Rick Emerson | Portland

Appearance on The Ed Forman Show.

I'll be guesting on The Ed Forman Show this Tuesday evening (March 16th) at Dante's.

Described as "The Colbert Report, but with more booze" (or, alternatively, "Stephen Colbert as a libidinous sociopath"), The Ed Forman Show happens every Tuesday, and is described by Willamette Week as "The best entertainment $3 can buy."

Showtime is 9:30pm; see y'all there.

(Read a bit more about Ed Forman and his particular brand of merriment right here.)

Lights...Camera...Chaos - Part Two

Last week's installment of Outlook Portland was -to put it mildly- unconventional. It featured, among other things, numerous references to goats, the show's guests wearing masks of my face, a story from behind the scenes of the movie Twilight, and, at one moment, someone pulling a complete shooting script for Citizen Kane from their shoulder bag.

It was a filmic undertaking that was equal parts magic, mania, implosion, genius, and pure, uncontrolled chaos...

In that way, it was similar to many if not most endeavors in the creative world. And, in true film industry fashion we realized we had no choice but to sequelize it.

This Sunday, we once again welcome Mr. Tim Oakley and Mr. Sigfried Seeliger to Outlook Portland.

As exceptionally accomplished movie and television veterans -their skills with art design, lighting, prop creation, and myriad other creative elements is truly amazing- Tim and Sigfried have a unique insight into the real, behind-the-scenes worlds of film and television.

(If you missed Part One of this extravaganza, you can see it anytime at OutlookPortland.com.)

Outlook Portland, Sunday at 6:30am, only on NW32 TV...the home of Gossip Girl, Melrose, and Rick Emerson.

NEXT WEEK: A double-dose of delectable goodness -- the folks from Secret Aardvark Trading Company and the founders of Holy Kakow (Organic Chocolate Syrups and Powders.) Prepare to drool.

IN TWO WEEKS: Portland author, publisher, and McSweeney's contributor (!) Mr. Kevin Sampsell.

I didn't like Avatar OR Hurt Locker, but I obviously default to rooting for Cameron. If he wins, he should demand that everyone kneel.

Songs that Time Forgot: The Caulfields

Some time back, I had to do the nearly impossible: assemble a list of the "Ten Rock Albums You Should Own, but Probably Don't."

For any music nerd worth his copy of High Fidelity, this was simultaneously the best and worst assignment imaginable. When ransacking your brain and bookcase to compile such a list, where do you even start? What makes the cut, and, even more vexing, what do you leave off? That's the truly hard part...what do you leave off?

As it turns out, one of the things I omitted was The Caulfields' Whirligig, noting that:

"...despite my firm belief that it's perhaps the single most overlooked record of the 90s, it still rings a little too 'alternative pop' to quite make the cut. Fantastic stuff, though, and criminally overlooked."

Until now.

Trying to describe Whirligig has proven exceedingly difficult; my comparisons invariably feel insufficient, a hairsbreadth away from accuracy. Calling it "Elvis Costello meets Cheap Trick" isn't quite right, although vocalist/mastermind John Faye certainly owes his lyricism to the former and thick pop guitars to the latter. Neither is it accurate to call Whirligig "hard rock", even though the record boasts some of the loudest, production I'd ever heard at that point. (The huge guitar sound rivals that of Weezer, with whom The Caulfields share numerous traits.)

The term I often settle for is "power pop", best defined as "catchy pop songs with bubblegum melodies and goddamned loud guitars." Power pop was created by (or at least perfected by) bands like The Raspberries and Cheap Trick, and is practiced today by the likes of Jimmy Eat World and Tinted Windows.

Like so many other styles of bright, vibrant music, power pop never stood a chance in the grunge era; such bands were simply buried under a suffocating, grey avalanche of someone else's flannel. Longtime stalwarts like Cheap Trick were obliged to keep their head down and wait out the storm...even if they did it from the relative safety of SubPop records. Only the British -then incubating Oasis, Blur, and The Verve- proved immune to grunge's atonal hype machine.

Walking directly into this musical storm came The Caulfields: the right band...at the worst time imaginable.

Wearing their influences on their sleeves, shoes, pants, and tongues (I mean, they're called The Caulfields, for Christ's sake), John Faye and his sidemen made loud, catchy, aggressive, smart, wordy, heavy pop music...and were promptly ignored by everyone. (Everyone, that is, except for my friend Todd, who introduced me to their debut CD, Whirligig, an act for which I am still grateful.)

Living in Salt Lake City at the time (itself a suffocating avalanche of sameness), I was primed for anything that contained sharp-tongued, snot-nosed jabs at authority -- especially if it, you know...rocked. And this most certainly did.

Most importantly for me (well, second-most important, after the "rocking" part), was the fact that John Faye, the band's mouthpiece/mastermind, wrote lyrics that spoke to my outlook and worldview. Listening to Whirligig, I experienced what can be called "the shock of self-recognition" (much as I had a year earlier, when I first saw the movie Clerks.)

I'm no politician, I see through their game
It's my demographic they're trying to tame
Well they lump us together, and they give us a name
Rock the vote, you kids, and share in the blame
-from "All of My Young Life"

The ensuing years have moved me far past the "rock the vote" demographic -it's now Millennials being targeted- but his smirking, contemptuous scorn at such manipulation was incredibly satisfying.

Just as powerful were his thoughts on belief in God; in the song "Fragile", John Faye managed to say what I'd always struggled to: that he desperately wanted to believe in a God, but was thwarted by many things...among them, organized religion and his own logical nature:

God, I'd love to make you proud
But I still have my doubts
Perhaps it's all the ones who say they know
They sure put on show
And man, they say it loud
They're not my crowd
And if I can't believe in you
It doesn't mean I don't
I'm fragile, don't let me fall alone
-from "Fragile"

For me -and let me qualify this statement by saying that this is only my opinion, one formed by the myriad external forces that render everyone's outlook unique- The Caulfields' Whirligig is a perfect capsule of what it felt like to be a somewhat-brainy misfit in the 90s.

In short: were I tied down, beaten, and forced to name someone "the musical voice of my generation"...it would be John Faye, at least for the duration of this one album.

Further recordings found them dispirited and scattered -- I don't think they ever recovered from the commercial shrug that Whirligig received. (There may have been other factors at work, too; after breaking up The Caulfields, his next band was called "John Faye's Power Trip", which might reveal a few things.)

But this album...this one, nearly-flawless album...remains. And for anyone newly entering their own, personal age of suspicion, or for those of us who still carry those suspicions in adulthood, a more perfect companion would be hard to find.

"Devil's Diary" is the closest thing The Caulfields ever had to a hit single; it's a great introduction to a band who never quite got their due. (And, although the song's chorus does contain the phrase "bigger than Jesus", that's a coincidence; it has no relation to my stage/film project of the same name.) Click here to listen to "Devil's Diary."

Whirligig appears to be out of print (in the States, at least), although used copies can be found here.

Outlook Portland: Of Art and Artists

In a city such as Portland, art is everywhere; ubiquitous and omnipresent...meaning it can sometimes be taken for granted.

On this week's Outlook Portland, we're joined by two men who work to make sure that -in Portland, at least- art is never overlooked and that artists themselves are given every chance to share their visions with the world.

Chris Haberman is a painter, writer, and musician whose work reflects a rearranging of the world around us. He is also a Creative Director at Portland City Art.

Kaebel Hashitani is Curator at Sequential Art Gallery, and works as an evangelist for visual arts springing from the world of comic books, graphic novels, and related styles. He's also an accomplished artist in his own right, and has a much cooler name than I do.

A fascinating, inspiring look into Portland's support system for the arts -- on this week's Outlook Portland.

NEXT WEEK: Tim Oakley and Sigfried Seeliger, who will discuss the industries of film and television from a candid, behind-the-scenes perspective, as they talk about their art/lighting/production design work on films like Twilight and Indiana Jones and the Terminator: Salvation. [Part 1 of 2]

IN TWO WEEKS: Tim Oakley and Sigfried Seeliger. [Part 2 of 2]

Funemployment Radio, Episode #74.

It was my pleasure to join Sarah X. Dylan and Greg Nibler for part of Funemployment Radio's February 25th installment, covering such subjects as Showgirls II, Captain America, and the improbable surprise that greets an attack by a Killer Whale.

There's also Lost discussion, "Ball Talk", and all the hilarious whimsy you have come to expect from Sarah & Greg.

Funemployment Radio:

Listen here.

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