Everyone’s a critic nowadays. With the advent of online music sharing and the rise of music blog intelligentsia, it’s easier than ever to rocket to underground popularity in a way that damages a musician’s career. Head out to Troutdale on August 31 to see three bands that may be the poster children for this effect: Vampire Weekend, Beach House and Dum Dum Girls.

“It would take a lot for Vampire Weekend … to rise above the stench of privileged hype that surrounds it,” opines Mike McGonigal of Amazon.com. “A bunch of kids who formed the band in their Columbia dorm room borrow wholesale from Afrobeat and angular ‘80s stuff, and they quickly become an online buzz band before releasing a single album?” What McGonigal (and countless hipsters who’ve tired of the hype) overlooks is that Vampire Weekend crafts genuinely fun, goofy, heartfelt music evocative of the Talking Heads or Paul Simon—oddly timeless, unabashedly nerdy and utterly listenable. The band’s most recent album, Contra, displays a decidedly collegiate sense of wordplay and awareness of world music mores to pleasing result. Vampire Weekend is summertime makeout music for the sort of queers who miss Ben Folds Five, who get turned on by dudes with useless graduate degrees and who don’t give a shit about what music blogs say.

Speaking of music blogs, Vampire Weekend’s openers Beach House and Dum Dum Girls know a thing or two about hype. Beach House, in particular, seems to get an equal amount of digital column inches for singer Victoria Legrand’s high-femme good looks as the act does for its dreamy, Velvet-Underground-and-Nico-at-their-best, The-Zombies-plus-Cat-Power retro-rock.

For Dum Dum Girls, lo-fi music meant high exposure, especially in the band's home scene of Los Angeles; however, with an aesthetic that more closely approximates The Supremes heard through bad speakers—and a costume-laden live show that notoriously impressed Debbie Harry of Blondie—Dum Dum Girls must be seen to be believed.

Tues., Aug. 31, doors at 5 p.m., show at 6, McMenamins Edgefield, 2126 SW Halsey, Troutdale, $35 through Ticketmaster, vampireweekend.com.

Want to mix up your weekend evening entertainment? Two local venues are offering double features of innovative new theater that are sure to have you laughing, crying and cheering in August. Short theater fans on the edge should check out “Roots & Wings” at Hipbone Studio and a comedy creature double feature at the Someday Lounge.

Emerging out of a drama therapy program administered by director Jackie Paris of Portland Playback Theatre, the works presented in “Roots & Wings” are narratives of young theater artists exploring life-changing events, reconciling the dual impulses toward safety and freedom. The first play, Into the Dust by Cassidy Barnes, tells the surreal and touching story of a queer youth who learns the true meaning of forgiveness with the help of an aviatrix, a ghost and a few aliens from the Rainbow Galaxy.

Keeping the therapeutically trippy vibe going is Untying the Shroud by Shane Lei. In Shroud, a young woman calls upon the five Chinese elements of wood, water, fire, earth and metal. In doing so, she gains clarity as to her misspent youth and the dissolution of her first committed relationship, and finds peace.

In the mood for something slightly less intense? The Someday Lounge presents a comedy creature double feature to add some silly chills to your summer. Beach Blanket Beyond, directed by Brian Allard and adapted from the comic of the same name by Jason Squamata, tells the strange story of a crew of Innsmouth Beach surfers whose surf-off ends in terror when tentacles begin emerging from the waves.

If Beach whets your appetite for camp, Alba the Vampire will sate your thirst. Directed by Jason Ferté, Alba follows the vagaries of the titular vampire looking for lesbian love in all the wrong places—and finding it. Along the way, she outwits vampire hunters, defeats assassins and even overpowers the King of the Vampires himself in order to achieve her goal of true love, True Blood-style.

Roots & Wings: Fri.-Sun., Aug. 20-22, 7:30 p.m., Hipbone Studio, 1847 E. Burnside #104, $10, 918-605-9203; Comedy Creature Double Feature: Fri.-Sun., Aug. 27-29, Sept. 3-4, 7:30 p.m., (Aug. 29 benefits Outside In), Someday Lounge, 125 NW Fifth Ave., $10 advance, $12 door, somedaylounge.com.

How do we become ourselves? Many queers have privately theorized that the opportunity to be gay and come out in the face of a society that doesn’t embrace sensuality or oddness is a spiritual blessing. On August 25, Portland’s seminal In Other Words presents a reading from an artist who turned the coming-out experience into a chance to evolve from within: Shannon Belthor, the author of Shape-Shifter.

For those unfamiliar with Belthor’s work, rush to the artist’s website and check out her work. Over the course of 25 years working in an array of media, Belthor has captured an astonishing journey from an almost aggressive density and physicality into a formless, spiritual state of being. Evoking at turns poet Mary Oliver’s breathless transcendentalism and painter Sabrina Ward Harrison’s joyous self-acceptance, Belthor’s work is as exuberant as a long-awaited homecoming—and with her new book, the artist has put that homecoming into words.

Belthor’s tome Shape-Shifter: An Awakening on the Paths of Art and Gender unfolds around an intriguing premise: that in today’s world, we’re increasingly free to express our true nature, and many of us are called to explore deep, transformative change and to evolve from the inside out. Belthor draws parallels in her transformation from a young man haunted by spiritual and artistic longing into a self-actualized woman to her unfolding as an artist. In doing so, she articulates the roots and practice of art, freedom, wholeness, integrity and ultimately joy.

It’s a distinctive narrative, yes—but one of the most enjoyable facets of Belthor’s work is her ability to take what could be an almost uncomfortably personal story and use it to illustrate fundamental truths to which all people can relate. Erin Donley of New Renaissance Bookshop summed it up nicely: “No one can read this intensely engaging book without feeling their own truth rush to the surface. [It is] sure to ignite the creative, spiritual, radical and even raw parts of us that must come forth on the way to freedom.”

Yay, penises! Whether you prefer physical manhood to be flying freely in the wind or discreetly strapped down beneath a gown, the weekend of September 4 affords you with opportunities to see the best of both. Get out for an amazing two days of pageants with Mr. Nude Portland on September 4 and La Femme Magnifique on September 5.

Presented by the Sweethearts of Portland, Mr. Nude Portland is a celebration of bare-assed boys that benefits one of the city’s finest community spaces, Pivot. “You mean those folks who courted controversy with the billboards of boys kissing?” you ask—indeed, that very Pivot. It is a space dedicated to the physical, personal and social health of gay/bi/transfolk and all men who enjoy having sex with other men. They offer a variety of sex-positive programming that is both social and educational in nature, a drop-in space with free refreshments and WiFi and STD/HIV testing. In other words, it’s cool as hell—and totally apropos to host a contest honoring the overwhelming hotness of the male form as a fundraiser for the space.

More excited by the obfuscation of the male form? The Oregon Convention Center has just the ticket for you: the 29th Annual LaFemme Magnifique International and LaFemme Magnifique Plus Pageant. Marvel as the most glamorous drag queens in the world compete in the categories of evening gown, talent, a truly breathtaking Las Vegas-style showgirl procession and a theme competition centering around the Garden of Eden. The brainchild of the indomitable Darcelle, LaFemme has been the vanguard of female impersonator competition for nearly three decades, and for great reason: the old gal runs a tight ship. La Femme Magnifique boasts so much glamour and old-school drag showqueenship that you may swoon right to the floor—so be sure to pack smelling salts in your handbag.

Mr. Nude Portland: Sat., Sept. 4, 5 p.m., The Embers Avenue, 110 NW Broadway, $10 advance, $15 door, sweetheartsofportland.org; LaFemme Magnifique: Sun., Sept. 5, 5 p.m., Oregon Convention Center, 777 NE Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd., $35, darcellexv.com.