Download the albums first single, The Felt Sense.

Yet another fabulous MFNW show on Saturday! Tu Fawning will be playing with Menomena at the Crystal Ballroom, September 11.

Photo by Mike Burnett

Check out our photos of the Tu Fawning MFNW 2009 show at Berbati’s Pan.

Saturday, September 11
9pm
Crystal Ballroom
1332 W. Burnside St.
Portland, OR 97209
(503) 225-0047
$18 or MFNW wristband

Generally considered a bluegrass band, Punch Brothers plucked a hypnotic cover of Radiohead’s “Kid A” on the main stage at Pickathon.

All photos by Zachary Van Buuren.

This bluesy rocksy group from Portland will be playing Thursday night of MFNW.

with-
Mbilly
Frank Turner
Justin Townes Earle

September 9, 2010
$15 or MFNW wristband
Berbati’s Pan
10 SW 3rd Avenue
corner of 3rd and Ankeny

All photos by Zachary Van Buuren

But let me suggest a more energetic alternative. Titus Andronicus aren’t exactly cheerful, but they’re not nearly as tragic as their Shakespearean namegiver, and a lot less brutal to watch. Sounding simultaneously punk and emo, they are discontentedly raw, raucous, and reminiscent of The Replacements. Their most recent album, The Monitor, uses speeches and allusions to the Civil War as a unifying theme to their songs of American disenchantment.

I’m also friends with their guitarist, Amy Klein. Check out her fascinating tour diary. She is an upcoming feminist figure in rock and a damn good guitarist no matter what she has between her legs.

Is it so wrong of me to want to believe that the spirit of rock and roll is still alive, and that all those 1950’s teenagers who became infatuated with the Beatles, and that before that, America’s blues and gospel traditions, and after that, Riot Grrrl in the 90’s, all meant something in the sense of a grand historical continuum—that they were leading our country somewhere, and not just entertaining the crowds as the whole damn ship began to sink? What is there left for us to do, and for that old lady at the gas station who has probably lost a son in Iraq, when the economy is failing and our education system sucks, and the media is dying, and we’re all escaping into a parallel universe online—what is there left for us to do but try to right the wrongs that have befallen us. What does some magazine’s airbrushed idea of beauty have to do with that old woman’s life, and what does it have to do with mine?

From “Rock and Roll Is Dead“

Titus Andronicus is playing Saturday, September 11th at Backspace. A small, intimate venue where you won’t have to push over any goths teetering on enormous black boots to get a good view.

With-
BOAT
The Globes
And And And
$13 or with MFNW wristband
115 NW 5th Ave.
503.248.2900

Bonnie Prince Billy on the main stage, Sunday night of Pickathon. Photos by Zachary Van Buuren.

To celebrate the fifth year of showcasing local artists, Sequential Art Gallery again features the work of Shinichi Moriyama. His new work, Portland’s Best Outsider Haunts, takes us on a tour of unpopulated and perhaps even unknown locations. His painting search for the beauty in the decrepitude, reassuring us that our imperfect world is only temporary in the large scheme of things. Portland’s Best Outsider Haunts opens First Thursday, September 2nd from 6-10pm, and runs through September 25.

Shinichi Moriyama has lived in Portland since 1995 and has shown at Sequential Art Gallery annually since the space opened in September 2005. Not much else is known about the mysterious acupuncture practitioner, except that he apparently enjoys taking long walks through the decrepit architectural remains of mankind.

Sequential Art Gallery + Studio
328 NW Broadway #113
PDX OR 97209
503-916-9293
www.sequentialartgallery.com

All photos by Zachary Van Buuren.