In his own words, Matt Slessler credits his start at Pabst Blue Ribbon to someone handing his number to a visiting company rep, saying: "Hey, talk to this guy. He hangs out in bars," Slessler says with a laugh, "which was a great calling card at the time."Â
That was 2001, nearly a decade before the blue-ribboned silver can's resurgence, and Pabst had noticed that Portland bore a fondness for its crisp, unassuming, middle-sweet lager. For a city of its size, Portland was selling cold one over cold one with almost no marketing machine—or perhaps just on the efforts of cool, talkative guys in bars. Slessler led Pabst's rep around to places where people were drinking PBR, and began freelancing for the beer company. Today he's Vice President of On Premise, overseeing bar and venue sales. Along the way, Slessler co-founded the music festival Project Pabst, which kicks up the dust at Tom McCall Waterfront Park this weekend.Â
Portland hasn't seen a Project Pabst since 2017, but it's back this year like it never really left, with an eclectic line-up of different-but-great bands. "It's kind of like a shark stomach, you never know what's gonna come out,"Â Slessler says. In past years, he's used a jukebox analogy to describe the fest's curation, which slides, on Saturday night, from Strfkr to Gossip to Violent Femmes to T-Pain, before closing with Billy Idol.
However, while he and booking agent Trevor Solomon primarily dreamed up the first fest bills, he now credits the younger eyes and ears of Pabst's marketing director Rachel Keeton and marketing partnership manager Kate Mata for squaring up the power quad behind the line-up. "Just trust me. Come see Gossip," he says. And he's right about that.
Here are a few things we learned about Project Pabst and Portland's relationship with Pabst, in general.
A New, 24-Feet Tall Unicorn
"My god, you can't get away from the big unicorn," he says. "Now the horn changes colors." In past years, the festival's fantasy mascot has sat squarely center, visible from most areas of the fest. This year, the park ornament—made by local fabrication shop Axiom—boasts a glowing, color-changing horn.
Project Pabst's Dive Bar
"We don't have a VIP area," Slessler says. "I just think it's bullshit to charge more money for that, and if somebody has more money, they get to be closer." As a sort of offset, the festival put together a dive bar onsite that will allegedly look like some of Slessler's favorite Portland haunts. Whether he's thought better of it or not, Slessler mentioned wanting to decorate the two-day dive with items from his personal collection. If you see a painting of Joe Strummer on plywood or a photo of Portland band the Exploding Hearts, it's likely his. Also worth noting: The bar will be air conditioned.
Lager and Craft Beer Have Synergy
"The funny part is, our biggest markets in the US are heavy craft beer markets," Slessler says. "Some of my favorite bars in town—bartender-bought-a-bar bars—like Basement Pub, have seven local craft beers and PBR." IPAs have their place, he says, but who wants to drink four of them in one sitting while you catch up with your friends?
Portland's Ugly Teen Phase
"Our producers are local, the bartenders are local, the people who made the unicorn are local, of course, security is local—we want to put as much money back into Portland's as we can," he says. "I want to say one other thing too. When we threw Project Pabst in 2014, Portland was getting all of its flowers. Everybody wanted to move to Portland. Now we seem to be, nationally, what everybody points to as a troubled city. The city needs some wins, and I don't think it would be cool for us to do this when the city was hot and abandon it when the city has gone through what it's gone through the last few years. Y'know, we maybe have gone through our ugly teenage phase in the last couple of years, but we've got the greatest restaurants. We've got a mountain 70 miles away; we've got an ocean 70 miles away. We've got a lot of amazing people. I still love bragging about this town and take a lot of pride in it."
Project Pabst is at Tom McCall Waterfront Park, 98 SW Naito Pkwy, Sat July 27 & Sun July 28, $115-220, tickets here, 21+