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The
North by Northwest Music Festival and New Media Conference
begins Thursday. Check out WW's official
program for the festival.
Elsewhere
in this week's issue, you'll find our critics' tips for
enjoying the 300-band blowout.
17 Nautical
Miles, 4609 SE Woodstock Blvd., will remain in operation
through the middle of October. The neighboring Delta Cafe
plans to expand into 17's present space.
For
more information on The Summit, see www.
afm99.org.
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It's been a week on the run for your humble correspondent.
My attention span is shot to hell, and it can't be just
because the new issue of Loaded is chock-full of
photos of saucy models clad in the uniforms of all the soccer
teams in the English Premier League. No--somehow,
the triplet devilments of incipient music festivals, bizarro
society mixers and indie-rock showcases have fractured my
concentration.
So bear with me, friends and comrades, as we embark on
an unfocused odyssey through the week that was and the week
that will be.
There always seems to be a lot of fresh energy in the air
at back-to-school time, even for those of us who've wriggled
out of academia's stiff, cold fingers. Last Friday night's
fete marking the opening of Glass Factory, a new
rock club in cool post-industrial digs at 309 SE Pine St.,
realized some of that apple-cheeked élan. With a
wicked early autumn snap in the air and scores of Portland's
hip and adorable decked out in their finest non-cotton IndiewearTM,
the new space's baptism had the bracing hormonal charge
of a junior-high dance, with two excellent improvements:
Everyone was well over the age of consent, and cheap beer
came by the case.
As the Sensualists spun their web of beguiling thrift-store
electro-pop, Glass Factory capo Todd Patrick accepted
a steady stream of tribute from friends and allies. Patrick's
old club, the sweaty cubbyhole 17 Nautical Miles,
defied the odds and proved that an alcohol-free all-ages
club can thrive in this beer-washed city. Now, Glass Factory
offers a new energy level, with plans to sell beer to those
of age while preserving the kids' right to rock. The old
workshop also boasts high ceilings and room for at least
four times as many people as could cram into 17. It's still
a work in progress--the cobbled-together restrooms, for
one thing, remain decidedly lo-fi. But the juxtaposition
of blood-red walls and white Christmas lights lent a promising,
dramatic cast to Friday's proceedings, a heady this-could-be-the-time-of-our-lives
feel. The sound was good, and there was room to move and
air to breathe.
Of course, predicting whether or not a given club will
fly is a little like trying to pick the next Dalai Lama
from a lineup of toddlers--an inexact science at best. Still,
with Sleater-Kinney scheduled to rock the place Tuesday
and big-ticket shows by Promise Ring and Dropkick
Murphys in the offing, the immediate future of the Glass
Factory looks rosy indeed.
The jollification rolled on Saturday night, as a sprawling
warehouse in the Pearl District turned into a Babylonian
pleasure palace for the Dada Ball. Thousands of revelers,
most kitted out in a manner calculated to boost the birthrate
in nine months' time, basked in the Portland Institute
for Contemporary Arts' meticulously crafted bacchanalia.
The music on the pair of stages was something of a mixed
bag, often paling in comparison to the decadence on the
floor. Still, Systemwide made some headway with its
fast-moving, edgy dub; avant-accordionist Miss Murgatroid
coaxed haunting wisps of noise from her squeezebox; and
the lab-coated DJs of the Multnomen capped the night
in suitably frantic style as a crowd fueled on beer, wine
and jungle juice looked to make new friends. So, like, why
don't we do this every weekend?
This weekend, of course, sees the NXNW industry
invasion, as well as a host of worthy shows going forward
without the festival's imprimatur. Can you feel a blackout
coming on? Well, let's everybody play nice. Festival wristbands
are still available for $30 from WW and Music Millennium.
While the panels and seminars of North by Northwest focus
on the Internet's impacts on music, the festival isn't the
only electrocentric confab in town this weekend. By some
wild coincidence, the American Federation of Musicians
Local 99 sponsors The Summit, billed as a "Northwest
Music and New Media Seminar," at the same time! The Sept.
29-30 conference, which features reps of the Recording
Industries Association of America, Liquid Audio,
the union and other companies with a stake in the post-Net
future of the industry, takes place at the Scottish Rite
Center, 709 SW 15th Ave., and will run you $60 at the door.
Call 235-8791.
Organized labor is busy this week. Local 28, the
stagehands union, sponsors a T-shirt sale to benefit AIDS
research. Capitalizing on their unusual access to musicians,
the techies have assembled a formidable selection of limited-edition,
signed tees from everyone from k.d. lang to the
Who. The shirts will roll for $10 each starting at 8
a.m. Saturday, so if you want a crack at the best swag,
turn up at Pioneer Courthouse Square bright and early.
Although the cause is excellent, I'm afraid you won't find
me there. I'll be somewhere between one NXNW showcase and
the next, trying to keep it together.
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Willamette Week | originally
published September 29,
1999
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