It's Monday. It's the afternoon. You're in that warm, post-lunch glow and need a little something to help get you through the rest of the day. That's where we come in, with a heapin' helpin' of news from in and around the Portland music scene. Are you sitting comfortably? Is the water warm enough, Wendy? Then let us begin.
Just in case you were in a coma or hiding away from all media for the past 18 hours, all eyes were on the Grammy Awards last night. And all anyone can talk about (other than the pitiful "In Memoriam" segment that misspelled Ric Ocasek's name and left out a ton of amazing artists who passed away last year) is how teen pop star Billie Eilish made a clean sweep of the big categories. She walked away with statues for Record of the Year (for "bad guy"), Album of the Year, Song of the Year, and Best New Artist. "But wait," you may be asking right now, "weren't Lizzo and Ariana and Lil Nas X nominated for many of those same awards?" YES, THEY WERE, AND YES, WE'RE A LITTLE CONFUSED ABOUT THIS, TOO.
As for the Portland contingent of nominees, most were shut out of their respective categories. But our beloved Esperanza Spalding, the multi-instrumentalist born and raised here in the Rose City, took home the award for Best Vocal Jazz Album for her lovely 2018 record 12 Little Spells. Congrats!
Fifty years ago, the Vortex I, a week-long music festival with the rare support of state and local government officials, was held at Milo McIver Park as a way to direct young people's energies toward a more positive outlet during a planned appearance by President Richard Nixon. With that same spirit in mind, Thomas Lauderdale of Pink Martini fame and a group of likeminded folk are organizing a spiritual sequel to that event with Vortex2020, a two-day affair that will be held in the same location as the original fest on August 22 and 23.
The lineup for this new Vortex looks to be pretty killer. In addition to Pink Martini, there will be performances by the Dandy Warhols, Blind Pilot, Edna Vazquez, and some folks from the Produce hip-hop collective—with many more to be announced—happening across three stages. And to attend the festival, you won't need to buy a ticket; instead, you have to perform "meaningful volunteer work on a designated Vortex2020 project." Exactly what looks like remains to be seen, but more details will arrive when Vortex2020 revamps its website on February 14.
Stephen Malkmus was already planning on being busy this year, what with the previously announced live dates by his best-known band Pavement in Portugal and Spain this summer. But his dance card just got a little fuller with news of a new solo album, Traditional Techniques, to be released on March 6, and a full slate of tour dates kicking off on March 31 in Minneapolis.
The album is, essentially, the photo negative of his last LP Groove Denied, which found him messing with laptop music and programmed beats. With the help of Decemberists member Chris Funk and guitarist Matt Sweeney (Chavez, Zwan), Malkmus is offering up his interpretation of psych-folk music in the vein of Fairport Convention and the Pentangle. That's the vibe we're getting from "Xian Man," the first single from Traditional Techniques, at least. No word yet on a Portland date for this tour, but we do know that he'll be joined on stage for his solo run by Funk, Sweeney, bassist Brad Truax, and drummer Jake Morris.
Local prog metal group Tanagra will not be known as Tanagra for much longer. Swiss audio company Nagra have filed a trademark dispute against the band, which opposes the quintet's efforts to trademark their name with regards to the sale of merchandise and live performances.
The lawsuit comes at pretty much the worst possible time for the band, as they've been receiving a lot of accolades for their 2019 album Meridiem, including having it chosen as the Best Power Metal Album of the year by voters at Reddit.
"It's pretty funny that one week we're getting AoY on Reddit and the next we're being nuked from orbit by a company we've never heard of," says the band's bassist Erich Ulmer in a press release. "Regardless of what happens with the trademark dispute, we have to assume that when it's over we'll get a cease-and-desist and be dead in the water. We'd exist at the behest of a foreign company who obviously couldn't give a damn about us, and that's no way to live."
Rather than doing as the Slants did and spending thousands upon thousands of dollars fighting the suit, Tangara is undergoing a liquidation sale of existing physical copies of their album, dropping the price of a CD down to $1 on their Bandcamp page.
Says Ulmer: “We have hundreds of copies Meridiem and [their 2015 album] None of This is Real that will be unsellable soon and we'd rather have them in the hands of metalheads around the world. This is a small piece of history and it's likely we'll never be able to print under this name again!”
In tour news, Roger Waters, the former bassist/vocalist for Pink Floyd, announced a new tour last week, titled Roger Waters: This Is Not A Drill, which is set to get underway on July 8 in Pittsburgh before finding its way to Portland for a show at Moda Center on September 21.
Beloved prog-metal titans Tool, who took home a Grammy last night for Best Metal Performance, sneakily slipped a Portland date into their 2020 tour plans with a stop at the Moda Center on March 11 that, as of the time of this writing, was very close to selling out.
Over at the Sunlight Supply Amphitheater, a grip of country shows were just unveiled, with Brad Paisley stopping by on May 22, Chris Young on June 12, Luke Bryan on July 25, and Tim McGraw on August 29. No, you're not mistaken. It's all dudes. We'll just have to hold out hope that they balance the scales a bit by inviting some female performers to serve as opening acts. And on September 11, Sunlight Supply will welcome Disturbed as part of the band's tour celebrating the 20th anniversary of their album The Sickness.
And last, but most certainly not least, pop sensation mxmtoon just announced a slate of tour dates for 2020, including a stop at Wonder Ballroom on May 19. She'll be joined for this stop of her Dawn & Dusk Tour by Toronto alt-pop singer/songwriter Verzache.
I've been informed by our HR department that I'm legally obligated to remind you that on Friday January 31, Netflix will release Miss Americana, the new documentary about our lord and savior Taylor Swift. According to the press information about this Lana Wilson-directed film, it finds Ms. Swift embracing "her role as a songwriter and performer—and as a woman harnessing the full power of her voice." So say we all.
That's all for this week. We'll be back again after we've spent the entire weekend in our darkened apartments watching Miss Americana over... and over... and over....
