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X-Ray
Visions
Not
rated
Clinton
Street Theatre
2522
SE Clinton St., 238-8899 Thursday-Sunday, Nov. 16-19
Call for show times $6
Black-tie
premiere party will be held Wednesday, Nov. 15, at 8 pm.
Tickets are $9.99 at the theatre or Ozone Records.
The
X-Ray Cafe played host to some of Portland's best-known
bands, among them Crackerbash, Hazel, Big Daddy Meatstraw,
Drunk at Abi's, Poison Idea and Hitting Birth.
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Years and years ago, when I was a young, foolish man who had
a band and was hungry for a place to play, I had my first
show at the X-Ray Cafe. Before stepping into the cramped space
I had heard the legends. Tales of bands who boiled pigs' snouts
and spaghetti to throw on the crowd. Performance artists puking
mayonnaise. People moshing and waltzing at the same time.
The X-Ray was a crazy place that theoretically would book
anyone and everyone--which turned out to be true, because
they booked my abysmally bad band. In fact, the X-Ray probably
booked the first show of nearly every band in town during
its four-year tenure.
X-Ray Visions documents the history of one of Portland's
most infamous rock clubs. Filmmaker Benjamin Arthur Ellis--who
co-owned the club--explores the X-Ray's role in Portland
mythology. Ellis starts the film with a brief overview of
the history of music venues in Portland, the beginnings
of the club as the UFO, and the inception of the X-Ray Cafe
itself.
Intertwined and inseparable from the X-Ray are the club's
owners, Ellis and his partner, Tres Shannon. Eccentric is
the best (and for some the kindest) word to describe Shannon,
the one-time mayoral candidate and club promoter. Ellis
is much in the same mold, but he's the more level-headed
of the two. Together they ran a circus out of a funky room
with solid brick walls (great for acoustics!), until all
the money and credit was gone and a church took over the
lease.
X-Ray Visions is filled with interviews from musicians,
hipsters, customers and whoever else happened to be around
at the time. If you've lived in Portland long enough, you'll
probably recognize somebody in the film; plus, you can annoy
your friends by playing "Spot the Scenester." Also filling
out the film is a great deal of archival footage, much of
which concentrates on the more experimental bands and acts
to play the venue. Everything is included, from bare-bottom
spankings to language lessons to people guzzling and regurgitating
mayo on cue. And of course, there's Elvis.
On the down side, the documentary glosses over the darker
aspects of the club. There was, after all, a reason that
renting out space to the needle-exchange program was so
important at the time. The film is also subject to--and
limited by--the same complaint that many had with the club,
which is that in many ways it was just a hipper-than-thou
clique playing to itself.
Be forewarned: X-Ray Visions can have a rough-around-the-edges
feel. Cobbled together mostly on Hi-8, the video and sound
varies in quality--which often makes the documentary feel
like a home movie. I think I heard every dog in a one-mile
radius barking during the interview segment with K-Records'
Calvin Johnson. But, believe me, this fits the temperament
of the subject matter.
X-Ray Visions is very much a Portland film, and
despite--or because of--its faults, it gives you an insight
into a scene that not a lot of people were actually in but
many people heard about. Besides giving a sense of history
to the music and the era, it has some genuinely funny moments.
At times during the footage, the camera pulls back and you
see the audience in all its glory--all six of them. Some
are bored. Some are entertained. Some are dancing. But they
are all there experiencing the X-Ray Cafe. X-Ray Visions
succeeds by making you feel like you're one the six people
who bothered to show up.
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