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It’s been a long week, in so many ways. Summer seemed to announce its arrival, as friends cut their pants into shorts (perhaps a pre-emptive tailoring strike, seeing as how the cold and wet weather keeps trying to weasel back in), and the Tower Of Song Festival went off without incident, though perhaps brighter skies would have brought the art-and-music lovers out in stronger numbers. We tried to give El Rayo Taqueria a trial run, only to find that they were closing at 4pm for their first week. Weak. Guess we’ll just have to wait to see if this review holds up. Where we failed in taco consumption, we scored with cookies. Biscuit Wakefield’s second cookie review brought us to Hilltop Coffee Shop. Our anonymous blog-friends at The Portland Point stepped on some toes with their unfavorable review of the Honey Clouds record release show at SPACE last weekend. Their post may have been harsh, but the discussion it sparked is sort of priceless. The Portland Pins Project is up and running and very much in need of your (artistic) contributions. We want to have as many submissions as possible turned in by Wednesday, June 3, so we can have it ready to debut at Eli-Phant on First Friday! This weekend? Jukebox make piano pop awesome, we predict a Kurtz victory against Saindon if the battle comes to shredding, Isobell has some strong local power supporting their release show, Moneycastasia are calling it quits, and Kurtis Blow is stopping by Portland. Bonus: just noticed The Lemonheads on the PCMH calendar for July 1! Nice. Some input: would you like to see the header image around here change to another Portland scene? It’s been a year with the Eastern Prom, maybe it’s time to give the West End a little love through the seasons? Suggestions welcome in the comments. Just a friendly reminder about the August 4th Neko Case show… This is guaranteed to be among the biggest shows of the summer, don’t sleep on getting your tickets just because it isn’t until August! They go on sale at 9am on Friday, May 29! That’s probably today, by the time you’re reading this. Get tickets here. In other planning-ahead-ticket-buying news as it relates to Port City Music Hall, Ween tickets are reportedly down to under 100 left, and They Might Be Giants are going going going quickly (but not yet gone).
It was just a couple of weekends ago that history was made right here in Portland. Maybe you missed it if you didn’t happen to be out wandering down the quiet end of Commercial Street, before you get to the Narrow Gauge, but there was a festival going on! On Sunday, May 17th, Casablanca Comics hosted the first ever Maine Comics Arts Festival at the Ocean Gateway. It was an appropriate venue for the event, providing a lecture room for panels and then a long ascent via walkway to the main hall, filled with over 70 artists selling and signing their goods.
Cap’n Eli was representing via free soda samples and the namesake comics (bonus: lifesize cardboard “standees!”), and the Center For Cartoon Studies in Vermont was out in full force showing off the work of their students (including a bunch of Ignatz winners). Unfortunately our timing meant that we showed up just as Gabrielle Bell (who I’d wanted to meet) was speaking on a panel, and we couldn’t stick around to wait for her to get out. Maybe next year? Check out the full photo gallery from the Maine Comics Arts Festival right here! review by Biscuit Wakefield Hilltop Coffee Shop Fellow gardeners know, all too well, the expression “The bloom is off the rose.” Comes a day when the air chills, the sky darkens, and your hard-tended beds let faded petals fall to the ground. Is it sad? Yes, a little. But we know this is Mother Nature taking her course. Beauty will spring again in the spring, which is why we call it spring. Chocolate-chip cookies are another matter. Their life cycle is short and pronounced: one day past their prime and they may be downright inedible, which is nothing but a tragedy of poor planning. You should have gotten to them sooner. I thought about this rule when the young man at Hilltop informed me that the cookie I was about to consume was “day old,” even though he assured me it was “still pretty great.” He seemed trustworthy and I wanted to believe him. This specimen was small, about two inches across, and closely resembled the cookies I make in my own kitchen. It was, I realized upon first bite, a peanut butter chocolate chip cookie. My assignment with this project was to review chocolate chip cookies, but purists – like chocolate chip cookies – are best dunked in a cold glass of milk. It was a good cookie. It was a good peanut butter cookie. Sadly, the chocolate chips were overwhelmed by the PB flavor. I found myself thinking about all that awful business with the salmonella in Georgia, not that Hilltop’s cookies have anything to do with that, but clearly the thing foremost in my mind was peanut butter… not chocolate I tried to get photos and interviews for all 9 acts performing at tomorrow’s Tower Of Song Festival (Saturday, May 23) and definitely came close, though a couple didn’t quite get finished. Below is a photo of the band that will close out the festival, Spencer And The School Spirit Mafia, taken at the incredible Temptations Vs. Supremes Clash Of The Titans the other night.
Additionally, Chriss Sutherland was totally cooperative but our schedules just didn’t work out to do a photo shoot. The photo below is from an outdoor concert last summer. Chriss has a new album called Worried Love, available now from Peapod Recordings. He plays the Tower Of Song Festival second, at 12:35.
Since I’m skipping the usual HillyTown Roundup this week in lieu of the Tower Of Song Fest coverage, here are just a few other shows of note happening this weekend:
As a final treat, since Dilly Dilly, Sontiago, and Lady Lamb The Beekeeper are all going to be performing at the Tower Of Song Fest, here’s a shot of their collaborative alter-ego, Hairy Brass Knuckles. You may remember them from this.
To review, here are all of the Tower Of Song Festival performer HillyTown portraits & interviews: Jesse Pilgrim, Chriss Sutherland, Anna’s Ghost, Samuel James, Over A Cardboard Sea, Dilly Dilly & Sontiago, Lady Lamb the Beekeeper, Johnny Fountain & The Manes, Spencer & The School Spirit Mafia. Happy Summer! Local bluesman Samuel James is a busy guy. Not only does he hold down a Thursday night residency at Blue but he is regularly tapped for opening gigs for the likes of Johnny Winter and the like when he’s not touring the country. Between official gigs you can often find him playing somewhere around town, wowing crowds with his slide guitar work and knack for storytelling. Photos by Bryan Bruchman, interviews by Will Ethridge.
What was the most unusual place you’ve ever played music in? What is the most mysterious album you own? (i.e. you don’t know anything about the musicians’ identities) Describe your favorite sound not made by a musical instrument. For more info on the Tower Of Song Festival on Saturday, May 23 in Congress Square, visit their info page. If you’ve been paying any amount of attention to the Portland music scene (or, in particular, this site) for the past 6 months or so, then you’ve probably become fairly well-acquainted with the quirky experimental pop duo of Lady Lamb The Beekeeper. They first caught my attention back in November and have only gotten better, more interesting, and way more popular in the time since. One of the cornerstones of the Tower Of Song (including the Festival), they hold down the all-important lead-in to the final set of performances at tomorrow’s Festival, playing at 5pm. Aly Spaltro of Lady Lamb The Beekeeper What was the most unusual place you’ve ever played music in? What is the most mysterious album you own? Have you ever written a song inspired by a dream? What was the song about? I had wanted to get a separate photo of the other half of the band, TJ Metcalfe, as well, but unfortunately it just didn’t work out. Here are his answers to our questions though! Describe your favorite sound not made by a musical instrument. What do you think happens when you get too far from your house? |
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