Portland is Awesome

Music is memories. And these songs are my summer memories in Portland from 1992-1998.

Staring out the window at the passing, warm city as me and Sarah and Jess drove around playing my Dharma Bums tape. Hanging with Kaia of Team Dresch on her porch playing acoustic guitar in S.E. around the corner from my new girlfriend’s house. Interviewing Hazel on the radio and loving Fred’s dancing. Being a tad intimidated at the drunk punks stumbling around the Satyricon, but excited about the loud rocking Wipers show; the drum reverb like an old friend. Biking home in the warm summer quiet evening, weaving around the rose garden circles in Ladd’s Addition, humming to myself a Spinanes song, the day after Rebecca totally hit on me at a show at Berbati’s. Seeing Elliott sitting quietly writing something in a notepad in the back of every S.E. coffeeshop I seemed to walk into. And of course my friend Ben, who I was close with for a time…and life meandered and I went on to do things and he went on to be Kind of Like Spitting.

Today I thought about about my youth, my musical youth, my electric youth. I made a little mixtape for y’all of the bands that meant the most to me during that period of my life. Bands and musicians that I loved, bought their music, possibly knew personally. Music that watched me grow up.

Shout outs to those bands I didn’t include on the mix, but saw at shows around town.
In no particular order:
Hitting Birth, Calamity Jane, Kurtz Project
Nero’s Rome, Naked Lunch, Treefrogs
Drunk At Abi’s, Sweaty Nipples
Pond, Gravelpit, Thrillbilly
Henry Moon, Sylvia’s Ghost, On A Llama
Pete Mizer and the Five Fingers of Funk
Doris Daze, Jesus Presley, Skiploader
Richmond Fontaine, 17 Reasons Why
Carmina Piranha, Kerosene Dream
Everclear (Greg Eklund is a good guy)
McKinley (I actually did buy her CD; it was great.)

Pink Martini since I knew a guy who played bass for them, and they played at our crazy party when the tech company I worked for got bought out by Disney right before I moved away.

Kaitlyn Ni Donovan, still plays; I saw her a few months ago at a lovely wine bar evening show. And she has a special place in my heart for being the manager of the 1201, the bar which I basically lived at during my 20’s. Hi Phil!

And last but not least, Local’s Only, the little record shop that could (for a little while.)
I would go in there and get a new 7″ or zine or CD of some local band.

What are your 1990’s local musical memories? Where were they? Do you still listen to them?

As a relatively short-time Portland resident (I mean, I’ve only lived here 13 years or so), I’ve always taken a particular interest in the history of our fair town. And for that, there was no better place than Stumptown Confidential.

Now, you’ll notice I didn’t link to “Stumptown Confidential.” And that’s because, unfortunately, that brilliant blog recently met with its untimely demise—due to a hosting problem.

Stumptown Confidential is history – my files were lost when the host flipped some switch. I’m saddened that all my work from 2004-2008 is gone for good. Thankfully I still have the photos and put them up on a Flickr account.

But the story doesn’t end there. The good news is that Stumptown Confidential has risen from the proverbial ashes as part of another of Schlockstar’s sites, Lost Oregon:

The goal of the site is the same as Stumptown Confidential’s – document the disappearing Portland and Oregon of the recent past – through postcards, photos and words. Due to my geographical location of Portland metro, the site might be more skewed toward the area though.

So, take a little trip down memory lane—an often kitschy memory lane, at that—with Lost Oregon, an awesome Portland blog.