One of the great indie rock bands from the 90's are back and visiting Portland, OR. as part of MFNW 2008. The last time the dudes from NC visited our town was at The Satyricon and they performed one of the best shows that year and we expect the same this time around. Please check back for where and when Polvo will be playing for MFNW 2008.

Both alarming and charming, Polvo’s eclectic sound and style is absolutely
unmistakable. It could be said that Polvo was the guitar band of the
nineties, and that sentiment still holds true today. The band truly
existed on its own island, somewhere between the Eastern Indian Peninsula
and the Aleutians?which left a lot of space to roam around.  What’s more,
Polvo was not only unique but prolific, putting out one or two releases a
year during the band’s initial lifespan.

Polvo didn’t just spark after a night of drinking too many PBRs at some
rowdy house party.  Dave Brylawski (vocalist/guitarist) and Steve Popson
(bassist) have been friends since they were nine years old.  In 1986,
Brylawski met Ash Bowie (vocalist/guitarist) and Eddie Watkins (drummer)
while attending the University of North Carolina.  With Popson a mere 20
minutes down the road at NC State, jam sessions were frequent and
developmentally pointed. In late 1989, with reasonable goals in mind – to
perform at local rock venue the Cat’s Cradle and to put out a seven-inch
record – Polvo took the first small steps to making themselves one of the
quintessential indie rock bands of the era. Eight years, four full
lengths, three EPs, and yes, several seven inches later, the quartet
agreeably disbanded in 1998.

Over the next ten years, the members remained close while attending to
their own personal interests in separate careers and musical outlets
(Popson and Brylawski are also currently members of Black Taj).
Periodically, they discussed reuniting to perform, but it wasn’t until
2008, when Polvo was asked to perform at the Explosions In The Sky-curated
All Tomorrow’s Parties Festival, that the band decided the time was right
to play again (with ex-Cherry Valence drummer Brian Quast replacing
Watkins). The band things one huge festival at a time. Along the way, though, they’ll likely
pick up where they left off in ’98: revisiting old jams, enjoying lifelong
musical connections, and rocking the bajeesus out of anyone who’s lucky
enough to see them play.

Furthermore, Polvo will take you to the blacktop AND take you to the hole.
They are one of an elite few bands that not only play together as a band,
but also as a ball team. Yeah, they got game. They got skills. You’ll be
moving in slow motion.

Willamette Week's best new band 2008 is The Builders and The Butchers. In tradition to years past MFNW is lucky to have the best new band play the festival this year. Last year The Builders and The Butchers had one of the highlight shows of the year as part of Bladen County Records showcase at Slabtown and this year should be no different. Keep a lookout for were you may find The Builders on the MFNW 2008 schedule. Below you will find the article posted in today's Willamette Week on The Builders and The Butchers.

 

"In Alaska, you either get wasted or you get creative. In the case of Alaskan transplants the Builders and the Butchers, the latter’s begun to pay off. “You have blistering cold and 24-hour darkness,” says drummer Ray Rude of winters in Anchorage. “You just sit inside.” “There’s just a lot of really crazy people up there,” agrees frontman Ryan Sollee—whose own brand of craziness, which includes berating audiences through an old bullhorn, has earned the Builders and the Butchers a fanatical local following.

But Sollee’s music hasn’t always been so well received here. When he moved to Portland in the fall of ’03, his post-punk outfit the Born Losers went from playing to hundreds in Anchorage to scraping up crowds of 30 here—if they were lucky. The fiery-haired singer, whose close-set eyes and pointed voice make everything he says degrees more intense, quickly realized the Losers were “very run-of-the-mill.” “Moving to any big city from a small place, is…awful,” he says. “[You think], ‘Everybody in my small town loves it, so people who are really into cool music will like it, too.’ Well, not really.”

But people do like the Builders and the Butchers. A lot. “I feel like a lot of our success is owed to Portland being really accepting of strange things,” Rude explains. “People have gotten so sick of seeing the same style of band.”

Sollee, who recently quit his day job as a Columbia River fish biologist to focus on the band, pens songs on such macabre subjects as bloody-handed murder, coal mines, lake-bottom burials and vampires. Though he claims Portland winters are “like a step less depressing than [those in] Anchorage,” the just-turned-30-year-old hasn’t had any trouble continuing to unearth dismal themes. On “Ten Miles Wide,” for instance, he sings, “You’ve got to bury, bury/ Bury your dying mother/ Bury your dying mother/ In the ground, ground, ground.” And the subject matter doesn’t get much sunnier from there.

But Sollee’s maniacal stage presence—not to mention live antics like passing out tambourines, washboards and Little Tikes tom-toms to the crowd—breathes such life into his creepy words that crowds can’t help but sing along. He assaults listeners with what Rude aptly describes as a “force-you-to-listen-to-me kind of voice.” And the band—rounded out by Salem native Paul Seely (trumpet, percussion), Harvey Tumbleson (mandolin, banjo) and bassist Alexander Ellis—backs Sollee’s revivalist fervor with stomping rhythms, rustic string arrangements and shouted backing vocals—all brought to a rolling boil.

The full package has proven positively rousing: At the March 2007 CD release show for the Builders’ self-titled debut, they abandoned downtown venue Valentine’s altogether, leading the crowd right into the street where everyone sang, “Find me, oh find me/ In the air, Lord, in the air,” to random passersby and Voodoo Doughnut patrons. A congregation was born.

But despite Sollee’s reputation as an ecclesiastical band leader, the group’s leery of being pegged as religious—or gimmicky. Over PBRs at the Night Light Lounge, bassist Ellis, who bears a slight resemblance to Daniel Day Lewis in There Will Be Blood, says, “I don’t like to think of us as a religious band…but I think we might get mistaken.” Sollee chimes in: “We’re not praising any specific thing, let’s just say that.”

What the Builders are doing is creating a mood of redemption. “If you listen to old Depression-era bluegrass and blues music,” says Sollee, “[the themes are] actually the same.” And just as the Builders—who drop influences like David Bowie and R. Kelly as easily as American bluesman Leadbelly—embolden listeners to experience a sweet rock-’n’-roll release, gospel music has been giving Americans hope for centuries. Decemberist Chris Funk, who’s producing the band’s sophomore follow-up, says they recorded a few songs in a “burned-out Masonic temple” with a live gospel choir: “It was killer.”

Because the Builders originally began busking unplugged on street corners, outside proper venues and in bus-stop shelters—where there was “no wall,” as Sollee puts it, between them and their audience—they all agree when Ellis says, “I really like playing when you’re eye-to-eye with the audience.” Rude puts it even better: “Or inside the audience, just people making music for people.” That casual approach, which includes considering too much practice an “Achilles’ heel,” according to Tumbleson, defines pretty much everything the band does.

But their trial-by-fire nature doesn’t translate to cockiness. Sollee even says he considers himself “the worst guitar player in the room at all times.” “All the people I go to for inspiration don’t have classically good voices,” he adds. “None of ’em. But they’re all voices I absolutely love—because they’re weird.” Bundled up on the Night Light’s outdoor patio, Rude tells Sollee: “I applaud your weirdness.” So, apparently, does Portland."

 

 

We are pround to announce our first artist of MFNW 2008: Del The Funky Homosapien.  Teaming up with this legend of Hip Hop will be the upcoming act The Cool Kids. Both acts will embark on a memorable show at The Roseland Theater on September 4th, 2008 as part of MFNW 2008. Del's label Def Jux had this to say about his new record:

"We are proud to announce that the new album from seminal rapper, hip hop icon, and founding member of the mighty Hieroglyphics crew, Del The Funky Homosapien. The 11th Hour, will be released on Definitive Jux on March 11th, 2008. Del is an artist who helped set standard for a new mold of MC/Hip Hop artist in 1991 with the release of I Wish My brother George Was Here, and shortly after with No Need For Alarm in 1993. His last solo album, Both Sides Of The Brain was released in 2000 on Hiero Imperium, the label he founded with other members of his Hieroglyphics crew.

Dels impact on the music world did not end with his solo work of even the albums his label released. At the beginning of the new millenium Del branched out and through his work with Dan the Automator on the Deltron 3030 record and later with the Gorillaz multi platinum first album (and on which he voiced the hit single, Clint Eastwood, Del continued to push the boundaries of the art of MCing and proving that talent and versatility could make rap relevant outside the traditional boundaries of genre.

When asked about working with Def Jux, Del commented: I look at this as an opportunity to spread the gospel a little thicker. El-P and I have known each other for a long time and I respect what he does. I see Def Jux out there doing their thing, I think we can help each other build new audiences. Im looking forward to working with El-P and Def Jux on future projects as well.

El-P added, Del is and always has been one of my favorite artists and people. Its amazing to get a chance to release Dels vision on Jux. The 11th Hour 100% Del. Conceived and produced completely by the man himself. My hope is just to get the record out to as many people as possible and to support the legacy Del and the whole Hiero Imperium have created. Hes one of hip hops true originals and a legitimate leader of the new and true school that we all love."

After a successful 2007 MusicfestNW is pleased to announce its return to Portland, Oregon.  This year's festival will kick-off Wednesday September 3rd and run through Saturday September 6th.  This year we will feature a variety of national, international, regional and local acts all showcased at  different clubs throughout town.  MusicfestNW's official lineup will be released in early July, but be sure to check this website regularly for exclusive updates about the festival.  If you are a band interested in applying to play at this year's festival please go to www.sonicbids.com/musicfestnw.