Events

On their third LP Angel it is clear that Pure X have, and always have had, an uncompromising musical vision. Over the course of each full-length the band has tirelessly reinvented themselves, opting to stay true to their own sensibilities rather than placate expectations or regurgitate a "successful" sound. After wooing both critics and audiences alike with their seductive, submerged-in-reverberation debut Pleasure the band pulled an about-face on their sophomore album Crawling Up the Stairs, crafting a follow up that emphasized textural clarity and raw emotionality over its predecessor's intoxicating soundscapes. Now on their third LP, and first as a quartet, the internal upheaval of C.U.T.S. has fully dissipated and given way to a new found serenity, a calm which finds the band in its most potent, refined, and elemental form yet.

Angel was recorded to tape in a concentrated burst over five days at Wied Hall- a massive, rustic, 100 year-old dance hall in rural central Texas. The band isolated themselves to living in the cavernous space during the Fall of 2013 after a year full of touring and writing on the road, seeking a secluded setting to construct what would become their most focused work to date. The results show the group of Jesse Jenkins, Nate Grace, Austin Youngblood, and newly acquired full-time member Matty Tommy Davidson leaving themselves totally unguarded. During their residency the band had time to absorb the pastoral romanticism of the countryside as well as Wied's rich history of having hosted many of country music's finest in the last century. Subsequently, a deliberate patience exudes from the album both in the band's freshly honed songwriting and spacious compositional structure. Lush, layered vocal treatments, dialogues of gently plucked electric and strummed 12-string guitar, reserved percussion, and precariously sensual bass are all allowed ample room to breathe and delicately bathe in the great hall's natural reverb. More than ever Pure X's influences are allowed to show through in full, unveiling affinities which were present in their past recordings but never totally expressed until now. Harmonies such as those on the achingly gorgeous opener Starlight, lead by Jesse Jenkins' silky falsetto, interweave with a complexity and precision that is reminiscent of 70's soul, steadily propelled forward by a stoic groove of bass, guitar, and tightly tracked drum kit. On the 2-step ballad Heaven the spirit of classic country's golden-era is seamlessly assimilated into the band's sound while Nate Grace's lyrics conversely explore the reality of an inner, readily accessible utopia. Elsewhere on Every Tomorrow a sober raga of 12-string acoustic hangs serenely over measured doses of hand percussion and minimal string arrangements punctuated by ascending ladders of buzzing synth. Singers Jenkins and Grace, sharing vocal duties evenly across the recording, boldly explore a full range of motion to share a collection of strikingly honest songs about love, aspiration, and the deep yearning for the authentic unity with oneself.

Pure X's third long-player, written collectively between all four members and recorded mostly live with minimal overdubs, sees the band further refining themselves after a year of being strenuously tempered on the road. These pieces, comprised of ideas stolen away during moments in the tour van and hammered out on various stages across the United States, were brought back home with a distinct purpose, with one concerted intention: to make the album they had always wanted to make. And thus, Pure X have crafted a beautifully genuine pop record whose influences span across genres and generations without reserve while simultaneously coming into their own in the process.

Talkative was born in a noise dream. First existing in Eugene they were originally a performance-art noise duo. Focusing their time on loops, effects, and delay bent vocals, the shows were mentally and aurally intensive. As time shifted forward new forms of performance were explored and they have found a comfortable setup with effects soaked guitars, drums, and keyboards. The sound of Talkative starts in a flurry of digital noise that eventually finds itself ripping through guitar riffs before shapeshifting into rolling drums and sequencers. They've released two full length albums "Strange Luxuries" and "Light Years" which both illustrate a dynamic quality unique to Talkative. "Light Years" shows Talkative's ability to bath in reverb and rebirth itself in melody with the help of guitar, bass, and drums. Their current live set up includes live visuals, booming drums and bass, wild vocals and ripping guitars.

This is a barn burner of an all ages show featuring three of Portland's finest. The Thermals, featuring XRAY's own Kathy Foster (Strange Babes, Mondays 4-6p), headline with best new band runner up Summer Cannibals and The Ghost Ease.

Portland has a new venue for all ages music called S1 and they're hosting this bill of Portland music favs for only $5. The venue is at 4148 NE Sandy Blvd.

The Woolen Men are three -- two Oregon natives and a Washingtonian. They play punk influenced DIY music in the Pac-NW tradition of Dead Moon and the Wipers. More than a sound or style, that means a kind of work ethic -- do-it-yourself and do it a lot. The band is happiest touring up and down the I-5 or bunkered in their practice space with the cassette 4-track rolling. And it shows. Live, the band is thunderous and energetic and the magnetic chemistry of the three of them playing together shines through in the recordings. 

This self-titled album released by Woodsist Records is their debut LP, following a handful of largely self-released EPs. Instead of changing their technique of recording fast and loose to capture the live energy of their sound, they recorded and recorded and recorded until they had enough songs to make up an album only of material with that elusive spark of a great recording. The ten tracks here represent five different sessions, and as many songs made the cut as were left behind. The LP was made to endure, with little attention payed to current trends or "in" sounds -- what matters to the band is that the songs are well written and executed with integrity. The whole thing was recorded to analog tape. 

The Woolen Men are Alex Geddes, Lawton Browning and Raf Spielman. They live and work in Portland, OR. Raf previously released an album of solo material under his Polyps moniker for the Woodsist sister label Hello Sunshine.

Imagine Roky Erickson backed by the Sun Ra Arkestra or Wilson Pickett and The Velvet Underground, or picture the love child of Anubis and Kali. King Khan & The Shrines is more than a psychedelic soul band with a spectacle of a stage show. They are a cult musical phenomenon with more than 10 years of international touring, multiple studio records and a fan base of fervent punk, soul, free jazz and garage rock heads.

King Khan, the spiritual guru and front man, cobbled together a fierce line-up of musicians while in Berlin in between reading Tarot cards and raising a family. What he ended up with in 1999 is one of the most entertaining groups the world has seen and heard since the days of Ike & Tina. The line-up includes Chicago-born, Ron Streeter (veteran percussionist for Curtis Mayfield, Stevie Wonder), a horn section consisting of trumpeter Simon Wojan (member of Kranky Records recording artists Cloudland Canyon), tenor sax man Torben Wesche (Germany’s John Coltrane), and famous French rockabilly baritone saxophonist Frederic Brissaud. The rhythm section of the Sensational Shrines has been called a German/French version of the Freak Brothers – Till Timm on guitar, organist Frederic Bourdil, Jens Redemann on bass and drummer Mirko Wenzl.

Their first album Three Hairs & You’re Mine was produced by Liam Watson, recorded in the legendary Toe Rag Studios in London and released in 2002. A second full-length, Mr. Supernatural, followed in 2004. King Khan & The Shrines soon became an all-star international movement. Numerous gigs followed all across Europe with The Black Lips, Enon, Demolition Doll Rods, Mr. Quintron and Ms. Pussycat, an after-party for 50 Cent in Norway. They headlined Toronto’s NXNE festival 2006 playing three nights in a row and even had a member of the Sun Ra Arkestra join their brass section.

In 2007, King Khan made the soundtrack and film score for Schwarze Schafe, a major motion picture in Germany. The soundtrack included music from The Black Lips, The Spits, Gris Gris, Quintron and other greats. They also had a song placed in the movie Chiko, produced by Academy Award Winner Fatih Akin.

King Khan then released What Is?!, receiving critical acclaim from all over the world. It landed at #33 on Pitchfork’s Top Albums of 2007, while their track “Welfare Bread” landed at #66 on Pitchfork’s Top 100 Songs of 2007.

Their greatest hits, aptly titled The Supreme Genius of King Khan & The Shrines, came out in 2008 and for the first time their music was widely available in the U.S. The entire psychedelic-soul big band then graced stages for the first time in North America, leaving behind them a colorful spell of amazement and wonder.

In the years since, King Khan & The Shrines have added several notable festivals to their resume, including Coachella, Sasquatch, Pitchfork, South By Southwest and Sudoste. Their music has also been heard in popular TV programs (NBC’s Chuck, HBO’s Entourage, HBO’s Eastbound & Down), TV commercials (V8 juice, Mother Energy Drink), and video games (Saints Row).

They kicked off 2012 on a high note as they headlined the Bruise Cruise Festival and have just released “Bite My Tongue,” a sweat-drenched, ass shaking, groovy psyched out number, complete with rip roaring horn lines, southern fried guitar riffs and lysergic melodies.

The Galaxie 500/Luna frontman hits town in support of his recent solo release with local mainstays The Parson Red Heads opening. More info.

June, 25th, 2014 Doors: 8:00 pm / Show: 9:00 pm $8.00 - $10.00

ORQUESTRA PACIFICO TROPICAL- Deep in the vein filled jungles of each of our hearts beats a music with roots as wide as continents and influence as deep as time itself. Cumbia, music of the Southern American Hemisphere. Orquestra Pacifico Tropical have taken this frenetic, addictive rhythm and accomplished what musicians across time and space have always done, bringing crowds into a blistering dance frenzy. From clubs to the forests of the Pacific Northwest, to hear the ecstatic thump, rumble, and sheer brilliance of the racing rhythms of coastal Columbia side by side with the psychedelic guitar explorations of the Peruvian rain forest is to travel across continents and through time with Orquestra Pacifico Tropical as the guide. WIth respect to those who came and innovated before us, and armed with an arsenal of percussion, woodwinds, horns, accordion and guitars, these 11 friends have come together in the spirit of capturing and breathing new life into this most essential of musics. Cumbia, music of the people.

Featuring members of Sun Angle, Deer or the Doe, O Bruxo, Ioa, Lewi Longmire Band,Tu Fawning, Point Juncture WA, Modernstate, Jippedo and Team Evil, Orquestra Pacifico Tropical's wall of sound is dedicated to expanding the music of Central and South America to the people and dance floors of the Pacific Northwest.

MORE INFO: http://www.dougfirlounge.com/event/576691-orquestra-pacifico-tropical-portland/

East Bay surf darlings Shannon and the Clams are back and they're sharing an all ages bill at Slabtown with Portland favs Marriage + Cancer.

The Funk has returned in the form of The DooDoo! Hailing from the planet DookieOn, the All-Stars were sent here to fling the pooh across the GLOBE! The Congress of DookieOn chose the hottest musicians from their planet and sent them to earth to continue to spread the FUNK. Alongside the DooDoo Funk King (Tony Ozier) they traveled the light years to this planet and have now made Portland their home base.

What awaits you when the needle drops on Dereconstructed, the new album by Lee Bains lll & the Glory Fires? Nothing less than pure fucking heaven, that’s what.

Consider the record’s opener, “The Company Man.” It revs up with a riff sleazy enough to clog Rod Stewart’s stomach pump as an incantation that only a Yellowhammer can truly understand is bellowed and then screamed. Before you know it, the joint is hotter than a Birmingham soaking pit while you, the listener, are reminded, lest you forget, don’t ever trust the company man.

No shit.

Dereconstructed is a careening, road raging, all night party of a record. Informed by a distinctly southern hoodoo, it is a master class in authentic Gulf Coast choogle. Having cut his teeth in the Dexateens, Lee Bains lll has been properly schooled in how to throw down, so much so that even his hyper literate musings are no match for the blown out distortion that gives this record its blistering urgency.

Songs like “The Kudzu and the Concrete,” “Dirt Track” and the roaring, blissfully shambolic title track could be anthems looking for a stadium, but they’re also reminders as to why Lee Bains lll & the Glory Fires are such a formidable party machine. If your hometown is graced with a scuzzy dive and a few warm bodies to populate it, you’d best believe that the Glory Fires have been there, or are on their way back.

Dereconstructed is Lee Bains lll & the Glory Fires’ debut for Sub Pop Records. It is preceded by the band’s actual debut, There Is a Bomb in Gilead, on Alive Natural-Sound Records (2012).

Dereconstructed was produced by Tim Kerr, and engineered by Jeremy Ferguson at Battle Tapes, Nashville, TN.

Lee Bains lll & the Glory Fires will be featured performers at the 14th annual NONCOMMvention, hosted by WXPN in Philadelphia, PA, May 14 - 16, 2014. This performance will be followed by extensive touring, radio sessions, and in-stores throughout North America. A late-summer European tour will be announced shortly.

Lee Bains III & the Glory Fires are:

Lee Bains lll: Guitar and Vox
Eric Wallace: Guitar
Adam Williamson: Bass

The 23-year old from Kent, Ohio first performed with her family band One Way Rider at the age of 8. At age 15, she recorded her first album White Lies in her brother’s bedroom, printing only 100 copies. One of those copies fell into the hands of Dan Auerbach (The Black Keys). After an introduction, Mayfield and Auerbach hit the studio, laying the foundation for her debut album With Blasphemy So Heartfelt. Says Auerbach of the recording experience, “I think she’s dark and moody in a mysterious way.” He adds, “I’m just always really excited to make music with her.”

Mayfield’s second and most recent album, Tell Me, is a stunningly forthright 11-song set that addresses late night longing, serial heartbreak, and intoxicatingly dangerous liaisons conducted in dimly lit barrooms or roadside motels. By the end, the only heart intact is Mayfield’s own. It’s as if she’d stripped the sentimentality and ruefulness from a bunch of classic country songs, leaving only stark emotion. Auerbach also produced and engineered Tell Me at his Easy Eye Sound System studio in Akron, Ohio, matching Mayfield’s candor with eerily minimal, brilliantly constructed tracks that keep her mesmerizing, unadorned voice front and center.

The New York Times hailed the album a Critics’ Pick, while the Associated Press calls Tell Me “the portrait of a precocious girl growing into self-assured womanhood and a producer reaching the peak of his powers. It is a dark and moody album, full of delights throughout, and if it doesn’t make Mayfield a star, that too will be heartbreaking.”

One night, three rising talents in the Portland music scene, zero dollars. Hear what's next right now.

6pm | $7.00 day of show

Come celebrate the ELEVEN MAG Volume 4 release, with two of our favorite local bands. Plus visual art galore from artists featured in the mag!

EARLY SHOW - Doors and artists' reception at 6pm, music starts at 7pm.

XRAY.fm would like to thank The Portland Growler Co. for hosting a happy hour event on Thursday June 12th at The Growlery to benefit the station! Sasquatch Brewing  will also be there, bringing you an evening of beer in celebration of Father's Day. The happy hour event, "Tastes Better than a New Tie" will include XRAY DJs, a Fathers Day raffle, and more. Proceeds from the event will be donated to XRAY.fm. 

More info:

http://thegrowlerie.com/events/tastes-better-new-tie/

GRAHAM LAMBKIN
A Performance
Sunday, June 8, 8:30pm
$12 (Free to MEMBERS)

“I wouldn’t say I work with music, I would say I work with sound and if you wish to call it music that’s fine. I would be equally happy if you came up with a different definition.” Graham Lambkin has said, “I realized I was ‘organizing sound’ as opposed to ‘making music’ towards the end of the run of The Shadow Ring. Initially I wasn’t aware there was an alternative path you could take with sound. You were either in a band or you weren’t. Of course not being armed with the vocabulary that would come from studying it academically or otherwise, we were just taking the sounds that we could make, as untutored as they were, and organizing them into some kind of system where we had our own language. As the instruments changed and the conventionality of the instruments fell away, things like post production and application of events after the fact became more interesting and more important than strumming a guitar, I think that became a eureka moment. That became a chance for me to put my fingerprint on what we were doing. As a guitar player, I’m anonymous, I’m useless, and that’s fine. But as someone who is able to organize sounds after the fact, that’s where I think I found my tongue.”

“…I always keep in mind a sense of economy. I think it’s good for me to have less to work with. I think by taking stuff away all the time, it forces you to think harder, it ignites you… I got to the point a few years ago where the only equipment I had was a Walkman, and then I thought, ‘well, this is clearly not enough.’ There’s no way you can do good work with just a Walkman, and so I had to bring in things like YouTube, well that’s what I was doing, finding things. You should be able to make a decent record with a rubber band and a cardboard box just as easily as a string quartet.”

Graham Lambkin lives in Poughkeepsie, NY where he runs KYE RECORDS. From 1993 to 2003, he was a member of the uncompromising British band The Shadow Ring.

EELS have had one of the most consistently acclaimed careers in music. The ever-changing project of principal singer/songwriter Mark Oliver Everett, aka E, EELS have released nine studio albums since their 1996 debut, Beautiful Freak. Mojo Magazine calls Everett "a member of rock's very own League of Extraordinary Gentlemen," while legendary troubadour Tom Waits says he "eagerly awaits each new release." In 2008 Everett published his highly-acclaimed book Things the Grandchildren Should Know and starred in the award winning Parallel Worlds, Parallel Lives documentary about the search to understand his quantum physicist father, Hugh Everett III. In 2009 EELS began the release of an album trilogy: Hombre Lobo, End Times, and Tomorrow Morning.

It's fitting that Chelsea Wolfe's second album opens with a hair-raising, animalistic snarl -- the sound of some beastly metamorphosis caught on tape. Ἀποκάλυψις (pronounced "apokalypsis") finds the L.A.- based artist perfecting her distinctly doom-drenched electric folk. Here she graduates from mobile 8-track experimentation to an actual studio, enlisting a few friends to help even as she maintains the strikingly visceral elements of her powerful debut, The Grime & the Glow (2010). The end result is a both a broader sprawl and a tighter claustrophobia, a serious heaviness of sound and spirit prone to unexpected moments of beauty and triumph. Rightly, the album's title is Greek for both "apocalypse" and "revelation." Wolfe's gift for tense beauty reigns supreme on "Tracks (Tall Bodies)," where warm guitar, cavernous drums, and her beguiling voice engender an elemental feeling of regret in tune with the words: It's a machine we're up against/Devoid of reason, devoid of sense." The upbeat "Demons" follows, seemingly as counterpoint, rolling forth on a damaged surf beat and becoming a careening steam engine of scratchy thrash and tortured cries. Later, "Moses" demonstrates what Wolfe may very well do best, cooing choral over grinding Sabbathy guitars, somehow hinting at an odd ebullience hidden in the dirging murk. Though Ἀποκάλυψις's tone is decidedly dark, it's a dynamic album, evidenced by buzzing, organ-soaked soul of "The Wasteland," the clanging blues of "Friedrichshain," and the haunted ambience of "To the Forest, To the Sea," which feels like a field recording from the bewitched woods of Wolfe's youth. The LP's undeniable high point however, is the unforgettable "Pale on Pale." The seven-minute song slowly bores its way into the listener's skull thanks to Wolfe's ghostly moan -- which deals death at every lyrical turn -- and the thick black metal chords that push it along. Somewhere between the blood-curdling scream and squalling feedback that close out the track, transcendence is achieved, and Wolfe's transformation into a true force of nature is complete.

California native Chelsea Wolfe has always embodied light and dark. Her music is a raw, dirging doom-folk with hints of black metal, deep blues and minimal synthesizer music, but it's as prone to triumph as it is despair. Her voice is both haunting and seemingly haunted, though whether by angels or demons is unclear. And her lyrics reflect an obsession not only with life's murkier moments, but the unlikely truths and beauty they so often reveal. It makes sense then that her influences run from Nick Cave and Selda Bagcan to Ayn Rand and Ingmar Bergman, and even more so that she hails from the wilder, woodsy northern part of her state. Wolfe's hometown was a small unspecified burg amidst the trees, idyllic by day and begging exploration, but forbidding once the fog crept in. Her skewed romanticism began early. At 9, she started sneaking into her father's home studio to record warped keyboard covers and Gothy R&B originals. But growing up, she never shared these, and it wasn't until 2009 that she considered making music for others to hear.

After a three-month stint abroad with a nomadic performance troupe playing cathedrals, basements and old nuclear plants, Wolfe returned home inspired. She began toting around an 8-track and recording, eventually winding up with the songs that would become her stunning 2010 debut, The Grime & the Glow. Described as both healing and harrowing, enchanting and narcotic, the album established Wolfe as an elemental force on the rise. Just as telling were a pair of cover songs including the timeless "You Are My Sunshine" as well as a deep cut from Norwegian metal icon Burzum that in her capable hands managed to sound equally terrifying. Drawn to Los Angeles' unique mix of gloss and grit, she moved to the city late last year and recorded her second album, Ἀποκάλυψις (pronounced "apokalypsis"), out on Pendu Sound Recordings in 2011. Recently, Chelsea Wolfe's name exploded in the music world after pop artist Richard Phillips used her song "Moses" in his newest art-film starring Sasha Grey which premiered at the Venice Biennale in June 2011.

Celebrate beloved film, The Goonies, in the town it was filmed – Astoria, Oregon! As a part of the Goonies 25th Anniversary Celebration in 2010, Mayor Willis Van Dusen declared June 7 to be officially recognized as Goonies Day. This date is special to Astorians because it is the anniversary of the day the film was released into theaters in 1985. 

Timber Timbre is a Canadian folk music project, featuring Mika Posen, Simon Trottier and Taylor Kirk. The moniker refers to an early series of recordings made in a timber-framed cabin set in the wooded outskirts of Bobcaygeon, Ontario.