High Notes: The Best Live Music in Portland This Week, April 7-12

Tuesday, April 07, 2015

John Chandler, GoLocalPDX Contributor

Sitting in bed and watching cat videos is all well and good, but not when there’s a colossal roster of artists awaiting your presence at the local watering holes—including sensitive Scots Belle and Sebastian at Roseland, suit-and-tie country guy Junior Brown at the Aladdin, and a whole week of Lewi Longmire at Al’s Den.

Lewi Longmire

April 7-11 @ 7pm

If you haven’t witnessed at least one of the bands that occasionally feature the multi-talented and seriously busy Longmire, then we seriously question your Local Music credentials. In any case, the go-to guy for the likes of Ages and Ages, Sallie Ford, and Dolorean, is doing a free residency at Al’s Den all week long, with a rotating cast of special guests, including incomparable songwriter Fernando, country cats Denver, hobo-folk elder statesman Michael Hurley, and his own trusty band, the Left Coast Roasters.

Free. Al’s Den, 1332 W Burnside St.

Photo credit: Belle and Sebastian by Søren Solkaer

Belle and Sebastian

April 9 @ 8pm

Glasgow’s finest pop group touches down in Portland in support of a delicious new record called ‘Girls in Peacetime Want to Dance.’ Like a big-budget movie tearjerker, everyone’s happy/sad buttons will get expertly pushed to the point of delirium. Belle and Sebastian has seldom sounded as brilliantly bouncy as on new tunes “Perfect Couples” or “The Party Line,” but the beats are propelled by prime mover Stuart Murdoch’s assortment of song narrators, each with a different story to tell, including the unhappy protagonist in “Enter Sylvia Plath,” an otherwise relentless synth-pop dance track.

$42.50. Roseland Theater, 8 NW Sixth Ave.

His Name Is Alive

April 10 @ 9pm

The most recent record from Michigan mastermind Warren Defever was last year’s conceptually heavy paean to prog-rock, ‘Tecuciztecatl,’ and no doubt we’ll be treated to a smattering of this. But the ol’ calendar on the wall reminds us that 2015 is also the 25-year anniversary of Lefever taking up the His Name Is Alive mantle. With that in mind, the best-case scenario would be a well-curated set list from all phases of Lefever’s various rock ’n’ roll fixations, from the Beach Boys fascination of ‘Stars on ESP’ album to the beatific pop sophistication of more recent works like ‘Detrola.’

$13-15. Doug Fir Lounge, 830 E Burnside St.

Junior Brown courtesy juniorbrown.com

Junior Brown

April 10 @ 8pm

The dapper Texas troubadour has been picking that weird-looking guitar and singing truck driving songs in Ernest Tubb’s soulful baritone for nearly 25 years. Brown recently made a welcome return to the spotlight thanks to his droll and rollicking theme song to AMC’s ‘Better Call Saul.’ But he’s got plenty more honkytonk heroics up his carefully tailored sleeve and his lightning country licks are downright stupefying.

$30-35. Aladdin Theater, 3017 SE Milwaukie Ave.

Arlt, Dragging an Ox Through Water

April 11 @ 9pm

Direct from Paris (France, not Texas), the enchanting duo of singer Eloise Decazes and guitarist Sing Sing are responsible for odd, fuzzy pop songs that are just too insidiously hypnotic to be dismissed as mere decorative trifle. There’s a definite whiff of Velvet Underground opium den lurking in languorous gems like “Le Périscope” and “Revoir la Mer.” Portland’s Brian Mumford, better known as Dragging an Ox Through Water, has a similarly singular vision of folk music, often sheathing his plaintive voice and acoustic guitar rambles in curious industrial sounds, suggesting engines or bugs or Satan or something.

Foggy Notion, 3416 N Lombard St.

John Chandler has been writing about rock and/or roll for 25 years with The Rocket, Portland Tribune, Portland Monthly, Magnet, Dagger, No Depression, and Puncture. He also writes about beer, booze, and bars for Portland'sBarFly website and plays in a couple goofy bands when the mood strikes him. He can most often be found at the wheel of horrificflicks.com, a review website dedicated to horror movies.