local Spotlight:
Bg Art Group
Claudia meza
TBA LATENIGHT:
Queer Artists
vENUS x – Future legendary
DJ venus x has been bringing
together the diverse crowds of
nerdy dancers, art school kids,
uptown gays, black drag kings,
skate punks, music snobs, immi-
grants and more to her New york
City GHE20G0TH1K party since
2009. Credited with reinvigorat-
ing the city’s underground night-
life by the New york Times venus
says, “I’m going to play Al Jazeera
in the club, and you’re going to
like it. And it’s going to be cool,
but not weird cool. It’s going to be
like Kanye West and Jay-Z cool.”
Washington High School
SE Stark, Between 12th and 14th
Capacity: 550
Free Admission
All Ages
September 6
10:30-12 am
CHRISTEENE - “Drag terrorist”
CHRISTEENE keeps the man be-
hind the performer (Paul Soileau)
far in the background, succumb-
ing to a sexually infused sewer
of live rap and RnB. The gender
dysphoric goth metal CHRIS-
TEENE challenges traditional
society as purposefully crosses
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the boundaries of charm, grace,
and even good taste.
Washington High School
SE Stark, Between 12th and 14th
Capacity: 550
$5 Members, $7 General
All Ages
September 7
10:30-12 am
ALExIS BLAIR PENNy – With
a voice like an angel Alexis Blair
Penny guides the viewer through
a “live television broadcast”
that features drag, monologues
and a full backup band. What
would be good as just a singer/
songwriter act is taken to the
next level with the performative
juxtapositions of self-deprecating,
fourth-wall-shattering Alex and
lightning-wielding, world-weary,
diva-goddess Alexis.
Washington High School
SE Stark, Between 12th and 14th
Capacity: 550
$5 Members, $7 General
All Ages
September 13
10:30-12 am
Claudia Meza is an auteur. Overachieving and busier than anyone else
holding down multiple jobs can even imagine, she is a collaborator only
in the sense that she directs others involved in her vision. This hasn’t
changed since she began recording music on tape recorders and cutting
up rented videotapes she re-spliced them from her childhood home in
El Monica, California. “[Those tapes] are probably still out there,” she
says, “I didn’t know I wasn’t supposed to do that.” She also went to an arts
magnet high school for theater before continuing in Music Composition
at Evergreen State College. She was a multimedia artist from the very
beginning.
And yet, her idols, such as John Cage, as well as the laid back town around
her, are all about the collective. An openly gay artist, Meza doesn’t con-
sider sexuality hugely relevant to her work but she is quick to remind
you, both purposefully and subconsciously, that she is an unapologetic
Chicana who creates art that speaks to the audience and creates a conver-
sation of substance. Anything else, she says, “…is masturbation.”
Meza got involved with PICA's Time Based
Art Festival in 2009 when they asked her band,
the quickly up-and-coming Explode into Col-
ors, who had just won Willamette Week’s Best
New Band, to play their late night venue The
Works. But that wasn’t enough for her. Instead
she wanted to curate the whole night, bringing
together the varied talents of her band mem-
bers, animated short stories she wrote in high
school and sowed the seeds of what would be-
come another big sound project in conjunction with PICA and Holocene
called New Musics. This project featured a wordless opera and focused of
sound above “music” in a way that paid homage to her Cagian idolatry.
For this year’s TBA Meza takes her love of sound to various corners of
the city with Sonic City PDx. She asked over 30 local musicians to iden-
tify a place where they enjoy the ambient noise, anything from a gently
rumbling freeway to Meza’s own favorite, an outdoor drumcore practice
space under the Morrison Bridge next to the train tracks, and created a
tour incorporating these locales. Using QR codes and online maps on
your smartphone you can access the audio tour that encourages you to
put down the device you just picked up and enjoy the acoustics of Port-
land. you can discuss if this conjunction even makes sense when the
10-day installation takes one day to have a formal performance featur-
ing contributing musicians. Daniel Menche, Luke Wyland (AU), Matt
Carlson (Golden Retriever), Mary Sutton, Eric Mast (E*Rock), Holland
Andrews (Like a villain), Thomas Thorson (Interiors x), and Meza.
various Locations
Free Admission
All Ages
September 6 through 16 (QR Code Tour)
September 15 . 4-6 pm (Live Concert)
soniccitypdx.tumblr.com
September 2012