Even if Wordstock wasn't setting up shop downtown, this busy weekend would be a little more on the literary side of things (although there's plenty of damngoodconcerts to check out as well), what with a city-spanning Lit Crawl, some storytelling Russian Roulette to take in, a pair of author-assisted screenings of amazing cinematic adaptations, and a comedy showcase from the star of Black Books, which was a TV show not actually based on a book at all, so including it there is kind of stretch, but fuck it, it's a good show and you should watch it if you haven't. Other things you should check out: Holocene's pre-election party, Jinkx Monsoon's long-overdue homecoming, and a not-at-all timely screening of what some consider to be Charlie Chaplin's best film. It's a pretty busy weekend; hit the menu below and choose wisely.
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Friday, Nov 4
Lit Crawl Portland
A boozy jaunt to literary parties all throughout downtown's bars and other nontraditional venues for readings, including stops at Literary Arts, Powell's, Sentinel, Tug Boat Brewing, Aesop, Boys' Fort, The Cleaners at Ace Hotel, Oregon Ballet School, and more.
6 pm, Various Locations
Women's Flat Track Derby Association World Championshps
This is it, folks—it doesn’t get any bigger than the Women’s Flat Track Derby Association world championships, hosted by our Rose City Rollers. Sixteen of the best women’s flat track roller derby teams—from London, Montréal, and, yes, Portland—came here to battle it out on the track and answer the ultimate question: Who’s the best in the world? It’s going to be fun. Check out wftda.com for detailed schedules and ticket prices. DOUG BROWN
Nov 4-6, 8:30 am Fri, 10 am Sat, noon Sun, Rose Quarter Memorial Coliseum, $20-125, all ages
Mad Max: Fury Road: Black & Chrome
A brutal, beautiful, two-hour action overdose injected with a welcome feminist bent. Black & Chrome is director George Miller's preferred cut of the film—entirely in black and white.
Fox Tower 10, see Movie Times
Black Cinema 2: A Deep Responsibility To Live Up To
After the Cinema Project and the Black Creative Collective’s successful event back in April, Black Cinema 2’s theme is “A Deep Responsibility to Live Up to.” Portland Community Media hosts a double screening of two 16mm black and white films addressing race, politics, and the need for progressive change: Malcolm X Speaks, a 1971 film by adored television reporter Gil Noble, and Angela Davis at Malcolm X College (1972), which features an interview with Davis discussing the upcoming presidential election after serving 16 months in prison. JENNI MOORE
7:30 pm, Portland Community Media
Secret Drum Band, Nocturnal Habits, Dragging An Ox Through Water
Anything Lisa Schonberg touches is gold. More than just a great drummer, she uses drums as compositional tools that have made bands like Explode into Colors and Kickball great. Always in demand, she's drummed for Mirah, Tune-yards, Tara Jane O'Neil, the Need, and Thao and the Get Down Stay Down, just to name a few. But it's the rare Secret Drum Band performance that brings her into the spotlight. Composing with the space in mind, Schonberg brings together a surprise star-studded cast of five drummers and two noise/tone/sound makers to create an experience unlike any other. JOSHUA JAMES AMBERSON
8 pm, The Know
Peter Hook & the Light
The former Joy Division and New Order bassist and his backing band tackle material off of both band's Substance compilation albums.
9 pm, Wonder Ballroom, $23-25
Doctor Strange
Doctor Strange first appeared in the 1963 Marvel Comics anthology Strange Tales as a crippled neurosurgeon apprenticed to a wise Tibetan sorcerer, the Ancient One. After ascending to the position of Sorcerer Supreme, Strange went on to defend Earth from magical attackers and, eventually, chill with the Avengers. As recently as 2011, Strange was loaning the Avengers his manservant, a Chinese man named Wong. It was kind of fucked up. Now the action-packed, eye-popping Doctor Strange movie reboots Dr. Stephen Strange’s origin story, and Marvel is finally trying to make good on that bad. Doctor Strange might have a lot of baggage, but more than anything else, it’s fun. SUZETTE SMITH
Various Theaters, see Movie Times for showtimes and locations
Speechless
The Siren Theater's improvised PowerPoint presentation show Speechless is back, with the best kind of organized chaos: a delightful lineup of funny Portlanders (including Kirsten Kuppenbender, Chad Parsons, Phil Busse, Joy Eggerichs, Greg Schilling, Leon Anderson, and Jed Arkley) making up lectures on the spot—"TED Talk, startup pitch, even a self-help seminar" are all fair game—to accompany surprise slides and placate a team of judges. Next slide! MEGAN BURBANK
8 pm, Siren Theater, $10
Honeyblood, Hazel English
Bunk Bar serves up an evening of guitar-driven pop-rock with Honeyblood, the Glasgow-hailing duo spearheaded by singer-songwriter Stina Tweeddale, who are currently on tour in support of their brand new full-length, Babes Never Die.
9:30 pm, Bunk Bar, $10
The Leading Ladies in Music Awards Gala
A celebration of the careers and community efforts of Jenny Conlee and Fabi Rayna, including a gourmet dinner, a champagne reception, a live auction, and of course, live local rock, all supporting the Rock 'n' Roll Camp for Girls.
6 pm, First Christian Church, $100-1000
Caspian, The Appleseed Cast
Instrumental post-rock outfit Caspian are able to do a lot of things by singing absolutely nothing, and that's a pretty amazing thing to be able to do. RYAN J. PRADO
9 pm, Mississippi Studios, $15
Back Fence PDX: Russian Roulette—Wordstock Edition
A special edition of Back Fence PDX's storytelling series, adding a competitive element to a normal night of true tales, with performances from Shannon Balcom Grave, Derrick Brown, Arthur Bradford, Caitlin Weierhauser, Anis Mogjani, Kerry Cohen, Alex Dange, and Isaac Fitzgerald. Hosted by B. Frayn Masters and Mindy Nettifee.
9 pm, Mission Theater
Hawthorne Renaissance Fair
To clarify: The renaissance being celebrated here isn't whatever it was that's happened to Hawthorne over the past 20 years. It's the renaissance that includes puffy sleeves and mutton and flagons of mead. That sort of thing. But at a growler fill station.
noon, Growlers, free
Pop-Up Shop PDX
A holiday pop-up market featuring a curated selection of pieces by some of Portland's best makers, with designers including Ciocco, Machete, Fieldwell, Wit & Glory, Primitive Forms, and many more.
6 pm, Modern Domestic
C Average, Diesto, A Volcano, Maximum Mad
Megalomaniacal minimalists C Average have spoken criminally little since their Olympia halcyon days in the late '90s, but luckily there are two releases on Kill Rock Stars that memorialize the band's highly technical rock 'n' roll filtered through a prism of fantasy, sci-fi, and progressive metal. Guitarist/vocalist Jon Merithew and double-bass-drum wizard Brad Balsley are masters of squeezing time and space into hard-edged mini rock operas filled with intense bombast. As a two-piece fireball they perform seemingly as a single brain, freely shredding into melodic hyperspace one moment and then stopping quick on razor-sharp dimes at the next. With bassist John Boyce joining in as a third member, C Average's sonic spectrum of fireworks expands ever wider, turning a show that was already an impressive display of precision into an all-out sensual barrage. CHRIS SUTTON
9 pm, (The World Famous) Kenton Club, free
Saturday, Nov 5
The Great Dictator
So there's an election coming up, apparently? Did you hear? Or maybe you've been hearing about it for years and years and years and are now at the point where you want to ram a screwdriver into your ear so you can stop hearing about it. DON'T DO THAT. Here's a better option: Head to the Hollywood Theatre, where they're showing Charlie Chaplin's must-see masterpiece The Great Dictator—a still-hilarious, still-scathing take on Hitler, fascism, fear, and hatred. For better or worse, it's as relevant today as it was in 1940. Particularly this week. ERIK HENRIKSEN
Nov 5-6, 2 pm, Hollywood Theatre, $6, all ages
Wordstock
Portland’s biggest book festival, Wordstock, is back this weekend, with more space to accommodate our book-loving hordes (last year was CROWDED), and a fantastic lineup including the likes of Alexander Chee, Sherman Alexie, Lindy West, and Sarah Glidden. If you love to read, Wordstock is a goddamn delight, a day to admire your literary heroes and add to your collection at a beautiful, giant bookfair. MEGAN BURBANK
9 am, Portland Art Museum, $15, all ages
Alice Bag, Hurry Up, Sex Crime, Macho Boys
Legendary Latina musician, artist, and author Alice Bag got her start fronting the Bags, one of LA’s first punk bands. She’s done a whole lot throughout her 40-year career, but this past June brought the release of her self-titled solo debut—11 tracks that soulfully blend punk, doo-wop, glam, and traditional ranchera. CIARA DOLAN Read our story on Alice Bag
8 pm, The Know
Genders, Máscaras, Laura Palmer's Death Parade
If Portland had a house band, it’d probably be Genders. The four-piece plays around town all the time, tours nonstop (with Built to Spill, no less), and cranks out new music like a goddamn machine—most recently an EP called Phone Home that they’re celebrating tonight. Its five songs are catchy, riding the line between hazy guitar-rock and sunshiny Coke-commercial pop like they’re on autopilot. They’ve mastered a sound that’s sweet and mild, with a foundation built on honeyed harmonies and layers of reverb-heavy guitar. It sounds great; I can’t say I dislike any Genders song. But on Phone Home, the band stays in the same lane they’ve been in since forming four years ago, and I can’t help but wish they’d pull the rug out from under themselves and try something wild. A few months ago I saw them do a blistering cover of a Sheryl Crow song at Mississippi Studios, and it was delivered with the kind of gory emotional rawness that subverts predictability. This EP is another link in Genders’ daisy chain of solid releases, but here’s hoping they’ll weave in something thorny soon. CIARA DOLAN
9 pm, Mississippi Studios, $10
Hell Hath No Funny! The 10th Annual Siren Nation Festival presents Hell Hath No Funny, a lady-centric night of comedy featuring side-splitting stand-up from Los Angeles-based comedian and past Bridgetown performer Caitlin Gill, who recently wrote for the brilliant new Seeso web series, Take My Wife. Portland's own JoAnn Schinderle and Seattle's Alyssa Yeoman provide support. Hosted by Becky Braunstein.
8 pm, Alberta Street Pub, $12
Moonlight
Moonlight is a movie about what it’s like to grow up male in America. Moonlight is also a movie about what it’s like to grow up gay in America. And Moonlight is, in addition, a movie about what it’s like to grow up black in America. That inevitably makes Barry Jenkins’ justly acclaimed film sound like it will appeal primarily to gay, black, and/or male audiences. And indeed, people who share some or all of its protagonist’s characteristics will be overjoyed at the belated depiction of lives like theirs on screen. But Moonlight, if I can swoon for a moment, does what all true art aspires to do. It shares something unique but universal about what it’s like to be human.
Cinema 21, see Movie Times for showtimes, $8.50
Chuck Westmoreland
The local singer-songwriter and former frontman for the Portland-based indie rock outfit The Kingdom plays a release show for his new self-titled solo album.
9 pm, The Fixin' To
Live Wire! Radio: Wordstock Edition
A special Wordstock edition of Portland's preeminent variety show, featuring Jonathan Lethem, Emma Straub, and musical guest Blitzen Trapper. Hosted by Luke Burbank.
8 pm, Aladdin Theater, $25-35
Club Nitty Gritty: DJ Action Slacks
If you're looking for a dance night that sets the evening on fire, check out Club Nitty Gritty, hosted by the always down for a good time DJ Action Slacks (Shannon Wiberg). She's been pounding the turntables for years with righteous choices in down-home dirty soul—the kind with raw sax and voices that wail and scratch. WM. STEVEN HUMPHREY
9 pm, (The World Famous) Kenton Club, $5
OPB's Think Out Loud: Sherman Alexie
If you live in the Pacific Northwest, you (I hope) know Sherman Alexie, who's written a staggering amount of devastating and funny fiction depicting the experiences of people living in Native American communities in Washington State, from Reservation Blues' indictment of both the recording industry and Marcus and Narcissa Whitman, to The Absolutely True Story of a Part-Time Indian, which was supposedly for teenagers but really appealed to everyone. Alexie's also devastating and funny in person. MEGAN BURBANK
10 am, Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, $15-18
Contact
Probably the last thing Bob Zemeckis did that could truly be considered "good," before he wandered into mo-cap wilderness to flounder away whatever filmmaking goodwill he'd accrued to that point. And there was a lot of it following this adaptation of Carl Sagan's novel, featuring one of Jodie Foster's best performances as Dr. Ellie Arroway, a researcher who becomes an astronaut in order to finally meet the extraterrestrial life she's been trying to communicate with all her life. Post-film Q&A with Lily Brooks-Dalton and Dan DeWeese.
7 pm, NW Film Center's Whitsell Auditorium
Richard Dawkins
A discussion between the world-renowned author and atheist and special guest Charles Simony, on the subjects of science, reason, and humanism.
7 pm, Eliot Center, $29-225
Hir
A veteran returns from war having seen unspeakable things and harboring deep psychological wounds. He has trouble finding his place in society again. A familiar plot? Yes, but at Defunkt Theatre, Taylor Mac’s hero-comes-home family drama Hir is a droll and intelligent subversion of the genre, a romp through queer theory and problematic masculinity. In one of Hir’s first productions in this country, Defunkt Theatre has shown an outstanding capacity to make theater that’s challenging, but takes care of its audience, too. KATIE PELLETIER
7:30 pm, Common Grounds Coffee House, $15-25
Stewart Villain, Donte Thomas, Samuel the 1st, DG, Laine, Dee Styles, Skoobie HD Star
Portland-based rapper and in-demand producer Stewart Villain plays a release party for his new album, Walking Cliche.
8 pm, Hawthorne Theatre, $7-15
Sunday, Nov 6
PWR BTTM, Bellows, Lisa Prank
While most of Oliver Kalb’s music released under the moniker Bellows conjures the acoustic intimacy of Elliott Smith or Sufjan Stevens, “Orange Juice” (from his September release Fist & Palm) is a game-changer—here the Brooklyn musician/producer sings through heavily auto-tuned vocals over electronic backbeats. “Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter” resonates with Aaron Cop- land-esque grandeur, and “A Sordid Ending” cuts loose over aggressive guitars and percussion as Kalb recalls hot-blooded encounters with an emotionally unhinged father figure. On her debut full-length, Adult Teen, Robin Edwards of Lisa Prank captures the biting wisdom of adolescence, especially on songs like “Luv Is Dumb.” WILLIAM KENNEDY
9 pm, Mississippi Studios, $10-12
Dead Ringers
Director David Cronenberg had been finely honing his almost supernatural skill for cinematic creepiness for most of the 1980s, but it was '88's Dead Ringers, starring Jeremy Irons as twin gynecologists, where he synthesized body horror, psychological horror, and barely navigable surreality to a scalpel-sharp point. Which he then used to cut the audience's sense of comfort to bits. Q&A with novelist Jonathan Lethem and journalist Casey Jarman to follow.
7:30 pm, NW Film Center's Whitsell Auditorium
A$AP Ferg, Playboi Carti, Rob $tone
A$AP Ferg’s father made a living creating custom apparel for the likes of Bell Biv DeVoe and P-Diddy, so it’s easy to understand the Harlem rapper’s career trajectory. On his latest album, Always Strive and Prosper, Ferg calls upon the genre’s greats (Missy Elliott, Migos, Chuck D, and more) to illustrate a narrative that’s laced with nostalgia and references to rap’s yesteryear. He shares stories about home and family without losing his signature edge (“Hungry Ham,” an ode to his neighborhood, is a banger in the truest sense of the word), and raps about navigating the lifestyles of the rich and famous. The A$AP Mob oozes coolness, so it’s nice to hear a member of the hip-hop collective reminding us that he’s just a normal guy who used to work day jobs before he started donning Alexander Wang and meticulously curating his Instagram account. EMMA BURKE
8 pm, Roseland, $26.50-97.50, all ages
Dylan Moran
The Irish comedian, actor, writer, and creator of the excellent British sitcom, Black Books, brings his critically acclaimed stand-up show Off The Hook to the Aladdin Theater.
8 pm, Aladdin Theater, $40
The Vaudevillians
After a long run at the Seattle Repertory Theater in 2014, and performances in the UK over the last two weeks, Jinkx Monsoon and Andriessen alter-ego Major Scales are bringing The Vaudevillians to Portland for a homecoming that’s long overdue. Jinkx plays the role of Kitty Witless, and Major Scales is her piano-playing husband Doctor Dan Von Dandy. The fictional onstage duo are vaudeville stars who were frozen alive in the 1920s, and thawed out nearly a century later thanks to global warming, only to find that pop stars like Madonna and Lady Gaga had ripped off their songs in their absence. They return to the stage to set the record straight, making a slew of cocaine jokes and performing “their songs”—popular singles made famous by the likes of Britney Spears, M.I.A., and Janis Joplin—as if they were written in the 1920s. Expect to be impressed by Jinkx’ powerful pipes, and Major Scales’ innovative arrangements, but try not to laugh yourself so far into tears that you can’t even see our local star shine. JENNI MOORE
7 pm, Alberta Rose Theatre, $35-70
Control Yourself
JoAnn Schinderle's weekly stand-up showcase is now also a podcast, featuring sets from local and national comedians followed by an open mic.
8:30 pm, Alberta Street Pub, free
The Lower 48, Crushed Out, Bruiser Queen
These Minneapolis transplants have been hard at work playing shows in Portland bars for several years now, and they have refined their sound from bland folk to a much richer-sounding psych-pop. Powered by clean guitar riffs, quick, sometimes jazzy drum beats, and beautifully executed vocal harmonies, the Lower 48's musical presence is manicured without crossing into bubblegum territory. CAMERON CROWELL
9 pm, Rontoms, free
Make America Nice Again
Holocene hosts a pre-election shindig with stand-up comedy by Andie Main, Barbara Holm, Caitlin Weierhauser, Mohanad Elshieky, Margarita Gutierrez, and David Wester, along with music from Sam Coomes, LoveBomb Go-Go Marching Band, OK Chorale, and very special headliners, Built to Spill! Hosted by Jed Arkley.
6 pm, Holocene, $10
Lubec, Alien Boy, Helens, Floating Room
Lubec’s second full-length, Cosmic Debt, is both claustrophobic and dynamic, a 12-song encapsulation of the moment when you start to wonder about your own “cosmic debt” credit score and whether or not you’re in the red. This transitory feeling is reflected in unpredictably reactive drumming from Matt Dressen; Eddie Charlton’s geometric, calculated guitar riffs; and Caroline Jackson’s fuzzed-out classical piano. The result is carbonated shoegaze, too fizzy and frenetic to be dreamy but too distorted to feel like reality. CIARA DOLAN
8 pm, Lola's Room, $5-10, all ages
Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony
Guest conductor Hans Graf will take the podium for what’s probably the biggest “hit” of the Oregon Symphony’s fall season—Beethoven’s Sixth, the lovely and lyrical “Pastoral” symphony. It’s tough to hear the piece’s loping theme without getting bucolic visions of meadows and streams in your head, and hearing the simulated thunderstorm of the fourth movement live and in person should be a sensory experience not easily forgotten. Also on this bill: Robert Schumann’s not-quite-a-symphony “Overture, Scherzo, and Finale” and Swiss composer Frank Martin’s Concerto for Seven Wind Instruments, which I haven’t heard but I assume is better than my annoying neighbor’s Concerto for Seven Wind Chimes. NED LANNAMANN
2 pm, Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, $23-105, all ages
Portland Fashion and Style Awards
A gala event honoring the city's best designers and celebrating its creative community, with proceeds helping benefit the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.
6 pm, Portland Art Museum, $35-150
Don't forget to check out our Things To Do calendar for even more things to do!