Thursday, April 8
VANGUARD PICK
Festfest Day 1 featuring Wet Confetti, Pseudosix, Chevron, The Last Regiment, Mines, Modernstate, Sex With Girls is Rad, DJ Tan’t
Berbati’s Pan
$8
The first annual Festfest, a showcase of local independent music, art and film, opens at Berbati’s. The cup of your musical enjoyment will most surely runneth over with this blast of West coast indie favorites and Sex With Girls is Rad, again. They seem to keep busy, don’t they? In any case, this is a total blowout for pretty cheap, and you can pick up wristbands at Jackpot Records for a measly 12 dollars, guaranteeing you multiple nights of merriment.
Friday, April 9
VANGUARD PICK
Modest Mouse, Brent Arnold and the Spears, The Triumph of Lethargy
Crystal Ballroom
9 p.m.
$16, $18 door
Wow! More multiple-night action, this time featuring everyone’s sweethearts, Modest Mouse. Not only are they playing two back to back shows (!!!) their new album came out on the 6th. Now you can work yourself into a Modest Mouse frenzy by listening to it on your wanky second hand stereo, and then having it blow your hair off your head courtesy of the Crystal’s awesome sound system.
John Wesley Harding
Crystal Ballroom
7:30 p.m.
$12, 21+
John Wesley Harding is pretty much what you’d expect from his name, a Dylan-hugging folkophile who shoots Nick Drake into his veins with a gentle acoustic needle.
“Enter The Dragon”
Clinton St. Theater
9:30 p.m.
Fuck all that Jet Li, Chow Yun Fat digital flying matrix kick nonsense. Now, I’m not saying that I don’t enjoy that (or didn’t the first time I saw it,) but Bruce Lee was the real thing. If you aren’t familiar with Bruce, then this movie is the perfect starting point for your introduction to one of the baddest mothers in history.
Puppetry Of The Penis
Aladdin Theater
6 p.m.
$35
Although this performance has drawn critical acclaim and garnered itself a total of six nights at the Aladdin this month, I’m willing to bet that you could take $5 and find someone downtown willing to shake their wang in strange ways for your viewing pleasure. And that leaves you $30 to buy two gallons of rotgut vodka, which will make your $5 show more entertaining than anything you’ll see at the theater.
Sunset Valley, The Minders, Durango Park
Dante’s
10 p.m.
$8, $10 door, 21+
I can’t speak for Sunset Valley, but the Minders’ super British sounding guitar pop rules ass, and when I saw Durango Park open for the Dandy Warhols I got so bored that I had to leave, despite their relative popularity around town. Sunset Valley has a reputation for clever, quirky, crazy pop, however, which sounds pretty good on paper.
The Sounds, The Vue
Roseland
9 p.m.
21+
The Sounds play dancey Swedish punk that sounds like it caught the first new wave out of the ’80s. Yes, I know it sounds like a tired formula these days, but this band also has the added bonus of being strangely attractive, in a somewhat deformed and angular way.
Festfest Day 2 featuring Blackbird Red, The Dead Science, Andrew Kaffer, Nice Nice, Jonny X and The Groadies, Xiu Xiu, Totimoshi, Point Line Plane
Nocturnal
6 p.m.
More Festfest action, this time with two-piece noise outfit Nice Nice, who rocked me pretty thoroughly when I saw them play with Panther at some long-ago ArtixFest. Now they’re here at another strangely-named Fest, and they brought another shred-tacular duo with them, Point Line Plane, who wield guitar, synth and drums, forming them into catchy no-wave noise rock assaults. This is definitely the best day of Festfest, with some of Portland’s best representing.
My Goldfish Ned, The Civies, Woke Up Falling
Twilight Cafe
A night of good-times rock at the Twilight, despite the cheesiness of the names.
“Tino Does Time”
El Centro Milagro
525 S.E. Stark
$10
This play concerns the exploits of Tino, a freewheeling rebel who gets arrested by a cop who has the hots for his straight-edge sister. Not only that, but awesome restaurant Mucho Grande is catering the opening night reception on opening night, which is the 9th.
Saturday, April 10
Festfest Day 3 Featuring Marysville Marimba Band, The Black Peppercorns, Gonken, Talkdemonic, The Grails, Amber Asylum, The Lights
Nocturnal
Festfest concludes with a third blowout, still excellent but without the awesome triple Portland attack of Nice Nice, Xiu Xiu, and Point Line Plane.
Tiger Army, The Business, F-Minus
Roseland
American psychobilly, UK street punk, and F-Minus collide in what seems at first to be a pretty decent rock show. But the whole mohawk punk posturing thing is so fucking tiresome after a while, it almost makes me mad just to see a mohawk at all. And I’m sure there will be tons of them at this concert.
VANGUARD PICK
Magic Night
Backspace
6 p.m.
$2 W/Cards
Come on, drop the cool pose. You know Magic was and is the coolest card game around. The pictures? Awesome, plain and simple. Don’t forget, either, about how well it goes with Yes or marijuana. So dig out your decks, if you still have them, and see if you can remember the weird rules about tapping mana, and flex your Magic muscles with some people who are probably a lot better at Magic than you.
Modest Mouse, Brent Arnold and The Spears, The Triumph of Lethargy
Crystal Ballroom
9 p.m.
$16, $18 door
The Triumph of Lethargy’s packing Spencer Moody of the Murder City Devils. I hope they’re really lethargic, or else I would be offended. I mean, don’t talk the talk when there’s real lethargic people like me out there to call you on it. I always had that Moody pegged as a more energetic guy, but I guess I could be wrong.
Sunday, April 11
Meatjack, YOB, Authority Fights Majority
Berbati’s Pan
$6, 21+
If you read the calendar with any regularity, I don’t need to tell you that you should go see YOB. I think I’ve made that clear already. I do, however, have to laud the grossly named Meatjack, for their melodic, yet simultaneously dense, heavy, riffing, pummeling attack. So if you can look past their name, there’s a lot to like.
Kites, Hair Police, Prurient, D Yellow Swans and Smegma
Meow Meow
8 p.m.
$5
I wish there really was a hair police. I see far too many people that look like total fools because of their crappy haircut. That’s why not getting one is the way for me. Anyways, Smegma is a punk institution around here. They played hella shows with the Wipers back in the day, and the fact that they still are around is pretty impressive too. Not only are they going to be in this $5 show, but Kites’ man-machine duo and Hair Police’s action-noise rock are prominently featured.
Monday, April 12
Metric
Music Millennium Northwest
6 p.m.
Although you may not have heard so much about Metric as you have about their roommates who went on to form the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and the Liars, but Metric leans more toward the electro-pop and less toward the New Yorky art rock. Also, this concert is free and less than a block from my apartment, which makes me glad I live in this hellish neighborhood.
Tuesday, April 13
The Offspring, International Noise Conspiracy, The Start
Roseland
8 p.m.
The Offspring … not so hot. The other bands are pretty good though, and worth checking out if you want to pay 25 bucks, which I’m betting you don’t.
VANGUARD PICK
David Bowie, The Polyphonic Spree
Rose Garden
7 p.m.
$47-$73
Ah, ultra-wankers The Polyphonic Spree. How they fill me with rage. Seize the day? God only knows what I’m missing? I’m about as inspired as I would be by a high school guidance counselor in the depths of a introspective, self-loathing acid trip. And that whole robe thing? Creepily cultish. There’re more tools in that band than there are at Home Depot. What was Bowie thinking?
Jodie Marston, Peace Harbor
Red and Black Caf퀌�
7 p.m.
Singer-songwriter Jodie Marston plays hallucinatory, spare country-folk melodies, sometimes backed with good old electric guitar. A good bet if you don’t want to crowd into an arena to see the sappiest band ever open for a rock god, but I don’t know that you don’t want to do that. I wouldn’t, but I’m not you.
-The Calendar Boy