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Ijeoma Oluo, John Craigie, Jane Marie, W. Kamau Bell

  • Alberta Rose Theatre 3000 Northeast Alberta Street Portland, OR, 97211 United States (map)

Show starts at 7:30pm • Doors Open at 6:30pm
LIVE WIRE MEMBERS RECEIVE 15% OFF
COVID-19 and General Ticket Information is available HERE.

IJEOMA OLUO

Ijeoma Oluo (ee-joh-mah oh-loo-oh) is a Seattle-based Writer, Speaker and Internet Yeller. Her work on social issues such as race and gender has been published in The Guardian, Esquire, Washington Post, ELLE Magazine, New York Times, NBC News and more. She has been featured on The Daily Show, All Things Considered, BBC News, and more. Her #1 NYT bestselling first book, So You Want To Talk About Race, was released January 2018 with Seal Press. Her Second book, MEDIOCRE: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America, was published December 2020 with Seal Press and her upcoming book, Be A Revolution: How Everyday People Are Fighting Oppression and Changing the World - and How You Can Too, will be released January 2024 with Harper One. Ijeoma was named one of the Most Influential People in Seattle by Seattle Magazine, one of the 50 Most Influential Women in Seattle by Seattle Met, one of The Root's 100 Most Influential African Americans in 2017 & 2018, and is the recipient of the Feminist Humanist Award 2018 by the American Humanist Association, the Harvard Humanist of the year 2020, the Media Justice Award by the Gender Justice League, and the 2018 Aubrey Davis Visionary Leadership Award by the Equal Opportunity Institute.

JOHN CRAIGIE

Much like community, music nourishes us mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. It also invites us to come together under the same roof and in a shared moment. In similar fashion, John Craigie rallies a closeness around music anchored by his expressive and stirring songcraft, emotionally charged vocals, lively soundscapes, and uncontainable spirit. The Portland, OR-based singer, songwriter, and producer invites everyone into this space on his 2024 full-length album, Pagan Church. Following tens of millions of streams, sold out shows everywhere, and praise from Rolling Stone and more, he continues to captivate.

“The music is always evolving and devolving with each new record,” he observes. “With my last album Mermaid Salt, I really wanted to explore the sound of isolation and solitude as everyone was heading inside. With this record, I wanted to record the sound of everyone coming back out.”

In order to capture that, he didn’t go about it alone…

Instead, he joined forces with some local friends. At the time, TK & The Holy Know-Nothings booked a slew of outdoor gigs in Portland and they invited Craigie to sit in for a handful of shows. The musicians instinctively identified an unspoken, yet seamless chemistry with each other. Joined by three of the five members, Craigie cut “Laurie Rolled Me a J” and kickstarted the process. With the full band in tow, they hunkered down in an old schoolhouse TK & The Holy Know-Nothings had converted into a de facto headquarters and studio, and recorded the eleven tracks on Pagan Church.

JANE MARIE

Jane Marie is a Peabody and Emmy Award–winning journalist, a former producer of This American Life, and the host of podcasts The Dream and DTR. Her writing has appeared in Jezebel, Cosmopolitan, The Toast, and more. Her book “Selling the Dream: The Billion-Dollar Industry Bankrupting Americans” exposes the scourge of multilevel marketing schemes and how they have profited off the evisceration of the American working class.

W. KAMAU BELL

W. Kamau Bell is a stand-up comedian, director, producer, husband, and dad. For seven seasons, he was the host and executive producer of the five-time Emmy Award-winning CNN docu-series United Shades of America. In 2023 he won an Emmy for his HBO documentary 1000% Me: Growing Up Mixed. He also won a Peabody Award for his 2022 Showtime docu-series We Need to Talk About Cosby. He is the co-author of the New York Times bestselling book Do the Work: An Antiracist Activity Book and the author of The Awkward Thoughts of W. Kamau Bell: Tales of a 6' 4", African American, Heterosexual, Cisgender, Left-Leaning, Asthmatic, Black and Proud Blerd, Mama’s Boy, Dad, and Stand-Up Comedian. His newest writing project is the substack newsletter, Who's With Me? His comedy special, Private School Negro, is available on Netflix.

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April 6

Mission Creek Festival: SG Goodman, Morgan Parker, Carmen Maria Machado, Simon Shieh

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April 26

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