The Indie City

Slate pointed out last week that musicians have flocked in recent years to Portland, Oregon, despite the seeming absence of an established music scene:

Why, you might ask, haven't you really noticed Portland's incredible concentration of musical talent before? Because unlike, say, Seattle's grunge boom in the '90s or the Bay Area's recent hyphy movement, Portland has neither a distinctive "sound" nor a "scene" to speak of. Sonically, there's not a whole lot that the twisty pop of the Shins has in common with the "hyper-literate prog-rock" (to borrow a phrase from Stephen Colbert) of the Decemberists. And virtually none of these groups can be considered "Portland bands" since, with very few exceptions, they all moved to town after gaining some level of fame. (Generally speaking, it's rare to meet a young, creative Portlander who's from Portland.) You might see Sleater-Kinney drummer Janet Weiss parking her Volvo station wagon in front of Stumptown Coffee Roasters, for instance, but you seldom feel these luminaries exerting any influence on the local musical landscape. They all just kind of live here.

(Below: a couple shots from around the Hawthorne neighborhood of Portland, from the beautiful photoblog Portland Ground.)

So what's the attraction? Lifestyle attributes, mostly, with a certain, ineffable sense of openness:

Ask a musician why they relocated to Portland and, from Britt Daniel on down, the most common response is: "We came through on tour and I thought it was awesome." It might not be enough to lure the glitterati, but Portland's combination of affordability, natural beauty, and laid-back weirdness is an independent artist's dream....

The rockers themselves have somewhat confusingly praised Portland as a city "entrenched in juvenilia" (Sleater-Kinney's Carrie Brownstein), a place with a sense of "calm longevity" (chief Decemberist Colin Meloy), and a home of "really great public transportation" (the Shins' Mercer, who, it's safe to assume, didn't come here for the bus routes). If there's any alluring indie mystique to Portland, it's most likely due to the late Elliott Smith, who attended high school on the west side of town and recorded his most-loved work here. (Mercer even owns Smith's old house.) Before Smith, Portland's primary musical contribution to the universe was the Kingsmen's "Louie Louie." But Smith, on albums like Roman Candle and Either/Or, sketched a virtual map of the city with his whispery voice, and he went so far as to adopt a local street name, Elliott Street, as his first name—his birth name was Steven. For fans like myself, Smith's music made Portland seem infinitely more romantic than it ever could be in real life. (Case in point: 45 consecutive days of rain = not actually romantic.)

Urban form and local economics play crucial roles. The experience of both is marked by a sense of independence: the musicians cite the city's walkability and the abundance of locally-owned businesses:

Chris Walla spent a month in Portland, walking to work at a church-turned-recording studio in Northeast and to Wild Oats for meals. It was the first time in his adult life that Walla, a member of indie darlings Death Cab For Cutie, didn't need a car to get around. Then he returned to his band in Seattle. Stuck in traffic, Walla felt "held hostage" by a city so enticing and yet so incapable of unsnarling rush hour.

So two years ago, he joined the stream of rising and big-name alternative rockers moving to Portland. Though Seattle gave birth to the independent music scene, Portland is the latest hub of chart-topping talent....

Singer/songwriter Laura Veirs, who bought a house near Alberta last year, fretted at a local gig recently about her overgrown yard. A landscaper in the audience offered to help and then showed up to blast the moss off her birch tree. "I was like, 'Wow,' " says Veirs, 33. "We're all in this together. It's not like you're the big star and they're ingratiated fans."

The musicians say they feel energized by Portland's independent businesses.

Veirs writes short stories over coffee at Alberta's Concordia Coffee House, the Star E Rose and Random Order. Walla frequents Concordia and also Extracto, a cafe on Killingsworth. "There's homogeneity everywhere else in your life," Walla says. "I enjoy my street and I like that there's not a P.F. Chang's yet."

Comments

[mark B]

more notable artists than businesspeople. that's reason enough for anyone to move there.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Portlanders

[Greg]

I moved to Portland in '06 to play in a band with friends (Alpaca!). For a city with no "music scene," I meet a ton of great musicians.

The biggest difference between Portland and other cities is that everybody here is an artist of some sort. Expect a lot of great things to come from this town in the next few years.

http://www.alpacaband.com