It’s hard to believe that in the four years that we’ve been together, we’ve never played in Oregon or Washington State but, after the long drive up, I could see why bands would skip it. For an obscure band, especially back then, there’s really no place in between to play, so you’re pretty much forced to make the drive and then take a right and head for Colorado (Boise wasn’t cool back then). It’s a lot of work for two shows, but, these mossy bibliophiles have been deprived of our math rock long enough and it’s time to show them the goods!
After breakfast, we meet with our Sony label rep, Cathy, and she lays out the plan for the day which includes trips to a couple of record stores, including Music Millenium and we spend the day pressing the flesh and flipping through racks of albums and CDs, the newest medium, to see what’s been reissued.
We arrive at the venue, the Blue Gallery, a smallish room, painted all black, located in a warehouse district not far from Portland’s skid row. The sound is very loud at soundcheck, not surprisingly, as there’s nothing in the room to absorb it but the soundman assures us that the bodies in the room will soften it up. I ask the doorman for a food recommendation and he warns me not to walk around the seedy neighborhood but just head for Burnside Street. I find some pizza and then Powell’s Books, the largest bookstore I’ve ever been to. I picked up a used copy of ‘Geek Love’ by Portland author Katherine Dunn and that was my book for the rest of the tour.
Further up the street is Civic Stadium, the home of one of the original Pacific League teams, the Portland Beavers. My people in San Francisco had turned me onto the PCL, a history that I had never known growing up back east. The park is shuttered as the Beavers were out of town that night but I got a sense of a beautiful old ballpark. The stadium had a 20-foot long fiberglass sculpture of the ‘Janzten Girl’ swimwear model hanging from the left-field wall, creating many interesting bounces for the outfielders.
Walking back to the club, I randomly decide that I will try to go home with a girl tonight. Yeah! that’s the ticket! I’m lonely and miserable and figure that this will cheer me up and get me away from the awkwardness of the band situation. I stop at a drugstore and buy some condoms. Two problems with this plan: First off, I’m ungainly and depressed; not an attractive package, and, secondly, there’s barely a handful of people at the Friday night show and so there’s little chance of any ‘action’ tonight.
We are not impressed with the small crowd at the Blue Gallery and the feeling is mutual. They stand and look at us, arms crossed, disinterest evident on their faces. Maybe we should have made the trip up here when we were a Homestead band with some hipster cache. Now that we’re signed to Epic/Sony, there’s none of that. This is before the mass major label signings that made it “okay” to be on a big label. Sure, Sonic Youth had just signed to Geffen (Goo would be out any day), but they were an anomaly. I was hoping for a lot from Portland, the home of the Wipers, and, except for the bookstore, it didn’t deliver. Seattle; it’s up to you to save Cascadia in our eyes!
Tomorrow: Sleepless in …oops, strike that!
Calculating Route... 