• Keep next weekend open: throwback bluesman SAMUEL JAMES has a release party scheduled for his third full-length, For Rosa, Maeve and Noreen. Joining James on August 22 at SPACE will be the likes of SONTIAGO, LADY LAMB, MICAH BLUE SMALDONE, MEANTONE, and, well, lots of other folks. Sounds like a party.
• One gal to look for at James's party? How about DILLY DILLY? Scheduled to appear, she's told the "Sibilance" staff that she's on "extended hiatus" from her musical career. We're still spinning the recently released Of Art and Intention, and it got the local music community buzzing in a big way, but don't expect a follow-up anytime soon.
• Bad news on the local rock front, too: ALL THE REAL GIRLS are done. Word is PETER DONOVAN is doing a cross-country songwriting journey, ELIJAH OCEAN is going to check out Brooklyn, and, really, MATT COSBY is "headed to South America this winter to take photographs and collect seaglass."
Related:
Music Seen: All over, Book of Samuel, Vol. 3, Rock of wages, More 
- Music Seen: All over
Last week we spent five of six nights out on the town. If anyone ever complains that we don't have enough venues or shows to attend we beg to differ.
- Book of Samuel, Vol. 3
It's so easy not to think about the music Samuel James makes much at all. Built from the very pillars of American music, it's easy to dismiss it as an homage, a throwback, a curiosity. And it is all those things, with James's ageless voice — he could be 20 or 80 — and variety of stringed instruments that scoff at modern technology.
- Rock of wages
Huak are the rare local band who, in the two-plus years they've been playing regular gigs, sound bolder and more self-possessed every time you see them.
- Local Sprouts dig in
For two years, the Local Sprouts Cooperative has been creating a name for itself as a sustainable and healthy catering and meal cooperative in Portland. Hanifa Washington, a worker-owner and chef, likens it to "Superman in slo-mo," saying that the organization has experienced a "steady advance" since its inception in 2007.
- Music Seen: Assemble
This month's Evolve2Advance bash, "Assemble," the latest in a series celebrating the convergence of visual art, music, food, and community, was one of those events whose status update should have read, "Come to SPACE right now for this very cool and under-attended event."
- Music Seen: Ocean and Pontiak
The day after Ocean's predictably under-attended (30-40 people) Cinco de Mayo performance at SPACE, a friend who also attended asked what I thought. "So loud," I said. "So slow," he responded. It wasn't hard to catch the reverence in both reactions.
- Put your skirt on
Portland's aggressive new frontgal can hit all the notes while she hits you in the face.
- Last call
One of the big topics of social conversation in Portland last week was the anonymous Portland Point blog's ruthless, somewhat self-negating takedown of the Honey Clouds' May 23 CD-release show.
- Greetings and salutations
The film, a decidedly unlikely crowd-pleaser, has had a charmed year so far. It won a Special Jury Award upon its world premiere at Austin, Texas's SXSW Film Festival, and an Audience Award at the prestigious Full Frame Documentary Film Festival in North Carolina, becoming something of a "little documentary that could" on the festival circuit.
- Gods of rock
SPACE Gallery will be awfully loud Thursday, with the CD release of Sun Gods in Exile's Black Light, White Lines, supported by Ogre and the debut of Murcielago. Last Friday's L'Animaux Tryst showcase and this show are sonic polar opposites on the SPACE spectrum, but good for them for giving some boot-stomping guitar-rock a chance.
- Escaping the life
Like the drug dealers in The Wire or accounts of illegal trafficking of any form, the current and former teenage prostitutes in David Schisgall's documentary Very Young Girls don't often refer to their trade as a job.
- Less
Topics:
New England Music News
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, Samuel James, Samuel James, Samuel James, Elijah Ocean, Elijah Ocean, Elijah Ocean, Matt Cosby, Peter Donovan, Space, Space, Less
