{"id":2448156,"date":"2019-08-29T16:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-08-29T22:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/?p=311890"},"modified":"2019-08-29T16:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-08-29T22:00:00","slug":"jazz-aspen-labor-day-experience-portugal-the-man","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/jazz-aspen-labor-day-experience-portugal-the-man\/","title":{"rendered":"Jazz Aspen Labor Day Experience: Portugal. The Man"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Portugal. The Man will open the 2019 Jazz Aspen Snowmass Labor Day Experience on Friday.<\/strong>
Maclay Heriot\/Courtesy photo<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Not long after \u201cFeel It Still\u201d<\/a> became a record-breaking hit and a mainstream breakthrough for the stalwart indie band Portugal. The Man<\/a>, the group started selling t-shirts reading \u201cI liked Portugal. The Man before they sold out.\u201d<\/p>\n

This self-own piece of merch nods to the fact that the band \u2013 long a favorite of the Top 40 averse \u2013 was now, somehow, everybody\u2019s favorite. Of course, this wasn\u2019t the plan for the Alaska-born, Portland, Oregon based band: from the annoyingly placed period in their name to the mercurial genre-hopping sound, nothing about them was pining for pop stardom and its riches since their 2006 debut.<\/p>\n

\u201cFeel It Still\u201d last year broke the record as the longest-reigning no. 1 song on Billboard\u2019s Alternative chart, staying on top for 20 weeks. The band will headline the Jazz Aspen Snowmass Labor Day Experience on Friday evening.<\/p>\n

The upbeat, danceable and infectious pop of \u201cFeel It Still\u201d emerged from scraps of previously abandoned songs as the group was recording its 2017 album \u201cWoodstock.\u201d A lyric the band had tried to work with \u2014 \u201cI\u2019m a rebel just for kicks\u201d \u2014 had gone through many permutations over the years, including a session with the Beastie Boys\u2019 Mike D producing, before landing in the chorus of this destined-for-greatness single<\/p>\n

After several permutations over three years, they brought the idea to Asa Taccone, singer for Electric Guest, who pushed the song over the finish line and co-produced it with John Hill.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were just hanging out and it was coming along and then that lyric came back from a few years ago,\u201d synth player Kyle O\u2019Quin said during a tour stop in Aspen before the release of \u201cWoodstock.\u201d \u201cWe always have some core ideas and we never know when or how it\u2019s going to come out.\u201d<\/p>\n

The band has released an innovative, interactive video for the song, linking to social justice organizations and allowing the viewer to find \u201ctools for resistance.\u201d The video includes clickable Easter eggs that provide a direct phone number to the White House, explanations of the rights protestors, donation sites for Planned Parenthood and the ACLU, protest poster designs and stencil kits for protest graffiti.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe feel strongly about our opinions on things, but we don\u2019t like to overtly push our politics \u2014 just like I don\u2019t like it when people push religion on me,\u201d O\u2019Quin said. \u201cI think the stuff in our new video is cool because it\u2019s not in your face and it just lets you find ways to help people if you\u2019re interested.\u201d<\/p>\n

That video has garnered some 250 million YouTube views to date, and Portugal. The Man has used its new global platform. Earlier this month, the band joined up with the snowsports climate change activist organization Protect Our Winters for a benefit concert and film screening in Jackson.<\/p>\n

The \u201cWoodstock\u201d album itself \u2013 tracks of dark pop frequently infused with hip-hop \u2013 was a response to the cultural chaos and political upheaval of the early Trump era. The band actually scrapped an entire new album and recorded the \u201cWoodstock\u201d tracks to directly address this fraught moment.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think this record is the best record we\u2019ve done,\u201d O\u2019Quin said of the \u201cWoodstock. \u201cI think it\u2019s got the best message, the best lyrics. We\u2019re really proud of it. And it\u2019s definitely inspired by the shit that\u2019s been going on in the world. It\u2019s pretty heavy.\u201d<\/p>\n

The scrapped album was titled \u201cGloomin + Doomin.\u201d They planned to release it until lead singer and guitarist John Gourley took a trip home to Wasila, Alaska, that changed the band\u2019s plans. Gourley saw his father\u2019s original ticket stub from Woodstock in 1969, talked to his dad about that watershed festival and the impact of music on the social movements of the time. Looking at an America tearing itself apart again, he rethought the kind of music he wanted Portugal. The Man to make right now.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was kind of the inspiration for it,\u201d O\u2019Quin said. \u201cIt seemed like a time when music, in the culture, couldn\u2019t be more prevalent and important.\u201d<\/p>\n

The band has trashed whole albums before, he said. Before the artistic triumph of 2013\u2019s Danger Mouse-produced \u201cEvil Friends,\u201d they discarded another full record.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes we have to write 15 good songs to get the five right ones,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

atravers@aspentimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Portugal. The Man will open the 2019 Jazz Aspen Snowmass Labor Day Experience on Friday.Maclay Heriot\/Courtesy photo Not long after \u201cFeel It Still\u201d became a record-breaking hit and a mainstream breakthrough for the stalwart indie band Portugal. The Man, the group started selling t-shirts reading \u201cI liked Portugal. The Man before they sold out.\u201d This […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2448156","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-25 22:19:28","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2448156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2448156"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2448156\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2448156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2448156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2448156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}