Movin' Out

[June 2nd, 2004] Jeremy deVine moved to Portland in August 2002. By the end of that year, credit-card companies were suing him and his van was repossessed, thanks to the mounting costs of running his small experimental label, Temporary Residence.

Now, almost two years later, the label is doing just fine. On May 18, the 27-year-old released a compilation of his Temporary Residence artists called Thank You. On May 20, he paid off his last debt. And tomorrow, he'll jump into his car and move east to live with his girlfriend in New York, taking with him the successful and innovative label that helped put Portland on the experimental-music map. But right now, he's resting on his front porch talking about its unexpected success.

"The financial turnaround of the last two years has been greater than the first six years combined," he says. "The slope from being nearly broke to not having to worry day-to-day--I just really honestly didn't expect it to happen."

The label's success wasn't the result of any grand plan. DeVine can't even recall exactly why he moved to Portland, except that he made the decision after playing a "terrible show" at Dante's with his band Fridge in 2002. For some reason, the city seemed to offer the best escape from the lethargy that was haunting him in Baltimore, where he launched the label in 1995.

DeVine had amassed an impressive catalogue of artists that included, at one time, Cerberus Shoal and 90 Day Men, but the label was barely sustaining itself. Then Temporary Residence had a stroke of luck. In 2001 friends of deVine's in American Analog Set sent a demo from instrumental indie rockers Explosions in the Sky. DeVine liked it and offered to release their first album. The album received glowing national press and eventually shipped 40,000 copies--an impressive number for a label with only one employee.

But one great record wasn't enough to turn the label around. So deVine moved across the country and, after his van was repossessed, found inspiration.

"There's this really abysmal point I hit when I moved here," he says. "I told everyone I worked with that I was going to treat [the label] as an absolute full-time thing for one year. And if there was no marked change, I would just fold it."

By focusing on the label, deVine was eventually able to quit his job at Jackpot Records. "By August or September of last year, there was no doubt that I would be doing it forever," he says.

Unfortunately, he'll be doing it from New York, making him a soon-to-be-sorely missed temporary resident of Portland.