Local News & Reviews

[September 13th, 2006]

^Alberta Street Public House five-Year Anniversary Celebration

A local pub's owner and booker explain the experience of stayin' alive on Alberta.

[pub with it all] "Are you kidding me? I'm not going over there. I'll be killed." This was Alberta Street Pub owner Mikey Beglan's initial response to the idea of opening a bar on Northeast Alberta Street in 1996. Beglan had been running the East Avenue Tavern (where Grendel's Coffee House is today), but after losing the lease, he swore to himself, "If I'm ever gonna do this again, I'm gonna own the building." So, despite everyone he knew telling him he was "absolutely nuts," Beglan drove around the Alberta neighborhood and thought to himself, "You know, this could be something. It really could."

Now the pub is in the midst of its five-year anniversary celebration, a weeklong musical extravaganza with acts ranging from bluegrass and old-time to hot jazz and even indie rock. Beglan has done his best to change the once-seedy bar into a "very pristine, kind of fussy" nonsmoking joint, but even with its facelift, the Irish pub has had its share of obstacles. Music booker Kris Strackbein and Beglan—who've worked together since the bar opened three days before Sept. 11, 2001—are frank about the pub's rough beginnings. "Having worked on this building as long as I did and then having the bottom, basically, fall out of America...," Beglan trails off. "I mean, if I hadn't owned the building, I would've been gone in a year." Beglan, who came from Ireland to Portland in 1971, seems truly amazed that he's made it this far. "I never planned to own a bar," he says in a thick Irish accent. "I said, 'What's to running a bar? You just buy beer and open the doors,'" he laughs. "I've been learning ever since how wrong I was."

Known mainly for hosting acoustic old-time, folk and country artists, Alberta Street has a reputation for attracting, as Strackbein puts it, "tea drinking crowds," but she's been mixing things up musically for a little over a year now. Beglan—who'll be playing Irish folk tunes with guitarist Nancy Conescu as part of the celebration's Friday-night lineup—understands the value of having a younger booker (Strackbein is 32 to Beglan's 54) who's immersed in Portland's music scene, and the generation gap is charming. When Beglan teasingly says, "She's expanded the range to very strange things," for instance, Strackbein's sarcastic "thanks" comes off in an "Aw jeez, Dad, get with it" kind of way. But Beglan does get it: "The standard of music and the variety of music and the sheer number of bands and musicians," he says, "it's just...absolutely overwhelming." And Strackbein is embracing just that by booking chamber-core bands like Bright Red Paper and young indie-folk phenoms like Horse Feathers as well as old-time and bluegrass staples like Clampitt, Gaddis & Buck and Jackstraw.

Both agree that, as Beglan puts it, "Musical barriers are breaking down." "There's definitely a folk revolution going on," says Strackbein. "A lot of it has to do with artists like Calexico and Iron & Wine and Sufjan Stevens. I think that's pushing a trend, and I think Portland is embracing it a heck of a lot more than other places. I am happy to push whatever limits I can with this room, 'cause that's what we as a city are about. For us to stay in one little genre, it's not very representative." There's an obvious sense of pride, accomplishment and bewilderment between the two of them about how far they've come together, and honestly prevails when they're asked where they'd like to be in five more years: "I'd like to be alive," says Beglan. Kris chimes in: "and open."

—AMY MCCULLOUGH.

The Alberta Street Public House's five-year anniversary celebration continues Wednesday through Saturday, Sept. 13-16. 6 pm. $5 each night. 21+. For full lineup, see Headout, page 52, and music listings, page 33.

^Matt Hollywood of the Out Crowd

Matt Hollywood retakes the stage with the BJM—and lives to tell about it.

[PSYCHEDELIC POP CAMEO] About 45 minutes into what was shaping up to be a fantastic set by the Brian Jonestown Massacre last Thursday at the Crystal during MusicfestNW, leadman Anton Newcombe invited departed founding BJM member Matt Hollywood onstage to play guitar. Hardcore fans throughout the crowd went ballistic as the now Portland-based leader of the Out Crowd ascended the stage. However, rather than immediately launching into "Oh Lord" (formerly Hollywood's signature tune, which he did play, although Newcombe sang it), Newcombe and Hollywood stood forehead-to-forehead as they quickly rehearsed the changes of some more obscure BJM tunes. But by the end of the set, which climaxed in a five-minute noise jam, Hollywood really had the hang of things; playing passionate leads, facing his amp and still strumming chords as the band began to leave the stage. WW caught up with Hollywood backstage at the end of the night.

—JASON SIMMS.

WW: Was your performance planned? It almost seemed like you didn't know what songs you were going to play.

Matt Hollywood: Anton wrote me about a month ago and said, "Hey, do you wanna play a couple of songs?" But, I don't know, it could have been better organized. Some of those songs I had never played guitar on before: I had played bass. But "Vacuum Boots"—I wrote that guitar part, but I hadn't played it in so long that it was a little tough at first doing it. I thought we were just going to do "Oh Lord" or something and then I'd be done, but it was fun; I mean, we played "Solitaire"—which was a song that was written during the very early stages of the band, but I never actually played live, so it was fun to play that live. Every time Anton and I get together we have fun lately; you know, we're [like] brothers.

But it wasn't always like that. You left the band on bad terms six years ago....

I will always love [Newcombe], and I will always miss the fact that musically he's one of the people I really connected with, and it's hard playing with other people knowing that there's this other guy who's like an extension of my own mind. We've had personal differences, but musically we've always had the same kind of crazy. When he would write a song, I would write a part for it and he would never have to tell me how to play my part of the song, and vice versa.

But wasn't there some drama last night? I think I saw Anton yelling at some of the other band members....

I guess he thought [guitarist] Frankie [Emerson] was getting upset about something, but it wasn't anything. This is what he does, and what he creates is his life, and if he feels that there's something getting in the way of it in any way, he gets extremely emotional about it, because that's what his life is about. But for the most part I was standing out there in the audience enjoying the show because they sounded incredible, and this is probably the best lineup they've ever had. And I then I got to get up and play a few songs with my favorite band.

Is that how you think of BJM now, as your favorite band?

There really aren't any other musicians making music these days that I can feel as much of a connection to. For me and a lot of my friends, that's the music we listen to. It goes beyond that I used to play with that band or any hurt feelings. The fact is that the music is so good that it's the soundtrack to everybody I know's lives.

Did you ever feel like you were somehow entitled to have that connection with someone who was more stable?

There were times when I hoped that that could happen and there were times when I wished it was that way, but you have what life gives you and you deal with it. You can't wish someone into being something they're not, and Anton is who he is. He is what most people would call insane, and what some people would call a genius. You're talking about a person who is so creative and so intelligent that the world as a whole, and the way most people live, doesn't make sense to him.

^Liv Warfield, Embrace Me

Portland's queen of live, improv-heavy soul makes a seamless move to the studio for her excellent debut.

[SOUL] When an inherently live artist goes into the studio to make an album, the risk is that said artist's improvisational nature and charm will be lost somewhere between the microphone and the hard drive. Luckily for us, Portland soul singer Liv Warfield and her band avoid this pitfall by making the recordings really, really good on their own, showcasing aspects of Warfield's delivery that can't be realized at a show.

Embrace Me opens with "ABC," which has the kind of bassline A Tribe Called Quest loved to sample, and funky-ass drums courtesy of legendary session player Bernard Purdie. The track finds Warfield channeling Erykah Badu's jazz-infused inflection, singing, "I wish I could turn back time and listen to Donny sing/ His words inspired to say someday we'll all be free." The Donny she's invoking, for those not in the know, is '70s soul crooner Donny Hathaway.

The title track slows things down, layering Warfield's hushed vocals on top of one another, a strategy used throughout the recording. "Sophisticated Sista" uses the effect to approximate the sound of early Michael Jackson recordings, though the bulk of the track is more reminiscent of Voodoo-era D'Angelo. The studio turns out to be freeing for Warfield in many ways, letting her soft, intimate side shine through more clearly than at a live show.

If I'm name-dropping a bit, it's because the compositions that back Warfield sound like songs you've heard for years, in both form and musical execution. She wisely refuses the dime-a-dozen synthesized beats of modern R&B (over which she would still shine) for warmer jazz-style settings, but her songs sound current and radio-ready nonetheless—just without a 2006 expiration date stamped all over them.

If Embrace Me has a weakness, it's that some of Warfield's lyrics don't quite fill the shoes that her incredible voice, gorgeous compositions and funky band leave for them. In performance, the singer changes lyrics at will, so there's really no one version of a song to hang your hat on. Even on the recording, though, Warfield's songs are delivered so passionately that it's difficult to actually hear most of the lyrics without also hearing the message behind them. Whether she's belting it out or whispering, the singer's aim is clearly true and her heart is front and center.

The inclusion of "Brother Man," a live track recorded at the Doug Fir, as an album-ender was a wise move by Warfield and company. A possessed-sounding Warfield completely kills it like only she can, vocally riffing with raw force but never forcing anything. Doug Fir should have just boarded the place up and called it a good run afterwards. Liv Warfield, though, needs to keep running the show.

—CASEY JARMAN.