Roundup, First Friday edition! (Feb. 28-Mar. 6)

This week’s roundup is brought to you by Darkchild 99.

After tonight’s First Friday Art Walk (don’t forget to check out the Tower of Song – today’s special guest is Phantom Buffalo! – read this Arthur Mag piece about the monthly event), head over to the Port City Music Hall for our big show (presented with Neon Garden and Scion Sessions) with LA Riots! Portland’s never seen an electronic/dance show like this. Tickets will be available for the discounted price of $10 at the door!

Let’s get on with it…

Portlandland:

• You just really need to see this video of Sontiago, Aly Spaltro, and Dilly Dilly covering “Say My Name”. It was fantastic live at SPACE last week, but this video just sounds amazing! Photos from that show (2/27) should be online soonish.
• Picnic, the indie arts and music festival that we first saw last September in Lincoln Park, will not have an event in June as previously anticipated. Instead, they’ll hold off until a much bigger event again later in the year. Apparently another, suspiciously similar, event will be happening in Lincoln Park this Spring instead.
• Pecos Bill is dead. Long live Jesse Pilgrim. He played under the name Pecos Bill for the first two songs of his set at Geno’s last night (photo below, during “Old Wild Bill”) before bringing out a full band (including Derek Gierhan, Mica Jones, and more) to flesh out his typically spare folks songs. To celebrate the change, Jesse handmade a demo ep titled Pecos Bill is Dead that was available at the show in an numbered edition of 50 (fun fact, I got number 50!). Keep an ear out for this guy.
  
• Portland’s epic cover band showdown, Clash of The Titans (don’t bother trying to make friends there unless you know the email address, apparently), is moving from the Big Easy to the Empire and has the next few months of pairings anounced. The three that we’re really excited about (get ready to not be surprised at all) are April 28 (Cure vs. REM), June 2 (Pixies vs. Sonic Youth), and July 1 (Nirvana vs. Smashing Pumpkins). They even have season passes available for $75 – those will get you into all of this season’s shows (3/17-7/1).
• Justin Ellis took a look at the State Theater and asked a very good question: why hasn’t someone taken it and re-opened it yet? Or is it already in the works?
• It’s the middle of Restaurant Week Maine. Looks like the majority of the Portland restaurants participating are doing meals for $30.09, which is a pretty good considering their normal prices!
• A great show announcement came in this week for Portland: the legendary Dinosaur Jr. will be playing at The Station on April 3 with openers Awesome Color! Interesting choice of venue for the show (this is the same venue doing a “pop punk heroes” show this weekend) – but hey, it’ll get me out there for the first time! Warning: tickets are really pricey.

South and Westerly:

• The 4th annual Pitchfork Music Fest has been announced for July 17-19 in Chicago’s Union Park. No word on acts yet Acts are starting to be confirmed, but tickets go on sale next Friday (there are sure to be some more preliminary announcements/rumors by then).
• The Antlers’ album Hostice (which is officially available as of Tuesday) made the top of NPR’s All Music Considered list of music so far in 2009. I tend to agree with their review. Don’t worry, we’ll get those guys back up here a third time before too long.
• Toronto’s Metric have announced an April 14 release date for their new album, Fantasies. The band is offering streams and a non-album acoustic track on their website. Let’s hope they get around to Portland, Maine on this tour!
• There’s a pretty wacky Giant Robot contest going on. Ready to get folding? Watch the video.
• Word just came in this week that notorious Brooklyn noisemongerers A Place To Bury Strangers have signed with Mute Records. Great news, and a long time coming!
• NJ’s Screaming Females will be coming through town in a couple months – CMJ has a new interview up with the trio. Here’s a tip: start paying attention to this band now if you haven’t been.

Have fun this weekend, and don’t forget to enter our Duncan Sheik tix+cd giveaway!