Magic
Fingers, The No-No's, Wolf Colonel, Camaro Hair
Crystal Ballroom,
1332 W Burnside St., 778-5625
9 pm Monday, March 29
Free
Portland's brashly catchy Camaro Hair defies logic. The
band's popularity, in fact it's very existence, mystifies.
I mean, this is Portland. A city whose aging indie rockers
prefer to go country rather than pop. A city where Courtney
Love gets booed out of the Rose Garden to make room for
a guy named Marilyn. A city with more strip bars than swing
dance clubs. This isn't a place where one expects a tight,
well-intentioned pop band to succeed.
According to Brian Sicotte--the tall, shy singer with
a sweet croon--Camaro Hair's story isn't that far removed
from those of other local bands. "I grew up in this town,
listening to Hazel, Sprinkler, Heatmiser, Svelt--all the
indie bands I respected and thought were cool, and still
do," he says. "But we don't sound indie, and that's the
big sound in Portland."
We're killing time at the Satyricon bar, where Camaro
Hair is reluctantly playing last in a Saturday night Battle
of the Bands. Right now, local legend Roger Nusic is on
stage. He looks like a Peruvian street musician, except
that he wears a matching vest and bell bottoms covered
with multicolored heart appliqués. Nusic nimbly
plays a violin with his hands and a drum machine with
his feet. He's at least 40. The members of Camaro Hair
realize they have no chance against a guy like this: Portland
will always favor its freaks.
Sicotte insists that Camaro Hair became a pop band by
accident. He and guitarist Ty Andersen, a friend since
grade school, formed the band two years ago. Their sound
was solidified when brothers Mike and Kevin Johnson joined
on drums and bass. "Mike and Kevin gave the songs more
of a dance beat," the frontman recalls. "At first we tried
to stop them, but they kept bringing it back. We can't
get away from it--that's just our sound. None of us really
had as much passion for playing indie rock."
While the Johnson brothers take obvious joy in their
poppy sound, pounding out a rhythmic roar during live
shows, the shy singer can be relentlessly apologetic about
the music's radio friendliness. "We know not everyone's
going to like us," Sicotte says. "Either you hate us or
you love us, and I expect that in this town."
What they didn't expect was that quirky Portlanders would
fall for the band's mainstream music; clubs call to book
them week after week, and Camaro Hair obliges. "It's not
that we want to be playing all the time," Sicotte admits.
"I just can't say no."
The Battle of the Bands is one such show. The boys in
Camaro Hair hadn't heard of anyone else on the bill, but
they figured they'd do it because Satyricon has been good
to them. After Roger Nusic clears out, the competition
stiffens when an even stranger band--Written in Ashes--launches
into its first tune. The members are dressed to the hilt
in Gothic makeup and attire, except for the keyboardist,
who looks more Elizabethan in her white gown and powdered
face. The singer does his best Peter Murphy, and people
twirl about in ecstasy. "In high school I used to wear
makeup and a black trench coat," Sicotte fondly remembers.
"I'd just smoke cloves and walk around downtown."
Today Sicotte's look, and the group's sound, are more
rooted in Seattle and L.A. pop bands such as Flop, the
Posies and Redd Kross. Rather than recoil, at least one
Camaro Hair dude exclaims, "I love those guys!" at each
of these associations. It's clear that guarding their
music from comparison isn't as important to them as having
a good time with it. Still, they know they're young and
impressionable, so all four try to avoid exposure to infectious
musical clichés. "We don't listen to any new rock
radio," Andersen says. "But we do steal melodies from
KISN [the oldies station]." Their sound does bear resemblance
to a few retro bands--the Easybeats (remember "Friday
on My Mind"?), Cheap Trick, even the Buzzcocks.
The Goth band fades into a haze of synthesized smoke,
and now it's Camaro Hair's turn. A few loyal fans linger,
entertained by a Camel cigarette contest on stage. A tipsy
girl is showing her tits in an effort to win a T-shirt.
She turns out to be one of the Battle of the Bands judges,
and she stumbles out of the room before the boys even
begin to play. If their chances were bad before, this
certainly doesn't make them any better.
As they're about to step into the light, I ask about
the origin of their name, which evokes '70s butt-rock
more than '90s catchy pop. "We were actually thinking
of how girls used to do their hair," says Sicotte, "you
know, all curled out and feathered." Sweet image, but
did any of them ever have Camaro hair--men's
Camaro hair? "I think we all did at some point," says
Andersen.
"I even had a Camaro," Sicotte pipes in, "but I sold
it." For a moment there I thought he said he sold out.
But you can't sell out in Portland; you can only sell
tickets. And people are buying. Indie or pop, Camaro Hair
is doing something right.
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Willamette Week | originally
published March 24,
1999
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