Fernando Viciconte is an “old Portland” personality. In the annals of our city’s storied music scene, his name appears alongside artists like Elliott Smith and Pete Krebs. Speaking to the Mercury last year, Jackpot! Recording Studio’s owner Larry Crane name-checked Viciconte’s 1999 solo record Old Man Motel as one of his favorite projects ever recorded at the studio—an endorsement many Portland musicians would willingly trade their right hand for.
But unlike some of the Portland music scene’s elder statesmen, Viciconte doesn’t wax nostalgic about the (mostly fictitious) good ol’ days: “Parts of [the city changing] are good,” he says. “I see people from different parts of the world moving here, and that’s different than what it was, which was a much more Anglo-centric community. At the same time, there’s still the same artistic community I fell in love with.”
In 1998, Viciconte challenged that Anglo-centricity with Pacoima, a record performed entirely in Spanish that draws on everything from Chuck Berry to El Chicano. Two decades after its release, Pacoima remains one of the most varied and vital rock records in the history of Portland music.