Lynn Conover & John Mitchell live at The Garage Door

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About Tow'rs
Tow?rs comes to the Pacific Northwest from their home in the mountains of Flagstaff, Arizona. They came together through a shared love for music and storytelling, and through their music they explore the questions, the pain and the hope that is part of the human journey. They are touring behind their latest release Grey Fidelity, an album with which they ?invite you not into certainty, but into devotion to hope.?

Check out all of their Great Northwest Music Tour dates:
Thursday, June 14 at Old St. Francis
https://www.facebook.com/events/152215202109934/
Friday, June 15 at Grand Lodge
https://www.facebook.com/events/219593341920335/
Sunday, June 17 at Anderson School
https://www.facebook.com/events/433502717067508/
Monday, June 19 at Olympic Club
https://www.facebook.com/events/2032021607067801/
Wednesday, June 20 at Edgefield
https://www.facebook.com/events/2131139773782140/
Thursday, June 21 at Kennedy School
https://www.facebook.com/events/190054575090173/

Marking well over a decade of amazing music ? higlighted by such acts as the Avett Brothers, Langhorne Slim and Sallie Ford ?our Great Northwest Music Tour continues to blaze a fresh musical trail with an ever-changing lineup of talent to our historic properties. There is no admission charge to the festivities, and our unique venues offer food, handcrafted beverages and a cozy place to bed down after the last note is played. Every show is an opportunity to visit our hotels and enjoy their offerings, anchored by music from some of the finest regional and national acts. Bring your friends and family and jam to a different artist every Tour!

We've run well over a hundred of these no-cover, all-ages Tours through our hotel properties... join us as we toast hundreds more to come.

https://www.mcmenamins.com/great-northwest-music-tour

Beloved Presents a Summer Solstice event...
Climbing PoeTree with Special Guests
Harnessing Creativity as an Antidote to Destruction

Thursday, June 21, 2018
8pm show // 7:30pm doors
The Old Church Concert Hall

Alixa Garcia and Naima Penniman of Climbing PoeTree return to Portland for a second year in a row with their award winning hip hop and spoken word performance art.

Their 2017 album, "Intrinsic" explored themes of mutuality, oppression, and liberation through sounds of hip hop, rock, blues, folk, and Afro-Latin beats. Songs like the anthemic ?We Survived? and ?Love Will Triumph? not only capture Climbing PoeTree?s messages of social justice and resiliency, but address the past year?s unignorable social, political, and environmental traumas head on.

Climbing PoeTree continues to evoke change and evolution by weaving their stories into art, education, and calls to action. Portland welcomes them back for a night of powerful multimedia theater, hip hop, and movement.

For more tour dates and info visit www.climbingpoetree.com

THE OLD CHURCH: LLOYD COLE: THE RETROSPECTIVE TOUR TWO SETS OF HIS MUSIC (1983 - 1996) at The Old Church

2015 began Lloyd Cole?s ?retrospective years? in which the UK born, Western Massachusetts-based musician began to revisit his storied career. In his own words:

Yes, it was me who opened his solo venture (the eponymous 1990 release) with a song called ?Don?t Look Back?. I know, I know?

However, the release of 2015?s Lloyd Cole and the Commotions Collected Recordings 1983-1989 was received to universal warmth and acclaim, and it sold out far more quickly than UMG anticipated. A second printing is due in March, and a second box is in the works, for September release. It will span 1988 ? 1996, my first four solo albums, the lost fifth album, plus rarities and videos.

These boxes are a lot of work, much of which can only be done by me. I must revisit and rediscover material. I am necessarily in retrospective mode. I have decided to embrace it.

Once the world has seen the Retrospective Show I will resume my work as a contemporary artist.

Sat. June 23 2018
Doors at 7:00 pm | Show at 7:30 pm
$10ADV/$15DOS @ https://bit.ly/2qa22le

Kingsley's unique and unforgettable voice will warm you up and melt you down. Her presence is captivating and overwhelming, she sings only on her personal experiences of life, love, and her journey of becoming Kingsley. Kingsley doesn't just stick with one genre, her vocal can do anything - her song are influenced by pop to R&B and anything in between!

Straight out of college, Kingsley up rooted from Chicago area and landed in Portland, Oregon and has been honing in her skills and working on her first EP! Shes quickly made inroads with the local music scene and has been performing quite a bit around town. Kingsley is currently collaborating with a wide range of local musicians to create her own style. She aims to embrace all genres and styles that will give her an authentic platform to launch her songs. She is very excited to share her new EP this summer 2018!

Jacob Miller
A Wisconsin native, Jacob Miller moved to Portland the summer of 2009 via Amtrak with a suitcase and a Fender Jaguar. Just a year later - he left the city to travel North America to study and perform music while working on various farms and ranches between travels.

Near 2 years later, Miller returned to the Pacific Northwest to form and pursue roots band, Jacob Miller and the Bridge City Crooners. After touring heavily and releasing 4 studio albums, Jacob and the Crooners disbanded during the summer of 2017.

Having played music full time for over a decade - the last 6 years of that with the Bridge City Crooners - Miller now focuses his efforts to pursue his solo music.

With a combined taste of folk/indie/pop, and the roots of American traditional music - Jacob Miller crafts a sound unique to his abilities and style.

Jojo Scott
JoJo Scott is a 15 year old singer- songwriter from Portland, Oregon. Solo acoustic pop in the style of Ed Sheeran and Daniel Caesar is her passion. She loves performing and her greatest desire is to share her music with the world!

Summerland Tour
Everclear
Marcy Playground
Local H
ON SALE 3/30 10:00AM
5:30 p.m. doors, 7 p.m. show
21 and over
$38 advance, $42 day of show
Everclear

Art Alexakis - Vocals, Guitar

Dave French - Guitar

Freddy Herrera - Bass

Brian Nolan - Drums

Considering Everclear has written and recorded some truly iconic '90s alt-rock hits, it would be all too easy these days for the band to be a victim of its past successes, relegated to performing as a glorified jukebox, existing to satisfy the nostalgic cravings of Gen Xers everywhere. But singer-guitarist Art Alexakis isn't about to start phoning it in now.

Although the band hasn't released a new studio album since 2015's triumphant Black Is The New Black, Everclear continues to tour actively, in conjunction with a series of past-release anniversary dates and the annual Summerland Tour, which Alexakis created and has been running since 2012, featuring a rotating cast of '90s alt rock favorites. And while it's a virtual surety that no Everclear gig is complete without a rendition of "Santa Monica" and "Father of Mine," lately the band has found that exploring the full range of past material-especially the "deep cuts"-not only gives fans a rare treat, it also injects new life into the band's live dynamic.

"By mixing it up and digging into the catalogue, it still makes it fun and relevant for us, and I think for the fans as well," says Alexakis. "It's still important to play the hits, but by playing those other songs as well, it makes it all seem more vibrant and real. Even though I recorded some of those songs 20 years ago, I haven't played them in a long time, so it's like reinventing the wheel. I'm having more fun now than I have in years. I think all of us are."

Formed by Alexakis in 1991 in Portland, Oregon, Everclear has enjoyed a lengthy career spanning 11 studio releases, numerous videos, thousands of shows and accolades that include a 1998 Grammy nomination. Like a true survivor, Alexakis has soldiered on through multiple lineup changes over the years: During the "classic" era, the band also included Craig Montoya on Bass and Greg Eklund on drums; the current touring lineup features longtime members Dave French (guitar) and Freddy Herrera (bass), as well as drummer Brian Nolan (also with American Hi-Fi), who has performed with Everclear on multiple past tours.

This incarnation of the band will hit the road for the 2018 Summerland Tour. As in prior years, Everclear will headline the latest installment of the festival, this time supported by Marcy Playground and Local H, and also featuring a special DJ set Alexakis will contribute, which honors the '90s in a refreshingly old-school way.

"The Summerland Tours are all unique; they all have a different kind of feel to them," says Alexakis. "I think this year will be really cool, because it's usually guitar-based, but Marcy Playground is more acoustic-based, yet they still rock in their own way. Local H is just two guys, meanwhile, and they're great, too. So, it's just a different look at '90s alternative this year...different facets of what it's about. With Everclear, we're going to play the hits we always play, but we're also going to mix it up. Every night will be a little different; there'll be a few surprises every show."

For Alexakis and Co., it's a continuation of a hectic couple of years. Everclear spent May and June of 2017 touring in honor of the 20th anniversary of So Much For The Afterglow, the band's massively successful sophomore major-label release. The 40-date run was an incredibly emotional and personally satisfying experience for Alexakis, who was able to perform obscure cuts from that time period for the first time in many years. Connecting with fans in that setting also reinforced the lasting impression the album has made.

"The tour was phenomenal. It left me and the band stunned at how important that record was to so many people, and to be a part of that, both then and now," says Alexakis. "The legacy of it is still vibrant for so many people. It was great just watching people react when we were playing not just the hits, but deeper songs on that record. I always liked the deeper songs-they were usually my favorite songs-and when the band would play those, it would be really exciting and important for me. That was fun, seeing that reaction, and just talking to people after the show."

Prior to that, Everclear experienced a career resurgence thanks to 2015's Black Is The New Black, which not only proved the band could still rock, but also that Everclear remains creatively relevant, decades after their platinum years. As is common for many artists these days, Black didn't set records for traditional album sales, but the release did see significant streaming activity and sparked a heightened social media presence, putting the group firmly back in the listening public's mind. The band continues to ride this latest wave of interest.

"I personally think [Black] is one of the best records Everclear has ever made," Alexakis says. "It sounds like both old Everclear and new Everclear: It has a contemporary production sound, but it's just old-school, angry rock songs. It's kind of dark, very reminiscent of the early stuff. The sales weren't great on it, but a lot of people streamed it. It got millions and millions of streams, so people were listening to it, and it resonated."

But when you've been a prolific band for more than a quarter-century, it's all part of the journey. Right now, Alexakis is feeling a reflective pull for the 25th anniversary of World Of Noise, the band's indie debut, which was recorded for $400 in a friend's basement in Portland. Although no official commemorative tour dates are confirmed as of this writing, Alexakis says he's considering playing some smaller, select shows this year as a tribute to the release. Much of the material rarely sees the light of day, but the 1993 album continues to enjoy a special place in Everclear history.

"We'd just had a baby, I was on public assistance and was working part-time jobs, I was very frustrated and very angry and there were a lot of emotions going on," Alexakis reflects. "I made that record for $400, because that's all I had. I got this guy who had a basement studio to give me 40 hours' worth of recording at $10 an hour. We had 10 or 11 songs, so we went in and recorded them in a week and mixed them, and that's the album....From there we just hit the ground running. I still haven't stopped."

That rough and raw first attempt was just the nexus of the massive body of work Everclear and Alexakis have contributed since that humble beginning. When it comes to recording new material, at the moment Alexakis is focused primarily on writing and recording his first solo album, due out later this year. That precludes a new Everclear release...for now.

"We might make another record in a couple years," he says. "Maybe later on this year I'll feel like it. I don't know yet."

That said, the band's live itinerary certainly makes up for its recent studio absence. As the group prepares for another Summerland run, as well as numerous other future dates, Alexakis is excited to revisit songs from fan favorite records like Afterglow, Sparkle and Fade and the double album Songs From The American Movie, but also compositions from more underrated collections, like 2012's Invisible Stars.

"There are people asking for songs, so we'll just try and learn songs as we go," Alexakis says. "If we get a lot of response from people to play a certain song, we're going to learn it and go on the road and play it. You don't think, 'Wow, I can't sing that high anymore.' We're not going to worry about it. We're going to play some rock n' roll, and just do it."

Website:
http://everclearmusic.com
Marcy Playground

In 2017, 90's alternative rockers Marcy Playground celebrated the 20th anniversary of their self-titled album. They returned to the road on the Rockn' Roadtrip tour with Fuel and Dishwalla. With label partners, Slow Down Sounds they released the first vinyl edition of their debut album, which included hit single Sex and Candy. The album went platinum back in 1997, selling 1.4 millon copies, while the radio classic "Sex and Candy" spent a then record 15 weeks at #1 on the Billboard Modern Rock Chart. In the interim years, Marcy Playground has released four posterior albums "Shapeshifter" (1999), "Marcy Playground 3" (MP3) (2004), "Leaving Wonderland... In A Fit of Rage" (2009), and "Lunch, Recess, and Detention" (2012). The albums demonstrated tremendous periods of creative growth for the group and are recognized as "cult classics" among the band's dedicated fans. Their songs are featured on soundtracks such as Cruel Intentions, Antitrust, Simply Irresistible, Hurricane Streets, as well as many films by writer/director Kevin Smith (Jay and Silent Bob Strikes Back, Zack and Miri Make a Porno). Marcy Playground is thrilled to return to the road in 2018 on the Summerland Tour with Everclear and Local H.

Website:
https://www.marcyplayground.net/Summerland Tour: Everclear with Marcy Playground and Local H

The Damned
ON SALE 4/6 10:00AM
7:30 p.m. doors, 9:00 p.m. show
21 and over
$25 advance, $28 day of show

The Damned formed in 1976, and played their first gig supporting The Sex Pistols at the 100 Club. They were the first of the London punk bands to release a single, 'New Rose', on the independent record label Stiff Records.

Brian James, left in 1978. The band splintered, but after a series of brief side projects and solo recordings, they reformed. Sensible had switched to guitar and keyboards. and the bassist position was filled by Algy Ward, formerly of The Saints. The band gained a deal with Chiswick Records, and went back to the studio to record another album.

The Damned released a series of singles leading up to 1979's Machine Gun Etiquette, which featured a strong 1960s garage rock influence. They had established a dark, melodic style that was sometimes fast and loud, and other times relaxed with dominant keyboards.

From the beginning, Vanian affected a vampire-like appearance onstage, with chalk-white makeup and formal dress. With The Black Album, the band turned into a proto-goth ensemble. Ward had left at this point, and was replaced by Paul Gray. The band released the album Strawberries featuring new full-time keyboardist Roman Jugg in 1982. Sensible played a last concert with the band at Brockwell Park (from which a bootleg was issued, called Captain's Last Stand), before he left to pursue a solo career, and Jugg took over the guitar slot.

With Sensible gone, Vanian's Gothic influence took over unimpeded, and his smart crooning and spooky theatricality ended up more or less founding goth rock inadvertently.

The Phantasmagoria album followed. Phantasmagoria's official follow-up, Anything (1986), was another critical and commercial flop, which ended the band's record deal and original run. However, the non-album single "Eloise," a cover of a 1968 hit by Barry Ryan, was a success.

The Damned received exposure to a new audience when two groups each covered a Damned song: Guns N' Roses recorded "New Rose" for their "The Spaghetti Incident?" (1993), while The Offspring covered "Smash It Up" for the Batman Forever soundtrack (1995).

In 1993, a new line-up of The Damned appeared featuring Scabies, Vanian, guitarists Kris Dollimore (formerly of The Godfathers), and Alan Lee Shaw, and bassist Moose Harris in 1995. They toured regularly following the release of a new full-length album, Not of This Earth. The Damned split, yest again, partly as the result of legal battles.

Sensible rejoined Vanian in 1996 and yet another incarnation of The Damned appeared. This featured bassist Patricia Morrison, previously of The Sisters of Mercy. In 2001, the band released Grave Disorder and this has been followed by continual touring. Morrison and Vanian were eventually married and they have a daughter, Emily, born on February 9, 2004. While she has been replaced by ex-English Dog Stu West, her return to the band's lineup in the future has not been ruled out. .

In 2006 The Damned released the new single "Little Miss Disaster", and the live DVD MGE25 documenting the 25th anniversary of Machine Gun Etiquette.

Website:
http://www.officialdamned.com/

The Damned
Friday July 6, 2018 at Crystal Ballroom
Doors at 7:30PM
21 & Over

True West Presents
John Butler Trio
with Mama Kin Spender
at the Crystal Ballroom
Doors: 6:30 pm / Show: 8:00 pm
This event is all ages
$35.00
On sale now!

Tickets here ? bit.ly/2F2GDj5
June 21st Info: bit.ly/2oDf35h
June 22nd Info: bit.ly/2FyFml7

The contradictions in John Butler are evident, and, despite his magnificently successful career (with number one albums in Australia and sell-out tours) his is a troubled soul. One of the most successful recording artists Australia has ever produced and a musician whose reputation has begun to rock the waters of both Europe and America, Butler is nevertheless a man on the edge, poised like a beautiful suicide. Where will he go next? Up or down? Despite the tensions within the man and his music the new album makes his future trajectory abundantly clear.

An independent role model, founder of Australia's Jarrah Records, family man and proud skateboard aficionado, JB, in spite of his matey public persona, remains an enigma. He is from everywhere and nowhere, an Australian/American, Everyman/Nowhere Man, and his music mixes rootedness and rootlessness, pain and celebration in a way that is utterly beguiling. He is the consummate rebel-refugee whose songs chart disenchantment with the corporate world and show a yearning for truth along with an ongoing struggle for a sense of locus. The songs' off-centre grooves have always been their charm, and yet now there is a sense, in the new album at least, of resolution and peace after years of being against the world and what it offered. Maybe the man on the brink will not jump after all?

The Past

Born in California and of mixed Australian, Greek and Bulgarian ancestry, Butler began his musical career in classic if tentative style. The narrative arc is well-known Down Under. An art-school dropout, he was ?discovered' busking in 1996, bystanders marvelling at ?the sweat flying off his brow' and ?the holy madness in his eyes'. The tape of these early compositional soundscapes Searching for Heritage gave an inkling of where Butler was going, reaching as it did both forwards and backwards in time, conversant with all genres and yet somehow defining its own. The sound had, and still has, elements of folk, funk, reggae and rock all drizzled through the 90s Seattle sensibility. Behind all that there was a wistful Celtic ambience surreally counterpointed by a Jamaican roots/rudeboy vibe. What could have been a mess somehow made perfect sense, with the bluegrass fingerpicking, hip hop beats and psychedelic wig-outs proving not uneasy bedfellows but perfect complements.

Now

On Flesh & Blood it goes even further, yet with a restraint that bespeaks a deepening maturity. There are dirty Stevie Wonder-style boogies, ghostly refrains that could come from Simon and Garfunkel, sonic poltergeists which seem, at times, to resemble lost rock classics. In the hands of a lesser man this would be mere thievery dressed up as ?eclecticism'. But Butler is a maestro - he takes his influences and transcends them. He creates a sound that is as ancient as aboriginal bone-art and yet as modern as your Twitter feed. He has been hailed as one of the world's greatest guitarists, a musician's musician, one whose sound offers not three chords and the truth but a thousand. His prestidigitation is astounding. An old song like "Ocean," for example, has chalked up 30 million Youtube hits, and not just with guitar freaks studying his technique. The new album has songs that are less expansive and more ?reined in', but the playing is all the more impressive for being more tightly corralled. Less sometimes really is more.

Flesh & Blood may be his best yet. In parts it is simply overwhelming. The album has captured that elusive thing: soul. Butler has spoken in interviews of his songs being like ?wild horses, wild beasts' and you can see what he means. Songs, he says, come from the ?ether', from a savage hinterland: they must be caught without breaking their spirit. A ?song-capturer', Butler's job has been not to tame those horses but to present their wildness. His myth of composition evokes the timeless expanse of both the Aussie Outback and the American West, and he and his fellow band members have been at pains to honour the songs as independent things that belong to no one, least of all themselves.

Arising from a series of agenda-free jams in Butler's studio ?The Compound' in Fremantle, (Australia) the album took a mere 20 days to record and, though beautifully structured in sonic terms, there is a rawness and honesty to the album that reflects the brevity of its laying down. The songs have a wide-open, semi-improvised feel. The crisp and beautifully spare production of Jan Skubiszewski accentuates the sense of limitless space: the drums (courtesy of the aptly named Nicky Bomba) kick with dub explosions, while the bass (?Lord' Byron Luiters) goes on inspired transient walkabouts. Butler's voice, free of the ?anger' that has dogged him for so long, now soars with both melancholy and plangent purity. "Wings are Wide" evokes rainforests: it is drenched in dizzying guitar loops in which the listener is enmeshed and lifted timelessly elsewhere. "Spring to Come" could be a classic, Butler's acrylic fingernails plucking more of their extraordinary patterns. "Blame it on Me" is a cocky peacock-strut juxtaposed with dark references to apocalyptic ?heavy times'. "Young and Wild" has the simple beauty of a song - a down home-country feel offset by the gorgeous shadowing of female vocalist Ainslie Wills. "How You Sleep at Night" is a hypnotically anthemic piece featuring the ferocious drumming of new man Grant Gerathy; Bomba having jumped ship (albeit amicably) to front his own Melbourne Ska Orchestra. The synth-anchored "You're Free" sounds like its title: it is as if the composer, haunted by righteous ire, has taken flight, escaping earthly confines but not flying too close to the sun. New single "Only One" shows a new maturity in pop craftsmanship. The quiet/loud dynamic is beautifully exploited yet again. A simple three note refrain and rolling storm-cloud drums establishes a minor key mood: a place of ?castles built out of sand' and ?something haunting' the protagonist. But then the chorus erupts with steel drum euphoria transporting the listener to what sounds like Africa - a third world of ecstatic being. That is the JB trick par excellence: the shift from fireside ballad to communal dance, from private to public, from doubt to assertion.

Home Again

With Flesh & Blood, Butler has come full circle. Searching for Heritage led ultimately to April Uprising, an album that delved into Butler's family history, one in which ethnic Bulgarians (Butler's kin) rose up in 1876 against the tyrannical Ottoman Empire that had suppressed them. John's own name derives from his paternal grandfather, a forestry worker who died fighting a bushfire in Nannup, Oz. From these historical titbits we glean some inkling of the artist. He is a man fighting for justice, a man fighting fires - those of love gone bad, of corporate greed, or simply of his own angry soul. As Butler has confessed in a recent interview, "I thought my anger was my strongest asset and that's what made me powerful, but it was actually my weakest link. My vulnerability, my honesty and patience and trust are my strongest attributes." The album bears this out. As Butler has matured the anger has been sublimated in poetry, and his voice, on the tender love songs especially, has become his outstanding instrument.

Flesh & Blood is a testament to his talent, and to a man who has finally found himself. On some songs he sounds simply reborn. "I wanted the songs to be a lot more guttural and fleshier," says a newly humble JB. "I wanted to smell it and feel it a bit more. And I wanted my voice, now and always, to be more convincing." If it's authenticity he was seeking he has surely found it.

If he has been a ?man on the edge' he is certainly not going to jump and end it all. He now has the wisdom and the courage to take a step back - and enjoy the view.

John Butler is no pie-in-the-sky hippy. He has dirt beneath his feet: red dirt. He is well-known Down Under for his environmental and political commitment. His white Rasta look once suggested a teleported Bob Marley - but that has gone. The more recent barbered image makes him look like a handsome American from the Civil War era. His stare is hypnotic. Who will draw first, you or him? He is not, however, all gun and no trousers. He has put his money where his mouth is, fronting a campaign that helped stop a vast gas plant from despoiling the natural beauty of the Kimberley area in NW Australia. He has also set up a charitable trust that has enabled many aspiring artists to find an outlet. He is a man who cares about the world he is in and one who has tried, in his own way, to set in right.



Website:
http://www.johnbutlertrio.com

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https://www.facebook.com/JohnButlerTrio/

Twitter:
https://twitter.com/johnbutlertrio

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https://www.instagram.com/johnbutlertrio/

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