Willamette Week| Lead Story| Seattle Envy

What's in a Song?
BY JACKIE McCARTHY

Before I'd ever traveled west of the Mississippi, I thought I knew all about the Pacific Northwest because of the Seattle music scene. Seattle's Sub Pop seemed to rule the musical universe, and Mudhoney and Nirvana were the jewels in the label's crown. As a transplanted Southerner, I had the entirely incorrect idea that an eternally inky sky was somehow romantic, exotic and very London punk-rock.

Then, right around the time Nirvana began touring, I saw a video for the Spinanes song "Noel, Jonah and Me," filmed in Portland, the band's hometown. Amid hazy summer light, people in thrift-store clothes--a cotton-and-wool, genteel-poverty kind of apparel--rode down halcyon streets on one-speed bicycles. As soon as the video was over, I hunted down a Portland guidebook.

I read the infamous stats about Portland having more bookstores and movie theaters per person than any other city, and the seeds were sown. Despite the fact that I knew lots of people in Seattle and no one in Portland, I moved to Portland and lived there for three years.

Now that I've lived in both places, I can tell you that I prefer the Rose City. Struggling for an explanation, I find only the notion that each city resembles its music. Portland is like a Spinanes record: smart, sincere, comforting, underappreciated. Seattle, on the other hand, is a lot like Mudhoney's music: cool, sarcastic, insular, overrated.

Other everyday things that tip the scales towards Portland: no sales tax; more good restaurants; a significantly lower cost of living; a higher minimum wage; and better weather. (Portland is generally 5 to 10 degrees warmer than its northern neighbor.) What finally decides it, though, is the attitude of each city's residents towards the other city. Of course, both Portlanders and Seattleites will swear that they live in the drier, sunnier city. But if you ask Portland residents about Seattle, they'll describe all the things about it that they like. Ask Seattle residents about Portland, and they'll launch into a litany of everything that's wrong with Portland, usually topping it off with sneering comments about its provincialism.

I've actually found Portlanders to be more open-minded than Seattleites. Seattle's social atmosphere has always bordered on xenophobia. (I have one friend, originally from Denver, who lived here for 10 years before she was invited into someone's home.) Portlanders, on the other hand, seem so pleased that anyone would think to visit their city that they're eager to become fast friends with any out-of-towner who shows up.

I like cities where you can coast for a bit and gather your reserves without feeling as if the world is passing you by, and that might be the key to Portland's appeal. There are a lot of temporary Portlanders because it's the ideal place for people who are trying to figure out what they're doing with themselves; the rent's low and there's plenty of stuff to do, but there's nothing so compelling that it'll keep you from staying home to finish that big novel, tone poem, painting, screenplay or macrame sculpture you've been working on for the past five years. It's a bit like a launching pad, especially when it comes to music. The Spinanes are now based in Chicago, while the members of Mudhoney are all still churning out songs from their Seattle basements. Maybe that's all that really needs to be said about Seattle: Nobody ever leaves.

Jackie McCarthy is a former Willamette Week staffer. Disgruntled Seattle natives can send hate mail to her care of Seattle Weekly, where she now works as music editor.

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Willamette Week | originally published October 28, 1998