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REST IN PEACE, KING OF PUNK
Tom Roberts, better known for his role as Pig Champion in seminal Portland hardcore band Poison Idea, died at his home on Monday, Jan. 30. He was 47. Literally one of the largest influences in Portland punk, Roberts played a furious lead guitar with Poison Idea from 1980 to 1993. The cause of death is still unknown, although friend Chris Loughner says that Roberts, who had weighed up to 450 pounds during his time with Poison Idea, was in poor health. >> Looks like BC's American Saloon is boot-scooting its way into oblivion. The year-old club announced last week that it has changed formats from twang to kerrang (that's the sound that rock makes). In an email, BC's booker Aly Star stated that the change was because one of the partners "wasn't seeing enough return on his investment." All shows have been canceled, so take your tears to beers elsewhere. >> The all-Portland tribute to Elliott Smith, To: Elliott From: Portland, was the highest debut last week on the College Music Journal charts, entering at number 36. >> Speaking of the Smith tribute album, the release show at Dante's last Friday featured a reconfigured Sexton Blake, rendering earlier Blotter reports of the band's demise incorrect. And thank god for that, because the new Sexton Blake is a force to be reckoned with. With more muscular drumming and an odd stage setup, the band that could actually is.
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Parks & Recreation Friday, Feb 10
Mike Johnson is totally into role-playing.
[POSTMODERN POP] Mike Johnson has made a name for himself as a personal sort of songwriter, making a lot of different, mostly acoustic music under the name Reclinerland, performing alone and with other musicians. In 2003, Johnson took an unexpected turn with Ideal Home Music Library, an album of fake showtunes delivered with an elaborate conceit. That recording was the swan song for Reclinerland, but Johnson continued to experiment with new sonic textures and songs that weren't about him, eventually forming Parks & Recreation. The band's debut, What Was She Doing on the Shore That Night? is adventurously peppered with disco-beats, orchestral arrangements and electric guitars. WW sat down to ask Johnson about his change of heart. CASEY JARMAN.
WW: Couldn't you have released this album under the name Reclinerland?
Mike Johnson: I wanted us to do a totally different thing, and I wanted to define it. So I dug through my record collection and looked at the people I admired like Beck and Elvis Costello and the Zombies and ELO. I thought we should give those people a genre, so we called it "postmodern pop," which is a lame name for it, but it works. We needed a new name for the group, we needed to re-do the whole thing. Starting a new band is hard, but it's actually kind of refreshing when you know what you want to do.
Some of these tracks really wouldn't fit in the Reclinerland mold, like "The Perfect Love," where you sing from the perspective of an Internet creep-o.
With Reclinerland, I was writing about me. [With Parks & Rec] I was going for clarity. I didn't want to write about myself anymore, or if I did I wanted to write about myself in a narrative like a fiction writer does. So there's a progression of events, there's a narrative thread from beginning to end. There are tighter rhyme schemes.
Was that harder for you?
Actually, no! It was so much easier. You can write about anything you want. One feature of postmodern pop [giggles] is that musicians take on different roles. If you listen to Beck, for example, he can sing in a falsetto on Midnite Vultures, or he can imitate Johnny Cash. He can do that because he's neutral and giving himself to the material, and presenting people. That's what I was trying do on this album. It's easier to be clear when you step outside of yourself.
Does sticking to tighter rhyme schemes mean you sacrifice the meaning of a song for a catchy turn of phrase?
You might have to shift the story to fit the rhyme, but I don't think it's a sacrifice. The game is to take your meaning and squeeze it into a structure. That's the fun of it. For me, it's always more enriching to bend existing rules than to tear them down and make new ones.
Parks & Recreation plays with Isolade and Tea for Julie at Berbati's Pan. 9:30 pm. $6. 21+.
Show Me the Pink Tuesday, Feb 14
This just in: Portland band not being ironic with early-'90s booty dance music.
[ELECTRO-DANCE] Secretly, all those hairy, tattooed, thrift-store chic cyclists have always been dying to grind each other like a bunch of mini-skirted Up Front patrons. And Show Me the Pink just gave them the opportunity.
"Beach Cruising Crew," the last track on the band's Chainsaw Records debut, Velocipedomania, features a sassy, group-yelling, call-and-response chorus that brings to mind, of all things, Run-DMC's "Get Tricky." That might sound ironic, but when WW caught up with group founder Noelle Archibald, she, while breastfeeding her infant daughter, Starlet, insisted, "It's not a parody. That's really us. That's exactly what we're like."
Formed three years ago in Richmond, Va., SMTP now calls Portland home and performs as a sextet consisting of bass, Casios, a three-piece drum kit and everyone singing at once—including the audience. "People [in the audience] seem to enjoy that side," says singer-keyboardist Emilina Dissette of the group-vocals approach. "They shout along. It's an interactive band."
SMTP excels at putting on a sweaty, almost overwhelmingly rowdy live show. When they played at Porky's last April, the small, stageless, North Lombard Street venue exceeded capacity and people were crowd-surfing—on a surfboard ripped down from the wall of the bar.
Unfortunately, the formula that helps SMTP put on a brilliant live show didn't help the band make a very good album. At times, the vocals on Velocipediomania are almost cacophonous, and as the low, distorted keyboards drone past the four-minute mark on the group's "Anthem," I begin to get a little weary without some piece of cyclist ass to booty-dance with.
To be fair, SMTP doesn't harbor any illusions about having made the album of the year; members acknowledge that what they've made is similar to "a really good live recording" or "sort of like a demo." The only exception is "Most wantEd boy in The RoOm," a track that recalls Gravy Train's "Sippin' 40z." With siren lines like "Wrap it in plastic and load me like a dumptruck," it's hilarious from beginning to end.
Connections to cyclist and activist groups across the country made booking a national tour for this spring easy for SMTP (yes, Starlet is coming, too). On the road, after the live shows, Velocipedomania will be like an artifact left by a stranger who drifts in and out of a small town. It won't re-create the experience, but it will prove it wasn't a dream. JASON SIMMS.
Show Me the Pink plays at Porky's. 9 pm. Cover. 21+.
Chevron Feb 1 at Towne Lounge
Why do ya' build me up, Chevron, baby, just to let me down?
[JITTERY MATH ROCK] One of the first things that caught my eye walking into the comfortably crowded Towne Lounge Wednesday was the back of one enthusiastic audience member's T-shirt: It read, "Building Momentum." The phrase couldn't have been more apt.
Unlike listening to a lot of instrumental bands, taking in Chevron's performance is a completely active exercise. While it would be easy to focus on the ridiculously talented drummer, your ears are also simultaneously dealing with a dual guitar onslaught of crunchy, Fugazi-esque riffs and face-melting, melodic licks that occasionally reach out and grab you for one captivating moment before tossing you back into the mess. You'd almost think—with all the complicated time-signature changes and free-form interplay—that these guys are showoffs, except they hardly acknowledge the audience, or each other. It's as if they're playing some sort of math-rock video game where the most complicated song structure wins.
The problem with Chevron's intricate wall of sound is that, once it was built, the band dropped us over the edge like bad first dates with no kiss at the door. Heads were a-boppin', feet were a-tappin' and, then, suddenly, you're rushing to finish your beer in a rapidly emptying bar. It felt like a tease, but then again, this kind of complex rock might make your head explode if you listen to it—or play it—for too long. AMY MCCULLOUGH.
Sounds like Fun Ice Cream and the Sun (self-released)
Local trio hits the fun button, and you get the treat.
[POP] When judging Sounds Like Fun's debut, Ice Cream and the Sun, it is crucial to understand your own willingness to accept happiness into your life. Here's a test. Read the following line from "Let's Have Fun" and react honestly: "Let's play in the sun/ Let's have fun and dance and sing and make believe that all our hopes and dreams and wishes we'll achieve/ Ya/ Let's have fun." Did you gag? Now, let's rewrite the song as "Sounds Like Hell": "Let's burn in the sun/ Let's tote guns and a lance and sting and realize what a world of dopes and screams and misses we've achieved/ Nay/ Let's be done." Is that a Joy Division song? No, but if it were, it might be lauded as a complex dissection of a disturbed psyche, although it only took me two minutes to write.
So Sounds Like Fun is at a severe disadvantage here, simply for being well-adjusted, unabashedly joyful and brilliantly poppy in a world where depression reigns. The album's leadoff track, "Everyone Knows" has one of the trio (they all sing, and quite well) declaring that "we cannot escape this thing," which could spell doom, although I think he's talking about love. There is a touch of existential inquiry in "What Are You Going To Do?"—but then again, with the line "It's all ready for the making/ It's all ready for the taking," it sounds like the band is choosing between chocolate and vanilla. But, really, who cares? These songs hark back to great pop songwriters like Billy Joel, the Beach Boys and the Beatles. The result is a series of Pavlovian triggers to happiness, namely three-part harmonies, sugar hooks and a thumping percussion. So, yes, it sounds like fun, and no, you don't have to listen to it, you miserable son of a bitch. MARK BAUMGARTEN.
Sounds Like Fun plays with Dat'r and Spy Island, Sunday, Feb. 12, at Doug Fir. 9 pm. Free. 21+.
Parks & Recreation plays with Isolade and Tea for Julie at Berbati's Pan. 9:30 pm. $6. 21+.
Show Me the Pink plays at Porky's. 9 pm. Cover. 21+.
Sounds Like Fun plays with Dat'r and Spy Island, Sunday, Feb. 12, at Doug Fir. 9 pm. Free. 21+.
WWeek 2015