Local News & Reviews

[February 7th, 2007]

^Gifford Pinchot Wednesday, Feb. 7

Local trio embodies all the dark mystique of its inspiration.

[DARK ROCK] Gifford Pinchot might be the most well-adjusted, functional band ever. Its vocalists and frontpersons, Jesse and Stephanie King (who play guitar and bass, respectively), have been a couple for 14 years, and they've been playing music together for the past six and a half. They're the kind of couple that speaks volumes in mere glances, and the Kings' compatability is unmistakably woven through Gifford Pinchot's rich and varied dark rock sound.

The most telling aspect of that bond is found in Gifford Pinchot's ability to move from heavy, semi-industrial math rock to spacey, experimental jams to more mellow pop all while maintaining an almost indefinable consistency. Over the course of its debut, 1910, the band—which is rounded out longtime friend and ex-member of the Daylights, drummer Josh Arnold—sounds akin to a female-led Sunny Day Real Estate, a hard-rock Wedding Present or even a horn-rattled, experimental noise-rock outfit. But the trio's members—who have been involved in Portland music since the '80s—knit it all together into what sounds like the product of far more than three people. "I play through three different amps, and I have 'em all going almost all the time," explains the redheaded, mild-mannered Jesse, "so every time play, it's different."

Besides owing a debt to its members' congeniality—"You guys never fight," Arnold tells the Kings over beers at My Father's Place—the band's sound also takes inspiration from its namesake, the Gifford Pinchot National Forest (itself named for the first U.S. forestry chief). A Washington native (the entire band, oddly enough, is from the Northwest), Stephanie says, "We were always leaving Portland and heading to that forest. There was something about that forest that always drew us." It drew the Kings so strongly, in fact, that they left Portland and bought a house in the country near Vancouver.

"We sit out there and watch bunnies and coyotes and shit like that," says Jesse, a comment that implies a more sunny sound than Gifford Pinchot's often dark, sinister rock. But, appropriately, 1910 is named after something dark itself: the year a massive fire burned the Kings' favorite area of the forest. Even the cover of the album—which features bare, burnt tree trunks reflected in a mountain lake—is foreboding yet lovely, visceral yet eerie. And, like that of the forest they so love, Jesse says, "Our ashes will be here." Naturally, Stephanie agrees, adding a statement that could just as easily describe the band's debut, "It's just so diverse. There are so many amazing places, and you don't have to go that far to find them."

—AMY MCCULLOUGH.

Gifford Pinchot plays with New York Rifles and Easterly, Wednesday, Feb. 7, at the Doug Fir. 9 pm. Free. 21+.

^Pete Krebs Saturday, Feb. 10

The local four-piece—which performs with barrel drums, hand percussion (no drum set), electric guitar and accordion—even changes its material based on the time of year. Waldteufel wore masks and served rye bread at a harvest performance last September and contributed a slow, metalish rendition of Friedrich Hielscher's winter-hunt poem "Wir Rufen Deine Wölfe" (which translates to "We Call Your Wolves") to a 2003 winter solstice compilation. But in any season, the core of the drum-based music is as basic as its themes: "It stays simple even when it's complex," claimed Wolff.

Another project to which Wolff contributes, A Minority of One, is simpler and sparser still, sometimes to a fault: A recent Doug Fir show saw an audience of about 50 sitting restlessly in anticipation. But A Minority of One—a 10-year-old sound collage project founded by Waldteufel member Jason Craban—did build to some great moments that night, such as when Craban played a cymbal spinning on a motor in accompaniment to his wife Arrowyn's vocals, which Wolff electronically looped into about 30 tracks.

At this Saturday's show—a benefit for a friend who recently suffered a motorcycle accident in Vietnam—A Minority of One will incorporate parts of Walteufel songs into its set under the moniker A Minority of Waldteufel. Asked whether he misses the notoriety and chaos of Crash Worship, Wolff responded, "Sure, we played all these places and had lots of people come, but that's not necessarily satisfying if the family doesn't work out, you know " Simplicity it is.

—JASON SIMMS.

A Minority of Waldteufel and Soriah play the benefit for Todj Juscak on Saturday, Feb. 10, at the Alberta St. Pub. 9:30 pm. Donations. 21+.

^Strike Anywhere Feb. 2 at Satyricon

Strike Anywhere leadman helps keep his new hometown unpredictable.

[POST-HARDCORE] It would be hard to misinterpret Strike Anywhere's music in a live setting. Though vocalist Thomas Barnett—who recently moved to Portland with his girlfriend, a student at Lewis & Clark Law School—frequently flips the bird for reasons known only to those who've memorized his fleeting lyrics, and though the band's sound is heavier than that of their most similar contemporaries, NOFX and Propagandi, the Richmond, Va., five-piece is unmistakably upbeat and positive. So last Friday's benefit at Satyricon for the National Animal Law Center, which SA headlined, was pretty clearly no place to fight.

Yet Barnett had to stop playing right before what he considers the heaviest breakdown in the SA catalog (during "Refusal") to stop a fight. After the show, a member of the band's crew told Barnett that he had to pop another fan's shoulder back into its socket as well. "We love intensity and physical dancing," the dreadlocked singer in his mid-30s told me outside the Old Town venue, "but sometimes people aren't sensible." He claims that incidents like these are part of his band's "strange and contradictory existence." Barnett also cites the fact that, in order to successfully champion its causes, the band has to stay "on the grid," which requires necessary evils such as using fuel to tour.

But, with a very large indie label like Fat Wreck Chords behind it, SA stood little chance of remaining off "the grid" in the first place. Unlike increasingly common package tours with no space for local openers (organized by labels like Fat Wreck), however, last Friday's show—which featured local bands Red Mark of Madness, Dispossessed, Coldbringer and Drunken Boat—was something of a rarity. And SA guitarist Matt Smith announced from the stage early on, "This is the most fun we've had at a show in five years!"

While the somewhat derivative group's set was far from the most fun I've had at a show in the past five years, there's something intoxicating about watching a band that's big enough to draw a crowd of that size and that has its heart in the right place. As the age-diverse crowd of several hundred turned Satyricon into a sweaty swirl of pumping fists on SA's closer, "Sunset on 32nd," Strike Anywhere was that band—for those who were paying attention to Barnett's praising of his new hometown's bike lanes and house shows rather than coming to fisticuffs, that is.

—JASON SIMMS.

^Jared Mees If You Wanna Swim With The Sharks...

Mees' debut borrows from the best, but tells his own story.

[BRASH FOLK] Jared Mees opens his debut, If You Wanna Swim with the Sharks..., with the kind of acoustic-guitar strum that makes each note pop out separately, like some sort of audio-PowerPoint presentation illustrating what happens when pick meets string. And that prickly, down-home yet brash tone is held throughout the album, which takes on forms reminiscent of some of indie-folk's best: Okkervil River's Will Sheff, Kind of Like Spitting's Ben Barnett and, most of all, Bright Eyes' Conor Oberst.

Though Mees channels all three of these songwriters, Sharks hardly comes off derivative. Even when he slurs his speech and lets his vocals fall into kiddy-talk land—a decidedly Oberstian thing to do—on that first track, "Suicide Squeeze," it's only for a moment: Likewise, on "Cockleburs & Hay," which has an angry, ominous vibe much like Okkervil River's "Westfall" or Bright Eyes' "Sunrise, Sunset," Mees only sets a similar mood, slyly reminding listeners of those artists without overstaying his welcome in familiar territory. And when Mees adopts the wide-mouthed, biting delivery of KOLS' Barnett, he still spits out verses that are sharply, uniquely, his own.

On the anthemic "Working & Drinking," for instance, Mees' world-weary take on blue-collar life includes such pointed observations as, "I'm the man of my dreams/ When I'm dreamin'." And though his inflection hints at Cursive's Tim Kasher or Love As Laughter's Sam Jayne (the song also employs a very Bright Eyes-ish choir-of-friends section), the feelgood vibe of the music—complete with hooks galore, slop-pop drums, hard-hitting guitar and a meandering, melodic lead—is surprising, making Mees' ode to "Jack and Jim," cigarettes and friends come off far more celebratory than, say, Oberst's "Well Whiskey."

Sharks' success ultimately comes down to Mees' ability to embody both youth and wisdom: When he sings, "We might fall in love/ We might get in a fight/ But we're all breakin' even/ At the end of the night" (from "The Strange Demise of Jerome Nobles"), it's clear experience has earned Mees that knowledge. From the clever, life-is-a-stage rocker "Live Fiction" to the half-spoken folk anthem "Julai Throwback," Mees weaves enough compelling tidbits into his seemingly reckless songs to avoid sounding immature. Even when he haphazardly sings, "Halle-fuckin', halle-fuckin'-lujah! Cele-fuckin'-bration! Congratu-fuckin'-ations! Kum-ba-fuckin'-ya!" it sounds smart, and—most of all—it sounds like Jared Mees.

—AMY MCCULLOUGH.