Written by Brendan Kane
Photography by Brendan Kane and Ryan Monty
What I was able to gather by the halfway point of my first cab ride in Portland went beyond the knowledge of how busy the night was for the driver or if it was supposed to rain later in the evening. It was the opening night of MFNW (Music Fest North West) in the city and my friend, Monty and I were on our way to a place called the Kennedy School to watch Deer Tick perform three sets in a gymnasium. That was all I needed to know. An hour earlier, an eavesdropping Buffalo Exchange clothes-fetcher overheard me talking them up to a fellow employee as I tried on a pair of women’s jeans. He said the show was free and affiliated with the festival; however, it was dubbed as a halfway to St. Patrick’s Day bash.
The cabbie shot dialogue like a cannon when I told him the Kennedy School address, “Oh yeah, that’s a McMenamin’s,” he began. This was the second time I had heard this phrase; the first was the night before. We were in Centralia, Washington and about to see Deer Tick (but they had to reschedule). Suffice to say, becoming fond with four Olympia cool cats, drinking absinthe from a crystal chalice, and proceeding to close down their McMenamin’s haunt built a strong first impression.
According to the cabbie, the Kennedy school is an elementary school from 1915 that the McMenamin’s franchise revived from abandonment for the sole purpose of filling it with as much cool shit as possible. You feel like you’re in a school and it creeps you out right up until point when you realize that every classroom is a bar, restaurant, cigar room, theatre, micro-brewery, pool or suite and a wicked band is playing all night in the gym to a dinner crowd. The mere sight of seeing a mother swinging her young daughter upside down by the ankles (to the delight of the child) as Deer Tick ripped into a Hank Williams tune triggered a sense that community in Oregon was of a deeper essence than much of North America. This seemed special; this was new; and Portland is the place to be for art in September.
Our home base for the festival was the artist-friendly, Ace Hotel. It was easy to feel at home since the place was stacked with a youthful (and like-minded) clientele and staff. We were also within walking distance from many of the venues and a block away from the enormous, Powell Bookstore. After the Deer Tick anthology and before Will Sheff, Jill arrived to meet us outside Ace and the four of us strolled to see the Okkervil River front man take the stage at Berbati’s Pan – a pub that also makes Greek food and neighbours the psychedelic Voodoo Doughnuts (maple glazed topped with bacon anyone?).
Sheff’s voice, I have often found (wait for the cheese…) is kind of like a river; the lyric delivery is rolling, unpredictable and, at times, looking like it’s going to fall right off a cliff or out of the song. His range, tone and mostly, his attention to romantic detail seem to address every whimsical thought in the mind of someone young and in love. Portland, he mentioned, was a groundbreaking spot for his career – it was only fitting that the kick-off event belong to Sheff, his acoustic guitar, and the small brigade of cellists in the encore.
Day two started with an early-morning skateboard to the nearby market for some juice and muffins. If the earmark of a truly logistical city lies in its non-motorized transport options, every throughway in downtown Portland included a painted bike lane. The morning rain was also enough to extract the city’s trademark weather comment from my barista: “Do you know why they say Oregonian’s refuse to wear umbrellas? Because it’s never going to rain enough to get you wet!” Really? Bastards.
We were dining at the Clyde Common (attached to Ace) when Lindsay arrived. Seating is at long, Euro-inspired tables that encourage talking to strangers,goblet sliding and - during happy hour - pints are $3 and popcorn is a featured entrée. We hailed a cab to take us to an early performance from Philadelphia’s, Dr. Dog at the Wonder Ballroom. Yet another historic venue, packed to the brim with around 800 in broad daylight and a set-piece of harmonies from Taxi, Tables, Text, Trouble and Thanks. Soon to be Indie cult-classics like The Breeze and Hang On, both from their summer record, Fate got a rouse from the crowd.
We were steadfast in snatching up a cab, and destined for Saburo’s Sushi for our fill of cheap rolls, each with the median size of a balled fist. The girls and boys respectively (and respectfully) ditched one another for Girl Talk and Explosions in the Sky/Dirty Three - the latter’s shocking awesomeness took (approximately) one week to truly sink in. It was in San Francisco while talking to the clerk at Recycled Records on Haight-Ashbury; a classical instrumental band crackled in the speaker next to his face as he ate a wrap and wrote down directions for me to find a vintage record player. The band was Mono and they are Japanese. Quickly we talked about Explosions and Dirty Three synonymously. When I said that I saw them back-to-back, he had to swallow whatever sandwich and say, “That’s life-affirming shit, man.” I responded with something to do with my mind being blown, and in handing me the directions he said, “Everything has to happen.”
Explosions in the Sky played in my third visited McMenamin’s establishment - the massively multi-tiered and diamond orientated Crystal Ballroom. The old hardwood floor panels in this venue flex bounce and shift with every kick drum, bass line or hopping audience member, extenuating every thunderous breakdown that makes them the premier instrumental act in the west. They were, however, only a precursor for the Dirty Three of Melbourne, Australia. Warren Ellis plays the violin, sometimes the piano and tells stories in between songs. He does not sing; his violin does, and I usually catch myself calling him the ‘lead singer’. All of the songs deal with specific subject matter and he lets the audience know this. One song was simply about “when your girl tells you to go get fucked, and you know she’s right” and another dealt with “what it’s like to do so much amphetamine that your brain is literally the size of a pea and you can’t move from off your back for three days.”
We sat on the cast iron fire escape back at Ace that night and (hours later) watched below as Ellis marched down the empty road with tremendous pace in his stride – a true mad scientist, always at work. The girls stumbled in drunker than 40 cats, so I went downstairs and crossed the street to the Roxy Diner to get everyone some replenishing grub. The entryway was partially blocked by a young girl making out with a transvestite; the bathrooms were soaked in graffiti; there was a gigantic crucifix; there was an incredible jukebox; and best of all, there was Warren Ellis eating a salad with a friend and talking to about the state of America.
Friday was my first Urban Outfitters experience; in that, aside from getting some nice things, I felt genuinely jealous to have not come up with many of their gimmicks. We ate at the Rams Head – another McMenamin’s to further that feeling and arranged to interview John McCauley (Deer Tick singer) before their show at the quaint, Mississippi Studios. McCauley had been drinking when we spoke in the afternoon and things didn’t happen to stop being fun for him. He called me an hour and a half before their set with a voice like a bucket of rusty nails, asking to postpone the conversation. I bumped into a few other members of the band in the pub across the street who told me they had never seen him like this – as his voice was reeling from several consecutive multi-hour sets.
Sure enough, big John and the Deer Ticks emerged from the back room with McCauley dawning a plastic bag on his face, a pleated red miniskirt, camouflage t-shirt and had sharpie dicks drawn on his thighs. McCauley apologized for his voice to the crowd - but what he lacked in his typical Cobain/Hank tone, he made up for in escapades – leading the band members off stage mid-way through Dirty Dishes to get beer from the bar and scaling the balcony to walk it like a tightrope. These very escapades also inspired those of us in the crowd (me included) to push our drunk – never a negative.
It was Saturday, so we woke up and drove to the ocean. Portland seems like an ocean town – it did before I knew the geography and it did on this visit. However, it takes just under two hours to drive to the coast. This day journey was to greatly overshadow our Sunday adventure, which originally was to be Crater Lake (6 hours was too far) but ended up being Mount Hood (2 hours and much to the dismay of the girls). We were all informed by Monty that the Timberline Lodge on the mountain was actually the Overlook Hotel from the Shining. But when we arrived, the girls saw no sign of verification of this from the tourist stands and a mutiny began to brew. Apparently a secondary crew shot the Timberline for “a few exterior shots” in the Shining – not good enough.
Saturday evening I took in crusty punkers, the Dillinger Four who got me back to basics – straight forward punk - no bull shit and tons of ranting. First, front man Patrick Costello ripped vegans who move to Brooklyn and start punk bands without a bass player by saying that they will: a) Never get laid and b) Are directly insulting Otis Redding. He then focussed his afflictions upon Christians, saying that he intends on burying Batman comic books with the hopes that someone in the future will dig them up and start a religion based upon them.
Modest Mouse might be the perfect headliner for a bar hopping music festival – their credibility is enough for casual music fans, yet they’re small enough to not attract said fans. Your parents haven’t heard of them and what the hell, they’re from Portland! The show was at the Crystal Ballroom, so the floor was shaking and we got the pleasure of standing next to the most fun people ever that were also on the most fun drugs ever - it all seemed to just trickle down.
As my first MFNW came to a resounding close, so much of the experience can be traced back to that very first cab ride. When the cabbie proudly spoke of the Kennedy school, I wished badly for a piece of that kind of history and community back home – where you can be enriched in community and not just shuffled in and out. The Portland he explained from a decade ago sounded a lot like Calgary – a downtown to work in and then scurry away from at quitting time. He said everyone had enough – they wanted markets, shops and a bustling nightlife. They wanted to take back the metropolis from vagrants and make people confident for their safety – committed to leisure. We were in the middle of Seattle and Sanfrancisco and that didn’t matter; I told him, “we want that in Calgary” and he said, “Do it then.”
For the record, it was a busy night because it was supposed to rain.
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