Local Music News
As you may have gathered from the tortured cries
of your nicotine-needing friends, or the jubilant cheers of your
clean-living colleagues that still echo through the halls of Portland’s
few remaining smoke-filled venues (the last on the West Coast)—change
is in the air. Back in June, the Oregon legislature passed a
long-expected bill putting the kibosh on smoking in bars,
bowling alleys, and, yes, even bingo halls—the three exceptions that
had been stipulated in a 2001 bill banning smoking in indoor
workplaces. The technical distinction between a bar that hosts music
and a music venue that serves alcohol being debatable, it is only as of
January 2009, when the new law goes into effect, that we can
expect all local venues to count clean (or at least smoke-free) air
among their features.
But music-loving sinners flexible in their self-abuse needn’t
despair, as downtown experimental music hotspot Valentine’s recently
acquired a liquor license and now features a full bar.
Unfortunately, this does mean that minors will no longer be allowed
on the premises after 10 pm because, well, Oregon’s liquor laws are
really ill considered. Additionally, the space will now host
top-notch live music only Sunday to Tuesday, offering hope to
Portlanders disappointed by lackluster non-weekend show offerings. DJs
and such will fill the rest of the Valentine’s week.
Meanwhile, the pair of fresh New Jersey transplants behind
Rererato, an art space at NE 42nd and Sumner located in a former
Hare Krishna temple, have been quietly dipping their toes in the live
music waters, hosting concerts to accompany their art openings.
This young tradition will continue Saturday, July 28, with a handful of local acts ringing in the opening of Zzzzz…
(Between the Sheets), an exhibition about sleep. One of the
aforementioned bands will be the Ocean Floor, the unspeakably
bizarre, strangely fascinating prog-folk project of another new
Portlander, Lane Barrington. Connoisseurs of Portland music trivia will
be tickled to know that Barrington has history with two notable
local music weirdos: Ryland Bouchard (better known as the Robot
Ate Me), who released the Ocean Floor album Tall Tales and Small
Tales on his Swim Slowly label earlier this year, and Alan
Singley, who recorded the first Ocean Floor album in 2001, when
both musicians lived in Orlando. There are no plans for the three to
collaborate, but the new Portland-based Ocean Floor percussion-less
trio does include Shannon Steele of White Fang.
Finally, keep on eye on your television for Portland’s awesome
Rock ‘n’ Roll Camp for Girls. Fresh off a feature last week on
the Today Show, they will be highlighted on ABC’s Nightline on an as-yet-undetermined night this week, undoubtedly
inspiring countless young women across the country to pick up an
instrument and make some noise.