Wednesday July 2top

Les Misérables

[SOLD OUT] Broadway Rose, Tigard’s accomplished but modestly funded summer musical theater company takes on Claude-Michel Schönberg’s record-smashing musical and delivers the sort of unforgettable evening of theater we’re lucky to experience once a season. Douglas Webster (Jean Valjean) sings with tremendous strength and passion; Leif Norby brings a tragic empathy to the role of Javert, saving the totalitarian policeman from being just a stern voice in a succession of ridiculous hats; the ensemble numbers are sharply directed and deeply affecting; and Darius Pierce and Lori Paschall as the ghoulish Mr. and Mrs. Thénardier are grossly hilarious. BEN WATERHOUSE. Deb Fennell Auditorium, 9000 SW Durham Road, Tigard., 620-5262. 8 pm Wednesdays-Saturdays, 2 pm Sundays. Closes July 20. $20-$30. Map

Odessa Chen, Carcrashlander, Millions of Birds

[SWIRLING] Pianist Cory Gray has a voice that buzzes like hummingbird wings with the warmth of an old neon sign. It's a bit like hearing a softspoken narrator read your life aloud. Better still, said narrator sings about city blocks like Killingsworth without sounding tacky. Such shout-outs can be lost in the piano-led madness that often circles above Gray. So strong is this madness, thinks label Parks and Records, that Carcrashlander is the subject of its first release. A sustainable one at that, made entirely of recycled packaging. MARK STOCK. 7 pm. Rererato Artspace, 5135 NE 42nd Ave., 732-407-4418. Cover. All ages. Map

MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY CRAFT

Ken Shores' works.
Art or craft? Ceramics or high-art sculpture? Who knows and who cares when you’re veteran envelope-pusher Ken Shores. Generations: Ken Shores is a retrospective of the artist’s 50-year career. With his unique iconography, culled from studies undertaken and influences absorbed in Asia and South America, Shores’ life’s work is overdue for this in-depth treatment. 724 NW Davis St., 223-2654. Closes July 23. Map

PORTLAND ART MUSEUM

Klaus Moje retrospective.
German-born glass maestro Klaus Moje has a major retrospective at the Portland Art Museum, showcasing the artist’s 30-year career combining influences from his European roots and his many years in Australia, leading what is arguably the world’s premier glass studio. Moje is a kiln-former; he fuses glass into intricately patterned works that can be intimate in scale, but can also fill a 24-foot wall. Says exhibit curator Bruce Guenther: “He creates objects that have reference to tradition but explode and reorient into an experience that’s purely optical.” Moje will go down in history as one of the greats of his medium, and this show will go down as a watershed moment. 1219 SW Park Ave., 226-0973. Closes Sept. 7. Map

REED COLLEGE

3203 SE Woodstock Blvd., 771-1112. Douglas F. Cooley Gallery. Closes July 20. Map

QUALITY PICTURES CONTEMPORARY ART

Holly Andres.
Well known for her creepy family tableaux of waxen WASPs staring vacantly into televisions and turkey dinners, photographer Holly Andres debuts a new body of work called Sparrow Lane. The series riffs on Andres’ childhood fascination with Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys mysteries, and it showcases her gift for staging complex, preternaturally lit vignettes that invite the viewer in, even as they retain a sense of enigma. 916 NW Hoyt St., 227-5060. Closes Aug. 2. Map

INTERSTATE FIREHOUSE CULTURAL CENTER

F.X. Rosica.
Rosica presents a solo exhibit of prints and paintings titled Still Lives: A Community In Motion. 5340 N Interstate Ave., Closes July 26. Map

OREGON HISTORY MUSEUM

Michael Curry.
Puppetry: An Out of Body Experience, features Oregon native Curry's puppetry works from The Lion King and Cirque du Soleil. 1200 SW Park Ave., Closes Oct. 19. Map

GOODFOOT

Jacob Wooton, Keith Rosson, Larry Cyr.
New works in paintings, sculptures and stencil art. 2845 SE Stark St., 239-9292. Closes July 28. Map

SOUND GROUNDS

Unconscious Mind.
New works in nude photography from Daniel Howlett. 3711 SE Belmont St., 234-0915. Closes July 31. Map

QUALITY PICTURES

Gerald Slota, David Isenhour and Christopher Rose celebrate city grittiness with new photographs, sculptures and impressionistic works, respectively. 916 NW Hoyt St., 227-5060. Closes Aug. 30. Map

BUTTERS

Sonia Kasparian.
Sonia Kasparian has long used porch screens as an element in her haunting paintings and multimedia works. Now she repurposes those screens, using them as the basis for dramatic abstract wall hangings like Double Mothra and Rodan, which resplend with neo-Baroque luxuriance. Sculptures such as Loving Cup and For John combine animal bones and antlers with candelabra, velvet and painstaking metalwork. The show shows Kasparian in fine form, leading us into realms where joie de vivre and memento mori jockey for position. 520 NW Davis St., 2nd floor., 248-9378. Closes Aug. 2. Map

Gary Vaynerchuk

The thought of “wine critics” conjures images of tuxedo-wearing, wine-sniffing, high-brow pomposity. But Gary Vaynerchuk is the wine concierge for any average Joe or Sally. On his wine-video-blog, Wine Library TV, Vaynerchuck reviews wines in a bold, casual, understandable way. He has compiled a list of his favorite wines in his new book, Gary Vaynerhcuk’s 101 Wines, which he’ll read from at Powell’s. Powell's Cedar Hills Crossing, 3415 SW Cedar Hills Blvd., 228-4631. 7 pm. Free. Map

Thursday July 3top

The Long Winters, The Builders and the Butchers

[INDIE-ROCK PERFECTION] It's not often that a band releases such consistently great work as Seattle's Long Winters—so it doesn't worry me much that singer/smartass John Roderick recently told Spin.com that the band's upcoming album (set for early ’09 release) will have "a much looser feel." The as-yet-untitled record will be based on a collection of one-minute loops (with names like "I Don't Want You to Feel Comfortable, I Want You to Come Here") that Roderick's been messin' with over the past year, an approach David Bazan apparently recommended to him. Whether Roderick's complaining about unsalted butter, ribbing high school students or wearing his heart boldly on his sleeve—and exploring drawn-out indie rock epics, punchy pop numbers or acoustic balladry, respectively, in the process—he's always been brilliant, singing with a perma-smile and looking like Yellow Brick Road-era Elton John (you know, before he resembled your grandma). So loop it up, buddy. Drift from your "folk songwriter" methods. Do whatever the hell you want. We'd expect nothing less (except, maybe, to hear a few newbies tonight; pretty please?). AMY MCCULLOUGH. 9 pm. Wonder Ballroom, 128 NE Russell St., 284-8686. $12 advance, $14 day of show. All ages. Map

White Hinterland, Baptist Arms

[TORCH POP] Casey Dienel has a voice to fall in love with—no, it's more than that: She has a style to fall in love with. Equally smart and playful, intimate and quirky, Dienel's ’06 Hush Records release, Wind-Up Canary, knocked my socks off with its blend of torchy, jazzy love songs and upbeat ’n' sassy piano pop character sketches. Now, she's got a fancy new band (featuring ubiquitous PDX bassist Dave Depper, among others) and a fancy new moniker, White Hinterland. The Boston native's still belting out charming lines like, "It's funny/ I like me best with a broken heart," and crafting infectious melodies, but now she's got a bit more noise infusing her adorable tunes: lots of percussive racket, squealing strings and, of course, heavy doses of ebony and ivory. Wispy, lo-fi folk here, cacophonous breakdown there, rich and honeyed vocals everywhere. Hard to beat that. AMY MCCULLOUGH. 9:30 pm. Towne Lounge, 714 SW 20th Place., 241-8696. $8. 21+. Map

Krachaus, Mannequinhead, Dead City Soundsystem, Monody

[CRACK-ROCK NEW WAVE] Psychedelic bands and their acidic undertakings can cause time travel of the memory, but Krachaus offers a different kind of flashback—or relapse, if you will. Synth-heavy and loaded with guitar solos and reverberated vocals, Krachaus is a throwback to old New Wave (confusing, no?), meshing gothy songs with robotic noises, pulsating beats and throaty vocal accents. Krachaus updates its sound with sampling, but at its core it’s an impeccable salute to ’80s outcasts. AP KRYZA. 9:30 pm. Ash Street Saloon, 225 SW Ash St., 226-0430. $5. 21+. Map

A&E Front Porch Stage: Fred Wesley & Groovesect, Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue, Joe McMurrian Quartet, Colin Lake & Wellbottom Blues, Moreland and Arbuckle, Mark Lemhouse and the Hollars, Crossroads Youth Blues Ensemble (starts at 3 pm)

[PICKIN' AND SOUL] What better way to kick off this year's Oregon Food Bank-benefiting Independence Day bluesathon than with some down-home finger-pickin' over at the A&E Front Porch Stage: Local lapslide guitarist Colin Lake (6 pm) plays everything from gently aching solo-style acoustic blues to amped-up roots-rock jams with his band, Wellbottom; and fellow Portlander Joe McMurrian (who hops aboard a "blues cruise" at 10:15 pm, after playing the A&E at 7 pm) lights up the frets on both banjo and guitar—delivering rollicking, progressive blues-rock backed by fierce, smoky vocals (imagine a beefier-sounding Kelly Joe Phelps). Meanwhile, a slew of notable locals—from bold and beautiful soul maven Liv Warfield to longtime PDX blues stalwart Norman Sylvester—warm up the stage (starting at 3:45 pm) for the one and only Black Moses: funk-soul legend Isaac Hayes (9 pm). Can you dig it? AMY MCCULLOUGH. 3 pm. Waterfront Blues Festival, Tom McCall Waterfront Park (Southwest Oak Street & Naito Parkway)., 973-FEST. $10, plus two cans of nonperishable food. All ages. Visit waterfrontbluesfest.com for full schedule. Map

Chamber Music Northwest

What better way to express your patriotism than to celebrate 20th and 21st century American composers? On Thursday and Friday the world’s finest young cellist, Matt Haimovitz, plays a kaleidoscopic solo tribute to Buenos Aires and tango singer Carlos Gardel by the world’s finest younger composer, Boston’s Osvaldo Golijov, then joins a squadron of fellow celli in Villa Lobos’ ethereal-to-exuberant greatest hit, Bachiana Brasileira No. 5 for eight cellos and soprano. The show also features some of the world’s finest musicians in works by Golijov’s fellow Argentine master, the late Astor Piazzolla; Samuel Barber’s searing String Quartet (with its inescapable Adagio, in its less syrupy original version); An American in Paris (in Gershwin’s original arrangement for a pair of pianos), and the world premiere of award-winning twentysomething composer Sheridan Seyfried’s Then Velvet Dark for piano quartet, inspired by Carl Sandburg's poem “Fourth of July Night.” CMNW’s July 7-8 shows honor 2007 Grammy-award winner Joan Tower’s 70th birthday year with the West Coast premiere of her four-movement “A Gift” (commissioned by Portlander Paul King) for piano and winds, plus Mozart’s big Divertimento for Two Horns and Strings, brimming with memorable, danceable tunes, and a Rossini trifle. BRETT CAMPBELL. Kaul Auditorium at Reed College, 3203 SE Woodstock Blvd., 294-6400. Americas: 8 pm Thursday and 7:30 pm Friday, July 3-4. Tower/Mozart: 8 pm Monday, July 7 at Kaul Auditorium and Tuesday, July 8 at Catlin Gabel School, 8825 SW Barnes Road. $10-$43. Map

3D CENTER OF ART & PHOTOGRAPHY

Window Shopping.
New exhibit of Anaglyph portraits by George King. Opening reception from 6-9 pm Thursday, July 3. 1928 NW Lovejoy St., 227-6667. Closes Sept. 6. Map

SEQUENTIAL ART GALLERY + STUDIO

Jim Valentino.
The First 500 Years: A look at the 30-year-plus career of Jim Valentino, co-founder of Image Comics. 328 NW Broadway, No. 113., 916-9293. Closes Aug. 2. Map

GRASS HUT CORP.

T'N'T: Tigerlily and Tim Biskup.
New works in paints and drawings by the father-daughter duo. 811 E Burnside St., 445-9924. Closes July 31. Map

THE 100TH MONKEY

Nationality.
New works by Jessica Breedlove, Laura Campos, Don Fox, Mina Bella Kreiter, Joy Leising, Troy John McCray, Nathan Orton, Beth Ann Short, Maureen Sunderland, Chris Tardi, Lesli Tardi and Anna Todaro. 110 SE 16th Ave., 232-3457. Closes July 27. Map

PORTLAND CITY HALL

Northwest Down Syndrome Association's "All Born 'In'".
Cross-disability exhibition. 1221 SW 4th Ave., 823-4000. Closes July 31. Map

Justin “Scrappers” Morrison

CAMP, the new book by Northwest artist Justin “Scrappers” Morrison, is about things like “war, forest critters, wild Boy and Girl Scouts, old-time loggers...making arts and crafts, running for your life, explosions, glory, and bows and arrows.” That description screams page-turner. This First Thursday event serves as both a book release and art installation for Scrappers. One piece of art he will display is a miniature truck with a pair of antlers about thrice the size fastened on top, with a tall, rectangular building that looks like an outhouse in the teensy truck bed. Come on, that’s rad. Independent Publishing Resource Center, 917 SW Oak St., No. 218., 827-0249. 6 pm. Free. Map

Friday July 4top

The Legendary Shack Shakers, Cicada Omega, Seven Signs

[AMERICANA GOTHIC] The Legendary Shack Shakers are viciously meticulous, not the intentionally sloppy stuff we’ve come to identify as dirty country rock. Yes, it’s dirty. Sometimes it’s even psychotic, particularly on storytelling anthems like “Ichabod,” wherein sickly-skinny frontman J.D. Wilkes howls like a maniac. The Shakers do for Americana what the Pogues did for Celtic music—inject it with a breakneck vigor that makes music more than 100 years old sound fresh. AP KRYZA. Dante's, 1 SW 3rd Ave., 226-6630. $12. 21+. Also at Waterfront Blues Festival, 4:45 pm. Map

Rock 'n' Roll Juicebox: Jonny X and the Groadies, Fist Fite, Experimental Dental School, Sei Hexe

[BIRTHDAY PUNKS] For a dozen years, Jonny X and the Groadies have celebrated their birthday on Independence Day. While our country has been drug through mud, blood and oil, the Groadies still wave their flag of independence with morals intact (all ages or die!). The band plays good-time party black metal noise grind (did you even know such a thing existed?), sporting Spandex, laser lights, fog and a high-tech array of samplers. The show (the first in a two-day event put on by garage-punk collective Hovercraft) is a short, visceral experience that is fattened up considerably with several courses: a vegetarian barbecue and chili cook-off is the appetizer; sets from good-time synthpunks Fist Fite and Experimental Dental School serve as main course and early dessert. Also see Live Review of Explode Into Colors, playing day two. NATHAN CARSON. 9 pm. Worksound, 820 SE Alder St., myspace.com/worksoundpdx. $5. All ages. Map

Liberty Bang!: Them Jeans, Pase Rock, DJ Beyonda, Nathan Detroit

[BANG!] If you manage to stumble away from Liberty Bang! (a July 4 shindig sardine-packed with premier electronic mash-up DJs) sometime in the wee hours of July 5 without hair—maybe yours, maybe someone else's—sweat-pasted to your forehead, then something went terribly wrong. So stretch and drink water in preparation for MIA, Amanda Blank and Bloc Party mixes and cunt-carnage lyrics like, "She acting like she wanna be my lady/ I already fucked you, I love you, pay me," courtesy of Pase Rock. SARA MOSKOVITZ. 9 pm. Rotture, 315 SE 3rd Ave., 234-5683. $10. 21+. Map

Saturday July 5top

Ubu Lives!

The final installment of End of the Pavement, Pavement Productions' "Micro New Works Festival," is an anthology of eight short plays about Albert Jerry's character Ubu Roi by playwrights from across the country. The Back Door Theater, 4319 SE Hawthorne Blvd., 8 pm Saturday, July 5. Pay-what-you-will. Map

Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, Professor Gall, Mute Socialite

[PERFORMANCE ART] The performance-art geniuses of Sleepytime Gorilla Museum bring their host of homemade instruments and costumes to Dante’s red-curtained stage tonight. Portland audiences have always enjoyed mind-expanding work from afar, and SGM never disappoints. Many bands look good or sound pro, perhaps write quality tunes. But this collective has mastered a sort of onstage interaction that any artist in any medium could learn from. Song lyrics are filtered into physical expression and interplay, the dynamics seeming like a well-executed play. But it’s a play in which gothic metal, progressive rock and earthy originality combine to make something dark, beautiful, new and essential. NATHAN CARSON. 9:30 pm. Dante's, 1 SW 3rd Ave., 226-6630. $15. 21+. Map

Modey Lemon, Eternal Tapestry, Bodhi

[RELOCATED GARAGE ROCK] See profile of Bodhi on LocalCut. 9 pm. Someday Lounge, 125 NW 5th Ave., 248-1030. $7. 21+. Map

Maria Taylor, Johnathan Rice, Nik Freitas

[SINGER-SONGWRITERS] Alabama-born, Nebraska-dwelling singer-songwriter Maria Taylor was half of shoegaze-folk duo Azure Ray, has sung on Bright Eyes albums and placed a song on the Grey's Anatomy soundtrack. Johnathan Rice, too, has a knack for making friends and finding himself in the right places, recently opening for R.E.M. after impressing Peter Buck at a random gig, not to mention parlaying his status as Rilo Kiley leader Jenny Lewis' main squeeze into a surprise gig singing and playing on Elvis Costello's new disc. Opener Nik Freitas' swell-sounding new disc, Sun Down, is on Conor Oberst's Team Love label. JEFF ROSENBERG. 9 pm. Doug Fir Lounge, 830 E Burnside St., 231-9663. $12. 21+. Map

DragonForce, Powerglove

[FANTASY METAL] Blistering melodic shred from the U.K., the dudes from DragonForce are forging careers as the undisputed masters of fantasy metal. This is music so candy-coated it shouldn’t even rock anymore. But it does. Triumphant choruses feature harmonies built from dozens and dozens of guitar and vocal tracks. My favorite thing about this band is its video for "Operation Ground and Pound," which features the band playing on a windy clifftop that is being shot with lightning by massive UFOs, culminating in a Guitar Hero-style battle during the dueling lead section. DragonForce is the kind of unadulterated fun that will rot your teeth and your brain. More power to them. NATHAN CARSON. 8 pm. Roseland, 8 NW 6th Ave., 219-9929 (Grill), 224-2038 (Theater). $23. All ages. Map

Rock 'n' Roll Juicebox: Explode Into Colors, Syrup, Kusikia, The Meat Sweats

[DUB-ROCK DANCE PARTY] See live review of Explode Into Colors on LocalCut. 9 pm. Worksound, 820 SE Alder St., myspace.com/worksoundpdx. Cover. All ages. Also see Friday listings. Map

Oregon Bach Festival

The best reason to drive to Eugene this summer is the Shanghai Quartet’s appearances at the OBF. On Saturday, they join a quartet of festival regulars in Mendelssohn’s astonishingly precocious Octet and sextets by Richard Strauss and Brahms. On Monday, the group plays Barber’s String Quartet (in case you miss it at Chamber Music Northwest), arrangements of traditional and popular Chinese songs, and that most sublime of 20th century chamber works, Maurice Ravel’s String Quartet. More French fare follows Tuesday when the quartet and Festival star guest musicians play a pair of breezily brilliant 20th century works: Francis Poulenc’s wistful and witty Sextet for Piano and Winds and his friend Darius Milhaud’s nostalgic film score, The Chimney of King René; brief baubles by Saint-Saëns and Ibert; and two of the most beautiful works of the last century, both graced by harp: Claude Debussy’s magical Sacred and Secular Dances, and Ravel’s shimmering Introduction and Allegro. BRETT CAMPBELL. Hult Center for the Performing Arts, One Eugene Center, Eugene., 800-457-1486. Octets/Sextets: 7:30 pm Saturday, July 5. Barber/Ravel: 7:30 pm Monday, July 7. French Feast: 7:30 pm Tuesday, July 8. $29-$45. Map

Sunday July 6top

Big Business, Red Fang, The Bugs

[M-M-M-METAL] It's safe to say that screamer/guitarist Jared Warren and drummer Coady Willis have a lot on their plates these days. The duo records and performs bugged-out, cartoon metal as Big Business, of course, but since 2006 it's also been pulling double-duty as full-time Melvins, joining forces with King Buzzo and Dale Crover to redouble the might of that legendary, friends-of-Kurt scrunge-core outfit. So how they're finding the time and energy for this tour is anybody's guess, but their particular energy drink-chugging brand of thrash is always welcome in our headphones and on our stages. RAY CUMMINGS. 9 pm. Berbati's Pan, 231 SW Ankeny St., 248-4579. $10 advance, $12 day of show. 21+. Map

Miller Stage: Curtis Salgado, James Hunter, Phoebe Snow, Ruthie Foster, Red Hot Blues Sisters (starts at 12:45 pm)

[WOMAN-POWER BLUES] After the rockets' red glare and male-dominated bills of the Festival's previous days, Sunday is all about woman power. At 1:30 pm, the always-hot Northwest Women Rhythm & Blues showcase sets the tone, followed by—in the words of her '06 album title—The Phenomenal Ruthie Foster at 2:30 pm. The highlight here, though, is the thrilling return to performance of the incomparable Phoebe Snow (4:30 pm). Lavay Smith leads her Red Hot Skillet Lickers swinging into sundown on the A&E Front Porch Stage beginning at 7:30 pm, while the always-welcome Rory Block workshops at 8:15 pm. Meanwhile, decidedly non-female Curtis Salgado, a local staple who blends soulful vocals with harmonica-laden blues, provides the festival's main-stage closing set. JEFF ROSENBERG. 12:45 pm. Waterfront Blues Festival, Tom McCall Waterfront Park (Southwest Oak Street & Naito Parkway)., 973-FEST. $10, plus two cans of nonperishable food. All ages. Visit waterfrontbluesfest.com for full schedule. Map

UFO Challenge: Adam Forkner and Windy, Pulse Emitter, Acre, DJ Scott

[AMBIENT ROCK] I still remember it to this day. There I was, college dropout in the making, hanging on an autumnal New Jersey campus and skipping class to smoke cigarettes, play pinball and talk records: the quintessence of a ‘90s-era slack motherfucker. Before Allmusic and Wikipedia, there were dudes, and only by consulting as many dudes as possible could one figure out just what kind of music was out there. On that fateful day, Greg told me about the then-nascent Michigan space rock scene and its leading light: Windy & Carl. A husband-and-wife duo droning arcs of frozen sound across endless space, this was ambient through an amp, the most beautiful display of power I had ever heard. Windy Weber will be playing the fourth installment of Pete Swanson’s always excellent Challenge series at Valentine’s. Tune in, turn on and bliss out. ERIK BADER. 9 pm. Valentine's, 232 SW Ankeny St., 248-1600. Free. 21+. Map

Monday July 7top

REGIONAL ARTS & CULTURE COUNCIL (RACC)

Falling Light .
Live installation by Portland artist Scott Sonniksen. 108 NW 9th Ave., Suite 300., 823-5111. Closes July 25. Map

Story Time for Grownups

It’s not often grownups get offered a bedtime story, so snatch this one up while you can! At Story Time for Grownups, Dick Lewis will read excerpts of the medieval epic Beowulf, followed by David Loftus’ reading from Grendel, a modern retelling from the monster’s perspective. If Beowulf the movie stained your view of this story (damn, that movie sucked hard), it would be a great idea to attend this reading and re-experience the epic in its proper, literary form. Grendel's Coffee House, 729 E Burnside St., 595-9550. 7:30 pm. Free. Map

Tuesday July 8top

JAW 2008

Portland Center Stage's annual playwrights festival kicks off with three readings of local work: Matt Zrebski's The Cloud Bangers, a meteorological romance, on July 8; Ginny Foster's Starvation Heights, a turn-of-the-century mystery about a deadly sanitarium, on July 9; and Hunt Holman's Willow Jade, a midlife crisis farce of rock 'n' roll and D&D, on July 10. Gerding Theater, 128 NW 11th Ave., 445-3700. 7:30 pm Tuesday-Thursday, July 8-10. Free. Map

Mike Ness and His Band, The Horton Brothers feat. Miss Lauren Marie

[PUNKABILLY] As rumors continue to swirl over a new Social Distortion album, vocalist and last remaining founder Mike Ness continues to tour his country project featuring a host of Cash and Hank classics and twanged-up originals. American hardcore is littered with nods to the outlaw fringes of Nashville, of course, but Ness and His Band (including Social D guitarist Jonny Wickersham and bassist Brent Harding–now on upright, naturally) barrel through a rigorously authentic brand of rockabilly that only ever hints toward Ness' day job during the frontman's still punk-as-fuck crowd banter. JAY HORTON. 9 pm. Crystal Ballroom, 1332 W Burnside St., 225-0047. $29 advance, $32 day of show. All ages. Map

Ratatat, E*Rock, DJ Hot Air Balloon

[SIESTA FIESTA] Other than a pair of performances opening for Björk last December, it's been a while since Brooklyn-based duo Ratatat has toured the States, peddling its spacey electronica. Fueled by guitar and synthesizer, the unlikely cult heroes retreated to the Catskills to record their third XL album, cleverly titled LP3. In fact, the pair plays Portland the exact day the disc officially drops (though it was leaked in late May). The 13 tracks off LP3 successfully paint a vivid dreamscape throughout 42 vocal-less minutes, a stark contrast to the outfit's most recent material, hip-hop/electro-rock fusion project Remixes Volume Two. Can we expect the Holocene show and Ratatat's subsequent DJ appearance at Dunes to turn into one big sleepover? A high-volume endless slumber party is more like it! NILINA MASON-CAMPBELL. 9 pm. Holocene, 1001 SE Morrison St., 239-7639. $15. 21+. Afterparty DJ set at Dunes. 10 pm. $5. 21+. Map

Trouble, Danava

[DOOM METAL] Doom legends abound in 2008. Swedish gods Candlemass recently graced us with the heavy; few acts in the style remain with as hoary and hallowed a reputation. But here comes Trouble, among the first acts on U.S. shores to dedicate itself to post-Sabbath heaviness. After years of building their temple of gloom, these five Chicagoans were rewarded with a Metal Blade contract, issuing what has to be one of the slowest recordings of 1984, going against the grain of the thrash revolution in more ways than one—especially since Trouble’s entire lyrical focus was Christian theology. Run for the hills, you devil worshippers: Trouble has come to seal your doom. NATHAN CARSON. 9 pm. Doug Fir Lounge, 830 E Burnside St., 231-9663. $15. 21+. Map

Ratatat (DJ set)

[SIESTA FIESTA] See today's Holocene listing. 10 pm. Dunes, 1905 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., 493-8637. $5. 21+. Map

New Bloods, Softboiled Eggies, Experimental Dental School

[ARTFUL POST-PUNK] Plenty of bands these days cop to being influenced by the British post-punk explosion of the late '70s, but none capture the raw, slippery sound as well as the three bands sharing the bill at Valentine's tonight. The most fascinating of the bunch is Softboiled Eggies, a quartet from L.A. that swims in the beautifully murky (and dubby) waters shared by such cross-the-pond forebears as the Slits, PiL and the Raincoats. ROBERT HAM. 9 pm. Valentine's, 232 SW Ankeny St., 248-1600. Donation. 21+. Map

Vancouver Chinese Music Ensemble

Canada’s most esteemed Chinese music group opens the Chinese Garden’s summer series with classical (both Chinese and Western) and contemporary music for erhu (violin), dizi (flute), pipa (lute), yangqin (hammered dulcimer), zheng (harp) and ruan (guitar), sometimes leaning a bit to the sweeter side to entice non-ethnomusicological Western listeners. It's a chance to hear some of the world's most alluring music in one of the country's most enchanting settings. Food and libations are available. BRETT CAMPBELL. Portland Classical Chinese Garden, Northwest 3rd Avenue and Everett Street., 228-8131 ext. 2001. 7:30 pm Tuesday, July 8. $18-$22. 21+. Map