Report Back

A huge thank you to Black Water for hosting and their incredible crew (support all ages venues)!  It was a heart explodingly beautiful night and community rallied collectively!  In organizing events, even being something like this and a bday bash for SGC, it's not about the organizer.  We organize events to create another opportunity for community to rally, to connect with comrades, to create space for coalition building, new friendships and to connect community with vital resources.  That's what it's all about and we experienced that happening in multitudes during the event.

Incredible sets from Mids and Halfbird as always, a beautiful Butoh performance from Haley Jensen in collaboration with Yardsss ∅∀‡, an absolutely vital skillshare from Missy Rohs of Arctos School (check out the school and all of the rad workshops they organize) on chemical weapons aftercare, comrades from Institute of Anarchist Studies, Defense Fund PDX and Sunnyside Shower Project all tabling, zine distro from SGC and Rose City Distro (the distro table was almost empty by the end!) and the film screening of It's Revolution or Death Part III: Reclaiming the World Wherever We Stand from our amazing comrades at Sub Media.

What an absolutely beautiful and perfect night in community.  We (as in you!) collectively raised over $700 for Defense Fund PDX on the door alone!  Thank you to everyone whether present or supporting from afar, it truly means everything and IS everything.

We have a lot of announcements and upcoming events in the queue so stay tuned.

Thank you for being in community with us and we with you.

Love and solidarity forever - XO SGC

-----

SGC Presents
Saturday, February 7th 2026
Black Water (5115 NE Sandy Blvd PDX)
7:00 PM
All Ages

Benefiting
Defense Fund PDX

Bands
Yardsss ∅∀‡
Halfbird
Mids

Tabling
Defense Fund PDX
Institute For Anarchist Studies
Sunnyside Shower Project
National Lawyers Guild
Portland Mutual Aid
Self Group Collective

Skillshare
National Lawyers Guild - Know Your Rights
Missy Rohs of Arctos School - Chemical Weapons Aftercare

Cold Weather Supply Collection
We're collecting cold weather gear and other mutual aid supply donations for Sunnyside Shower Project.

Film
We'll be showing It's Revolution or Death Part III: Reclaiming the World Wherever We Stand from Sub Media via Channel Zero Network between doors and show start with subtitles.

Downloadable Poster - JPG / PDF

-----

Yardsss ∅∀‡
"On September 11, Portland experimental group Yardsss ∅∀‡ will release their new album, Cultus via Self Group. The album is a trio of extended improvisational pieces that prominently feature drones, dissonance and an ominous aura, bringing to mind the epic and eerie sounds of Godspeed You! Black Emperor or the no wave symphonies of Glenn Branca. It’s at times chaotic, beautiful and overwhelming, and today they’ve shared the lead track from the album, titled “Cultus II.” It’s a pulsing piece of dark psychedelia, underscored by a krautrock pulse, that builds up into something powerful and hypnotic, eventually boiling over into a climactic post-rock roar." - Treble Zine

Halfbird
Halfbird is a noise jazz / punk maximalist improv trio from Portland, OR composed of Grant Pierce (Young Hunter, June Rose) on drums, Brandon Conway (former president of the Creative Music Guild) on guitar and Ben Kates (Thicket, Orchestra Becomes Radicalized) on saxes. Their music is a maximalist mix of chromaticism, layered tempos, and walls of noise all shaped together into intuitive forms via active listening and luck. Halfbird has played with and/or shared the stage with the likes of Kelli Schaeffer, Ava Mendoza, CSTMR, The Social Stomach, Arrington De Dionyso, Inhalant, Dead Airfresheners, Sea Moss, Yardsss and many more since forming in 2014. Halfbird have released five albums (available at halfbird.bandcamp.com) and have toured the west coast as well as western Canada. 

Mids
The new duo project from Nicholas Quiller and Michael Fisher previously of The Wild Body.

Defense Fund PDX
We’re an anti-State anti-repression org in PDX that focuses on prioritizing SW'er, BIPOC & queer folx in jail and people impacted by the PIC.

Institute For Anarchist Studies
The Institute for Anarchist Studies (IAS), established in 1996 to support the development of anarchism, is a grant-giving organization for radical writers and translators worldwide. To date, we have funded well over a hundred projects by authors from countries around the world. Equally important, we publish the Anarchist Interventions book series in collaboration with AK Press and Justseeds Artists’ Cooperative, the print and online journal Perspectives on Anarchist Theory, the Lexicon pamphlet series, and an Anarchist Imaginations series of books in collaboration with AK Press that began with Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements.  We organize educational events and in the past, the Renewing the Anarchist Tradition conference. The IAS is part of a larger movement to radically transform society. We are internally democratic and work in solidarity with people around the globe who share our values.

Sunnyside Shower Project
Sunnyside Shower Project is a Sunnyside Neighborhood Association Community Cares Committee program, fiscally sponsored by Southeast Uplift (SEUL). We are a volunteer-powered mutual aid project rooted in care, connection, and respect for our unhoused and housing-insecure neighbors in Southeast Portland. Through free showers, hygiene supplies, clean clothing, laundry access, and connections to supportive resources, we meet immediate needs while honoring each person’s dignity and humanity. Our space is low-barrier, welcoming, and judgment-free—a place where everyone can be seen, heard, and valued. By building trust and meaningful connections, we nurture a stronger, more compassionate neighborhood for all.

National Lawyers Guild
The National Lawyers Guild is dedicated to the need for basic and progressive change in the structure of our political and economic system. Through its members—lawyers, law students, jailhouse lawyers and legal workers united in chapters and committees—the Guild works locally, nationally and internationally as an effective political and social force in the service of the people.

Portland Mutual Aid
Portland Mutual Aid Network started in the summer of 2020 in direct response to the needs of the unhoused community in downtown Portland, Oregon.  We are an all-volunteer mutual aid group distributing food, survival supplies, and personal care products weekly. The people we serve define what we do and what we offer. We are always looking to Engage — Listen — Respond.

Arctos School
The Arctos School of Herbal and Botanical Studies offers classes in plant medicine, botanical identification, mushroom foraging, community herbalism, and more in and around Portland, Oregon. Our bioregional approach to herbalism grows from our commitment to social justice. We believe that empowered, caring communities are preventative medicine. In our classes, you will learn to start seeing ecosystems: the ways that flora, fungi, and fauna live together and depend on each other in a dynamic environment. We introduce our students to plants that they can build relationships with, that can become their friends and allies for life.

Launched on October 24th 2025, a new continuous series in the same vein as Ignis, Exitus and Epithets.  Tracks are posted in real time directly after dual writing and recording sessions.

All pieces written and recorded simultaneously at Sonic Sandbox (Portland, OR) with either no or minimal prior orchestration. This project culminates as successive live posting of album tracks as they're written, each individually. Once the full release feels it has reached its natural conclusion the full album will be released via other platforms.

Donating is not mandatory but should you choose to 100% of proceeds from this release benefit Defense Fund PDX.

Stream + Download via www.selfgroup.bandcamp.com.

Post-Art, Musicology

ØØØ = solo
∅∀‡ = full band

​Yardsss ∅∀‡ releases new video for 'Cultus IV', a fourth and previously unreleased track from the three part album Cultus.  The video was filmed and edited by Sadrday at Haywire Recording Studio in Portland, OR during the recording of the album which is entirely improvisational.

This is the first of two videos for the album which was originally released on September 11th 2020 via the Self Group Collective.  You can stream the audio and learn more about the record via the following links.

Proceeds from the album go to local Portland nonprofits and organizations including Outside In and Defense Fund PDX.

Artist Page • SG Album Blahg • Bandcamp • iTunes • Spotify

SG050
​Yardsss ∅∀‡
Cultus
​9/11/2020
Stream ≠ Download • Bandcamp • iTunes • Spotify
Artist Page​ • Artist Mart

Proceeds from 'Cultus' go to local Portland orgs and nonprofits including Outside In and Defense Fund PDX as well as local mutual aid including support for evacuees of the Oregon wildfires * If you'd like to donate directly you can do so through Self Group's PayPal
​
ABOUT THE ALBUM [DIRECT FROM YARDSSS]
It may not be apparent given the instrumental nature of the project but Yardsss is very much a political band.  We stand on our anarcho-syndicalist and collectivist principles; we release our recordings independently through a collective we established, all decisions are made utilizing direct democracy and must be unanimous, we navigate our creative sphere with a known responsibility and requirement to support our community, to take accountability for the wellbeing of others. One way we actively exercise that is by making all of our releases, shows and tours benefits with proceeds going to local Portland organizations, nonprofits and mutual aid.  Communities raise each other, catch one another when we fall on hard times, keep each other safe and provide support when needed to get back on our feet.

We chose 9/11 as the release date for this album as the events in 2001 and the US Federal Governments’ response to those events very much apply to what is continuing through the present day.  Nearly fourteen months after, then-President George W Bush, announced the formation of the Department of Homeland Security; an agency that would combine twenty-two law enforcement agencies under one central bureau.  DHS effectively locked-down the borders with TSA and later ICE alongside response units like BORTAC, created militaristic checkpoints at all ports of entry (most visibly and notably airports), vastly expanded the mass surveillance of American citizens with the hasty passing (forty-five days after) of the "Patriot Act" (see the ACLU's infographic) and effectively and otherwise quietly declared martial law on the United States.

In 2003 DHS absorbed the INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service) and in doing so divided the agency into two separate new agencies being ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) and CIS (Citizenship and Immigration Services).  Among its many atrocities, ICE agents are known to abduct immigrants and future citizens at courthouses while they attempt to file immigration and naturalization paperwork.  All of this under the guise of “keeping Americans safe from ‘the terrorists.’”  The attacks on the World Trade Center towers and building seven killed 2,976; the US retaliation two years later under false premise and incorrect intel has killed 1,690,903 Iraqi, 80,644 Afghani and 80,000 Pakistani people as well as the imprisonment and torture of individuals, many solely on suspicion, at prisons like Guantanamo Bay.

The means and methodologies of Governments to suppress dissent is vast and not new to the world, especially the United States.  What occurred with the post-9/11 creation of DHS, the militaristic arming of local LEO’s, the lack of oversight and recourse against both the Federal as well as local Governments, qualified immunity, police unions and an array of defense methods to evade accountability all play a role in the enhanced brutality, lawlessness and terror that law enforcement enacts on citizens.

Post-9/11 also saw the drastic rise of hate crimes directed toward Islamic, Middle Eastern and BIPOC individuals within the US including the burning of Mosque’s and Middle Eastern-owned businesses among countless other horrific acts of violence committed by citizens on other citizens.  This racism and bias was given license and direction to violently act out through paranoia seeded at the highest levels of Government and validated by the militarization of public spaces.

It’s been known by the FBI since at least 1992 (and antifascists well before) that racist, far-right white nationalists had enacted a plan to infiltrate police forces throughout the US; in the Pacific Northwest especially.  If you think that LEO’s are impartial or neutral we implore you to look at the events even just in the last decade through this lens to understand that in part what is happening has been known for three decades; that racism absolutely and unquestionably exists within the agencies from local police through DHS and that since the advent of the Department of Homeland Security license has been given, though publicly applauded in the last almost four years by the “Office of the President”, for decades.

Abolish the police.  We need community-driven organizations and mutual aid that support our communities directly, that are specific to the needs of those communities.  We do not need a brutal force that only serves to punitively punish by incarceration, fine, show of force through physical brutality and murder.  We must as a community collectively and uniformly abolish systemic racism and act every day in ways that make us safe, that protect our community members, while bearing witness and intervening directly when our community is at risk.

We wish to make it very clear; if you are racist, homophobic, transphobic, antisemitic, islamophobic or otherwise attempt to enact violence on our community (human or animal), don’t buy our records and don’t come to our shows. #weprotectus

"America is just a word but I use it." - Ian MacKaye / Fugazi
​
​With love and solidarity,

Yardsss

#BlackLivesMatter

To further study and inform yourself about the Patriot Act we suggest the following sources (also used as references  for this article):
​
ACLU: The Sun Must Go Down on the Patriot Act
ACLU: Surveillance Under the USA Patriot Act
ACLU: Summary Of Conference Report on Patriot Act Reauthorization
Crimethinc: The Age of Conspiracy Charges
NY Times: In Debate Over Patriot Act; Lawmakers Weigh Risks vs Liberty
US DOJ: The USA Patriot Act
​
-----
​
REVIEWS
"Where runs the line between drone, ambient, and post-rock? It sometimes seems as if the borders between these genres are often blurred and porous as dexterous bands navigate them without much trouble. The feedback and delay on post-rock’s guitars elongate, the atmosphere of ambient quivers with the shattering, world-erasing susurrations of drone and all falls before just sheer music, no labels needed. Incidentally, this is exactly how I’d describe Yardsss‘ upcoming release, ∅∀‡ | Cultus. It’s an expansive slow burn of an album, taking its time to build towards some really fascinating crescendos, sounds, and musical ideas.

This sort of album can be super hard to unpack but, luckily, Yardsss aren’t going to just leave us hanging. “Cultus I” starts off with a long ramp of slowly unraveling and building silence, all the way to its cataclysmic end. Pay special attention to all the instruments going off in the background of this explosion of energy, the way the guitars swim together into a million and one shattered tracks, coming back together into a whole. It will probably make sense to you if, in these moments of musical chaos and cohesion, I told you that this entire thing was recorded live and was completely improvised. Makes sense, right? You can feel that raw energy on it as the first collapses around you.
If you still have doubts, perhaps the punk infused, no holds barred guitars and drums that usher in the middle segments of “Cultus II” will convince you? They harness that unbridled energy even more, running wild with the core of Yardsss’ sound on this release. And then there’s “Cultus III”. Actually, I’m going to leave the third track for you to explore. It’s a ride and then some, clocking in at just below twenty two minutes." - Heavy Blog Is Heavy

"On September 11, Portland experimental group Yardsss ∅∀‡ will release their new album, Cultus via Self Group. The album is a trio of extended improvisational pieces that prominently feature drones, dissonance and an ominous aura, bringing to mind the epic and eerie sounds of Godspeed You! Black Emperor or the no wave symphonies of Glenn Branca. It’s at times chaotic, beautiful and overwhelming, and today they’ve shared the lead track from the album, titled “Cultus II.” It’s a pulsing piece of dark psychedelia, underscored by a krautrock pulse, that builds up into something powerful and hypnotic, eventually boiling over into a climactic post-rock roar.  The symbols in the group’s name indicate which lineup is involved, and in this case, Yardsss ∅∀‡ signifies the full lineup of Paul Michael Schaefer, Robin Levy and Krist Krueger." - Treble Zine

"Free your mind and your brain cells will follow! WTF – Portland’s Yardsss is the straight up JAM and so is their soon to be released album ∅∀‡ | Cultus. Their improvisational Space Kraut Rock never fucking misses a beat, and that’s why I have their song “Cultus I” on repeat. Listening to their music makes me happy and stoked to be alive!" - Cvlt Nation

Yardsss ∅∀‡ have announced new dates in the pacific northwest including stops in Bellingham and Seattle!  These are likely to be the last two shows of the year, both all ages and sliding scale.

10.26 Bellingham, WA • Make.Shift
​EVENT/RSVP

10.27 Seattle, WA • Teatro de la Psychomachia
EVENT/RSVP

​Yardsss tends toward the dark and droning and bombastic, with heady, swelling orchestrations.  Perhaps because human voices appear so rarely and the music is so evocative, it occasionally brings to mind Emeralds' Does It Look Like I'm Here?  It doesn't take many listens to understand that Krueger is breaking boundaries not for the sake of being (or seeming) transgressive, but to make sounds that awaken actual feelings—uplifting, inspiring emotions. - Portland Mercury

​The first full-length album from Portland's Yardsss ØØØ is now available to stream and download wherever fine music is sold and streamed.  We'll let the album speak for itself... as well as some music writersss...

"Regarding Krist Krueger's Yardsss: If you read about it before listening, you'd likely mistake it for a liberal arts master's thesis.  Where most bands play "shows," Yardsss puts on "performance case studies" and multimedia installations, including a collection of songs inspired by—not covers of!—avant-garde composer John Cage.  All this could be completely obnoxious except for one thing: Yardsss is transcendentally, earth-shatteringly gorgeous. If you can make music like that, you get to call your show a case study." - Portland Mercury

"Masterfully cohesive listen not for the faint of heart; immerse yourself in chaos and find wabi-sabi in the soothing ferocity of an album straddling shoegaze, electronica and psychedelia as one unifying tone for the present day.  It will blow your fucking mind." - Echoes And Dust

"Delves into soaring drone noise and melody as cacophony reminiscent of late-80s/early-90s Swans, Emeralds and Popul Vuh." - New Noise Magazine

Artist Page • SG Mart • Bandcamp • iTunes • Spotify

Follow Yardsss

​Yardsss launches a new, and first for the project, song-a-week series titled Epithets ØØØ as of March 1st 2017.  The series, as with Krueger's six prior such series' features new material written, recorded and uploaded each week.  The process is intended as a writing and skills exercise while also purging creatively.  Epithets ØØØ will lead directly into writing and studio prep for the second full-length album to be titled Osia.  In the meantime a new collection of all singles and collaborations is slated for release as of March 31st 2017 and the first full-length album Quietus is due out on June 9th 2017.

Stream and download the series on a donations basis via the Self Group Bandcamp Mart.

Follow Yardsss