#the twins look so like scrappy it fits them perfectly

[saturnniidae]

Httyd 1 Astrid my beloved... I miss her slightly crooked teeth, and the little freckles on her forehead. I love how she's all grimey (affectionate) the visible dirt on her skin, and her greasy looking hair and bangs that get in her eyes. Come back to me little grungy young Astrid I miss you and your anger issues </3

[skara-da]

What swords does Cam use?

They are described as a pair of short, practical, plain looking, curved blade weapons.

As a swordfighting buff I've personally narrowed it down to three equally tantilizing options that are not "just machetes"

Kukri, a sort of long knife from Mongolia. I have zero historical context on who uses them and how they use them, this was the first weapon it sprung to my mind because of bloody One Piece. When I was eleven or something I saw on tv the anime episode with some guy double wielding kukri and that was my first exposure to them, so in my mind they can be double wield.

Look at this doofus I don't even like One Piece

Butterfly swords, used in wing chun and other chinese martial arts, always in pair. Not that I ever practiced any wing chun, to my understanting, watching katas, you can use both weapons at once to block and both weapons at once to strike, creating a flurry of perfectly coordinated slashes. For you to decide if this would count to be a "grease fire" style of fighting. Maybe, to the Nine Houses Cavaliers, used to a rapier-and-offhand system, in which you mantain control of your opponent's blade with one weapon and go for a opening with the other, Cam going loud would seem extremely daring.

Dussack, babyyyyy! The european short, single edged, curved bladed weapon in my heart. To my understanding it is also an umbrella term in german for any weapon with those characteristics, like a pirate's curiass, but I am talking about the late medieval-early reinassance. They came in two form factors:

Preppy swordies with complex hilts

The lockjaw hazard

I can't decide which version I like more for Cam to wield. The complex hilted one are much more in line with the Houses rapier aesthetics, on the other hand the "just a single retorted steel piece with some taping as a handle" fits in with the scrappiness of the Sixth and the fierceness of the "gease fire".

In conclusion

I like the butterfly swords the most for the simple fact they are made to be twin blades and I respect a martial art tradition, most of the times they are rooted in solid fighting logic. Make sure to correct me if I have made any mistake or wrong assumption, I was just playing with my limited knowlege to find a nice headcanon

[revchainsaw]

The Crow (1994)

Alright Cult of Cult. Do I really need to introduce this one? Let's get all 90s and gothy and maybe brace ourselves for a bit of cringe, but like in a fun way. It's the Holy Grail of Hot Topic, 1994's the Crow Starring Brandon Lee.

Sermon

Apparently before the auto industry totally crashed Detroit was already a total fucked to death pile of burning shit, or at least that's what the crow would have you believe. Sorry Bruce Campbell, and other people from Detroit, but mostly Bruce Campbell. According to the Crow the city of Detroit is the kind of place where gangs of warlock anarchist arsonists will bomb buildings, and murder and rape whoever they feel like and then walk around bragging about it the next day with absolutely zero consequences. Funny then that if Detroit was so bad they had to go to film this movie in Wilmington North Carolina which is definitely a fucked to death pile of burning shit. I can say that, I'm from there and I got the fuck out. My brother is going to kill me if he ever reads this. (It's okay, these are all jokes people). Did you know they also filmed the Super Mario Bros movie there ... also cuz they needed a really shitty looking distopia. Moving on ...

The ludicrous criminality of the Crow's Detroit is particularly on display on Halloween. In Detroit (apparently) Halloween is known as Devils Night and it's legitimately just a night of pure lawlessness and chaos and kids aren't even safe to get candy, except later when we do see trick or treaters. Eric Draven, hunky goth rocker who sort of looks like he could be Bruce Lee's Kid and his fiance are murdered by a gang of vicious criminals. One year hence, Eric is resurrected by a mystical crow (that is actually a Raven), to exact his revenge on the gang that murdered him.

He paints his face like sad Alice Cooper and refuses to listen to Joy Division, just covers. He murders Tin Tin (a knife guy) just for his long gothy duster, he murders Fun Boy and forcibly ejects heroine from her arms and tells her "Go be a good mom now" which actually works. (have I told you about our Lord and Savior Sting? He gave me the strength to get off drugs), he blows T Bird up dick first, and then comes for Skab? Scraap? Scooby? in a meeting of all of Detroits villains and just about kills them all.

He is supported by the most 90s little girl to have ever graced the screen, and I am here for it, and Officer Albrecht, who's played by Ernie Hudson but I like to call him Zeddemore: The Most Underrated Ghostbuster. The leader of the bad guys, who I cannot beleive wasn't played by Brad Dourif or Tom Waits, is pretty interested in the occult. He keeps his witchy girlfriend around and she makes him fun dishes like smoked eyeballs, and her main use is that she knows that the Crow is the Crows weakness. They set Tony Fucking Todd on the bird, and I guess you just have to hurt the bird and not kill it, and Eric loses his healing factor and other macabre undead powers.

The Crow, Jimmy the Raven, pecks out Dr. Girlfriends eyeballs, I honestly forget how Tony Todd gets offed, and Top Dollar gets Gargoyled (that is impaled on a gargoyle). Funnily enough that is more Gargoyle related impaling on screen then in the actual movie Gargoyle: Wings of Darkness where a Gargoyle is supposed to have impaled a guy.

The Benediction

Best Feature: Injustice League

In the Crow we have not only a set of super memorable villains but they are played by the bad guy all stars. John Polito as the most lowly of the bad guys as a kind of sleazy pawn shop owner who buys ill gotten gains. Tony Todd, who's size is really on display here, the freaking Candy Man is in this movie. T Bird is the head of Top Dollars goons and is played by David Patrick Kelly, you might know as the "Warriors Come Out and Play!!" bottle guy from the Warriors, or as Jimmy Horne from Twin Peaks, and of course Top Dollar himself is played by Michael Wincott. Wincott is not a particularly celebrated actor but has played villains effectively in Robin Hood, the Three Musketeers, and Dead Man.

Best Set Piece: Detroit Style Hot Dogs

The Set design of the Crow is perhaps one of it's most fantastic features. It's very moody and ethereal. It's just real enough to not take you out of the film, but fantastic enough to set mood and theme above realism. From Eric Draven's apartment, to the church where the final battle occurs they are all fantastic. I think that's why I really wanted to shine the spot light on a very minor set piece that would get nary a mention but just as effectively represents the qualities I was just talking about and that is the Maxi Doggs Hot Dog Stand, where a lot of the films exposition for audience surrogates takes place.

Worst Effect: Freeze Frame

At a few points in the movie the film makers made a strange decision to do these freeze frame transitions. I only noticed it twice in the movie where it was particularly stupid. I'm sure the film makers at the time thought it was a moody and atmospheric choice that highlighted the suffering that Eric Draven was going through, but it didn't age well. If you don't have the sensibilities of a goth girl from 1994 then it's very very hard not to laugh at just how self involved the movie is about it's super sadness.

Worst Feature: Tragic Accident

Solely based on the film itself, it is that very gothic and dated sensibility that hurts the Crow. The little sarcastic dance he does when he flees the police, quoting Edgar Allen Poe, and bowing to Albrecht. These affected behaviors that I'm sure seemed snarky and right on to the target audience only serve to make Eric Draven seem like an unbearable neck beard edgelord and not the troubled dark soul he's supposed to be. I'm sure at the time it seemed unique and gothy but that shit went out of style for good reason, people could see through it. It's a shame that the Crow himself was some of the cringiest parts of this movie now that I'm seeing it as an adult and not a 13 year old middle class boy with no real problems.

This however is not the low point of the movie. It's not news now and if you're reading some dudes review of The Crow on Tumblr then you probably already know the story. The worst thing about The Crow is that Brandon Lee was horrifically killed on set while filming this movie due to some negligible prop malfunctions. A series of unfortunate events that lead to the actor spending 6 hours in surgery fighting for his life before eventually passing. It was not a quick or painless death and it's really impossible to watch the movie without an appreciation for the fact that this kind of fun dark adventure was going to be a vehicle for Brandon Lee's career wound up taking his life. He was 28. I really wish I could have just bitched about the goofy goth stuff and moved on, but that's not the world we live in.

Best Effect: The Gargoyling

Maybe I should have called this best kill. But I'm not sure which it is. The slaying of Top Dollar at the Climax of the film was just super effective. The pointed wings impaling his chest and that horn coming out of his mouth, it was morbid and excellent and just fit the tone of the movie perfectly. I mean how many other movies can you say Cause of Death: Impaled on a Gargoyle.

Best Bird: The Raven

I tried very hard to look up the name of the bird that primarily performed in this movie and could not find anything. There was a Raven once upon a time called Jimmy the Raven, but that was in the 50s and I don't think birds live that long. There was a team of Ravens performing as the crow, they were chosen over crows for their larger size, and more imposing silhouettes. I just think it's so wonderful to see these often maligned birds get a chance to show off their talents. Corvids of all kinds are incredibly intelligent creatures. Im a sucker for animals, if you haven't already figured that out. I really liked seeing the ravens hit their marks, particularly the one whos job it was to drop the wedding ring into Sarah's hand at the end of the film. You can see that greedy little bastard do his trick and then look of camera at his trainer like "treat please!". It's very cute.

Best Actor: Top Dollar Performance

I'd love to take this opportunity to just put praise upon Brandon Lee, he truly gave everything for this role, but unfortunately with what was put to film we actually have very few character moments with Eric Draven. Stuff happens to him, and he does killings and fights. There's definitely some personality, but I felt like I walked away knowing almost nothing about who Eric Draven was. He was clearly a good dude but that and a few hobbies and a relationship and you don't really have a character yet. He's unfortunately not given a lot of acting to do, instead just relegated to stunts and action sequences. That were notably cool.

The bad guys in the Crow have a lot more character and among this who's who of character actors, Michael Wincott takes the cake. Hell he was standing next to Candyman himself, Tony Todd and still stealing the scenes.

Best Character: A Few Good Apples

Is the best character in The Crow really going to be the cop? The commissioner Gordon stand in? yeah, it is. Not to be political, but I don't like cops, but I guess in a world with magical birds and eyeball smoking I can suspend my disbelief and let Ernie Hudson be #1 cop dad. His character is really the heart of the film, since all Eric can do is brood and fight, we have to care about someone in this movie.

Best Sequence: Halloween Party

The best sequence of the movie is of course the scene where Eric Draven busts in on the Devil's Night party planning commission. I think Top Dollar brought Scrappy Doo there just so he could lure out the crow, knowing the baddest assholes in all of Detroit would be gathered it was likely that somebody was going to kill the beast, or if they couldn't at least Top Dollar could get a feel for his enemy. It's a bullet flying action sequence with a ton of weight. I can't put my finger on this all to common weightless third act problem that big budget super hero and action flicks have nowadays, but whatever that issue is, the Crow does not have that issue. From this point on the Climax feels earned and I am invested. For that reason, The Crow is honestly better in spite of its awkwardness, than many of the super hero movies out today.

Worst Sequence: My Guitar Gently Weeps

Speaking of brooding or fighting. The best sequence was fighting, the worst is brooding. I get that Eric was in a band or something, but didn't he have shit to do. It seemed like it was a cool idea for a shot, but for like a whole seen, watching somebody play an 80s guitar solo, that stood out so brazenly from the choices of music in the rest of the movie was extra corny. It felt like someone's( dad trying to relate to their kid. Oh you like Music. The Dresden Dolls eh? Oh man, then you're going to love Slash's Snake Pit!

Summary

The Crow is dated. It is iconic but I wonder how many of the people that hang that poster on the wall have watched that movie since they were kids. It's interesting how what i've liked and disliked about this film have changed so much sense I was a kid. It's a cheeseball fiesta. If you have matured at all beyond thinking that being sad is the same as being deep then you're going to like it a little less than you did when you were younger, but it is still solid. There's not much to hate on. I'd watch it over and over again. I was really afraid it would not hold up at all, but returning to The Crow was a completely positive experience.

Overall Grade: B

[thesmokeydogs]

Ironwood Custom’s ‘The Interpreter’ BMW R100R Scrambler

About Ironwood Custom Motorcycles

      Redefine - Reimagine - Renew - Reinvent - Reshape

Nice to meet, ''Bold & Minimalistic'' at the same time, we are Ironwood! IWC Motorcycles is a Dutch custom garage founded by Arjan van den Boom & Partner in 2012. Together we customize, conceptualize & realize motorcycles to one-of-a-kind vintage machines, piece by piece! Let’s start first with; we are crazy about bikes, pretty much all of them as noticed on first glance but our hearts will skip a beat when seeing properly manufactured cafe racers around the globe.

The actual journey of taking on the build, tear down the bikes to its bare bones and rebuild them from the ground up provides us that all-time high. Our L-O-V-E for custom motorcycles is no secret so every project we handcraft will have its own specific details and key features to tell its own story.  Throughout the process of building, we mostly envision our bikes as mean and fast ''brat style” or ''bobber'' rides with a few touches from the industrial universe of the 20th century. 

We constantly have new ideas shuffling in our heads and when it comes to finding the perfect tailored solution for each assignment, we will be challenged by conventional concepts blended with innovative defiance. 

We achieve to deliver a work of art on every vintage machine, turning scrappy metal into gold! Each bike has it's own unique design and character, depending on budgets involved.

We perform semi projects, full rebuilds, build to sell and modify customer motorcycles into killer bikes!

We like to be different and get the most out of life. Our vision is to apply a mix of creativity. Some vintage, some with a modern twist. 

Paint The Town, Ride Ironwood!

 Ironwood Custom’s ‘The Interpreter’ BMW R100R Scrambler

Ironwood Custom Motorcycles has built a dozen BMW R customs in the last five years and the client has chosen the right shop. When a client approached Ironwood Customs with very specific requirements, the pressure to deliver was on Arjan van den Boom. His ability to visualize someone else's wishes are as refined as his motorcycle building skills and he turned a tired 1992 BMW R100R into this beautiful black scrambler brat, usually called' The Interpreter. 'Since he enjoyed the surroundings and hospitality of the Ironwood display room in leather sofa comfort, he had built up an idea of what he did and did n't want; and he was firm in his view! “ We do a lot of tailored solutions but for us, this bike reflects the interpretation of the specific demands from our customer. We tried to read each statement or comment from him and convert it directly onto the design of his BMW,” explains Arjan.

The first task was to find a specific donor and it wasn't long before BMWs were popular in the Netherlands. An old motorcycle collector had just the right bike for sale and the cash was handed over to him. At Ironwood, it was torn down and the team was able to work the way forward with non-negotiable customers " spoked wheels, big chunky tires, bulky gas tank, mono shock, and a floating seat. " In order to ensure that the entire team was on the same page, Arjan developed a design and work could begin.

Chassis modifications were initially introduced with the standard subframe thrown aside and the Ironwood signature seat post, which protrudes nicely from the welded backbone. This fits the customer's floating seat style, but he also dreamed of some swingarm changes. “The one-off rear shock design challenged us to execute it properly as envisioned on paper by the customer in advance of the project,” Arjan tells Pipeburn. While the stock bike uses a mono- shock, the client wanted it to move further in the right frame rail.

Arjan was clear that he didn't want to make the swingarm a bulky metal mess to fit the design, so instead of guessing something so vital for the performance of the bike, he reached the HyperPro suspension wizards. Together, they developed a nice solution, perfectly welded new mounting points and custom-made for the HyperPro shock fitted for good measurement. With everything glued and excess tabs removed, the frame, swingarm and a bunch of different pieces were sandblasted and sent out for black powder coat dusting.

 “the welded headers are to die for and merge under the motor in a hand-built twin exit muffler.”

With the bulk of the motorcycle out of the shop, the engine was opened and treated to a complete rebuild to make sure for trouble-free riding. The Bosch ignition was replaced by the entire electronic and adjustable system of Silent Hektik. While the fuel side is still fed by Bing carbs, they have been revised and re-jetted to the K&N pod filters. But here the amazing exhaust system is stealing the show and that is Marcel's work from The Custom Factory. The welded headers of full stainless construction are to die for and merge under the motor in a hand- built twin exit muffler.

The assembly started with the new rear suspension bolted up and the hubs hung up front and rear. They are tied to new black rims and wrapped in the Heidenau K60 dual sports tyres, the choice Arjan 's. The front suspension keeps the standard externals lowered by the powder - coated triple trees, the internals being changed to match the new rear end setup. Plenty of weight removed the factory Brembo twin disc brakes are more than capable of hauling up the blacked-out beauty.

The previous model tank gets the look spot on and has a Monza filler for good measurement. The deep gloss black paint contrasts perfectly with the matte graphics, the company motto of the customer, painted by Jacco from Royal Kustom Works. The floating seat request is completed by a solo and stitched by Miller Kustom Upholstery. The front headlight has a modern interpretation of the classic style with an LED set- up and the rear indicators feature clever taillights installed into the outer rings.

All the factory wiring was removed and replaced by only the best from Motogadget with an m-unit as the operating brain. A set of Motogadget m.blaze turn signals works with bar end mirrors on the braced bars. While things are kept minimal with an offset motoscope mini that serves as the instrument cluster to recreate a killer build beemer. BMW R builds have become a staple of the custom scene, for good reason, and as long as workshops like Ironwood Customs can translate the dreams their customers into rolling masterpieces they will continue to be the moto du jour par excellence!

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A post shared by Arjan Van Den Boom (@arjanvandenboom) on Dec 6, 2018 at 5:34am PST

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[ Ironwood Customs – Facebook – Instagram | Photos by Paul van ML ]

Story by: Pipeburn.com

[rockandrollportlandor]

GOOD CHEER RECORDS HOLIDAY SHOWCASE

I've expressed before my affection for Good Cheer Records, a local label that emerged from the DIY all ages indie rock scene in Portland, but whose personnel have connections and influence in the mainstream of local and national indie music. Geek rockerMo Troper, also a writer for the Portland Mercury (cleverly disguised as Morgan Troper), even scored the coveted Pitchfork review, something which has eluded many of the best bands in town at the moment. Troper, the label's co-founder with Blake Hickman, has vanished to Los Angeles, replaced by Maya Stoner, a performer in several GC bands. Kyle Bates' project Drowse has seen praise from Vice's Noisey blog and SPIN Magazine, while another one of the label's star acts, Little Star, have gotten great reviews all over the place, including here on ROCK AND ROLL PORTLAND, OR. My favorite Good Cheer band, Mr. Bones, is sadly over, but the label, with so many other good acts, has hardly been damaged by these shifts--or a scandal that saw Jackson Walker, a member of Good Cheer band Naked Hour, excommunicated in the wake of his much younger ex-girlfriend's allegations of physical/emotional abuse. Good Cheer's bands are each unique, but broadly speaking they traffic in a hyper-sincere, heart-on-sleeve, guitar-based pop/rock that seems to trace its roots back to the 90's and early 00's, a time before MP3s--or at least a time when a single MP3 took a whole morning to download. It's the art-damaged cool and guitar abuse of bands like Pavement and Sonic Youth injected with the bloodletting melodicism of emo and the sweetness of twee-pop. It's a reminder of the truth in that old quote about Pavement being "the band that launched a thousand Weezers." These tendencies make the label's roster a refreshing departure, perhaps even a necessary counter-reaction, to the various fusions of psychedelic rock, dream pop, and blissed-out oddball party music so often seems to dominate Portlandian "pop". The earnestness of Good Cheer's bands, which the label proudly declares free of "mercenary ambition", makes a lot of what was represented by 2016's now-tainted "Mt. Portland" compilation seem positively decadent. On the other side of the coin, that comp's hip groups, often resented across the music scene for their perceived complacence and supposedly undeserved "fame", offer a sense of easy fun and trippy euphoria that the Good Cheer bands often lack--the label's name is pretty ironic, since good cheer is just about the last thing you'll get from most of these bands. Rather, they provide what Kurt Cobain ambivalently called "the comfort in being sad," the paradoxical sense of suffering as painful but life-affirming. At best that means a strangely joyous catharsis on the other side of the pain, at worst it might be written off as wallowing, navel gazing, and irksome preciousness. It's not for everybody, but it's way up my moody emo kid alley. These bands' music is about intimate feelings--even at its most bombastic, it's introverted almost as a rule, and perhaps that's how they create the feeling that they're Your Special Band, even when you're, as I was on this December Wednesday night, surrounded by a bunch of other people watching them. Good Cheer maintains the sense that their acts are the best band in your shitty hometown, who you see in some basement when you're 17, and finally, you've found a place where you fit in, finally, some people who speak for you. Perhaps the ideal place to see these bands is indeed someone's basement, but it was also fitting to see them in a major mid-sized venue like the Holocene--it was a sign that Good Cheer have emerged from a scrappy underground operation to become a major force in that vague genre known as "Portland pop". I didn't catch the entire show, which crammed six acts, successfully, into three hours, but the first group I caught was ALIEN BOY, one of the moodier bands on this moody label. Frontwoman Sonia Weber sings with the lovelorn yearning of Morrissey, but without the sass--unlike with the Moz, we never wonder if she's just milking it. The guitars hiss like TV static and twinkle like stars seen out a car window in the vanishing autumn, the rhythm section sprinting with teenage energy, paradoxically despondent and enthusiastic. At the Holocene, Weber's vocals seemed pretty off key a lot of the time, but it didn't really matter. The melody's largely in the guitars, and even the melody isn't that important. It's the mood the band creates with all of these elements that makes them such a powerful emotive unit. Even off-key, Weber's vocals are the definite not-so-secret weapon here, her contralto timber pitched perfectly in the dead center of the human vocal spectrum, neither male nor female, and therefore unusually universal in a social order still cleaved traumatically in two by a gender binary inherited from a religious order no one even believes in anymore. The group's latest EP, "Stay Alive", is a fantastic piece of gothic power pop, the fury of the instruments on tracks like "Burning II" contrasted to heart-rending effect with the vulnerability of Weber's vocals. These guys are one of my favorite acts Good Cheer has in its corner for 2017. Next up were a pair of musical twin bands, both involving Kyle Bates: DROWSE and FLOATING ROOM. Drowse is the more ambient of two, creating a storm of darkly psychedelic mood energy, as if Bates were some mad scientist attempting to isolate The Feels in their pure plasma form. Bates has been admirably candid about his struggle with clinical depression, even in his press releases, and some of his music is meant to be a literal translation of these horrifying experiences in musical form. As a person who's visited similar hells, I can definitely relate, and if you haven't, Drowse can give you a taste. It's the kind of music you bathe in almost more than listen to. I find it pretty hard to articulate with a vocabulary developed for pop songs--do yourself a favor and just listen. Undergirding the pure emotional whirlpool is a theoretical edge, at least according to Drowse's bio, which references Roland Barthes and Sarah Manguso alongside Mt. Erie and Unwound. I'm pretty sure those are uncommon influences for an indie music bio. Floating Room is the more conventional indie rock side of Bates' muse, but he still hangs in the background, and Maya Stoner writes lyrics and sings lead, while he continues his role as a sound-sculptor. Under this moniker he deals in his version of the Good Cheer house sound, described on the group's Bandcamp page as "the type of sadness felt at 4 in the morning, reserved for the heartbroken and the nervous." The guitar squalls of Drowse, almost more like weather patterns than music, wash over the structure of the songs like photo filters, providing a depth and texture that the more purely rock n roll acts on Good Cheer can't touch. Eschewing the crunchier "alt rock" guitar tones and punk rock enthusiasms of Alien Boy, Mr. Bones, or Cool American for a generously reverberated, fuzz-soaked, more plodding sound, Floating Room crosses definitively into shoegaze territory. It's gloriously eerie and ice-cold in temperature. It's the perfect soundtrack for walking through the woods in the snow, when all sounds are muffled by the falling flakes a the beautiful deathly calm seems to pervade the landscape--and it is a landscape, one you can seemingly gaze far into. On some tracks, the band is almost too delicate for this world, and the sounds seem made of glass, or icicles, ready to crash and fall the moment the temperature gets back above freezing. It's music for winter, for the low-hanging winter sun, gone as soon as it comes up, peering over the leafless treetops, secretly gathering power again once the solstice has passed. TURTLENECKED, the stage name of Harrison Smith, came up next, playing a very short set. Lanky and nervous, he paced the stage, singing R&B songs about being neurotic and narcissistic and romantic, all from electronic backing tracks played from his laptop. It was a very amusing break from all the intensity--even as he sang about heartbreak or unrequited love, Smith was funny, unlike anyone else who I saw perform that night. The stuff on his Bandcamp is mostly minimal indie pop, just electric guitar and drums, very dressed down and sparse, focused on Smith's deadpan vocals, both snarky and pathetic, but always charismatic. An older album, "Pure Plush Bone Cage", was fuzzier and noisier, but Smith's newer style, clean and clear, works better, matching the music's emotional exhibitionism. This presumably even newer R&B stuff is another pretty much genius leap forward. Turtlenecked captures the fine line between self-pity and self-aggrandizement, or rather signals its non-existence, refusing to apologize for anything--or else apologizing for everything--it doesn't really matter which--who ever believes an apology anyway? Good Cheer's brand can, as I said above, come off as overly precious, but Turtlenecked is an exception--one gets the wonderful sense that he barely even believes himself, but it's only the same sincerity of his labelmates doubling back on itself. Morrissey knows this trick well--it's basically his bread and butter. While most of the Good Cheer bands seem to work as band entities, Harrison Smith of one of the few who doesn't really need a band, or for whom any backing band would only be a backing band. He's just an entertaining and engaging enough figure in his own right--perhaps only Mo Troper, among his labelmates, rivals him for sheer personal charisma. Finally was the band I was most keen on seeing, COOL AMERICAN, named for a brand of Doritos. It's the project of singer-guitarist Nathan Tucker, a serious-looking dude who blew through the set with apparently great anxiety, often failing to sing directly into the microphone, seemingly wound tighter than a human can be wound. The band's tall bass player, Tim Howe, with his goofy grin and a santa hat borrowed from Maya Stoner, provided the necessary humorous counterpoint. Cool American's style is a pleasantly loose but melancholy power pop, filled with breezy riffs, mid-tempo grooves and smoothy shifting tempos and beats. But there's also a punk edge in it--at some point in every song, Tucker upshifts into a cathartic yelp, from which I felt sympathy pangs in my own vocal chords, before this explosion of his nervous energy receded, and he began to recharge again. Tucker's vocal range is limited, but the melody's in the guitars, spinning circles around each other, swirling and looping when they aren't exploding. Probably the most direct example of my Pavement-meets-emo description above, Cool American's unusual combination of mellowness and tension feels very much like West Coast life as I've come to know it, the cycle of putting up a veneer of "no worries" chillness and having it break down in the face of un-chill reality, only to put it up again, because fuck life, life should be better than it is. Better to try and fail to be chill and hopeful than live in cynical detachment. And for all their moodiness, the Good Cheer bands are never cynical. They don't just express heavy feelings, they believe in them, affirming their value and meaning in a society that usually runs scared from them. Unlike so much of the buzzy music in Portland, these bands never come off as careerist--you get the sense that any day one of them might break up because so-and-so had to move away for school or whatever. One could be cynical in response and argue that this sincerity is just another brand, but if so, I'll take it over the glassy-eyed smugness and empty glitz of so much of what passes for indie music these days. Long live Good Cheer.