Willamette Weekend: 18 Things to Do and See in Portland Feb. 5-7

Drink through CiderCon and the Great IPA Challenge, and see diversity on Portland's silver screens.

FRIDAY, FEB. 5

Blood, Sweat & Beers

[DOC TALK] Local craft brewers—from Coin Toss, Zoiglhaus and Montavilla Brew Works—follow up a documentary about the startup struggles of two East Coast breweries with tales of their own. Mission Theater, 1624 NW Glisan St. 7 pm. $10.

The Benefits of Gusbandry Premiere Party

[YOUTUBE STARS] The feminist, LGBTQ, post-marriage comedy series The Benefits of Gusbandry premieres its fourth episode, "Gateway Gays," starring YouTube star Paige McKenzie of The Haunting of Sunshine Girl. The first three episodes will play before four drops, and creator Alicia J. Rose will be there, doing snacks and drinks with Brooke Totman of MADtv and Kurt Conroyd of Wild. Q Center, 4115 N Mississippi Ave., 234-7837. 7:30 pm. Free.

CiderCon

[SCRUMPY] Until Feb. 6, Portland will swim drunkenly in cider. About 1,000 cider makers and aficionados will swarm to Portland for CiderCon, the biggest event in the country to celebrate alcoholic apples. On Friday: The Rare Cider Party begins at Reverend Nat's with 12 or more taps of rare ciders and hybrids you will never see again (Reverend Nat's Taproom. 4-11 pm). Then, Skimmity Hitchers live

at Cider Riot! debuts Cider Riot's new warehouse cidery space catty-corner from Burnside Brewing's loading dock, as the mighty Scrumpy & Western band, Skimmity Hitchers, plays. (Cider Riot!, 807 NE Couch St., 662-8275. 8 pm. $5 cheap!)

Cat Hoch, And And And, Ice Queens

[FUZZY DREAM POP] Cat Hoch (pronounced "hawk") is a local vocalist and multi-instrumentalist who got her start playing drums in Tender Age. She's since performed alongside an impressive roster of other Portland acts—including Jackson Boone, Eternal Tapestry (whose Nick Bindeman lends his guitar work to her debut EP), Daydream Machine and more—throughout her still nascent musical career. With her first set of solo songs, Hoch establishes herself as a force of mutable sounds and spacey styles. With Hoch's wispy vocals coaxing extraterrestrial sounds out of our stratosphere, it's as if Beach House's Victoria Legrand were warbling over late era Flaming Lips noodling. It's certainly an intriguing mix, but it only captivates in small stretches. HILARY SAUNDERS. Bunk Bar, 1028 SE Water Ave., 328-2865. 9:30 pm. Call venue for ticket information. 21+.

Ian Brennan in Conversation with Corin Tucker

[BOOKS] Ian Brennan knows a thing or two about funding and disseminating art—he's the creator of both Glee and Scream Queens. In his new book, How Music Dies (or Lives): Field Recording and the Battle for Democracy in the Arts, he explores how people express themselves authentically in a world full of artifice. He'll be speaking with Corin Tucker of Sleater-Kinney. Powell's City of Books, 1005 W Burnside St., 228-4651. 7:30 pm. Free.

Super Furry Animals

[TECHNO WALES] Super Furry Animals have been Wales' ambassadors for experimental psychedelic-techno fusions since the early 1990s. They have performed onstage in Yeti outfits, toured in a blue military tank, and frontman Gruff Rhys wrote a whole album about items he stole from hotel rooms. It's been six years since Super Furry Animals came to the U.S., but they hit Portland this week to play Crystal Ballroom's Sabertooth Micro Fest, a celebration of psychedelic music. WW caught up with Rhys to talk about the evolution of psychedelic culture and hearing his own song while on hold. Read the full Q&A. Crystal Ballroom, 1332 W Burnside St., as part of Sabertooth Micro Fest, with Earth and King Black Acid. 8 pm. $30 advance, $35 day of show. All ages.

SATURDAY, FEB. 6

WW's IPA taste-off WW’s IPA taste-off

Great Portland IPA Challenge

Stop by hops shrine N.W.I.P.A. to help crown the best IPA in all of Portland. On Jan. 28, a panel blind-tasted every IPA brewed within city limits. The top 10 IPAs from that tasting will be at N.W.I.P.A.—marked with the letters A through J. For $16, you can taste all 10 and vote for your favorite. Chicken and Guns will be on hand serving up some of the city's best Latin-style chicken. N.W.I.P.A., 6350 SE Foster Rd., 805-7342. 11 am. $16 for 10 tastes, $2 for individual tastes. 21+.

Arrington de Dionysio, Clown Car, Corum, Dolphin Midwives

[PSYCHOTROPIC PUNK] Dolphin Midwives are New Age in spirit, yet devotionally improvisational in performance, as a two-piece of ambient guitar and hypnotic harp guiding the meditation. The mellow dronescapes will be complemented by the avant-supergroup known as Clown Car, featuring members of the Tenses and the yogic harsh-noise explorations of MSHR. Be sure to catch Magic Mirror, an audio-visual trance-warrior presentation of Grant Corum of Million Brazilians, along with the Javanese throat-singing and clarinet clairvoyance of K Records' Arrington de Dionyso. WYATT SCHAFFNER. Xchurch, 4550 NE 20th Ave. 7:30 pm. Donations accepted. All ages.

Bauman's Cider Release

[DRINK] This Portland cider has never been seen on earth before—until you drink it here, that is. Cider maker Christine Walter will launch a new local cider company here at Bushwhacker. You can say you knew her back when. Bushwhacker Brooklyn, 1212 SE Powell Blvd., Suite D, 445-0577, bushwhackercider.com. 6-9 pm.

26th Cascade Festival of African Films

[MOVIES] One of the nation's oldest nonprofit African film festivals starts this week with The Rooftops, a day-in-the-life tale of Algerian society that's driven by daily calls to prayer. The kickoff party screening will have Algerian director Merzak Allouachein attendance and live music from a local Algerian musician (Hollywwood Theatre; 6 and 9:15 pm Friday, Feb. 5). Fievres (PCC Cascade; 7 pm Saturday, Feb. 6) is a Moroccan feature about a displaced and uncontrollable boy who discovers that his father is alive in Paris and finds camaraderie with a caravaning poet when he moves there. Hollywood, PCC Cascade.

Sabertooth Micro Festival Day 2: Red Fang, Yob, Witch Mountain, World's Finest, Eternal Tapestry

[PSYCHEDELICSTONERROCKMICROFEST] Day two of the Crystal Ballroom's Sabertooth micro-music festival is about as good a showcase of Oregon heavy metal as one could ask for. Portland's Witch Mountain, with new vocalist Kayla Dixon, bring a nuanced take to the softer form of doom that has been slowly brewing in the Pacific Northwest and Bay Area since the mid-2000s. Eugene's Yob remain the best doom act in the country, while headliners Red Fang are sure to whip the party into a frenzy with a galloping, beers-and-bros approach to swamp metal. While you're there, don't miss brewer Drew Phillips' Blasphemous Brew Fest at Lola's Room, featuring weirdo brews from Crystal, Upright and other craft luminaries, beginning at 5 pm. WALKER MACMURDO. Crystal Ballroom, 1332 W Burnside St., 225-0047. 6:30 pm. $30-$50. All ages.

Rebel Junk Market

[BUY OR DIY] This nationally touring vintage megamarket is like Black Friday and Disneyland combined for junkers and the DIY demographic. Washington County Fairgrounds, 873 NW 34th Ave., Hillsboro. 10 am. $7.

Frog Eyes

[PSYCHEDELIC PROG] The Canadian eccentrics return to Portland, making up for having to cancel its tour with Destroyer last year due to visa issues. Bunk Bar, 1028 SE Water Ave., 328-2865. 9 pm. $10. 21+.

Great Expectations

It's surprisingly light for a 3-hour, melancholy Dickens tale about a downtrodden orphan named Pip. That's thanks to New York's Stephen Stocking, who embodies 7-year-old Pip with all the wide-eyed and dramatic quirkiness of a British starveling. He's helped by an armada of special effects and a looming set that looks like Disney's Frontierland meets The Addams Family—a labyrinth of wooden stairs, a rotating clock that's multiple stories tall and covered in cobwebs and plenty of smoke and spotlights. But the real star is the script, as it should be. Rather than straight dialogue, the characters narrate themselves. From the dark opening in a foggy graveyard, Pip is doomed to endless trials. Sad for the little orphan, a lot of fun for us to watch. ENID SPITZ. Gerding Theater at the Armory, 128 NW 11th Ave., 445-3700. 2 and 7:30 pm Saturday. $25-$70.

Metamorphosis

[CONTEMPORARY BALLET] Briley Neugebauer and her fellow dancers at Moxie Contemporary Ballet had a great gig at Portland's newest, body-positive ballet—until the company suddenly shut down and owner Gina Candland disappeared without paying her dancers or instructors, or issuing refunds to angry parents who had paid over $2,000 in tuition. "Metamorphosis represents our journey through rebirth," the show description reads. WW talked with Neugebauer about Moxie and making a company without money. Read the full Q&A. Alberta Abbey, 126 NE Alberta St., albertaabbey.org. 7:30 pm. $15.

SUNDAY, FEB. 7

Photo from The Planets Photo from The Planets

Mr. Kolpert

[BLACK COMEDY] When one oddball young couple hosts another for dinner, they tell a morbid joke to entertain themselves: the trunk in the living room holds the remains of wife Sarah's co-worker, Mr. Kolpert. Darkly comedic and weirdly political, David Gieselmann's play makes you wonder if there's truth to the joke. The London shows drew comparisons to Hitchcock and Tarantino, which fits with Third Rail's preference for giving suburban themes a sharp twist. Third Rail artistic director Scott Yarbrough directs, carrying through a lot of cast and crew from last year's Static. Imago Theatre, 17 SE 8th Ave., 235-1101. 2 pm. $42.50.

Kyle Craft

[FREIGHT TRAIN IN A HURRICANE] Kyle Craft arrived in Portland from Louisiana in 2013—heartbroken and dejected, with nothing but a friend's cellphone number and a head full of songs. After the end of an eight-year romantic relationship and an even longer musical partnership, Craft moved to Oregon without thinking much about it, and hasn't looked back. "I couldn't tell if something was pulling me out here," he says, "or if something back home was pushing me out." Dolls of Highway, out April 29, is the fruit of Craft's transient, single-minded efforts. The album—mixed by Helio Sequence's Brandon Summers and Benjamin Weikel but otherwise written, performed and produced entirely by Craft—tilts and tumbles through a sort of bipolar history of one guy's long passage to get where he's going. Mississippi Studios, 3939 N Mississippi Ave., with Boone Howard and Laura Palmer's Death Parade. 9 pm. $5. 21+.

Oscar Nominated Short Films

[SHORT+SWEET] For diversity at the Oscars, look to the shorts—a mixed bag of pencil-sketched Spartans, Jewish road-trippers and technicolor Indian deities. Animated standouts include Don Hertzfeldt's 16-minute "World of Tomorrow," a simply-drawn epic about a young girl whose future self introduces her to mind-blowing inventions and humankind's depression. "Bear Story" punches your heart into your gut with a story so cute it's depressing, and "Sanjay's Super Team" looks like Pixar gone Bollywood. Though the live-action picks wax dismal—"Shok" follows two terrified boys in 1998 Kosovo, "Day One" throws a female interpreter into war in Afghanistan, and "Last Day of Freedom" remembers a veteran with PTSD who was executed for murder—they're short enough to stay sweet when watched in a bunch. Hollywood Theatre screens the animated shorts nightly, followed by live-action. 2:45 and 7:13 pm, Hollywood. $5-$8.

The Planets

[20TH-CENTURY CLASSIC] This is that rare and magical unicorn of programs, in which the Oregon Symphony leaves the Baroque behind glass and focuses its power on freer modern styles. Stravinsky's early, four-minute Fireworks kicks things off with bluster. Then, young Russian pianist Natasha Paremski sits in to perform Paul Schoenfield's careening 1975 tribute to the darkness and light of life and death, Four Parables for Piano and Orchestra. The grand event is Gustav Holst's epic The Planets, conducted by Carlos Kalmar, being performed in Portland for the first time in 13 years. Holst's music of the spheres is among the earliest heavy metal: "Mars, the Bringer of War" is the opening act in this seven-movement suite, and its bombast and power will shake the Schnitz. It will be glorious. NATHAN CARSON. Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, 1037 SW Broadway, 228-1353. 7:30 pm Saturday, 2 pm Sunday, 8 pm Monday, Feb. 6-8. $23-$125. All ages.

Sabertooth Micro Festival: Built to Spill, Mikal Cronin Duo, Heron Oblivion, Brett Netson & Snakes

[NORTHWEST GUITAR HERO] Indie-rock lifer Built to Spill is comfort food for anyone who grew up in the '90s listening to alternative music. The Boise-based band, led by flannel-clad singer-guitar maestro Doug Martsch, is kind of like the Pacific Northwest's own version of Crazy Horse, with an expansive and sometimes jammy sound built on Martsch's angel-soft voice and windswept guitar solos. Built to Spill have been headlining shows at the Crystal Ballroom for nearly 20 years now, but this isn't just pure nostalgia—last year's Untethered Moon, the group's first record in six years, is also the best thing they've made since the Bush administration. Sure, we all want to hear "Carry the Zero," but new songs like "Living Zoo" deserve a spot on your next your Spotify playlist, too. MICHAEL MANNHEIMER. Crystal Ballroom, 1332 W Burnside, 225-0047. 6:30 pm. $30 advance, $35 day of show. All ages.

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