This one’s gonna be brief, not because day two was a disappointment (quite the contrary, it was packed with good stuff), but because I didn’t see our main man Jason Quigley at center stage, where he spent most of the day with a camera yesterday. So we’ll have to rely on some YouTube clips from myself and Ryan from Lucky Madison, who braved a pretty intense mosh pit (!) to get some footage of Starfucker, as well as some great Maybe Happening footage from its outdoor set.

I arrived early as I could, and got to the fest for Hurah Hurah, who played a set full of psychedelic pop with plenty of glockenspiel. Hurah Hurah has two shows left before it’s planned break-up (glock-weilding singer Aviva Stampfer is leaving for New York, sources tell me). Frontman Ezra Sandberg-Lewis had this Jonathan Richman-esque puppydog look to him that may or may not have had anything to do with the move. In any case, the band was on target, especially on the lovely, soundtrack-bound summmer hit, “Stems Before Petals.” Here’s the studio version, as heard on a cut of the day from last week.

Download audio file (stems.mp3)

Dragging an Ox killed me, as it always does. I thought this was an especially strong set, as evidenced by the volume level of the crowd during Brian Mumford’s knob twisting and singing.

Corrina Repp and Joe Haege’s set represented a coming-out party for their new project, Tu Fawning. The duo played a set of jazzy pop (think smoky Parisian club jazz, not rollicking be-bop) that represented a pretty big shift in Repp’s music. Alongside Haege (Repp’s boyfriend and 31Knots frontman), she let loose vocally where she might have chosen simplicity and understatement. I always knew she had a set of pipes, but it’s great to see them put to use in this new capacity. Even the old Repp songs sounded fresh and livelier than usual. They both seemed to have a lot of fun with the songs.

I missed some stuff, including Point Juncture, WA and Per Se, when I went to post yesterday’s update from the WW office. I was pretty bummed. Everyone consoled me when I got back to the fest, including PDX Pop organizer Cary Clarke, who patted me on the back and tried to hold his excitement for Point Juncture, WA, back behind a disappointed frown. “It was really good,” he said simply.

You can’t see it all, I guess. I mean, you can, but you’d get a little sleepy. Which is how I was feeling when I got back to the fest for Ethan Rose’s pretty, layered set of more knob-twisting.

I knew Josh Hodges’ project, Starfucker, would be a blast. I’ve seen S to the F rock basement parties and clubs, and had a feeling Hodges and Ryan Bjornstad would make some bodies move. Here’s Ryan Feigh’s (Lucky Madison records) video, which captures two Starfucker cuts and the crowd’s reaction to them. Watch it ’til the end, shit gets “crazy.”

Ryan also shot this from the Maybe Happening’s upbeat set:

I had forgotten about Swim Swam Swum, which sounds like the things I loved about mid-’90s bands (we used to call them “emo” but you can’t anymore) that mixed power-punk with heart-on-sleeve nerdiness. It was a great set from those guys. It was also great to see the crowd open up to Hungry Mob, who got a pretty huge reaction.

Of course, that can be said about most of the day’s events. The crowd stood tall through hip-hop (Hungry Mob) then twee singer-songwriter stuff (the Ocean Floor—people got a little chatty through this set, actually), Metal/Hardcore (Black Elk. Pretty rad) and back to dance again (Copy/The Snuggle Ups).

Terrible photo of the Ocean Floor by me:

The PDX Pop Now! crowd is pretty fantastic and open-minded. The same kids banging heads to Black Elk were dancing like crazy to Copy (Copy’s set got most of AudioCinema not just dancing, but celebrating—it was like being at a World Cup soccer game in there).

Here’s a quick video of Black Elk (I gotta get a better camera):

Hard to tell, but this is a video of a 65-year-old-lookin’ dude dancing (like rave-dancing, dude) to Copy:

And here’s more Copy (cheap camera remix!)

Here’s a report from my second set of eyes and ears at the pop fest, KPSU/LocalCut’s Arya Imig:

The Pink Snowflakes, Hurah Hurah, The Vonneguts, and Dragging An Ox Through Water were all great reasons to show up early Saturday. The Pink Snowflakes played their psychedelic fuzz pop really loudly, and enticed the crowd to come out with free ice cream.

In some ways, it was a bittersweet moment to see Hurah Hurah give what they had said would be one of their last performances. I’m pretty sure they are the youngest band to ever grace a PDX Pop Now stage (singer Ezra Sandberg-Lewis just turned 18 in June). In an interview with the band later, Hurah Hurah revealed they have discussed playing again in December and again next summer when glockenspiel player Aviva Stampfer returns from her freshman year of college for breaks.

With his bass slung low, Daniel of The Vonneguts had the early afternoon crowd moshing their hearts out. Guitarist Matt broke a guitar string and PDX Pop Now organizer Cary Clarke quickly had Ezra of Hurah Hurah hand over his paisley painted guitar for Matt to borrow.

Brian Mumford had been fighting the flu and almost didn’t make it out of bed Saturday, but we were all so lucky that he did, as Dragging An Ox Through Water proved that some of our greatest artists have always subverted the conventions of song structure without leaving out any of the heart and wisdom. Some artists we hold as secrets, close to our hearts. Dragging An Ox Through Water was one of several artists Saturday, along with Point Juncture WA, and Per Se who by all rights ought to be exposed to as large an audience as possible.

After a break for lunch, I was back to see Soda Pop Kids give the festival a shot in the arm, with what was a very enjoyable set. Starfucker’s set was an expected highlight, as Josh Hodges performed his spazzy dance music accompanied by Sexton Blake mate and Junkfacer Ryan Bjornstead. Standing on the side of the stage, I finally got to see how exactly he makes all those noises that make everybody go so crazy. About halfway through the set, I went crazy and jumped in the front of the crowd eventually losing my shoe in the madness and having to throw it on stage.

The Maybe Happening were a great follow up to Starfucker in one of the best one two punch tandems so far. Easily one of my favorite bands in Portland for the last year and a half I was as always ecstatic to see The Maybe Happening, and stoked that they were perform for such a great big excited crowd.

Saturday was insane. I told myself and a lot of other people I was going to leave after The Maybe Happening but I ended up staying until the end. I stuck around to interview Josh Hodges and the Maybe Happening first. Cary Clarke told me I was looking pretty haggard but that I should stay for Black Elk. Holy shit, thanks Cary! Black Elk blew my mind. It’s incredible to me that bands like Hungry Mob and Black Elk exist in this town. Having soldiered through Black Elk’s set, I decided I may as well stay through the end of the night, and I’m glag I did. Copy’s set was fantastic. I used to be a bit of a skeptic but his performances the last two PDX Pop Nows have made me a real believer. I’m not sure exactly what the result is yet but at some point during the end of The Snuggle Ups’ ridiculously awesome set, a table on stage which was holding Copy’s laptop got knocked and the laptop and other equipment fell to the ground behind the stage. I’m sure we’ll hear more about this in the coming days, and I can only hope Copy has everything backed up.

This whole weekend has made me very proud of Portland, and I very much doubt Sunday will let me down.

Links:
pdxpopnow.com