I am such a damn trend follower obviously.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20051126.wxportland26/BNPrint/Entertainment/ Indie's newest epicentre
By ALEXANDRA GILL
Saturday, November 26, 2005 Posted at 10:32 AM EST
Brad Wheeler
PORTLAND, ORE. â?? If Portland, Ore., is the happening new hub for the indie rock scene, why is everyone at the Roseland Theatre pretending to be passed out?
It's a Friday night and the sweaty 1,500-seat concert hall is packed with devout Decemberists fans, here to welcome the avant-garde folk-pop troubadours back home at the end of a cross-country tour. In the middle of The Chimbley Sweep, a galloping jig about a wretched Victorian street urchin, lead singer Colin Meloy suddenly falls to the stage. The kids on the main floor all follow suit and drop to the ground, while those seated in the balcony slump sideways.
"Shhh, they're sleeping," organist Jenny Conlee whispers into a microphone. A few bewildered audience members glance around uncomfortably, obviously unaccustomed to the showboating theatrics that launched this unlikely band of lit-rock eccentrics into the mainstream -- and have helped fuel the hype about their laid-back hipster hometown.
In fact, this surreal slumber party is a telling analogy for the mood in Portland, where many music-industry insiders would rather just pull up the covers and hide from the big bad buzz surrounding their idyllic community.
Earlier this autumn, media hype about Portland began to pick up in the North American press, singling out the Decemberists and several other musical transplants that earned national acclaim after moving here. The town joined a long list of rock and roll "it" cities -- just recently, in fact, Montreal was the hot town, thanks to bands such as The Arcade Fire and Wolf Parade.
Mind you, the scene makers have being betting on Portland ever since, oh, about 1992, when Rolling Stone magazine noted the decline of the Seattle sound, pointed to a number of promising up-and-coming bands (including Pond, Sprinkler and Hazel) and proclaimed Portland the "new nirvana."
A recent AP about the Portland scene nevertheless struck a nerve with the local PDX-Pop contingent, a group of Portland musicians, writers and fans that form a lively on-line community, and that founded the PDX-Pop Now! Music Festival, a free, annual, all-ages event that promotes lesser-known bands around town. In the wake of the article, more than 100 messages were posted on the PDX-Pop message board.
Some people in Portland are proud that the local scene is getting much-deserved respect, and would be happy to spread the word as widely as possible. Many, however, are worried that the industry jackals from the major labels are about to descend on the city, ravage the scene, and turn it into a marketable fashion statement, much as they did to Seattle in the early nineties, when the Washington city 275 kilometres up the coast was labelled the epicentre of grunge.
"We've got everything we need here: talent, labels, ideas, clubs, ambition and beer," wrote Mark Baumgarten, music editor of the Willamette Week, Portland's alternative newspaper. "Let's lock the gates and have a party."
So what exactly is happening in Portland -- a depressed former timber town (population: half a million) in a state with one of the highest unemployment rates in the U.S. -- that needs to be protected?
"There's always been a reputable scene in Portland, and it grew up simultaneously with grunge," says Chris Funk, the Decemberists's mandolin-strumming multi-instrumentalist, who moved to Oregon from Chicago 10 years ago. "The difference is that none of the bands here have ever had huge commercial success."
Or at least nothing like the success of such former indie acts as Detroit's White Stripes and Glasgow's Franz Ferdinand -- who jumped to the major labels and released million-selling albums -- or Death Cab for Cutie, of Bellingham, Wash., which a few months back released its fifth studio album, Plans, debuting at No. 4 on the Billboard 200.
The buzz around Portland is that it's the hottest new breeding ground for the next wave of potential breakout bands, including the Decemberists, whose latest album, Picaresque, reached No. 5 on Billboard's Heatseekers chart soon after it was released by Portland's Kill Rock Stars label last March. Filled with songs and instruments as obscure as the band's namesake -- the Decembrists were anti-czar revolutionaries in 19th-century Russia -- has since sold more than 70,000 copies, landed the Decemberists on Late Night with Conan O'Brien, and drawn large audiences on tour, as well as notice from a couple of major labels now courting the band.
Then there's the Shins -- a former New Mexico group now living in Portland -- that got a boost (and an opening slot on the White Stripes tour) when two of the band's songs were included on the soundtrack for Zach Braff's breakout film, Garden State. And Sleater-Kinney, Portland's all-female rock 'n' roll trio.
Also living here is an impressive list of indie-rock royalty: Britt Daniel (the chief songwriter, singer and guitarist of Spoon, he recently moved to Portland from Austin, Tex.); Stephen Malkmus (who fronted the quintessential nineties indie band Pavement, and is now a solo artist); and Isaac Brock (singer-guitarist for Modest Mouse).
The influx of musicians is part of a larger demographic trend that has made Portland the fourth-fastest growing city in the U.S. for college-educated transplants aged 25 to 34, according to a study by local economist Joe Cortright.
Many, like Funk, were drawn to the city's music scene like teenagers to a tailgate keg party. "It seemed like there were all these bands and music going on," says Funk, who first moved to Eugene, and has been in Portland now for six years, during which he's watched the scene intensify. "Nowadays, it's way crazier. Everyone here is in a band."
That might be because it's easier to join a band than find a real job in Portland. But given that the city is one of the most affordable anywhere on the West Coast, there's the option of working as a barista while pursuing creative dreams. "You can still rent a five-bedroom house here for $1,000," says Funk. "If you get five friends together, that gives you a basement to practise in and tons of extra money for beer. That really drives a music scene."
Indeed, there is so much music being made in Portland, at least 184 new bands were formed there last year, says Baumgarten, who came up with that number after his paper polled local DJs, music writers, bookers, club managers, label owners and others to name the five best new musical artists to emerge in 2004. "A new band starts every two days in this town -- that's crazy."
The winner of Baumgarten's poll, an instrumental pop duo called Talkdemonic that plays bombastic drums, a swooning viola and preprogrammed tracks on a laptop, is perhaps somewhat typical of the local pop scene by virtue of its idiosyncrasy: The traditional guitar-bass-drums-vocalist formula that ruled the nineties has little appeal in Portland these days, where unconventional arrangements reign and the glockenspiel seems to be the instrument of choice.
"There's definitely a premium on experimentation," says Baumgarten, whose shortlist of up-and-coming bands to watch includes Menomena, an ethereal pop trio that has invented its own computer-engineered looping system to create multilayered orchestral sounds; and Viva Voce, a husband and wife who play sparkling space rock and psychedelic lullabies.
So varied is the scene that some say the fears of Portland being plundered for the next Modest Mouse imitators are unfounded: Unlike Seattle and its erstwhile grunge scene, the sheer diversity of the city's artistic output makes it difficult to exploit. It's a diversity that's reflected in the young creative types -- aside from musicians themselves -- who have been moving here in droves, including publicists, promoters, touring companies and even such indie record labels as Arena Rock from Brooklyn, N.Y., and Badlands Recording Co. from San Francisco.
"Portland is really unique in that it's a mid-size city with all the tools you need to produce, distribute and play music, in addition to an incredible amount of talent," says Baumgarten, who has little patience with bands willing to sign up with out-of-town labels. "I am not against having bands or individuals moving here to be part of the community. But I am against businesses or corporations outside of Portland taking advantage of our scene when all the resources are already here."
Although his isolationist stance is well-intentioned, Baumgarten's comments might be falling on deaf ears, at least in some quarters. "We're not afraid of selling out," laughs Funk, who says Portland's musical politics can be a lot like high school. "All the hipsters run around talking for days about who got signed to what label."
In the meantime, the Decemberists have been meeting with major labels from elsewhere. "We've been flown around and treated to expensive dinners, and shook a lot of hands," acknowledges Funk. "It's been interesting and tiring and, in some cases, laughable. We'll see what happens."
Back at the concert, however, it's clear that whatever happens, the Decemberists are staying right here. "Portland -- no city compares," Meloy shouts out, as the rest of the band madly tosses tambourines across the stage, and paper puppets into the crowd. "San Francisco's pretty cool," she bellows. "And New York's okay -- but I wouldn't want to live in any of those places."
