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The Best Moments of the Year in Music
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WEDNESDAY 12/26
The Best Shows, Songs, and More: What Made 2012 Great
E ASKED Portland musicians, bookers, club owners, music enthusiasts, and more about their favorite musical moments of 2012. They responded with lots of great stories about what made the past year in music so great. We’ve got some for you here; for many more, visit the Mercury’s music blog, End Hits, all this week. Ian Hunter at the Aladdin Theater on September 1. Ian is 73 years old and he put on a show that would put many twentysomething-yearold bands to shame. Ian rocked and played material from his 44-year career, including solo material and Mott the Hoople, with a band that has to be one of the best out there. This was his first time to Portland since 1989; talk to anyone that was at that show and they will all say it was the musical highlight of the year. —Terry Currier (Music Millennium)
PUSSY CONTROL: NATHAN DETROIT, BLACK DOG (Dig a Pony, 736 SE Grand) See My, What a Busy Week!, pg. 17.
THURSDAY 12/27 EMILY WELLS, TIMMY STRAW (Doug Fir, 830 E Burnside) See My, What a Busy Week!, pg. 17.
AND AND AND, THE WE SHARED MILK, PICTORIALS (Tonic Lounge, 3100 NE Sandy) See My, What a Busy Week!, pg. 17.
PETUNIA AND THE VIPERS, WHAT HEARTS
BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN AND THE E STREET BAND AT THE ROSE GARDEN, NOVEMBER 28 One of the best musical moments of the year, and one of the greatest photos as well. JASON QUIGLEY
Swans at the Hawthorne Theatre for MusicfestNW. Brutal, visceral, and no bullshit. I was ecstatic the entire time and left so humbled by such mastery of restraint. One of the most hypnotic musical experiences of my life. —Luke Wyland (AU) Pure Bathing Culture at Valentine’s. My first time seeing them live. It was intimate, the sound was mysteriously superb, and the room soaked up their vibes like a sponge. —Dan Vidmar (Shy Girls) Every live performance I caught of Like a Villain. Holland Andrews is the musical equivalent of a majestic beast. —Claudia Meza (Stay Calm) Father John Misty eating mushrooms backstage and then going onstage at SXSW to do an improvised version of “Apples and Bananas.” —Jordan Kinley (Into the Woods) Drunk Dad at Baby Bar in Spokane. Drunk Dad were up first, but only two of [the band members] were at the show and they couldn’t find the other two. The others had apparently fallen asleep in the van, and no one knew where the van was. Long after they were to have started—and after a lot pacing (and at least a little yelling)—the missing two showed up, having just woken up. Moments later they launched into one of the loudest, most crushingly sick sets I saw all year. Rock and roll. —Josh Hughes (Rabbits) Hosting legendary UK peace-punk forebears the Mob was definitely one of the more rewarding moments of the year for us at the Know. It seems too often that “reunion tours” offer a castrated or hodgepodged version of the original band that had once left such a strong impression. The Mob, however, absolutely bucked this trend. People were packed so tightly into the room that people were practically on top of one another to catch a glimpse of
the performance on stage. Several times throughout the show the audience became an impromptu choir, as the volume with which they sang along to their favorite songs exceeded that of the sound system and band! It was a beautiful thing to watch. —David Rose (the Know, Bulkhead Records) One of my favorite musical moments of 2012 was seeing Joanna Newsom karaoke “The Last Unicorn” at Alberta Street Pub. —Tonality Star (PWRHAUS) If you had told me the two best shows I’d see in 2012 would both be at the Rose Garden, I’d have told you to go screw. But here we are. Not very punk rock, I guess. Back in May, Roger Waters performed The Wall—one of the most nihilistic, hateful albums ever to have been cauterized by classic-rock radio overplay—to a rapturous crowd. It was technically the most impressive live spectacle I’ve ever seen, and, amazingly enough, one of the most thought provoking, too. Then there was Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band in November; the man mainlined pure, giddy, unadulterated joy directly into the hearts of 15,000 Portlanders for a miraculous three hours and 20 minutes. The Boss commands legions of devoted, slobbering fans, and I’d never fully understood why—until that night. —Ned Lannamann (Portland Mercury) Elvis Costello is my favorite musician of all time, and thanks to an amazing friend, I had front-row seats to his Spinning Wheel Tour at the Schnitz. When it came time for Costello to pick an audience member to spin the wheel, on his way back toward the stage he stopped, eyeto-eye not two feet from my face, and sang to me. Everyone I’ve told this to asks what song he was singing, to which I have no reply. —Anna Jensen (Doug Fir) Randomly crossing paths with comatose J Mascis in three of Portland’s quadrants during MusicfestNW.
—Morgan Troper (Mercury contributor, Your Rival) The Shaky Hands’ first reunion show at Backspace. It was a phenomenal set by one of my all-time favorite Portland bands, and easily my best music moment of the year. —Louie Herr (Banana Stand Media)
(Mississippi Studios, 3939 N Mississippi) It’s two days after Christmas, and you’ve eaten enough candy canes to ensure psychedelic spit and sugar bumps through at least the end of the year. It’s officially time to get out of the holiday malaise, and it’s tough to imagine a more swingin’ way to brush off the blues than with Vancouver, BC’s Petunia and the Vipers. Petunia’s Jimmie Rodgers croon, pedal-steel soul, and easy-doesit cowboy tunes recall shooting-star nights sitting around the campfire on the range. The band’s excellent self-titled debut switches gears from track to track, proffering juke-joint scorchers like “Maybe Baby Amy” against smoldering, yodel-led retro-western tunes like album opener “The Cricket Song.” RYAN J. PRADO
FRIDAY 12/28 DON’T, THE BLOODTYPES, THE RANSOM
June 12. Seeing the terrible accordion player outside of Powell’s being attacked by a seagull. —Leonard Mynx Seeing Hungry Ghost’s record release at Bunk Bar when I’d just had a baby. I was totally floored by the unflagging ferocity of Sara Lund and Lorca Wood—both mothers, both complete badasses. —Heather Larimer (Eux Autres) I can’t even remember what happened two months ago. —Johnny Magdaleno (Mercury contributor) The most transcendent concert for me was the performance of original and live scores to René Laloux’s animated feature films at Holocene. In particular, the music that WL wrote and performed to accompany the film Gandahar left me speechless. I gasped when I learned later how quickly WL had put it all together (it was something absurd like three days). That event drove home why I love Portland so much. —Brent Knopf (Ramona Falls) Caleb Klauder at the Spare Room, every time. —Sean Spellman (Quiet Life) Sharon Van Etten at the Aladdin Theater. She’s an incredible songwriter, charming, witty, and adorably self-deprecating on stage. Her live arrangements are really something special. —Courtney Sheedy (Houndstooth, Point Juncture, WA, What Hearts) Continued on pg. 21
(Club 21, 2035 NE Glisan) Before Portland earned its reputation as a playground for young adults, it was (and continues to be) home to individuals who devoted themselves to lifelong efforts at creative endeavors. Thankfully, this side of the city endures amid escalating stereotypes, and is on display with the musical project Don’t. Formed in 2009, the band combines the talents of legendary local musicians Sam Henry (drummer of the Wipers, member of the Oregon Music Hall of Fame, and tonight’s birthday boy) and Dave Minick (bassist for Napalm Beach and more), with the pioneering spirits of guitarist Dan Lowinger (the Love Lasers) and vivacious frontwoman Jenny Don’t. The result is music that sounds effortlessly timeless, while pulsating with that new and earnest energy we call rock ’n’ roll—soon to be captured on a new 7-inch for DIY Long Island imprint Dead Broke Rekerds. MARANDA BISH
ITAL, ACID FARM, DASANI REBOOT (Mississippi Studios, 3939 N Mississippi) Ital is the façade erected by Daniel Martin-McCormick to stand in front of his experiment in dance music, where “dance” means whatever you want it to. Martin-McCormick is a cerebral Brooklynite whose past collaborations include Black Eyes and Mi Ami, but Ital is not a reinvention—Martin-McCormick’s output is defined by constant experimentation. This year, after a string of EPs, Ital has released two records, Hive Mind and Dream On. Though tinkering with dance music is all the rage right now, Ital’s albums are deliberate and thoughtful and certainly not fashionable. Ital transgresses the idea of what dance music has traditionally meant—a sweaty, sexualized medium for people whose main interest is the activity of dancing—and offers up a challenging, impressionistic, fractured alternative. Sometimes, it’s even very beautiful. It’s what might happen after staying up all night reading Derrida and listening to the Prodigy’s entire catalog. REBECCA WILSON
THE NO TOMORROW BOYS, THE CRY, STUMBLEBUM, A HAPPY DEATH (Slabtown, 1033 NW 16th) Doug Rogers took the reins of Slabtown back in February, and he’s closing out 2012 with a bang: a four-day weekend with some of his favorite bands that have played the club since
Continued on pg. 21
THIS WEEK ON THE MERCURY ’S MUSIC BLOG Trouble
NEW MUSIC AND VIDEOS FROM PORTLAND’S BEST BANDS!
18 portlandmercury.com December 26th, 2012
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