For fuck’s sake, how is it already Thanksgiving again? 2021 is literally almost over, and most of us are still trying to come to terms with 2020 even happening. The only thing these new ’20s have been roaring with is a deafening cacophony of apocalyptic dread. Why are holidays even a thing anymore? Time doesn’t exist. No one has any money. The only reason I realized Thanksgiving is coming is ’cause I had to think of a November theme for this issue, and I remembered my prior, hard-hitting journalism regarding the notorious ARK Music Factory. Thank you, Nicole Westbrook, for reminding me... it’s Thanksgiving. I hope she’s doing well.
In this more enlightened and history-literate era, it gets harder and harder to genuinely celebrate colonial propaganda and literal revisionism. Gone are the days of children’s cartoon True-Meaning-Of treatments to federally mandated days off. We’re smarter than that. Still, seasonal themes are fun (and required by my editor-in-chief). [Editor’s Note: Fake news. He chose a holiday theme on his own accord. Carry on...]
So, for the sake of content, I’ll play ball. If one strips away the genocidal undertones of this random Thursday off, we can all get down with that concept of giving thanks. No harm there, right?
Now, after getting this far, I realized I write a music scene column, and I’m dealing with... Portland. Still, I take my job seriously, and although this took forever, I was able to set the cynicism aside and actually come up with sincere things to be grateful for in the local live music scene in this sad, wet, soon-to-be shantytown.
Please don’t @ me. I am well aware that the cost of living has dramatically skyrocketed since even I’ve been here. The poor folks who came here in the ’90s are rightfully pissed off. If this was a peer-reviewed journal of any merit, I would include data of how the housing pricing has gone up in Portland at a faster rate than even the most infamous gentrified hellholes, but this is a magazine with tits that you grabbed for free at a porn store. However, believe it or not, it is still relatively inexpensive for a city that still has some semblance of a live music scene. Yes, it is bad. But, it is not three grand for a fucking shoebox like Boston or San Francisco. There is still the possibility of a punk scene here because you could actually work as a barback and afford both top ramen and cigarettes here. Who knows, in a few years, if Apple moves in. Maybe those folks under the Hawthorne Bridge got the right idea.
Unless you’re a fucking lizard and need to bathe in atomic radiation on a rock in the desert to be happy, the Pacific Northwest really does have the ideal climate. There are seasons here. There’s green. More importantly, there’s fucking water. That’s gonna be a pretty important factor coming up, but that’s for a later issue. From my travels and folks I’ve talked to, pretty much all American Hipster Backwaters are the same, so you might as well find one that has nice summers and some snow just for funzies, a few days in the winter. Sure, it rains a lot, but it’s not 400 days a year like Seattle. And, although we do have a drought, it’s not like a California drought. Sure, a city like New Orleans actually has a consistent, vibrant, live music ecosystem where you might get away with not having a day job, but have you ever been there in August? You’ll die. If restaurants close for an entire month in the dog days of summer, that’s nature’s way of saying humans should not have settled there. For fuck’s sake, most of the city is below sea level. All we got to worry about in Portland is an earthquake that’ll level the entire town at some point.
I’ve never been to Austin, and I’m already sick of it. I’ve heard all the good things. South By Southwest is legendary. People from England move there to start bands. I get it. There are entire downtown strips where each building is a club with a live band jamming away to an indifferent crowd. It’s a place where musicians can and do live without day jobs. It’s such a warm and nurturing music scene that it becomes a black hole for players where no matter how hard they try, they fall back in. Marc Maron says it best in his recent tour lampooning a musician from Austin: "Yeah, I’m back... so anyway." Not trying to knock the city or seem jealous. We can hissy fit till the end of time about which city is "weirder." Yes, "Keep Austin Weird" came before "Keep Portland Weird." But, you know what Portland has that Austin doesn’t? It’s not in fucking Texas.
One thing we can all agree on about musicians is that they’re lazy. Rarely on time, either! What Portland offers that New York and Los Angeles can’t is that you can be your true self here! The West Coast truly did become the Best Coast for music during the cultural revolution and beyond because it provided a safe haven for artists to escape the constant demand to "get a job" and "pay rent" on the East Coast, where only the bootstrapping hustlers could survive. Lazy, smelly hippies flocked to Haight-Ashbury to invent the hot mess we artists are stuck in today, but I dare you to find affordable housing within shouting distance of that neighborhood or the city in general. That dream of doing little and expecting less only survives in our soggy little city where the Willamette meets the Columbia. Plus, there’s no chance of actually getting roped into some real work here as a musician. I know heroin addicts in Los Angeles that are working full-time because there’s that much of a demand for session musicians. No such industry in Portland. If you just wanna get high and fart around with your friends, this is the last city along the Pacific Ocean where you can do so. Have you ever been on tour? Shit is exhausting. Even Seattle has famous record labels that might sign you and expect you to get your shit together. Portland just might be the only music hub where you can just be the annoying guy at parties who uses the "I’m in a band" line to pick up girls. You don’t even have to show up to practice half the time!
