Kula’s korner

Friday, June 1

Atom Age, Defect Defect, Modern Kicks, Sense of Porpoise

Atom Age was a power-violence band from Rome, N.Y., and if you’re not already in the know, you may be out of luck. The band has one officially documented release (and three unofficial) credited to its name, and was featured on a compilation. Said compilation was on one record and contained 100 songs.

As it lends itself to the idea of Atom Age being overlooked, it also gives you an insight into the band’s sound—pissed off spurts of dissonance and other aural squalor.

Further complicating the puzzle is the fact there there’s a band called “The” Atom Age on Asian Man records, and Atom Age just recently reformed. It can be a confusing search, and the payoff can seem fairly minuscule by comparison—after all, not many of AA’s tracks come in at over 30 seconds.

But if hard, fast, angry music is your game, you’d be unwise to miss Atom Age’s nine-minute set at Slabtown.

Defect Defect brings up the bill, and the band offers a worthy companion to Atom Age’s distorted blips. Born of our own music scene, expect to see garage punk peppered with style and a real sense of songwriting—not something a lot of crusty people can boast—buoying Atom Age’s smoke break-length set.

Saturday, June 2

Danava, Lebenden Toten

Willamette Week has their “Best New Band” showcase shortly after producing their music guide. Consider this show our unofficial (and in no way affiliated with Slabtown) Local Music Guide show.

In case you didn’t pick up a copy of our guide, here’s a quick refresher: Danava is an amazing smoky-sounding psych rock/metal band. It recently cut a split with one of today’s most underrated bands, Uncle Acid & the Deadbeats.

The band has toured with Down, Phil Anselmo of Pantera’s dirtier, riffier side project and fellow sludgesmiths Melvins. And although the band is from Portland, like most bigger Portland bands, performances are quite rare, which is why the opportunity to see Danava for $5 isn’t to be taken lightly.

Lebenden Toten is another equally elusive Portland act. Drawing comparisons to a catalog of bands as diverse as Discharge and Melt-Banana, LT is one of Portland’s best-kept secrets. Seeing LT is real treat, as the band has gathered quite a ration of international acclaim while still being a blip on Portland’s radar.

Frontwoman Chanel simply owns any stage she’s on, and tonight she’ll only have to stake claim to a tiny one. Slabtown is notoriously small, just like LT likes it. Make sure to come out to really sink your teeth into the band’s performance, in as comfortable a location as LT has ever played.

Sunday, June 3

Anne, Industrial Park, Your Rival

If you’ve never heard of Anne, it’s understandable. The band used to not play much, but the word is out. Upon releasing an album on A389 Records, the acclaimed Dream Punx in November of last year, the band has been picking up gigs left and right.

Before Dream Punx was even a glimmer in Portland’s eye, Anne had played several shows at low profile venues like Ella St. Social Club and the Vancouver, Wash., YWCA. However, when Dream Punx finally dropped, everyone in Portland needed Anne and lots of it.

As the album title might suggest, Anne plays shoe-gazey rock, otherwise known as “dream rock” or, yes, “dream punk.” I believe a short history lesson is in order.

Shoegaze, the genre, was invented in the U.K. and was coined by area journalists that would assert that band members of this style looked visibly depressed onstage, also spending too much time looking at their effects pedals than anywhere else. As these pedals usually reside on the floor of the stage, the term was born.

Originally, it was used to describe bands like Ride, but would later become the sound of the far-more-popular My Bloody Valentine and guitarist Kevin Shields’ nuclear submarine control panel of effects.

Fast forward, and shoe-gaze has predictably splintered, usually into genres with the “dream-” prefix. And that’s where we find Anne, a swirling, blustery conglomeration of ethereal vocals, walls of distortion and hundreds of decibels. Tonight, that is set to blow out Holocene. And it’s free; that means you can spring for the good earplugs. I recommend Etymotic.