POH-HOP: KRIZZ KALIKO, JFK, KENNY MACK, SAPIENT, MANIAC LOK, & MORE(Backspace, 115 NW 5th) Hiphop heads unite, it's time for the 12th POH-Hop festival, the annual salute to all things hiphop. They're pulling out all the stops this year, bringing in some of their biggest names yet, and loading every show with a bevy of local eager emcees ready to win you over. Tonight bask in the insanity that is Tech N9ne protÉgÉ Krizz Kaliko. His spastic "funkra" really does blend elements of opera and funk with hiphop, which is just as bizarre as it sounds. EZRA ACE CARAEFF
JARAD MILES IN BIRDCLOUD, BARRY BRUSSEAU, JOHN VECCHIARELLI(The Woods, 6637 SE Milwaukie) Tonight marks the occasion of local singer/songwriter Jarad Miles' two new releases: an EP of older material called One Million Years, and a full-length entitled Rocketship documenting his move to Portland in 2008. Rocketship in particular is a wonderful, weird record, in which standard singer/songwriter tropes are submerged in a bath of spindly parlor piano, County Derry brass, Fantasia strings, and angelic old-Hollywood choirs, all led by Miles' Isaac Brock-like bleating and braying. "He Once Was a Friend of Mine" is a gaspingly good funeral song, with earnestly strident glee-club backing vocals and a crescendoing arrangement; the title track's lyrics describe the wind shaking a tree's leaves, while its delicate instrumentation sounds like exactly that, even before it introduces an overdub of howling wind, which, astonishingly, doesn't sound pandering or gimmicky. His band, Jarad Miles in Birdcloud, is joined on the bill by another local singer/songwriter, Barry Brusseau, who also has a brand-new record readied for tonight's show.
NED LANNAMANN
A complete listing of this week's shows can be viewed here.