March '98
RIP Chuck Isenberg, who died in December of cancer. Chuck was my very first advisor. He lost part of his hearing in one ear from playing in a rock band and had the best Russian shrug ever. What a guy.
Portland Suede, Hairspray Queen,
Emma Peel, Swoon 23 at EJ's
Celebration is in order. My car has been returned to me by the auspices of the Portland Police, a towing company, and many and various mechanics. (Are all car places required to employ someone named Maury?) Plus my friends showed up.
It was kind of freaky: there were a bunch of doppelgangers at the show. My evil twin, the spitting image of Chris Murphy, and some girl who looks suspiciously like Peter Holmstrom were in attendance. A bunch of guys there had the new school Portland rock boy/alt-dot-boy hair.
Portland Suede was decent. Better than competent, but not as good as talking about boys with my friends. Plus 10 style points for their name, though.
Hairspray Queen is Japanese. Like the other (admittedly few) Japanese bands I've seen they were tight and really a lot of fun to watch. I don't like them quite as much as P5 or Lolita No. 18, but most bands don't measure up to that standard, Japanese or not.
Emma Peel is the side project of one of the Swoon 23 guys. Stylishly dressed, as you might guess. This was their first show, and as first shows go, it was pretty good. Not fabulous, but solid.
Swoon was very cool as usual. The Bottle of Robo was present, the quality drunks kept yelling "Robo" between songs, 'I wanna be your dog' got played; all of the usual things that make me happy at a Swoon show. They played longer than usual, letting the crowd pick out a few encore songs, because they are going away for a couple of months. Sniffle, sniffle.
Some crappy free show--La Luna
I should state in advance that not all free shows are crappy. I saw Stereolab play for free. Free is a very good price. This show sucked. There were very few cool people there, and very many uncool alt.frat.dot.boys. Maybe I should rephrase. There were many unpleasant people there who had a deep and lasting commitment to this season's 'alternative' hairstyle who were not tipping the hardworking beer schleppers. These were people who had a deep commitment to drinking as much as possible, people who had to make me "smile, because "c'mon, it can't be that bad." Shut up. You're wrong. Go suck lemons and leave me alone.
I have no idea who was playing. I know that Rocket Morton was one of the bands, but they weren't the band I saw, because they're actually decent.
The band I saw was waist deep in crap-- like those mallchicks who wear so much makeup you can't actually tell what they look like. Distortion and pedals and effects can be used well (a la Peter Holmstrom, a la Madder Rose). But you have to know what you're doing first. The only good thing about their set was watching all the alt.frat.boys beat on each other.
Luckily Darcy came to whisk me away to La Carreta, where I had a lovely blended margarita.
Stereocrush, Echoplex-- Satyricon
It was sad that there were only a few people at this show, because the bands were deserving of love...but everyone who was watching really wanted to be there. It was kind of cozy, actually.
Stereocrush were loud and kind of melancholy. Due to ATM difficulties on the way over we only heard a few of their songs, but I liked what I heard. Echoplex have an almost shoegazer sound with the added benefit of Hillary's strong, clear, melodic voice. Plus they're oh, so stylish. Veronica (who knows Hillary and hadn't seen them before) says she was glad they were good because it's so awful when people you like suck.
Marigold, Carmina Piranha, Dandy Warhols-- Melody Ballroom
This show was crawling with good looking folks, from the thirty year old women who love Marigold, to the film boys who love Carmina Piranha. Sigh. Of course the bands were gorgeous too. Unfortunately, the show was sponsored by Mercer Cigarettes, meaning of course, that people were encouraged to smoke smelly nasty cigars, although the security guys were very diligently removing other, perhaps less harmful though illegal substances. Of course, there were free h'ors d'oeuvres, which made up for it. Hey, any social occasion with big chunks o' ham is alright by me.
I was so happy that my friends got to see the cuteness of Marigold first hand. Plus which, the boys in the band are too young to hawk tobacco products...I think. My only complaint: no Sweet Child o' Mine or Eye of the Tiger.
Carmina Piranha are so well dressed and damned attractive. I had heard slightly negative things about their music, but was pleasantly surprised. They're apparently doing a show at the Civic with the ballet-- I wonder if they'll take the go go dancer to that show?
The Dandys did a good set with a new, non-Eric drummer, who was on the vibrating drum riser from hell. They didn't seem overly happy to be there. Zia seemed to be in a good mood (visibly smoking non-Mercer cigs). Courtney seemed cranky to be doing a Mercer show (in his words: "I smoke everything..."). Peter seemed moody, but that's Peter. The drummer was acting like he was trying to not act nervous, which is how pretty much anyone would be at their first show with a band. They played a short set, possibly because he had to learn a few more songs.
Dandy Warhols--Zoot Suite
Zoot Suite is an odd place to see a band play. The stage is about four feet off the ground and tiny-- more well suited to DJs, but apparently they've had twelve piece bands play there before. The sight lines are excellent, though. It was so great to see the Dandys play a 'secret' show opening for Swervedriver. The place wasn't packed and the band was in a good mood. It was strange to see Peter a) smile all the time and b) not smoke because his parents were there. Courtney was in full on rock star mode, babbling about drugs and bands he likes. Zia was singing along with glee. The drummer looked a little more nervous than last time, but he's coming right along. It probably helps that he didn't have to use the drum riser of death this time.
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