The ‘Dredge Report

While the rest of you were watching the Redskins beat the Cowboys, I was taking a drive out to the Columbia River Gorge, which is apparently the windsurfing capitol of the world. Or something. There was a steamboat! I also drove over this bridge, which was pretty incredible. Couple of photos below the jump.

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This is an incredibly pissy thing to write about, but I’ve had this exact conversation at least, oh, a trillion times in my life:

THEM: So where are you from?

ME: I’m from Texas.

THEM: Oh, where in Texas? I hear Austin is really cool.

ME: Yup, Austin’s pretty cool. I’m from Dallas.

THEM: Oh. Yeah, I’ve got a bunch of friends in Austin, they love it.

And you know what? GOOD! GREAT! GRAND! WONDERFUL! Austin is a really great town, and a wonderful place to live. I tried my darndest to go to school there and/or live there, though neither plan worked out. I get it, I do. But please hear me and don’t laugh when I say that Texas is a great state! If you just ignore its politicians, laws, uninsured and poverty rates, and all that other macro-stuff, Texas does not deserve its shiteous reputation. It really doesn’t. Secretly, I really like Dallas and going back to visit, and not just for the friends and family. I would put Dallas’ music-restaurant-and-nightlife scene up against any one of those ostensibly hip Midwestern cities like Minneapolis or Chicago. Yeah, that’s right, I said it. What? And, like, Hill Country—do you understand what this is? It is so beautiful. And all the space. And the people, and, most importantly, the Shiner Bock.

But back to Austin: it is great, and all my friends are going to ACL this weekend, and I’m fiercely jealous, even though I’ve already seen all the bands on the line-up that I’d want to see. When SXSW finally collapses upon itself in a few years, ACL will be there to take its place, and because of its high density of alt-country and Texas rock bands in the line-up, I will be so pleased.

My life in Portland feels decadent and overly precious. Everything consists of making my life easier and happier, or make my roommates’ lives easier and happier. I give K. a ride to work, I make green chicken masala for RV and I, I replenish our wine cellar (read: our ten-bottle wine rack), I bake banana bread for the household. RV and I throw K. a party that goes until 5 a.m., with jello shots in a rainbow of delicious colors. I do everyone’s dishes, seemingly all the time. For myself, I go to yoga and the gym. I meet B. and S. at the Lompoc for Miser Monday or a game of Scattergories. I try not to yell at Pony as often as I want to. I drag RV to wine tastings at Everyday Wine; I make salads from the heirloom tomatoes that our cute-as-pie neighbors hand us over the fence. I’ve been to more great shows in the past month than I went to in a year in Boston.  We brunch and sit on the porch and drink while we watch Intervention on Monday nights. I go to bed at a reasonable hour. Yesterday afternoon I made jasmine tea and caught up on my correspondence. I read Gourmet and books about wine. I don’t even smirk at the hippies on Alberta St. anymore; I think to myself, “How adorable!”

And tonight, the indulgence to end all indulgences. Exhale, the green yoga studio two blocks down from us, hosts “Yoga Nidra” on Monday nights. For $12 ($10 if you bike or walk there), the studio owner leads you through an hour of motionless meditation—i.e., naptime for stressed out adults. Except that I’m not stressed out.

It’s ridiculous, really, to be feeling this content.

Happy birthday to the newest member of my “found them on Craigslist” parade of roommates. K. has a tattoo that is almost as rad as she is. Explanation here.

Oy.  Spoken like someone who has never driven through west Texas and/or western Montana.  (Two places where, incidentally, the speed limit is most definitely higher than 75 mph, and for damn good reason).

Although, to be fair, Matt did once tell me that he drove through New Mexico and Arizona to California because on the map the distance looked pretty reasonable.  Aren’t Easterners the cutest?

Due to circumstances beyond my control, I only saw 4 of the 7 bands I’d hoped to see last night. I didn’t get to see Blitzen Trapper because I had to wait in line an hour and a half to get in to see Menomena, and I didn’t see Bobby Bare Jr. and centro-matic because at midnight I decided my choices were to go home and sleep or face an inevitable foot amputation from standing up for so long.

I waited in hour to see Ratatat and Les Savy Fav, in a line that stretched nearly three blocks long. I don’t have a lot to say here, except that they both put on great sets. Ratatat’s new album is going to be full of tribal beats, by the way, since they played virtually all new songs. (Which, for an hourlong set, is kind of mean to the fans, right?) Les Savy Fav is psychotically high-energy thanks to their lead singer, a highly compelling fat, bearded, combed-over maniac. His most impressive stunt was handing a ladder to the crowd and climbing to the top of it while the audience held it. I feared for all of our lives. At this point I should mention that their last album Let’s Stay Friends is really worth downloading.

Across town, I stood in line for an hour and a half for my next shows, but everyone else was waiting to see the Fleet Foxes, not Menomena, which I found weird. Who are these Fleet Foxes, I wondered? The next big thing, apparently. People in line were talking about them in hushed, reverent whispers. That said, they really were quality. Beautiful, soaring, lushly-arranged pieces. I thought long and hard about how to describe their sound, and I think I’ve got it: Devendra Banhart crossed with Fleetwood Mac. Except good.

Menomena is a band I’ve been waiting to see for almost four years now, so there was no chance of me leaving line to go somewhere else. Tragically, they only had time for 5 or 6 songs, and they didn’t play my favorite one, but their set was something else. I don’t believe that seeing a band live always gives you better insight into their recorded songs, but this time it did.

6 bands for $50. That’s cost-effective entertainment. I wish the planners of this whole thing had done a slightly better job on their ticket-volume and venue-distance algorithms to anticipate the enormous lines at virtually all of the bigger shows, but there’s always next year.

Portland is having this festival, Music Fest NW.  It’s pretty great so far.  Last night I waited in line to see Battles, and I’ll be brutally honest—I’d never listened to their music before.  I was sucked in by the hype, but with a wristband that got me in for free, I figured I didn’t have much to lose.  They put on a great set, extremely high energy, and the crowd loved them.  I loved their crescendos, but all the noodling and experimentation and meandering that made their way into the songs got kind of tiresome to me.  You say “math rock,” I say “hipster jam band.”  But still.  Consider the hype somewhat true.

Went to refuel at 820 [good god, best cocktails in Portland], and then met RV at the Roseland across town to see the Cool Kids.  Further revealing my utter lack of attention to the cool zeitgeist, I’d never even heard of this duo before.  They were freaking fantastic.  A sweet, kind of nerdy hip hop duo that raps about Fruity Pebbles and video games won my heart over bigtime.  Highly recommended.

I’m taking tonight off, but tomorrow I’ve mapped out a schedule of 7 bands, from 5:30 pm to 2 am, if my body can take it (it can’t).  I’m pretty excited, since several of the bands I’m seeing tomorrow are personal favorites that, for whatever reason, I haven’t gotten to see live til now.  Reports to come.

My friend J. came to Portland this weekend to visit before he heads back into the Miz. It was also my birthday, and it was also Labor Day weekend, so we tried to cram in the type of fun that makes a mid-20s person drop into bed exhausted at 10:30 pm. This is to say that we’re all getting old.

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