Skip to main contentIlyas Ahmed Wednesday, Nov. 15
Portland's Pakistani folk-import gives new dimensions to gloomy Americana.
[fog folk] Ilyas Ahmed has been in Portland for only eight months. He arrived from Minnesota by way of Seattle on the hunt for a gentler culture, knowing Portland's music scene only by way of Jackie-O Motherfucker. Jackie-O's glimmering psychedelia, "record everything" philosophy and collective nature couldn't have defined Ahmed—or his introduction into Portland's musical landscape—better. Two seasons here have already found him part of two collaborations, one with Grouper—with whom he's been touring over the past month—and the other with Tara Jane O'Neil. In less than two years he's released six albums. Record everything.
Recording everything doesn't mean albums of blindfolded jams. It means, in this case, six albums of refined output, further refined thanks to the benefits of CD-R culture. It's a way of releasing music that Ahmed values far more than the widespread dissemination of "real" CDs. It's the value of "not feeling like you're a commodity," something to be bought and sold. Instead, Ahmed wants his batches of 50 or 200 hand-packaged discs to be "art objects" before they're objects of commerce.
Listening now to last year's Between Two Skies, I can't help but think that even in a batch of a half-million, the disc would resist any role in the commercial "system." Ahmed makes the sort of hypnotizing liquid folk music that sketches interconnecting lines between the listener and a world of "things." It's an improvised body of formless vocal drifts and breezes, picked guitar wanderings, harmonium drones and subtle percussion. It carries the sense of traditional folk music—diffused into atmospheric waves of old Americana and veiled tragedy.
Ahmed's music is almost uniformly somber, and the Pakistan-born musician is unwilling to take us into the specifics. The title of Between Two Skies hints at a cultural tear, but beyond that we have little besides the fact that Ahmed made a toddler-age transition from the Asia-subcontinent to the United States' largest suburb, New Jersey. Two vastly different skies indeed.
—MICHAEL BYRNE.
Ilyas Ammed plays with Jack Rose and Peter Walker, Wednesday, Nov. 15, at Rotture. 9 pm. Cover. 21+. Ilyas Ahmed also performs with Birch Book and Katherine Heilesen Sunday, Nov. 19, at Theater! Theatre! 8 pm. $8. All ages.
Mike Coykendall, Friday Nov. 11
How one of Americana's main men lost his twang and got freaky.
[PSYCH-FOLK] Besides leading alt-country's Old Joe Clarks through the late '90s, singer/guitarist Mike Coykendall has accomplished a helluva lot since moving here from 'Frisco in 1999. He's produced several albums for artists whose impact reaches far beyond Portland—such as M. Ward and Richmond Fontaine—and also released his own hushed, effects-laden solo debut, Hello Hello Hello, last year. More recently, Coykendall (pronounced "Kirkendall") released a self-titled acoustic EP to offer audiences while on a world tour with Ward (Coykendall plays guitar and bass in Ward's band). WW recently chatted with the songwriter over coffee near his Hawthorne home.
—JEFF ROSENBERG.
WW: How does it differ, writing for your band versus solo?
Mike Coykendall: When I wrote a band song, I'd work very hard to make it as perfect as I could; then we'd learn it together. Alone, I can be more sporadic, lazy, experimental. If I sat down and played some of those [solo] songs on acoustic guitar, they wouldn't sound that great. But they're more recording pieces than songs.
It seems to me that, even vocally, you sound different solo than fronting the Clarks; with them, you were almost presenting a character.
Well, I grew up in rural Kansas, so I have an honest connection to that rural thing. But I grew up on Johnny Cash and Syd Barrett; Barrett, John Lennon, the Beatles—not very Kansas kind of music. With the Old Joe Clarks, I was not letting in that side at all. Now, I can let in the freaky shit.
So, your "Blue Rooms" studio is actually your home?
Yeah, it's pretty low-key. It's literally a house, with a lot of instruments and microphones. It's left like an attic—not real pro, but it works.
You record to tape?
Yeah, digital recording isn't as easy. A computer might give me a weird error message and I won't know what to do. The tape machine doesn't do that.
Do you have a favorite among the albums you've recorded?
The M. Ward projects, because you never know what'll happen. It's a different challenge every day, and you can get way outside the box. I mean: "On this, use your crappiest mic." You don't get that request very often.
Mike Coykendall plays Mississippi Studios with Chris Robley and Chad Bault Friday, Nov. 17, at 10 pm. $7. 21+.
Cleveland Steamers Friday, Nov. 17
A seemingly immature hip-hop duo proves itself way grown up.
[HIP-HOP] Despite the shock value laden in the Cleveland Steamers' name (Google at your own risk), this hip-hop duo clearly doesn't embrace the party-all-the-time aesthetic its name represents. Instead of fecal debasement, Gen.Erik (Erik Abel) and Mic Crenshaw rap regularly, and in a lot of depth, about the steady erosion of civil liberties in the U.S., the shallowness of mainstream rap and (occasionally) the horror of underground hip-hop groupies.
I met with the Steamers for an election-night drink at Salvador Molly's on Belmont, where CNN's headline read "DEMS WIN HOUSE" on a television above the door—news we reacted to with similarly guarded optimism. We settled into couches and ordered drinks with funny names. I brought up the group's ill-fitting moniker and learned that its origins come from an early Steamers hook about "getting shit off your chest," something both Crenshaw and Erik do very well—especially on the group's new album, Treasure Chest. That title, Erik said, "has a lot of meanings. A lot of art is about money, but our ultimate goal isn't living beyond our means, it is to live off music." "I want to live within my means," Crenshaw added.
This struggle is well-represented on Treasure Chest. "We believe we're better off 'cause we can have some shit," Crenshaw admits on "Fists High," the album's opening track. Gen.Erik takes the honest sentiment and rolls with it, adding "We've become desensitized/ Avoid homeless like the plague/ I myself have been known to evade/ I want to change but it's a task/ I can't afford spare change for everyone who asks." The lines are delivered in stark verbal contrast to one another, but it's the interplay between Crenshaw's inflective baritone and Erik's natural, front-free flow that makes the Steamers' sound so engaging.
While lyrically compelling throughout, the quality of production on Treasure Chest is somewhat uneven. While most of the album's tracks are fleshed out and lush, others sound straight-outta-the-laptop. "The Decider," for example, kicks off with an organic, Tribe Called Quest-sounding bass line, only to give in to some low-rent woodwind synths. The track's lyrical meat, though—creative sampling of George W. Bush that creates a twisted press conference with the Steamers—distracts well from its sonic shortcomings.
"Last call," the bartender hollered. We packed up, taking one last peek at CNN on the way out. As we hit the street, I brought up the unexpected ending to "Brother," a skit where Mic Crenshaw channels a well-meaning-but-totally-racist homeless guy asking for change. Despite the character's repeated faux pas, the Steamers end the track with the sound of coins landing in a cup. Crenshaw shrugs it off, but as I walk away, I can't help thinking that this group is about a lot more than its name would ever imply.
—CASEY JARMAN.
The Cleveland Steamers celebrate the release of Treasure Chest with Boom Bap Project, Sleep, Siren's Echo, Santotzin and DJ Wicked, Friday, Nov. 17, at Berbati's Pan. 9:30 pm. $7. 21+.
Laura Gibson If You Come To Greet Me (Hush)
Amid an icy landscape, Gibson offers a toasty voice to warm your ears by.
[WINTER FOLK] Some albums are intrinsically linked to certain times of year, and—even though WW received a rough copy of Laura Gibson's If You Come to Greet Me back in July—it was clear even during those oppressively hot days that the local folkstress had channeled a Northwestern winter on her achingly beautiful debut. The album art depicts a lonely bird perched among bare-branched trees, and the gray-washed scene offers a fitting introduction to songs that feel like walking among falling leaves or holing up during rainy days and nostalgically fingering old photo albums. As if Gibson kept in mind the equanimity Portland demands during winter months, If You Come To Greet Me exhibits beauty in patience.
On the opening track, "This Is Not the End," Gibson uses thoughtful vocal pauses to draw listeners in—every line acts as a welcome tease, each word as bait for the next. Likewise, Gibson's careful plucking of her classical guitar and the album's soft, sweeping arrangements—expertly played by such notables as Norfolk & Western's Adam Selzer and Rachel Blumberg, Horse Feathers' Peter Broderick, Desert City Soundtrack's Cory Gray and Dolorean's Al James—create a tapestry of sonic longing. "Hands In Pockets," the album's most upbeat, outwardly catchy song, is perhaps the only time light breaks clearly through the clouds: Crisp trumpet, shuffling drums and bright piano set the mood as Gibson hopefully sings, "Tell me the season's almost over"; her refrain, however, sets the mood: "I-I-I can wait."
Taking listeners right back into the cold, "Nightwatch" is laden with a ghostly musical saw that whistles like a brisk wind throughout the song. But Gibson counters her album's melancholy folk arrangements with vocals that are as wise as they are warm. It's only on "The Longest Day," when Gibson pleads, "Don't leave me now/ In my darkest hour/ As the longest day/ Turns night" over ringing vibraphone, that her lovely, breaking alto denies listeners the quiet assuredness that inhabits the rest of the album. For the most part, Gibson's stories—"Small Town Parade" playfully weaves a speculative fairy tale about creating a simpler existence, while "Country, Country" glorifies a hard-but-rewarding pastoral life—are charmingly winsome despite their often somber, contemplative nature. They're the stuff of daydreaming and wondering, remembering and yearning—things Portland's painfully wet winter months accommodate perfectly.
—AMY MCCULLOUGH.
Laura Gibson celebrates the release of If You Come to Greet Me with Loch Lomond and Nick Jaina Sunday, Nov. 19, at the Doug Fir. 9 pm. $6. 21+.
Various Artists Club 21, Fuck Yeah! (Self-Released)
The Punk Group hearts Club 21, and they've got the un-shitty comp to prove it.
[ROCK] "I don't think Portland's ever had anything like this," explains Brian Applegate over a recent happy-hour beer at Club 21—that funny little bar just off Sandy Boulevard that looks like a ski lodge for elves. "General comps are shitty. This one is unique because it's about a specific place." Best known as one half of Portland's Devo-rocking satirists the Punk Group, Applegate has managed to buck prevailing wisdom by shepherding into existence a comp CD that—get this—does not suck. Club 21, Fuck Yeah! collects 21 original songs about Club 21, as written and performed by musicians who drink there, a lot.
The concept was inspired by one tightly written, cheeky little track on the Punk Group's 2005 full-length, Rock Off and Fuck On, titled "Judy, Judy," which pays endearing tribute to Club 21's popular Wednesday-evening (Dollar Pabst Night) bartender, Judy. That song quickly had its namesake gushing and her regulars talking: What if they did a whole record of Club 21 songs? This summer, Applegate seized the idea and began circulating "invitations" to submit to his project. "Some of these bands, I told it to 'em one day, two days later they had a finished product," Applegate says. Indeed, enthusiasm sparks throughout this collection of cleverly written and extremely varied songs. There's everything from gnashing hard rock (Lopez's "Requiem for a Drink") to gimmicky synth (Hello Lobster's "Deep Fryer's On!") to spartan post-punk (Die Fuckitos' "I'm a Drunk, I Love It") to over-driven roots rock (Pure Country Gold's "Sittin' in Club 21"). Sleeping Aurora's dreamy instrumental, "2-2 1 Interlude," crackles softly with actual conversation recorded in Club 21, while Diamond Tuck and the Privates sound nothing less than epic with their sweeping butt-rocker, "Sandy Boulevard." The catalyst for this project, and the only previously released song on the CD, "Judy, Judy," is included, as well as an additional Punk Group song, the live-recorded "Hagatron."
If anything, this comp drives home the themes that drinking at Club 21 is seedy, good fun, and Judy is wonderful (almost half these songs sing her praises). And the album is certainly a labor of love: The production was paid for collectively by the bands, but only 100 copies were originally pressed, making the disc tough to come by. The comp, which came out Oct. 17, is currently available via email through the Punk Group's website (thepunkgroup.com) and retail at Everyday Music. I'd advise hitting the EM at 1931 NE Sandy Blvd., then rolling over to Club 21 for a drink. Preferably on a Wednesday night.
—SAM SOULE.
To read more about dollar beers, Judy and why last week's listening party was NOT held at Club 21, keep your eye on LocalCut.com.
WWeek 2015