TRMW Archives

* FYI, this stuff is old. The current TRMW is here.

August 8, 2005

popfest day 3: awesomeness listed

My brain and my body are a dry brick, but my inner-smile will not stop. Let me try and explain why.

AWESOMENESS: extra-musical

** 18 year old all-star volunteer Mike Fuchs, you are my new scene hero. You ran the merch table all weekend, stood out in the parking lot directing traffic so total strangers could see bands, and generally blew everyone’s mind with your generosity and straight-up enthusiasm. You came to the after-party at 3 in the morning and we talked about the festival, what bands we liked, big ideas, etc. You loved We Quit, had never seen them before. You used to volunteer for community techno festivals in Florida, had some lucid compare-and-contrast insight to share. You talked about community, art, a lot of other amazing things I was too drunk to remember now, and your entire approach is solid and mature and exciting. You live with your parents in a suburb past the west hills that I don’t even know the name of. You are the future and I need shades.

** Keegan and his dad. Keegan is 13 years old I think. Him and his dad volunteered for the entire duration of the festival, TOGETHER. That’s the shit.

** Kid with blue hair that was there for every single set and danced his (her?) ass off for every single one. You look about 13 and you love music more than anyone I know. Rock, hip hop, electronic, out-rock – it’s all rad to you. Bands, volunteers, audience – you inspired them all without trying. I shouted you out from the stage at the end of the night but you weren’t there. I hope you got the message, because you are the message.

** Girl in a wheelchair who was there all weekend. You are a fan. Volunteers who carried that girl up and down the stairs all weekend, cradled in your arms, so she could see the upstairs sets. You are pure goodness.

** 2 girls with matching hot topic striped knee-high socks and cool kandie-meets-indie clothes. You made it your mission to pump up the crowd, always started the dance party, always received this band in the most fun way possible.

AWESOMENESS: musical

** Alan Singley’s sweet and lol hilarious daytime set

** We Quit’s precise twee lightning bolt pop

** Science of Yabra bringing the most o.t.t. rawk noise of the weekend

** Portland General Electro throwing glowstick wristbands to the crowd. Rave dancing with little girls wearing two on each wrist.

** Cancer Fags + Snuggle Ups = NULL. These bands are the logical inverse of each other. Think about it.

** Wet Confetti beefing with stoopid ass punk kids. About that: these kids, mohawked, spiked, moshing, almost knocked over some dude in a wheel chair, got yelled at, then proceeded to scream YOU FUCKING SUCK throughout the set. Afterwards, asked why they felt the need to act out thusly, the response was something like: “Because we’re not crybaby emo shits who want to slit our wrists and wear tight jeans. If we were gonna kill ourselves we’d jump of a bridge; you’d slit your wrists. That’s why we did it.” Being an asshole is not cool, but this is maybe the raddest thing a teenage punk could possibly say. Play on spikey playas.

** Fogatron was the off-the-chain beatbox machine I thought he’d be (this is meant as high praise); Manic D was suprisingly tight and funny as shit. Really glad I finally saw this.

*** STRENGTH – holy shit, this band is rad. Straight-up disco Jacko rip-off riffs meet uber-fey/gay-and-loving-it Stonesy rock-brat swagger. how does that work again? Not sure but it sooo does. The front man for this band is maybe the best I saw I all weekend. He’s totally doing the Jagger thing but not straight at all – take the gay part and turn it to 11, swap coke for ecstacy, and you’re getting there. He smiles and holds himself, touches himself, preens, winks at the audience, and flashes a 1,000 watt smile. Watching him is like watching a 30 minute sustained orgasm – almost too intimate, totally transfixing, on the verge of drooling-on-yrself bliss-babble candy-flip breakdown. I think I’m in love.

** The final set: Point Juncture, Blitzen Trapper, The Planet The, Talkdemonic – the ones I’d seen (blitzen, talk d) gave the best performances I’ve ever seen from them. The ones I hadn’t (tpt, pt juncture) totally blew me away.

AWESOMENESS: cold brains

** There’s a lot more I’m forgetting / too lazy to write about in this weakened state.

BEAUTIFUL
BEAUTIFUL
BEAUTIFUL
BEAUTIFUL
BEAUTIFUL
BEAUTIFUL
BEAUTIFUL
BEAUTIFUL
BEAUTIFUL

i love you, portland. i love you, life.

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August 7, 2005

popfest day 2: soul hug

Yesterday, the second day of popfest, was a warm hug and a high five. I had some anxiety going into it: sequencing things as we did – out bands like jackie-o, electronic groups like ainu, pop groups like derby, and not one but four hip hop acts on the same two stages – is asking a lot of the audience, namely, wide open minds and hearts. Some of the initial reactions we got to this year’s line-up were really negative, like a big middle finger to the whole open-minded, one love concept. But what I saw yesterday was the opposite. Every single band that played received a warm reception, and every single band embraced a new audience. It was wonderful. Nice Nice played heavy ass experimental funk to a “pop” audience of 700 people, and brought the house down. Later on, special guest Lifesavas came out and got a crowd of tired, hot people out of their funk and into the funk, clapping hands, DANCING, and chanting “L-I-F-E” in celebratory unison. They finished off with a monologue – no, manifesto – involving community and independent culture that summed it up so nicely. It’s not about music anyway, really. It’s about breaking down walls between people and connecting through art, asking people to open their minds within this small domain, in the hope that this exercise might transmute to other parts of their lives, and in that small way make a better city, and a little better world. To whisper that in Portland’s ear and get a thousand YES’s back – that’s maybe the best thing ever.

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August 6, 2005

pre zzzzzzzzzzzz

Day 1 of Popfest ended with the Thermals playing “No Culture Icons” and Kathy sweetly leaning into the mic and saying “Enjoy the rest of the PDX Pop” – so yeah, exactly as it should have. Such a great first day/night. People were there from go, vibes were super positive, bands were good. 31 Knots were a personal highlight; never seen them before, Joe Haege is a rad frontman, molesting the awesome bassist, climbing the speakers, falling into the crowd, he puts on a show and then some. I was thinking they should open for Les Savy Fav but I guess they’re not together anymore.

Came home and opened the email (why? i don’t know) and there was a MENOMENA UPDATE in there. Turns out they have two awesome new videos – this one by Jonnie Ross (who I think I met at a birthday party a while back?) and this one by e*rock (it gets really nice towards the end). Danny from the band Menomena is playing with his other band Lackthereof at 7pm at popfest tomorrow. And that brings us back to doh.

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

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August 5, 2005

LET’S DO THIS!!!

Holy crap. After working on this thing for the better part of a year, the second annual PDX POP NOW! (exclamation mandatory) festival will be starting in a little over one hour. I am stoked. STOKED!!!!! It was a shit-ton of work coordinating the booking schedule with 49 bands – all graciously donating their time – but oh so worth it: we have a great and weird mix of bands (hillstomp + fogatron + strength = free yr minds!!), it’s free and all ages (one of our raddest volunteers is 18!), and people are getting stoked on their community. Hopefully that love spreads out and circulates through the general music-going population in Portland or maybe-just-maybe increases those ranks a little bit. No matter what, it’s gonna be one fun-ass weekend. I’ll be there for the whole damn thing – meet me at the soda bar!

FAMOUSNESS UPDATE: I was on the Village Voice website yesterday. What?!?

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July 14, 2005

SAVE BLITZEN redux / Portland: Stolen Gear City USA

The most important part of this post is this: on Monday, July 11th, somebody stole a couple guitars, amp heads, a shitty keyboard, clothes, and some other little stuff from Blitzen Trapper’s van right off twentysomthing and NE Alberta. What’s worse, this happened on their home turf, Portland, during a one-day stop over in the midst of their first ever West Coast tour. If you hear of anyone hawking or recently having come into posession a collection of gear resembling this one please email me. I should have more specific info like brand names, models, etc pretty soon, in the meantime just please report anything that sounds like a possible match. I know it’s a long shot but you never know, right?

THAT SAID: WTF?!?!?!? What is it with Portland stealing gear from Portland bands? This same thing has happened to the Decemberists right after they got back from a much larger tour AND Brian from Nudge and other people who I don’t remember. These bands play all over the country and don’t have problems – why does it always seem to be here where this stuff happens? Effed up if you ask me.

Speaking of me, I’m back from my brief tour spell and knee-deep in booking this festival (which is shaping up to be pretty amazing). We ended up not getting a show to replace that Bellingham show, instead ended up getting irie in a gem shop, wandering aimlessly around Olympia, playing happy hour ping pong, doing tai chi by the harbor, asking every shitty bar in town if they needed a band for the night. They didn’t, so we went and saw Millions at the Capitol Theater (pretty cool, pretty cheese).

The shows themselves were fun and the band is sounding awesome. I urge anyone reading this to go see them on the rest of the tour. The KEXP in-studio dealy was rad and I got to meet the incredibly nice ladies who call themselves Three Imaginary Girls. They were in the studio playing some records, including PDX locals the Binary Dolls, which is super cool in my book. I always thought the name Three Imaginary Girls was a reference to their publication solely existing on the internet (hence “imaginary”) but turns out it’s a Cure song. I said as much and lost 5 million rock points right then and there.

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July 8, 2005

PDX CUTE NOW

ppncute1

front

ppncute2

back

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June 8, 2005

VOTE POP NOW

Javan and I have been sweating out the details on the PDX Pop Now 2005 Festival Voting Form ™ and we’re finally all done. Voting went live this morning (late because I slept in) and runs till the end of the month. It would be awesome if you would vote for the bands you wanna see play the festival this year, and you can do that here. Also check out this rad write-up courtesy of none other than Pitchfork. STOKED!!!

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August 7, 2004

PORCH PLUR was a smashed success. The DJs sounded great (even the the lowly CUM LAZER) and the Snuggle Ups rocked it, positive-core. During the last song people were jumping up and down in ecstatic bliss as the disco ball spun at way-too-fast speeds and inexplicable fireworks burst just beyond the porch. Can you say “nirvana”? I did – but not out loud.

In other news, my friend and fellow festival organizer, Ross Beach, has posted a nice visual summary of the first ever PDX-POP fest, which went down early July.

Also, my new band – working name: Accident Pack – had our first ever rehearsal on Wednesday. Turns out Pat is a kick-ass improv-atonal guitarist with a very healthy Brainiac fixation. This bodes well for the future.

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Blast from the present!