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As the century winds down with the elegant grace of a
drunken wind-up toy, the country seems to have fallen into
a nostalgic reverie. The Mets and Yankees are doing their
damnedest to revive the Subway Series, that 40-years-gone
autumnal chestnut. John McCain and Pat Buchanan are campaigning
hard to return the Republican Party to the core principles
it espoused before liberalist interlopers like Herbert Hoover
hijacked the outfit. Most everyone else spends like it's
the '20s and works like it's the '50s--except for poor people,
for whom it might as well be 1982.
The music world hears yesterday's siren song as well. The
current issue of Rolling Stone contains
reviews of albums by the Clash, David Bowie, Ronnie
Spector, Pete Townshend (he has a new album of bluesy
Who covers out) and the Who (The Who Sell Out
has been reissued). Stop Making Sense is in theaters
again, so some local stations have been spinning a lot of
Talking Heads. Spin's new issue pays
tribute to hip-hop's supposed 20th birthday, arbitrarily
derived from the release date of Grandmaster Flash's
"Rapper's Delight." In the same issue, a breathless report
on "emocore" breaks the exciting news of the punk
subgenre's development--only 14 years after it began with
D.C.'s Rites of Spring! ("Punks discover
inner feelings, turn into spineless crybabies--film at 11!")
Rumor has it that the magazine plans an exposé
on this thing called "ska" as soon as the editors can figure
out the difference between "rock steady" and "bluebeat"--but
that remains unconfirmed at press time.
Here in Portland, this cultural oldies-but-goodies fascination
plays out as well--fortunately, in far less annoying form.
Witness the X-Ray Cafe Reunion, a temporary revival
of the legendary all-ages club that turned a disreputable
hole in the wall at 214 W Burnside St. into the epicenter
of an incredibly vital period for independent music in Portland
between 1990 and 1994. By throwing open its doors to teenage
fans and music of all descriptions, the X-Ray became a place
that PDX rockers still mourn--whether or not they were around
when it was open.
Now, former proprietors Tres Shannon and Ben
Ellis have cajoled many of the bands that grew in the
X-Ray's radioactive petri dish to either reunite or step
out of seclusion for a two-night retrospective at the Chinese
Teahouse. The pair chose the restaurant-cum-lounge on
East Burnside in part because it's a budding center for
all-ages rock in its own right. "It's just shoestringy enough
to get the right vibe," proclaims the reunion's press propaganda.
Granted, the Teahouse's location is much less action-packed
than West Burnside circa 1990. Newspaper articles chronicling
the club's earliest days make the surrounding street scenes
out to be unsavory at best and proto-apocalyptic at worst.
Ellis himself painted a vivid picture for WW reporter
Fiona Martin: "It's such a strange wall at the door [of
the X-Ray]," he said. "To the left, you're dealing with
kids and ice cream and toys hanging from the ceiling. And
on the right, you've got people bleeding to death."
Of course, insurgent rock tends to thrive in such raunchy
precincts, and the X-Ray became ground zero for a period
of musical ferment that laid the groundwork for much of
Portland's present scene. It also added a little to the
local color from time to time. In 1993, about a half-dozen
anarchists and some allied street kids managed to kick up
a well-publicized riot at the club's doorstep. Dozens of
combat-clad Portland cops responded to the disorder; when
one of the so-revolutionary miscreants sallied forth to
negotiate with the thin blue line, a cop delivered the memorable
greeting, "I'd rather shoot you than talk to you."
For all that madness, the real fertile chaos happened inside,
on stage. The reunion's bill outlines the communal artistic
zing the X-Ray harnessed: Oregonian crime reporter
Tony Green showcases his white-trash culture anthems;
the Tennesseans step out of the shadows for a rare
run through their country lunacy; New Bad Things
revisit the heyday of lo-fi, spastic punk; the Gone Orchestra
explodes jazz; Big Daddy Meatstraw unleashes a performance-art
barrage. And then, of course, there's Hazel, the
death-defying post-punk quartet said to be capable of stopping
time and making audience members feel like they were in
the most important place on earth.
The reunion benefits a more permanent memorial for the
club, a documentary film Ellis is currently editing. Unreconstructed
iconoclasts might say that nostalgia can be stifling, but
this project and the two nights of noise raising cash for
it deserve support. The so-called "teen heaven on Skid Row"
may be long gone, but the energy it unleashed reverberates
still.
The
X-Ray Cafe Reunion
The Chinese
Teahouse, 830 E Burnside St., 233-4551
8 pm Friday-Saturday, Oct. 15-16
$10 for each night, $15 for both
Friday night's running order:
Tony Green Orchestra, The Tennesseans, Last Pariahs, Hazel,
Ernest Truely's Barebottom Spanking, Big Daddy Meatstraw,
Dick, Art...
Saturday night's running order:
Tony Green Orchestra,
Gone Orchestra, Roger Nusic, Completely Grocery, Drunk at
Abi's, New Bad Things, late night with Dare Queen
The X-Ray Cafe took over the former digs of the 214 Tavern,
reportedly an excellent place to get stabbed in the back
by a former cellmate you owed cigarette money.
Ironically, the X-Ray commemorative competes with Oct.
15's final show at 17 Nautical Miles, the Woodstock
Boulevard all-ages nexus. Kil Kare and others will
bid adieu to 17, which is shutting down so its proprietors
can devote their full attention to Glass Factory--a
bigger, better all-ages joint on Southeast Pine Street.
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Willamette Week | originally
published October 13,
1999
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