Eleven PDX Magazine August 2018 by Eleven PDX

ELEVEN PDX MAGAZINE - VOLUME 8, ISSUE 3

COMPLIMENTARY

contents

ELEVEN PDX MAGAZINE VOLUME 8

THE USUAL 4 Letter from the Editor 4 Staff Credits

ISSUE NO. 3

FEATURES Local Feature 12 Ah God

Cover Feature 16 NEW MUSIC

Chanti Darling

5 Aural Fix Milo Clairo Hop Along Bodega

COMMUNITY Meet Your Maker 24

Multnomah County Library Music Project

8 Short List 8 Album Reviews Menace Beach Animal Collective Campdogzz

Literary Arts 26 Portland poet Jamondria Harris

Visual Arts 28 Portland artist Michele Currie

LIVE MUSIC 10 Musicalendar An encompassing overview of concerts in PDX for the upcoming month. But that’s not all–the Musicalendar is complete with a venue map to help get you around town. more online at elevenpdx.com

HELLO PORTLAND! Dear readers, The physical landscape of Portland seems to change daily. Our city’s familiar streets begin to seem alien with new businesses and condos built in the graveyards of beloved dive bars and low-rent homes. There’s no guarantee that this burgeoning metropolis will continue to foster genuine artistry and music, but we can hope. In this month’s pages you can find some undeniable artists, that in the face of a changing cultural landscape, continue to deliver eclectic, forward-thinking and unique music. It’s the kind of cultural contribution that helped Portland develop its reputation as a creative center, in turn spurring the flood of young professionals seeking asylum from the mundane. Although artists like Chanti Darling and Ah God may not call this city home forever, we can be grateful for initiatives like the Multnomah County Library Music Project and the new nonprofit, Music Portland, for documenting our local music scene, and striving to establish an ecosystem that is fair, healthy and that benefits the people who add value within our creative city. Dutifully yours,

- Travis Leipzig, Managing Editor

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EXECUTIVE STAFF EDITOR IN CHIEF Ryan Dornfeld (ryan@elevenpdx.com) CREATIVE DIRECTOR Dustin Mills (dustin@elevenpdx.com) MANAGING EDITOR Travis Leipzig (travis@elevenpdx.com) SECTION EDITORS LITERARY ARTS: Scott McHale, Morgan Nicholson VISUAL ARTS: Mercy McNab

ONLINE Mark Dilson, Kim Lawson, Michael Reiersgaard

GET INVOLVED getinvolved@elevenpdx.com www.elevenpdx.com twitter.com/elevenpdx facebook.com/elevenmagpdx

GENERAL INQUIRIES info@elevenpdx.com

GRAPHIC DESIGN Dustin Mills CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Laurel Bonfiglio, Brandy Crowe, Liz Garcia, Eirinn Gragson, Christopher Klarer, Nathan Royster, Ellis Samsara, Eric Swanson, Matthew Sweeney, Charles Trowbridge, Henry Whittier-Ferguson

PHOTOGRAPHERS Mathieu Lewis-Rolland, Molly Macalpine, Mercy McNab, Katie Summer, Todd Walberg

COVER PHOTO Eirinn Gragson

ADVERTISING sales@elevenpdx.com ELEVEN WEST MEDIA GROUP, LLC Ryan Dornfeld Dustin Mills

SPECIAL THANKS Our local business partners who make this project possible. Our friends, families, associates, lovers, creators and haters. And of course, our city!

new music aural fix

AURAL FIX

up and coming music from the national scene

MILO AUGUST 3 | PICKATHON

Milo might be your favorite rapper’s favorite rapper. Eclectic beats, a serrated tongue and a keen eye for irony put him squarely in the discussion for one of the more offbeat visionaries in the hip hop realm. Over five albums, a handful of mixtapes and a growing number of singles and guest appearances, Milo’s flow wanders from the philosophical to the absurd to the purposefully mundane. On 2017’s Who Told You To Think??!!?!?!?!, Milo deftly touched down on beats from the jazzy “Magician (Suture)” to the lo-fi ethereal “Pablum // CELESKINGIII,” to the more driving “Sorcerer.” He sounds easy and at-home across the varying tracks, ultimately putting together an underground hit. Speaking of “underground:” the term gets tossed around without any real definition, but for a rapper like Milo, it’s almost a disservice. Not because “underground” has a negative connotation, but because it undermines the fact that hip hop is a vibrant genre filled with experimentalists and traditionalists alike–just like any genre. Milo’s explorations are not just based on sonics and delivery. He continually looks at what it means to be an entertainer in a world designed to voraciously eat up content and spit it back out in cheap facsimiles.

CLAIRO AUGUST 9 | HOLOCENE

If there’s an up-and-coming artist that you should know about, it’s Clairo. What makes Clairo so great is the personal, honest and simple quality of her music, both lyrically and sonically. Clairo is the stage name of 19-year-old Boston singer-songwriter Claire Cottrill, and she is at the head of a new wave of lo-fi indie/electro pop. The name of this new musical movement and genre is also the name of a Spotify playlist that Clairo graces with an image of herself, and of course her music. It’s called Bedroom Pop. It’s a simple, turned controversial, name for DIY music made in the bedroom of a generation raised by the internet, or in Clairo’s case, her college dorm.

Photo by Spencer Wells

Milo’s delivery can border on the lackadaisical, especially when the beat warrants a step back, but he almost always juxtaposes that ease with cutting lyrics and visceral imagery. On “Souvenir” (from 2015’s breakout So the Flies Don’t Come), Milo shares space with Hemlock Ernst, a semi-frequent collaborator. The beat sits back with guitar-driven jazz chords and staccato boom-bap. It’s Milo’s track, but Ernst spits an earnest and cleanly delivered verse with Milo happy to cede the spotlight as the track builds. It’s a perfect example of his approach to the art of hip hop: he knows he’s good, but when someone else has something to say, he’s happy to provide the mic. Milo’s growth as a lyricist over the years has translated into a truly compelling artist with something to say. Underground or not, he has quickly risen to the tier of mustsee. » - Charles Trowbridge

Cottrill received overnight attention for a no-budget music video she made for her song “Pretty Girl” that she posted on YouTube, and much to her surprise went viral. Cottrill’s debut EP, released via Fader Label, is perfectly and simply titled, diary 001. It’s just as much honest as it is relatable. The six tracks play out like diary entries set in the digital age. Coincidence? I think not. Digital age aside, each song is purposeful, heartfelt and solicits emotions we can all relate to. From “Hello?,” featuring Irish hip hop artist Rejjie Snow, which details romantic encounters and signals exchanged via hand-held glowing screens, to “Pretty Girl,” which narrates the all too well-known troubles of changing for someone you like and losing pieces of yourself in the process of doing so. Last year Clairo was featured on singles by Brennan Henderson and Jakob Ogawa. Her latest is a funky and polished collaboration with SG Lewis, titled “Better.” Though she may be leaving behind the days of making DIY music and videos, as we see in the official music video for “Flaming Hot Cheetos,” Clairo remains true to herself. The video, ending in an ode to other Bedroom Pop artists, including Cuco, works to showcase Clairo’s colorful and unfiltered personality that first caught the world’s attention. Upcoming dates for Clairo’s Lazy Days Tour have already sold out, a sure-enough sign that not only is Cottrill on to something, but people want to listen. » - Liz Garcia

www.elevenpdx.com | ELEVEN PORTLAND | 5

new music aural fix

HOP ALONG

Photo by Tonje Thilesen

AUGUST 10 | WONDER BALLROOM Frances Quinlan says she isn’t interesting enough to write songs about herself. She writes about a woman dying inside her apartment, unfound until the apartment building starts to smell (“Sally II”) or even from the perspective of a mattress (“Laments”). Hop Along’s lyrics don’t fall easily into traditional versechorus-verse type writing, they’re more sprawling tales. She’s singing contemporary flash fiction dealing with timeless problems. In “Well-dressed” from 2015’s Painted Shut, the narrator is reflecting on coming back home to their small town in Louisiana. Quinlan sings “I read about you and came home to/find my mother/ Staring deep into the dark, dark web/She started begging me/ Not to give my social security number to anybody else/There goes the sound of the freeway.” A lazy writer would simply give a roate blues-rock lyric like, “I’m going down the road, momma don’t worry.” Instead we’re given the nuanced modern portrait of a very old emotion. Hop Along started as Quinlan’s solo project in 2005, going by the name Hop Along, Queen Ansleis. Her brother started playing with her and they got a full band together, putting out 2012’s emo-revival album Get Disowned. Their latest album and third proper release Bark Your Head Off, Dog quiets

down the sound, experiments with adding strings (“How You Got Your Limp” and “Not Abel”) and showcases quite a bit of angular math-rock guitars. Quinlan’s voice is the catalyst for everything. She has several sides to her, disarming in a tender high-register that at anytime can change into a whiskey-soaked growl. The most effective use is how she’ll commit to the raspy-but-soft delivery, overflow with emotion, and crackle to a silent whisp on a note above her register. It’s a heartbreaking delivery that shows a physical need for something that can’t be attained. Quinlan has such an intimate sound, and maybe she doesn’t write songs about her, but they are of her. » - Nathan Royster

2:OO PM-2:00 AM SATURDAY, AUGUST 18

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LUZ ELENA MENDOZA CHANTI DARLING SISTERS THE FUR COATS NIGHT HERON DAN DAN DRECKIG DOUBLEPLUSGOOD RAP CLASS · MAXX BASS

new music aural fix Photo by Mert Gafuroglu

8/1 NOW, NOW + WENS

8/19 CARDIOID + CAT HOCH + DAN DAN

8/2 HEALY + TOBI

BODEGA

8/22 ROONEY + MATING RITUAL

8/4 THE ADIO SEQUENCE + CEDARS & CROWS + THE ANGRY LISAS

8/23 CANDACE + MUTE SWAN + AH GOD + TENDER KID

8/6 MAE.SUN

8/24 CHAD VALLEY + SISTERS

8/7 SWEARIN’ + MIKE KROL

AUGUST 12 | BUNK BAR One gets the feeling that New York-based art-punk rockers BODEGA know that they’re good. Their ambitious debut album Endless Scroll (2018)–a wonderful compact manifesto on the dangers of technology, social media and capitalism–delivers a meaningful message with CliffNotes-like efficiency and no shortage of hooks. True. Everyone who grew up with the internet is already familiar with the depressing dangers of screen-saturation and the non-stop news cycle. But BODEGA’s commentary is refreshingly-relatable all the same; especially because of standout songwriting that feels equal parts sympathetic and sardonic to society’s techno-malaise. It’s a catchy catch-22 where you can tell that BODEGA’s sharpest criticisms are always based on their very own experiences in our tech-filled world. Musically, the band is streamlined. Driving arrangements and shared vocal duties between Ben Hozie and Nikki Belfiglio give hints of rock greats like The B-52s and Talking Heads. And what’s that? A hint of early Modest Mouse? And although BODEGA wears a few of its influences on its sleeves,

8/21 BORIS + THRONES

8/3 THE BODY + DARK CASTLE + LINGUA IGNOTA + MSC

the band has a strong sense of self and a robust musical vocabulary that most new acts are still trying to find at this point in their careers. In particular, standout vocals from Hozie and Belfiglio are delivered with an almost stump speech quality that immediately demand and capture your attention. Loud, funny, disgruntled and always on message, BODEGA might be the most fun thing since Bernie Sanders. And like Bernie Sanders, BODEGA puts on a hell of a live show too. Good job New York. » - Eric Swanson

QUICK TRACKS A

8/8 CHANTI DARLING + GOLD CASIO + GUAYABA 8/9 FUNDRAISER FOR PCUN’S ICE RAID RESISTANCE EFFORTS + SALO PANTO + WORWS + MOUTHBREATHER + UMBRELLAMAN 8/10 SHABAZZ PALACES + STAS THEE BOSS 8/11 DYLAN CARLSON (OF EARTH) + MARY LATTIMORE 8/12 & 8/13 TIMBER TIMBRE + THOR & FRIENDS 8/14 POSTER CHILDREN 8/15 AMEN DUNES + OKAY KAYA

8/25 PURE BATHING CULTURE + KING WHO + KASEY JOHANSING 8/26 THE SHIVAS + MELT + THE BAND ICE CREAM + DANNY DODGE & THE DODGE GANG 8/27 DJ WICKED 8/28 SAMANTHA FISH 8/29 ROBIN BACIOR + MONDEGREEN 8/30 ROLLING BLACKOUTS COASTAL FEVER 8/31 JADE BIRD + FIELD REPORT (SOLO)

COOL KIDS PATIO SHOWs HOSTED BY ANDIE MAIN ON THE PATIO. 6PM! FREE!

8/16 JESSICA HERNANDEZ 8/2 NORIKO OTT + STEVEN & THE DELTAS WILBER + ADAM PASI + PLASTIC CACTUS MUSIC BY EMILY OVERSTREET 8/17 KATIE HERZIG 8/9 JORDAN CASNER + WILLIAM WILD + AMANDA ARNOLD 8/18 STU LARSON & + BRANDON LYONS NATSUKI KURAI MUSIC BY MOONGRIFFIN + TIM HART 8/16 DAN WEBER + MARCUS COLEMAN + BECKY BRAUNSTEIN MUSIC BY MINDAY LACY

PICKIN’ ON SUNDAYS! LIVE MUSIC ON THE PATIO. 3PM! FREE!

“HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?!”

8/5 NERVOUS JENNY

Lead single that contains all of the bands best features: tight and driving rhythm section, sharp guitars, catchy as hell and a bunch of reasons to get mad.

8/12 OLIVIA AWBREY + CLARA BAKER + TARA VELARDE 8/26 LEWI LONGMIRE AND THE LEFT COAST ROASTERS

8/23 MOHANAD ELSHIEKY + WENDY WEISS + ZANE THOMAS MUSIC BY SAWTOOTH 8/30 ALEX FALCONE + CORINA LUCAS + KATE MURPHY MUSIC BY SOLVENTS 8/15 YOGA ON THE PATIO 9AM

B “JACK IN TITANIC” An impossibly catchy reminder about why guys suck and why Titanic is a great movie. You’ll be smiling and singing along before the second chorus.

(503) 231-WOOD ALL SHOWS 21+ 830 E. BURNSIDE SERVING BREAKFAST, LUNCH, DINNER & LATE NIGHT HAPPY HOUR 3-6 EVERYDAY & 10PM-12AM SUN-THURS TICKETS AND MORE INFO AT DOUGFIRLOUNGE.COM

www.elevenpdx.com | ELEVEN PORTLAND | 7

new music album reviews

ALBUM REVIEWS

dimension. Communicating out of the ether, Lisa Violet connects with the listener with a subtle provokation asking and asserting, “Hello… can you hear me? / I’m sandwiched between vibrations / I’m beaming out thoughts which echo off holes / Ricocheting across the universe.”

THIS MONTH’S BEST

There is definitely some sort

R REISSUE

of wizardry that drives this album

L LOCAL RELEASE

to the extent that it sounds as if the Rentals orchestrated a seance

Short List Houndmouth Golden Age Death Cab For Cutie Thank You For Today Great Lake Swimmers The Waves, The Wake The Fourth Wall Infinite Other

Blood Orange Negro Swan Interpol Marauder Alkaline Trio Is This Thing Cursed? Wild Nothing Indigo Candace Live From The Banana Stand

Alice In Chains Ranier Fog Justice Woman Worldwide Cults Motels Robin Bacior Light It Moved Me

L Buy it

Stream it

Toss it

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to dark and optimistic realms. As

Menace Beach Black Rainbow Sound Memphis Industries

the song “Hypnotizer Keeps the Ball Rolling” takes form there is an eerie feeling that you only get while watching Vincent Price movies; as

Menace Beach’s new album Black Rainbow Sound is very appropriately titled. The paradoxical irony captured within the bright and beautiful optimism of a rainbow crossed with the darkness that comes to mind when thinking of a black rainbow is precisely the sentiment that is rhythmically conveyed throughout this wickedly energetic album. The title track sets the pace with a vibrant and dancy vibe that seems to be coaxed out of a supernatural

Ryan Needham explains, “Everyone around me thinks I’m high… I shouldn’t regret a thing this time.” Black Rainbow Sound has intermittent songs throughout, such as “Crawl In Love,” that take you down to the trenches with a devilishly deep groove. All over this rollercoaster of sound resides a feeling of intrigue and intensity. Menace Beach has definitely contributed a unique and mindbending collection worth checking out this month. » - Ellis Samsara

new music album reviews

Animal Collective Tangerine Reef Domino Records In Animal Collective’s new audiovisual album, Tangerine Reef, Earth’s precious aquascapes look more like alien terrain than anything terrestrial. For nearly an hour, neon technicolor creatures undulate along to sparse synth arrangements, resulting in some of nature's most bizarre and intricately choreographed dances. This truly is an audio-visual album; both constituent parts are interesting enough on their own, but together they’re beautiful,

Campdogzz In Rounds 15 Passenger Records Campdogzz is an experimental rock outfit based in Chicago, but their spare atmospherics and subtle influences from folk, country and gospel seem to evoke not just the open spaces of the Midwest but the whole of imagined American West. It figures, since lead songwriter and singer Jess Price hails from Oklahoma. The band started out on the set of a film, and now here they

unsettling and about as close as you can get to experiencing psychedelics while sober. Sonically, this album is firmly entrenched in the band’s more ambient territory. Synths skitter, echo and drone with an arrhythmic fluidity that perfectly compliments the hypnotic movement of the reef invertebrates they soundtrack. There are no percussive elements, no weirdo dance tracks, just otherworldly soundscapes and eery, mostly indiscernible vocals. Each song blends completely into the next, so much so that it probably makes as much sense conceived of as one long composition with several movements as it does 13 individual four-ish minute tracks that all more or less explore pretty similar, but nevertheless unique, aural textures. The stunning visuals were compiled by Coral Morphologic, an art-science duo comprised of marine biologist Colin Foord and musician J.D. McKay, who do some of the world’s most cutting edge coral macro-videography. Utilizing slow pans, uber-close-ups and time lapse footage, they illuminate the seemingly surreal side of coral reefs with backing from such esteemed and varied organizations as National Geographic,

the BBC, Vice Magazine and the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Animal Collective has a longstanding relationship with coral reefs that naturally led them to team up with Coral Morphologic for this project. Geologist (Brian Weitz) has a masters degree in environmental policy and even had a marine policy fellowship after graduate school with the US Senate Subcommittee on Oceans, Fisheries and Coast Guard. He and Deakin (Josh Dibb) have taken yearly scuba diving trips for more than a decade, during which time they have seen first-hand the extent of the recent devastation to the world’s coral reefs. Tangerine Reef comes out August 17 on Domino Records, at which time you should probably hit up your nearest dispensary for an optimal audio-visual experience, if that’s your kind of thing… and it probably is if you’re excited about a new Animal Collective release, let’s be honest. Whatever you do, though, make sure you take in the audio with the visuals rather than the audio alone; this is truly one of those synergistic works where the whole is more captivating than the sum of its parts. » - Christopher Klarer

are, with a new album out on Omaha’s 15 Passenger: the 13 song collection In Rounds. A series of experimental soundscapes dubbed “Bobbing on the Plains” act as bookmarks between about ten songs, which mostly showcase Price’s well-honed writing skills and sometimes-piercing, sometimessoothing country-esque warble. “Souvenir” does a pretty job of jolting the album’s narrative flow alive: throbbing, insistent percussion, growling, cutting guitars; and Price’s equally insistent imagery of a missed connection, a train that has already left. The songwriting concentrates on dead or dying relationships, finding something worthwhile in troubled times–stuff that may be familiar enough, but still sears for its honesty and isn’t overplayed. The songs are, for the most part, pretty straightforward and tight. There are some real earworms here too, like the deliciously succinct “Rawbone Ring” and the lovely choruses of “Dry Heat” and “Southern.” The band goes for exploratory textures and spaciousness too. However, they are mostly concentrated at the song’s peripheries–the “Bobbing

on the Plains” soundscape interludes are short and sweet. Among the intriguing stuff to be found here: the extreme contrast between Price’s vulgar but wistful catharsis on “Batshit” and the poppy string arrangement driving it forward. And then there are those unnerving, scratchy extendedtechnique sighs (from the strings, again) as the song winds down. Also in this vein, the psychedelic swells that ripple under Price’s throaty, wordless humming at the tail end of “Royal Eye,” and the oddly calming synth flutes on “Dry Heat.” As the album winds down, it gets a little more pensive, but not necessarily any quieter. Fuzz-choked guitars and cascading drums tear through the simultaneously defiant and unsure “On My Own.” Mikey Russell takes over on vocals for the more relaxed, folky closer “Sorceress,” the one epic-length song of the bunch at seven minutes. And it has some of the best lines, too: “As my universes spin inside your blood… you will end…and begin again.” Some solid, if a little world-weary, sounds from a real American band to be found here. » - Matthew Sweeney

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live music AUGUST CRYSTAL BALLROOM

1332 W BURNSIDE 3-4 Cody Jinks

17-18 Jawbreaker | Swearin' | Hurry Up

29 Blind Melon 31 The Revolution

ROSELAND THEATER

8 NW 6TH 20 Yelawolf | Waylon & Willie 26 Ski Mask The Slump God | Danny Towers | ILLChris 27 Rico Nasty | Maliibu Miitch

TA VE

NORTH WEST BROADWAY ST.

PEARL OLD TOWN 2

BURNSIDE ST.

405

DOW NTO WN

23 18

GRAND AVE.

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MLK BLVD.

3939 N MISSISSIPPI

RUSSELL ST.

MLK BLVD.

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MISSISSIPPI STUDIOS

WILLIAMS AVE.

23RD AVE.

VANCOUVER AVE.

830 E BURNSIDE

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MISSISSIPPI AVE.

DOUG FIR

INTERSTATE AVE.

SKIDMORE ST.

live music AUGUST WONDER BALLROOM 1280 NE RUSSELL

ALBERTA ST.

ALBERTA ARTS

42ND AVE.

15TH AVE.

11TH AVE.

PRESCOTT ST.

FREMONT ST. 24TH AVE.

HOLLYWOOD

KNOTT ST.

33RD AVE.

28TH AVE.

D. BLV Y D AN

BROADWAY ST.

HOLOCENE

1001 SE MORRISON

RONTOMS

600 E BURNSIDE

EASTBURN

LAURELHURST GLISAN ST.

BURNSIDE ST. 8

STARK ST.

MORRISON ST.

HAWTHORNE

DIVISION ST.

CLINTON ST.

L BLVD.

235 SW 1ST

CESAR CHAVEZ BLVD.

LADD’S ADDITION POWEL

8 9

NO VACANCY

HAWTHORNE BLVD. 24

BELMONT ST.

11TH AVE.

8TH AVE.

5 19 26

DJs in The Taproom (weekends)

426 SW WASHINGTON

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Minden | Jackson Boone Mic Capes Moon Honey

1800 E BURNSIDE

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KELLY’S OLYMPIAN

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King Louie & LaRhonda Steele Cary Miga Quartet 90s Dance Party Tobtok An Evening With Eliot Lewis Le Youth Club Night With Danny Merkury Galen Clark Trio 80s Dance Party Worthy Maximono Jarrod Lawson & Friends Justin Jay Holy Dancetrimony Promnite & Hoodboi

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features

Photo by Molly Macalpine

AUGUST REVOLUTION HALL

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Toto Bruce Hornsby & The Noisemakers Belly Rodriguez | Vera Sola Wheeler Walker Jr. | Adam Chaffins Damien Escobar Hot Tuna Electric w/Steve Kimock

TOFFEE CLUB 12 1006 SE HAWTHORNE ALBERTA STREET PUB 13 1036 NE ALBERTA 1 2 3 7 13 14 15 16 17 18

LOCAL FEATURE

THE SECRET SOCIETY 14 116 NE RUSSELL

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Honky Tonk (Tuesdays) Zydeco (Wednesdays) Swing (Thursdays) The Libertine Belles Pete Krebs & His Portland Playboys The Turnout Presents Live'n Portland The Sportin' Lifers fea/Erin Wallace James Mason & The Djangophiles The Turnout Presents Invisible Spectrum Pete Krebs & His Portland Playboys Broke Gravy

Ah God

go to meet Ah God down under the bridge, at their practice space in the Portland Cement Studios, in that part of town that feels somehow forgotten, as yet (mostly) untouched by the high-rise development running rampant across the city. As I approach, I notice painted mannequins standing guard on the roofs of some of the converted ex-industrial spaces. It’s hot out–oppressively hot–and with the afternoon sun wafting back up off the pavement, the streets take on the quality of a delirious dream, one where WHITE EAGLE everything is humming and fuzzy, 836 N RUSSELL especially around the edges. Good Saint Nathanael | Evan Way Sarah Peacock | Ryan Petersen Ah God is the soundtrack to this Brooks Hubbard Band place, I realize. Their latest album, The Low Bones | Ron Rogers & The Wailing Wind Tiiime, in particular, a laid-back Sara Niemietz & Snuffy Walden We Are The West | Aya Maguire | Kanude psychedelic journey with rounded Kat Fountain angles and blurred lines, which in this Sleeping Policeman | Daniel Herr | Heidijo heat is beginning to make more and Rachael Cardiello | Ryan Rebo The Sam Chase & The Untraditional | Black Sheep Black more sense. We meet in the street– Cody Andrews | Fuss & Holler frontman Chad Davis pulling up in a The Jack Maybe Project | Jazz Boyfriends | Ben Blakely sedan and producing from the trunk a The Moaning Lorries Women Crush Music Showcase fan and a rack of beer, which we take The Contraptionists | Oh Brother Big Sister back into the cool depths of the building, Jumblehead to sit and talk. Jeff Plankenhorn | Underwhelming Favorites

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Gary Bennet The New Jangles Jason Eady Folkslinger Liz Longley Black Plastic Clouds

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ELEVEN: So here we are with Ah God. First off, how do you say that? Is it like an exclamation, or what?

Chad: Ahhh God! Like "Ah, crap!" I started calling it that because when I first moved out here, I had a band called Blast, and we had this thing, and I was dating this girl for a long time, and my drummer came up with me, but after a year he moved back to Eugene area, and my girlfriend, she hated all the music I would make, and at that point in my life, I was like, “ahhh, God…” But also, when you do something good, like, sex-wise, you might say, “ah, God!” So it’s like a yin-yang. 11: Let’s start with the first record, Ah Fuck, 2013, that was your debut. How long had you been here in Portland, and how did that record come to be? Chad: Cody started living in my basement, and I got this really cool 4 track cassette recorder–it’s a Tascam 144–I dunno if that matters to anyone, but it’s an awesome machine, and I started recording in the basement. And after my buddy who played drums with me left, Cody started helping me, and I started drinking a bottle of wine in my basement every day and recording songs. Cody: Yeah, I’d get off work and Chad would have everything recorded

but the drums, but there was never a metronome or anything, and I would just get all pissed trying to line up with Chad’s janky 4/4, but we’ve gotten better over the years. 11: So Eric, were you involved at that point? Eric: No, I wasn’t then. I’ve played some of those songs, but I joined probably three years ago. They were in a band that I was in, they were the backing band. Chad: We were his backing band, for his project. Eric: and then we just mobbed together, and then the other guy who was playing bass left, so I hopped in. This new record is the second recording project that we did, the ones we finally kept. Chad: Yeah, we recorded this third album like three times. It was terrible. 11: So getting into this new album, It still has that fuzzy aesthetic, but it does sound a lot cleaner than both Ah Fuck and your self-titled 2015 record. Did you do this on the Tascam as well? Chad: Yup, we did it on the Tascam, except I was using four tracks before, and now I use four tracks and then I bounce it to an eight track. Eric: Then we bounce it to my 32 track machine, so that’s why it sounds cleaner. 11: When you are recording, are you tracking everything live? Eric: For the most part... Chad: Every way you could possibly do it, we did it. Cody: Yeah, sometimes we’d have like a minute-and-a-half of tape left, and I’d just play drums on it, and that would become a song later, or Chad would take that and bounce it to another thing, change the speed–you can do a lot of things. But other times we’d just have all the parts and go and lay it down. Chad: With some tracks I would just have a small chord progression, and I’d show these guys ‘cause they’re wizards at drum and bass, and they’d just play this amazing stuff, like second take, second time they’d ever heard it, and

then I’d go back, lay down the vocals while they weren’t there, so they didn’t have to hear me struggle through it. 11: The new album is called Tiiime, with three I’s. Is that a third eye thing? Chad: Laughs. No, it’s not a third eye thing, although I didn’t think about that. Maybe it is. A lot of it is stream of consciousness stuff, how we do the creative process, and so maybe it is. It’s also our third album. 11: With your art style and videos, You guys seems as though you’re into kind of multimedia stuff. Chad: A little bit. Cody: I showed Chad a couple of iMovie things a few years ago, like how to do layers, and then he kinda went crazy with it. Chad: Oh yeah, yeah we do all our own videos, most of our own artwork. Sometimes we’ll do the artwork and then get someone to do the layout.

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11: Speaking of your artwork, I saw the video for “Another Planet.” Can you talk a little bit about how you put that together? Eric: Shrooms. Chad: Small doses, We weren’t tripping balls, just a little bit. But before these guys showed up I was in my living room and I had all this green fabric, and I stapled it up on the wall. And for filming I had a cell phone on a tripod, and I hit record, and we’d just play the song over and over and we got a bunch of different takes. Nobody was filming or anything, we just did it with a tripod. Then we did some takes in the backyard, and then I animated a lot of that stuff by hand, with construction paper and puppets. I just put them on a piece of green paper and animated them like that. 11: The effect is nice, there’s kind of a progression from that, and then the “Peach Sunset” video, which has a similar thing going on. Chad: Oh yeah, that was the first time I tried to animate anything. It’s all pastels. That took me like four months of 2014, it took forever.

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Photo by Molly Macalpine

11: I was also noticing on the new record, it’s more down-tempo than your previous stuff, which I like, it’s a good vibe. Was that intentional? Chad: Kinda. I think it’s just where we were at at that particular time. Eric: Yeah, ‘cause there were like thirty songs, and when we listened to them and tried to pair them together, they just kinda fell into the order they’re in. This is the way they kind of flow the best. 11: So between this record and the last one, you said you recorded the album three times? Were you touring during that time as well? Cody: We haven’t really been touring, but we are gonna head out with On Drugs later this summer. Chad: Yeah, in September, on the west coast. Cody: Mostly we’ve just been recording. I think we recorded everything for so long that when it was done we thought: “Ok, lets do this properly, lets not just do a million shows.” We’ve been going up to Seattle occasionally, and I have more fun every time we go. We’ve been making friends up there, keeping it fresh, not just playing in town all the time. But yeah, we’d like to be on tour more. 11: When you do play live, is it more improvisational? I notice toward the ends of a lot of your songs you have these soundscape sections where you just vibe out for a while.

Eric: Yeah we do. I think with these new songs though we’ve played them so many times that we have pretty tight structures, and we just play them through. When I first started playing with these guys there was a lot of fuzzy stuff. Cody: I think that kinda comes from my style, I always thought it was cool to have stuff flow into other stuff. You don’t wanna have to stop and say “How’s everybody doing?” and that kinda thing. I like to just keep it going. We’ve been writing some songs that do actually have ends now. Chad: But we still like to just vibe out. We do improvise on stage, I’ll hear them do stuff I’ve never heard before a lot of the time. Sometimes we’ll try new things. We feel each other when we’re playing, but we try to stay true to the song. 11: When you talk about staying true to the song, do you mean you go into recording something you’ve played live with a set idea of what it’s gonna be? What do you think is the true form of a song? Eric: Hmm. No? But after we mixed them, and spent so much time on them, and then like Cody said, took more time to plan what we’re doing. Chad: Only three of them were done before we started recording. Eric: Having a plan with it also fed into the idea of playing the song in one specific way. But that’s all subject to

change. Once you play a song for a while, you sometimes want to change it. Cody: The songs on the album are all a little longer, and when we play live we like to have short sets that we go through, we’ll often have sections that we cut out, just to keep things moving. 11: You’ve got the video for “Another Planet” for this album already. Are you planning on doing more visuals?

Chad: You can’t understand what I’m saying? (Laughs) 11: Yeah, is that intentional? Or just a side effect? Chad: I don’t mind if people heard what I was saying. I’m a guy with a

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degree in English literature, that’s why I started doing what I’m doing, writing poetry, and I was looking for

Chad: Yeah, I might even have some clips of the new vid on my phone. It’s for the title track, “Tiiime.” It’s all paper cutouts and double green screen. You can do chroma green and chroma blue, and so I cut all the letters out of the green and then put it all on blue, so you can do two layers of texture on there. This one has the lyrics on the screen. 11: I like the idea of that, a lyrics video. With all the fuzz, I sometimes find myself, uh…

L Ah God

Tiiime Halfshell Records

Ever wondered what a timebending, state-altering wormhole sounds like? This is what Portland noise-rock trio, Ah God, has managed to do in the most nonchalant way on their third LP, Tiiime. The album encompasses that feeling of stumbling across something out of the ordinary... or perhaps, otherworldly. Just from looking at the album cover, one can’t help but think that someone dropped acid, found a time machine, created a psychedelic cave painting and voila, the album art for Tiiime was created.

a place where I could channel it in a more physical way. So that’s kinda where I started, but then all the music I liked was this crazy distorted stuff. So like all the lyrics to the albums are actually pretty good, but you can’t really understand them. » - Henry Whittier-Ferguson

CATCH AH GOD LIVE IN PORTLAND THIS MONTH, AUGUST 23 AT DOUG FIR Opening track, “Another Planet,” sets in motion a voyage into some unknown with trumpeting vocals and a whirring melody that welcomes listeners. “V-I-I” showcases raw yet surprisingly sweet and innocent emotions of love, inner thoughts, fears and doubts. “New Fast Slow” has a drone-y melody and vocals that are seeping in warm and fuzzy lo-fi glory. “Dibby’s Always Like…” follows and hits the ground running with heavier percussion and a melody that sounds and feels like neuronic fireworks going off in your head. Towards the end of the track the melody evolves into a hypnotic and perfectly distorted downward spiral. At this point in the record, you can’t help but think this might be what it would sound like if Ariel Pink and Arcade Fire had a baby inside of a wormhole. “Mild Zepp” has a ritualistic sound and feel, almost as if it is signaling the end of a journey. Conceptually, Tiiime is a ballad consisting of echoing drums, organlike synth and endless distortion, telling the tale of an intra-universe odyssey. » - Liz Garcia

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PORTLAND’S MUSIC MAGAZINE SINCE 2011

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hanticleer Trü is an amalgamation of every color you’ve ever seen mixed with every sound you could ever imagine. Stemming from classical roots, with a stunning background in piano, ballet, opera, jazz and musical theater, Trü loves to dance and is fueled by music that makes people move. Having lived all over the country, this boy knows how to make people get up and dance, and listens to everything from jazz to bumpin’ house. Coming to Portland, Trü found himself DJing and promoting, thriving on the musical boom and upbeat social lifestyle. Having studied dance and musical theater in New York City, Trü wants to not only embody the human spirit through stories and art, but through the physical elements of dance as inspired by all forms of music. Growing up in a musical household, his music, no matter what genre, is clearly influenced by the works of funk, soul and gospel. Alongside his impressive artistic resume, Trü has style out the ass with a confidence to match. Falling head first into a retro-futuristic reality, Trü’s artistic vision is a blur of loud neon and sparkly disco under deep purple lighting. Sometimes he’ll appear in a fringe leather jacket, busting out funky rock ballads (like in previous Portland project Magic Mouth), or maybe he’ll be dancing on stage rocking out in bright colors, flamingo earrings, or really whatever the hell else he feels like rocking. In collaboration with long-time friend Damon Boucher and local electronic music performer Natasha Kmeto, Chanti Darling is the pure expression of Trü’s full self, morphing day to day with inspirational ties to old R&B. Whether in the form of fashion, music, or dance, Chanticleer Trü makes sure to stay true to himself, expressing himself genuinely in all art forms. ELEVEN: Where are you from? Chanticleer Trü: I’m from a military family. My dad is from St. Croix, mom is from Chicago, we’ve lived all over the place. I went to high school in New York but we moved around a bunch. I lived there for a good part of my life. 11: New York City?

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CT: Yeah, I went to high school there, and then a lot of my family is from the Gulf Coast, on my mom’s side, so definitely a sense of home from there. My other family is all the way from Florida down to Houston. 11: Do you miss New York at all? CT: Oh, sometimes. I’ve been in Portland for 7 years, which is the longest that I’ve lived anywhere consecutively in my life. So, I’m starting to get the itch kinda to test the waters again somewhere else. I’ve definitely considered New York again, but I don’t know, maybe LA. I like the west coast a lot. I definitely want to spend more time in both of those places in the next year. I have some plans for New York in the winter, September I’ll be in LA for a little bit. 11: How old were you when you started making music? CT: Literally as soon as I came out the womb. My mom is a musician too and came from a very, very musical family. So everyone was kind of expected to, even if it’s

features national scene not something you do professionally–though most of them do, actually! 11: Any names that I would know? CT: No, I don’t think so, a lot of my cousins are session musicians. I have a couple cousins who’ve done backing vocals. My cousin, she’s done backing vocals for Brandy. Singers like that, backing vocals on live tours like that. So we’re a musical family. My mom put me in front of a piano as a toddler. 11: Was that your first instrument, piano? Do you play all the key parts in Chanti Darling? CT: Yeah. I play some of them, it’s a collaboration between me and Damon Bouche, my producer and my creative partner on this record, R&B Volume 1. 11: What other instruments do you play? CT: I play some drums. Piano’s my main instrument, but I’m proficient on a couple of others. I played saxophone in high school. I would say I started with jazz. Pretty eclectic musical household: jazz, gospel, funk. Those were things that would always play in my house. 11: Do you think that influences your current music?

CT: Definitely! I guess I consider myself a conceptual artist, so I go off of concept. I don’t think I’m a musician that puts himself in any sort of musical box, I like to experiment. You’ll hear that on this record. I was in a rock band before this, called Magic Mouth. Before that, I played in jazz clubs in San Francisco, musical theater–I just want to create an entire experience, a visual experience that is also partnered in the expression with whatever music is calling out to me at any given time. I don’t want to be put in a box at all, I want to continue to experiment. Who knows, maybe make a noise record one day. 11: Do you make all the album art yourself? CT: I conceptualized it and–I don’t know Photoshop–so my friend Eric Sellers, who’s an exceptional designer, codesigned it with me and brought out the image that I drew really crappily to real life. Also, I have this vision of collage that involved neon and retro-futurism, noir elements, you know like those ‘80s posters. Like you’re in some weird astral plane and that’s “The R&B” and there’s this kind of bust of me and I wanted it to have a mixed-media kind of feel. I wanted it to come together really solidly. The illustration of me was actually done by my friend Carlos Reynoso, so I took that drawing and we built it out of that bust, with the neon and the weird retro-future graphic and the palm and the neon lights and all of that.

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features national scene 11: That’s beautiful, and I think it pairs really well with the music. I’m excited to hear the whole album.

11: I see you work with other artists in town. What local artists do you collaborate with on a regular basis?

CT: I’m really excited for you to hear it! I’m excited for it to get to have a life of it’s own out in the world, I’ve been working on it for a while.

CT: Damon Boucher, he’s my biggest collaborator, producer, musical partner. We’re really good friends, so he’d be the person I collaborate with the most. I did start working on a song with Magic Fades actually, for Volume Two, and I definitely want that song to be on the record. Natasha Kmeto contributed to Volume One. There’s people I want to work with–I would say maybe Portugal. The Man, Marquii, who used to be a dancer in Chanti Darling, Blossom. I like to collaborate.

11: When did you start working on it? CT: I guess three years ago. Really really working, two years ago, but the ideas started three years ago. And even before that, you know how things start matriculating mentally? I think I made the first kind of contemporary funk song when I was still in Magic Mouth in maybe 2013-14 with Damon, just experimenting. That song is actually on this record too. It’s been some time formulating coming together in my head as to what it could be, what it’s turned out to be. 11: Is there going to be a Volume Two? CT: Yes! Can’t put a number out there unless there’s going to be another part, so yeah. Already started working on it. I conceptualized the two volumes together, actually. At first I thought they might be three EPs and I kind of compressed them into two volumes, two LPs. Yeah Volume Two will definitely go in a different direction, so I’m excited.

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11: Does Damon Boucher produce all of your work? Recording, producing? CT: Well, it was really weird because when I first started Chanti Darling, it’s my solo project but I was wanting to try to maybe do it in a band format, which turned out to not be feasible–too many moving parts, too many people. Especially working with people who have their own projects too, no one could ever give enough time to it, but Damon has been a mainstay and a constant musical partner in Chanti Darling. We used to be roommates. So, he’s the only constant in the project, Natasha Kmeto has a lot of stuff that she does. Me and Natasha throw a party together though, Jump Jack Sound Machine, it’s all deep house music, it’s every second Saturday at Holocene.

features national scene 11: How long have you been dancing? CT: As a kid I took ballet, tap, and jazz. I fell out of dancing for a long time though, until I started doing Chanti Darling. The last time I was actually studying dance was in San Francisco, so that was 2010. I guess around 2015 is when I started dancing again, and I always remained a part of the dance community, taking classes here and there. I studied dance as a kid. I studied dance in college. I was a musical theater major. 11: Where did you go to college? CT: I went to DePaul in Chicago. I did my first year at Tisch in New York and transferred to DePaul to study classical voice and vocal performance, so I studied opera. And then after that I went back to New York to get a degree in musical theater, so I studied dance on the regular, every day. 11: Is that something you wanted to do? Be an actor in musical theater? CT: I have always just liked to perform! I like the dance, I like to make people dance. So, yeah, I’ve always loved that, I would like to do more of it I think one day. I did some musical theater tours after college. It’s a very tedious, strenuous world. 6 days a week, doing shows–very intense, but very fun and rewarding. I was in the best shape of my life then. 11: Is that something you’d ever go back to? CT: I think so. I would definitely like to do theater again. I would like to write a musical. 11: Tell me, what does your songwriting process look like? CT: I’m constantly taking down ideas, recording melodies. We have this pocket computer with us at any given time, so you can take any notes that you need to, record any melodies that you want! There’s even apps where you can go and record harmonies, if I want to flesh out an idea even a little bit more, on the fly. So, technology has made it very easy to be in a perpetual state of creativity, no matter what you’re doing–I walk a lot, I take the bus a lot. At any given moment, if something strikes me, I can take it down, so I have notes, I don’t even know how many. Sometimes I go back and read them, and I’m like, “What does this even mean?” That’s one way that I continue to exercise and flex my creativity. I have lots of ideas, I’m inspired a lot by my relationships to people, but I’m also inspired a lot by my friends’ relationships to people! Sometimes something might seem very familiar to a friend, ‘cause it’s kind of based off them like, “Remember that one guy you dated?” It doesn’t have to be just me, I take from other people’s lives too. 11: What are your biggest influences, musically? What were you listening to growing up?

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features national scene CT: Prince, Sylvester, The Time, Patrice Rushen, Cheryl Lynn, Toto, Wham!, George Michael, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Diana Washington, the ladies of jazz–I was really obsessed with the ladies of jazz–Abbey Lincoln… Also, Queen, I loved Queen! Freddie Mercury was a huge inspiration to me, I love him. So beautiful too, everyone’s past future husband. 11: Did you see there’s a biopic coming out about Queen? CT: Oh! Who’s playing him? 11: I’m not sure, it wasn’t someone I recognized, but it looked good. CT: I really can’t wait! I love Freddie Mercury, I love his story, I love everything about Freddie Mercury. He’s the type of freak that I want to be. 11: What about R&B artists? CT: R&B artists! I completely skipped over that! Brandy, New Edition I liked a lot. Usher, Beyoncé, Destiny’s Child, Santigold, MIA… Missy Elliot makes really great R&B music, even though she does rap. Have you heard some of the tracks she sings on? She’s an amazing singer. Very inspired by her.

11: I feel like I should ask about your style and your outfits. You said you design a little bit, or you have? CT: I have before, it’s been a while. I suck at sewing, but I do conceptualize and design stuff with my friends who actually sew. I’m like, “I really want this, can you make it?” But I have lots of great ideas and I’ve kind of honed in on my own style. Every style is something that like, it looks one way to you, but to an outsider looks like this complete thing that is superimposed on this person, something you identify with that artist, and I guess I have some of those elements? People say I dress ‘90s, retro, or whatever. I don’t really see that. People talk about ‘90s, but most of my clothes are older than the ‘90s. I’m not really trying to dress like any period at all. 11: Well I think nowadays there’s this resurgence of loud color and people just assume that that’s ‘90s. Just because ‘80s and ‘90s had a lot of color, but I don’t think it’s necessarily the same thing. CT: No, I think it’s an amalgamation–like, the color trends are definitely back, the pattern trends are definitely back,

CATCH WYE OAK LIVE IN PORTLAND THIS MONTH, AUGUST 13 AT REVOLUTION HALL 22 | ELEVEN PORTLAND | www.elevenpdx.com

features national scene

those are things I’ve always kind of fucked with, but there’s a lot of new stuff with it too. A lot of shapes, new clothing trends that I never set out to be any sort of fashion. I like to just wear what I like! I like to express myself in clothing as well, and since I was a kid I’ve liked to dress up. I liked to stand out in that way and express myself through shapes and colors and patterns. 11: It’s an art form, totally. CT: Yeah, I think it just bleeds over from other parts of my life that I like to express. I’m an expressive person! »

CHANTI DARLING PLAYS LIVE IN PORTLAND THIS MONTH, AUGUST 8 AT DOUG FIR

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community meet your maker

MEET YOUR MAKER

From Multnomah County’s website: “The Library Music Project is another avenue for Multnomah County Library to support and promote local artists while expanding its collection with content that is engaging, new and relevant for a wide variety of tastes and interests. The collection includes styles and genres from hip hop to bluegrass to full throated rock.” Javier Gutierrez, Director of Collections and Technical Services tells me that most of the legwork was done by a small group of community members, including electronic content librarian Kadie Ferris, and Kelly Jones of Portland Notes, who connected to the music community and recruited a small band of our cities best “music experts” to review the 400 or so submissions. A little over 100 are currently in the database. Anyone can stream the diverse collection, but library card holders can build playlists and download entire albums. “My goal is to listen to all of the albums,” says Gutierrez. When I ask about his favorites, he pulls up his collection and cites independant folk and country from Malachi Graham, and funky R&B with an industrial edge from Free! Mason Jar.

Multnomah County Library Music Project

hile this column will focus on various makers in our fair and growing city, this month we’re going to talk about our libraries. Multnomah County’s library system is one of the highest ranked in the country. It’s well funded, supported and used. This allows the library to reach into the community in new ways. There are many events and classes (including a Makerspace series, mind you), and the dream of a 24-hour library is alive with access to online platforms offering e-books, audio-books and the streaming service, Hoopla, which offers access to music, movies, tv and comic books, for free. Some are avid visitors, but perhaps not everyone realizes how prolific MultCo. Library has been in recent years. Did you know they did a documentary series on local breweries called Brew Stories? They’ve also made several focused videos, called Our Stories, about Portland from an African American lens. And four years ago, they launched The Library Writer’s Project, calling for submissions from local writers to have their books added into the library’s e-book collection. This year, the call for submissions was from local musicians, launching the Library Music Project. A few years ago, library officials noted projects in other cities like Madison, Wisconsin and Nashville, Tennessee, where libraries were curating online collections of local music through the Rabble/MusicCat platform.

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“I think what is unique about the library project is that generally what we had to do was rely on third party vendors to build content,” he says. “Now what we’re able to do through this platform is ask local artists to submit to us. We are able to take charge and really build a community-focused collection.” The next call for submissions will open in September, as well as a September 22 concert kick-off at White Eagle Saloon, a free all-ages event showcasing a few of the Library Music Project artists. Portland’s public library offers summer reading and summer listening. They also profile brew-masters and throw concerts. As Director of Libraries Vailey Oehlke says on their website, “Libraries today are reflections of their community.” » - Brandy Crowe

VISIT WWW.LIBRARYMUSICPROJECT.COM FOR FREE MUSIC STREAMING

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community literary arts invoke a sense of natural beauty combined with an ethereal effect that pairs perfectly with the musings of Harris. Quaerere feels like a book that should not only be read, but experienced on a higher plane, almost in a state of peaceful meditation or that sweet, fleeting moment before you enter the dream realm. At the same time, the poems in quaerere are powerful statements of individuality and truth, and the poet has succeeded in creating something purely of themself, and for the reader to experience the truths within. I found speaking with Harris to be an educational and enlightening experience. Harris’s thoughts and words are crucial to the overall movement against oppressive tyranny and hatred running rampant through our society today. ELEVEN: Can you tell us about the musical aspect of your performance? How do you create the sounds that accompany your works and how do they relate to your poetry? Jamondria Harris: My soundscapes are a part of the same flow that produces the words in my poetry, the sounds and the words arise separately yet in resonance with one another. The sounds when played while segments of the poetry are incanted serve as sonic-wave meditative breathwork to bring myself and those witnessing/co-embedded with the process of the performance closer to the multiple cores of meaning Photo by Tender Heart Productions

LITERARY ARTS Portland poet Jamondria Harris

that will mark our experiences of being in collaborative presence for the duration of the performance. 11: I understand that you're in New York promoting the new book. How has that gone so far and what do you have planned for Portland? JH: In New York City I am going to have another preofficial release reading at Berl's Brooklyn Poetry Shop on August 4th. New York and Harlem in particular, where

I'm staying while I am here, has a feeling of expansion and performance by Jamondria Harris is like nothing you’ve experienced before. As a multimedia artist, they use words, images and sound to project the feelings from a dream

state or reverie. Something that seems impossible becomes almost tangible to the viewer through the use of abstract tools of language and experimental music. It’s like having a daydream privately screened through some magically poetic technology. After writing four chapbooks over the last few years, quaerere (Magic Helicopter Press) is Jamondria’s first full-length work. The book implores the reader to seek, to ask, to desire in a collection of poems written from a black queer prospective. Astonishingly, the book came together in about a month. The poems are interspersed with images that

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beauty. People see and are seen but keep their energy to themselves unless there is something resonant between them, in hatred or in love. They connect in lines of fire that can light up everyone who surrounds regardless. Nonattachment is necessary and impossible and that struggle is very visible and present here. The official Portland quaerere release event is set to occur at Polaris/North Star Ballroom on September 20th, which is also when my accompanying album of the same name will be released. It is going to be a really exciting event and will be blessed by the presence and performance of Dolphin Midwives, ritual noise harpist Sage Fisher's powerful solo music project. 11: You have named Édouard Glissant, Aimé Césaire and Dionne Brand as influential writers. Why are they so important to you?

community literary arts

Poems By Jamondria Harris "is lovingly held. is lovingly held in whatever marks me. is lovingly held no matter how many arms are taken into the body. is lovingly held no matter how much black blood gets into discrete flesh. is lovingly held while being split to facilitate. is lovingly held when no whole is possible from what is left. is lovingly held to the memory of the living. is lovingly held by what can grow when a body is fed upon. is lovingly held in making and meets no end." JH: Édouard Glissant is a black professor, poet and essayist whose work traced parallels between the history and culture of the Caribbean and those of Latin America

"i am a sleek thing half-sleep on the

and the plantation culture of the American south. His

gold stretching my veins.i would like the day

thinking seeks to interrogate notions of center, origin and

to string me out and along at motor

linearity. His essays and poetry have been fundamental to my development as a poet and deeply resonate with me, in particular the essay “Earth” and his book The Poetics of Relation. Aime Cesaire was inspired by Glissant but had a more concrete engagement with blackness and the direct relationship between the African diaspora and the continent of Africa. His poems are vast, dreamlike and violent, with an unmatched beauty and resonance in both its original French and in English translation. He uses language to rip the tongue of the colonizer out from under its oppressive power and turns that power back onto it and destroy that oppression with that violent beauty. I aspire to this as a poet. Dionne Brand is also a black Caribbean poet, novelist and essayist whose work delves into love between black women and seeks to give voice to an eroticism that is annihilated by the white gaze. Her work has helped me understand how to create a space for that eroticism and beauty that exists in opposition to and outside of the white gaze in my poetry. 11: What does the term "know your dignity" mean to you? JH: “Know your dignity” for me is a politicized stance against the violence of the white gaze, which has a particular devaluation it leverages against all that is black and

speed at sight between the trees and the sea and to find my feet walking from where I choose to lay down & not another bed aside from that will I take. this decision is sheltered in a corner i made this morning to mark the beginning of the day, it is the first thing triggered when you wake up and it unfolds in response to your gaze. (with no cord & no map as that my skin as rebuke must remain unmarked and my back out of sight besides thunder in retort) hollow, sturdy and too fast to break will get me where I need to go. do not keep a pace with me, please do not try to keep a pace i cannot even keep. the only place that is mine is where I am going. the last good sleep I had in what is yours now. this is the last gift I have for you, or the last day I will make anything for you in, or not one nor the other. I am beautiful enough to drink alone by the water with only what i've put into my hands, with what i've always got in the good measure of force directed down and down again always under me, to lose

femme. It is about the formation of a core that is as tender

track of back or under and be forced to sit and dream at the edge of the

as it is beautiful and a lament that this cannot ever be

ocean in exhaustion is beautiful enough to make me more

safely engaged by all that surrounds in our anti-black and kyriarchal culture. » - Scott McHale

beautiful than anyone you've ever heard of."

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community visual arts Photo by Mercy McNab

the intention of becoming a pharmacist. After 3 years of study, all the while yearning to take courses in the arts, I was accepted into the University’s College of Pharmacy in the doctorate program. But the program was all encompassing. No room for art. Ultimately, my need for artistic expression overpowered my desire for financial security and independence. I quit pharmacy school, moved to Nevada, got married, had my first baby, completed my degree (B.S. in Biology, minor in chemistry) then began a new phase in my lifelong journey as an artist. I had always been a self-taught artist. That changed after moving to Portland. I immediately signed up for painting classes at Pacific Northwest College of Art. I took a good handful of classes and learned a great deal. A couple of years later, I grabbed an open spot in Art House 23–JoAnn Gilles’s art community. It wasn’t long after joining class before I had a studio space there as well. The Art House took my lonesome existence as an artist and turned it into a journey filled with camaraderie, education and support. I’ve been an Art House 23 member for close to 9 years now. 11: How long have you been painting and creating? Is this something that you’ve carried with you through life? MC: I’ve created art for as long as I can remember. I recall the first time I painted a portrait. It was in elementary school when we were studying Early American history. At one point, the class assignment was to paint a portrait of George Washington. I’ll never forget my teachers reaction when she

VISUAL ARTS

stopped at my easel. She was astounded! She immediately got the other teacher, who was equally impressed. That was the day where I realized I have something special.

Portland artist Michele Currie

ELEVEN: Are you from Portland originally? Michele Currie: I’m originally from Southern California. I’ll always consider myself a SoCal beach girl, but Portland is the place I’ve called home for nearly two decades now. I didn’t land here by chance. My husband and I decided we needed a family-friendly place to raise our two boys. We liked what Oregon had to offer: the outdoor activities, the progressive thinking, the scenery and the art community. 11: What is your art education background? Are you a self-trained artist? MC: As a young adult, I followed my boyfriend and future husband to Chicago where he was attending medical school. I studied biology at the University of Illinois at Chicago with

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“Baby” (acrylic & ink on canvas, 2017)

community visual arts find a spot almost anywhere: on a wall or a shelf in their home or place of work. Small pieces are more affordable, as well. I believe everyone should have the opportunity to own original art in their spaces. Smaller paintings means greater buyer accessibility. Large works have an important role in art for too many reasons to mention here. My youngest is off to college this year, so, I’ll be able to commit more time to exploring larger formats. 11: Is there one (or a few) of your pieces that holds a special place in your heart? MC: There are many pieces of personal significance in my body of work. The two examples that stand out are “Misery is a River” and “Locks and Ladders.” Both pieces have informed and inspired me in the many works that followed. “Misery is a River” (mixed-media on paper), in this self-portrait from 2013, I captured the heightened bout of depression I had been struggling with at the time. The emotional pain feels fresh as I look at the painting today. My use of materials and my approach to the painting process was experimental. “Locks & Ladders” (mixed-media on canvas), this piece from 2015 was inspired by a photo I took during a family “Neon Abstract” (acrylic on paper, 2017)

11: Your paintings vary from still-life and landscapes to abstract and portraits. What is it about a scene that inspires you to translate it onto canvas? What do you enjoy painting most?

day-trip on the Willamette. The surface of this piece is rich with layers of collage under acrylic paint and ink. My use of black angular shape and line on the structures and in the shadows, in contrast to the soft colors in the sky and the loose brushwork in the foliage, is what keeps me coming back to study it again and again. “Locks & Ladders” is currently up at Stoller Family Estate.

MC: If I were to chose my favorite subject to paint, it would probably be people. However, my choosing of a subject

“Ladylike” (acrylic on board, 2017)

is rarely driven by the subject’s category or definition. Take pears, for instance. Yes, they are fruit and, yes, we call a painting of fruit a “still-life,” but that still-life may as well be a figure. The line, the shape, and how the lights and darks play off of both subjects inspire me in the same way. In addition, I will choose to paint a still-life or a landscape because of the ease with which they seem to accept artistic interpretation and play. 11: Do you prefer to create pieces on a larger scale or smaller and more intimate? MC: Time, space and buyer accessibility have influenced my preference in size for quite some time now. Smaller formats require smaller blocks of time which suits my life as a stay-at-home mom, as well. Finishing a piece in a small block of time also aids my focus and connection to work until completion. For the buyer, smaller pieces are more flexible in that they don’t require a predetermined wall space. One can

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community visual arts 11: Your artist statement mentions your signature being a “splash of color... bright red, orange, or pink.” Where did this signature splash develop and what significance do these colors have for you? “Awakening” (acrylic and graphite on canvas, 2018)

MC: Early on in my art education, I discovered the artist Paul Gauguin. I fell in love with his use of color, particularly his use of red. I find it most satisfying in my own work when cool or mellow colors

“Tea Time” (acrylic and graphite on paper, 2017)

dominate a piece, much as they often do in our world full of blues, greens and neutrals. Adding a punch of red, orange

11: You also seem to have a wonderful command of the

or hot pink adds instant energy and life. Place a color’s

written word, with the names of your works so carefully

complement right beside it and the two colors will dance.

chosen. Do the titles of your pieces inspire the conception of

Fluorescent paints allow me to push this visual phenomenon

the work or later, after you’ve completed the piece?

even further.

MC: I always title my pieces after they’re finished. The subconscious plays an important role in my painting process, which makes the result a bit unpredictable. I do find starting with a concept or a general subject of focus to be helpful and even necessary when preparing for a series. For instance, my most recent series, on exhibit at Stoller Family Estate, began with my desire to paint southeast industrial Portland landscapes. As I finished the paintings and began looking at them more as a whole, a deeper-meaning concept began to emerge. These scenes represented stages of the emotional and spiritual journey I was–and still am–on. I decided to call this journey “Finding Quiet,” because our chaotic world wasn’t working for me. Once the full depth of my original concept was realized, the titles, “Beginning,” “Connection” and “Awakening” among others, came out with ease. 11: Your portfolio also shows that you have a variety of mixed-media pieces. What other types of media do you incorporate into your work? MC: My mixed-media pieces incorporate any combination of acrylic, charcoal, graphite, ink and/or collage. » - Laurel Bonfiglio

FIND THIS ARTIST ONLINE WEB: WWW.MICHELECURRIE.ART INSTAGRAM: @MICHELECURRIESART

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"Misery is a River" (mixed-media on paper, 2013) by Portland artist Michele Currie