Posts from — May 2009

One of Portland’s hardest working bands, Destroy Nate Allen kick off their cross-country 160 date tour with a farewell show at The Coop on June 12th.   

Having spent much of the past four years on the road, the tour will see DNA cross the 500 show mark. Along the way they have developed a knack for bringing people together and leading complete strangers into spirited sing-a-longs. Destroy Nate Allen is the kind of band that must be experienced live. You never know what they’ll do next. Be prepared to walk away with a little more joy in your heart and songs stuck in your head.

Nate and Tessa will be touring basements, bars and backyards across the US to support two new full lengths they will be self-releasing on one CD this June. One full length will showcase Nate and Tessa at their rocking best. The second full length will feature Nate playing stripped down folk songs on his great grandfather’s banjo.

The “Cut and Paste” tour will include over 160 dates in nearly all fifty states.

Info:

Destroy Nate Allen with:  800 Octane, Absent Minds, Bill Skins Fifth Will Punch You Right In The Face, We Play Quiet, The Seditionists

Friday, June 12, 2009 7pm

The Coop

535 N. Lombard Portland, OR

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wabmtDh3n-E]

Rock ‘n’ Roll ain’t pretty and neither is Scott H. Biram. The self proclaimed ‘Dirty Old One Man Band’ successfully, and sometimes violently, lashes together blues, hillbilly and country precariously to raucous punk and godless metal.

Biram ain’t no candy-ass singer/songwriter either, sweetly strumming songs about girls with big eyes and dusty highways. HELL NO!!! His singing, yodeling, growling, leering and brash preachin’ and hollerin’ is accompanied by sloppy riffs and licks from his 1959 Gibson guitar and pounding backbeat brought forth by his amplified left foot. The remainder of this one-man band consists of an unwieldy combination of beat-up amplifiers and old microphones strung together by a tangled mess of guitar cables.

Years of non-stop touring have honed his assault to a fine edge; his wide-eyed throw downs in the First Church of Ultimate Fanaticism routinely lead giddy followers to a fiery baptism. Scott H. Biram won’t die. On May 11th, 2003, one month after being hit head-on by an 18-wheeler at 75 MPH, he took the stage at The Continental Club in Austin, TX in a wheel chair – I.V. still dangling from his arm. With 2 broken legs, a broken foot, a broken arm and 1 foot less of his lower intestine, Biram unleashed his trademark musical wrath.

When Scott H. Biram took the stage at his 2004 SXSW festival showcase right after Kris Kristofferson he was quoted as growling “They said that was a hard act to follow….I’m a hard act to follow motherfuckers!!” The stunned crowd looked on.

LINK: http://www.scottbiram.com/

PRESS: Houston Press / Bloodshot

MP3/Download: Scott H. Biram – Sinkin Down
MP3/Download: Scott H. Biram – Judgement Day

Doug Fir Lounge
Monday, June 1st
SCOTT H. BIRAM
plus CICADA OMEGA
and DRY COUNTY CROOKS
Time: 9PM / Tix: $10 adv / $12 dos
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkbDX_nP9Yg]

Biology says: That people who live at high altitudes must develop physiological adaptations to the decreased amount of oxygen available in order to maintain homeostasis. The list of adaptations includes a heart that is proportionally larger thanthat of a person living at sealevel Michael Nau and Whitney McGraw have hearts huge, questioning hearts full of music that mixes elements of soul, rock and gospel into a gauzy cocoon of smalltownsound.

It began as the Basket Ride, a few years ago, when the idea began to come to a head. Then, without intent, Cotton Jones became the core. A new flexibility comes from a new name. These days Nau is making music very differently than he did in Page France. The original paranoia that haunted him has dropped off. ‘This feels like a new leaf to me. I’ve learned to let the music happen, rather than trying to invent something,’ says Nau, ‘I’m still sifting through someimaginary thesis, but it makes more sense now.’

The result of his personal revelation is Paranoid Cocoon: the debut fulllength for Suicide Squeeze. It’s an album full of quiet, wooden psychedelia that reflects the duos’ casual pursuit of comfort and freedom under the mountains of Cumberland, Maryland, where creeks zigzag in the lonesome dark of the forest, and a red moon hangs overhead. These are songs of leaving, of dreams both good and bad, sung from surroundings they’ve known their whole lives. In ‘By Morning Light,’ Nau and McGraw’s voices draw each other out of a contemplative melancholy and into a state of amazed gratification; the music here shimmers, always the snaredrum cracks against the tug of the guitar reaching the sublime crush of Yo La Tengo’s ‘And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out.’ It’s simple, understated perfection: they soundtimeless from singing together forever.

Shake me up, shake me up, shake me up, shake me up… I’ve gotta get to something new… Gotta move, gotta move, gotta move… gotta get on outta here… According to Nau, ‘There’s no intentional theme behind these songs. Cocoon didn’t span a lengthy duration of time, so headspace and moods tended to remain threadlike throughout. I believe there’s a familiar mood from start to finish…the lyrics work like visuals of such moods.’

LINK: http://www.myspace.com/thecottonjonesbasketride

PRESS: Paste / BableMusic / Elbows

MP3/Download: Cotton Jones – Gotta Cheer Up
MP3/Download: Cotton Jones – Blood Red Sentimental Blues

Doug Fir Lounge
Saturday, May 30
Cotton Jones
+ Or, the Whale
+ Hey Marseilles
Doors at 8pm, Show at 9pm / $8 advance, $8 day of show
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YiVPgcjPj9c]

The very adorable and ridiculously talented Jenny Lewis has released her new a solo album, titled Acid Tongue, on Warner Bros last September. This will be the follow-up to her utterly brilliant 2006 album Rabbit Fur Coat (Team Love). The album announcement came just weeks after Jenny wrapped a world wide tour in support (of her main band) Rilo Kiley’s Under The Blacklight album.

Some of Lewis’ most steadfast collaborators appear on Acid Tongue: Johnathan Rice, Farmer Dave Scher (erswhile member of Beachwood Sparks and current Interpol live keyboardist), Jason Boesel, Jason Lader and the lovely M.Ward. She also invited other notable musician friends into the fold, including Elvis Costello for a duet (a 2006 live favorite: “Carpetbaggers”), Chris Robinson (of The Black Crowes), Benji Hughes, Zooey Deschanel (of She & Him) & Vanessa Corbala (of Whispertown2000) on backing vocals, Paz Lenchantin (A Perfect Circle & Press Here favorite The Entrance Band) and her sister Ana provided strings, Davey Faragher (of The Imposters) on bass, as well as Laurel Canyon’s own Jonathan Wilson on guitar, and even members of Jenny’s own family. Her sister Leslie Lewis provided backing vocals on two songs while her father, harmonica virtuoso Eddie Gordon makes a star turn on something called a “bass harp”.

The all analog, no Pro-Tools sessions were all part of a shared aesthetic between Lewis, her producers, and her musician collaborators, working quickly and tracking her vocals entirely live and without embellishment. Recorded at Sound City Studios in Van Nuys, California in just 3 weeks.

LINK: http://www.jennylewis.com/

PRESS: Paste / MachineGunFunk / Blurt

MP3/Download: Jenny Lewis – Jack Killed Mom
MP3/Download: Jenny Lewis – The Next Messiah

Roseland Theater
Jenny Lewis
+ The Sadies
Saturday, May 30th
Time: 9PM / Tix: $17.50
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Z-e7XYW1Qk]

Meiko is one of the most promising singer-songwriters to emerge from the Los Angeles music scene in recent years. Counting among her influences artists as diverse as Patty Griffin, Sade, and Portishead, Meiko has managed to create songs of sweet disquiet that are all her own.

In early 2007, Meiko performed at the Sundance Film Festival and caught the ear of Paste Magazine editor Josh Jackson, who boldly declared her a “big success story” waiting to happen; predicting it was “only a matter of time” before she found her way onto Nic Harcourt’s influential “Morning Becomes Eclectic” radio program on KCRW. It was a prognostication that proved especially prophetic, as just a few months later Meiko’s music became a staple of L.A. radio station playlists.

Raised by her dad in their humble hometown of Roberta, Georgia (pop. 808), Meiko first stepped in front of an audience at the tender age of eight, singing “White Christmas” for parishioners of an all-Black Southern Baptist church. In the years that followed she performed everywhere from talent shows to Little League baseball parks. When she wasn’t performing, she was practicing – spending countless hours singing into the family’s clothes dryer. “Great acoustics,” she insists.

Before long she found herself bitten by the songwriting bug and enlisted the help of her dad – a talented back-porch musician who taught her how to play guitar on his old Gibson six-string. When she was thirteen, he bought her one of her own. A flood of songs followed. “As soon I as learned a new chord,” she says, “I wrote a new song.

LINK: http://www.meikomusic.com

PRESS: Wiki / LetsSingIt

MP3/Download: Meiko – Under My Bed
MP3/Download: Meiko – Reasons To Love You

Doug Fir Lounge
MEIKO
plus BUDDY
Wednesday May 27
Doors at 8pm, Show at 9pm / $12 advance/day of show
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHveHULdv78]

Lots of news from the PDX Pop Now! camp this week.  Yesterday we reported on the lineup for the big compilation release benefit show on June 4th at Holocene.  Today the organization unveils the full track listing for said compiliation.