Next!

Still getting caught up. I just realized I saw a show I did not list in the attempt at a list in the last post. A benefit for PDX Pop Now! called Make It Pop!. Ryan Sollee of The Builders And The Butchers started, but I got there just for half of the last song. I had a cupcake and a beer from Captured By Porches brewing. I'd like to drink more of their beers. Loch Lomond played next, and they were the only full band of the night. Richie Young's vocal range never fails to astound me. He ranged from birdlike to baritone, with the band occasionally calling up Fleet Foxes and pointing the occasional finger at an Irish folk dirge. Then there was cake. Marty Marquis of Blitzen Trapper followed. I guess he's not the main songwriter for BT, but certainly worthwhile in his own right. He looks like a math genius heading toward his first psychotic break, with this wild, curly red hair and beard that looks all ready to matt up at any provocation. And the glasses to match. Like BT, he calls largely upon the '70s, but instead of BT's prog rock, he goes more of a Neil Young slant, with some fingerpicking and a nod to Gordon Lightfoot. And some good stage banter about Yakima and ghosts. Brandon Summers of The Helio Sequence was next on the bill. He also called upon Neil Young, lots of strummed guitar and harmonica. There were also moments that recalled Paul Simon. I suddenly felt like everyone in Portland is exactly my age. My musical childhood seems to be reflected everywhere around me. James Mercer of The Shins headlined. A tiny venue holding maybe 100 people (okay, the Ace Hotel site says The Cleaners holds 160, but I bet it's less once you set up a space for the band to play), mostly seated cross-legged on the floor, enthralled. He played some familiar stuff, some unrecorded stuff, and a couple of brand new songs. He twanged things up a little to match with the '70s-folk vibe of much of the rest of the show. He said Weird Divide is his mom's favorite song. My mom really likes The Shins, but everything she likes is mid-tempo and major-key, so Weird Divide is out. It was utterly kick-ass.

Next up was The Shins and The Delta Spirit at the Crystal Ballroom. The Delta Spirit was all references, no referrer. All hat, nothing to hang it on. This one sounds kind of like Joe Cocker, then that one sounds all Dylan-wannabe, with some Springsteen bits...oh, a few moments of Tom Waits before a whole bunch more Joe Cocker. "We're playing rock!" Eh. The Shins always put on a great show. They make these pretty songs that are a bit weird, and then live, they make these weird, pretty songs rock. Garage rock from the late '60s. But pretty. And weird. It was interesting to see the full band at the Crystal just a week or less after seeing James Mercer solo from 11 feet away. Again, a few new songs, which bodes well on the new album front. They did what Spoon did when I saw them at the Crystal a couple of months ago: Take their familiar songs and filter them through a kaleidoscope of a zillion fractured and shifting influences and references and tongue-in-cheek stealing from classic bands. The Shins doing Spoon covering Billy Joel borrowing from early '70s garage punk. The Shins doing Devo doing a calypso arena-rock number. The Shins pretending they're the Doobie Brothers but with Andy Summers playing guitar. Sadly, New Slang was just kind of the perfunctory "we have to play this, but let's just get through it" cover of themselves that the most pop single always seems to get from innovative bands like this. I'd love it if interesting bands reconstructed their singles in live shows the way they do other songs. Then, on top of all the references and playing at being other bands, The Shins actually covered a Beach Boys song. It was pretty great. To come full circle for my week, they started the encore with a cover of Neil Young's Helpless. See? Everyone in Portland is my age, and grew up sitting on the speaker in their footie pajamas while their dads played their favorite records over and over again. It was a marvelous show, and I left happy.

Side note: My parents are moving and semi-retiring, and getting rid of most of their stuff. My dad's set aside a bunch of records for me. At first, when he told me there were 22 of them, I was sure I'd veto most of them, but no, it was just a few. I'm getting Simon and Garfunkel, The Doobie Brothers, and (blush...I shouldn't admit this) James Taylor. Earth, Wind & Fire. Neil Young. Crosby, Stills & Nash's first record. Carly Simon, and Joni Mitchell (Court & Spark!). Sergio Mendez & Brazil '66. Though I was crushed to find out that the stellar, high-end Technics record player from the early 1980s, this perfect-condition piece of machinery that would be the envy of any DJ, got sold in the estate sale. You win some, you lose some. At least I get the cookie jar.