It must be December. Or almost. Here come the best-of lists for 2007. Paste Magazine has published their list of the top 100 CD's of 2007, and give spots on their list to Modest Mouse (We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank, #8), The Shins (Wincing the Night Away, #26), Spoon (Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, #29) and this year's release Friend and Foe by Portland trio Menomena (85). Maybe we should all make our lists look like this:

4. ________

q. _________

&. _______

IX. ________

♂. __________

That's kind of an old Car Talk joke. But anyway, topping Paste's list is Boxer, this year's release from The National. We were pleased to host the band for an in-studio session a few weeks back, and if you missed it, it's worth a listen for several unique, stripped-down songs, including a beautiful version of "Racing Like a Pro" that has to be heard. What would be on your best-of-07 list?

Posted by dchristensen on Wednesday, November 28 at 4:08pm

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For those not looking forward to a night at home, hearing the rain against the window, the Portland music offerings for Friday night are generous. So-Cal indie rockers Cold War Kids and Richard Swift play a show at the Crystal Ballroom. Swift's newest, Dressed up for the Letdown, garnered 7.5 stars on Pitchfork earlier this year. Elsewhere, Johnette Napolitano plays at Berbati's tonight, with David J. (formerly known as Bauhaus bassist David J. Haskins). Locals Brothers of the Baladi will bring out the odd meters and exotic drumming of their Middle-Eastern folk-rock, compete with (belly) dancing and all, at McMenamins Kennedy School. Shows continue this week in the series "Voices for Silent Disasters", to benefit Mercy Corps and support their relief work in Uganda. Friday night's bill includes Vagabond Opera, Third Angle, Portland drummer Obo Addy and Pepe and the Bottles Blondes. Then on Saturday it's Dirty Martini with samba percussion ensemble Lions of Batucada and Crosstide. Both nights are at the Baghdad Theater. And both benefit a very worthy cause.

Posted by dchristensen on Friday, November 16 at 5:55pm

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Surprise-- it's another busy week of live music in store for us, with plenty of highlights to point out. First, the brothers Ween, that's Gene and Dean (although those aren't their real names, nor are they actual brothers), play the Roseland Theater tomorrow night. The rather legendarily zany duo released their first full-length in four years, entitled La Cucaracha, recently on Rounder. Self-described by the band as a "party album," it finds them as all over as ever, chasing whatever musical whim falls over them, yes, but doing it so well in each instance. They even go so far as to break their long-honored ban on horns on their recordings with the appearance of none other than David Sanborn on the ultra-smooooth "Your Party." Twenty-three years after birthing the band during 8th grade typing class, Ween stay enjoyable by remaining as random and as odd as those roots might indicate.

Wednesday night, also at the Roseland, it's a visit from Vermont's Grace Potter & the Nocturnals. The up-and-coming band has garnered a lot of attention in a short time based largely on Potter's vocals, which have been compared (again and again) to the likes of Janis Joplin, Bonnie Raitt, and Susan Tedeschi, among others. Her hammond b-3 playing and powerhouse band hasn't hurt either, and they've shown a rare versatility in attracting fans of roots-rock, jamband, jazz, and blues alike. Their third album, This Is Somewhere, was released earlier this year on Hollywood records. Watch here for an upcoming in-studio session with the band.

Also this week: Celebration (Monday, Rotture); Ben Harper & the Innocent Criminals (Monday, Keller Auditorium); A Cautionary Tale (Wednesday, Someday Lounge); John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers (Wednesday, Aladdin Theater); Stars with Miracle Fortress (Thursday, Crystal Ballroom); M.I.A. (Thursday, Roseland Theater); The Walkmen (Thursday, Doug Fir); Cold War Kids with Richard Swift (Friday, Crystal Ballroom); and Heavy Trash (Friday, Doug Fir), among others, of course.

Posted by jpetersen on Sunday, November 11 at 9:57pm

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I don't know if you've noticed or not, but there's been something of a musical renaissance a-goin' on amongst the frozen denizens of Scandinavia over the past decade or so. From "quiet is the new loud" acts like Jose Gonzalez and the Kings of Convenience, to bands that prefer more of the old loud like The Hives and The Flaming Sideburns, there's simply an inordinate amount of great work coming out of the region (heck, there's even some fine alt-country to be found with acts like Olav Larsen & the Alabama Rodeo Stars and the late St. Thomas carrying the torch for a distinctly American form).

Norwegian singer-songwriter Sondre Lerche burst out of that scene as a 19 year-old wunderkind with his 2002 debut, Faces Down. He's since fashioned himself part crooner (2006's Duper Sessions was modeled after classic Sinatra recordings, down to the cover shot), and part alt-popster (this year's Phantom Punch did, indeed, pack more punch, featuring nearly 100% more electric guitar). His latest release comes in the form of the soundtrack for the film Dan in Real Life, and features old and new material, among which is a duet with Regina Spektor and a version of Pete Townshend's "Let My Love Open the Door." Lerche plays Portland's Doug Fir with Dan Wilson (in real life) tonight.

Also tonight, it's the return of the Minus 5-- or at least one incarnation thereof. The rollicking, long-running, member-shifting band whose one constant is frontman Scott McCaughey plays the Towne Lounge tonight. The band's latest, a self-titled effort doubly known as "the gun album" was released last year and featured contributions from Peter Buck, Colin Meloy, Jeff Tweedy, Ken Stringfellow, and John Wesley Harding, among others.

Speaking of Mr. Harding, if you missed his set last night at Mississippi Studios, you can still catch his novelist alter-ego, Wesley Stace, reading at tonight's Wordstock LiveWire! taping at the Aladdin Theater. He'll be joined in the festivities by none other than Harry Shearer, Carrie Akre, and locals Weinland, whose in-studio session we featured last week on the show.

And speaking of the show, there's plenty of new or otherwise interesting material to get to on tonight's version, including music from Sea Wolf, Les Savy Fav, Ryan Adams & the Cardinals, Mira Billotte, Bruce Springsteen, and more.

Posted by jpetersen on Saturday, November 10 at 9:19pm

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She's on your radio, she's on your tee-vee, and tonight she's in your town. The ubiquitous Feist returns to Portland tonight, playing the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall. She's fresh off of a solid performance (Brian Williams approved!) on Saturday Night Live this past weekend, which went a little somethin' like this....

Posted by jpetersen on Tuesday, November 6 at 12:30pm

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Some big and intriguing names playing Portland in our weekly look ahead this week, perhaps none so now as Leslie Feist. The Canadian singer-songwriter, simply Feist to the music world, returns to Portland to play the Schnitzer Concert Hall on Tuesday night. She's fresh off of an impressive couple of performances last night on Saturday Night Live (quite a feat given the generally dead production that seems to go on with their musical guests), and has generally been "blowing up," as they say, all year long. In case you've somehow missed it (though you've likely heard from it in a TV ad or two), her latest is The Reminder.

Also this week, much ballyhooed (and deservedly so) Swede Jens Lekman hits town nearing the end of a relatively rare North American tour. "Witty" and "lovable" are thrown about like mad when discussions of Lekman come up, and his charm is, indeed, hard to miss (or ignore). His latest, Night Falls Over Kortedala, is full of strange but true tales that find him pining for a hairdresser and posing as a lesbian friend's boyfriend in order to fool her father. One imagines him dealing with childhood bullies in such a way that they ended up laughing at (and liking) him in spite of themselves-- it might be interesting to see if the effects would be at all similar on metalheads attending one of his shows. Speaking of which, it's Wednesday at the Someday Lounge.....metalheads welcome.

And that's hardly the end of it, with names like the Hold Steady (Monday, Crystal Ballroom), Glen Hansard & Marketa Irglova (Tuesday, Crystal Ballroom), Erin McKeown (Wednesday, Doug Fir), Minus the Bear, Helio Sequence, and Grand Archives (Thursday, Crystal Ballroom), Suzanne Vega (Thursday, Aladdin Theater), the Long Winters' John Roderick (Friday, Doug Fir), and John Wesley Harding (Friday, Mississippi Studios), among others, all playing around town this week.

Posted by jpetersen on Sunday, November 4 at 10:27pm

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With an eye toward their Wordstock appearance and next week's LiveWire! taping, tonight we offer up an encore presentation of our in-studio session with Portland's Weinland, who for a time will probably also be addendumed, "The Band Formerly Known As John Weinland." The band stopped by our Portland studios late this past summer and put down a stunning set of new and old tunes, so nice we're playing it twice. There's been plenty of news for them since, including wrapping up work on their forthcoming Badman Records full-length, entitled La Lamentor and slated for an early March '08 release. Next weekend's performance is part of LiveWire!'s 3rd Annual Wordstock Extravaganza, and they'll be sharing the stage with Peter Sagal, Harry Shearer (no relation to Weinland frontman Adam, apparently), Wesley Stace (aka John Wesley Harding), Carrie Akre, and others.

Also tonight, we'll get to the first we've heard from the outstanding and outstandingly large compilation of Bob Dylan covers that make up the I'm Not There soundtrack. Perhaps inspired by the fact that the Todd Haynes film features portrayals of Dylan by six different actors, the soundtrack takes that even further with 34 of his tunes covered by an impressive and diverse list, Calexico, Willie Nelson, Jeff Tweedy, Cat Power, Sonic Youth, Eddie Vedder, Iron & Wine, John Doe, Stephen Malkmus, and Yo La Tengo among them. The thing is, it sounds every bit as good as it looks on paper.

Plus, we'll hear music from several artists performing in the area this weekend, including Saturday Looks Good to Me, The Bird & the Bee, and more, AND new and recent releases from Jens Lekman, Ween, Soulsavers, and more.

Hear: OPB in-studio with Weinland

See: photos from Weinland's OPB session

Posted by jpetersen on Saturday, November 3 at 8:55pm

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A busy night around Portland tonight, with several performances vying for/worthy of your rapt attention. It's hard to pick a standout among them, but it'd be hard to go wrong with the Richard Buckner/David Dondero bill at Dante's. For over a decade, each has managed to carve out a niche for themselves that is edgy and progressive while existing for the most part within a rather old and traditional framework: that of the storytelling troubadour. The catalogs of neither artist, can be summed up that easily, though. Each has gone through his own phases and stages, and each has been consistently rewarding throughout. Buckner's Meadow, released last October, and Dondero's Simple Love, out for a couple months now, represent their most recent efforts. Micheal Dean Damron opens. 

Also tonight, it's the first night of performances for the inaugural Siren Nation Women's Music & Art Festival at the Wonder Ballroom. Tonight's bill includes Myshkin's Ruby Warblers, Alela Diane, Liv Warfield, a reunited Team Dresch, and more. The four-day fest kicked off last night at Holocene and concludes Sunday with workshops and a community marketplace at the Kennedy School. In between are film screenings at the Clinton St. Theater, and more music tomorrow night from Mirah, Tracy Grammer, Flat Mountain Girls, and others. It looks to be a great beginning to a welcome new addition to the list of talent-laden Portland arts festivals.

Finally, in some ways very similar to the Buckner/Dondero bill, yet in many others so very different, local treasure Kelly Joe Phelps plays the Aladdin Theater, along with Boulder's intriguing Gregory Alan Isakov. A masterful guitarist and soulful performer, Phelps needs little introduction. Since issuing three stark and stunning releases featuring just voice and guitar, he's expanded his musical palette to incorporate a fuller sound with additional players like Billy Conway, Bill Frisell, and others. His latest recording, and first for the Rounder label, is Tunesmith Retrofit.

You can't possibly be five places at once, so you're bound to miss something, but other shows worthy of your attention on a crisp November evening include The Good Life, Jonathan Rice, and Art in Manila at the Doug Fir; and Amelia, Richmond Fontaine, the Stephanie Schneiderman Band, and the Joe McMurrian Quartet all play the Mission Theater in the first of a series of concerts benefiting Mercy Corps.

Listen: David Dondero's OPB in-studio session

MP3: Kelly Joe Phelps- "Wandering Away (Live)"

MP3: The Good Life, from Help Wanted Nights- "Heartbroke"

MP3: Art in Manila, from Set the Woods On Fire- "Set the Woods On Fire"

Posted by jpetersen on Friday, November 2 at 5:57pm

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I had the extreme pleasure this week of paying a visit to the DMV, an experience that always fires up the somehow still existent Primus areas of my brain (as in: "I've been to hell, I spell it/ I spell it DMV/ Anyone who's ever been knows precisely what I mean..."). In any case, chances are you've been yourself once or twice, and if the musical offerings piped out over the loudspeakers made any impression on you at all, it was likely one that made avoiding a return trip to the DMV even more of a point than it already had been, not unlike the last time you went to a dentist's office or a mall.

By that comparison, I suppose my experience could have been much worse. Whatever oddball satellite/DMX channel they were tuned into was mercifully devoid of anything that sounded much like American Idol, nor was there any of what it is that passes for "country music" these days. I'm pretty sure I heard a random boy band, though, as well as an '80's anthem ("What I Like About You," performed by The Romantics, as it turns out), but it was what followed the ballad from Swedish duo Roxette that was most baffling. Chalk it up to the DMX people mistaking it for something from Dexy's Midnight Runners or Born In the U.S.A., or perhaps to a bored and subversive programmer's attempt to make the job more interesting, but it was none other than the Arcade Fire, Montreal's finest purveyors of accordion-wielding, suspenders-wearing, revolution-inciting, new-wavish, punk-tinged chamber pop. At the DMV. Call it the perfection of chance or simply someone with a sense of humor, but what song from this year's Neon Bible should be playing but (wait for it)...."Keep the Car Running." Baffled and a little excited, I scanned the room for kindred souls-- I imagined meeting the eyes of someone with an identical "What the hell?" expression on their face and sharing a little moment, but everyone seemed more intent on the actual driving of the car than on merely keeping it running, so I had to keep it to myself.

The thing is, following the initial thrills of hearing the song in such an unexpected setting and being in on the auto-themed inside joke, I began to fear what it all could mean. Should I be happy to hear the Arcade Fire at the DMV or, say, Spoon at the laundromat? Granted, both of those bands have played the likes of Saturday Night Live, so they're not exactly a secret, and Wilco, Low, Cat Power, and Band of Horses, among many others, have all had their music in commercials, but it's another level entirely for the music to be placed on par with the Celine Dions and Nickelbacks of the world. What I'm saying, I guess, is that it spooks me a little when spaces that have previously been well-known as bastions of musical mundanity start to cozy up to the kinds of acts that have always been....mine. Does this make me a snob? Perhaps it does. Mostly I just want the music I love to stay outside the realm of ordinary-- and if it means buying paper towels or getting my teeth cleaned to another Kenny Loggins number, so be it.

As this seems to be becoming more and more common, I'm curious: have any of you had any similarly unlikely musical run-ins? I want to hear all about them. What's your take on this musical mundaning?

Stream: Arcade Fire- "Keep the Car Running"

Posted by jpetersen on Thursday, November 1 at 4:51pm

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