So what do you do? Oh yeah, I wait tables too/ No, I haven’t heard your band,
’cos you guys are pretty new/ But if you dig on vegan food, well come over
to my work/I’ll have them cook you something that you’ll really love/’Cos I
like you/ Yeah I like you/And I’m feeling so bohemian like you...
The Dandy Warhols’ 2001 hit Bohemian Like You — helped to the top of the
charts by that infuriating Vodafone ad — is essentially an ironic love song
to their home town of Portland, Oregon. Set against the stark beauty of the
dormant volcano Mount Hood, straddling the Willamette River, and dotted with
fir trees and rose gardens, the town’s main claim to fame to date has been
that Simpsons characters are named after Portland streets. In the past six
months, however, this concrete grove of bohemian dreaming has proved itself
a 21st-century blend of Manchester, Detroit and Berlin, producing a new wave
of cutting-edge indie bands that have so excited the mighty Johnny Marr, he
went and joined one of them: the jagged indie rockers Modest Mouse.
“It had got to the point where if I heard another band describe themselves as
sounding like a cross between the Smiths and the Cure, I was going to shoot
them and then myself,” Marr explains. “Modest Mouse caught me at a time when
I had an agenda to do a completely different sound: something electric and
skyscraper-huge. Nobody else sounds like that at the moment.” At the end of
March, this union proved fruitful. The album, We Were Dead Before the Ships
Even Sank, entered the US charts at number one. And yet, as he strides
Portland’s streets looking for somewhere to live, Marr is increasingly aware
of just how many citizens want to steal that slot. Fellow Portlanders the
Gossip — a punk/soul three-piece led by the cover star du jour Beth
Ditto — and tortured indie popsters the Shins currently have the British
press watching their every move. Meanwhile, the mad musical experimentalist
husband-and-wife duo Viva Voce release Viva Voce Loves You in June; alt-punk
guitar threesome the Thermals kick off some UK dates in May; intellectual
rockers the Decemberists play New York’s Central Park this summer;
left-field funk-folk ensemble Blitzen Trapper release their third album,
Wild Mountain Nation, in June; and jangly pop outfit the Shaky Hands
recently signed to Holocene Music.
These bands are just a tiny fraction of the Portland music scene. Last week,
for instance, the local entertainment mag Willamette Week listed more than
100 bands playing in a total of 60 venues on an average Thursday night. This
in a town with a population the size of Edinburgh.
Why should this city generate so much music when few people outside the USA
have heard of it? The Gossip, originally from Arkansas, moved there five
years ago: “Partly, we went there because it’s so cheap — you can live in
Portland for, like, $350 [£180] rent a month,” explains the guitarist, Brace
Paine. “But once you’re there, there are so many people your age — it’s a
really young town — doing so many creative things and all going out and
watching each other play, that it became hard to imagine living anywhere
else.”
“The forest is right there, the ocean has a wild and vicious beauty, the
rivers are swift and dangerous, so that’s all pretty inspiring,” says Viva
Voce’s Kevin Robinson. “But it’s also that people here have a low tolerance
for posturing. You can’t sit around all day talking about starting a band
and how great it’s going to be. You just have to get up and do it. You can’t
have half-assed ideas. People expect to be wowed by you.”
Portland has always supplied America’s indie market. Courtney Love, for
instance, hails from its low-rise streets. She left for the coast, however,
while this generation of Portland musicians has a strong loyalty to the
city. Indeed, these days the flow is in the other direction — Pixies founder
Frank Black and Pavement’s Stephen Malkmus have both settled there in recent
years. And the members of this close-knit muso community are always helping
each other out. Viva Voce’s Anita Robinson sings on the Shins’ third album,
Wincing the Night Away, for instance; and when the Decemberists’ equipment
trailer was stolen in 2005, the Thermals, the Shins and the Dandy Warhols
all donated new kit. Indeed, although sometimes accused in other parts of
America of selling out, the Dandy Warhols used the money from the Vodafone
ad to build music and film studios for local bands and artists.
This desire to avoid LA and New York is fuelled by Portland’s horror at the
destruction of Seattle’s vibrant music scene when grunge became big in the
1990s. “A lot of bands just took the money and ran to LA,” says Paine. “Then
the music crashed and boy-bands took over. Now you’ve got a lot of bitter
guys who still can’t believe they missed out on the 1990s payday and are
completely burnt out.”
“All the bands know there’s a potential threat to this artistic utopia,” adds
Robinson. “Nobody’s going to get above themselves. We’re too smart for that.”
Although you’ll hear plenty of Portland bands on indie movie soundtracks such
as Garden State and Elizabethtown, the scene has an uneasy relationship with
the traditions of pop exploitation. The Thermals refused to licence their
song It’s Trivia for a Hummer commercial — “How could we go on after
soundtracking Hummer? It’s just so evil,” explains the singer, Hutch Harris
— and the Gossip pulled out of their support slot on the Scissor Sisters
tour because Ditto didn’t like performing for an audience that “didn’t know
their Ramones”. The desire for independence is partly fuelled by Portland’s
politics, which offer a vision of an America that turned left instead of
right in the 1980s. There’s a cheap, clean and efficient public-transport
system, and strict urban planning controls to prevent skyscrapers; abortion
is legal, as is assisted suicide for the terminally ill, and the city is
leading the campaign for Oregon to legalise gay marriage. There’s a thriving
local arts scene supported by a healthy counterculture media, including two
radical weeklies, three arts mags and Exotic — which covers the, um, adult
nightlife.
While the global retail chains do exist, Portlanders have a deep-seated love
for local businesses. Mom-and-pop grocery stores, bookshops, coffee shops
and diners vastly outnumber the branded behemoths, even though Nike’s worldwide
headquarters is on the edge of town. Most Portlanders, however, are proudest
of one thing: the city has more breweries than anywhere else in the world:
33 at the last count. That makes for a bewildering variety of local brews —
which just may have something to do with the town’s musical reputation. Put
a bunch of twentysomethings in a beautiful city with low rents and strong,
cheap beer: if that’s not a recipe for bohemia, I don’t know what is.
Viva Voce Loves You is released on June 18 on Full Time Hobby; We Were Dead
Before the Ship Even Sank by Modest Mouse is out now on Epic
I think the writer hits the true vibe of this city with it's support of "mom and pop" establishments. And while a taste for something 'indie' may have something to do with it, it turns out these establishments aren't doing anything groundbreaking, they just offer a better product. I challenge anyone to drink Starbucks coffee after having a cup from any of the number of local, independently owned coffee roasters. Theirs is a far superior cup of coffee. Ditto for beer - the locals clearly top the national brands - ditto for restaurants. You'll also find the equivalent of a small town main drag in most of the little neighborhoods which dot the very fringes of downtown - you shan't find 'Ace' hardware here, but you will find a small shop owned by the bloke who lives next store to you. I'm not sure how they did, but they've created something quite brilliant here. btw - the whole "live here for $350 in rent" isn't remotely accurrate - this isn't a cheap city anymore.
drew, portland, or
Portland is awesome. In only ten years, since here moving from NYC, the changes I've seen are incredible. Portland is growing, but it is well contained growth. Don't believe the false panic caused by uninformed alarmists. Brooklyn, Boston, California and several other areas are still going to draw more "hipsters" so fear not. If you want to be helpful, get the state to rally for education. That's something worth caring about. Come to Portland and have fun.
Herschel Krustofski , Puddletown, Ore
Stay out of Portland, please.
We're sick of people treating this place like "Indie Mecca." We don't need any tourists, or hipster yuppies moving here because they think it's super-cool.
danny, PORTLAND, OR
Its a very dangerous game. Get famous and lose it all. I see more and more people wearing Gap everyday. I can't say it is better than ever because someone had to seed the scene and it was great back then. I just wish every city could be different than the next city. Portland will always be Portland but there is probably a billion new Portlands out there that are enjoying their privacy.
P.S Regardless, it is always nice to have a memeber of Gang Of Four living in your city!
george, portland, OR.
I'm a native Portlander, living here for over 50 years. Of course, I've seen massive changes over the years, but the thing that keeps Portland Portland is its setting in the fabulously beautiful Pacific NW. The natural beauty which surrounds Portland is like a nurturing nest for creative energies in all varieties of art and music. I express gratitude every day for living here now. Linda Rudnick, Beaverton
Linda Rudnick, Beaverton, Oregon, USA
As a Portland local, I'm glad to see that this town made the news for something other than "livability" and "quality of life." Every time one of those articles comes out, another half dozen condos go up and another rich 5,000 about-to-retire-ees move here.
To me, any city is only as good as its arts and culture is lively. And how lively it is is dependent on how active its young and its gay residents are. There's a lot of creating going on here, and that's what *really* makes this city such a pleasure to live in.
Bring us your young, your gay, and your artsy; there's always room for more!
Mo, Portland, Oregon
I've been in Portland for just over 4 years now, and I don't plan on ever leaving. The music scene is amazing as you can see any number of live acts on any given night. Smaller acts get the chances they need to jump start their careers, and rarely do they disappoint. Great beer, recently recognized by the Food Network for Most Delicious Destination, tons of parks, pedestrian and dog friendly.....come visit us, you might not leave.
John, Portland,
Add in the most fun (real) footie fans in the states http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:107TimbersSunderland.jpg to the love-fest. Brit living here for 9 years, the city's been very good to me - so much so that I keep extending my return to the UK.
Ralph Chilton, Portland, USA
I've been here for 10 years and still love it every day. Almost. More than music, more than green, more than progressive, it is unpretentious and quirky. Musicians support each other but so do others here like the wineries and the restaurants. It's not cut-throat, it's cooperative.
Come and check us out!
barbara steinfeld
tourism director for Portland
www.travelportland.com
Barbara Steinfeld, Portland , Oregon
I am a UK citizen by birth, grew up in California, and have lived in Portland for the past six years. It is indeed a great town for music -- I have seen many memorable shows here, including Johnny Marr and his band, the Healers. It seems that nearly everyone in Portland plays in a band. Watch out for Derby, a Portland band that will hit big in the next few years. They have one album out, and are working on their second. They are bright and poppy, with songs that are tuneful and addictive. The UK will love them.
Michael C. Morton, Portland, Oregon USA
marilyn manson lives in Beaverton and i think weezer's drummer does too.
tom, Corvallis, OR
Since moving here in 2000 I've watched Portland grow in stature both here and abroad and it's good to see the coverage the city's music scene gets. Someone needs to write a book about Portland as every article I've seen doesn't quite scratch the surface of the rich and diverse music scene. For those readers who want to keep a finger on the city's pulse check out my Portland music, arts and culture blog - www.pampelmoose.com
Gang of Four
Dave Allen, Portland, OR, USA
Great review of a very exciting city. However, IWas disappointed to see no mention of the late Elliott Smith. Creator of some of the city's greatest musical output and one of the most influential artists of his generation.
Woody, Bristol,