PORTLAND, OR (1991) "Nirvana @ Satyricon"

The cool thing about out-of-town bands was they brought a little bit of their local scene with them.

D.O.A. (Vancouver BC)

One thing I liked in my early Portland music days was seeing bands from other cities. They always made sure to put that on the poster, so I guess other people liked it too. It made the show sound more interesting:  Superchunk (from North Carolina!).  The Faint (Omaha NE).  The Pink Section (from SF CA!).

The thing about out-of-town bands was they brought a little bit of their local scene with them.  Sometimes you could guess what that might be.  Bands from SF would be artsy and sexually ambiguous.  Bands from Texas would have a singer who pulled down his pants.  Bands from college towns would have that one guy with the style and demeanor of a Comparative Literature major.

But there’d also be more subtle details.  Some style trend that was specific to that town or scene.  A strange kind of haircut.  Wearing your belt buckle on the side.  Donning a particular button or bandana a certain way.  You’d think:  maybe that’s what everyone does in Madison, Wisconsin.

Pavement (Stockton, CA)

In 1979 a band called DNA from New York City came to Portland and played our one fledgling punk club.  I was in high school.  A bunch of us local kids went.  We were all wondering: What would an underground band from New York City be like?

DNA came on stage.  The guitarist was really tall and was wearing black slippers, skinny black pants (tights?) and a floral shirt.  The drummer was a tiny Asian woman wearing a shapeless poncho-like garment.  The bass player—dressed all in black—just stood there looking bored and “street corner cool”.

When the first song started, the DNA guitarist began strutting around the stage like a chicken.  Then he did some improvised ballet moves.  The music was unintelligible noise rock.  Not even rock.  Just noise.  Weird sounds.  Confusing rhythms.  What the fuck? we all thought.  This is what people in New York City like?

Urge Overkill (Chicago, IL)

That summer, The Dils from L.A. came to Portland.  Their big single was “I Hate the Rich”.  We were standing outside the Linton Community Center when they came lurching out of their van, just an hour before the show.  They wore cowboy boots, filthy jeans and had Keith Richards haircuts.  Very unusual for a punk band.  But in LA maybe people did that.  Or maybe they were rebelling against “the punk rock handbook”.  We didn’t know.  They did look cool though.  They looked like rock stars.  Which was very LA.