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Getting Terry Currier to leave his office at Music Millennium is no mean feat. And that’s not simply because of the knee-high stacks of CDs that he has to avoid when getting to and from his desk nor the fact that it’s the second day of March Madness and he’s got a bracket to manage.
“I went 14-2 yesterday,” the 70-year-old humbly brags as he stands amid mounds of paperwork and promotional detritus that he has accumulated in his four decades at the helm of Music Millennium. The East Burnside Street record shop is celebrating its 56th anniversary this year.
Originally hired as a manager in 1979, Currier took an ownership stake in Music Millennium in 1984. Since then, he has steered the space successfully through all manner of commercial highs and lows: the CD boom, the arrival of streaming services, the financial crisis, the pandemic and the ongoing vinyl revival.
Doing so meant logging 12-hour shifts six days a week behind that desk, fielding dozens of phone calls and answering hundreds of emails from label reps, artists’ managers, and distributors.
It’s a schedule he happily kept up until recently when his wife’s health began to demand more of his time. Even so, when WW caught up with him recently for a short tour of his favorite haunts—almost all within walking distance of the shop—he’d been on the clock since 5 am. Among his duties is prepping for Record Store Day on April 12, the annual celebration of independent shops like Music Millennium that fill the racks with limited-edition vinyl.
Stepping away from the controlled chaos of Music Millennium may not be the norm for Currier, especially as L.A. indie-rockers Saint Hotel are en route to sign autographs for fans, but he did graciously leave the shop and show WW how he spends a day in the city.
Lunch Time: Visiting City State Diner & Bakery (128 NE 28th Ave., 503-517-0347, citystatediner.com) with Currier, it becomes quickly apparent how he can maintain his busy schedule. Before he’s even settled in his seat, the server has placed in front of him a full glass, and an extra pitcher’s worth of iced tea, which he polishes off over the course of our meal. “They know me here,” Currier says, grinning.
As he digs into his BLT and side salad (blue cheese dressing, please) and lifts the volume of his voice to be heard over the bustling lunch crowd, Currier recounts his busy morning. On this rainy Friday, he’s been emailing various artists set to be inducted into the Oregon Music Hall of Fame, the organization he helped create back in 2004. And before you ask, no, he wouldn’t divulge the names of the honorees.
Too, because it’s the day of the week when new releases hit the shelves of the shop, he’s also been studiously spinning CDs of fresh music, hoping to catch the same spark he found when he saw his first concert as a teen: Leon Russell and the Shelter People at Memorial Coliseum, back in 1972.
“It’s hard to keep up with it all,” he says, “because we’re a full catalog store. We’ve got the gamut from Turkish music to the new Charli XCX.”
More Caffeine: Somehow, Currier has an itch to complement his iced tea buzz with an americano at Oblique Coffee Roasters (3039 SE Stark St., 503-228-7883, obliquecoffeeroasters.com). It’s here that he buys beans in bulk to have in the office at Music Millennium. And it’s where he gets a chance to take a breather amid the surprisingly calming natural wood interior. (You may have spotted the shop, and its owner John Chandler, in a couple of episodes of Portlandia.)
“I stopped drinking coffee at age 26 because I was drinking 20 cups a day,” Currier remembers. “But one day, I decided we were going to put a coffee bar in the shop, so I started going to all the independent coffee shops in town. This was one of the places. [Chandler] actually found the espresso machine for us. Next thing I know, I started drinking coffee again.”
For now, the bulky coffee maker is in the basement of Currier’s home in Vancouver, but at the very least, the purchase helped cement a relationship with Oblique’s owner. When Music Millennium held its Customer Appreciation BBQ last year, Currier invited Chandler’s band Duddr to play.
“You’ve heard of phase cancellation, when two soundwaves collide and you just can’t hear anything?” Chandler recalls of the late afternoon gig. “We were cranked so loud and still didn’t know what we were doing.”
“But you sounded great!” Currier insists.
A Bit of Revolution: Currier has been in the local music scene for so long, most doors fly open for him. Like if he needs to reserve some spots in the balcony at Mississippi Studios for he and his wife, the venue obliges without question. Getting into the main theater of one of his favorite venues, Revolution Hall, (1300 SE Stark St., 503-288-3895, revolutionhall.com) for a quick photo, on the other hand, takes some maneuvering.
He’s confident enough to suggest working our way in through the backstage area, where Cali rock band RX Bandits are moving their gear, but we get stopped and directed elsewhere. While we don’t have much to do at the venue, it’s a blast to watch Currier boldly stalk the halls of the former high school, giving him the air of a living legend gracing the space with his aura.
Even More Caffeine: “We haven’t seen you in so long!” exclaims the barista at Crema Coffee + Bakery (2728 SE Ankeny St., 503-234-0206, cremabakery.com) when Currier sidles up to the bar to order. This is the spot Currier hits up in the afternoons when he needs a final push to finish out his day. For now, he’s stopping in for a final americano and, most importantly, a hot chocolate for his wife.
Before he heads back to the shop for a check-in and then home, Currier happily recounts his favorite recent gigs and various brushes with celebrity during his long tenure at Music Millennium. Time and circumstances are slowing him down some—he used to hit at least four live shows a week, but has scaled back considerably of late—but there’s still that vital spark in his voice as he recalls seeing Willie Nile recently at the White Eagle Saloon or hosting Randy Newman’s in-store performance in 1989.
“He was really nervous,” Currier remembers. “He was upstairs in the office, worried and asked me, ‘So, what am I supposed to do?’ I told him, ‘Just go be Randy Newman.’ And he did.”
SEE IT: Celebrate Record Store Day at Music Millennium, 3158 E Burnside St., 503-231-8926, musicmillennium.com. 10 am–10 pm Saturday, April 12.