Music seen at SPACE Gallery, October 31, 2008
By CHAD CHAMBERLAIN | November 5, 2008
Portland brought out its dead for SPACE Gallery’s annual Halloween smash on Friday. Our town’s finest channeled their terrific displays of costume-creativity and ironic dance moves while on stage, notable local bands covered indelible national acts.
North Haven’s Toughcats, who took home the title of “Best Roots Act” at the Portland Music Awards this year, transformed themselves with not just their garb, but with a genre leap. Moving from northern Maine roots-music to 1980s bubble-gum pop — quite the changelings — the band covered Cyndi Lauper with an unforgettable Emilia Dahlin as the blonde, boisterous Cyndi.
But everyone was on stage, at least metaphorically. I saw Mr. Peanut pounding beers, Arrested Development’s Tobias painted blue, and a cardboard robot doing the Robot with the Utz potato-chip girl.
“Its nice to see you all in the flesh,” said the suave vampire frontman of the Misfits cover band, which consisted of variegated Portland-rockers. After opening with “Monster Mash,” they sought to raise some more hell by deviating into good old party-style punk rock. Then Popeye raised his beer, turned to me, winked, declared “Ah Ga Ga Ga Ga,” and leapt into the circle pit that was beginning to break out. Happily for all of us, the only blood shed at this dance party was fake.
View the evidence at SPACE’s blog, havefaithinworthlessknowledge.com.
Related:
The outsiders, Born to rock, A new hope, More 
- The outsiders
Ocean's album Pantheon of the Lesser — a two-track, hour-long, deconstructionist monster — is the linchpin of what's become an exciting moment for the Portland doom metal four-piece.
- Born to rock
The last time Deer Tick were in Portland, at SPACE Gallery in November 2007, then-21-year-old frontman John McCauley decided to sing the national anthem. He sprung offstage and hit the floor belting the Tony Bennett standard "I Left My Heart in San Francisco" in a nasal voice soaked in equal parts whiskey, battery acid, and gravel.
- A new hope
Amid a barrage of assessments of our new president's first 100 days in office, it's a ripe time for the Thermals to come back to Portland and offer their two cents'.
- In a Dream
If you find yourself groaning through the first five minutes of Jeremiah Zagar's Academy Award-shortlisted feature documentary about his artist father Isaiah, you might just be its target audience.
- Music seen: 48 Hour Music Festival
"Never underestimate the power of the repeated note" was a dictum drilled into my head. Bands at SPACE gallery on Saturday night employed this method liberally, and to great success.
- Hot summer nights
If the coming week is indicative of anything, it's that this is going to be one busy summer. Discs have been flooding into the office and there's no end in sight. In an effort to keep up, here's a collection of four reviews for albums being released before summer even officially starts.
- Pixel revolt
Anders Østergaard's Burma VJ: Reporting From a Closed Country is paced and edited with the keen, polished urgency of a thriller — there are frantic, confused phone conversations, along with gloomy music and a healthy amount of ominous foreshadowing — but most of its footage is shaky, off-center, and drastically pixelated, even when viewed on a television.
- Power through peace
Now is a critical time for democracy's worldwide battle against totalitarianism. Rioters in Iran are disputing the outcome of a possibly stolen presidential election. North Korea has sentenced two American journalists to 12 years of hard labor for allegedly crossing the border into the closed country from China.
- Music Seen: Sufjan Stevens + Marie Stella
The ironic thing about Sufjan Stevens's belated debut in Portland was that a big show for this town is an intimate event for him.
- Behind the (local) music
“Working in a studio for so many years, we get to work closely with musicians when they are at their most creative — and most vulnerable,” says Marc Bartholomew, audio engineer and co-runner of Hanover Street’s Acadia Recording Company.
- Going for 'Distance'
To get an idea of the remarkable sprawl of supplies, clutter, and chaos involved in SPACE Gallery's forthcoming exhibit by Swoon and guest collaborators, "Distance Don't Matter," there are two good places to look: the gallery itself, and SPACE Executive Director Nat May's Facebook page.
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Topics:
Live Reviews
, Cyndi Lauper, Emilia Dahlin, SPACE Gallery, More
, Cyndi Lauper, Emilia Dahlin, SPACE Gallery, SPACE Gallery, Misfits (Musical Group), Less
