Before Michaela Watkins’ first shift behind the bar at Satyricon, the manager gave her the tour.
“He said to me: ‘Okay, here’s the taps, here’s the keg, here’s the bat.’ And I was, like, the bat? And he’s like: ‘Yeah, the bat.’ I was like, am I gonna use a bat? He nodded: ‘You might need to use a bat.’”
Watkins never did need the bat, but it was a sign of the place, the times, and the vibes of one of the longest-lasting and, arguably, best punk clubs in the country, Satyricon, which shuttered for good just over 14 years ago.
Named for Fellini’s surreal but glamorous 1969 film, the club was on a decidedly unglamorous stretch of NW 6th, in Old Town. It was founded in 1984 by George Touhouliotis, a former cab driver with no real experience in running a club, but with a fondness for music.
“The story was that his brother had a grocery where Satyricon was and George had a bar on East Burnside and for some reason the Violent Femmes played there, in this tiny little place, and like 100 people came in, and George was like I’m in the wrong business,” recalls Mike King, a musician and the club’s poster artist. “Okay, I couldn’t swear to that story,” he admits, “but it sounds good.”
That was part of the magic of Satyricon—if the story sounded good enough, it may as well be reality. Did Kurt and Courtney meet there? Maybe! Was it haunted? Probably! Was it shut down by a riot? Kind of! Whatever people said about the place all fed into its lore.
Something definitely true, though, was that Satyricon quickly became a mandatory stop for touring bands. Through some magical alignment of timing (grunge was taking off) and geography (Portland is helpfully located between Seattle and San Francisco) Satyricon became an important place for bands to play. Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, the Replacements, and Mudhoney all made stops. Oasis played there on their way up to stadium-packing superstardom. The Foo Fighters had one of their first shows there.
King recalls his band Spike opening for the Minutemen: “We were waiting to get in the back door, and the Minutemen show up. And they ask us, ‘Are you guys hard-core?’ We said, no. And they said, ‘Good!” he recalls, laughing. “That was a fun show because we were not hard-core.”
While bands like the Minutemen or Mudhoney were sure to pack the place, Ben Munat—booker for Satyricon from 1993-1999—didn’t always know which bands would sell.
“I got offered Palace Brothers,” he remembers, “and I went to ask Mike Martinez, the chef at [next door restaurant] Fellini, ‘who’s this Palace Brothers? They want a lot of money.’ Well, a lot for us, like $500. He was like: ‘Oh my god, take it, take it’,” Munat says. “It sold out so far in advance.”
Touring bands could draw a crowd, but it wasn’t always a given, says Watkins. “I remember seeing Calexico, and there was nobody there. There were literally one or two people standing there watching this incredible band.”
Satyricon became the home turf of Portland favorites like the Wipers, the Dandy Warhols, Hazel, Pond, Crackerbash, and Dead Moon. Lizzy Caston started going to shows there in the very early ’90s and remembers: “I saw many Dead Moon shows, and I am so glad I did. There was nothing like a Dead Moon show; it was true old-school Portland.”
“Dead Moon and Napalm Beach would go to Europe and play festivals for 10,000 people, and then they come home and they’d play for 100 people at Satyricon,” says Munat. “But they were fun, and I would put them on whenever they wanted.”
Satyricon was known as a go-to destination for bands wanting to do so-called underplays: shows at smaller clubs than they could usually sell out. “[The booking agent] called me and said, ‘Ben, I’ve got something for you,’” recalls Munat. “‘Jesus Lizard is going out, and they want to do small clubs. They miss the small clubs.’ But then he told me the price, and it was something huge. I’m like, I don’t care. I don’t care. I’ll charge 20 bucks. I don’t remember if it was $20, but I had to charge significantly more than I would normally back then. But it didn’t matter. The place was packed.”
“You could name any band, and if they were cool, they played there,” Watkins says. “Elliott Smith and Sleater Kinney would come in and pop up every now and then—even though they could do much bigger venues, they would still come in and do Satyricon.”
“I definitely remember Sleater-Kinney playing there,” says the band’s lead singer, Corin Tucker. “And what a big deal it was—how many famous bands had come before us. The high stage with the giant pole in the middle made the whole experience feel like a bit of a high-wire act.”
Tried-and-true acts filled the calendar, but Satyricon happily took risks with rising acts, too. “They were fine with booking up-and-coming bands,” recalls Tony Lash, who started going to Satyricon before he was legally allowed in the space. “I was 19 or 20 and doing sound for Nero’s Rome,” he explains. When his new band Heatmiser—fronted by a young Elliott Smith—started up, they were quickly booked to play at Satyricon. His next band, Sunset Valley, also booked an early gig there. Record labels used the space to highlight new bands, holding showcases of new acts. Caston recalls: “It would be literally five bands for five bucks.”
Rebecca Gates, singer and guitarist of the Spinanes, says an early version of the band played their first-ever show there. “It was before Scotty [Plouf] joined, but it was my first time playing under the Spinanes name,” she recalls. It was an apt setting, an earlier Satyricon show caused Gates to realize she could—and wanted to—be in a band. “I went to see Glass Eye and Scratch Acid” Gates remembers. “Kathy McCarty is the guitarist for Glass Eye, and I just watched her play and I related to it in a way.”
Over the years, a lot of bands played Satyricon. A lot of bands. “I added it up at some point after I made the documentary,” says Mike Lastra, who frequently played Satyricon with his band Smegma and made the 2013 Satyricon: Madness and Glory. “I calculated about 44,000 performances there.”
Despite that incredible number of shows played there over the decades, Satyricon was much more than just a club. It was a community center and gathering place. “It was just like a punk rock Cheers,” says King, who was hired to make posters for the club. “I made posters for every goddamn band that ever came to Portland ever. I did them all.”
The club and the in-house over souvlaki shop became a hub for Portland’s creative community. “It was exciting to have a place to go hang out that was lively and had a lot of interesting music and people. I knew that most nights I could just go down there and run into friends,” says Lash.
“It was known for being the CBGBs of the West Coast and it was not far off, but it was just a working rock ‘n’ roll bar. You get a shot; tickets were cash and cheap. They had souvlaki. The bathrooms were disgusting,” says Caston.
King points out, “the chances were very good that there were people you wanted to avoid as well.” Friends and enemies showed up at the club. “I don’t know if I can describe how oddly welcoming, not even oddly, but just how welcoming Satyricon was,” says Gates. “It was a place where so many different people would go.”
“There was no hierarchy at all, no table service, no bottle service, VIP section, no reservation. No anything.” Watkins says, comparing it to today’s common, tiered ticketing. “It just was for the people by the people. It was so integral to the community of Portland, you know? I don’t think they have many places like that anymore.”
“It was the greatest thing,” says King. “If only you had been there it would’ve been amazing. It was a magical time when everyone was in love and everyone got along.”
The one thing that can’t be viewed through nostalgia’s rosy lens: “The bathroom was disgusting,” says Lash. The building—and bathroom—were demolished in 2011.
Find a copy of the print issue! Subscribe to print issues! Support us!