CULTUREPHILE: PORTLAND ARTS - May 2010

Between Theater and Bar

Two comedic productions span the gap.

Posted by: Anne Adams on May 31, 2010 at 08:00AM 2 Comments

Drink in the drama.

This last Sunday and Wednesday, I went to the theater—or, rather, I went to bars that were hosting theater productions. And I learned that these are not the same thing. Bar-hosted theater inhabits the hazy badlands between regular theater, where actors have something to prove and everybody feels their pain, and your neighborhood bar, where you’ve got nothing to prove, and everybody knows your name. Can the difference be split? Audience turnout and enthusiasm say “yes.”

Hot Gun is a multimedia musical/movie screening, featuring footage from the 1986 blockbuster Top Gun, with the floating heads of actors from the live production, edited into flight-scene close-ups. The projected footage is interspersed with live rock covers and choreographed dance numbers.

The MEthod by Lisa Wells, is a mock-self-help seminar, complete with name tags that diagnose personal mental maladies (“Hi, my name is Lonely”), a screening of a MEthod mock-infomercial, a tongue-in-cheek “keynote speech” and a slideshow. Last Sunday, the piece was presented as a split bill, with Wells running the first show, and the second act furnishing a mock-AA-confession, mock-dance therapy, and a mock-hypnotist. (Gee—mock much?)

Partially due to the logistical scope of each piece, both productions weighed in on the rowdier, sillier, sloppier side of theater standards. Both contained moments of confusion, stalls in momentum, flubs and messups. Nevertheless, in both rooms, the performers hammed valliantly, and the crowds went wild. Here’s the key: each of the bars that hosted these shows (Hot Gun, Dante’s; MEthod, The Woods) has a “scene.” You can say it ain’t so, but you’ll see the same people there all the time.* And in each case, the cast was down with the scene in the bar, as much as the scenes they were playing out onstage. They knew their audience—literally.

To be sure, there was some universal humor (Hot Gun’s delivery of the gayest original Top Gun lines, in the gayest possible way; Wells’ assertion that everyone can have a two million dollar home if they just ask the universe) but the laughs were loudest with the in-crowd. The novelty of seeing friends dressed funny, and/or comically incorporated into video footage, was the bulk of the fun.

Hot Gun director Jeffrey Wonderful (Chariots of Rubber, Rose City Rollers, Portland Organic Wrestling) was candid in his opening speech: “We don’t give a f**k what you think of this show,” he announced. “This is community theater.” Wells seemed more primed to court the public; she kept character throughout, and seemed to be workshopping glitches out of her show at a friends-only dress rehearsal, in preparation to go wider-scope in future performances.

But what does my week in bar theater mean to you, the consumer? Connoisseurs, consider it caveat emptor: this is gonzo, and only the bartender is there to serve you, so no toffee-nosed elitism will be tolerated. To make the most of bar-theater, adopt the “when in Rome” axiom. Show up a little late; you’ll still be early. Either bring friends, or make them. Laugh at all jokes, but first and foremost: drink.

*Full disclosure: post author sometimes moonlights as The Woods’ doorman. (In addition to this column, post author has many moonlight pursuits.)

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Tags: Theater

A Long Weekend

Do JUMP!, Rose Fest, and rock and roll for all ages

Posted by: Anne Adams on May 27, 2010 at 04:00PM 1 Comments

Portland pre-schoolers will adore the Dandy Warhols!

Sasquatch Music Festival
Every Memorial Day weekend, Sasquatch impresses a giant footprint into The Gorge, with a headliner-heavy lineup and a sprawling camporee. Though you’ll want to catch every act (Pavement, Massive Attack, Public Enemy!), you know you won’t. So try to make time—between jostling for water and shade—to root for your home scene. Nurses, Saturday, 2:25 PM, Yeti Stage; YACHT: Sunday, 7:30 PM, Rumpus Room; and Quasi, Monday, 3:25 PM, Bigfoot Stage

Do Varieté By DoJUMP!
With DoJUMP!, acrobatics come standard. But in its latest offering, feats of physicality are dispatched with an added flourish of classic carnivalia. The event promises jugglers, acrobats, aerialists—and the mysterious, ubiquitous “more.”

You Who, A Kids’ Rock Showcase
Thanks to this recurring Decemberist-curated kids’ variety show, Portland children get to rock before they can walk. (In fact, pre-toddlers get in free.) The last installment before a summer hiatus features The Dandy Warhols, a DJ Anjali bhangra dance party, and assorted guests.

Henry Rollins
Former Black Flag frontman and punk-rock straight-edge Spartan Henry Rollins, segued gradually in the late 80’s from rock into talk. More than 20 years later, he remains one of the most dynamic, compelling, comedic and incisive voices on the spoken-word stage.

Rose Festival
And finally, a late-breaking announcement from Captain Obvious: Rose Festival opens this weekend. If you aren’t planning to catch any specific events, you can always wander into the flurry of waterfront diversions. Rose Festival says, “You’re welcome,” for 100 years of treats, rides, and casual family fun.
 

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Tags: Events, Weekend Plans

F, why I?

A personal note from the new Culturephile.

Posted by: Anne Adams on May 26, 2010 at 06:00PM 5 Comments

“Culturephile.”

The name precedes me, as does this space’s status as a haven for arts-lovers. Walking in from the wings, mid second act, what can I bring?

Motivated self-starter with working knowledge of HTML. Check.

But beyond that, I want to offer experience and understanding—the ability to empathize for both artist and audience, because I’ve been both. Even here, in the critic’s chair, my role will be twofold: audience member for new local arts, and would-be entertainer, hoping to curry favor from Culturephile readers with a fluid flow of prose.

I don’t want to direct your attention to my personal arts endeavors, except to assure you that I have them, so I “get it.” I’ve been through the creative grind many times—from inception, through development, to delivery. Sometimes I’ve killed a room; sometimes I’ve killed the mood. Sometimes I’ve had all the supplies, and sometimes I’ve had to improvise. Trust me, I get it.

Does that suffice? Or should I share personal details too, so that my character is humanized? Very well: I live in in Inner Southeast, drink coffee constantly, and own as many vintage dresses, as there are weeks in the year. I’m honored that PM has tagged me for Culturephile, and I’m taking it so seriously that I have to laugh at myself. I’m often moved to tears by works of art, but I’m not overly sentimental—in fact, I constantly recalibrate my BS detector, just to be sure it steers me right.

I want you to benefit from my efforts. I want Culturephile to give you choices, but also to whisper some hints about what to look for, and whether to bother. I know you’re busy, and it’s for the value of your time, that I fritter away some of mine.

OK; I’ve made my case. Now I’m going to write more Culturephile. Please email me, and share comments. This is an experimental, interactive, post-modern piece. So I’ll be watching you, watch me.

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Tags: bio

Tonight: Many Hats Collaboration Fundraises For Rock Ballet

And here comes Holcombe Waller

Posted by: Anne Adams on May 26, 2010 at 12:00AM 1 Comments

Many Hats Collaboration, a small dance and theater company which counts among its directors choreographer Jessica Wallenfels (most recently of Gracie and the Atom), presents a fundraising concert tonight for an upcoming rock ballet, Find Me Beside You, scheduled to open in August. Along with some rumored preview skits is a varied musical bill, featuring bohemian folk, psychedelic dance rock, and the troubadour stylings of local folk singer and performance-art impresario Holcombe Waller. It’s an event that promises to highlight not only the pending production, but also Many Hats’ unprecedented knack for pulling a wide range of artistic expression from its tasteful chapeau. Tickets are $20 and can be purchased here.

Many Hats Collaboration Highlight Reel:

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Tags: Dance, ballet, musical

Gracie and The Atom

Catholic school musical thoroughly redeems itself

Posted by: Anne Adams on May 24, 2010 at 01:00PM 4 Comments

When I was 14, I went to a religious boarding school—and last week, I went back, via Artist Rep’s whip-smart and bittersweet Catholic schoolgirl musical, Gracie and The Atom.

But before I say more, a confession: I underestimated this play. As I skimmed the glowing local reviews, I thought maybe the Portland press was indulging longtime PDX musician and newly-minted playwright McKinley. I imagined Gracie actually playing out as a self-pitying Catholic Annie, with all of the hard knocks and none of the life—or, as a plaid-skirted, pubescent Britney Spears redux, flaunting forbidden fruit under a short hem. I now renounce my cynicism. And if my penance is convincing you to catch this winsome, uplifting play, then it’s a small price to pay.

Gracie and The Atom begins as a newly-parentless Gracie (Beth Sobo) stumbles into the auspices of Our Lady Of Peace, the aforementioned Catholic girls’ school. The story that unfolds, follows Gracie’s emotional trajectory through resistance and rebellion, to eventual acceptance and inclusion. (Mercifully, Sobo plays the lead role very straight, free of any hint of trivializing cuteness.) Meanwhile, all the other (slightly sillier) denizens of Our Lady, struggle to reconcile the tenets of faith with the principles of science. In the words of Gracie’s physics teacher, Sister Lidwina (Emily Beleele), “If atoms are made of mostly space, and everything we see is made out of atoms, we live in a world made of mostly nothing!”

The principles of physics, it turns out, are a rich and expansive source of metaphor. Comments about positive and negative charge, as well as energy, motion, and momentum, are interspersed in the dialogue both as physics lessons, and as winking hints at character motivation. The effect is sometimes goofy, as when the hormonally-charged Angela (Brooke Markham) passionately explains subatomic attraction; and sometimes heartrending, as when the grieving Gracie tremblingly confronts her father’s fate: “Once you burn a log in the fireplace, you can never unburn it.”

Though heavily cloaked in Catholic habit, Gracie ultimately makes an exuberantly agnostic statement—not merely accepting, but actually celebrating the fact that we live in a vast, unpredictable universe, and there’s much that we can’t possibly know.

If heady explorations of quantum theory threaten to bend your Sunday bonnet, not to worry: This show also delivers rollicking rock, touching ballads, girlish flouncing, sisterly solidarity, and a litany of innocent laughs. The acting and singing are brilliant, and the live band expertly and tastefully keeps pace. The minimal staging also provides a nice fluidity and intimacy, although a couple more lighting effects would be welcome (most notably, lightning to accompany thunderclaps during a storm scene).

One final thought: even though teen and tween girls were well-represented onstage, there were very few members of the Glee generation in the audience, and that seemed a shame. Just saying: If you have a yen to take a young female friend to a musical, Gracie And The Atom is bound to generate a positive reaction.

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Tags: Theater, science, musical

Cut and Paste

Van Sant and Warhol exhibitions expand

Posted by: Graham Bell on May 24, 2010 at 11:00AM 0 Comments

Boy and Girl 2010 is one of the photo collages by famed filmmaker Gus Van Sant on display at PDX Contemporary Art this month.

Cut-ups & One Step Big Shot
Polaroids in Portland and Eugene by Gus Van Sant and Andy Warhol

It seems to be a strangely interconnected summer for Northwest art galleries and museums.* Two venues have collaborated in spanning the I-5 corridor to bring the viewing public a richer experience. PDX Contemporary Art’s May exhibition, Cut-ups, features photographs digitally collaged by filmmaker and Portland aficionado Gus Van Sant, while the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art presents straight Polaroids by Van Sant and Andy Warhol along with film and print work in their exhibition One Step Big Shot.

Each comprised of multiple casting shots Van Sant has taken over the years, the images in Cut-ups invoke an uneasy link between their myriad subjects. The outlines and features of faces line up at times in a strange metamorphosis while in other spots the overlap is more jarring. A comment on the nature of the portrait and its relation to an individual identity, the works reference William S. Burroughs and Van Sant’s interest in re-contextualization.

At the JSMA, the eagerly-awaited pairing of Van Sant and Andy Warhol opened this weekend to much pomp and circumstance. Complete with live music from The Hugs and a photobooth, the masses of visitors were not disappointed. Presented in tidy rows, the Polaroids by both artists looked unassuming next to the larger photographic blowups and Warhol’s vivid prints. Each miniscule photograph is, however, a poignant example of the scrapbook-like nature of these pictures. And the emphasis on the instant film materials is one that is prominent in both artists’ work as well as the exhibition as a whole.

First meant as records of people and faces, the images at the JSMA form the basis for the works on view at PDX Contemporary Art. Each portrait is reworked from its humble beginnings to take on larger artistic concepts. “The collages by Van Sant,” posits Lawrence Fong, curator of American and Regional Art at the JSMA, “reconfigure the portrait with elements similar to Warhol’s use of blocks and swatches of color, gestural marks and drawing.”

And, although shows like One Step Big Shot may seem en vogue, this exhibition has been in planning since the JSMA received over 150 of Warhol’s original Polaroid and photographic prints in 2008 from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts as part of its “Legacy Program,” which has distributed similar portfolios to hundreds of other museums across the country.

“During the past year or two many of the other recipient art museums have been organizing exhibits of their Warhol prints, and this will continue,” notes Fong, “The other factor is the new ‘Impossible Project,’ the revival of Polaroid-type instant films.”

It’s definitely worth your while to head on down to Eugene for the companion exhibit to that at PDX. And while you’re there you can pick up a copy of the Nazraeli Press catalog with stunning reproductions of Van Sant’s works that have been so carefully spliced in Cut-ups.

*Seattle Art Museum Warhol/Cobain show; JSMA show; PDX; Warhol images at Reed College in “Scarecrow”

Full disclosure: In my off hours as a sensational arts blogger here at Portland Monthly, I also work for PDX Contemporary Art. And I used to work for the JSMA while I was in grad school at UO. You have been warned..

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Tags: Art, Photography

Wet Weekend Picks

Choreography, classical music, and campy antics

Posted by: Anne Adams on May 21, 2010 at 09:00AM 3 Comments

For this weekend’s entertainment itinerary, I submit four options. Two are fancy pants affairs, one is vinyl pants, and one’s a toga party. Choose what suits you!

Dance Coalition of Oregon
The Seraphic Society likes to get spooky. Mythobolus does it with masks. And the Rose City Rosettes prefer to just kick it when they can-can. Find out what’s on the horizon for local and regional dance at Blue Sky Concerts, a three-day, 28-company showcase hosted by the Dance Coalition of Oregon, that convenes tonight through Sunday at Interstate Fire House Cultural Center, inviting both dancers and the public to sample a smorgasbord of mood and movement.

Rose City Rosettes:

Seraphic Society:

American Feast
For his 90th birthday, Portland Youth Philharmonic composer/conductor emeritus Jacob Avshalomov gets to hear a live world-premier performance of his original composition, Chintimini Turns. (Mr. Holland’s Opus, anyone?) A tribute to another honoree, composer Ernest Bloch; and another world premier, Michael Valenti’s Story of An Hour, round out this three-course American Feast from the Portland Chamber Orchestra.

Wild Space a Go-Go
Rocky Horror meets Barbarella, and they “do it.” Well, not exactly—but with a lead character named Barbarette, a “mod” theme, and the musical stylings of live band Paris Orbitalis, look for just as much gender bending, vinyl flexing, and rocket-launching in this musical farce, as if they had.

Hercules vs Vampires
Do you like opera? Wait—hold that thought. OK, now throw in some ‘60s kitsch, bulging biceps, a big movie screen, buttery popcorn, and the bloodthirsty undead. C’mon, what’s not to love? Opera Theater Oregon and Filmusik’s rippling presentation of Hercules vs. Vampires, an epic clash of voice and film projection, closes tonight at the Hollywood Theater.

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Tags: Dance, Weekend Plans, music, Opera, vampire

Ketten Serious

This karaoke isn’t hokey

Posted by: Anne Adams on May 20, 2010 at 09:00AM 19 Comments

“I’m gonna try my best, but I didn’t realize it was Grammy night,” quips the man taking over the karaoke mic at the Woods in Sellwood. It’s an understandable reaction for an average joe testing his talents after a string of stellar performances.

The first time you visit a Baby Ketten Karaoke night, you might think you’re walking in on the night’s magic moment: that rare convergence of a great singer, an unexpected song, and the perfect mood in the room. “Wow,” you say. “I’m just in time. This has to be the highlight.” But when singer and song change over—it happens again. And again. After an onslaught of unique material and memorable performances, you begin to wonder: Is this really karaoke? Everyone seems so good.

Baby Ketten is not karaoke as you’ve known it, it’s karaoke as you’ve dreamed it. Wish for an obscure song? They’ve got it. Want something pitch-shifted into your range? Just say so. “We’ve even got a vocoder and an auto-tuner,” says Ketten KJ John Brophy, “for those special ‘Cher’ moments.”

It’s not surprising that these “by singers, for singers” features have attracted some of the local vocal elite. Pop into a Baby Ketten event, and you never know who might take the mic, as evidenced by this clip of Ritchie Young, lead singer of Loch Lomond, sporting beach shorts and covering Midnight Oil:

Baby Ketten’s star-friendly allure is no accident. Brophy, who has recently earned extra singing stripes as a frequent guest of Portland Cello Project , began spinning karaoke in 1997 after having avidly sung it since age 17 (“I got a fake ID just to sing,” he confesses). As his love of the medium expanded, so did his frustration. “I became disheartened with the absence of certain genres and bands that I grew up listening to. Every time I opened a songbook, I found myself hoping the songs I loved would magically appear, even though I knew they never would. Eventually, I had to make it happen.”

As a result, Ketten hoists a hefty songbook, which spans the gamut from late-breaking catalog rarities like Bat For Lashes and Passion Pit; to bona fide indie inspirations such as Bjork, Radiohead, and the Pixies; to influential songsmiths like Lee Hazelwood and Lou Reed. This week, Baby Ketten’s website introduces a song-search function, allowing you to remotely check the availability of your favorite song—ostensibly so you can practice up to “Grammy standards” in privacy, before bringing it to the BKK stage.

It’s finally time to say goodbye to karaoke disappointments and books full of moldy oldies. Baby Ketten is here to set your songbird free.

Baby Ketten hosts weekly events at various Portland venues. Visit the website for more details, or view an up-to-date schedule here. And keep practicing!

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Tags: Karaoke, Bar Culture, Live, bar, bars

The Gray Sisters

Do not sleep through this elegiac tour de force.

Posted by: Alexis Rehrmann on May 14, 2010 at 03:00PM 0 Comments

Photo: Ed Kavishe/Fashion Wire Press

Gretchen Corbett in The Gray Sisters now onstage at Third Rail Rep.

The lights went down at the World Trade Center Theater last night. In the half light onstage, four formidable actresses took their places onstage. The lights came up center stage and we are introduced to Sarah, a feisty, Indigo Girls worshiping, a college aged woman in mid-conversation with her dad.

And right then, 90 seconds into the elegantly paced 90 minute performance, the man behind me started to snore. There are two points to make about this, first, he was clearly in some sort of ailing health, and OLD, and didn’t mean to be rude.

Second, it seems a particular shame, because The Gray Sisters, a current production from Third Rail Repertory, is not something that you want to sleep through. The greatest strength of the play is a collective tour de force from these four Portland actresses.

Written by Craig Wright, The Gray Sisters was created specifically for Third Rail—the company has had a fruitful, Drammy-filled relationship with the playwright’s work, starting with their debut production of his play Recent Tragic Events—and this play was made in a collaborative process between the actresses and the playwright. The process pays off. Stephanie Gaslin, Maureen Porter, Valerie Stevens, and Gretchen Corbett, deliver—across the boards—the most centered, emotive, absolutely connected, and fully committed acting that I have seen onstage in Portland. It’s a treat to watch bare-boned craft, under good lighting, in the good company of an attentive audience (except the sleeping guy, but again, not his fault).

The Gray Sisters tells the story of four sisters who are bound together by family history and a shared wound which roots in the center of their lives even as they push outward far into adulthood. Play is written as four interlocking monologues that span maybe ten years of time. As each woman’s story is layered onto her sisters’, time and its changes become clear.

The monologues are written as one side of a conversation. So while the sisters are central to our experience of the Gray family, the women that we get to know are often fighting for their right to be heard with the specters of husbands, fathers, children, and mothers who are unseen, but close at hand.

There is a stateliness to the narrative and the set, a minimalist grouping of benches and large black panels, brings a somber, elegiac feeling to the sisters’ tales.

This effect must be intentional, and there are many echoes to greek tragedy. The fates hover above the play, starting with its title, The Gray sisters are characters from a Greek myth, three beautiful women who share an eye and a tooth between them. These four modern sisters are similarly tied together for survival and well being. And as a group, they operate as a Greek chorus, standing backlit and silent as witnesses to the others.

Again echoing the Greeks, most of the dramatic action happens offstage and is narrated in monologue–in Greek tragedy, the out-of-breathe messenger delivers the news that Oedipus has just blinded himself offstage–and a similar structure operates here, as family deaths, weddings, and divorces are announced. This creates an unexpected emotional distance for the audience and is surprising, given the emotional, explosive nature of the story, and the unflagging strength of the performances.

But The Gray Sisters is kept firmly planted by the brave performances of its four lead actresses, and the localism of the story, which is set in Portland and hand-crafted for us by Craig Wright and Third Rail Rep.

The Gray Sisters is onstage through May 23rd. Get there before its gone.

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Tags: Theater

Jeff Jahn at Portland Art Museum

(On Thursday nights, PAM stays open til 8:00)

Posted by: Graham Bell on May 12, 2010 at 01:45PM 0 Comments

Dan Flavin neon sculpture, Untitled (To Donna)

The Portland Art Museum monthly series of talks featuring local arts personalities is an excellent way to get a new look at the museum’s collection. Whether you’ve been there one time, a hundred times or this is your very first visit, viewers of PAM’s vast array of work can always benefit from a new perspective.

Tomorrow night is the May installment of PAM’s Artist Talks Series. The talk begins at 6pm in the Hoffman Lobby at PAM, the $12 ($9 for seniors and students) ticket includes museum admission and is available at the Museum Box Office. Did you know that the Portland Art Museum is open until 8pm every Thursday and Friday? New Thursday Resolution: Art first. Drinks after.

This month, local curator and creative busybody Jeff Jahn illuminates some of the subtleties behind Dan Flavin’s 1971 Untitled (To Donna) 2 and Anne Truitt’s Bonne, an acrylic on wood work from 1963. Jahn, fresh from his integral role in the Donald Judd Delegated Fabrication conference and exhibition, will lead a discussion of Flavin’s fluorescent fixtures and Truitt’s proto-installation piece.

The evolution of installation art has muddied the divisions between sculpture, painting and the traditional notion of the gallery space. With this in mind, Jahn hopes to tease out why he believes that these two pieces are among the best representations of post-war art in Portland’s collection. And, as the co-founder of PORT, this city’s premiere critical arts blog (Culturephile not included, of course), you can bet he’ll make a good argument. The talk is free for members or with admission to the Museum. A happy hour with complimentary food and drink follows.

In the upcoming months, make sure to keep an eye out for additional talks by local creative minds including: exceptional artistic talent and Whitney Biennial selection Storm Tharp (6/10), photographer and Blue Sky Board of Directors President Christopher Rauschenberg (7/8), artist and PNCA mainstay Nan Curtis (8/12) and Douglas F. Cooley Memorial Art Gallery curator Stephanie Snyder (9/9). Attendance is limited to the first 60 on the list, so mark your calendars!

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Tags: Art, Portland Art

Concert Ticket Collecting

When to buy (now!) and what to see in the 503

Posted by: Joseph Manuel on May 11, 2010 at 02:40PM 1 Comments

Oracular Spectacular

On Sale Now

The Barenaked Ladies will be performing clothed (plus there are no ladies in the band). Expect a jumpy show from these Canadian heroes. Tickets went on sale May 8 seats start at around $46.
May 23, 7:30 PM

MGMT and their poppy-electronica sound will hit up the Crystal Ballroom for the first two days of June (tickers are only $30). Musicians Andrew Vanwyngarden and Ben Goldwasser are riding a breakout record, Oracular Spectacular and are promoting their latest cut, Congratulations, as they prove to be a bright spot in the Justin Bieber-led decline of pop music.
June 1 & 2, 8 PM

There might not be a line stretching ‘round the block for the adorable, pop-y OC rockers Rooney, but won’t you feel smart? Its like watching a fresh faced John Lennon, and tickets for their Wonder Ballroom are $14.
June 24, 9 PM

Also On Sale

Broken Bells
May 24, 7 PM

Minus the Bear
May 28, 8 PM

Sting
June 3 & 4, 8 PM

Bone Thugs –N- Harmony
June 8, 8 PM

KoЯn
June 15, 7:30 PM

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Tags: music

Mortified PDX

Lovelorn literati unburden themselves

Posted by: Joseph Manuel on May 05, 2010 at 10:00AM 0 Comments

Admit it: If given the chance to hop in a DeLorean and travel back to the yesteryears of our teenage angst, many of us would relish the opportunity and deliver a strong right hook to our own 15-year-old faces. There is nothing more self-deprecating than returning to mom’s house and unearthing love letters, diary entries, poetry, and other what-have-you’s from a time when the world revolved around secret crushes and growing armpit hair.

Alas, the time machine is thus far fictional. One option is to simply suppress the woes of puberty and deny that we were ever that lame, once upon a time. Or the healthy alternative would be trying out and eventually baring all for the ever-expanding troupe that presents Mortified Live, the collective humiliation project founded by Dave Nadelberg.

Mortified is a rehearsed open-mic night in which selected adults share artifacts (mainly journal entries) describing lost loves, fights with mom, hating the world, and other cringingly ridiculous memoirs of sheer embarrassment.

So as last Friday’s edition of Mortified PDX began, the emcee gave a sarcastic nod to the Portland Trail Blazers, who happened to be playing the most important game of the season at the same time that full-grown Stumptowners were humiliating themselves at the Mission Theater. It did bring about an interesting scenario to ponder: What would an adolescent Joel Przybilla share if given the opportunity?

Regardless, the night was studded with highlight-worthy quotes as the first five performers were women sharing from their diaries and venting about loves lost and ludicrous. There was Lola, a local actress who dreamed of being an “FBI Agent” described her passion for the X-Files and touched upon her former footwear habits: “Black combat boots are a good conversation starter. They are also a good conversation stopper.”

The friendly crowd constantly roared during the appropriate intervals, as presenters rocked the mic with perfectly timed pregnant pauses to maximize the gut-busting guffawing. Audience participation was limited, although one performer had the subject of her teenage crush present on the upper landing, and constantly looked to him during her soliloquies à la the Romeo and Juliet balcony scene (but reversed).

Eventually, hearing endless variations on the “he loves me, he loves me not” spiel got a bit tiresome. However Greg Gasperin, a Mortified vet on his second showcase, rounded out the night with excerpts from a trip to Italy with his grandmother. The sarcastic traveler’s interactions with grammy reminded me of George Costanza’s relationship with his griping mother: Priceless stories of ridiculous bickering and awkward international scenarios provided some sweet relief.

Mortified concluded with slideshows of embarrassing photos of the performers and production crew, and the emcee gave a friendly farewell to the pasty crowd. The show returns to Portland for July 15–16, which should be ample time for Oregonians to scrape their closets for some material.

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Tags: comedy, Events

The Antlers and Phantogram

Ready to Buy the Record

Posted by: Graham Bell on May 04, 2010 at 03:09PM 0 Comments

I wasn’t sure what to expect seeing The Antlers play live on Monday at the Doug Fir Lounge There are moments of feedback and distortion-heavy rocking on their much-praised Hospice LP (2009), but for the most part it’s an unnervingly tender narrative about a man losing a loved one to cancer. So, with that in mind, I descended into the cozy wooden womb of the Doug Fir Lounge expecting an intimate set perforated by bursts of activity.

The Opening Set

The opening set, Phantogram, is a New York duo that combines synthy textures with hip-hop-like beats. Add to this some heavily filtered vocals (both male and female) and some guitar and you’ve got yourself a party. This party flashed and bumped and enthralled the audience, but I couldn’t help but thinking: this would make good montage music, and it sure would sound great with some Geto Boys lyrics over the top.

But on to the main act (don’t you always feel a little bad for the openers? It takes a real commitment to rock your set when most of the audience it waiting to see the guy in the wings):

The Headliners

I have guitar envy of Peter Silberman. As the fronting member of the Antlers, he switched between an all red Fender Mustang and an all white one. Anyone with guitars that look that good should be able to use them. He does. This is personal, pointed indie rock that could blow the roof off a stadium, and wouldn’t be out of place at a tiny café. Plenty of hard-hitting drums and fiddling of knobs took Silberman and his bandmates from tinny, sweet vocals and the soft hiss of static to full on synth distortion. The interchanging melodic structures kept me looking forward through the noise. If the Antlers can recreate the intensity of this live show and the intimacy of Hospice in their next offering, then I’m ready to add a new record to my collection.

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Tags: music