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Our friend Mike Cunnane (a member of Huak, the Rattlesnakes, and Sunset Hearts) has been shooting video of local bands at shows and posting them on his new site, Brass Cankles. As you may have noticed, these videos can also be found here on HillyTown, if you scroll down past the showlist on the right sidebar. Check out this video of Haru Bangs playing “You Don’t Need Soul” at the Apohadion show last night and check back for more added all the time. Bonus: I just found this amazing promo video advertising this show. I wonder how many people came just because of it (a lot, I hope). Screaming Females win the award for national act that could be mistaken for a Portland local band, judging by the reaction of fans at their shows. Every time they come around it’s as if there’s a sigh of relief from the punk and indie rock-loving fans who hold their breath between visits. At their gigs, you can definitely feel it (or that might just be the guy crowd-surfing and randomly punching the air) even as their music shifts as it has been, with more of their underlying groove coming out from under Marissa’s shredding guitar sound, the energy is infectious and unstoppable.  Screaming Females at Apohadion - 2/9/11 Last night at the Apohadion – a diy venue in the Bayside neighborhood of Portland – the Screamales showed us once again why this town loves the trio from NJ who the whole country is finally getting to know. The show had even more cause for celebration, as a reformulated Haru Bangs (formerly a duo, now a quartet incorporating members of Kaveldt) opened the show and set the tone for the evening. Mouth Washington, a possibly-possessed local trio with hints of Titus Andronicus-isms, played in the middle of the bill. They were new to me, but clearly not to the bunch of kids up front screaming along the lyrics to their songs. Check out the full photo gallery from this show after the jump. Lots of fun to be seen in there. Read on…  Screaming Females at Death By Audio (Brooklyn, NY) January '08 I would say I can’t believe that Screaming Females just made their late night network tv debut (on Carson Daly), but I can believe it. I’m so glad that they just happen to love the city I left the NY/NJ area for and keep coming back here to play. They’re at The Apohadion Wednesday night, 2/9 with locals Mouth Washington and (the triumphant return of) Haru Bangs. Read on for the rest of their tour dates. Read on… Last night (February 3, 2011) somebody said this show was “highly blogable.” Well, here’s the blog post about it, so I guess they were right.
Woods and Ducktails (Real Estate’s Matt Mondanile solo/backed by whoever he’s touring with) have both been through Portland in the past year, and this time they hit town together for a show presented by SPACE Gallery at The Apohadion, with Woods (as a trio) backing Ducktails after some time onstage solo and Mondanile sitting in on drums and bass at times for Woods’ headlining set. Openers HERBCRAFT (who are connected to the two touring acts and their Woodsist label through a tape release last year) and Milkman’s Union represented two very different aesthetic points on the local indie music spectrum, yet both felt right at home with the sounds of the touring bands. Read on for the full photo gallery. Read on…
Usually, by the time a band has gotten to the level of notoriety (err, blog-buzz?) that Ducktails has (in the past week), the days of seeing them play in the basements, diy spaces, and at weird parties that their story undoubtedly tells tales of are long gone, and the experience you get as an audience is more along the lines of a standard rock show in a traditional venue. Luckily for Portland, timing worked out just right and we got to have Matt Mondanile (whose other band is the also buzzily busy Real Estate), aka Ducktails, at our little city’s own amazing diy/industrial/sorta-underground (but they have a blog now…) venue, the Apohadion. Last night’s show started out with locals HERBCRAFT (legends in the making, apparently, with some very familiar faces onboard) and then Big Troubles, who also served as Mondanile’s band for the evening.
Read on for more photos from all three bands. Read on… I know it’s a bit of a busy night around town, but I’ve got a great show for you, and it starts early (7pm). If you haven’t checked out The Apohadion yet, this is a great opportunity. See you tonight!
Tomorrow, El Jezel and Metal Feathers pair up again in Allston for a show at O’Briens. If you fall madly in love with the Jezels tonight (you just might), you could even go so far as to follow them all the way back to NYC, where on Saturday they open for Man In Gray (my old band) at our reunion show at Union Hall. Also tonight, though many miles away, our own Dilly Dilly will be wowing the East Village crowd with a show at The Stone, curated by Kayo Dot’s Toby Driver. I haven’t put on a show in a while. Let’s do this.
Phantom Buffalo + Metal Feathers + El Jezel As I tend to do, this show includes one band from away. El Jezel are an indie pop/shoegaze band from NYC who I’ve known for a few years now and whose lush songs will fit nicely between Metal Feathers’ noisier edge and Phantom Buffalo’s psychedelic indie pop. They’ll play between the two local bands at this show on Thursday, February 18 at the Apohadion Theater (107 Hanover Street, Portland). See you there!
On Saturday night, South China (pictured above, after their set, in the first snow storm of the season) played their last show in New England for the winter. Today they headed south (to play at Pete’s Candy Store in Brooklyn with Greg Jamie, who they first shared the stage with in their until-today-hometown of Biddeford with his band Blood Warrior). Vince Nez (and The Last Sip) opened the show at the Apohadion on December 5th.
Read on for photos from South China’s set, which included help from a number of friends as they performed their excellent new album, Washingtons (Peapod Recordings), in its entirety. Read on…
For all my talk about the Apohadion, last night was the first time I actually made it down to a show there. The space is great, and reminds me of other diy venues I’ve seen, especially Death By Audio in Brooklyn (but that might be the checkered floor more than anything else – though both spaces also serve as practice rooms, recording studios, and FX pedal workshops…). Read on… |
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