August 23, SPACE Gallery
VAMPIRE WEEKEND’s young and disaffected stage presence fortunately doesn’t even begin to disguise how fun and oddly wholesome they are. Paul Simon rhythms + great lead vocals = my future wedding band.
YACHT’s one-man show forsakes Jona Berchtolt’s most impressive feat — that he actually made this bizarro music — in favor of a ridiculously enthusiastic, poorly sung solo dance party. Really wasn’t that fun for the rest of us, but you’ve got to admire the dude’s guts.
DIRTY PROJECTORS were slightly off their game, sick as dogs on their first day of a national tour. Regardless, as their short set wore on the band’s rapid-fire juxtapositions and towering vocal presence won me over.
August 24, Jay York’s Church
After his set, MATT ROCK confirmed my suspicions that it’s a rare thing to see an accordionist and a drummer play together. What I caught of his set with Grupo Esperanza’s DYLAN BLANCHARD explained why (subtlety on the percussion is key), but in the many moments when the gambit worked, it felt like a movement was upon us.
August 25, SPACE Gallery
MODERN SYNDROME returned to the scene, and they apparently have a keyboardist now. They’re still a kick even when ironing out the kinks, but it’ll be interesting to see how they maintain that raw spontaneity with a new player.
CULT MAZE pulled out a dream setlist and nailed it, even as one of Andrew Barron’s drums fell over near the end. I sometimes wonder if this band are too urban for Portland, or if “August syndrome” still pervades.
August 26, The Soundpost
WNYC public radio staple DAVID GARLAND may be an underground hero, but boy were his songs earnest. After his mind-numbingly literal “graphic novel” song (“With the caption in the corner”), I had to make an early exit and think about how great it is that postmodernism has come a long way.
Related:
Caetano Veloso, Portland scene report: December 28, 2007, The Big Hurt: The year in not really giving a shit, More 
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Every last one of you who votes in our Best Music Poll is a treasure; but blessed are those who write-in.
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No, it's not your imagination: things are getting smaller. Or at least, it seems that way in the funhouse-mirror world of modern music, where the semi-demise of the major-label factory has colluded with the anti-star obsession of the underground to produce a chasing of microgenres into mazes of musical self-selection.
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Jimmy Page admitted being “absolutely obsessed” with him.
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Even with all the promise of the new year ahead, it's hard not to feel a little stiffed in the Future of Mankind department. Here it is, 2010, and there's nary a flying car to be seen.
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We are not at all sick of bands with animal names yet and seem to have a soft spot for Erykah Badu that we kept very hush about all year.
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Afropoppy, orchestral and baroque, driven by catchy three-part harmonies, Fleet Foxes/Andrew Bird–inspired, yadda-yadda-yadda.
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Topics:
New England Music News
, Entertainment, Paul Simon, Performing Arts, More
, Entertainment, Paul Simon, Performing Arts, Theater, Chris Gray, Vampire Weekend, David Garland, Dylan Blanchard, Less
