Saturday Nov. 19
Laura Veirs and the Tortured Souls, Great Lake Swimmers, John Vecchiarelli
Doug Fir 830 E. Burnside St.
9 p.m., $10 advance, $12 DOS, 21+
Fresh from touring with indie-pop superstar Sufjan Stevens, Laura Veirs is coming to Portland tonight. Veirs’ chamber folk sounds cool in theory: ex-geologist plays ambient folk full of weird rock formations and boreal forests. Expect ornate indie-pop with some folky or country elements.
Language of Pan-Zen: Jason Forrest, Try My Cabbage, Synchronicity Frequency, Ainu, Rudiment, Something’s Burning, to-ka-age, Ernesto Martinez, Micro-Ritmia with Thollen McDonas
Holocene S.E. Morrison St.
8:30 p.m., $5?”15, 21+
I have a weird theory that the world would love the intelligent dance music genre if we all bought a bunch of glitchy avant-garde electronic albums and just played them until our ears bled. Sooner or later, the lack of hooks, lyrics and consistent melodies would no longer bother us and shows like this one would sell out in 20 minutes. Teenage girls would attend and scream out whenever their favorite buzzing and beeping parts came around. And Jason Forrest, instead of Jason Mraz, would become pop music’s most famous Jason.
Sunday Nov. 20
Days of Lions, Sexton Blake, and J. Nicholas Allard
Holocene 1001 S.E. Morrison St.
9 p.m., $2, 21+
File this under Get Your Singer-Songwriter On. Though a little less exciting than getting your freak on, getting your singer-songwriter on is much less stressful (and sweaty) than the former. Days of Lions is Gena Gastaldi, a singer-songwriter who started writing songs after her move from Alaska to Portland sunk her into depression. Sexton Blake is the nom de plume of Portland musician Josh Hodges, and for lovers of fun but trivial facts, Sexton Blake is Cockney rhyming slang for “fake.”
Living Legends, Aceyalone, Peanut Butter Wolf, One Block Radius
Roseland 8 N.W. Sixth Ave.
9 p.m., $18. all ages.
I’m intrigued as to how Peanut Butter Wolf, the skinny white Bay-Area beat-making genius, will be received at this show. While his music firmly places him in the hip-hop DJ/producer tradition, his music is much more DJ-based than MC-based. Whether the hardcore hip-hop Living Legends crowd is going to be able to appreciate the Wolf is debatable. Not that they’ll boo him, but there might be a lot of loud chatting and awkward applause.
Monday Nov. 21
Junior Private Detectives, Dykeritz, Binary Dolls
Doug Fir 830 E. Burnside St.
9 p.m., free, 21+
It’s always bothered me a little that my favorite kid detective, Encyclopedia Brown, has yet to replace Sherlock Holmes in the “No shit, (insert detective name)” phrase. Then we could have variations like “Freakin’ enlightening, Encyclopedia Brown” or “Brilliant deduction skills, Encyclopedia Brown.” What does this have to do with the Junior Private Detectives? Very little, but maybe go to their record release party (for free!) and ask them their opinion on the Holmes vs. Brown issue.
Tuesday Nov. 22
Fiona Apple
Roseland 8 N.W. Sixth Ave.
8 p.m., $35, all ages.
Fiona, are you nuts? First you dump the coolest guy in the universe, writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson, and then you dump producer genius Jon Brion for the dude that plays bass for Dr. Dre? Kanye West knows Jon is the shit, and the late great Elliott Smith made one of the most amazing pop albums of all time with him. So what if the first version of your record sounded like a creaky old 1930s radio playing waltzes? That would have been awesome and you know it.