Boom Bip with Mice Parade

Read the Pitchfork interview with Boom Bip here.

With every project, Boom Bip pushes himself into new styles and new techniques. He has recorded a handful of albums of sample-based music, including the Doo Doo Breaks series of DJ tools. But with every record he's exploring new tactics: the track "Voodoo Science" from his debut album features live vibes work, and in Cincinnati he's collaborated with several jazz players-- for example, collaborating and doing remixes for a group that performed John Zorn's game improv piece Cobra. He even recorded his next album, Seed to Sun-- due out on Lex Records this September-- almost entirely without samples, playing the music and making the beats himself in his home studio.

From its outset, Mice Parade has shown a boldly inventive and highly individual take on post-rock / electronica. Following 1998's Bubble Core album, 'The True Meaning Of BoddleyBaye', their first FatCat album, 'Ramda' (‘99), forged a distinctive, immersive audio space of piled-up percussion and atmospheric, hook-laden melodics.

2001 saw the release of a third album, ‘Mokoondi’, which marked a shift in the Mice Parade sound, including the increased influence of Eastern harmonics and African beats, and the formation of a proper band of musicians. What started out as a studio project has since developed into a full touring band, based around the cheng (Chinese harp) and a two-drumkit rhythm section, with HiM’s Doug Scharin on the other kit. Also in accompaniment are vibes, violin, classical guitar, rhodes piano and old synths, forging Mice Parade into a seriously talented and energetic live unit.

8:30, $8, 18+

Why? + Miss Ohios w/ The Hot Tarts

WHY? is a folk-pop, indie-hop, psych-rock quartet that operates out of the Oakland / Bay Area under the bold banner of the anticon collective. At the band’s helm is Yoni, who—with his candytime-dissonant, singsong-suicide style—has developed his signature sound over several projects: the lo-fi thought-rap of Greenthink (with doseone), the critically lauded dreamscape crunch of cLOUDDEAD (with dose and anticon DJ/producer odd nosdam), and the hushed bedroom aesthetic of Reaching Quiet (with nosdam). With Miss Ohios and Portland favorites The Hot Tarts. 8:30p, $6, 18+ ON SALE NOW

Thursday Night Thing:
PowerPoint Art

With apologies to David Byrne, we've asked artists far and near to submit projects created in PowerPoint--that ubiquitous, soulless and visually uninspired platform that lets corporate America feel tech-savvy and graphic-design oriented. One critic said that he "found it limiting, inflexible, and biased, like most software. On top of that, PowerPoint makes hilariously bad-looking visuals." Another says "the PowerPoint style routinely disrupts, dominates, and trivializes content. Thus PowerPoint presentations too often resemble a school play - very loud, very slow, and very simple." TNT seeks to work around these constraints to find beauty, humor, or life.

First Friday Artwalk

Main Gallery:
The Beehive Collective:
Cross-Pollinating the Hive

Front Window:
Patrick Schmidt:
Untitled 003

Beehive Design Collective / Cross-Pollinating the Hive
The Beehive Design Collective presents its first gallery show in Maine at SPACE this month. Based in Machias, Maine, the Beehive is an all-volunteer, art-activist collective that has gained international attention for its collaboratively produced graphics campaigns focused on globalization and militarization. Extensive travel and dialogue with communities affected by the myriad faces of corporate globalization form the source of its imagery. This gathered information is then woven together and converted to drawings to create the intricate quilt of the Bees’ visual narratives. Using plant and animal interactions as metaphors for broader human problems, the Bees’ large-scale black and white murals are as educational as they are aesthetically pleasing. Also included in this show are smaller original drawings as well as stone mosaics.

Patrick Schmidt / Untitled 003
Patrick Schmidt’s vibrant abstract paintings and installations adorn the Storefront Window and Front Room at SPACE this month. Derived from wallpaper and fabric sources, Schmidt inverts tradition by using unconventional materials and by creating unusual relationships between his pieces. By exploring latent imagery created at the intersection of multiple panels, Schmidt’s work deals with ideas of space by considering how we perceive, interact, and experience paintings and drawings within a specific context.

Deerhoof and nedelle

By turns cuddly and chaotic, San Francisco's Deerhoof mixes noise, sugary melodies, and an experimental spirit into sweetly challenging and utterly distinctive music. Nedelle's voice is silky smooth and just a little bluesy. She writes some great tunes to be certain ... but her voice will likely be her strongest asset in the years to come. Despite her youth, she sings with a maturity and confidence that is missing in many artists twice her age. 8:30p, $8, 18+

The Corporation

"The Corporation" explores the nature and spectacular rise of the dominant institution of our time. Footage from pop culture, advertising, TV news, and corporate propaganda, illuminates the corporation's grip on our lives. Taking its legal status as a "person" to its logical conclusion, the film puts the corporation on the psychiatrist's couch to ask "What kind of person is it?" Provoking, witty, sweepingly informative, The Corporation includes forty interviews with corporate insiders and critics - including Milton Friedman, Noam Chomsky, Naomi Klein, and Michael Moore - plus true confessions, case studies and strategies for change.

Winner of 24 INTERNATIONAL AWARDS, 10 of them AUDIENCE CHOICE AWARDS including the AUDIENCE AWARD for DOCUMENTARY in WORLD CINEMA at the 2004 SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL. The long-awaited DVD, available now in Australia and coming in March to North America, contains over 8 hour of additional footage.

The film is based on the book The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power by Joel Bakan.

7p, Free, All Ages

With a discussion led by Rep. John Eder of Portland

The Beehive Collective:
Plan Colombia

This graphic is the product of many intercambios about the issue of colonialism in the Andean Region of South America that took place between our collective and organizers over the spring of 2002 in Ecuador, Colombia and the U.S. These exchanges of information and inspiration were collaboratively sewn together into a quilt of images, that are organized into a circuit of progressions and contrasts that inform and engage the viewer throughout their journey of the graphic.

The long history of colonialism in the Americas, currently manifested in the Andean Region as "Plan Colombia", is a strong metaphor of the multi-faceted destructive influences of U.S. foreign policy and corporate monoculture on a global scale. This graphic attempts to expose the lie of the drug war as a smokescreen for multinational corporation's interests in extraction of the rich biodiversity and natural resources of the Amazon and her peoples. It is an anti-war poster that speaks in the mythology of our times… the cancerous monomyth of corporate globalization, and its antibodies of grassroots resistance.

In an attempt to overcome the tendency of images to simply portray "what we are against," this graphic illustrates this story in three "layers" to help the viewer experience the different aspects of an extremely complex, and brutal situation. The mission was to give an illustrated explanation of not just the nightmare, but to also give weight to the inspiring stories of hope, courage and struggle of those that are directly experiencing it. As North American youth that have endured the destructive and racist brainwashing of television, videogames, cultural appropriation and advertising imagery, our collective felt it was essential to produce this representation in collaboration with organizers in the Andean region, to get the story straight. The result, is thick with those voices. The tools produced from this collaboration are being distributed, as anti-copyright material, for use in campaigns in both the South and North of the Americas. 7p, all ages

Taking Pictures and Balloons

Chicago rock trio Taking Pictures has eight years of sonic exploration under their belts, and are hailed for the power and precision of their live shows. Tokyo based Balloons come off like early-Karate, a less-abrasive Bluetip, or a less-progressive Faraquet. Their sophisticated indie rock uses clean, staccato guitars, a crisp rhythm section, and Kyosuke Fujimoto's melodic voice to propel its songs. 8:30p, $5, 18+

Lunchbox with Jarrett J. Krosoczka: A Curious City and SPACE Event

HEY KIDS! Did Mama listen to the Clash? Did Daddy stage dive? Did your Uncle once have green hair? They were P-U-N-K in their day. Come to the Lunch Box Series and discover YOUR inner punk. With more rockin' art supplies than you can imagine, the Lunch Box crew and picture book artist Jarrett Krosoczka will help you transform a plain picture of you into a punk rock you! (Pictures taken at the event--no need to bring your own). Ages 4+. 1p, $3/person, $5/family

2005 Best Music Poll Festival

The Portland Phoenix celebrates the best in local music with the Phoenix Best Music Poll Festival. Appearing at SPACE are three of our favorite local acts: Phantom Buffalo, Adam Flaherty and Graham Isaacson. 8p, $5, 18+

Akimbo with Conifer

Akimbo may quite possibly be the most destructive band you have ever had your ear drums torn apart while listening to. With song titles like "When I Am King I Will Spit On The Corpse Of Ray Manzarek," "Lick The Knife," and "Paul Reubens Theatre" you know they mean business. Careful songwriting leads to some of the most brutal anthems our ears have heard in a long time. Akimbo is poised to reign the kingdom of screamy hardcore, and we will all kneel to the power. Conifer opens, and they're loud, too. 8:30p, 18+

SPRING Art Sale

Everyone could use a little Spring cleaning, and artists are no exception. The Spring Art Sale is a chance to pick up some of what's been kicking around these artists' studios. We'll be hosting jeweler Dawn Hovey, illustrator David Kish, Garry Bowcott, Pat Corrigan, Kyle Durrie, Chris Keister, Mike Libby, and more. 6-9p, free

Creative Conversations

Creative Conversations is a way to connect creative individuals: to each other, to individuals, to organizations, to information, to opportunities. 7p, Free, All ages

Documentary Film:
Spectres of the Spectrum

Spectres of the Spectrum plunders director Craig Baldwin's treasure trove of early television shows, industrial and educational films, Hollywood movies, advertisements and cartoons, combining these with live-action footage, no-budget special effects, and relentless narration to generate a wholly original paranoid science-fiction epic. BooBoo, a young telepath, and her father, Yogi, are revolutionaries pitted against the "New Electromagnetic Order". Their story, set in the year 2007 in a blighted Nevada outpost, is interwoven with a history of the development of electromagnetic technologies, from X-rays to atom bombs, from television to the Internet. (1999, 94min.)
7p, $5, all ages

[ UPCOMING ]

6.01.05 | Wed | Richard Buckner with Anders Parker and Darien Brahms.
6.02.05 | Thurs | Stinking Liz with Darediablo and Money Castasia
6.03.05 | Fri | First Friday Artwalk with ART BITES BUFFET
6.04.05 | Sat | Hollow Mountain Music: Certain Numbers, Carlisle Sound and Ponies in the Surf
6.09.05 | Thurs | TNT with the ICA at MECA
6.10.05 | Fri | Andy Friedman: The Slideshow Poet
6.11.05 | Sat | The Lunchbox Series with Lizzy Rockwell
6.11.05 | Sat | Sara Cox with Graham Isaacson and Jon Nolan
6.18.05 | Sat | 2nd Annual PROM
6.23.05 | Thurs | Film: AV Geeks "Blackboard Bungle" AV Geeks present an evening of old school films about - interestingly enough - the hazards of going to school in the 1960s and 70s. Films include - Our Obligation, Lunchroom Manners, How Quiet Helps at School, And Then It Happened and more! Door prizes!

And always more to come...stay tuned.

We’re looking for new members!
Information on memberships is available on our website at http://www.space538.org/pages/membership.php