Sublime musical match-ups
By DAN CLARK | June 10, 2009
The Clash of the Titans has become a Portland staple over the last three years. Since shifting from the Big Easy to the Empire this year, the Tuesday tradition has lost none of its crowd-pulling potential. This year's matchups have ranged from the sublime, like Judas Priest vs. Iron Maiden and Stevie Ray Vaughan vs. Bonnie Raitt, to the ridiculous, like Ween vs. Flight of the Conchords. (Boundary-pushing mutants like Dean and Gene Ween paired with a comedy duo that write parody songs? Really?) Tonight's matchup definitely falls into the former category.
The Pixies and Sonic Youth formed in the early '80s and went on to become two of the most influential bands of the late 20th century. It's a good bet that even if you don't listen to them, the bands you listen to do, particularly if you've ever listened to Grand Hotel, Man-Witch, Cosades, The Horror, or recent Portland Music Award winners Covered In Bees and Hatchetface and the Vipers. Representatives from both of those bands were involved in the clash, pitting the deconstructionist noise of Sonic Youth against the dark aggro-pop of the Pixies. Each band was clearly having a great time, and even went the extra mile of featuring female bassist/vocalists for authenticity's sake. Much like their iconoclastic inspirations, the local Clash bucked tradition by forgoing a vote for the winning band, with host Mark Curdo and the audience agreeing that in this particular Clash of the Titans, everyone came out on top.
www.myspace.com/clashofthetitansmaine
Related:
Portland Music News: May 29, 2009, Portland Music News: June 5, 2009, Portland Music News: May 8, 2009, More 
- Portland Music News: May 29, 2009
Mike Clouds, Monsoon, Anna's Ghost, and more
- Portland Music News: June 5, 2009
There aren't too many people who've been around and about the local scene more than MATT SHARDLOW over the past 15 years. He's played with the HOBBES , ZION TRAIN , 8 TRACK , STATE RADIO , and various CLASH OF THE TITANS ensembles, while doing sound at the Big Easy for a spell and being a hired gun in general.
- Portland Music News: May 8, 2009
The weekend of May 23 is shaping up to be an important one in the local-music continuum.
- 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.
- Ain't life Grand
Bands come and go. Especially local ones. The money's not great, personalities clash, young and single people tend to move around a lot. Kyle Gervais with Cosades had a band a lot of us in Portland will remember for a long time, but they broke up last year for the reasons that bands break up.
- Moving on up
In the R&B and soul the very talented vocalist Jaye Drew purveys, you need something real, a grit and substance that allows you to rise above sentimental pap and make people actually give a fuck about you. She finds — and shows — just that on A Moving Train, her debut full-length.
- Music seen: Tony McNaboe
By the time you, dear reader, lay eyes on this, you will have one last opportunity to catch Tony McNaboe's month-long Tuesday-night residency at the Big Easy, which — according to his prediction on week two — is "only going to get better."
- Come on home
What's that about the apple and the tree? With college degree in hand, Lyle Divinsky returns to his Portland stomping grounds with a debut CD, Traveling Man , that not only features dad Phil Divinsky's drummer (Marty Joyce), bassist (Peter Masterson), and guitarist (Andy Argondizza) from the ToneKings, but plays in a Motown/R&B sandbox.
- Less
Topics:
Live Reviews
, Entertainment, Music, Pop and Rock Music, More
, Entertainment, Music, Pop and Rock Music, Flight of the Conchords, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Punk Rock, Sonic Youth, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Bonnie Raitt, Less
