All we want

Simple requests for the upcoming year in Portland music

By Josh Rogers, and Sam Pfeifle

Okay. Yes, we did just get done extolling the virtues of the glorious music year that was 2001. In fact, you could say that we, as generally cynical critics, are surprisingly content with the state of Portland’s music scene. It’s not a bad (small) town in which to be a music fan.

That doesn’t mean, however, that things are all lollipops and gumdrops. There are some glaring flies in our musical ointment, and we’re here to dig them out by offering up 20 simple suggestions for the benefit of interested parties. So, if you’re reading this — and you happen to have a spare million bucks or so — step up to the plate. Open that new rock club. Finance that struggling-yet-talented band. Take our suggestions to heart. We know what we’re talking about. Really. We swear.

 

1. Albums from Jerks of Grass and the Muddy Marsh Ramblers. These bluegrassers, and others, could learn a little from the rock world. Bands like Adamo, Trailor, Phosphor, and Greg Goodwill all had albums out seemingly before they’d played a gig. The Jerks and the Ramblers have been going for years and we fans have been satiated only with tracks on compilation albums. Not enough! There’s a story going around that Borders gets five requests a day for a Jerks album. Give the fans what they want, boys and girls.

2. Bebe Buell/Liv Tyler duet show. Ever seen that movie Duetsç Huey Lewis and Gwyneth Paltrow perform karaoke as a father/daughter act. It’s heartbreaking. What could possibly be more touching, or sexy, than a gig featuring this lovely pair? And that Steve Tyler guy and his band could open.

3. The return of Coulter. Remember Coulter? He was our Morrissey: a rockabilly-co-opting, eyeliner-wearing, self-absorbed jerk. He was too big for this town. And then he left (and was rumored to have become a gardener). We don’t really want him back – just any rock star poseur will do. It’s time somebody got serious.

4. A new Rose Cottage. For variety and volume of neato used instruments, Daddy’s Junky music ain’t got nothin’ on the old Rose Cottage. Before closing down a few years back, the Rose Cottage took in all sorts of exotic objects: pedal steels, ukuleles, archaic microphones. How about a thirty-year-old Ampeg amp – not only did it have tubes that they nowadays only still crank out in Russia, but an input for accordion, as well as your standard guitar. The help at Buckdancer’s Choice are nice enough, but we’re missing a music store right downtown. Someplace you can wander around on your lunch break. Someplace where you can really salivate over a beautiful pair of twin reverbs.

5. Built to Spill at the State. Yes, Caustic Resin has paid us a somewhat recent visit, but it’s just not the same. Built to Spill put out a great album, toured, and the closest they came was three dates at the Paradise in Boston. Those dates? Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Great. Didn’t like my job anyway. Somebody hook it up.

6. A moratorium on blues bands. This is a little mean, we’ll allow, but someone stop them. Whether you’re BB King, Keb’ Mo’, Jeff Pitchell, or DD and the Road Kings, you’re not doing anything new musically. Zip it. You’re not. We say, everybody takes a year off. Then, when you come back, the guitar solos in E and the emotive vocals will all sound fresh and new and we’ll care again.

7. The El Camino Song Club Spotlight Series: The Art of the Heckle. We’re getting some good banter going between rocker and rockee in this town lately. It’s time to bring all the best together – Billy, Peepshow, Extendo-Ride – and watch the barbed pop hooks fly.

8. A new, all-music, Portland magazine. Remember when Face didn’t suck? Once, under Bennie Green, it had a purpose. All music, all the time. Now they’ve got jokers sneaking into the movies, reviewing books, trying to be funny, talking about restaurants, reprinting press releases. And they don’t even work within 100 miles of Portland anymore. What gives? We need the kind of mag that’s willing to go the extra mile and cover that TF3 show.

9. Madonna at the Civic Center. As a small market, we always get screwed. Madonna puts on these fabulous shows and Portland fans are forced to trek down to the Fleet Center if they want to see the Material Girl touch herself seductively. Here’s where the millionaire comes in: Pay her to come here, and we’ll give you the keys to the city.

10. A musical equivalent to the Calderwood Bakery Photographic Collective. With recording equipment coming down in price all the time, it only makes sense that, for demos and first releases, bands take a more consistently DIY approach. Pool your resources, find a space, and start recording affordably.

11. A boy band. Seriously, Portland is missing a cheesy, pop boy band. We want some choreography, head sets, songs titled “You be Juliet,” dyed goatees, and screaming teenage fans. We’d probably need another all-ages club for this, but that can come later. First, we neŽd a local rival to all that 98/Backstreet/O-Town/Sync crap. If it’s going to be bad and popular, it might as well be bad, popular, and local.

12. The long-awaited Peepshow CD. The proletariat have been waiting years for aggro-punkers le Peep to squeeze out a polished nugget of noise. We know it’s done. But where is it? We want “Fortress Europe,” “John Joslin is a Nazi,” and “Revolutionland” in our hands. Something to show the grandkids.

13. Another rock club to battle the Skinny for our rock ’n’ roll buck. Look, the Skinny’s nice and all, but we need a little competition to really get things going in the rock realm (SubTerra, Shady Lady, we hear you, but you’re just too small). If you’ll notice, the addition of Mass Concerts to the promotions mix in Portland has improved the standard fare immensely. We got the Figgs, Hey Mercedes, Saves the Day, more hardcore bands than you can count, and Dokken all because there’s a new game in town. The same would happen with another rock club. There are just only so mýny Fridays and Saturdays that one booker can fill, and another club would maximize the number of pop/rock bands coming to Portland. Why haven’t we been visited by Gravel Pit, Jaya the Cat, Mappari, or any of a number of east coast bands in the past year? Maybe it’s because no one invited them.

14. The Free Street Taverna to remodel. The Taverna has so many good things going for it: It’s way more warm and inviting than the Skinny or the Asylum (um, do I know you?). Sometimes there’s free pizza. And it’s got great bands all the time (from Nick Danger to Sex Sells to Cappuccio Party). But if a show is crowded, you get packed in there like pringles. Invariably, they leave the tables in there for the few regulars nursing their Greek ales. If it’s rock show time, it’s time to rock, Free Street: take out the tables. Maybe even knock down a wall, too.

15. Wilco back at the Asylum. Tweedy and company blew through our town on the Summer Teeth/ermaid Avenue tour a few years ago. They were one of the tightest rock bands that place ever booked, too. Since then, they’ve maintained radio silence (one-time Tweedy pal Jay Farrar played the State Street Church a few months ago, but we were too busy re-alphabetizing our CD collections to go). Warner dropped them because their new album, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, was too uncommercial. We’re done reorganizing our CDs now, so we could go to a show anytime. We even left space for YHF – when someone’s smart enough to release it.

16. The Sheila Divine to absorb more of Portland’s rock elite. We’re not saying that we want to get rid of more local rockers. It’s just that the Sheila Divine are so relentlessly boring. Like eating white bread and washing it down with filtered water. Ryan Dolan and Colin Decker from Lincolnville have already injected a little Northern flavor into the mix. Maybe we should send down representatives from, say, Cerberus Shoal and the Horror, too. Can we just get a little lemon in our Evian, please? Please?

17. The Franklin Mint CD to get pressed. Okay, so we do have a vested interest in this one. It’s a little close to our hearts and that’s blurring our normally impartial vision a bit. But who cares when the music’s this good! The Mint recorded the document in three days a year ago during their breakup. It’s just never been mixed. More mysterious than that “lost” VU record.

18. Bull Moose should carry guitar strings. On the off-chance we don’t get that new downtown musical equipment store, Bull Moose could at least pinch hit and stock some el cheapo guitar strings. It’s 10 p.m. You’re playing Geno’s and your high E string breaks. What do you do?

19. A Portland metal fest. Worcester has one. Milwaukee has one. Asbury Park has one. It’s time Portland had an honest-to-goodness metal festival, with a crazy light show, lots of high-haired women in leather chaps, lead singers biting the heads of bats. Yes, there’s FUDA, but thaí’s in freakin’ Norway. The Twitchboy/Clown/Trivium/Swamp set have done their best with Haunting of the State and State of the Art, but they need some help: from the fans, from promoters, from national acts. Millionaire, make it happen.

20. Make way for the Portland Rock ‘n’ Roll Tour Bus. C’mon, there’s the Britney Bus, the Yankees Bus – can’t we get a bus to sponsor local music and haul our local-band-loving asses all over the East Coast? For away games, as it were. That way it wouldn’t just be the same old Thruthewires. It’d be Thruthewires at Brownie’s in NYC! Boo-yah!

Sam Pfeifle and Josh Rogers can be reached at spfeifle@phx.com and jrogers@phx.com.