THURSDAY 2
WATER WARS | While the winter air here in Maine begins to thicken, the contested site of Standing Rock Indian Reservation in North Dakota remains at a stark chill. Protesters were cleared out this month as production surged on the 1,172-mile Dakota Access pipeline after an executive order by you-know-who, and the site is reportedly a ghost village of left-behind belongings and stray animals. Last week, White House press secretary Sean Spicer told the press that the Trump administration is "constantly in touch with" the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, a comment which Tribe leaders quickly refuted. Time, cruel and beautiful as ever, takes us now into March. Opposition to DAPL — in principle if not in practice — is still widespread, and Mainers looking for clarity on the issue are still in motion. Two of them, Shawn and Molly Mercer, run a farm called Swallowtail up in Orland, Maine. Tonight, they host a benefit production off-peninsula called "A Line in the Sand," where they've prepped a multimedia presentation sharing experiences, inspirations, and resources anchored in their own travel to the reservation.
| By donation | 6 pm | Milk & Honey of Swallowtail Farm | http://www.swallowtailfarmandcreamery.com
SIPPERS DELIGHT | One of Portland's richest pageants the past few years have been parties at the Bayside version of Bunker Brewing Co., a fine brewhut where folks made music that spilled out into a terrace of picnic tables wobbling with butts from all over the city. The times were good. How grateful we should be that Bunker still hosts shows and parties at their new location. Tonight, the dude Jeff Beam, a local and a good one, plays with Rick Rude, a true music band from New Hampshire, and Carinae, a psyched effort from Hadley, Massachusetts, home of other bands and farms.
| $5 | 8 pm | Bunker Brewing Co., 17 Westfield St., Portland | http://bunkerbrewingco.com
FRIDAY 3
DUDE ASKS QUESTIONS | The comedian Marc Maron, after a long stint laying low, started his comedy/interview podcast WTF in 2009, and has since become one of the most influential and referenced practitioners of the form, becoming an interviewer so trusted that he's gotten folks like Lorne Michaels (a white whale he'd been chasing for awhile), Robin Williams, and Barack Obama from the garage of his Los Angeles apartment. He rolls through New England, a rarity, this weekend for an appearance at the Music Hall in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, where he'll perform stand-up.
| $33 – 38 | 8 pm | The Music Hall, 131 Congress St., Portsmouth, NH | http://www.themusichall.org
STAY HARD | When you spend your twenties, as Chriss Sutherland did, committed to one of the most vividly experimental and transformative musical projects in modern Maine history — talking here of course about the legendary Cerberus Shoal — then anything seems tame by comparison. But the measured, controlled battles he fights nowadays with Chris Teret, the other half of the folk duo Snaex, are no less powerful. The two have readied an EP of their distilled and deceptively simple songs called Holy Times — a kind of woke dad-folk, perhaps — and release it tonight at a party at Mayo Street Arts, with support from the excellent Maine songwriter Micah Blue Smaldone. I've written about the album further on page 23.
| $12 | 8 pm | Mayo Street Arts, 10 Mayo St., Portland | http://www.mayostreetarts.org
Yonatan Gat photographed by Bryan Parker.
POST-EVERYTHING | By all accounts, the experience of watching Yonatan Gat's live show is face-melting, devastating, utterly crucial, possibly one of the last sublime experiences remaining in modern rock music. Style-wise, the ex-Monotonix guitarist plays melodic and astral jazz-guitar action delivered with punk heat. I've never seen the dude, but I'm expecting something like the Boredoms minus Yamantaka Eye. I'm maybe half right. Yonatan and his band, a trio, play with Friend Roulette in Brooklyn, and the skronk-ass trio Diva Cup.
| $10 | 8 pm | SPACE Gallery, 538 Congress St., Portland | http://www.space538.org
EVERY LITTLE COUNTS | Last year's "Go Big For Hunger" benefit, an annual effort raising money to fight food insecurity in Maine, ended in some sort of dispute between producer Greg Martens and performer John Popper of Blues Traveler. We hope that got ironed out! So this year, there's no Popper, but the Portland-based entrepreneur and Deadhead Greg Martens ramps up another show for his cause, bringing Armies' Anna Lombard and Dave Gutter, members of Boston's Sister Sparrow and the Dirty Birds, and the Working Dead, an undead tribute band.
| $22 adv, $27 day of | 8:30 pm | Portland House of Music and Events, 25 Temple St., Portland | https://www.portlandhouseofmusic.com
SATURDAY 4
REVISIT YRSELF | If you're having goal problems, I feel bad for you, son. But some out there want to help. The women's leadership group Hear Her Roar ropes together a couple of life coaches — Christina Stathopolous and Robyn Wiley — to help re-ground you in any 2017 resolutions that might have floated off into the distant ether.
| $50 | 10 am – 2 pm | Think Tank Coworking., 533 Congress St., Portland | http://hearherroar.net
MACKERS AND RYE | Five summers ago, a small crew of theaterpeople converged to launch PortFringe, a weeklong festival of original and arcane dramatic works in the middle of the summer. It was a slam hit! Last year, they dressed up the festival with an offseason performance of Hamlet, 'cept the catch was that the play was performed by around 20 different companies in a manic, patchwork style. That was also a hit, a big slam. This year, they give the same treatment to Macbeth, arguably the most accursed play in existence, tasking 14 troupes with piecing the Shakespeare play together in their own style. One other plus is that this goes down at Oxbow Blending and Bottling, which folks should totally use more for theater. All proceeds benefit putting on PortFringe 2017.
| $15 | 2 & 7 pm | Oxbow Blending and Bottling, 49 Washington Ave., Portland | http://portfringe.com
WINTER BECOMES YOU | A colleague of mine is fond of saying "the streets are littered with people who've tried to start a music festival in Maine." He was being hyperbolic, of course — the streets of Portland are littered with floss picks, poor producers those — but regardless, that was before Sunaana Winter Festival. The first annual all-day "sensory experience" at Thompson's Point has a dozen bands to boast, and nearly twice as many brewers of beer. One of the headliners is ROZES, a Philadelphia-based singer with an EP to her name who debuted as a vocalist on bro-pop production team the Chainsmokers' song "Roses" in 2015. She'll be here! So will Armies, the beautiful balladeers blurbed above. So will Scott Sorry, who played bass for a stint ten years ago in the English band the Wildhearts, sort of a hard rock/punk cover band thing. So will Very Reverend, a swaggering local trio who I know for a fact listen to Queens of the Stone Age and T. Rex. So will Mammút, a beloved rock band in Iceland on a label started by Bjork's band the Sugarcubes. If you're ready to hear some names of beers, here they are: Allagash! Austin Street! Banded Horn! Barrelled Souls! Bissell Brothers! Bunker! Foundation! Gneiss! Maine Beer Co.! Mast Landing! Oxbow! Orono! Rising Tide! Sebago! You can't have made it this far without forming, or hearing, opinions about these breweries, so I'll leave you to ruminate on them now. Experimental, sure, but what venture isn't in its first year? Weather looks fair, albeit cold, for Saturday (although of course, the thing is indoors). March is sneakily the worst month of the year, so this could be part of your defense.
| $25-75 | 1 pm | Brick South, Thompson's Point, Portland | https://www.sunaana.com
LABOR-READY | If you're in a chance-seeking mood, head to Portsmouth tonight to see Big Work: A Documentary Play for 17 actors exploring their relationship to labor, employment, starting over, the search for meaning, etc. (Don't say you don't think about that shit! Don't you say it!) Playwrights Melissa Bergstrom and Kate Marple penned this together after, you know, stewing on it for a bit in their early 30s (typical millennial laziness, obv), and came up with this pretty inventive and well-regarded script, after which recent performances around Massachusetts the two women, also founders of Perpetual Visitors Theatre Company, host spirited talkbacks, as they plan to do here.
| $18 | 2 & 8 pm | 3S Artspace, 319 Vaughan St., Portsmouth, NH | http://www.3sarts.org
GLAM UP | International Women's Day may have a certain extra echo of gravity this year. Maybe that's enough to impel you toward the 8th Annual Women's Day Fashion Show, hosted by the organization Women United Around the World (WUAW). This gala celebrates the styles and fashions of New Mainers migrating here from around the globe, with a focus on local designers' collections. Ticket proceeds benefit WUAW's efforts. Yes!
| $40 | 6 pm | Italian Heritage Center, 40 Westland St., Portland | http://www.womenunitedaroundtheworld.org
SUNDAY 5
ANTI-PROGRESS | The president rolled back transgender bathroom rules this week, in an effort led by Jeff Sessions and Betsy DeVos and anchored in this administration's sweeping assault on the rights of everyone who isn't a straight cis white man. Portland voices its disgust with a Rally for Trans Rights today in Monument Square.
| $10 | 3 pm | Monument Sq., Portland
ANTI-PROGRESS | It's plenty possible you can attend the trans rally above and still get some time in at the Maine Resistance Summit, a catch-all resistance rally convened by the progressive organization Maine People's Alliance. With workshops and skillshares on media basics, canvassing, fundraising, lobbying your legislature, and many others, this should be a vital resource for anyone in the good fight. Inquire about tickets for the summit, titled "From Mobilization to Movement Building," at the MPA website.
| 8 am – 6 pm | Civic Center, 76 Community Dr., Augusta | https://www.mainepeoplesalliance.org
MONDAY 6
NONPROFESSORS | With federal domestic spending set to decrease, nonprofit and big philanthropic efforts might see a heavier workload in trying to effect social change. Just spitballin'! Hard to say what'll happen in this world. But if you're interested in nonprofit or social work, pop in on this forum tonight at One Longfellow Square, where directors from Maine nonprofits Preble Street, Maine People's Alliance, Kids First Center, and the Portland Symphony Orchestra field questions about how it's done.
| $5 | 5 pm | One Longfellow Square, 181 State St., Portland | http://www.ynpnmaine.org
TUESDAY 7
OPEN CITY | The architects and designers behind the long-rumored Fox Field Food Forest, a community-minded edible forest garden in Bayside's Fox Field, are looking for volunteers, and to spread information, tonight at Urban Farm Fermentory, just a skip away from the action. Learn more about this exciting urban landscaping project produced by the Resilience Hub and the East Bayside Neighborhood Organization.
| FREE | 6 pm | Urban Farm Fermentory, 200 Anderson St., Portland | https://resiliencehub.org/fox-field-food-forest/
GOOD IDEA | We wrote a couple weeks back about new resistance efforts that have cropped up around the city since the election. One of them is GET READY WEEKLY, a visual art and resistance project that has hosted sign-painting and letter-writing parties. That group teams up with art magazine The Chart for a series of "Resistance Readings," collective discussions of political art texts over dinner. The first is tonight at Babylon Restaurant on outer Forest, where the group (which could include you, my dude!) will read an essay by Taylor Renee Aldridge about the "savior complex" of Detroit's rebuild. Dinner's on you!
| FREE | 6 – 8 pm | Babylon Restaurant, 1192 Forest Ave., Portland | https://www.facebook.com/getreadyweekly/
WEDNESDAY 8
NO BACKLASH | It's like we always say here at The Phoenix: if it works, you mustn't fix it. Thus, Clash of the Titans has returned to Empire, the weekly thematic tribute night between two like or loosely related cover bands comprised of hot-shit local musicians. Tonight's affair is a stand-off between Death Cab for Cutie and Bright Eyes. Those bands!
| $6 | 10 pm | Empire, 575 Congress St., Portland | www.portlandempire.com
Every Time I Die is poised to set the world free through a metal concert at the State Theatre.
CATLIKE DUDES | Formed in 1998, the metalcore band Every Time I Die have risen to be one of the foremost bands in the genre. (It must be amazing to be in any band, let alone a leave-it-all-on-stage metal band, all catharsis and performed rage, for literally 20 years.) If you're a fan, you already know they're coming; odds are you're not getting converted otherwise. With their just-released new album, Low Teens, in tow, ETID play with Knocked Loose, Harm's Way, and Eternal Sleep.
| $18 adv, $20 day of | 7 p.m. | State Theatre, 609 Congress St., Portland | http://www.statetheatreportland.com
THURSDAY 9
Regina Spektor photographed by Shervin Lainez.
BE TICKLED | Next week, the dreamboat and songwriting genius Regina Spektor shows up at the State Theatre, reminding you of things you might have wanted to forget about relationships you were in 10 years ago.
| $40 adv, $42 day of | 7 p.m. | State Theatre, 609 Congress St., Portland | http://www.statetheatreportland.com