye-poppingly welldesigned
and self-released LP. At
only $10, it’s a steal and a musthave
for doom and vinyl enthusiasts. NATHAN CARSON. The Know,
2026 NE Alberta St., 473-8729. 8
pm. $5. 21+.
Comic Con
[COMICS] Wizard World features appearances by Henry Winkler (Little Nicky), Lou Ferrigno (Chuck, Reno 911!), Dean Cain (Bailey’s Billion$), Morena Baccarin (The O.C.), Brent Spiner (Introducing Dorothy Dandridge), Jason David Frank (Sweet Valley High), James Hong (Wayne’s World 2) and Oregon’s own Bruce Campbell (The Adventures of Brisco County Jr.). Oregon Convention Center, 777 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. 3-8 pm Friday, 10 am-7 pm Saturday, 10 am-5pm Sunday, Feb. 22-24. Tickets and information at wizardworld.com.
Bong Hit Bingo
[POT] Bingo, the classic game of luck and listening, played within easy reach of helpful medical resources. National Green Friends, 7958 SE Foster Road, 777-2355. 3-5 pm. $5 for members, $10 for nonmembers. Entry includes blotter and three cards. Extra cards are $1 each. nationalgreenfriends.com. OMMP card required.
Red Herring
[THEATER] The title of Red Herring is—surprise!—a red herring. The play’s murder is no mystery whatsoever after the first five minutes, and the only complicated procedural on display is in the vaudevillian slapstick of the dialogue. “Why are you drinking vodka with a spoon?” asks one character. “Because,” comes the Russianinflected response, “when I drink with fork it spills on lap.” Herring is an enjoyably farcical romantic comedy disguised as a hard-boiled detective farce and, like a lot of young lovers, it’s fast, loose and a bit thin. The play wraps three star-crossed pairs—a lady detective and a G-man, a spy’s wife and an unwilling spy, Joe McCarthy’s daughter and a free-thinking physicist—into a paper-thin espionage plot that’s mostly an excuse to enact a 1940s-style fasttalkie full of whippet-quick banter and PG-rated sexual innuendo. This means the play is carried mostly by its winking wits and the hurtling speed of Christopher Liam Moore’s stage direction—truly, one of the most important characters in the play is a Murphy bed. While the entire cast performs its gymnastics admirably, the standout is Michael Mendelson as the sad Russian fisherman Andrei Borchevsky, who infuses his comedic role with genuine soulfulness. The wind does go out of the play’s sails in the final scene, but it still has more than enough momentum to drift across the finish line. Not to mention we laughed out loud more often than at any Portland production in recent memory. Artists Repertory Theatre, 1515 SW Morrison St., 241-1278. 7:30 pm Wednesdays-Sundays, 2 pm Sundays through March 17. $25-$50.
Portland Jazz Festival: Galactic, Latyrx
[JAZZ/HIP HOP] Where to even start with this show? Probably with the opener. In 1997, Latyrx— that’s Bay Area rappers Lyrics Born and Lateef the Truth Speaker— released The Album, a wonderfully odd, deeply funky hip-hop record. Even when literally rapping over each other, it sounded like they were creating a brand-new rap language. Then they went their separate ways. Reconvening 16 years later, the tracks from the promised second Latyrx album sound a bit more conventional (and more politically conscious), but they can still start a party—which is good, considering eclectic New Orleans funkateers Galactic is a party band par excellence. Why is Living Colour frontman Corey Glover performing with them? Just to make the show more batshit-awesome, I’m guessing. MATTHEW SINGER. Crystal Ballroom, 1332 W Burnside St., 225-0047. 9:30 pm. $25 advance, $28 day of show. All ages.
Mikal Cronin, Big Eyes, Jollapin Jasper
[ROCK] You have to hand it to Merge Records. Wise label that it is, it isn’t trying to track down the next Spoon or Arcade Fire. Instead, the North Carolina-based imprint is throwing its considerable resources behind young, hungry talent like Mikal Cronin. Cronin has secured his place on the garage-rock walk of fame via his Pixy Stix-fueled pop group the Moonhearts and his frequent work backing up Ty Segall on tour and on record. But don’t discount Cronin’s work under his own name. His Merge debut, MCII (out in May), adds a folk-country element that glares out even when the fuzzbox is cranked up and tempos (and minds) are wicked high. ROBERT HAM. Dante’s, 350 W Burnside St., 226-6630. 9 pm. $12. 21+.
Night Beds, Indians, Cat Martino
[MUSIC] Winston Yellen has the kind of haunting, choirlike voice that can coax leaves back onto barren trees. The Nashville-via-Colorado Springs musician has released a few EPs as Night Beds, but nothing finer than Country Sleep. The elegant, pastoral, wispy collection of weehours folk was recorded in backwoods Tennessee, in a house Johnny Cash used to own. Yellen said he wrote most of the record from bed, and the lush, dimly lit soundscapes attest to that. Better still, Danish minimalist Søren Løkke Juul shares the stage, who, under the name Indians, is responsible for some of the purest, chilliest, glassiest sounds this year. MARK STOCK. Doug Fir Lounge, 830 E Burnside St., 231-9663. 9 pm. $10 advance, $12 day of show. 21+.
The Liberators
[COMEDY] The talented improv artists return to the stage, bringing with them Administration, a new group they’ve assembled and coached. Brody Theater, 16 NW Broadway, 224-2227. 7:30 pm Saturday, Feb. 23. $12-$15.
Sunday, Feb. 24
Mosh Pit Night at the Oscars
[MOVIES] Think you can write a better acceptance speech than Daniel Day-Lewis? Make yourself fancy and come prepared to deliver it—and to be forcibly yanked off the stage if you exceed the time limit. Bobwhite Theatre, 6423 SE Foster Road, 894-8672. 3 pm. $8-$12.
[THEATER] Post Five Theatre inaugurates its new black-box space with a lusty version of Shakespeare’s bloodiest play, Macbeth. Ty Boice, Post Five’s artistic director, plays the murderous thane with a brooding masculinity and a wardrobe recalling Marlon Brando in Streetcar Named Desire. Far from “unsexed,” his Lady Macbeth (Cassandra Schwanke) is a full-blown Shakespearean seductress in a black silk robe, and the action verges on voyeurism when the two meet. Fake blood galore, knife fights and combat boots further update the Scottish monarchy, but the cuts to Shakespeare’s text are unobtrusive and keep the spirit loyal. The cast, especially Nathan Dunkin as Banquo, captures Shakespeare’s dark world with intensity rather than melodrama. Actors weave through the audience to make their entrances into the small space, which lends the production a refreshing intimacy. (But watch your toes and elbows.) ENID SPITZ. Milepost 5, 850 NE 81st Ave., 971-258- 8584. 7 pm Fridays-Sundays through March 17. $10 Fridays-Saturdays, Sundays “pay what you can.”
Matthew Dickman and Joseph Millar
Prolific Portland poet Matthew Dickman (All-American Poem, Mayakovsky’s Revolver) will take the stage along with visiting North Carolina poet Joseph Millar (Blue Rust, Fortune) as part of the Mountain Writers series. TaborSpace, 5441 SE Belmont St. 7 pm. $5, free for students.
Alien Boy: The Life and Death of James Chasse
[FILM] A Heartbreaking and incendiary in equal measures, Portland filmmaker Brian Lindstrom’s documentary plays out like a horror film and leaves you absolutely breathless. The story is one familiar to most Portlanders: In 2006, James Chasse, crippled by schizophrenia but by all accounts harmless, was beaten by Portland police, died in custody and was the subject of a massive cover-up that portrayed him as a monster. Lindstrom’s film pieces together eyewitness accounts and courtroom footage to forge an amazing piece of documentary journalism that’s equally focused on the procedural account of Chasse’s death and the people whose lives it affected. Everybody except the officers whose fists sealed Chasse’s fate offer their remembrances, though officers Kyle Nice, Bret Barton and Christopher Humphreys do appear in archival footage of their trial (each refused to be interviewed). But what really hammers Alien Boy home is not how he died but how he lived. After Chasse was slain, police falsely labeled him a transient junkie. Lindstrom’s film dives deeply into the life of a man who touched countless lives through the pioneering position he held in Portland’s early punk-rock scene. Ex-girlfriends, family members, musicians, artists and parishioners from his church all tell of a deeply troubled but caring man whose mental despair robbed him of peace. This human setup makes Alien Boy’s outcome all the more difficult, and Humphreys’ smug apathy and on-record lies all the more infuriating. Chasse was starting to slip through the cracks, but before he fell, his life was extinguished by those charged with protecting him. Lindstrom does a tremendous job showing what we lost as Chasse lay dying on a Pearl District sidewalk: not just a life, but our confidence in those sworn to serve and protect. AP KRYZA. Cinema 21.
