Local News & Reviews

[July 5th, 2006]

^Blotter

SLEATER-KINNEY IS DEAD! AND SOME OTHER STUFF

Cave-dwellers should note that one of Portland's greatest bands announced its untimely death last week. Sleater-Kinney will be calling it quits after its short summer tour. Last Tuesday morning, the band posted a letter on its website (www.sleater-kinney.com) stating that, after 11 years of service, Sleater-Kinney would be going on "indefinite hiatus." The band will be playing its final show at the Crystal Ballroom on Friday, Aug. 11. Tickets go on sale Saturday, July 8, at 10 am. You can buy them at the Crystal Ballroom box office and at all Ticketmaster outlets. >> Two local folkie duos found wider exposure this month: Adam East and Kris Deelane , also of Sweet Juice , appeared on Geraldo at Large last week, following a June 12 People magazine appearance. Both pieces concerned ex-lovers who still co-habitate. This week, the pair fly to L.A. to shoot an episode of Greg "He's Just Not That into You" Behrendt's syndicated talk show, set to air this fall. >> Meanwhile, Kate Power and Steve Einhorn , performing owners of Artichoke Music , won the Music to Life contest at the Kerrville (Texas) Folk Festival , a topical song competiton judged by the likes of Judy Collins and Peter, Paul and Mary . Power's "Travis John," about Travis John Bradach-Nall , the first Oregon soldier to die in the current Iraq conflict, took the $1,000 prize.

Email localcut@wweek.com with your local music news.

^Debaser Saturday, July 8

Emcee Ethic breaks out of the Sandpeople pack and takes a little somethin' with him.

[HIP-HOP] Phil Bauer is just one part of a complex hip-hop machine as a member of the large and local Sandpeople crew. But Bauer, who is known to beat-heads as Ethic, is also one half of Debaser, a duo that recently released Crown Control. As a debut, the album is a rare breed, straying from convention while maintaining enough cocky machismo and party-rocking bumpability to ensure that, trust me on this, you do not want to test Debaser's gangster. The mainstream appeal resides in the singalong hooks of "Look What" and the puzzlingly Sublime-influenced rock-opera closer, "Thomas." The more appealing aspects of the duo lie in the production, where Sapient (the group's other emcee and beatsmith) keeps things out of top-40 territory by chopping and screwing Kanye West-style beats with baroque chamber music on tracks like "Dead Lines" and "Less Human." WW sat down with Ethic and chatted about lessons learned in a crowd of emcees, beat maintenance and Frank Black.

—CASEY JARMAN.

What do you get out of being in a crew like Sandpeople? Do you learn new techniques as an emcee?

You learn constantly. The one thing with emcees is, they definitely have an ego. When you have nine other rappers that you respect, you always want to outdo them. It really sharpens you. We got Al-one, who probably has the most style of all of us, and that makes me want to hit a track with more style. I'll try to emulate that in my own way.

So you think your style has changed as a part of that?

All of our styles have changed, and all for the better. It's definitely been a positive.

How do you go about getting your beats?

Sapient made every single beat on Crown Control, and for Sandpeople it's a split between Sapient and Simple. That's really what makes Sandpeople a special entity, because we are entirely in-house. Simple just graduated from Pacific University for graphic design, so he does the majority of our artwork. We're 100 percent self-sufficient: We record at our own studio, we release it and back it ourselves, it's all self-produced.

Where did the name Debaser come from?

Sapient pulled it out of somewhere. It wasn't influenced by the Pixies, despite popular belief. But we're stoked to be able to sample that song. Frank Black's a Eugenean, so maybe if we ever get big enough we can coax him into singing that on the hook, "I wanna be a debaser!"

—CASEY JARMAN.

Debaser opens for Opio, Scarub, MyG and Jern Eye on Saturday, July 8, at Berbati's Pan. 9:30 pm. $10. 21+. Sandpeople open for Fatlip and Omni on Thursday, July 6, at Berbati's Pan. 9:30 pm. $10 advance, $12 day of show. 21+. For recordings by either group, see www.myspace.com/sandpeople.

^Silentist Sunday, July 9

Silentist dismantles everything you thought you knew about metal—with a piano.

[ART METAL] Normally, when jazz and metal collide, the result is an incredibly cheesy (albeit sometimes awesome) prog race to hit as many notes as possible before the next key change, like Dream Theater does. But Mark Evan Burden mixes the two genres differently. In 2005, under the moniker Silentist, he released the album Chariot Swing, which features sparse, rhythmic and often dissonant jazz piano at the center of songs that bear a resemblance to grindcore and ambience-infused black metal. The album's title track begins with the keys flying as 16th notes create intervals that aren't allowed in church, before settling into Burden's voice echoing over airy piano notes that fall like lonesome icicles.

Silentist's latest, House on the Hill, introduces a new vocalist, August Alston (of Electric, Society of Friends, Lords of Light and Walls), and represents a further deconstruction of heavy metal with noise and jazz as the wrecking balls. On this EP, drums seem to be the central instrument, and the emotional core has shifted from sorrow to madness. "Worship," which is basically a death-metal song stripped to drums and vocals, demonstrates Alston's vocal prowess as he growls, almost inhumanly low, to create a song that is amazingly not empty and very dark. However, a similar minimalist approach fails on the album's first track, "Cut," during which Alston mumbles over a drone-and-drum bit that sounds stale—like a demo from a forgotten early-'90s goth band. The album's first five tracks seem like a crazy, frustrating journey (reaching its peak on "Corpse Decay," a piano-heavy track that sounds like Thelonious Monk would in an insane asylum, and showcases Burden skillfully abusing his 10-plus years of piano training) to reach the epic title track, which stands out as the best Silentist composition to date. Although it's more hit-and-miss than Chariot, House definitely represents a maturation.

—JASON SIMMS.

Silentist plays a joint CD release show with The Better to See You With, Iron Lung and Skin Culture at Disjecta. 9 pm. $5. All ages.

^The Robot Ate Me Good World

Ryland Bouchard lives alone in his Good World. Here's a postcard.

[SCHIZO-POP] Ryland Bouchard, a recent Portland import and the presumed "Me" of The Robot Ate Me, was once in a world quite different from that of his most recent release, Good World (5RC). Recall (or pretend to recall) 2004's On Vacation (5RC) with its dust-bowl-toned "Genocide Ball" and the looping refrain: "Come put your shoes on/ Let's go out tonight/ There's a genocide ball to attend." And there's little that compares with the graceful drear of the disc's title track, a black reflection on gods and Hitler. Then, Bouchard's message was, "Well, maybe you ate yourself"—that it's not a good world at all, but don't bother pointing the finger at God.

Good World never chucks the cynicism of On Vacation but does a commendable job of shrouding it in conceptual psychosis: ragged thrift-store clarinets form a miniature cacophonic chorus supported by heavy marches (courtesy of David Greenhorn), glittering out-of-tune keys and meek falsetto vocal drifts. I'm imagining Bouchard writing this material in the hospital psych ward with only Peter and the Wolf and a decomposed copy of Neutral Milk Hotel's In the Aeroplane Over the Sea to inform him. "The Hunter #1" is a trembling 50-second song (a norm on this 17-song, 20-minute album) of pseudofolk guitar and a voice that sounds as if it's blowing away as every beat slowly departs, singing, "You were hunter/ I was praying/ For a gun/ For a god." "The Hunter #2" charges in with a mess of discordant reeds that sound like wolves circling, out for blood. As such, Good World doesn't linger. Rather, it chases forward through brief experiments of fragmented marches, wasted vocals and glimpsed chamber suites ("Good World #2"). It's barely penetrable, but chase after it anyway. Just don't expect to catch it.

—MICHAEL BYRNE.

^Storm Large

Already famed and fortunate, Storm Large reaches for the brass ring.

[ROCK] Reality television might be helping bankrupt America's collective imagination, but it sure has managed to make a few folks incredibly wealthy and moderately famous. One might soon be Storm Large, the Portland nightlife fixture who recently left behind her regular Wednesday Dante's gig with backing band the Balls and headed to L.A. There she's filming Rock Star, in which she'll compete with 14 other white, alt-rockers for a spot as lead singer for Supernova, a new band constructed by former Mötley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee. WW spoke to Large shortly after she arrived at the Paramour, a.k.a. the Rock Star Mansion.

—MARK BAUMGARTEN.

WW: Now that you've met all the competition, are you more intimidated than you were before?

Storm Large: No. I've always been up against the odds in this thing. When I went to interview for the show, they said, "So, you're 36," and I said, well, actually, I'm a 36 D. I had just turned 37. They asked if I had ever heard of someone becoming a rock star when they were 37, and I said, "No. But I'm not trying to become a rock star. I am one. I've been one for 15 years. You just haven't heard of me yet."

You told a British reporter that if you won, the first thing you would do is buy health insurance. Besides the prospect of financial security, why would you want to be a rock star?

Just to see if I can do it.

But beyond that. Why do you want to be famous?

I've just been going at it for 15 years with lots of people making a lot of empty promises to me about my future. Now this is really the best shot I've got.

If you win, do you move to Los Angeles permanently?

If I win the whole thing, I'll still live in Portland. I have a home in Portland, my partner's in Portland and my Balls are in Portland. If I end up in Supernova, I'll be on tour for big chunks of time, but I'll be able to come home for big chunks of time.

So, Storm and the Balls isn't dead?

No way. I love my Balls. I would never give them up. The best thing about this is, if I win, I can play those shows and let my band have all the money. Or, I'll do you one better. If I become a huge fucking rock star, I'll buy all of my Balls health insurance.

Rock Star: Supernova premieres at 8 pm Wednesday, July 5, on KOIN 6.