High Notes: The Best Live Music in Portland This Week, April 21-26
Tuesday, April 21, 2015
So much crucial rock—so little space. In addition to our featured previews, we’d like to give a shout out to this year’s edition of StumpFest, a well-curated three-day buffet of heavy hitters like Danava, Lord Dying, Yob, and Big Business at Mississippi Studios.
Upset
April 21 @ 8pm
Fronted by Best Coast percussionist Ali Koehler and featuring the hammering traps of ex-Hole drummer Patty Schemel, Upset is a bubble-punk powerhouse amped up on adolescent angst. On the L.A. outfit’s most recent record, ‘76,’ songs like “Glass Ceiling” and “Away” bristle with a sugar-buzz catchiness that leads to impromptu pogo dancing—and your downstairs neighbor to the point of suicide. Sorry about that, but we are helpless before such giddy delights.
$10-12. Bunk Bar, 1028 SE Water Ave.
Upset courtesy of Don Giovanni Records
Polaris
April 23 @ 8pm
Fans of the ’90s Nickelodeon kids’ show, ‘The Adventures of Pete & Pete,’ know Polaris as the jangly garage band that inspired Little Pete to form a group called the Blowholes, which included the likes of Syd Straw and Marshall Crenshaw. As a quartet, Polaris was better known as Miracle Legion, an influential pop band from Connecticut led by singer and guitarist Mark Mulcahy. As Polaris, they recorded one thoroughly gorgeous album in 1999 that contained “Hey Sandy,” the popular theme song for the TV series. In this case, revisiting your childhood is not only permitted, it’s encouraged.
$20. Aladdin Theater, 3017 SE Milwaukie Ave.
Mikal Cronin
April 24 @ 9pm
“The theme of the new album is pretty similar to a lot of the themes I’ve written about before—growing up and figuring stuff out.” On his latest record, ‘MCIII,’ the Los Angeles-based Cronin, a musical comrade of Ty Segall, adds more beguiling colors and textures to his potent power-pop palette. His first single, “Made My Mind Up,” sounds like it’s always been here, a timeless treasure that’s bravely sneaked onto the airwaves during the wee hours when the programming robots sleep. If modern rock is to rebuild itself from the wreckage as something new and improved, we will need artists of Cronin’s caliber to lead the way.
$13-15. Doug Fir Lounge, 830 E Burnside St.
Martha Scanlan courtesy marthascanlan.com (image cropped)
Mastodon
April 25 @ 8pm
This show is going to be a sellout, so it might be necessary to disguise yourself as a grumbling roadie or a big-shot music critic in order to gain entrance. Atlanta’s Mastodon is simply one of the most consistently inventive and puissant bands currently working in the metal genre, with a huge following forged on the strength of formidable albums like 2004’s ‘Leviathan,’ a concept album about Melville’s ‘Moby Dick,’ and last year’s dazzling ‘Once More ’Round the Sun.’ Ass kicked, or your money back?
$35-40. Roseland Theater, 8 NW Sixth Ave.
Martha Scanlan
April 26 @ 8pm
Minnesota-raised and currently residing in Montana, Scanlan is a versatile and vibrant songwriter with roots in gospel and bluegrass, who has successfully staked out her own territory as a singer of transcendentally wondrous country folk. Black Prairie guitarist Jon Neufeld is a frequent collaborator, adding his talents to her brand new album, ‘The Shape of Things Gone Missing, The Shape of Things To Come,’ that was recorded right here in town. There will undoubtedly be prominent Portlanders waiting in the wings at this gig. Dolorean’s Al James opens the show.
$15. Mississippi Studios, 3939 N Mississippi Ave.
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