This Week in Local Music: Hustle & Drone, Malt Ball
Editors' note: This is the second installment in a new regular Culturephile feature where we'll pick the week's standout local-music shows and tell you why you should turn out.
Hustle & Drone (with New Move and Béisbol), Funhouse Lounge, January 31
Be camera-ready for this show: local-ish (Salem) duo Hustle & Drone (one half of which is former Portugal. The Man keyboardist Ryan Neighbors) is filming the performance to share its unrecorded material with fans beyond Portland before hopping the pond this spring for a European tour supporting Austrian group Steaming Satellites. Not that anybody would need more than Hustle & Drone's 2012 self-titled EP to want to see these guys live; the debut is a collection of startlingly well-put-together electronic pop with its production in the clouds but its beats firmly grounded.
Listen to a song from Hustle & Drone's self-titled EP:
Watch the cheesy and uncomfortable-making VHS-styled music video for "The Beating Heart":
Hustle and Drone - The Beating Heart from Ryan Rothermel on Vimeo.
Malt Ball, Wonder Ballroom, February 2
No roundup of local-music happenings this week would be complete without Malt Ball, a one-day beer-and-bands festival put on by Oregon Craft Beer and our frenemies at the Portland Mercury. Sip Oregon-made craft beers from brewers such as Double Mountain, Ninkasi, and Fort George as you drink in Radiation City's singular salmagundi of soulful vocals, tropical rhythms, and dream-sequence effects; the indefatigable punk of And And And; and the slinky, silly retro-pop of Minden, a sextet that arrived in Portland from Kansas City last summer with a full-length album, Exotic Cakes, in hand, and has been fast seducing local fans since.
Stream the first track off Minden's Exotic Cakes:
Play the totally goofy music video for "Gold Standard":
