COLLEGE MUSIC LIVES
A weekend in the life
Top: Outside the Offramp Music Cafe in Seattle.
Middle: Admiring a show in Portland: "He's so dreamy."
Bottom: Getting ready to hit the Athens, Ga., scene.
This isn't a story about the next Seattle. It's about asking six writers and photographers to show us your town one weekend in October. There are too many vibrant scenes to cover them all, but here's a sampling of some of the best college music has to offer...
W. H. OAKES JR., THE RED & BLACK, U. OF GEORGIA
it's noon at Portland State's University Commons, and another live show invades the lazy stillness of a mid-term Friday. Molly Cliff, a local band, left the comfort of dark, smoky dives to show students their gothic-punk-rockabilly-lounge act in the crisp autumn daylight. The loud weirdness occasionally finds an open door and spreads out into the bustling park blocks, a signal to all within earshot that the weekend has begun.
From Satyricon, it's a short jaunt across the Willamette River to La Luna to catch former Interscope signees Love On Ice. La Luna, the busiest concert club in town, is packed tonight, and this lively
After tving up the week's loose ends, it's off
Friday night opens at Satyricon, with a carousing, strangely hostile opener from Lesser Face, an aggressive newcomer to the local scene, followed by an imposing, down and dirty, wall-of-punk/thrash group called 90-proof. After more than three years of merciless stage-bludgeoning in Portland, 90-proof's sound has developed into an earnest, gut-level assault.
After tying up the week's loose eras, it's on to a nearby downtown brew pub to sample the latest seasonal. Talk soon turns to live music options, and there's rarely a shortage. For music in Portland, Ore., students look to a melange of jazz, blues, world beat, folk, thrash, funk and almost any combination of these styles.
"A lot of [students] have their CD players, fancy stereos and kegs of beer, and they just do it at home," says Seth Perry, guitarist for Big Daddy Meat Straw, one of Portland's most successful unsigned bands.
But homebodies miss out on the vitality and atmosphere of hot spots like Satyricon, a seedy cavern that reverberates almost nightly with anarchic, visceral pandemonium.
"Portland is still looking for a signature scene," Perry says. "You've got the 'East Side sound' — kind of a funky, bohemian coffee house type of thing — and that could be it. It's going to take a while, but it definitely won't be the Seattle thing all over again."
four-piece is in fine form.
A visit to Laurelthirst Public House, an especially hip East Side spot, helps wind down the festivities with some original, irreverant folk rock from Two Hippies and a Guy from Long Island.
At Laurelthirst, the locally brewed ale is good and the climate is casual. On finding such an atmosphere, students tend to linger, and a good linger punctuates a Portland evening perfectly.
ERIK LYONS, THE DAILY VANGUARD, PORTLAND STATE U.
SEATTLE
When searching for the next Seattle, don't overlook the current one that rainy musical mecca of the Pacific Northwest with a coffee fetish and hundreds of bands aspiring to be the next Mother Pearl Garden.
With myriad shows available every night of the week, it's sometimes a chore to decide on a single event.
On Friday, inside the industrial depths of
Rockcandy, the seven members of El Steiner take the stage. They perform an eclectic brand of funk as lead singer Larry Steiner divides his time between bouncing on the stage and jumping around in front of it.
A few steps away, at the Offramp Cafe, the five members of Lazy Susan are throwing down.
The Offramp resembles a crawl space more than a club, but what it lacks in ambiance,it makes up for with live music seven nights a week.
As Lazy Susan's Kim Virant fills the room with her melodic twang, security is forced to heave people off of the stage into the surging masses. It is a bit rowdy.
"That guy owes me a drink," Virtant says, pointing at a patron. "He spilled my drink, dammit." And on this accusatory note, Friday night comes to an end.
Saturday night has a diverse range of opportunities for music lovers, but Pioneer Square is
the destination. Paying a joint cover, patrons can barhop, sampling many different bands. At the Colourbox, Forced Entry begins a three-man assault on an intense crowd. Guitar player Brad Hull glares angrily after being hit in the face with a full glass of beer.
This show has a very worthy mosh pit, and the frenzied crowd makes it difficult for security to pick up fallen patrons before they are trampled.
The highlight of the evening, however, comes with Forced Entry's closing song "Get F—Up." Lead singer Tony Benjamins invites the crowd onto the stage to participate in this one, and 10 guys do, slamming around between the band members. The four members of Dr. Unknown finish the evening, performing a heavy, grinding set for the sweaty audience, which remains energetic throughout the act.
And so ends a night in Seattle. Damp young men and women exit Seattle's clubs with battle wounds and ringing ears, clot clothes and missing shoes. It's almost
1:45 a.m. — time to hit the store for beer ANNE BENSON, THE DAILY, U. OF WASHINGTON
riginal music is alive and well in the Chapel Hill area even when the U. of North Carolina is on fall break. Like other college towns, Chapel Hill has its share of coffee houses, pizza joints and fraternity bars but what sets it apart is an intense concentration of musical talent. You can't swing a dead cat without hitting a band member, and the bands are as varied as they are abundant. This weekend's samplings comprise typically diverse fare.
Cup a Joe, a coffee house in Raleigh near the North Carolina State U. campus, starts off the action Friday night with the Olskies, a hard-edged
10
U. Magazine
ROB KERR, THE DAILY VANGUARD, PORTLAND STATE U.
DECEMBER 1993