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Thursday, May 23
Roc Marciano brought fresh life into NYC rap by stripping down the beats and leaning into intellectual rigor, sly wit and marvelously inventive gun talk. Since his 2010 breakout, Marcberg, he’s become a pillar of underground hip-hop, inspiring everyone from MIKE to Earl Sweatshirt to Drake to get deeper and weirder. His new album, Marciology, makes a strong case for the living-legend status he claims, and if he hasn’t quite made the commercial splash of forebears like Biggie and Nas, he’s no less ripe for canonization. Polaris Hall, 635 N Killingsworth Court. 7 pm. $25. 21+.
Thursday & Friday, May 23–24
Ride is a hallowed name in shoegaze, with their 1990 debut, Nowhere, making the top 5 in most critics’ lists of the genre’s best full-lengths. The English legends could’ve disappeared into seclusion or rested on their laurels, but since reuniting in 2014 they’ve been more experimental than ever, integrating dance music into their dense guitar tapestries on albums like this year’s Interplay. Shoegaze is bigger than ever in 2024, but the quartet seems entirely uninterested in following anyone’s expectations but their own. McMenamins Mission Theater, 1624 NW Glisan St. 7 pm. $29.50. 21+.
Friday, May 24
After the initial dissolution of Radiation City, frontman Cameron Spies embraced his love of moody R&B acts like Sade and founded the more nocturnal project Night Heron with a cast of collaborators within the Portland music scene (and was voted one of Willamette Week’s Best New Bands in 2022). Night Heron’s upcoming show at Mississippi Studios includes The Apricots, a local vocal-harmony group, and Shawna Pair, a local pop artist whose debut album, Activator, was produced and mixed by Spies. Mississippi Studios, 3939 N Mississippi Ave. 7 pm. $16. 21+.
