God Bless the NorthWest.

So, it’s been some week. For starters, I am now gainfully employed, at least by PDX standards. Woo-Hoo! Now I can start to focus my mental energies on the more fulfilling parts of life. Of course, now I have to start spending time and energy doing stuff, like going to work, but it seems that this will be the least soul-crushing regular work I have had for some time. Plus, I can now afford to go to shows. That is crucial concerning my abilities as an observer of music happening in my town.

But really, let us get on to the music, because I am feeling rather self conscious about the long rant of personal detail I went into not long ago to an audience looking for show reviews and band/venue information. But hey, sometimes you just got to say some shit.

One week ago tonight, I accompanied a friend to a little, unpromoted, house show in a basement in the far West portion of Northeast Portland. I have yet to give the necessary geography breakdown, for those readers who are not familiar with Portland as a city in a practical way. But I am not in that space right now, so I am instead going to just get on with details of the event. The house was small and unassuming, and though the basement was really a remarkable acoustic space for loud music, I definitely got the impression that it is not at all a regularly practicing venue. But there was a keg of beer in an ice filled bathtub in the corner and a surprising amount of talent I’d never really heard of.

The band I was drawn to see was Knox Harrington (no relevant info available, sorry), a band that my friend had recorded the demo for. Knox Harrington is an ironic butt-rock band in terms of sound and homoerotic antics, though not so much in personal appearance. They play loud, cheesy hard rock music through expensive half-stacks, but they play it well and with a great sense of humor and performance. The highlight of their set, to me, was a cover of Bon Jovi’s Living on a Prayer, to which I believe they paid proper respect. Their act seemed far more suited to a dive bar on SE 170^th (for those not familiar with the location, picture anywhere in America that is not metropolitan or distinctively Northwest), or some such place, than it did to a well lit, unsmokey, carpeted basement in inner-Northeast. The music felt like it should have been accompanied by the drunken cheers and breast baring of aging, All-American women; and the beer should have been cheap, foul smelling domestic instead of a microbrew produced less than two miles away. But outside of the mismatch between setting and set, I enjoyed the band and would highly recommend them to any booking agents at outskirt dive bars, or any group of aging rockers seeking some live entertainment to fuel some good old fashioned beer-guzzling, tit-showing fun.

After Knox Harrington’s set, came a totally different kind of musical entertainment. A rap act/collective (I’m not actually sure what to categorize them as) by the name of Salmon River Project (www.myspace.com/salmonriverproject) teamed up with an unnamed, but very talented jazz-funk quartet. The result was a long running freestyle jam, reminiscent of early and mid 90’s Beastie Boys instrumentals, but with rap styling’s which made me think of Zach de la Rocha. Granted, I was fairly drunk from the potent contents of cooled keg, and stoned from the continuously circulating joints, but I must say that I could not help but get down to this act. When I inquired as to the title of the band, I was informed that it wasn’t really a band. The group had never played together before that very performance. Wow! If they can recreate that energy, refine their sound a bit and perhaps acquire a more enticing name, I think they could totally be one of those bands to ride the party circuit to great deal of notoriety, and possibly even wealth. Hippies and stoners across America would cough back into their bongs if they caught a set like that in their basement, living room or backyard.

Yeah, it was a weirdly paired evening in a most unexpected setting, for sure. But it had been a good long while since I had gone to a show and it was just a jumble of talent ranging through a vast array of taste demographics (if not so much cultural ones). Things get pigeonholed very easily in Portland. Because there are just so many different bands in any given style/genre, it easy to book a whole show for one taste. It’s not to say that in a smaller community, such as Olympia, that you don’t get a lot of hand picked nights with a continuous sound, but you also get a lot of grab bag nights where friends’ bands’ are just called in randomly to fill the bill. You really get exposed to a lot of different shit that way.

The next show I went to was the previously mentioned (see my last two posts) Explodeintocolors show. Dekum Manor, and the show I witnessed inside are the most picturesque Northwest things I could imagine. I was in a house I’d never been to, seeing bands I’d never heard, surrounded, primarily, by people I’d never met. But I can tell you that I’d been there and done that more times than I can count. It was like I had been transported back to my early 20’s. That’s not to say the music inside was all unoriginal and done-before however. Explodeintocolors really surprised me with their set. It was an interesting, well crafted, expertly played set of original music. That didn’t surprise me one bit. What surprised me was the nature of the sound itself. I went in expecting a huge sound, where every beat was filled with more beats and twisting harmonics than a person can really process, though with an uncanny pop-sensibility to match its uber-arty veneer. For that is really the only common ground that I tend to find in the projects and playing of guitarist Claudia Meza and drummer Lisa Schonberg. I don’t know much about the third member, Heather Treadway, except that she is apparently a local fashion designer under the name Paper Doll. The last part of my expectations about the set were definitely fulfilled. However, I was amazed at the relatively stripped down nature of the sound. I say relatively because, don’t get me wrong, it was fairly busy stuff indeed. But in truth, there was an almost garagy touch to the aethstetic. Certainly good stuff, but not at all what I expected. I imagine there was a bit of spill over in influence from some more recent projects these ladies have been involved in.

I saw another band’s set that night at Dekum Manor, but honestly, I don’t know who it was. I know it wasn’t Fist Fite (www.myspace.com/fistfitefistfite) because I saw them drinking in the kitchen when the other band was playing. Besides, I am pretty sure I would recognize their sound, even if I’m not that familiar with their music. Whoever they were, they had a tight set and a fairly grooving garage-pop sound. But my partner in misadventure and myself had a set to check out elsewhere that night.

π-Rem (433 NW 4th Avenue*) is a little underground (literally) club in what I guess is Chinatown. Whatever the case, it is by the train station and has gone through a cycle of names of late, coming back eventually to the first name that I knew it by. The ambiance is generally enjoyable, with comfy furniture and well placed lighting of appropriate brightness for such a setting. The music is often pretty good, always at least decent, in my experience. I think that it is perhaps a club specifically for electronic music, for I haven’t seen anything else there ever. π-Rem’s biggest problem, as far as I can tell, is that they rarely, if ever, pack the house with sufficient people to sustain requisite energy for a hot dance floor. There could be numerous reasons for this. One might be the location, it is certainly not the kind of place one is likely to just stumble into. One could be that the electronic music scene in this town is just not big enough to support the amount of venues there are for it. My personal theory has to do more with drink selection. π-Rem, thus far has opted for an extensive selection of high-end, high alcohol content (which is listed on the menu next to price and size of bottle) primarily imported (Belgium, etc.) beers, and a few wines rather than a full liquor bar. A tasteful choice to be sure, and one that almost certainly makes life quite a bit easier for the bar staff, especially in terms of the type of clientele and how drunk they are likely to get. However, I believe it probably hurts their business as a venue. People, in my experience, when going out to see music, tend to want either the non-filling, high alcohol content of liquor drinks, or the cheap, drink all-night eir business as a venue. y are likely to get. asier for ly imported (Belgium, etc.) for itqualities of domestic and lower end microbrew beers. $9 for 12 oz. of 9% beer is not really a shake your shit till the DJ runs out of steam tonic. None the less, on the third Saturday of every month, Zentz (again, I could find no info), one of the better techno DJs to spin regularly in this town, has a set at π-Rem. As is often the case, a quorum was not met on the dance floor, and thus the energy was generally well below the heat of the set. I was turned onto Zentz when he subbed for a sick M-Quiet one night at Kulturszene. However, in spite of the disappointing turnout for his set, there were cues pointing to a possibly brighter future for this talented spinmeister. Several faces, including other prominent local DJs, that I presume to be far more in the know concerning this aspect of Portland culture than myself, made appearances at π-Rem on Saturday. You’d have to be dead to deny the heat of Zentz set, though he does not make himself a slave to the beat. He takes it where ever he feels like taking it, but it seems to work for him. Whatever the case, perhaps these new faces at this site are just the leaders of a new train of fan base. Let’s hope, because I’d hate to see a talented DJ stop spinning his night because no one ever showed.

Last night was a surprise kicker to finish off the long week. I got off work at 11 PM, and saw that I’d missed a call from my social companion extraordinaire. As it turned out, there was a sold out show at Holocene (1001 SE Morrison Street), and my boy had checked out the music, approved and believed that despite the sold out status we could get in, and that due to the sold out status we could do it on the cheap. I guess that’s just how we roll, because we actually run that play fairly often, and it tends to work. The difference this time, was that I’d never heard of the band and had no idea the show was going on. Holocene is not a small place, and selling it out on a Monday night is no small feet. The band we went to see was Phosphorescent (www.myspace.com/phosphorescent), a band from Brooklyn. As it happens, Phosphorescent had a break down of vehicular transport in the distant city of San Francisco, and just the lead singer Matthew Houck was present to perform his set. So I can’t speak to the quality of the band, but for having been stripped of all but the bare essentials, Mr. Houck certainly gave an enthralling performance. His raspy, folky vocals were nothing new to me stylistically, and his songwriting seemed familiar. But he played with a passion and poise that a great deal of like performers lack. I was particularly moved by his rendition of Dire Straits So Far Away From Me, and I was most impressed by his creative use of vocal harmonies and a loop pedal to create a growing chorus of one, which stood as a towering wall of quite musical sound.

Well, that’s about all that I have to report for this week. I can’t think of any must see shows in coming to town, except to say that I’d really LOVE to check out Bruce Springsteen’s set when he come here in the very near future. I don’t know if that is going to be a realistic possibility for me though. Well, until next I have something to report, later.

_{*{I think, their front door has moved, so I don’t know if the address is still accurate, because the entrance is no longer on 4th}}