NO KIND OF RIDER, NATIVE LIGHTS, WRAY, NOVOSTI (Kelly's Olympian, 426 SW Washington) Native Lights recorded their self-titled debut in a freezing, abandoned cattle auction in rural Oklahoma, some 40 miles outside the band's home base of Tulsa. The Novembers there are unforgivingly cold, and this year was no exception. In addition to having no heat whatsoever, the dilapidated structure was missing other important features. "We had to rig up the electricity, and the ceiling was caving in," says bassist Johnathon Ford, who, along with vocalist/guitarist Bryce Chambers, makes up the core of Native Lights. "I definitely think it affected the record. It's got this cavernous, cold sound. RYAN J. PRADO Read the full article on Native Lights.
GUANTANAMO BAYWATCH, HURRY UP, CUMSTAIN, POOKIE AND THE POODLEZ (The Know, 2026 NE Alberta) On Guantanamo Baywatch's upcoming album, Darling... It's Too Late!, the traditionally raucous garage-surf trio reined in their rough-and-tumble rock abandon for a slightly more polished sound. Take lead single "Too Late," which glides in a slow-dancing, first-wave rock 'n' roll cocoon, slathered with soulful refrains that are given extra wings from the vocal talents of Burger Records' Curtis Harding. The band ascended out of the basement and over to Atlanta's Living Room Recording to track the record, where the likes of the Black Lips and Jacuzzi Boys have laid bare their own brands of skuzzy rock. The album's due out in May on Suicide Squeeze Records; in the meantime, come see the band off in style before they head to Austin for SXSW. RYAN J. PRADO
(Firkin Tavern, 1937 SE 11th) Broke and got to get up early for work? The Firkin Music Fest's got your back, with a three-day, totally free, early-evening music fest with a stacked roster of great local bands, including Talkative, Tango Alpha Tango, the Hill Dogs, and lots more—plus they're pouring cask beer from the firkin. Get firked up! NED LANNAMANN
FUNDRAISER FOR FRIENDS OF OUTDOOR SCHOOL: ARBO, ROBOT BOY, DAD ROCK, HELENS
(SMART Collective, 6923 SE Foster) Anybody who grew up in Portland and attended public school likely has some sentimental attachment to Outdoor School, a distinctly Oregonian tradition where sixth graders are catapulted into an overnight, nature-immersive curriculum. It's a continuum too, with students getting the opportunity to give back by volunteering as instructors when they enter high school. It's also expensive, and proceeds from tonight's show—featuring all-ages mainstays Robot Boy, Dad Rock, and Helens (previously King Mountain Petrol), all bands I've covered in this column—will benefit the eminently valuable institution. MORGAN TROPER —from this week's All-Ages Action!
LADYSMITH BLACK MAMBAZO
(Aladdin Theater, 3017 SE Milwaukie) By the time they collaborated with Paul Simon on the now-iconic 1986 album Graceland, Ladysmith Black Mambazo had already been a group for 22 years and were superstars in their home country of South Africa. Singing in the isicathamiya vocal style—a Zulu style defined by its hypnotic male harmonies and choreographed dancing—Mambazo make gorgeously understated a capella songs. As ambassadors of South African culture and advocates for peace and social justice, the group tours relentlessly, spending at least half of each year on the road. Some questionable career choices—ridiculous Life Savers and Heinz beans commercials, a host of fairly silly collaborations—have made them an easy target for jokes (best demonstrated in Mean Girls), but Ladysmith Black Mambazo are an institution beyond compare. Fifty-one years into their career, they still contrast their meditative songs with energetic, aerobic performances. JOSHUA JAMES AMBERSON
MADE IN ITALY: THIRD ANGLE
(Portland Art Museum, 1219 SW Park) To help celebrate their exhibition of Italian fashion from WWII to the present day, the Portland Art Museum has brought in the modern classical ensemble Third Angle to provide a one-night-only soundtrack for the frocks on display. The group will follow much the same timeline as the exhibit, performing works by Luigi Dallapiccola, the modernist who came to prominence in the '30s and '40s with his impassioned musical protests against the rise of fascism in his home country; Luciano Berio, the experimentalist that embraced the possibilities of the human voice and electronic instruments; and contemporary Salvatore Sciarrino, whose daring operas and chamber pieces employ dissonance and chaos to provocative emotional effect. ROBERT HAM
ANGEL ALANIS, JAK, TRACY WHY, SEQWENZER
(Rotture, 315 SE 3rd) The privilege of being able to say that you've been at something for over a quarter of a century usually means you are good at it, and that certainly rings true in the case of techno producer Angel Alanis. Hailing from the Midwest, Alanis founded two successful imprints, Slap Jaxx and D-Form (with partner Steve Parker), and with releases on countless other tastemaking labels, he's had the opportunity to inject his strain of exceptionally hypnotic techno and acid into the veins of feening dance music junkies everywhere. Also performing are three of Portland's most uncompromising techno purists, Jak, Tracy Why, and Seqwenzer. Get ready for a night of merciless bass domination. CHRISTINA BROUSSARD
THE CRY, WILD BELLS, THE ZAGS
(The Secret Society, 116 NE Russell) Perhaps in this era more than any other, it's unusual for a band to come out of virtually nowhere as a totally realized force. The Zags, however, are one such anamoly: The group's debut EP, Small Bags, was a collection of five delectable morsels of future-classic power-pop that immediately and definitively established the still nascent band as one of the best pop practitioners in town. Tonight the group celebrates the release of its self-titled debut LP, and it predictably delivers on all the promises made by its predecessor. The kickoff cut, appropriately titled "Play It Loud," is a divine Bomp/Rundgren/Squeeze admixture that previously only existed in the dreams of the bubblegum junkies among us, and songs like the vaguely arrhythmic "Frozen Toes" and "Messin' Around"—which sounds like it could be the theme song to a long-lost Sid and Marty Krofft show—reveal a deep-seated, instinctual understanding of pop secrets their peers noticeably lack. All in all, The Zags is everything a great pop record should be: tender, smart, fun, and perhaps most significantly, catchy as hell. MORGAN TROPER
THE TWILIGHT SAD, PORT ST. WILLOW
(Doug Fir, 830 E Burnside) Scottish trio the Twilight Sad first lunged into international acclaim with 2007's Fourteen Autumns and Fifteen Winters, an expansive, dark slice of gothic pop. On the band's 2014 release, Nobody Wants to Be Here and Nobody Wants to Leave, the band cherry-picked from the swath of influences they'd previously explored—mega-loud shoegaze walls of sound and more intimate experimentations in stripped-down sonic real estate. Forged in the bosom of equally loud instrumental wunderkinds Mogwai's Castle of Doom studio, the album sounds as big as the band does live. RJP
Senior Editor Ned Lannamann writes about pop culture, music, film, TV, books, travel, tech, food, drink, outdoors, politics, Portland, and other things.
