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Saturday, Nov. 29
The 40th anniversary of Stop Making Sense reintroduced Talking Heads’ David Byrne as rock’s geekiest sex god, a hot nerd whose panicking upper body and undulating lower body express the conflict between the brain and the (ahem) other brain as perfectly as any image in cinema history. Released on the heels of the Heads’ funk-inflected classic Speaking in Tongues, Jonathan Demme’s 1984 concert film is one of the greatest ever made, and you’ll have the chance to dance to it in surround sound at the Crystal Ballroom’s upcoming screening. Crystal Ballroom, 1332 W Burnside St. 6 pm. $10. All ages.
Tuesday, Dec. 2
Maybe you never thought of Andy Bell as the greatest gay icon in the Anglophone world, but if the earth gets nuked to oblivion before next June, you can bet the Erasure frontman will still be grand marshal at the cockroaches’ Pride parade. John Waters may hire himself out as MC for chauvinistic garage-rock freak shows, Freddie Mercury might grace the dorm room posters of slur-spewing frat boys, but the Venn diagram between Andy’s friends and Dorothy’s is practically a circle, and with a new gospel-inflected album Ten Crowns under his belt, his upcoming Portland show should play like a revival—even to those for whom church was never their thing. Newmark Theatre, 1111 SW Broadway. 7:30 pm. $64. All ages.
Tuesday, Dec. 2
Jens Lekman wields schmaltz the way Quentin Tarantino wields violence—if it feels like too much, that may be how you know it’s working. The guileless, ukulele-wielding Swedish crooner has been supplementing his income amid the streaming apocalypse by working as a wedding singer. The outsiderish role of being a working musician at the happiest days of other people’s lives turned out to be the perfect vantage point for him to observe the trifles of human behavior that are manna for his work, hence his most recent album, Songs for Other People’s Weddings. Aladdin Theater, 3017 SE Milwaukie Ave. 8 pm. $32.18. All ages.
