High Notes: The Best Live Music in Portland This Week, April 28-May 2

Tuesday, April 28, 2015

John Chandler, GoLocalPDX Contributor

Storm Large by Laura Domela

We admit to a bit of tearful nostalgia whenever our favorite bartender-made-good, Storm Large, makes sweet music with the Oregon Symphony on May Day—haven’t had a decent Jack and Coke since. Monica Nelson is another heroic home girl that’s worth rediscovering and celebrating, as fallen flowers bloom anew for another season in the sun.

Lightning Bolt

April 29 @ 9pm

Rhode Island noisemakers Lightning Bolt continue their quest to grind every rock idiom known to mankind into a highly combustible paste on the latest record, ‘Fantasy Empire.’ Drummer Brian Chippendale and bassist Brian Gibson have beefed up the production and refined their turbulent sonic squall into a more approachable techno-metallic twister that should sweep away the last of the unsuspecting tourists.

$14. Dante’s, 350 W Burnside St. Sandy Blvd.

Monica Nelson & the Highgates

April 29 @ 8pm

The former singer for the Obituaries, certainly one of Portland’s finest and most unsung bands from back in the Reagan-Bush miasma, Nelson’s considerable legacy looms large in local lore. The Obits were the home team that played with everyone who passed through town from Nick Cave to Nirvana, while the incomparable Nelson earned a regional rep as a fierce front(wo)man that erupted nightly; a burned-and-bummed punk living in the body of a badass blues-rock broad. Time has passed and we’re all older and achier, but Nelson’s voice hasn’t dimmed one watt. In this case, age reveals only stunning new facets.

Free. White Eagle, 836 N Russell St.

Photo credits: Handsome Family by Jason Creps

Handsome Family

April 30 @ 9pm

They’ve been touring and recording for more than 20 years, but it was the Handsome Family’s eerie desert dirge “Far From Any Road,” that became the theme song for the HBO series ‘True Detective,’ that brought worldwide notoriety to bassist/lyricist Rennie Sparks and her husband Brett (guitar/voice). With more than a dozen albums of grim, but uplifting Appalachian country music, the Handsome Family has forged a remarkably honest and unique career path ideally suited to their macabre talents.

$14. Doug Fir Lounge, 830 E Burnside St.

Buck 65

May 1 @ 8pm

Canadian hip-hop hunter-gatherer Richard Terfry (better known as Buck 65) exorcised the ghosts of a painful divorce on last year’s harrowing ‘Neverlove’ album, which featured the brilliant “Je T’aime Mon Amour,” a song that name checks every creative spirit he can think of, from Sam Spade to Vin Scully, in an effort to take stock of himself and put his marital episode in perspective. He then finishes the job on the subsequent tune “That’s The Way Love Dies.” Hopefully, Buck 65 has turned a corner and is in a more upbeat mood when he comes to town, but if not, we’re here for you, buddy.

$18. Star Theater, 13 NW Sixth Ave.

Storm Large

May 1 @ 7:30pm

True, Storm is no longer the sassy, potty-mouthed vixen that used to hold court at Dante’s during a notoriously raunchy residency with her band, the Balls. Actually, she kind of is, she’s just become a more fully realized version, what with the stage productions, tours with Pink Martini, and penning a musical memoir. Tonight, a well-heeled crowd gets Storm in torch-singer mode, as she and the Oregon Symphony try to add some fresh footnotes to the Great American Songbook, while also grazing through the grass of her latest album ‘Le Bonheur.’

$40 and up. Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, 1037 SW Broadway.

John Chandler has been writing about rock and/or roll for 25 years with The Rocket, Portland Tribune, Portland Monthly, Magnet, Dagger, No Depression, and Puncture. He also writes about beer, booze, and bars for Portland'sBarFly website and plays in a couple goofy bands when the mood strikes him. He can most often be found at the wheel of horrificflicks.com, a review website dedicated to horror movies.