A.j. Crandall

Twenty years is a long time by most standards. Think about it. What were you listening to seven thousand three hundred and four days ago? Not exactly that many days back, but in general, where were you, musically? I would guess that a certain percentage weren’t born yet. Another portion was too young back then to remember anything musical beyond Fraggle Rock or Raffi. Others were caught up in the hair band vibe of the late eighties.

But, in the great Pacific Northwest, there had been rumblings for several years of something different from the norm. Music that eschewed the high production values of more mainstream music ala Bon Jovi and Poison, while keeping the high energy rock aesthetic of punk. Traveling up and down the I-5 corridor from Seattle, through Portland, Eugene and points south, were bands that had embraced hard core, loud, fuzz infused guitar and vocals of what would soon be referred to as Grunge. Ducky Boys, Mr. Epp, Deranged Diction. These bands filled bars nightly up and down the left coast. Disenfranchised youth had a voice again.

Premier among these bands was Green River. Named for a then still at large serial killer, G.R. formed from the dust of several of the aforementioned I-5 denizens. Signed to the newly formed Sub Pop records, they lit up the scene with ferocious live shows, screaming, angst filled vocals and a thrasher style of music that struck a nerve and made you take notice.

READ ON for more from AJ about Green River’s return to Portland…

Living in Portland for the last thirty or so years has been such a blessing for me. It’s a clean, modern city with a rich history and diverse population. It is the fiftieth largest media market in the United States. Still a big city, but small enough to make anyone feel welcome in the City of Roses.

Hell, I’ve fished for salmon in a river downtown on my lunch hour. And the river isn’t crowded during lunch hour. Put a forty pound, edible fish in the East River and hundreds of folks would be dangling lines from the Williamsburg Bridge, elbowing each other out of the way while hot dog carts sold ‘bait dogs’ for twice what you’d normally pay for a dog with all the fixings. Having grown up in New York, I am familiar with the crowds at shows. Lines snake around the block to get in, tickets selling out in minutes, parking more expensive than the cover charge. I don’t miss any of that crap. There are definite advantages to living in the fiftieth largest media market.

So, when touring musicians make the Northwest swing between San Francisco and Seattle, they will usually spend a night in Portland and play one of the many small to mid range halls here. The Wonder Ballroom is just such a theater. Built in 1914 and historically restored, it holds about 700 when packed. Good acoustics but small restrooms.

The Nightwatchman happens to be one of those touring musicians stopping in Portland between metropolises. That he stopped in the Wonder Ballroom was a bonus. He brought along an engaging opening act, a new album full of heartfelt songs and referred to himself in the third person all night (as in “The Nightwatchman may have had one too many Jameson Irish Whiskeys before the show.”)

READ ON for more of A.J.’s Tom Morello: The Nightwatchman review…

My, oh my, is anyone else as sick of the political bullshit as I am? It isn’t bad enough that gas is hovering around $3 a gallon (I can’t believe I am actually celebrating the fact that I can fill up for less than $50) or that the economy is in the toilet, or that pretty much every business in the world is losing money faster than a rookie poker player trying to impress a new girlfriend.

By the sheer luck of the calendar, Americans are inundated by dumbed-down, personal attacks and dirty trick political ads as the date we choose the next leader of the free world draws near. Ballot measures with questionable wording and suspicious origins generate divisive diatribes between the pros and the cons, tossing around words like boondoggle and accusing the other side of various nefarious goings on. What the hell IS a boondoggle anyway? (For the record, I know what a boondoggle really is, but I use the phrase for effect. Don’t obsess on the details)

So it’s Friday and the day job has been really busy, and the radio and television won’t shut up about whom I ought to vote for and who approves this ad or that and I checked my 401K and found out that I’ll probably have to work an extra twenty years before I retire and the furnace only blows cold air and probably needs a few hundred dollars to make it hot again and all I can think of is I need to get away NOW. I need to escape, hide, hole up, hunker down in my own little Camp David and regroup. I know. There’s a great show at the Aladdin tonight. I’ll saunter in to the sold out former porn theater and lose myself in the musical atmosphere emitted by Ryan Montbleau and Martin Sexton.

READ ON for more of A.J.’s review of Montbleau and Sexton in Portland…

Do you remember that fad/game in the eighties, ‘Six Degrees Of Kevin Bacon’? It was based on the supposition that anyone in the world could be connected to any other human (presumably the queen of England) being by six steps or degrees. The game was to connect any other entertainer to Kevin Bacon in six steps. Mark Mothersbough, from Devo, was in a Neil Young movie called Lost Highway. Kevin Bacon and his brother performed as the Bacon Brothers at a benefit concert with Neil Young. See, it’s easy.

The challenge for me tonight was to connect Mickey Mouse with The Grateful Dead. It was a lot easier than I thought. All I had to do was get to the Aladdin Theater in time for the opening act and it was game over. Allow me to explain.

Tonight’s double bill at the Aladdin started with one Matt Morris. Morris hit the stage with a wide smile, an acoustic guitar and a great attitude. He announced that this was his first time ever in Portland and had put a lot of thought into his first song, placing a certain importance on the first note of first song he played in our fair town.

That song was Chief, a story song involving enjoying the street all day. The audience took notice right away, his voice getting our attention and his words keeping it. I have read of comparisons to Rufus Wainwright and Jeff Buckley, but I got more of a Kenny Loggins vibe from his performance. Maybe it was the beard, but he connected right away with a Portland crowd that wanted to be entertained. After the first two songs someone shouted out “Sing about pain, Brother”. With perfect timing, he shot back “You guys don’t know my music yet, (his only release to date, an ep Backstage From Bonnaroo and Other Acoustic Performances is five songs deep) so you shout out ‘themes’.” He called this the first ‘Interactive” concert he had ever done. Changing the set list to match our whims, he played about pain (Bloodline) and then greed (Money).

READ ON for more of AJ’s Joan Osborne/Matt Morris review…

We all know about Mondays, right? The most dreaded of the days is Monday. Jim Davis has sent kids to college on the royalties he’s earned from his Garfield cartoons related to the first workday of the week. I Don’t Like Mondays, the dramatic retelling of true events set to a back beat provided by The Boomtown Rats, professes to wanting to “Shoot the whole world down” instead of facing another Monday in the classroom. Let’s face it, Monday’s reputation sucks, no question. Why, when people are having a bad day in general, they are often said to be having a bad case of “the Mondays”.

But not THIS Monday. This Monday was one I had looked forward to for weeks. This Monday was when Back Door Slam was coming to town. Not only were they playing the relatively intimate confines of Berbati’s Pan (I last saw the band at Bonnaroo with approximately 10-20,000 festival goers) but I was going to get to witness a set at the legendary KINK Live Performance Lounge, capacity; about forty. This was the best case of the Mondays I ever had.

Before the band came out of the green room, I spied guitarist Davy Knowles wiping blood off his turquoise Fender Strat. Apparently, he had gotten a little carried away at the end of the previous evening’s performance in Denver and sliced a bit of finger during the encore. Clean instrument in hand, the threesome played a forty minute set of classic blues (John Hiatt’s Riding With The King) and newer songs they have been working on for the follow up to their debut album, Come Home. BDS (Knowles, Adam Jones on bass and Ross Doyle on drums) played with every bit as much passion in that intimate setting at noon as they did in Tennessee last June.

READ ON for more of A.J.’s Back Door Slam @ Berbati’s Pan review…

I was all set for a great night of music on Wednesday. Three bands that I have never heard of or seen. Well, not true, really. I had heard of Liam Finn, but never experienced his music. I had done quick Myspace and YouTube searches and came up with a thumbnail synopsis of how he does what he does. With his use of loops and drums and guitar, all in all a pretty unique sound. It made me look forward to his portion of the show.

But first, there were two other bands to open the festivities. I purposely didn’t check either of them out ahead of time. Surprise me, I thought. Give me your best shot, let’s see how you rock and roll.

The venue for tonight was the Doug Fir Lounge. Originally a diner attached to a motel, the Doug Fir underwent a major overhaul a few years ago and became one of the premier smaller halls in Portland. The diner still functions as it was originally designed, and the motel still rents rooms with a unique catch. Obviously knowing their clientèle, the managers turned Room 117 into a retail establishment where guests may purchase any of a myriad of sex toys, videos and the like.

Below the parking lot, on the street level is a tattoo parlor. Upstairs, next to the diner is the cocktail lounge and below that, the concert hall Looking like the inside of a log cabin (Made from, of all things, Douglas fir) the room has a nice feel and great acoustics. The best seats in the house are on the steps, just below the sound booth. Perfect sound and view above the bouncing heads on the floor, plus an easy shot around the corner back to the bar. Nice digs all around and SO Portland.

READ ON for A.J.’s thoughts on the three acts in question…

I appreciate live music for many, many reasons, not the least of which is the uniqueness of the performance. Not that the artist has not performed the material a million times in front of audiences more or less identical to each other. But on any given night, something can occur that hasn’t ever been seen before. The band could pull out a cherished song they usually don’t play live. There may be a cover tune or holiday treat that may not be appropriate elsewhere or at another time. Admit it, the first time you heard Springsteen and The E Streeters giggle their way through Santa Claus is Coming To Town, you wished you had been there that December night in Syracuse.

The audience at Edgefield Manor on Saturday night was treated to just such an event. The surprise this night was the opening act and its interaction with the headliner. John Callahan and his trio, aptly named Callahan began the show shortly after six on a simply perfect early autumn night. John Callahan is well known around Portland and the world as the irreverent underground cartoonist, whose weekly single panel strip often deals with the less than perfect side of life. A quadriplegic since a 1972 accident, the author of such black humored titles as He Won’t Get Far On Foot and Will The Real John Callahan Please Stand Up? is also a singer songwriter with one release to his credit, 2006’s The Liberator.

Callahan’s songs tend toward the darks side, much like his cartoons. Suicide and tears and memories of his Portland girl filled lyrics behind well crafted, almost bluegrass melodies. Jim James came onstage and joined in for a few songs on acoustic guitar and background vocals (the aforementioned uniqueness factor) and the pair harmonized like they were brothers. Callahan commented that one song in particular felt like having feeling in his legs. Live music magic, right there, my friends.

READ ON for A.J.’s thoughts on My Morning Jacket’s set…

“Shitty day, people. It’s been a shitty day.” So spoke Fareed Haque to open the first set from Garaj Mahal at the Fez Ballroom on Thursday. He went on to explain that a certain unnamed airline had lost his six thousand dollar jazz guitar earlier that day. What did he get in return for his six thousand dollar guitar, you might ask? “Three hundred dollars and a phone number,” he said. “That’s all I got from them, and that is what makes it a shitty day!”

Of course, that meant Haque had to play his Moog guitar, the only other guitar he had brought with him. The Moog is a beautiful instrument that doubles as one of the most versatile guitars in the world. In the hands of one of the most versatile guitarists in the land, it seemed a win-win situation. That seemed okay with the rest of the band as well. They proceeded to tear the Fez to pieces and the next few hours flew by.

Garaj Mahal hits the stage with no set list. They play a game of round robin, songs are chosen by each member of the band when it’s their turn. They will call it out or start the song and the rest join in. Everyone in the room sits back and enjoys the vibe. Well, not exactly sitting back. In fact, the dance floor was awash with an audience that truly danced like no one was watching, lost in the jamming excellence in front of them.

READ ON for more of A.J.’s review…

As luck would have it, my buddy Zoomer came up with tickets to the first of two sold out show at The Roseland featuring The Raconteurs.

I had seen them at Bonnaroo this past June. The area in front of the main (What) stage was jam packed all the way to the sound booth; I’d guess at least twenty five thousand strong. This situation was not conducive to getting up close and personal with the band. So, my brother Ed and I chose to sit in the June sunshine, make some new friends and blatantly use The Raconteurs as the soundtrack for that portion of our afternoon. It worked out well because we wound up getting into the pit up front for the next two acts on the main stage that Friday night; Chris Rock and Metallica. We were well rested and ready to rock.

But back to last night. Seeing The Raconteurs in a venue that maxes out at 1,400 was much more about the band than the Bonnaroo experience. Zoomer and I met up on Burnside Street a block from the Roseland. A homeless man from the mission around the corner seemed to be having an argument with the dinner tray he carried as he paced up and down the street. Apparently, the chocolate cake on the tray disagreed with his entree and he was trying to get them to settle down. Making sure the truck was locked, we flipped the guy a five and went into the club. As is my habit, I staked out a spot up front and waited for the show to start.

READ ON for more of AJ’s Raconteurs @ The Roseland review…