Papercuts - Friday @ Doug Fir Lounge (830 E Burnside)
Jason Quever (pictured), the man who records under the name Papercuts, perfectly acheives the kind of perfect analog, hollowed-out psychedelic pop sound that dozens of Nuggets acolytes would kill for. His latest album, You Can Have What You Want (out on Devendra Banhart’s label Gnomonsong), is a near-masterpiece of Farfisa-laden dreamscapes, over which Quever opines about leaving Earth for good or searching for a royal successor.

Chores/The Pink Widower - Friday @ The World Famous Kenton Club (2025 N Kilpatrick)
A pair of Portland’s best young bands is teaming up for a benefit show in support of Child-Aid. The money earned from this event will help go towards building a library in the town of Las Canoas in Guatemala. That really should be all the recommendation that you need, but the added bonus is getting to see Chores’ raw, grinding rock and the downtempo grooves of The Pink Widower live.

Zaimph - Monday @ Valentines (232 SW Ankeny)
With all the chatter going on about Sonic Youth’s alternate tunings and their arsenal of guitars, it seems like the perfect time to be reminded of what real noise can be eked out of a six-string? Zaimph wrenches sheets of sound from a guitar, mixing it with her own howling voice to create a beautiful, devastating din.

David Byrne - Tuesday @ Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall (1037 SW Broadway)
Your favorite former Talking Head is coming to town this week for a show that will highlight the work that he has done over the years with producer Brian Eno. This will include tracks from their latest collaborative album Everything That Happens Will Happen Today, as well as songs from the trio of albums Eno produced for Talking Heads.

Deastro - Tuesday @ Holocene (1001 SE Morrison)
If the ticket price for Mr. Byrne’s show is too prohibitive (it certainly is for me), might I recommend another show taking place on the other side of the Willamette. This one features the fantastic Deastro, a group that produces spritely electro-pop that is equal parts “Baba O’Reilly” and “Blue Monday”.

M64 - Thursday @ Someday Lounge (125 NW 5th Ave)
Tonight’s edition of The Fix - Someday’s weekly hip-hop party hosted by Rev. Shines of Lifesavas - is being used to celebrate the release of a new 7″ single by M64, the collaboration between singer Ragen Fykes and producer Ohmega Watts. The lead track, “Rhythm of the Drums” (a sample of which can be heard on Fykes’ MySpace page), is a lovely slice of dreamy vocals and vintage neo-soul beats. I can’t wait to stop by and pick up my copy.

It is fitting that to round out the 25th year of performances at Teatro Milagro (Miracle Theater) that the theater would choose The Shrunken Head of Pancho Villa as the capstone for the ‘08 - ‘09 season. Written in 1964 by Luis Valdez, this surreal, farcical Villa was one of the first agitprop plays to peel apart the experiences of Chicanos living in the U.S., as well as being a catalyst for the formation of an L.A.-based theater, El Teatro Campensino (The Theater of the Farm Worker). This vibrant performance house helped inspire dozens of Hispanic playwrights and actors, as well as setting the spark that would result in the founding of this Portland-based theater in 1984. Teatro Milagro is familiar with Villa, as well, having staged it in the theater’s infancy, in 1990.

This affinity with both the play and its legacy helped spark an air of excitement for its return to the cozy confines of Milagro, one that quite obviously infecting the actors as they threw their collective all into this off-kilter look at Chicano stereotypes and cultural assimilation.

The play concerns a Hispanic family living in Los Angeles in the ’60s that, in Valdez’s hands, represents the typecasting of the day (Dad is lazy alcoholic, son Joaquin is a juvenile delinquent, the whole family on welfare) taken to outlandish extremes. The capper, though, is eldest son, Belarmino (played with comic aplomb by Vincente Guzmán-Orozco) who is totally dependent on his family due to the fact that he is nothing more than a head.

This unusual, but relatively stable household is upended by the return of Mingo (Danny Moreno), an ex-G.I. who immediately sets about trying to “normalize” his family within American culture. What follows is an exploration of extremes - erasing one’s ethnicity completely for the sake of assimilation or defiantly embracing your roots - spurred on by Mingo’s ridiculous posturing and Belarmino’s claims that he is, in fact, Pancho Villa.

While Villa lays out its themes in rather broad strokes, the actors on the whole responded admirably by underplaying their parts. As the parents, Jose Gonzalez and Bunnie Rivera - both veteran actors who worked on the 1990 production - especially stood out, balancing the undertone of social commentary with the play’s more ridiculous elements nicely.

Performances are at the Milagro Theatre (525 SE Stark St., Portland).

Sunday night Luminous Things will be playing at Rontom’s here in Portland. Luminous Things is the newest project from Durango Park founders John Kwon and Katie Griesar and journeyman drummer Ned Folkerth. If you like NW indy rock with a strong Velvet Underground influence, you will like these guys. Don’t take our word for it, download the tracks.

Luminous Things - A Stranger

Trivia Note: Drummer Ned Folkerth was in Dave Allen’s first Portland based band Squall.

Portland all-star band Blue Giant, a country-rock outfit made up of folks from Viva Voce, Quasi, and the Decemberists, has debuted a digital version of their new EP entitled “Target Heart” exclusively via eMusic. The CD version is slated to ship on January 13th followed by the 12″ vinyl release on March 10th. You can catch them live at the December 19th taping of Livewire!.

Details here - MusicFestNW and I’ll be posting videos, photos and interviews here - Pampelmoose.