Mike Lane still seems bemused that anyone would care about his former life as the singer of the Portland-born band Hunger.
“I don’t even have a copy of our record anymore,” he says as he settles into a booth at Saraveza. “I gave the last one away to someone I knew because he wanted it so badly. I don’t think the other guys in the band have any copies either. They’d get calls from people—‘Were you in the band Hunger?’—wanting to buy one from them.”
In spite of his indifference toward it, Strictly from Hunger is one of the rarer artifacts from the psychedelic era. (The sole original copy for sale on Discogs can be yours for $1,500.) But for Lane, the creation of that record—and much of his experience with the band—was colored with bitterness that he’s only recently made peace with.