Ahh, this is nice, back at Mississippi Studios, what I like to think of as Portland's other (and much more intimate) living room. The rugs on the floor, the sconce lighting, the red dragonfly-patterned skirt hugging the lower half of the stairs, this is home, a place for KZME to kick its feet up and drink in a show or, more likely, jump all around crazy-like on those cozy Middle Eastern rugs.
That's later, though. For now Katy Goodman of La Sera, of Vivian Girls (not 'ex-of,' I later confirm) wanders our happy little premises like she's playing hostess. Frankly, given her profile, I'm a bit surprised to find her opening tonight, the first night of Portland's Siren Nation Festival (a 4-day, yearly event featuring women in art, from music to film, from studio art to crafts and workshops; it's very cool and growing and, given this year's offerings, expertly curated). I would have thought...but thinking's not always done me all that much good. At any rate, La Sera on stage is Katy on sprightly bass, friends Tod on guitar, Danny on rhythm and Mike behind the drums and rather immediately they are sparkly garage pop good. Third song "Devils Hearts" has that devil's heartache wrestling with vintage AM radio gold but whatever sorrow might have lingered gets driven to ground the instant "Behind Your Eyes" starts, a Nuggets-era charger - and charmer - played at triple time, Tod just plain going off. Early as it is in the evening, it rocks the house, marking La Sera as an inspired choice to open Siren Nation, for the sense of lure is unmistakeable, in Katy's lilting but commanding alto to the band's muscular but deft back-up. Perfectly versatile they are as well. On "Love That's Gone" they tear it up like they eat bar bands for breakfast. Next song ("Please Be My Third Eye") is all boardwalk lope end-of-summer and "Drive On," straight after that, sees them providing dark pop accompaniment to Ms Goodman's angelic vox. Final (and new) song "Control" promptly promises to lose just that but of course, this is La Sera so it's as tight as it is simultaneously crazy. Great set, great night to get to the club early.
EMA, Mississippi Studios and I have a special relationship. On the strength of her debut, Past Life Martyred Saints, I came to see her open up here for Dale Earnhardt Jr Jr a year and a half ago. Lamenting the lack of audience mere moments before her set, I mumbled my dismay to the empty space in front of me. As it turned out, however, behind was one Carl Singmaster, then-music director for KZME, which at that point I'd never heard of. After a fevered conversation about music and, of course, all things cool, well, here I am, with my own show (plug time! "Songs From Under The Floorboards," Monday nights 8-10) and I kind of owe it all to Erika M Anderson.
All that said, I know few more intense performers than EMA. The intro by our compere quotes her as saying she likes to overcome her Cat Power by letting her Iggy Pop out, and truer words have never been spoken (and in fact, if that description at all intrigues you and you're unfamiliar with EMA's work, do yourself a huge favor and remedy that. Oh, and see her live first chance you get). Just her, a drummer (Billy) and a guy (Leif) on keys, laptop and an electric violin the size of a ukelele. That keyboard, though, on second song "Perfection" (off of 2010's Little Sketches On Tape, which I don't have and am now reminded to remedy that), is both bass and a chorale of background singers, making for powerful stuff. Drumming, too, is enhanced by effects and, I have to say (sorry), very effectively.
Watching her perform, words come to mind: primal, visceral, beautiful, serrated, heartful, inspiring, fearless, innate, immutable, passionate, punk rock (especially on song #3, provisionally titled 'Superpower' and one of the number of new songs aired tonight, boding well), committed, riveting, emotional, draining, exhilarating, amazing, intuitive. "California," off PLMS, is, of course, a tour de force, powerful in a way that makes your heart bruise and exult and recoil and soar. "Marked" is, well, remarkable ("I wish that every time he touched me left a mark"), haunting beyond measure. This is the third time I've seen her and I've never seen her so possessed, her presence is exquisite, there is no turning away. To say that she's this generation's Patti Smith is no exaggeration and, if anything, diminishes a bit. EMA treads an edge that Ms Smith, as deserved as her legendary status is, would, I believe, shy away from.
With appropriate synchronicity I run into Carl after the set and we share and compare each others stunned, ecstatic reaction. The word 'transportive' comes up, not surprisingly, and both of us are counting the days until we get to see her perform again.
JD Samson & MEN is the product of ex-Le Tigre member Jocelyn Samson, dubbed an 'icon of nerdy cool' by the New York Times, a sobriquet that both fits and, I imagine, she gladly embraces. She emerges tonight sporting a hat with crazy braided fringe hanging over her face like some pop tribal shaman and, as it develops, that's not far off. Opening track, new song "You Are Invincible" (or so I have written down; seems it might be called something else) leaves no doubt as to what kind of territory we're in. This is electro-pop and we're not a long ways from Arthur Russell as interpreted by some nervy (nerdy?) irreverent street punks into, well, new wave post-punk dance-a-rama madness and fun. Second song "Boom Boom Boom" dispels any doubts about that initial impression and the floor of bopping heads in front of me confirms it all that much more. By the third song, another new one, I'm sorry but I just gotta get out and join them on that floor. This is, after all, dance music. Somehow they manage to draw us out without a drummer, just a drum program but hoo boy is it programmed to a wicked perfection, it's got our hearts' number, our entire nervous system has been dialed in. After EMA it's like dessert frosting with a wobbly gelatin beat. Like Ms Samson sings in "Life's Half Price," it's better than therapy.
Would be a mistake, though, to think that JD Samson & MEN is naught but happy beats and escapist dance. Quite the opposite, in fact. "Off Our Backs" is a jouncy, pure dance number, sure, but, as its title implies, it's not exactly lacking in sly, sexual-political content. More pointedly, a new song released on youtube two weeks prior, "Let Them Out Or Let Me In," was written for and is dedicated to Pussy Riot, but it's also another barnstorming floor filler (though the floor's already full) that by sheer funk delight alone should free the members of Pussy Riot from whatever stalag pretends to hold them. Buoyed by a classic 808 synth groove, it also boasts a relentless guitar scythe a la Gang Of Four.
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