Aladdin Theater - Upcoming Shows

Wishbone Ash demonstrates ‘The Power of Eternity’ on their longest tour in 38 years. When the lights go up, the hum of the endless road is lost to the unmistakable strains of those twin-lead guitars and the cheers of the crowd, symbiotic exchanges between band and audience that spark each and every night and make everything worthwhile. Life on the road has seduced Andy Powell and Wishbone Ash for 38 years. During the next six months, the band will tour intensely to promote two new releases: “The Power of Eternity,” a studio recording featuring the current lineup; and a DVD and double-live CD soundtrack, “Wishbone Ash Live in Hamburg,” recorded this year at Germany’s famed club, The Fabrik. DDubbed the "Eternity Tour," it has brought the band to many familiar stomping grounds in Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Holland, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States.

"Variety for the ears, Vaudeville for the mind", Portland's own eclectic radio variety show recorded here at the Aladdin and aired on OPB radio throughout the state, is back for another season of intellect meets irreverence; interviews with intriguing meets oddball, extraordinary musical guests; original sketch comedy with Faces for Radio Theater, and house band Ralph Huntley and the Mutton Chops. Billed by the Oregonian as "the retro-hip kid sister of A Prairie Home Companion," why don't you come on down and see what all the fuss is about? www.livewireradio.org for schedule and information.

The day before Blue Rodeo released their 11th studio album, Small Miracles, the band loaded themselves up in a van and did something they had never done before. For ten hours that day, one of Canada’s most popular bands played on street corners all around the downtown core, shocking fans and stopping local traffic. For a band that has become woven into the fabric of Canadian life, it just seemed to make sense to step down off the stage and serenade the public on its way to work. By today’s standards, it can be called a small miracle if a band stays together for five years and records two albums, but what would you call it when a band has been recording best selling albums for twenty years? Though it was no intended that way, it seems most appropriate that Blue Rodeo called their new album Small Miracles. The thirteen track album, once again features the storied songwriting talents of Jim Cuddy and Greg Keelor. Recorded throughout the Spring of 2007, Small Miracles was produced by Blue Rodeo and Chris Shreenan-Dyck. The album’s first single is the rollicking “C’mon”, for which a video has been shot and directed by longtime collaborator Chris Mills (Modest Mouse, The Tragically Hip, Broken Social Scene). Inspired by “Paddle To The Sea,” the video chronicles the journey

From their days playing together as teenagers to their current acoustic and electric blues, probably no one has more consistently led American music for the last 50 years -- yes! -- than Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady, the founders and continuing core members of Hot Tuna. The pair began playing together while growing up in the Washington D.C. area, where Jack's father was a dentist and Jorma's father a State Department official. Four years younger, Jack continued in junior high, then high school -- while playing professional gigs as lead guitarist at night before he was old enough to drive -- while Jorma (who had played rhythm guitar to Jack's lead) started college in Ohio, accompanied his family overseas, then returned to college, this time in California. For the last few years, Jorma and Jack have been joined in most of their Hot Tuna performances by the mandolin virtuoso Barry Mitterhoff. A veteran of bluegrass, Celtic, folk, and rock-influenced bands including "Tony Trischka and Skyline" and "Bottle Hill," Barry has found a new voice in working with Hot Tuna, and the fit has been good -- watching them play, it's as if he's been there from the beginning and they're all having the time of their lives. Jorma and Jack certainly could not have imagined, let alone predicted, where playing would take them. It's been a long and fascinating road to numerous exciting destinations. Two things have never changed: They still love to play as much as they did as kids in Washington D.C., and there are still many, many exciting miles yet to travel on their musical odyssey.

The Yoshida Brothers were born and bred in Noboribetsu, Hokkaido. Each picked up the shamisen at the tender age of five, and began studying Tsugaru shamisen under Takashi Sasaki I in 1990. After sweeping prizes at national Tsugaru shamisen conventions, the brothers made their major debut in 1999. The debut album sold over 100,000 copies, which is an extraordinary figure for a traditional folk music release. They won the “Traditional Japanese Music Album Of The Year” category of the 15th annual Japan Gold Disc Award, as well as the “30th Anniversary Of Normalization Of Japan-China Diplomatic Relations Commemorative Special Prize” of the 17th Annual Japan Gold Disc Award. The Yoshida Brothers & their music created buzz in the US as their music was used in the TV commercial of Nintendo’s Wii. The end of that year, the brothers flew to the US again to record their much-anticipated album that is yet to be released. As one of the artistic groups whose scope of activities go way beyond that of traditional Japanese music, the Yoshida Brothers continue to take not only Japan but also US, Europe, and Asia their stage. Their future activities are all the more looked forward to.

3 years less 3 days ago I put out my last record. The night before I spent 13 hours on a Greyhound bus going from Canada to New York City for an appearance on the Late Show with David Letterman. As fate would have it, my flight was cancelled after a massive storm blew into the eastern seaboard, closing all NYC airports. When I reached the border, the customs officer was quite amused by my reason for going to New York. “To perform on a late-night television show,” I said. She probably thought I was nuts, but let me get back on the bus. I later recalled someone backstage saying to me, “You know, honey, most people just cancel.” Not likely. And so, two years after my first album Failer was released, a year and half of amazing times followed. I got to play on Austin City Limits, open for Willie Nelson, John Prine, Aimee Mann, My Morning Jacket, John Mayer and Bryan Adams. I was invited to perform at Farm Aid ( I cried when Neil Young played “Old Man”), played the Grand Old Opry (Colin, my husband and bandmate wore his original Nudie Suit!), had a song in Cameron Crowe’s Elizabethtown, toured Australia, Europe, in a van, in a tour bus, by plane, by ferry, solo and with a band…... and then home. In January 2007, I started working with Jim Scott at Plyrz studios. I had wanted to work with Jim ever since I read his name on the back cover of Whiskeytown’s Strangers Almanac. We hit it off so well mixing my last album Back To Me that it was an easy decision to go back for more and have him work on this new album Asking For Flowers. A dream come true, I had to frequently pinch myself having him by my side during the making of this record.

2006 marked the return of Vancouver’s Dan Bejar with his seventh full-length release under the moniker Destroyer. If there has been any precedent set or pattern developed over the previous six recordings in the Destroyer canon, it’s that Bejar holds little regard for convention or expectations. Never one to rest on laurels, each successive Destroyer release always explores new sonic territories and ideas. We love Dan for that. The album is titled Destroyer’s Rubies and the opening track, “Rubies,” sets the tone well. It’s 9 and 1/2 minutes long, a sprawling epic that opens with the phrase: “Cast myself towards infinity, trust me, I had my reasons" the perfect summation of the Destroyer aesthetic. Destroyer’s Rubies is a collection of shrewd pop music that takes no prisoners and asks no pardons. Equal parts cynicism, disdain, hope and humor; self-referential, self-mocking, sagacious and coy. There is mythology here, there is history, there is heartbreak and there is triumph. Follow along as Bejar leaves his breadcrumb trail twisting through the crumbling forests and bleak landscapes of modern popular music. It’s all heady and ecstatic. Trust him, he has his reasons.

Dan Reed first began his musical journey as the lead singer of a band called Dan Reed Network. During the release of their three albums with Polygram between 1988 and 1991, DRN had the honor of 'seeing the world', opening for such bands as RUN DMC, UB40, David Bowie, Bon Jovi, eventually leading to becoming the supporting act for the Rolling Stone's 1991 European tour. It was at this time Dan journeyed to India with Bob Guccione Jr. to interview the Dalai Lama for Spin Magazine. It was during this journey that Dan began to hunger for more than what the pop/rock music scene had to offer. After the break of the Seattle Grunge scene and with his newly found interest in pursuing a different path, Dan saw the writing on the wall, and disbanded the network and renewed his passion for the arts in other area's. He then started an independent record company in his hometown of Portland, Oregon. With the upcoming release of "Coming up for Air", Dan Reed has crafted a group of songs that mirror's his journey. With songs composed from Hong Kong to New Dehli, Jerusalem to London, he has come full circle to do what he has always done best- create, and most importantly... to sing to all who will listen. "What I have learned most on this path is that music brings people together and in a world of war, corruption, disease, and environmental destruction... 'together' is a good direction. I am constantly inspired and hopeful for the future of music. It is an amazing playground to feel connected inside and out. This creative journey has been a very wild and harrowing ride, but the view has been worth the price of admission."

Charles Band, whose 270 plus films as founder of independent sci-fi/horror studio, Full Moon Pictures, established him as one of Hollywood’s most successful cult movie impresarios, has announced that he will stage the second incarnation of his Full Moon Horror Road Show this fall. This one night only show is a horror-palooza of sorts. Cult Horror Film Director Charles Band packs his shows to the brim with puppets, creatures and rare film clips. For horror movie fans and fans of the PUPPETMASTER film series, this event will feature upcoming new release film trailers by Full Moon Features, surprise celebrity guest appearances, question and answer sessions with the Director and his cast, original puppet and doll auctions, hot chicks, unique merchandise and novelty items, audience participation and interaction, and live special effects demonstrations!!

Between the blue iris and the black of pupil is a perfect ring of white. Peter Murphy is of all three colours, but at heart and burning harder than the rest is that radiant pure non-colour. It finds its reflection and resonance in the stark intensity of German expressionist chiaroscuro lighting, adopted and put to great effect by that entity of which we both form a part, known as Bauhaus. It radiates outwards from the stellar heat of the performance space which holds an audience in thrall. It reverberates in union with the walls of Mecca and the sanctified cloth of Muslim garb. It is the colour that obliterates all other colour. Its scintillant flood drowns out the dark. It is the first and the last. The very molten core. Peter Murphy is a self contained pantheon of gods. He exhibits qualities that are, in turn, Dionysian, Apollonian, and Mercurial. At times he walks in step with angels, though on occasion a darker path is traversed. Demons rise to draw his blood, a black panther licks at it's trail. This creature is his dream stalker, archetypal symbol of the nightside of ego, a sensual monster who's nose blooms with the fragrance of pungent floral aromas, the beguiling lure to ensnare its besotted prey.

Paula Cole's fourth album, Courage, is about starting over. Born the daughter of musicians in Rockport, Massachusetts, Cole grew up singing for fun; American songbooks, traditional folksongs, Christmas carols, a capella harmonies. While finding kindred spirits in records, she became a fixture in her school musicals, which catapulted her toward a scholarship for the Berklee College of Music in Boston, where she studied jazz singing and improvisation. "I wanted to get inside the chord structure of songs, so that I could improvise inside the changes, " she says. "but it wasn't meant to be... "I began writing my own songs, and it took me down another path." While a senior at Berklee, she was offered a deal with a jazz label, but declined. "It came too easily, and I didn't want to be limited just to jazz. Something wasn't quite right. So I continued singing weddings and waitressing as I tried to find my inner songs." From today's perspective, she has created her finest album: tender, tough, older, wiser... Cole steers her way through the manifold experiences of an adult American woman who has seen much, lost much, gained much, and yet has regained her innocence. It feels like the work of a woman who is in the right place at the right time. Getting to that simple place, as we all know, takes Courage every day.

Hey, it's me, Jude. I was born outside of Boston. My Dad used to sing us songs all the time on his folk guitar, and my mom would sing with us in the car, probably like a lot of you. It was great. Then I grew up. Then I moved to Los angeles where I really started writing. I played some open mikes and got some attention, made a red tape to sell at shows, made 430 N. Harper Ave., and then it kept going. Got lost in the Warner Records vortex for a while, toured around the world, on the radio, met a lot of huge stars and played with some of them. Fell off the mountain and most of them lost my number - wait, at one point ALL of them lost my number. That's ok, I got a great new phone now. These days, I only care about you, and being in your car, or staying on your iPod, which seems like it's working. You can find my songs in stores, at CDBaby.com, on Itunes, or just from your friends. Please keep passing them along - that's why I keep writing. My little children, my songs. Come and say hello at our real home, www.judemusic.com ...and no, I'm not sporting this much facial hair (below) anymore, although it's always fighting to come back. If you're REALLY missing the beard (or the sideburns), you should check out my side project, the Low Stars, which is threatening to take over the world! Click on us above and watch all the madness, or go pick up a copy at Starbucks in February. And yes indeedy, that's me/us singing on What About Brian every monday night. See you out there.

Suede - Imagine a cross between Ella Fitzgerald and Bette Midler, add a dash of Louis Armstrong, and you might get some idea of Suede's unique musical talents and abilities. One part rat pack and one part Rosie Clooney, Suede is the "Diva la Difference" and the swinginest singer in town! Think sophisticated pop/jazz, think naughty blues with a sizzling trumpet, think love songs that will make you swoon, think funny, think- Wow-what a voice! Lisa Koch - singer/songwriter/comedian/Britney Spears body-double...Picture the triangulated love child of Bette Midler, Lily Tomlin, and Karen Carpenter... and you’ve got Lisa Koch. An irreverent Seattle singer/comedian, Koch (“Coke”) is a deliciously twisted mix of comedy, theater, and demented songs. She also finds time to work as an actor, appearing in "The Vagina Monologues,” "Dirty Blonde,” and as the Wicked Witch of the West in “The Wizard of Oz” (5th Ave Theatre). She performs regularly on Olivia Cruises, is touring her one-woman cabaret show, “Return to Planet Lisa”, and is the composer of a new musical about Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas (“27, rue de Fleurus”), premiering Off-Broadway in the spring of 2008. Koch’s latest CD (“Tall Cool Drink”) contains the internet hit, “I’m a Middle-Aged Woman.”

Over the years, Frisell has contributed to the work of such collaborators as Paul Motian, John Zorn, Elvis Costello, Ginger Baker, The Los Angeles Philharmonic, Suzanne Vega, Loudon Wainwright III, Van Dyke Parks, Vic Chesnutt, Rickie, Lee Jones, Ron Sexsmith, Vinicius Cantuaria, Marc Johnson (in "Bass Desires"), Ronald Shannon Jackson and Melvin Gibbs (in "Power Tools"), Marianne Faithful, John Scofield, Jan Garbarek, Lyle Mays, Vernon Reid, Julius Hemphill, Paul Bley, Wayne Horvitz, Hal Willner, Robin Holcomb, Rinde Eckert, The Frankfurt Ballet, film director Gus Van Sant, David Sanborn, David Sylvian, Petra Haden and numerous others, including Bono, Brian Eno, Jon Hassell and Daniel Lanois on the soundtrack for Wim Wenders’ film Million Dollar Hotel. This work has established Frisell as one of the most sought-after guitar voices in contemporary music. The breadth of such performing and recording situations is a testament not only to his singular guitar conception, but his musical versatility as well. This, however, is old news by now. In recent years, it is Frisell's role as composer and band leader which has garnered him increasing notoriety.

Nearly 40 years after its formation, Ten Years After continues to stand tall among the greatest blues-rock bands ever. The band caused a sensation at the legendary Woodstock Music and Arts Festival in 1969 thanks to their incendiary encore "I'm Going Home," and the dreamy "I'd Love To Change The World" was a huge hit single in 1971. These two songs only tell part of the story of a band whose tireless touring and recording have generated a solid body of work as any in rock 'n' roll history. Keyboardist Chick Churchill, bass guitarist Leo Lyons, drummer Ric Lee (no relation to Alvin Lee) and new vocalist/lead guitarist Joe Gooch are showcasing their considerable talents for audiences all over the world. The quartet's double live album 'Roadworks' -- recorded at concerts in France and Germany -- was first released in Europe in late 2005 and it's the follow-up to the studio album 'Ten Years After ...... Now' issued earlier this year.

Orchestra Baobab are one of Africa's great iconic bands, creators of one of the world's most sublime and truly distinctive pop sounds. Founded in 1970, Orchestra Baobab fused Afro-Cuban rhythm and Portuguese Creole melody with Congolese rumba, high life and a whole gamut of local styles - kickstarting a musical renaissance in their native Senegal, which turned the capital Dakar into one of the world's most vibrant musical cities. They produced more hits in less than a decade than other bands in a lifetime. While Baobab found themselves sidelined by the revolution they helped create and disbanded in 1985, a huge groundswell of international interest led to their triumphant reformation in 2001. Orchestra Baobab are still very much in business today.

Hold a piece of pop music in your hand. How heavy is it? If you threw it, could you break the window of a passing car? Could you break a tooth? For several years, The Blow have been hard at work developing an essential pop music formula, fashioned, as the best popular music is, with the function of getting under the skin of the people. What that music does once it gets there is what makes The Blow worth thinking about. Fascinated with the physics of pop construction, The Blow makes music that holds a weightless gravity. Their songs are light enough to sail easily through the air, landing simultaneously on the turntable of a London DJ, in your Mom's car stereo, and in the iPod of a middle schooler in study hall. However, they are somehow heavy enough to stick around, laying in your mind long after their new album, Paper Television, is over.

Some bands blast out of the gate and never recapture their early energy. Other bands establish themselves as models of consistency. Still other bands take a while to find themselves. And then there are bands like the Old 97s, who blast out of the gate, establish themselves as models of consistency, take a while to find themselves, and then, fifteen years in, deliver a glorious record that sums up everything about them that fans have always loved. With Blame It On Gravity, the seventh Old 97's record and the second for New West, the band has made its definitive statement. "It's really exciting," says Rhett Miller, the band's lead singer and songwriter. "I read an interview with Randy Newman where he said that if your work is as good at 50 as it was at 20, you've won the battle. We're nowhere near fifty, but I feel like this collection of songs is the best we've ever done. And I LOVED our earlier albums."

Over the past year, there's been a grassroots buzz building in the Rochester, New York area surrounding rising singer-songwriter Teddy Geiger, a rapidly developing artist still in his teens. Teddy's soft-spoken charm, melodic gifts, way with words, and natural style have connected him to a steadily growing fanbase, which originated in local venues in his upstate New York and has since spread as far and wide as Florida and Hawaii. His independent regional EP release, "Stepladder" (on Cred Records) ranked at #1 in Rochester and made the Top 10 in Billboard's regional "Heatseekers" chart.

With a slightly punky perspective on vintage American blues, The Devil Makes Three is a breath of fresh musical air on its eponymous Milan debut. Laced with elements of ragtime, country, folk and rockabilly, the critically praised, drummer-less trio – consisting of guitarist/frontman Pete Bernhard, stand-up bassist Lucia Turino and guitarist Cooper McBean – brings forth a genuine approach to acoustic music that is deeply steeped in rhythm. “The rhythm is what our band is about,” Bernard enthuses. “We write with rhythm and dancing in mind.” Launched with the “The Plank,” an ode to meeting one’s maker, The DMT’s infectious amalgam of styles talks the talk and it walks the walk right out of the starting gate.

Caroline Rhea, stand-up comedian and actress, brings a fresh, smart and spontaneous approach to all of her work. In 1989, Caroline ventured to New York to start her career in stand-up comedy. She studied in the stand-up program at the New School of Social Research and trained at the comedy club, Catch a Rising Star. With nightly gigs at New York's venerable clubs, Caroline's status quickly grew and she became an integral part of the city's comedy scene. Her career was further boosted by numerous appearances on "MTV's Half-Hour Comedy Hour," "Comic Strip Live" and "Caroline's Comedy Hour." For the last seventeen years, Caroline has continued to perform to sold-out audiences in top comedy clubs all over the country and in Canada.

Hayden is a Canadian musician who’s been releasing records for over a decade now. He began his career releasing two cassettes and several 7-inch singles before his debut full-length, ‘Everything I Long For’, on his own Hardwood Records, while living at home with his parents in suburban Toronto, Ontario. The album would be released internationally on via Geffen Records in 1996, following much acclaim in Canada independently. In January 2008 Hayden released in Canada his fifth full-length record titled ‘In Field & Town’. Eleven tracks in all, In Field & Town’ was recorded and produced by Hayden and has already garnered tremendous attention. In support of ‘In Field & Town’ Hayden commenced a concert tour throughout Canada in January that boasted sold out performances from coast-to-coast. Fat Possum releases the album in the U.S. April 29th as Hayden tours America supporting Feist.