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Friday, Oct. 4
The IPRC Text Ball
[BOOK PARTY] The Independent Publishing
Resource Center holds its eighth
annual Text Ball, where guests are
encouraged to include text in their
attire. A.C. Dickson hosts the event,
which will include a live auction,
dirty limerick contest, giant crossword
puzzles and a costume contest
based on this year's theme of "literary
devices." All proceeds benefit
the IPRC. Independent Publishing
Resource Center, 1001 SE Division
St., Suite 2, 827-0249. 7-11 pm. $15
advance, $20 door.
Gary Clark Jr.
[MUSIC] On Blak and Blu, the
29-year-old guitarist spins through
alternating shades of the blues—
reverb-flooded slow burners, fervent
R&B crooners, woozy hip-hop
laments—but the grab bag works,
because he possesses the scorching
chops to back it up. Roseland
Theater, 8 NW 6th Ave., 224-2038.
8:30 pm. $39.50 reserved balcony,
$27.50 general admission. All ages.
Great American Distillers Festival
[LIQUOR] Your chance to sip fine
craft spirits from Portland and
beyond. The responsible move is
to go in with a little list of things
you've never been willing to buy a
bottle of. Tiffany Center, 1410 SW
Morrison St., distillersfestival.com.
$25. 5-10 pm. Continues 1-10 pm
Saturday.
Beer-O-Lympics Pub Crawl
[DRINKING] On the day you aren't attending
the Great American Distillers
Festival (or the Portland Fresh Hops
Festival), you can punch your liver
in the kidneys at Beer-O-Lympics
Pub Crawl, put on by the fine folks
at Beer Quest PDX. This month's
event hinges on Alberta. The street,
not the province. Alberta Street
Public House, 1036 NE Alberta
St., 284-7665. 7:30 pm Friday and
Saturday, Oct. 4-5. $25.
Saturday, Oct. 5
Fresh Hop Beer Festival
[BEER] The Willamette Valley is one
of the country's two major growing
regions for hops, the bitter little
flower cones that make beer taste
not like sugar piss. Here, they're
fresh from the fields and into the
brew kettles. Oaks Amusement Park,
7805 SE Oaks Park Way. Noon-8
pm. Also 5:30-8:30 pm Friday. $15.
Wordstock
Bibliophiles rejoice! The annual celebration
of all things literary hosts
two (official) days of author readings,
book signings, panel discussions,
workshops and more. Oregon
Convention Center, 777 NE Martin
Luther King Jr. Blvd., 235-7575. 9
am-6:30 pm Saturday and 9 am-5
pm Sunday, Oct. 5-6. $9 per day in
advance, $11 per day at the door, $5
children under 13.
Port of Shadows
The NW Film Center presents Port of Shadows, a 1938
French thriller that you will either see or skip based just
on the words "1938 French thriller." NW Film Center's
Whitsell Auditorium. 7 pm Friday-Saturday, Oct 4-5.
Louie Louie Day
[MUSIC] The Kingsmen's incoherent,
definitive version of "Louie Louie"
took on a life of its own almost
immediately after it was spawned
in a downtown Portland recording
studio in 1963. This daylong
50th-birthday party for the ultimate
garage-rock nugget coincides
with the Oregon Music Hall of
Fame induction ceremony. Aladdin
Theater, 3017 SE Milwaukie Ave. 7
pm. $25 advance, $30 day of show
for general admission. $100 advance,
$110 day of show for VIP seating.
Under 21 permitted with guardian.
Varsity Cheerleader
Werewolves Live From Outer Space
Varsity Cheerleader Werewolves Live
From Outer Space started out as a
movie, with a passably professional
trailer starring Daniel Baldwin. That
surviving video holds almost no trace
of the rollicking charms or improvisatory
swagger currently being reprised
at Milepost 5. By shoehorning a feature-length
screenplay into little more
than an hour and making the most
of an effects budget likely below two
digits—laser pointer, Silly String and
a moth-eaten cat puppet inventively
serving as our cabaret CGI—Steve
Coker sidesteps both the deadening
rhythms of dated sci-fi pastiche
and the high-camp artifice ordinarily
infecting modern musical comedy.
With successive blink-and-you'll-missthem
scenes, the continually engaging
and mobile performers stick each wry
aside and own every cornball bit of
exposition. There's a two-fisted physicality
empowering slapstick set pieces
and heightening the violent flourish or
eroticized assault. Punches connect,
stripteases arouse and Bananarama
synth riffs impart a genuinely disturbing
malevolence. The project couldn't
possibly have achieved such heights
as a motion picture, but that doesn't
mean a sequel's not deserved. JAY
HORTON. Milepost 5, 850 NE 81st Ave.,
729-3223. 7 pm Thursdays-Saturdays
through Oct. 12 and 2 pm Sunday, Oct.
6. $10-$12.
Dark Descent Records
Showcase: Insanity, Mitochondrion,
Anhedonist, Gravehill,
Weregoat, Dire Omen
[EXTREME-METAL FESTIVAL]
While diehard music fans will want
to catch both dates of this brutal
record-label showcase—Vassafor
from New Zealand performs Friday
night—the Saturday bill is stacked
like bodies to the ceiling. Bay Area
death-metal act Insanity formed
back in 1985, unearthing its blurring,
thrash-cum-death assault a
full two years prior to Portland's
own innovators, Dead Conspiracy.
The whole West Coast is fairly represented
here, with the grinding
Mitochondrian from Vancouver,
British Columbia, Seattle deathdoomster
Anhedonist and oldschool
hella death-metal revivalists
Gravehill. By the witching hour,
thou wilt be soaked in blood, sweat
and beers. Hail Satan. NATHAN
CARSON. Ash Street Saloon, 225
SW Ash St., 226-0430. 9:30 pm.
$15. 21kknd.
DJ Quik, Suga Free,
Cool Nutz, Chillest Illest
[G-FUNK] Compton-bred MC DJ
Quik is often viewed as a little
brother to West Coast hip-hop
greats like Snoop, Dre and Cube,
but his early albums, which
mixed street lyricism with Roger
Troutman-esque production,
helped define the genre of gangsta
funk. Over the years, as his peers
have veered into pop territory,
Quik has stayed mostly consistent
(ignore that Fixxers mess), releasing
a variety of quality albums that
crackle with funky synth lines and
witty lyrics. His last record, 2011's
Book of David , is also one of his
best yet—it features Quik going for
a smoother, more refined sound
that mixes elements of disco, R&B
and 1970s soul. REED JACKSON.
Roseland Theater, 8 NW 6th Ave.,
224-2038. 8 pm. $27. All ages.
Sunday, Oct. 6
Contemporary
Northwest Art Awards
[ART!] Expansive, thoughtful and dramatically
installed, the biannual
Contemporary Northwest Art
Awards didn't disappoint this year.
Curator Bonnie Laing-Malcolmson
has created a spectacular survey
of artwork across a diverse field of
practices, filling—but not overfilling—a
generous exhibition space
with work by artists from Oregon
(Karl Burkheimer), Washington
(Isaac Layman, Nicholas Nyland
and the single-monikered Trimpin),
Montana (Anne Appleby) and
Wyoming (Abbie Miller). As heterogeneous
as these artists' works are,
somehow Laing-Malcolmson makes
them cohere spatially and thematically. At the show's opening gala,
Trimpin took home the $10,000
Arlene Schnitzer Prize. Through Jan.
1. Portland Art Museum, 1219 SW
Park Ave., 226-0973.
The Big Meal
[THEATER] How much time do we spend around
the dining-room table? Can the
entire scope of a life—from first dates
and holiday gatherings to engagements
and pregnancies and grief—be
depicted at the table? With beautiful
and deceptive simplicity, Dan
LeFranc's The Big Meal, directed by
Dámaso Rodriguez, proves it can. As
the play begins, the young Sam and
Nicole meet at the restaurant where
she works. From there, five generations
of a family navigate life's joys
and dramas as if in a time-lapse photograph,
launching ahead weeks
or years but always coming back
together at the table. The eight actors
play family members of a range of
ages, gliding between roles. As a
young Nicole, Britt Harris is neurotic
and angry, while middle-aged Nicole
(played by a delightful Val Landrum)
develops a sharp-tongued wit and perpetually
clutches a glass of wine. The
character of Sam remains naive and
good-humored but gains a noticeable
weariness. When Vana O'Brien, playing
a now-elderly Nicole, wonders aloud
and mostly to herself "Where does
the time go?" it is with a heartbreaking
poignancy. Everyone we know and
love will pass through our lives, often
too quickly, and we ourselves will
one day finish our last meal and leave
the table. PENELOPE BASS. Artists
Repertory Theatre, 1515 SW Morrison
St., 241-1278. 7:30 pm Wednesdays-
Sundays, 2 pm Sundays through Oct.
6. $25-$55.
Detroit
[THEATER] Portland Playhouse
opens its sixth season with Lisa
D'Amour's 2010 Pulitzer Prize finalist,
a dark comedy about two
couples facing financial insecurity in
a nameless suburb. Over barbecue
and too much cheap beer, sunny
chitchat turns into something much
bleaker. Portland Playhouse, 602
NE Prescott St., 488-5822. 2 pm.
$30.75-$38.75.
WWeek 2015