Freezing rain falls on Southeast Portland. Next to the door
of a big house on a corner somewhere between Foster and Holgate,
a sign reads: IF A BAND IS PLAYING, PLEASE COME IN THROUGH
THE BACK DOOR. The heat, breath and sweat of about 60 bodies
has blanketed the big living-room window with fine steam.
I open the front door, only to find that I've instantly
broken House Rule No. 1. There is, in fact, a band playing
in the homey little room; it's the sort of space you can
imagine thousands of earnest little kids growing up in,
amidst the rubble of abandoned Monopoly games and half-eaten
brownies. In fact, the room is sardine-packed with a few
dozen of those very same young ones, all grown up into an
early adulthood devoted to thrift-store shopping and basement
rock.
The band's called My Little Brother, and it sounds
good-hearted and rough around the edges. The low-fidelity
pop whispers through the polite, rapt room--there's a reason
I couldn't tell, from the porch, that there were amplified
guitars going on in here. The winning indie boys of My Little
Brother know their way around a shoegazing pop hook, and
although their sound remains a little unfinished, they're
a perfect opening band, a still-formative appetizer for
a night of noise.
This friendly gathering, which looked like a cross between
a college house party and a retro-optometrist's wet dream,
assembled last Saturday night at the invitation of Magic
Marker Records, just one of many Portland labels
handcrafting its own finely vetted musical concoction. Magic
Marker specializes in well-scrubbed indie pop, wistful and
enthusiastic chirping that's brilliant when done well and
insufferably cloying when it's not. Magic Marker sticks
mostly to the good stuff, and Saturday's mixer/show welcomed
one of the best groups plying this particular inlet of the
great pop sea. The Lucksmiths, three fashion catalogue-ready
Australians, trekked to Portland as part of a TransAm odyssey,
finding themselves in the middle of the sort of off-the-grid
event that keeps Yankee rock and roll alive in spite of
its own best efforts at self-slaughter.
My Little Brother bounces to its conclusion, a small pond
of heads nodding along. Some people suck on 40-ouncers,
some smuggle Guinness out of the fridge wearing overly nonchalant
expressions. I stick to the Pabst tallboys. As two ladies
and one lad of Dear Nora set up their gear, conversation
flows at a polite, dull roar. This is not a night of rock-and-roll
excess, just some nice folks checking out some nice music.
Someone swings by to collect $3 for the Lucksmiths' war
chest. A dude in goggle-like raver glasses ogles everyone
in a peculiar fashion.
Todd Patrick and Josh Blanchard, late of
the defunct all-ages cavern 17 Nautical Miles and
currently struggling against city codes to open the Glass
Factory, hang out amidst the rabble. Their would-be
new club, a long-awaited project in an old bottling plant
on Southeast Pine Street, looks to give a more formal home
to Portland's bootstrapping DIY rockers, punks and experimentalists.
The new room, envisioned as an all-ages emporium with a
bar on the side, showed great promise when it flickered
to life this September, only to collide with uncooperative
fire codes and the ever-mysterious Oregon Liquor
Control Commission. Now, Patrick and Blanchard are working
to raise cash to fund expensive (by punk budgetary standards)
upgrades to the building.
While Glass Factory's run-in with the Man had many filling
out mental toe-tags for the place, Patrick reports progress.
The GF boys have lined up some pro bono electricians;
speculative sales of $50 passes good for three months' admission
to the club once it opens have raised about $2,500. Given
the fact that Patrick and Blanchard can't promise refunds
if the club never reopens, the success of that fund-raising
effort testifies to the faith and hope local underground
fans invest in the project.
Patrick also says he plans a series of benefit shows this
month, some of which may tap Portland's vibrant straightedge
hardcore scene, which manages to publicize its own shows
and turn out in force to support its bands with little outside
notice.
"We'd get 150 people at straightedge shows at 17 Nautical
Miles," Patrick says. "There'd be a pool of sweat an inch
deep on the floor afterwards. Those kids are organized."
Dear Nora, meanwhile, put on a touching, sweet show, although
I like them more when they're on-key than when they're off.
The party rolls on, with kids standing in the rain to smoke
and debate the WTO. By the time the Lucksmiths jump
up to play winsome pop and encourage a little world trade
of their own ("We've got beer in the basement, so if anyone
wants to come and have a lie-down..."), the tallboys kick
in and I start doing ill-advised imitations of Australian
accents and renditions of the first verse of "Waltzing
Matilda."
It's time to leave, clearly, but a good time was had by
all.
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Willamette Week | originally
published December 8,
1999
|
