Eleven PDX Magazine April 2015 by Eleven PDX

VOL.4 ISSUE 11 APRIL ‘15

MUSIC, COMMUNITY, AND CULTURE

LOCAL FEATURE

DIRTY LOOKS BLENDED TOWN POP

VISUAL ARTS

CALEXICO’S EDGE OF THE SUN

YOUNG FATHERS

POET LEAH NOBLE DAVIDSON

ISIS FISHER

BALANCED ASYMMETRICAL ILLUSTRATIONS

Belle Sebastian and

ELEVEN PDX MAGAZINE - VOLUME 4, ISSUE 11

COMPLIMENTARY

contents

ELEVEN PDX MAGAZINE ISSUE NO. 11

THE USUAL 3 Letter from the Editor 3 Staff Credits

VOLUME 4

FEATURES Local Feature 13 Dirty Looks

Cover Feature 17 Belle And Sebastian

new music 4 Aural Fix Tomorrows Tulips Wand Young Fathers Lady Lamb

FILM Watch Me Now 22 How to think about nothing: Godard's Goodbye to Language

7 Short List 7 Album Reviews Speedy Ortiz Wire Calexico

COMMUNITY Neighborhood of the Month 24 NW "Bucket" Neighborhood

Literary Arts 25 Portland poet Leah Noble Davidson

LIVE MUSIC 9 Know Your Venue Aladdin Theater

11 Musicalendar

Visual Arts 27 Portland artist Isis Fisher

An encompassing overview of concerts in PDX for the upcoming month. But that’s not all–the Musicalendar is complete with a venue map to help get you around town. more online at elevenpdx.com

HELLO PORTLAND! It's full on springtime, and while that would usually mean shaking off the winter blues, I don't know if we can call these past few months a winter. It's been more of a post-fall or pre-spring. Either way, it's time to get in gear for the outdoor hangouts, the music festivals, the commute-by-bike to work (and actually looking forward to it)! As usual in our fair Portland, April is the month when we start getting really excited about the concert/event season, and a solid party-starter is this month's cover feature, Belle and Sebastian [pp. 17-21]. They're one of the bands that made my college years a taste-expanding experience. They're not particularly revolutionary or over-the-top, they are just damn talented musicians, and as they don't often make it through Cascadia, it's advisable to go see them now. We also want to say a quick "Congrats!" to our friends at KPSU.org for turning 20 (they're also hosting live shows all month to celebrate) and the homies at XRAY.fm for turning 1. We adore the genuine programming emanating from both of those channels. [To them and to you;] Cheers for being champions of our shared values; music, community, and culture in Portland, OR! Âť

- Ryan Dornfeld, Editor in Chief

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EXECUTIVE STAFF EDITOR IN CHIEF Ryan Dornfeld CREATIVE DIRECTOR Dustin Mills SECTION EDITORS LOCAL FEATURE: Brandy Crowe, Wendy Worzalla LITERARY ARTS: Scott McHale VISUAL ARTS: Mercy McNab FILM: Rachael Haigh, Bex Silver graphic DESIGN Dustin Mills Alex Combs COVER PHOTO Soren Solkaer CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Brandy Crowe, Billy Dye, Eric Evans, Donovan Farley, Veronica Greene, Rachael Haigh, Casey Hardmeyer, Kelly Kovl, Travis Leipzig, Ethan Martin, Scott McHale, Aaron Mills, Jacob Schraer, Matthew Sweeney, Charles Trowbridge, Wendy Worzalla photographers Mercy McNab, Aa Mills, Todd Walberg, Caitlin M. Webb

online Mark Dilson, Donovan Farley, Kim Lawson, Michael Reiersgaard get involved getinvolved@elevenpdx.com www.elevenpdx.com twitter.com/elevenpdx facebook.com/elevenmagpdx GENERAL INQUIRIES info@elevenpdx.com ADVERTISING sales@elevenpdx.com DISTRIBUTION / PROMO The Redcoats eleven west media group, llc Ryan Dornfeld Dustin Mills SPECIAL THANKS Our local business partners who make this project possible. Our friends, families, associates, lovers, creators and haters. And of course, our city!

new music aural fix

AURAL FIX

UP AND COMING MUSIC FROM THE NATIONAL SCENE

TOMORROWS TULIPS APRIL 3 | THE KNOW

The first couple Tomorrows Tulips albums sound like what it must have been like to be on quaaludes back in the 70s. Not the douchey Wolf of Wall Street kind, the but the original lazy and burnt out on a sunny afternoon stuff. But with "Baby," the first track of the new release When, they jolt out the haze and into a more Pavement-esque pop sound. They follow with songs like "Laying in the Sun" and the title track "When," which both sound solidly like The Velvet Underground. One of the strongest tracks is "Papers By the TV," with a simple chord structure that proves sometimes less is more. The most alluring song by far is "Glued to You," with fuzzy baselines dripped in sex, in a dreary So-Cal kind of way. The videos they have produced so far, especially for "Baby," are where they really nail it. Showing expressionless barebreasted women in front of a simple backdrop is way ahead of it's time. It’s refreshing to see a band have the balls to put something a little avant garde in the interwebs. Wouldn’t it be nice to see some more bands do music videos again? It creates a much more lasting impression than just the music alone.

Photo by Meghan Tryon

WAND APRIL 12 | DOUG FIR

If there’s an underserved community in music, it’s folks that like their music heavy but—and here’s the wrinkle— with vocals that aren’t a guttural growl or piercing scream. Somehow it has become a sad reality that the heavier the

Photo by Taylor Bonin

The band formed when Alex Knost took a permanent hiatus from Japanese Motors to do something a little more DIY, with simple chord structures and slacker lyrics. He found Ford Archibold, whose chops on bass balance out the band perfectly. They added Paz Lenchantin, (the Pixies bass player) to add some distortion and experimental touches like backwards violin on the new album. The result is the best bummer rock that’s been put out in a while. The Costa Mesa crew have really reworked that kind of post-punk grunge that is cycling back into the scene now. They’re gearing up for a big European tour this spring, making several stops in Germany (who will love them), France and Switzerland. » - Scott McHale

music, the more angry and distorted the singing. How many bands offer giant riffs without accompanying screeches or garbage-disposal grunts? Before Jane’s Addiction became a caricature of themselves, they offered that; Mastodon increasingly offers cleaner (or no) vocals. It’s a short list. Golem, the new LP by L.A.’s Wand, belongs right at the top of that list. Featuring elements of hardcore and metal filtered through a late ’60s/early ’70s rock radio sensibility, these tracks thrash and stomp through tempo changes and riffs that would make Ritual de lo Habitual-era Dave Navarro proud. “Self-Hypnosis In 3 Days” splits the difference between Foo Fighters and Krautrock while “Reaper Invert” suggests The Moody Blues on steroids. “Melted Rope” and closer “The Drift” fall on the gentler side of the spectrum but don’t stray from rock territory. Like Foxygen or Ty Segall, Wand seems to have absorbed and transformed the vibe and sensibility of classic rock mainstays without sounding like throwbacks or a cover band. Promisingly, all nine tracks of Golem sound tight but not overly polished or manipulated. There’s every chance that Wand’s live show will pick up right where the album leaves off: with wall-of-sound guitars, big hooks, and vocals that don’t sound like chainsaws. Start to finish it’s intriguing—heavy enough to satisfy metalheads but melodic enough to reach beyond that genre. » - Eric Evans

www.elevenpdx.com | ELEVEN PORTLAND | 4

new music aural fix

YOUNG FATHERS APRIL 29 | HOLOCENE

The hip-hop world is undergoing another renaissance. Some would argue that it never really had a down period, if you take into consideration some of the underground jams coming out, but it’s fair to say that we’ve seen an influx in great talent. Young Fathers, the alternative hip-hop trio out of Edinburgh, Scotland, is a perfect example of the burgeoning explorative nature of today’s iteration of the genre. The typical Young Fathers recipe is a combination of raw lyrical turns, synth-heavy tracking, and forward powering beats. The three MCs, Alloysious Massaquoi, Kayus Bankole

5 | ELEVEN PORTLAND | www.elevenpdx.com

and Graham Hastings, are all equally capable of carrying a track, but the interplay between the voices, and the distinct musical influences brought by each, makes for a comprehensively eclectic and strong collection. “LOW,” one of the standout tracks from the award-winning Dead (2014), is a visceral experience. It would be tempting to call the lyrical content “jaded,” but really it’s an introspective look at the internal struggle one feels when trying to find a balance between the desire to keep a bright outlook while being faced with all of the shitty things that confront us on a daily basis, both personally and from the outside world. The oscillating synth riff would be right at home on any presentday rock album, but here it is complemented by the chunky percussive sounds of hand drums and tinkling bells. Young Fathers have tapped into the power of dynamics, and the instrumentals explode with the sung hook, and drop back into an understated beat for the rapped verses. Really, it’s an apt encapsulation of the group’s ability to capture elements from almost any genre and repurpose them creatively and with the flair and confidence of musicians who know exactly what they want to do. Young Fathers recently released “Shameless,” a single from the upcoming album. Surprisingly, it features almost no rapping, but it works. The passion, versatility and intense focus that have been the hallmark of the group’s work to-date is ever present. And if that’s not enough, then I don’t know what is. » - Charles Trowbridge

new music aural fix process is also said to be inspired by writing down parts of vivid dreams in a journal, trying to capture subconsciousness. Songs are led by the flow of her instrumentation, playing bass, drums, and woodwinds for tracks herself, with friends Marco Buselli on percussion and Nadim Issa on organ and vibraphone, as well as bringing some brass players. One of the best parts about After is that the constant tempo changes create a ride within songs, particularly the breaks into bashing, banging rock, like the beauty and metaphor of “Vena Cava” unleashing into a fun rant, or the heavy static and speed of “Atlas,” dialing back into quiet harmonies and strings. Either way, Lady Lamb belts it out. » - Brandy Crowe

Photo by Shervin Lainez

LADY LAMB

APRIL 27 | MISSISSIPPI STUDIOS

Aly Spaltro began recording in the basement of the video store where she worked in 2007, and has been drawing on creative energy as Lady Lamb (Or Lady Lamb The Beekeeper), every since. She satisfies an amalgam of genres- folk, pop, rock, gospel, country, even some punk. Her earlier albums have had her tearing up a banjo, singing deeply about loss and confusion, or portraying darkness with a comical edge. This year’s album After has Spaltro’s soulful voice echoing to compliment her guitars on several songs, something signature from previous work. But this is a new beginning of sorts. Her writing is prose set to music, and she has an ability to relay the simplest of observations, special connections with strangers, and a dream-like narrative of childhood memories. Much of her songwriting

QUICK TRACKS A “BILLIONS OF EYES” One of the first singles from After finds itself soulful and hopeful, starting upbeat and loud, with tight rhythms and catchy guitar melody. The song winds through “thought trains” of simple conversations and situations to joy.

B “BATTER” Heavy riffs and rhythms, and dirty, deadpan vocals. The song toils over fears and sex, while playing with lyricism. She begins to lose that innocence with “May it stick thick like a slaughter” before “Halle, Halle, Hallelujah.”

www.elevenpdx.com | ELEVEN PORTLAND | 6

new music album reviews

ALBUM REVIEWS

Singer-songwriter Sadie Dupuis stirs an interesting elixir of equal parts fierce punk and saccharin innocence. This music is like a finicky feline. It wants you to pet it but it also kinda wants to bite you. With it’s funky riffs and neat little noises one might be tempted to describe this as Modest Mouse’s little sister. Similar sensibilities but with a definite style

This Month’s best

all her own and on her way to being

R Reissue

one of the cool kids some day. That

L Local release

day may be a lot closer than you

Short List Built To Spill Untethered Moon Marriages Salome The Mountain Goats Beat The Champ Toro y Moi What For? Alabama Shakes Sound & Color Waxahatchee Ivy Tripp Passion Pit Kindred

The Brian Jonestown Massacre Musique de Film Imagine Braids Deep In The Iris Crocodiles Crimes Of Passion Matt & Kim New Glow Blues Traveler Blow Up The Moon

Buy it

Steal it

Toss it

facebook.com/elevenmagpdx @elevenpdx

7 | ELEVEN PORTLAND | www.elevenpdx.com

Speedy Ortiz Foil Deer Carpark Records

might think. We appear to be on the

If an album name like Foil Deer

side.

stirs up for you images of taking home leftovers from a dysfunctional family dinner at The Roadkill Cafe you already have a pretty good head start on what you’re in for. A bit rough around the edges in just the right places while retaining a certain majestic grace. Also tasty.

back side of the “indie folk duo” bell curve and it is going to be bands like Speedy Ortiz that take us up the next This album is actually quite good and worthy of a listen through. Even if you don’t like it you will, at the very least, be entertained. And isn’t that the whole point any way? » - Aaron Mills Speedy Ortiz comes through Portland May 25 at Mississippi Studios

new music album reviews

Wire Wire Pinkflag Wire are rightfully counted as trailblazers—they’re one of those groups who saw the “punk movement” as an open invitation to creatives from all backgrounds and predilections to try and make a mark on popular culture, and were therefore simply classified as “post-punk” for the sake of brevity. But what exactly are Wire? On Pink Flag

Calexico Edge of the Sun Anti- Records Calexico have occupied their own corner of the indie rock world for the better part of two decades now, dealing in the more “Southwest” elements of the alt-country movement than most, with charging mariachi trumpets and lonesome steel guitar. After spending the latter half of the ‘90s and first half of the ‘00s developing their signature brand of Tex-Mex alt-rock, they adopted a more straightforward indie-

they were “punks.” But elsewhere, the lines seem to blur. Listen to “Madman’s Honey” off The Ideal Copy. Are Wire psych-rockers at heart? Or are they calculated crafters of sophisti-pop? Consider founding members Graham Lewis and Bruce Gilbert’s numerous avant-garde side-projects. Deep down, Wire have the curiosity and adventurous spirit of true experimentalists. Of course, just about every decent band will defensively claim when pressed that they don’t pay as much mind to labels as their critics, but it’s the rare band that actually defies classification from album to album. If there’s a label you could readily shove onto them, it’s that they’re probably the quintessential underrated band. Wire is a name that many like to drop, but how many have dove into their rich discography? Frontman Colin Newman has been at the craft for over 30 years, and if there was ever a bad Wire album, I don’t remember it. It would be nice to say the same for Mark E. Smith’s slapdash brilliance, which can produce mediocre junk as easily as gold.

The new self-titled Wire album is more or less Wire on cruise-control, but that’s not unwelcome at all, for me, anyway. I’d rather listen to some nice tunes from Newman and company than “post-punk revival” like the overhyped but decent-enough Sleaford Mods and the sleepy Savages. I got a little nervous at the first stanza of the opener, “Blogging,” which paints a slightly melodramatic picture of social media and is the one somewhat disappointing note on this pleasant new album. In truth, I was not as impressed with the more highfalutin lyrical ambitions of Wire as I was with the bittersweet amours (“Burning Bridges”) and astute sketches (“Swallow”). Colin Newman’s gift for captivating melodies and clever turns of phrase is still ironclad. There is one truly brilliant line on this album: “The narrowest vision often has the widest appeal.” Perhaps that is why Wire, one of the most ferociously eclectic and intelligent acts in the history of rock, has never completely come out of the shadows. » - Matthew Sweeney

pop approach with 2005’s collaboration with Iron & Wine, the EP In His Reins, which managed to break into the Billboard charts, and their 2006 follow up Garden Ruin. 2012’s well received Algiers saw Calexico moving away from their home studio in Tucson, Arizona to New Orleans with solid results. Calexico return this year with Edge of the Sun, recorded back home in Tucson, and it’s a welcome return to the rowdier sound of the earlier recordings, with a few curveballs thrown in. Leadoff track “Falling from the Sky” is classic Calexico, a stirring folk-rock anthem with a melancholy lilt, sharp hook, and is dressed up tastefully with layers of synth and mellotron. “Falling” is really the best of “both” Calexicos, containing the energy of their early material with the sharp pop sense that have graced the last few records. The entire first half of the record is similarly solid, with “When the Angels Played” tunefully Dylanesque and the more cosmically inclined “Bullets & Rocks.” “Cumbia de Donde”is the red herring, with it’s

almost radio-ready contemporary Latin pop being the biggest departure from their traditional sound that Calexico has taken yet. While it may turn off some listeners, it’s actually a pretty brilliant little homage to cruising around East L.A., with catchy as hell call-and-response vocals, strutting trumpets and funky synths. They’d be wise to push it as a single. The rest of the record doesn’t quite reach the highs of the first half, but there are plenty of great moments, like the Latin surf-rock of “Beneath the City of Dreams” and the slinky synth-reggae of “Moon Never Rises” being particularly strong. But what's most impressive about Edge of the Sun, is its almost complete lack of “off” moments. Having been around since ‘96, Calexico know what they do best and they do it well. Edge is the sound of a band completely comfortable with itself. Having explored the ins and outs of their sound, Calexico and their listeners are reaping the benefit of their veteran status, and it sounds like they have plenty more in the tank. » - Casey Hardmeyer

www.elevenpdx.com | ELEVEN PORTLAND | 8

live music

KNOW YOUR VENUE

Aladdin Theater

Photo by Ryan Dornfeld

he classic Aladdin Theater overlooks a large

remained a successful all-ages cinema house for the

stretch of Milwaukie Avenue at Powell

next 40 years until a decision was made for the theatre

Boulevard in the SE Brooklyn neighborhood

to serve an exclusively adult audience. Throughout the

of Portland. Within the venue, the stage,

1970s and ‘80s, Aladdin was exclusively x-rated, and even

chandeliers and organ grilles maintain the

achieved the inglorious honor of being the number one

same appearance as they did when the venue was first

exhibitor of the notorious flick, Deep Throat. Thankfully,

constructed in 1927. Since then, hundreds of thousands

a benefactor with a love for music and repair, ushered in

of people have enjoyed performances there, thanks

a new era for the building.

mostly to the building’s creator and original owner, Ike Geller. Born in Russia in 1894, Geller opened his first theatre,

Paul Shuback (of Shuback’s Violin Shop) purchased the property in 1991, renovating both the exterior and interior, and reopening Aladdin as a performance

Walnut Park, in NE Portland at the ripe age of twenty-

venue and art-film house. Within the next couple of

nine. A man of taste, he longed for a more modern show

years, Shuback worked with concert promoters Steve

house with a “Golden ‘20s” aesthetic. With assistance

Reischman and Sally Custer to begin a healthy legacy of

from architect Edward A. Miller, he achieved his goal,

quality concerts and events at the theater. Reischman

opening Geller’s Theatre on Christmas Day, 1927.

would later leave production company Showman Inc. to

Seven years later, the 630-seat house was renamed the Aladdin and provided a stage for vaudeville acts such as Jack Benny, until the mid 1930s, when the demand for cinema overtook that for live performance. The Aladdin

9 | ELEVEN PORTLAND | www.elevenpdx.com

launch Bear Concerts, where he employed another savvy entrepreneur, Mark Adler. Working as a talent buyer for Bear Concerts, Adler saw the potential in the historic Aladdin and completed

live music

Fruit Bats final show November 16, 2013 at Aladdin. Photo by Ryan Dornfeld

purchase of the building in 2001. Forming his own production company (True West LLC) at the same time, Adler and his team have since hosted a wide variety of musicians (Beck, The Black Keys, Lindsey Buckingham), comedians (Louis C.K., Aziz Ansari, Chelsea Handler) and performers (Dita Von Teese). While True West books events at a handful of venues throughout Portland, the crown jewel remains The Aladdin. For more information and a list of more of the amazing performances at the Aladdin, please visit www.aladdin-theater.com 禄 - Richard Lime

MONDAYS: BUNKER SESSIONS OPEN MIC - 8PM/FREE

OPEN MIC HOSTED BY LEE AULSON AND TALON BRONSON. SIGNUP AT 730. SHOW 8.

MONDAYS: EYE CANDY VJS - 9PM/FREE

MUSIC VIDEO REQUESTS FOR THE SOUL. SELECT FROM A STOUT CATALOG!

TUESDAYS: LATE TUNES WITH KPSU DJ始S - 9PM/FREE SONGS CURATED JUST FOR YOU

www.elevenpdx.com | ELEVEN PORTLAND | 10

live music APRIL crystal ballroom

1332 w burnside 1 The Antlers | Shaprece | Musee Mecanique

2-3 Dark Star Orchestra

14 5

NORTHWEST

PEARL

LOVEJOY ST.

OLD TOWN 2

7 9 3

6 21

11TH AVE.

8TH AVE.

405

DDOOW WNN TTOOW WNN

GOOSE HOLLOW

GRAND AVE.

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MLK BLVD.

MLK BLVD.

1 2 3 4 5 8 9 10 12 16 17 18 19 20 22

WILLIAMS AVE. RUSSELL ST.

NEIGHBORHOOD OF THE MONTH

23RD AVE.

3939 n mississippi

TA VE .

830 e burnside

mississippi studios

AV E.

Doug fir

VANCOUVER AVE.

8 nw 6th

3 1 2 3 4 5 6 8 9 10 11 12 14 16 18 19 21 22 24 25 26 28 29 30

Roseland Theater

SKIDMORE ST.

MISSISSIPPI AVE.

2 9 10 11 12 14 16 17 19 23 24 25

ALBERTA S

INTERSTATE

4 7 10 14 15 16 19 22 24 25 26

live music

42ND AVE.

ST.

ALBERTA ARTS

APRIL mississippi studios (continued) Lady Lamb | Rathborne Turbo Fruits | Eternal Summers Nora Jane Struthers & The Party Line Chatham County Line | The Earnest Lovers

wonder ballroom 128 ne russell

15TH AVE.

PRESCOTT ST.

BEAUMONT

28TH AVE.

BROADWAY

ODY BLVD. O D W SAN Y LL O H

LAURELHURST 47TH ST.

BURNSIDE ST. 8

STARK ST.

HAWTHORNE

POW

ELL B

17TH AVE.

LVD.

28TH AVE.

BROOKLYN

50TH AVE.

CLINTON ST.

8 bossanova ballroom 722 E Burnside 9 kelly’s olympian 426 sw washington 10 eastburn

CESAR CHAVEZ BLVD.

DIVISION ST.

5 12

1800 e burnside

LADD’S

1 2 3 4 8 9 10 11 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 29 30

Moon By You | Be Calm Honcho Eternal Tapestry | Jackson Boone

BELMONT ST.

4 5 8 11 18 19 20 23

600 e burnside

MORRISON ST.

HAWTHORNE BLVD.

1001 se morrison

rontoms

holocene

33RD AVE.

KNOTT ST.

24TH AVE.

FREMONT ST.

27 28 29 30

HOLGATE BLVD.

RD .

1 3 4 6 7 9 10 11 14 16 17 18 19 21 24 25 28 29 30

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features APRIL bunk bar

11 1028 se water 3 4 7 10 11 16 18 21 25 27

know 12 the 2026 ne alberta 3 6 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 23 25 28 29 30

LOCAL FEATURE DIRTY LOOKS

13 10

14 3 4 10 11 17 24

15 3 7 8 9 10 11 14 17 18 21 22 23

certain honesty as well as a naïveté swirls around Portland quartet the kenton club 2025 n kilpatrick Dirty Looks. Both in Josue Santiago de Leon | Trujillo | The Von Howlers their music and real life personalities exist a genuine sweetness; a THE SECRET SOCIETY lightheartedness. While they stand before 116 NE RUSSELL Get Rhythm | The Black Crabs | Archangels Thunderbird the early stages of their career, their Matthew Zeltzer | Blind Willies | Hearts of Oak purpose is endearing. They share words of Ezra Bell | Beach Fire | Two Planets treating each other as family and of a love Drunken Prayer | The Jackalope Saints | The Redeemed for creating music. Hip Hatchet | Jeffrey Martin | Anna Tivel Dirty Looks’ background is a bit of The Ganges River Band | Earnest Lovers | Evening Bell patchwork. Front and center features white eagle vocalist Kate Neal, previously known 836 n russell as local hip hop emcee Kritik, though Rob Johnston (Sundays) Sin City Ramblers | Twinsmith | Stubborn Lovers the band dynamic doesn’t exude a rap Robber's Roost | Anonymoose | ShootDang feel. The three remaining members of Gabriel Cox The Welfare State | Surf Stoned & The Sun Drunks the band, Erin Marshall (guitar/vocals), Jacob McCollam (drums) and Matt Radich Mexican Gunfight Don & The Quixotes | Ferns (guitar), speak wistfully of late nights White Violet | Geranimo Getty | Sam Fowles at the Landmark Saloon, longing for the Condition White | pigWar country. Even though their first album, Garcia Birthday Band White Eagle Blues Jam Only Have Eyes for New, debuts this Class M Planets | Envelope Peasant | Jonny Ampersand month, the band has been honeymooning Jokers & Jacks | Big Fellas for about three years.

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ELEVEN felt the need to satiate our curiosity about these lovely Looks, so we gathered with the band around a patio fire on a gently drizzly afternoon in SE Portland. ELEVEN: Does the band have equal roles or is there a team captain? Erin Marshall: Kate is our captain. Jacob McCollam: The girls bring song, lyrical action, Matt [and I] boast the musical end of it. It’s a good co-mingling. 11: The fellas bring the rhythm and the ladies bring vocals and good looks? EM: Definitely the looks. *laughs* 11: I know most bands love being put into boxes, so if you had to categorize your sound, what would it be?

Photo by Mike Jewell

11: This album was a three year process, do you feel like you’ve honed in on your sound? JM: [It’s] definitely progressive, we’ve progressed, especially the new songs we’ve been putting together, we’ve found that. This next one will be pretty epic. *laughs* EM: Yeah, and I think that we’ve now [with the newer] songs, everybody brought a piece to the table that was more complete and we started really, actually writing together. Matt Radich: I think the process has changed a lot. Kate and Erin had a bunch of stuff before Jacob and I joined and then we sort of augmented that and then I would add a few riffs, now I feel like it’s more all together. I think recording helped us decide on what our sound would be. I feel like if we had recordings of our live show before going to the studio, they would each sound sonically very different, even if we were playing the same song. Since then, I think we replicate a [single] sound live now.

EM: When people would ask us that, we’d be like, “Well, it's sort of like pop, dance, surf, indie, rock… we would list everything.” We started asking people, “What do we say when people ask us that?” So we call it indie dance-pop now. It does come from a wide variety of musical interests, [and] encompasses a lot of different styles. 11: Tell me about the debut album. Kate Neal: I think that the album is really the four of us trying to figure out how we fit together, and what our sound is going to be, and we knew that we had something really unique together, but it’s very true that we come from different musical backgrounds, different musical talents and experiences, so this first album is us bringing those things to the table and sorting out how it’s going to be in a cohesive, collective sound together, so there’s a bit of that discovery going on. EM: I think all the songs [on the album are] fun and they share a kind of thread, but they are a little bit more disparate than I think our next project will be.

11: You only get to make your first album once, how was that experience? JM: Exciting, it was great. KN: It felt so organic and [was] kismet how it all came together. We talked to Dustin [Mills] who recommended us to Nalin [Silva, Revolver Studios] who really took us under his wing and really helped us and supported us. We’ve all done stuff separately, musically and I think we’ve all recorded before but I’ve never recorded in that kind of professional studio setting with a full band. It was a big learning experience for us and was actually the first time too that we got to hear, really, what we sounded like together and that was an awesome experience. JM: Revolver Studios and Nalin Silva, that was the best thing that could have happened because he took us in. At the very beginning he kind of sat back, but then he took the producer role for us and drove us to the place we all wanted to be. 11: Did he help tweak the sound? What did he do that was so helpful?

features APRIL white eagle (continued) Lewi Longmire Band Bucharest Drinking Team | Kef | Trio Tsuica Heavy Gone Acoustic | Monica Nelson & The Highgates Bill Wadhams & Company

alhambra theatre 4811 se hawthorne

hawthorne theatre 1507 se 39th

VALENTINES

6 7 9 10 11 12 13 15 16 17 18 19 26 27 29

232 SW ANKENY

24 25 29 30

4 6 10 11 12 13 15 17 18 19 20 22 23 24

MOLOKO

Taste the nightlife of Mississippi. Over 40 house infused liquors. Specialty absinth cocktails. Open until 2am every day. N PORTLAND 3967 N Mississippi (97227) 503.288.6272 molokopdx.com

ALADDIN THEATER 3017 SE MILWAUKIE

Charlie Musselwhite Magma Josh Garrels Junior Brown | The Easy Leaves Wishbone Ash Two Gallants | Will Sprott Rob Bell & Pete Holmes Polaris GarthGuy Live

the goodfoot 2845 se stark

2 4 9 10 11 16 19 23 30

Motown On Sundays (Sundays) Sonic Forum Open Mic (Mondays) Yak Attack (Tuesdays) Soul Stew w/DJ Aquaman (Fridays) McTuff | Cure For The Common The Congress Yo Mama's Big Fat Booty Band | Elektrapod

4 8 9

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features APRIL goodfoot (continued) 11 15 16 18 22 23 25 30

Garcia Birthday band Buddy Jay's Jamaican Jazz Band Juno What?! | DJ Weather Yamn | Yack Attack Cats Under The Stars Asher Fulero Band Trout Steak Revival | Firewater Mountain Band Errick Lewis Band's tribute to Bootsy Collins

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15 | ELEVEN PORTLAND | www.elevenpdx.com

JM: As we settled into the studio sound and got to hear it like that, it was like, “Wow, we can do this, we can play with that.” It’s a pretty clean record, it’s not a lot of tweaking, it’s just more like, “We can play this instrument or we can add this. Sonically, we can build this up, you guys have got a lot of space,” It’s beautiful. MR: Definitely little things. He would get this mad scientist look, and he’d be like “Oooh, we should try…” and then we’d always love [his ideas]. He’d be like, “You should play this amp on this part” and we’d do it and we’d be like “Yeah! Obviously that!” 11: How does all that translate to the live show? KN: Matt bought a new pedal! *all laugh* It made a world of difference. EM: Otherwise, I think just being tighter around everything. Just understanding the dynamics that are supposed to be going on (a lot more) was helpful to the live performance. 11: What would be your ideal frequency of playing shows? Every night? Once a month? JM: I think we can start up around the 5 in Washington, maybe California, Idaho, and stick close because we have lives, and money in music… *laughs* is not what it used to be at all, there’s a lot of competition for that. Maybe mini tours to start. EM: We’d love to be playing as often as possible while maintaining, you know, life. 11: So if a major label wanted to come in and buy you out of your jobs, would you be down? KN: I set out to basically switch from a solo hip hop career to some kind of band and I had this idea in my head about what it would be, and then I met Erin and we started having this organic songwriting singing thing together and it was very different from what I had initially thought, but I was like, “This is cool, I’m just going to let it happen and see where it goes,” and then we brought Jacob into the fold, we brought Matt into the band,

and its been definitely different than what I envisioned but so organic and so good and I just feel like the four of us are more of a family now than anything else and that feels really good to share this with people that I love. MR: I would say that we have a lot of non-musically productive band practices, but always fun. It’s important. EM: It was funny that Kate wanted to start a hip hop band, and she got three alternative country fans to join. KN: But it works! I’m so glad I was able to be open to something different, because before, I was really set in what I was doing musically. Erin kind of opened my eyes a little bit to what could be, and I never really sang before and I just thought “I’m going to go for it” and it’s really turned out to be a good experience for me. 11: What are your favorite music venues in town? KN: We have to say Kelly’s [Olympian], we love Kelly’s. We like playing at the [McMenamins] White Eagle. EM: We really, really like to play Pride. It’s fun to play outside anywhere you can. I love playing outside. 11: You played at Pride this past year, right? EM: We played the last two years, I think we’ll definitely play [again] this year. 11: And how have those shows gone over? JM: It kind of led to our record actually. Getting started with the record, someone was like, “Where is your recorded music?” “I guess we should think about that now.” KN: That’s true, Pride two years ago really did start the ball on the album. Now, we’ll be able to play pride and have the album! *laughs* 11: You just released your first video today–why should people go watch it? KN: I think that it is hilarious. I feel like we’re the most adorable band around. The video is really funny, really cute, and pretty well done if I do say so myself!

I’m pretty proud of it, yeah. It’s on our website, givemedirtylooks.com and it’s also on YouTube if you search “Pop Pop by Dirty Looks,” you’ll find it. EM: And the video is for the first song that we ever wrote. KN: Yeah, “Pop Pop” really is the first Dirty Looks song. EM: And that song has evolved a lot since we first were playing. 11: Last question–it’s one that bands hate but readers love, where did the band name come from? KN: This is actually awesome because we weren’t really sure what to call ourselves. We had a working name for a while, I mentioned I was coming over from hip hop, my emcee hip hop name was Kritik, so when I started this whole venture I thought it would be a hip hop band, so it was Kritik and the Beatz, but when this came together it was very

clear that didn’t fit, it wasn’t just about me, it was the four of us organically putting our hearts and soul into the music that we were creating so we needed to come up with a name and we actually played a show at a bar that my friends own called Escape up in Northeast Portland on Sandy and Presecott, we love Escape, and on their bathroom walls they have chalkboards so we decided to promote the show by having this band naming contest, name our band, and on the chalkboards we just had different lines that people could write in, and by the end of the night people had written in tons of suggestions, and one of the suggestions was Dirty Looks, and it’s because we performed a song that we wrote together called “Dirty Looks,” and we fell in love with it and started calling ourselves Dirty Looks. EM + KN: Eighties hair bands be damned! » - Richard Lime

Dirty Looks celebrate the release of their debut record April 4 at Kelly's Olympian Marshall, and at the same time have interplay with the hook-laden riffs of Matt Radich. Neal’s vocals will bounce in tempo, occasionally reverting to her hip-hop background, like on their first single, “Pop Pop” as well as “Waiting All Night.” Neal drops clever and optimistic lyrics that could hearken to some of the more playful Yo! MTV Raps days. On the majority of the tracks, Neal sings. While the combined vocals can land a bit flat at

L Dirty Looks Only Have Eyes for New Self-released

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Only Have Eyes starts to really take stride about halfway through with the catchy tune “Sneaker Wave,” maybe Immediately proceeding is “Up On Me,” which explores the bluesier side of Dirty

spotlight. The Dirty Looks’ debut album

Looks before returning to the poppier

Only Have Eyes for New contains an

“Everybody Knows” and exploratory “70’s

interesting mix of diverse influences.

Love Song.” While there are a handful of

Strokes, vocal bursts of Jenny Lewis,

successes and failures on the album, it’s

Karen O, TLC, or sometimes all of the

obviously a manifestation of the band

above, the band somehow is able to

exploring its sound and the finding

maintain an air of originality, and this

of itself. In this regard, the band has

comes down to the way the parts unite.

achieved what it sought to do, and as the

The vocals of frontwoman Kate

product continues to be polished, it will

Neal are tempered by those of Erin

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HOLLYWOOD THEATRE

eyeshadow, and it could use a little

At times channeling guitar lines of The

APRIL dantes

times and occasionally squeak, the duo of

the most solid track of the bunch. It’s sultry, it's sweet, it’s got

features

continue to gain worth. » - Richard Lime

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17 | ELEVEN PORTLAND | www.elevenpdx.com Photo by Soren Solkaer

www.elevenpdx.com | ELEVEN PORTLAND | 18

features national scene

dds are, if you’ve had any interest in Indie Rock/Pop during the last 20 years, you are well acquainted with Belle & Sebastian. The iconic Scottish group has released 9 studio albums since their formation in 1996, and have truly stood the test of time, taking on ended relationships, lineup changes, and side projects in stride. The first time you heard “The Party Line,” the single off of their latest effort Gi rls in Peacetime want to Dance yo u may have been a little caught off guard by their “new sound.” This comes as no surprise as ‘Girls in Peacetime’ has been catching attention from both fan and critic alike for it’s synth heavy and disco influences grooves that can border on Europop at times. For a band that has learned how to keep fans happy for so long with a style that is infectiously upbeat (even when the lyrics are tragic) this album, on the surface, is a bit of departure from their signature sound. Upon closer examination, the synth and drum machine bones have been there all along, and were just waiting for the band to be in the right mood to uncover them. On a call with keyboardist Chris Geddes, who has been a part of Belle & Sebastian from the very start, ELEVEN wanted to know more about time’s influence on the band and where exactly this “new sound” is coming from. ELEVEN: What makes Belle and Sebastian keep making music together after nearly twenty years? Chris Geddes: I guess it’s mostly enjoyment, I think. I don’t think any of us have really an alternative kind of plan of what we’re going to do in our lives. I suppose, well, maybe it’s different Stuart [Murdoch], obviously because he made the movie [Go d Help the Girl]a nd stuff like that. I think with him coming back to the band, we know how to make stuff happen. You know, we knew we wanted to make the record. We know we want to go on tour and we know how to make that kind of thing happen quite quickly as well. We’re comfortable with each other. We love to play music together, so that’s why we do it. 11: Since you have been playing together for so long how has the process changed for the band over time, besides just the logistics of becoming a larger band? CG: Yeah, there’s been a bit of a change in lineup over the years, and that has been a bit different. Over the years when Isobel [Campbell] was in the band, and she and Stuart were sometimes in a relationship and sometimes not, that kind of complicated things in it’s own special way. These days with the line up we’ve got at the moment... Dave McGowen joined the band. He’d been playing with us life for a couple of years, and he played bass on the album. I think he made a big contribution to the album added some freshness that might not have been there if it had been the six of us again. In terms of doing the show, I feel my role has changed a bit. I used to mostly play the piano and the organ, and then these

19 | ELEVEN PORTLAND | www.elevenpdx.com

days, obviously with some of the songs that have a lot of the electro stuff, we’ve had to work at it, had to produce it live, so there’s a lot going on in terms of technology on stage, a lot that can go wrong. 11: Do you enjoy that new aspect of the tech now being a larger part of what you contribute? Do you enjoy that or has it been a bit of a challenge? CG: It’s been a challenge and its been enjoyable. I mean, by and large, when it works, when people in a band are kind of impressed with what you’ve done, then it’s really good, but when something goes wrong and it stops the show in the middle of the show and everyone in the band just looks at you because its on you to sort it out, then it’s not so good. So, yeah, it’s both. I suppose in a way it’s no different than a guitarist breaking a guitar string or something like that. You have to just look at it like that. To me, if one of the one of the electronic things go wrong it’s a complete catastrophe. It’s something that I have knocked around with for years and its sometimes made its way onto other records, but there is much more of it on the most recent record, so it’s a lot bigger part of the live show now. 11: That electronic component coming into the new record, was that something that was planned or did it organically happen? Where did it come from? CG: It came about fairly organically. I think all the songwriters independently were bringing some of that into the band, they were revisiting the idea of being more electronic sounding. Then at the same time when we were on a hiatus between the records, I had done some music together with Stuart David our old bassist who does Looper now. He and I had been doing some stuff together, then a few of us from the band had been doing stuff with Tony Doogan who recorded quite a lot of our records. We were doing more kind of disco-y , instrumental stuff in the studio and some of that stuff ended up finding that things weren’t a million miles away from the record even though Stuart and Sarah [Martin] weren’t involved in it. Ben Allen ended up contributing a lot of the programed stuff on the record as well, but then again, I guess we were all kind of going in the same direction. 11: Was working with Ben Allen as a producer different than the previous albums you recorded? CG: Yes, to a certain extent. He did have a bit of a different approach. I mean, there are a certain traits that almost all the producers have in common. They all think really fast and get frustrated a little bit as they’ll be in the room, kinda keeping everyone up with them, but yeah, he definitely had a different way of working than anyone we’ve worked with before. In the few weeks working with him I learned a lot about, you know, making records and songs and stuff like that.

features national scene

national scene

MISSIS SIPPI STUDIOS

11: You’ve been making records for a long time. So what new things did you learn with this record? CG: I think just I learned a lot about different about an approaches to things like not stopping people when they’re in the middle of an idea. I think chronic stuff as well, like the proper way to use effects. This is the first record where the effects have almost been like another instrument, the reverbs and the echos are almost as important as the parts that people are actually playing. And kinda learning to play with the effects and make what you play the effects one thing. And that was kind of interesting. I learned some of the more technical stuff that is a bit more boring unless you make records, I suppose.

CG: Yeah, I am really not sure. As was the case with this one, usually the direction of any record is led by the songwriters. I think within the band there may be one school of thought that would say, okay we’ve kind of done that and now next time it might be nice to try something different. Richard [Colburn] and I had been talking with Jonathan Wilson, he’s a film writer and producer. We’ve got friendly with him and kind of considered him as a producer for this record... I think Richard and I have a real fondness for Jonathan's approach to music, you know? The kind of organic thing that you get and I think we would be keen on doing something like that, but until we go to work we’ll will just have to wait and see.

"when you make a record, you are always trying to do something that you haven't done before"

A 2

HAPPYNESS 2. THU

TWERPS / LA LUZ

THE WOOLEN MEN / WILL SPROTT

3. FRI

R 0

I 1

L 5

MOVING UNITS 19. SUN

RUMER (AT THE OLD CHURCH)

ALEJANDRO ESCOVEDO

CHARLIE PARR

20. MON

4. SAT

ST 37

FLO MORRISSEY

REPTAR

ACID MOTHERS TEMPLE

BETSE ELLIS

IBEYI

22. WED

5. SUN

SANDY’S

RUN ON SENTENCE

MAC DEMARCO

LAURA GIBSON

(AT THE CRYSTAL BALLROOM)

DINNER

8. WED

PALO VERDE

23. THU

9. THU

DANAVA / LORD DYING

POLST / SEI HEXE

STUMPFEST IV:

DISAPPEARS

CLAY COLE / BLACK IS BRIGHT

10. FRI

THE BROTHERS COMATOSE MARTY O’REILLY

11. SAT (EARLY SHOW)

THE MYSTERY BOX SHOW

LECHEROUS GAZE / BLACK PUSSY SONS OF HUNS / PRIZEHOG

24. FRI STUMPFEST IV:

YOB

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(LATE SHOW)

STUMPFEST IV:

DJ BEYONDA / ILL CAMINO

SANDRIDER / NORSKA / RAJAS BILLIONS AND BILLIONS

MRS. PRESENTS QUEEN 12. SUN

MICKY & THE MOTORCARS BIG E & THE STOMP / REDWOOD SON

15. WED

BIG BUSINESS 26.SUN

MARTHA SCANLAN AL JAMES

CLOSED FOR A PRIVATE EVENT

27. MON

16. THU

RATHBORNE

LEWI LONGMIRE / MARY FLOWER

CG: Yeah, I don’t know, that’s a funny one, because when you make a record you are always trying to do something that you haven’t done before. I think we were conscious that we were taking that style further than we had on any previous record. But at the same time, we want people to think that its not a complete departure from everything you’ve done before or that it’s completely unconnected from what we’ve done previously. It’s not like we’ve never used a drum machine or a synth before, we may have just done a bit more of it this time. It’s weird ‘cause, in a way, you do what people to be surprised, but then you don’t want people to be too surprised.

18. SAT

1. WED

JOE MCMURRIAN 11: Girls in Peacetime has been out for a few months, did you expect the reception that it got? People being surprised by the more dancey and discoy influence?

C A L E N D A R

ULTIMATE PAINTING / GENDERS

11: Since there has been this new experimentation with this electronic and discoy , fun, dancy music, do you think that is something that you all with continue to play with? Do you have an idea of what the next record could be like?

LADY LAMB 28. TUE

(AT THE OLD CHURCH)

TURBO FRUITS ETERNAL SUMMERS

ADEM

29. WED

PHILIP SELWAY 17. FRI

FRED & TOODY COLE UNPLUGGED JENNY DON’T & THE SPURS FLASH FLOOD & THE DIKES

NORA JANE STRUTHERS & THE PARTY LINE 30. THU

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www.elevenpdx.com | ELEVEN PORTLAND | 20

features national scene

11: Since this record is more synth heavy with a drum machine, how is that in your live set mixing with your back catalogue? CG: We literally just go from one style to the other. We just switch instruments. We used to do that in the early days as well, but people would be switching between guitar and piano and then bass. Now we just get more hands on the keyboard. 11: Is it fun to be constantly moving about the stage and swapping instruments? CG: It’s funny, you know, I kind of have my own kind of set up and other people come up and join me which I always quite like, but I don’t actually move around. Yeah, its weird. For Richard and me its really quite different than from everyone else because we are at the back row of the stage and we maybe don’t as much audience interaction as the rest of the band. We are always thinking more technically about the shows rather than the vibe of the audience, for the people at the front, they get to let loose a bit more. 11: In between making albums and touring, how do you stay engaged with your music, or do you like to explore other mediums? CG: I mostly stick to music. I do a bit of DJing, I do a bit of studio work. If I don’t have a lot of anything else on, I might load up a Steely Dan tune on the computer and try and work out all of the minutia of the keyboard part on it, or an old Soul record. You know, just try to really get inside stuff like that. 11: When you’re DJing, what do you play most. Is there a single album that you have on heavy rotation during your DJ sets, or does it depend on where you’re spinning? CG: It really depends on circumstances. My absolute favorite music to DJ with would be 60’s soulful and maybe a bit of garage and psych, 60’s mods tuff. But you can’t always go out and expect to be able to play that stuff. In the right circumstances it can go really well and in the wrong circumstances, it’s just a bunch of old music to people and you don’t have anyway to connect with it. Classics are my favorite. 11: Just one last question, do you karaoke often? CG: Not often no. I have been known to, not often. 11: And so what is your standard karaoke song? Is there one above all that you like to sing on any continent? CG: It’s got to be rock. It’s got to be ‘Living on a Prayer” or “Eye of the Tiger’, something like that. Just some shite ole rock. I know I’ve not got the voice to do the song ballads. »

21 | ELEVEN PORTLAND | www.elevenpdx.com

film

WATCH ME NOW

FILM AND TELEVISION

HOW TO THINK ABOUT NOTHING: GODARD'S GOODBYE TO LANGUAGE t the very beginning of Jean-Luc Godard’s

One question we could ask is “Why 3D?” Godard doesn’t

3D film Goodbye to Language, onscreen text

really use 3D to tell his story, but something quite the

informs us that “It remains to be seen if non-

opposite: the story often feels like a frame to support the

thought contaminates thought.” Like most

three dimensional effect. Strikingly, Godard uses digital

things in a modern Godard film, it is hard to

cameras of fairly low quality, and refrains from using any

tell whether this is a serious warning, a joke, a red herring, or

of the opulent techniques of, for instance, his technicolor

something else entirely. What is non-thought? Furthermore:

epic Contempt. Because of this, much of the film resembles a

what is thought? Is language dead or dying, and what can

home movie that happens to be in 3D. Chairs, table legs, and

be done about it? A film this aesthetically rigorous and

fences will appear in front of our eyes while his characters

abstruse would be very difficult to encapsulate in a few short

recede into the background; he lets colors bleed and digital

paragraphs, and although we will tour some of its highlights,

artifacts float in front of our vision; at one point he tracks the

it would be unproductive to attempt a complete walkthrough.

right camera-eye away from the left eye, creating a bizarre

Goodbye to Language is a public act of experimental

simultaneous image. The viewer can choose to look at one

deconstruction, this film must be entered and explored rather

image or the other by simply closing one eye, an effect that is

than simply explained. This is partially because the 3D effect

impossible to recreate in 2D.

is integral to the film, but also because Godard would never allow us to settle on one explanation for anything he is doing. The film follows a man and a woman who are slowly breaking up while naked in their apartment. It's one of those long, philosophical breakup conversations that happen more often in art films than in real life. They also seem to be tangentially involved in some underground violent activity. To complicate things, the story is told twice, with different actors and slightly different depictions of the same events. These two versions of the same story are helpfully labelled (1 - Nature, 2 - Metaphor), but they are interspersed with images of water, World War II, violence in Africa, clips from early French and American cinema, and a dog named Roxy who frolics in a stream. It is as if the designers of Disneyland’s latest 3D attraction were equally inspired by the essay films of Chris Marker and the more boring parts of Last Tango in Paris. As the characters process their dissolving relationship, they exchange sentences that sound like the titles of doctoral theses on political philosophy, delivered by the actors in a flat, Bressonian manner. The woman asks “Is society willing to accept murder as a means to fight unemployment?” That question could encompass many of the film’s political meanderings, if only the characters didn’t raise so many other questions about Western hegemony. Godard’s stylistic fragmentation and relentless questioning unmoor us from the easy answers.

www.elevenpdx.com | ELEVEN PORTLAND | 22

film So, why 3D? Clearly Godard is experimenting with a

bourgeois cinema and bourgeois people. Midway through

newish technology, but he is also critiquing it. I struggled

the film, the male character attempts to make a point

mightily to keep track of the story during my first viewing,

about egalitarianism while on the toilet. Godard’s plot-

until I finally settled for being immersed in the images

doubling points to his deconstructionist impulse, where

and sounds. That is not to imply that the film is exclusively

a story, cryptic dialogue, or long, unexplained scenes can

concerned with sensory pleasure, or that the plot has no

be frameworks for playful ideas that may not amount to

purpose (it very well could have, maybe). All of the film’s

much. There’s not one lesson here, nor is all of it meant to

varied scenes have their own thematic link to the central

be taken seriously. Music sometimes starts and abruptly

story, I presume, but it is sometimes unclear what that

stops before we can hear the entire melody. Each successive

link is, and it's hard to focus on that link as the 3D effect

image is new and unpredictable. The collage-like atmosphere,

envelopes us. Perhaps this is what Godard meant by non-

as well as the litany of quotations, references, music cues,

thought contaminating thought: the 3D effect threatens

and puns, makes the film feel like an hour-long vacation

to overpower our intellectual curiosity. Easily the most

inside Godard’s restless brain, a sort of Being Jean-Luc

memorable aspect of the film is Godard’s lush and serene

Godard. But then perhaps it is too complex and wearying,

outdoor footage of Roxy, the dog, who runs through woods

too contradictory for it to occupy the unified space of a

that resemble a digital Monet painting rendered in 3D.

single person. Instead it resembles the active thinking

The humans, by contrast, are seen mostly in an antiseptic

of many minds, memories colliding with one another and

apartment, while Godard films the dog alone, without

contradicting each other. Goodbye to Language is a pastiche,

humans, standing by a stream. These moments are so

yes, but it is also original and daring. Even when it’s difficult

intoxicating that the rest of the film seems propped up as

to tell when Godard is throwing us a bone or just fucking with

a buttress for Roxy’s star-making performance. Perhaps

us, he makes it fun to explore. Onscreen text tells us early

this is another of Godard’s jokes, making the animal more

on that “Those lacking imagination take refuge in reality.”

interesting than the humans.

In 3D especially, Goodbye to Language is a treat for the

Godard has always played philosopher and prankster at the same time, striving to offend the formal stuffiness of

23 | ELEVEN PORTLAND | www.elevenpdx.com

intellectually and aesthetically curious. » - Evan Burchfield

community

NEIGHBORHOOD OF THE MONTH NW "Bucket" Neighborhood

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White Space Gallery - 1439 NW Marshall

Location photos by Mercy McNab

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BEST OF "BUCKET" HOOD

1. TASTY CREPES

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Vintner's Cellar of Oregon - 1111 NW 16th Ave

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9. HANDLE YOUR BIKE NEEDS

Portland Bicycle Studio - 1435 NW Raleigh St

10. FRESH FISH

Mio Sushi - 1703 NW 16th Ave

11. MONTESSORI LEARNIN' Childpeace Montessori - 1516 NW Thurman St

www.elevenpdx.com | ELEVEN PORTLAND | 24

community literary arts ELEVEN: Can you explain the title of your last book?

Photo by Mercy McNab

LITERARY ARTS

Portland poet Leah Noble Davidson

n a recent online list of recommended reading for the Cambridge Writers Workshop, Leah Noble Davidson’s book Poetic Scientifica was placed between Leo Tolstoy’s Family Happiness and Jules Verne’s Voyages

Extraordinaires. Her book was one of the best selling small press books at Powell’s in 2013 and deserves to be in the discussion with the classic minds. We all have our own way of saying something, and while it may hold great meaning to us, it is often lost on others. Many a poetry reading can feel like this. Leah picks apart the linguistics of complicated matters like sexual abuse and breakups in a fascinating way. She is proof that the right and left hemispheres of the brain can work quite well together. We sat in the tiny corner nook of Caffe D’Arte and explored the science of her poetry, Marilyn Monroe as a pattern, and what’s she has in store for us.

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Leah Noble Davidson: What happened first was the concept of the book. About a year before I wrote the book, I was at a party with a big group of poets. So it’s at the end of the night, and I’m talking to my friend Brian, and it was one of those moments where you’re like, “You know what I want?” what I wanted was a poetry book for all of my favorite writers, where they go through my favorite poems and give me a definition for each of the words that they’re using because I don’t always know where they’re coming from and it drives me insane! All I’m seeing is a framework for me to see myself every time I’m looking at their poetry. And my friend said “Ok you have a year. You write that book, or I will.” And I was like, okay, yeah yeah. And then a few months later, he really got on my back about it, and was serious. So I started writing the book. I think Poetic Scientifica came from the idea that... so scientifica isn’t really a word, right? It’s like this poetic version of this pseudo-science understanding of the way that we understand idiolects, and how the words that we say are just sounds that represent a meaning. So I make a random sound, and you have to flip through your own mental dictionary, and all of the definitions you have are based on the experiences you have had with that word. So for instance I can say "cat" and you may think of an orange furry thing running along the top of a fence. And I might think of a stripper friend sliding around on a pole. It’s interesting that poets have these plays on words... you don’t always catch it because you don’t have the same experience. So I wanted to play with that idea. 11: You talk a lot about Marilyn Monroe in Poetic Scientifica, what’s the significance? LND: Marilyn for me is... there’s the person, and there’s the construct. To me Marilyn is very much a construct of a lot of people coming together to build this dream of an idea of a thing. There’s all of the designers who created all of her clothing. There’s so much there. Even the front of the book. There’s Marilyn [pointing to the pattern that makes up the cover image] in a real fancy dress. The whole thing is covered in Marilyn, but you just can’t see it. it’s just all chopped up and replicated. 11: Are you working on anything new? LND: Yeah it’s all about doors. So I put this one [Poetic Scientifica], and it was an experiment. So the feedback that I got was that people would say "I liked the poems, but you didn’t need the gimmick." And it wasn’t a gimmick, the quote unquote gimmick built the poems. What I didn’t hear was the connection–nobody walked up to me and said "That first poem totally means something more to me now." Why is that? How can I play with that experience? What do I do next to build and experience? I thought maybe I went wide and not deep. So instead of just touching the surface of all of these other poems, what if I picked one word and played with that through the entire book? And I just build over and over and over, in all

community literary arts of these different ways. So I had to pick a word. I didn’t have a favorite word, I just wanted to do an old one that I can work on for a year, and be okay with. So I picked door, because it was such an old word, it’s dynamic. I spent a lot of time talking to people about it, and it was like this play... people would say, "Of course, you’re going to write about The Doors." 11: That’s funny the first thing I thought of was Huxley– The Doors of Perception, which they supposedly named themselves after. LND: Right! And before Huxley was Blake. Now I know that whole thing, and how they all had a penchant for hallucinogens. And someone would suggest that I wrote about Janus, the god of doors, and that’s where we get January from. The beginning and end of things. Someone else suggested I write about the way you forget something every time you walk through a door. Of course you’re going to write about thresholds, how there is a deeper meaning to knocking, and why we have to be polite. Why is that? Of course you’re going to write about locks and closed doors, and people who do things behind closed doors. It became bigger than I ever imagined. I was very lucky. Door wasn’t something I chose because it had meaning to me. And I have all of this meaning now. 11: How do you feel about reading your work publicly? LND: It’s funny, I feel that reading your poetry... it’s unnerving. It’s almost this gift and this contract. It’s the price you have to pay to commune with other really talented people. So if I didn’t read my poetry on stage, there’s a chance that many people wouldn’t read my poetry. Because when you do a reading it’s like a free sample. On top of that, I got to meet a lot of people who put a lot of work into it. That’s not to say, like when I read at Powell’s there was a moment right before I was on my way where I stopped at my own door and was like "I can’t go." Because I was just really anxious. Usually I don’t get anxious if it’s just at a bar. If it’s at a bar, I just have a couple of drinks, and it’s low lighting, and I assume everyone else is drinking, so they‘re not going to judge me. But I can’t do that at a library because everyone is going to be sober and so will I, so this is scary now. 11: How would you sum up your poetry? LND: Actually I once had a conversation with Emily Kendall Frye and I told her one day that her poetry was like a piece of parchment paper, where there were all these little holes poked in it, and people were playing with little lights in the background, and you could see the little lights popping through the holes. You don’t really see it coming, and it kind of just flashes through and you get this flicker. It’s like "What was that?" and then it’s gone. And it’s just soft. I’d say my poetry is like an origami bird sitting on the top of a lot of water and there’s a string tied to a really heavy weight down at the bottom. » - Scott McHale

POEMS BY LEAH NOBLE DAVIDSON "OF" It was the crisp clack way her shiny red pumps made contact with the hardest surfaces that she loved the most.

"OUR" Before pretty Marilyn in blonde nudes with painted cheeks for Time or Sinatra, normal Norma stood alone and perfect behind clumsy glasses and a smile. I wonder if Joe ever knew her.

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community visual arts

Photo by Mercy McNab

VISUAL ARTS Portland artist Isis Fisher

ELEVEN: What's your medium? Isis Fisher: I do watercolor and pen and ink. I did a lot of figure and landscape in the past and then I got really into watercolor. It's easy to use the materials that are from the earth, you know the water and the natural pigments, to create something interesting and beautiful. It was when I did some traveling that I wanted to switch to the pen style. It was just easier to pack around less supplies. A break from color was nice also but I think I'm ready to go back to color again. 11: How is the pen style different from the watercolors? IF: If you look closely at the illustrations, they are not symmetrical at all. That's because I do almost 100% of it by hand. The pen drawings are so much more detailed. Some of them take so long to create. I mean, some take longer than others but they all take quite a while. Some of my favorite ones are the drawings where I just sit down and start drawing and see what happens. I like it when it works out like that. The watercolors just bleed together and look good like that.

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11: Tell me about your art show in Oklahoma. IF: Oklahoma City, in the Bible Belt. When I was censored by the mayor I became aware of how people are completely outraged by seeing a woman's naked body. He had a large van parked in front of the flyer promoting the show in the window of the Flaming Lips art gallery. There are still so many places in America where people still aren't okay with looking at or seeing women's naked bodies or genitals. 11: What's your experience being an artist in Portland? IF: Here in Portland we are always pushing the boundaries of what's acceptable and we kind of forget that there are places in this country where an art show with female genitals could be so offensive. Portland is like a place of progressive safety. It's harder to make a statement here because there's less shock value. I'm originally from Maui and there are lots of artists there. My parents opened the only local art store on Maui. My mom's an artist and my dad's a scientist. You can sort of see both of their influence. My dad's right brain and my

"Untitled" (pen and ink, 2014)

community visual arts IF: Ha *laughing* well that's kind of been a joke and something I've been thinking about recently. I could see that happening. 11: What are you currently working on? IF: I've been doing these pen illustrations nonstop recently. I draw all day and all night sometimes. I wake up, start drawing and just don't stop. They will be shown at Stumptown downtown on 3rd between Ash and Pine all through April. 11: Any local artists worth checking out? "Untitled" (pen and ink, 2015)

mom's left brain. It was nice to have their encouragement, even though it's hard to make money as an artist, they have been supportive. 11: So when are you going to tattoo school? I think your illustration style would lend itself to tattooing so well!

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IF: I really like the artist that is being shown at the Stumptown downtown right now through March 31st. Her name is Maria Joan Dixon. She's definitely worth checking out. Âť - Veronica Greene Please enjoy Isis's piece "Untitled" (pen and ink, 2014) decorating our inside back cover this month. Find more at www.cargocollective.com/isisfisher