|
BEST
ACCORDION SOCIAL CLUB
The PORTLAND ACCORDION CLUB
(contact Peter Kowsun at 246-2124) is the club to join if you enjoy the sounds of
the squeezebox as it plumps up and stretches out polkas, waltzes, classical,
western, folk, zydeco, jazz and big-band music. On the second Saturday of each
month, from 1 to 5 pm, the club gathers at the Eagle Lodge on Hawthorne
Boulevard, where the cocktails are pretty and the food is fried, for a monthly
social. Accordion players take turns serenading the appreciative crowd. Two
players who call themselves Samsonite and Delight Ya usually finish the meeting
with rousing versions of familiar television theme songs. Watch for the upcoming
PAC picnic at Oaks Park in July. BEST NEW LABEL
With its sexy packaging and stable
of brooding, dangerously talented musicians, fledgling record label POP
SECRET has turned a few heads since its inception in the fall of 1995. Now it
has capped off a growing year with an amazing triple play, releasing simultaneous
albums by three of Portland's most innovative, lovable and sexy bands, namely
Bügsküll, New Bad Things and the Feelings, respectively. With his fiery
temper and voracious carnal appetites, Pop Secret CEO Dan Frazier is the stuff
industry legends are made of. After one merely decent review by a local critic,
Frazier fired off an incensed e-mail berating the critic as a "hipster
asshole" and "stupid pantsload." At parties, he has been known to
arrive through the bathroom in order to feather his hair properly before greeting
the masses. Now, Pop Secret is extending an invitation to Keanu Reeves of the
rock band Dogstar to let Frazier "handle his 7-inch." But whatever his
libidinous management style, Frazier's tastes have proven soberly judicious, from
Bügsküll's mind-expanding soundtrack to the motion picture Crock
to the Feelings' soulful and energetic debut album,Especially for You.
With its newest suite of releases, Pop Secret should be very proud,
indeed. BEST HIP-HOP
ACTIVIST
There are plenty of Portland hip-hoppers out there
ready to make it as DJs and rappers. But when it comes to the less glorified
traditions of hip-hop, namely graffiti and breakdancing, devoted acolytes are
harder to find. One increasingly public disciple of hip-hop's less hyped pillars,
however, is recent Eugene transplant BRIAN GARCIA, A.K.A. TAZROK. If you
made it to POH-HOP this year, or Boot Camp Click, or even a recent benefit
concert for the Rexall Rose, you may have caught Garcia b-boying with Def-Con 5,
the breakdancing team he manages, pumping the crowd into a frenzy with their
old-school moves. But Garcia's real focus is graffiti. As of now, his murals
adorn the walls of such clubs as Moody's and Touché, Northeast record
store Music Galore & More (formerly Dana Dain's), and the offices of his
muraling business, Third Degree. To pay the bills, Garcia also airbrushes
T-shirts and such at a stand in the Lloyd Center. In all his work, Garcia aims to
educate the city about the rich history and philosophy of hip-hop, adding another
exuberant voice to Portland's rootsy, right-thinking hip-hop community. If you've
got an empty wall to cover, give Tazrok a call at 525-8358. BEST PROFANE BAND
NAMER
Before we start, cover the kids' ears. OK, now, we've
given honors for best band name before, but when a gentleman names two of the
best-named bands Portland has seen, right in a row, we must assume we are in the
presence of greatness. He who is known only as FUCK-SHIT-UP JOE is clearly
touched with such greatness. Joe currently heads an outfit called EMPIRE OF
SHIT, which is pretty good, but it's his sadly defunct previous effort that
will assure his place in history. Future rock historians will wonder how the
public could ever have turned its back on the genius of SHITFUCK ARKANSAW AND
THE ASSFACE SUPERSTARS. BEST
USE OF A VACUUM CLEANER
The VACU-SAX, a marriage
between a vacuum cleaner and a saxophone, is the defining instrument for Portland
band Tu-Tu. Invented by Tom Shrader and Gary Miles of Tu-Tu, the Vacu-Sax debuted
at Gov. Tom McCall's Vortex Rock Festival in the summer of 1970. The Vacu-Sax is
a saxophone powered by a "scuba tank"-style vacuum cleaner worn on the
player's back. Nylon reeds hold it together, and the hose may be fed through a
gas mask worn by the player. The Vacu-Sax is just the beginning. Jim Baldwin of
Tu-Tu also has a band called "Pow-R-Pen" that features exclusively
nonelectric instruments powered by chemical fuels. BEST HOLD MUSIC
Telephone
hold music is some of the worst music in the world, and few companies understand
what a bad and lasting impression it leaves. Most workplaces have no idea how
heinous their hold music is--after all, the employees never have to hear it.
(Though WW staffers have heard the rants of irate callers forced to
listen to "Private Eyes" while we scramble to figure out our phone
system.) But callers to BORDERS BOOKS AND MUSIC's downtown store (220-5911
books, 221-9811 music) never bust a vein. The music they hear soothes for one
simple reason: It's whatever is playing in the book store, guaranteeing that it
was selected by a savvy Borders employee, several of whom are musicians
themselves. Recent calls to Borders have revealed a wide-ranging selection of
compelling, dare we say toe-tapping tunes, from the piano sonatas of Mozart to
the klezmer clarinet of Dave Tarras, from Cesaria Evora's island soul to Beth
Orton's indie folk, from jazz great Django Reinhardt to jazz great Louis Jordan
to jazz great John Coltrane. BEST LOCAL BAND THAT'S BEEN AROUND FOREVER
Before
the revolution, before punk broke, before anyone dreamed that anyone would ever
care about bands from Portland, SUGARBOOM began plying audiences with its
brand of energetic, Beatles-inflected pop. A lot of buzz bands and "next big
things" have come and gone since then, but Sugarboom has endured, and has
quietly grown into one of Portland's best and most original bands. Self-effacing
to a fault, you'll never see Sugarboom engaging in the kind of aggressive
self-promotion that has become the rock-scene norm in the past few years. The
band seems perfectly happy to make its music (now released on its own Strawberry
Fields label) and let those who are so inclined seek it out. Music fans should
make the effort. BEST EXAMPLE OF
HONESTY BY A ROCK BAND
Everyone heard the rumors about the
DANDY WARHOLS' oft-delayed major-label release, the most damaging of which
involved Capitol Records flat-out rejecting the album's-worth of material that
the band submitted. Now that ...The Dandy Warhols Come Down has finally
hit the shelves, more than six months after its initial release date, the zealous
rockers have decided to come clean. In the press release that accompanies
promotional copies of the album, the band details the bidding war that followed
its 1995 debut; the Dandys admit to taking advantage of the situation until the
labels stopped forking over cash for plane flights, beer and hotels, then signed
to Capitol. "We all have healthy egos anyway, but at this point we thought
we could do no wrong," the Dandys write in the release. "We had our
picture inRolling Stone, we toured and toured, and everyone wrote about us
saying that we were the next big thing. Of course we fucked it up." They go
on to discuss the ill-fated first recording session and the
back-to-the-drawing-board follow-up, which the label accepted gladly. So did the
Dandys learn not to be prima donnas? "Not really," they write. "We
acted like rock stars then, and we act like rock stars now." Well, at least
they've learned that honesty is the best policy. BEST MUSICAL TRIBUTE TO
PORTLAND
Some people just sing Portland's praises, but
musician and artist Chad Crouch recorded a whole album filled with ruminations on
our fair city. On PORTLAND, OR (Hush Records), the plaintive
guitarist and vocalist populates his songs with pretty girls drinking Black Tiger
milkshakes ("Twenty Third"), lovers drinking wine in view of Oaks Park
("Night Picnic, Sellwood") and a woman leaving town, and her boyfriend,
from Union Station ("Go by Train"). It might be a bit sappy if it
weren't for Crouch's gentle touch on the guitar and his knack for weaving
Portland landmarks into songs about love, loneliness and urban life. Along with
guests Greg Lind on drums, Clark Stiles on bass and organ and Thomas Lauderdale
on piano, Crouch paints a loving musical tribute to Portland, at times recalling
the downcast earnestness of early Simon & Garfunkel. BEST TRIBUTE
BAND
OK, we'll admit that the tribute-band thing is getting a
little out of hand. The past few years have seen an explosion of local bands who
play the repertoire of one other band exclusively; Mötorhead, AC/DC, the
Runaways, Devo and Frank Zappa are just a few of the artists who have been so
honored. The thing is, if you're going to be a tribute band, you'd better do
it reallywell, and nobody in town does it better than BRITISH
STEEL, a reincarnation of hard-rock godfathers Judas Priest. Some people
think British Steel actually play Judas Priest songs better than Judas Priest
does. That may or may not be true, but the Steel's chops, lick-for-lick
arrangements and attention to showmanship make them standouts in a
perhaps-too-crowded field. BEST
PUNK-ROCK TRADITION
If it happens once, it's an event. If it
happens more than three times, it's a tradition--especially if it takes place at
a 21-and-over establishment the bulk of whose clientele turned 21 fairly
recently. Thus, we would like to honor the DRAG RACES AT SATYRICON. (You
should be able to guess that by drag they mean cross-dressing.) In scenes
reminiscent of Rebel Without a Cause by way of Milton Berle, Portland's
punknoscenti duke it out in mano-a-mano high-heeled foot races, whizzing past
cheering onlookers at speeds that give new meaning to the term gender blur. It
seems to happen two or three times a year, though there's no real schedule. Women
in men's garb are free to compete as well, but for some reason the boys are a lot
keener to put on dresses than the girls are to don suits. Go figure. BEST ELVIS IMPERSONATION
DUO
The way we see it, the only thing better than a hunka
hunka burnin' love is two hunksa hunksa burnin' love, and in Portland that means
the BROTHERS E. The pair of Elvis impersonators spent the first half of
'97 loading up on fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches, taking breaks only
to appear on a local morning television program and to perform at Borders on the
King's birthday. Now, Big E and Little E are getting ready to strike up a
13-piece band for the 20th anniversary of Elvis Presley's death, to be
commemorated Aug. 16 at the Crystal Ballroom. This pair of "Hound Dog"
howlers are living proof that 50,000 Elvis fans can't be wrong, and that two
Elvis impersonators are most definitely all right! BEST YEAR FOR INDIE ROCKERS TO LEAVE
TOWN
Perhaps confused by the bi-coastal hip-hop wars,
Portland indie-rockers began scattering to points east and south in '97.
The Spinanes' Rebecca Gates, one of this city's most nationally prominent
musicians, took the proverbial Chattanooga Choo-Choo to Chicago in May.
Heatmiser's Elliott Smith, who's carved himself a nice little niche as
indie-rockdom's gloomy singer/songwriter emeritus, got no sleep 'til Brooklyn in
June. Ex-Crackerbash frontman Sean Croghan decided to sit tight, but two of his
Jr. High bandmates skedaddled: bassist Joanna Bolme also wandered off to the
Windy City, and guitarist Dan Hawthorne ambled away to Idaho. Not to be outdone,
former 30.06 drummer Ryan Paravecchio left for Los Angeles. They out. BEST LOCAL BAND WEB
SITE
We slogged through all the local band Web sites we could
find, and the winner, despite strong runs from Five Fingers of Funk and Justin
McGrotty's Dandy Warhols site, is PIRATE JENNY (http://www.nsc.ca/piratejenny/). Even though parts of the site are still under construction, it stands out by dint of its creativity, cute interface and the inclusion of a wealth of information beyond the usual on-line press kit. (From the Pirate Creed of Ethics: "No.9: If ye introduce on board a woman in disguise, ye shall be punished by death.") Though admittedly the band's pirate theme gives it more to work with than the average band, PJ deserves credit for making its site worth surfing whether you're interested in its music or not. BEST FREE PUBLICITY
"Mr. Nipples? He must be with the band." --Austin American-Statesman On March 12, Austin American-Statesman humorist John Kelso devoted much of his front-page PRE-SOUTH BY SOUTHWEST COLUMN regarding amusing band names to Portland's Sweaty Nipples, one of many Rose City acts selected to perform at the five-day musical extravaganza: "I like the way the bass player goes by the last name of Nipples. If these guys ever make it big, it will be tough for the limo driver to keep a straight face. 'Let me get the door for you, Mr. Nipples.'" Wonder if Kelso likes their music, too. |
|
