Gumble, Blues & Brews Presents Portugal.The Man

27 Jun Gumble, Blues & Brews Presents Portugal.The Man

Portugal.The Man

Portugal. The Man has announced a stop in Telluride, Colorado on their major North American tour. SBG Productions presents the popular indie rock artist live in concert Wednesday, July 3, at the Telluride Conference Center in Mountain Village. The night will start out with opening support from Guards at 8 p.m. Doors open at 7:30 p.m.

In the spring of 2012, John Gourley (frontman of Portugal. The Man) found himself in New York City about to ring the bell at Danger Mouse’s apartment. He was a long way from his current home in Portland and farther still from his real home in Alaska. He had produced six full-length albums in six years, touring non-stop with festival stops at Coachella, Bonnaroo and Lollapalooza. At that moment in time, Portugal. The Man embodied all dimensions of DIY rock range.

When it came to working on the seventh album, Gourley kept coming back to the concept of collaborative work. So he took a bold step — bold for a proven band, bolder still for its uncertainty of sound — a step up to the apartment of a possible collaborator, Danger Mouse.

“I walked into his place,” Gourley remembers now “and it wasn’t going to happen. He was like, ‘Hey, man, just so you know, I don’t really want to record with a rock band.’ And I was a little relieved.  We’d done this by ourselves before, and we knew we could do it by ourselves again.”

But they got to talking about how much Danger Mouse had loved In the Mountain in the Cloud, the 2011 follow-up to Portugal. The Man’s break out record, The Satanic Satanist.

“From that very first meeting, we were very ambitious about what we could do…otherwise there was no point. So we decided: Let’s try and make something really special.”

So Danger Mouse — aka Brian Burton, the five-time Grammy award winning producer behind everything from Gnarls Barkley and Beck to The Black Keys and now U2 —and the band agreed that they were up for the challenge. Production began on what would become Evil Friends, the undaunted re-awakening for Portugal. The Man. After all, here was a band with an evolving lineup — Kyle O’Quin on keyboards, Noah Gersh on guitar/percussion/keyboards, and Kane Ritchotte on drums were joined by Zach Carothers on bass and vocals and Gourley on lead vocals and guitar — building new songs with a new producer trying to do something neither of them had done before.

The album, Evil Friends, sees Portugal. The Man pushing their distinctive brand of modern psychedelia to extraordinary new heights. With Danger Mouse at the helm, the Portland, Oregon-based band has created a collection that truly captures the remarkable scope and power of John Gourley’s vision. Portugal. The Man released  Evil Friends earlier this month.

Portugal. The Man’s  Telluride set will kick off with New York- based band Guards. If the music of Guards and the music of the New York garage-pop band Cults, seem related, that’s because they are. Richie Follin, the mastermind behind Guards, is the brother of Cults’ Madeline Follin. But, while both groups traverse similar melodic and sonic territory, this is no mere copy. Guards’ production recalls thrift-store seven-inches more than the sampled-and-looped production favored by Cults. “Crystal Truth,” from Guards’ self-titled EP, captures the band’s primitivism nicely.

Don’t miss this special performance by two emerging indie rock bands.

Tickets ($25 in advance) and additional event information are available at Telluride’s Wizard Entertainment and online at Tellurideblues.com/Tickets. To purchase tickets by phone call toll-free at (866) 515-6166.

Tickets at the door are $30 dollars.