City of Sound

Music never comes out of a vacuum. Influences are in the air: the static on the radio, the song of a street musician, the rhythm of the MAX's wheels bumping over uneven tracks.

To hear the sounds of Portland, we sent a troop of WW writers to the street, and for 24 hours devoured all the noise we could wrap our ears around.

7:37 AM: APARTMENT, NORTHWEST 19TH AVENUE AND JOHNSON STREET

9:59 am

A steady stream of short, snippy barks startles me awake. My neighbor's dog, a punter judging by the high pitch of the yaps, begins its morning routine early, 20 minutes before my alarm is set to go off. There's a pause, I drift back to sleep, and then I hear it again: Yap, yap, yap. I pound on the wall, and the yapper goes crazy. I have unwittingly entered a conversation. (MB)

8:14 AM: CORE SOURCE, 5509 NE 30TH AVE.

The music of Massive Attack hums on the stereo inside the warmly painted rooms of Core Source. Shoes are removed. Yoga mats are laid on the floor. With the first Vinyasa, the studio's soundtrack switches to Beck's Sea Change, while instructor Josh Rengert pulls and challenges our muscles into a rhythm of their own. Why Beck, not sitar or classical music? "Why not?" Rengert replies. "I like it." The base rhythm of yogic breathing and the soft melody of Beck's voice ease the class into the morning. (MLB)

9:59 AM: SOUTHEAST 5TH AVENUE AND YAMHILL STREET

The bus mall might not be the best place in town to play schmaltzy keyboard blues, but that doesn't stop ragged balladeer Buddy B. The singer's plain-spoken lines break through the roar of bus engines: "I like the way you told that punk to kiss your ass," he sings, before breaking into a demo-button-assisted organ solo on his Yamaha PSR-GX76 keyboard. Buddy's songs are all originals, and his lyrics vary from a rap about work to mock preaching about Beelzebub when the guy with the "Jesus Loves You" placard comes around. But not all the songs are so punchy. "I once was a young man/ But I got dealt a bad hand," he sings. "I'm glad my mom can't see me now." (MB)

10:43 AM: THIRD FLOOR, PIONEER PLACE

Right here, next to the mall's skyway, is what Muzak enthusiasts might call "the sweet spot." In front of Sean Healy's Little Golden Hallway installation is where the instrumental jazz noodling is at its loudest, but still only about a 5 on a 10-point loudness scale. Downstairs, the woman at the information desk doesn't know what music is playing, but quickly offers me a form to request a change. "I hate this jazz," she says. "Before Christmas they were playing classical. I liked that a lot better. You can request it if you want." (MB)

2:27 PM: DIVINE CAFE, SOUTHWEST 9TH AVENUE AND ALDER STREET

There is a center, a heartbeat, driving the preparations of Divine Cafe chef Rose Guardino. And though it's tucked away, nearly out of sight, the dusty black boom box is the restaurant's secret ingredient. "Cooking is a rhythm," Guardino says while gracefully assembling a BBQ tofu sandwich. "And exactly like dancing, it starts in your hips." Today her pacemaker is Beck. Yesterday, it was the White Stripes. The music connects her with the food: She knows water will boil by the end of Beck's "Lost Cause" and just what to do when the Stripes' "I Just Don't Know What to Do With Myself" is playing. (JPH)

3:38 PM: SOUTHWEST WASHINGTON STREET AND 9TH AVENUE

With headphones on, Gabe Hansen removes graffiti from a window on Southwest Washington Street, oblivious to the sight of businessmen running past the blasting of his loud paint-removing machine. Instead, plugged into another world, he doesn't hear the ruckus he's raising. Taking a break, he explains his love of world music and anything dynamic. "People listen to music to be transformed," he says, proud to be existing on a different level. In a little while the headphones slip back on and he's a solipsist again. He had said the city was an orchestra, and I think about that as I leave before his encore is finished. (JPH)

6:21 PM: CONAN'S PUB, 3862 SE HAWTHORNE BLVD.

Lonely happy hours aren't all that happy, and thankfully, Power of County arrives just in time. Call them Old Time, call them a string band, but also call them downright saviors on this early evening. When these boys show up, the People's Court program blasting from the TV goes on mute, and the sounds of the Golden Tee video game are slightly muffled. POC is a quietish band that's a little shy of amplification, but when the fiddler gets close to the mic, a sweet, sweet country sound fills the air. No matter that only six of us are listening--better to welcome the weekend with the pluckfest of Power of County than the sobfest of People's Court. (KC)

8 PM: BELOW ZERO RECORDS, 3532 NE MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. BLVD.

A knot of a crowd gathers in the small performance space toward the back of Below Zero Records. Three members of the band Cuerpo de Perro take the stage as the fourth musician prowls the room, jeering toward the eerily silent crowd. This will be the band's last show, having just completed a tour of Mexico with the Austin hardcore group Signal Lost, also on the bill tonight. The reason for the breakup is simply logistical: Now that the members have split between Austin and Portland and aren't not living in a van together, the commute seems unreasonable. Launching into a teeth-shattering barrage of pure hardcore rage, the music burns brightly into the night as Cuerpo de Perro bellows its last. (MW)

8:01 PM: YUR'S RESTAURANT & LOUNGE, 717 NW 16TH AVE.

Walking through the wall of smoke that divides Yur's from the world, I am met by Led Zeppelin's "Achilles' Last Stand." Oh, Christ. Who, upon reaching legal drinking age in America, hasn't swallowed so much Zep as to never require another dose? Fault Yur's new Internet jukebox. Gone is the beloved old juke, which was both free and stocked with punk, indie and DIY compilation CDs. The new machine, on the other hand, looks like a goddamn psychedelic soda dispenser. And though it may be able to download a thousand songs, like all Netjukes it lacks any shadow of personality. Trading homemade distinction for mediocre convenience? To quote the Briefs: "God bless the fucked-up USA." (JG)

9 PM: JACKPOT! RECORDING STUDIO, 1925 SE MORRISON ST.

Most recording engineers fall firmly on one side of the analog-vs.-digital debate, but John Cohrs is an exception. Tonight the assistant engineer at Larry Crane's legendary studio in Southeast Portland is hosting a hybrid jam in which friends Gus Elg and Adam Martin are performing improvised bass and guitar over morphing digital loops from Cohrs' laptop. The results, captured on old-school analog tape, lend a warm, human edge to Cohrs' precise digital creations, preserving what he calls "the quality of the jam." Spoken like a true 21st-century hippie, and an open-minded one at that. (MW)

10:14 PM: KPRA, IN A CAR ON EAST BURNSIDE STREET

Turning left onto Burnside from Southeast 39th Avenue, KPRA 96.7 FM comes in clear as a bell. The Portland Radio Authority is a small, not-quite-legal radio station serving a tiny chunk of East Portland, and tonight's menu is eclectic. East Flatbush Project's eerie hip-hop classic "Tried by Twelve" segues into a bizarre Motown track about the joys of barbecue. Then I pull up to an intersection and everything goes fuzzy. It's a brief transmission, but just enough to get me dreaming about a world where radio playlists are determined by real live humans, rather than conservative Clear Channel robots and their precious focus groups. (MW)

10:45 PM: INTERNATIONAL CLUB MUMMY, 332 NE SAN RAFAEL ST.

There's a side room nicknamed "The Meatlocker" here, and it's a fitting description. The small concrete box is cold as a corpse, while the harsh and stomping Teutonic technobeats spun by DJs Carrion and Zufall are making me feel like fist-tenderized beef--someone pass the salt. Meanwhile, out in the club's main room, the decor feels like a cross between a hotel lounge and a warehouse front for European smugglers. Making a welcome appearance on the PA, however, are the shiver-inducing electronic strings of Coil's "Love's Secret Domain," which could improve the atmosphere of anywhere short of a morgue. (JG)

11 PM: JIMMY MAK'S, 300 NW 10TH AVE.

At the entry to Jimmy Mak's jazz club, a middle-aged couple asks for a description of the music of Dan Balmer's Go by Train. "It's like nothing you've ever heard before!" the doorman explains, but the diagnosis seems slightly premature as the band breaks into the first strains of a tasteful adult-contemporary jazz number. Then something strange happens. What was nearly Muzak morphs into schizophrenic jazz-fusion skronk as Balmer screws up his face and braces himself for the nails-on-chalkboard dissonance escaping his guitar. In a minute, he zigzags his way back to the tonic, and a palpable relief spreads through the room, followed quickly by applause. Balmer smiles, and the doorman looks on in knowing appreciation. (MW)

11:42 PM: DUNES, 1905 NE MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. BLVD.

"I might like you better if we slept together" has long been one of pop music's most lovable slogans. But it's not what I want to hear as I slink into Dunes. After hearing so much deathless '80s music already tonight, I'm beginning to hate the decade as much as Reagan himself. I don't blame DJ Niteschool, though. Hell, I don't even know who he is, seeing how he's dressed in mercenary chic: camo hat and shirt and a tear-gas bandanna covering his face. Very stylish, in a Beirut sort of way. (JG)

11:59 PM: BILLY RAY'S NEIGHBORHOOD DIVE, 2216 NE MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. BLVD.

It's quiet here, too quiet. There's something wrong. My god, no one's plugging the juke! In a punker's hangout like the Dive, that's just plain screwed. So pump in a few bills and program some Birthday Party, Jesus Lizard, Misfits, Minds and R.L. Burnside. And for the love of Pete (Townshend), turn it up! We got vital, exciting lives to lead here! Crank it until the gigantic tankards of beer start to vibrate like skyscrapers in an earthquake, please. Ahh, better. Much better. (JG)

1:17 AM: THE WISHING WELL, 8800 N LOMBARD ST.

Life has cut its way into the faces, hands and hearts of the regulars at the Wishing Well. At this blue-collar St. Johns boozeria, libations are powerful because the calloused locals drink as hard by night as they work during the day. Thankfully, Marlena Wray eases everyone into the weekend as she leads her one-woman "band" through a run of hits from the previous five decades. As Wray alternately strums her Strat or accompanies herself on electric piano, a few middle-aged couples wheel across the tiny dance floor to the beat of a cracking drum machine. Welcome to nocturnal America 2004, where the past does not go gently into that good night. (JG)

3:10 AM: PLAID PANTRY, 2270 NW GLISAN ST.

Plaid Pantry employee Josh listens to some jarring dance music that he calls "Happy Hardcore"--techno based around a breakbeat and sped-up drum synthesizers. Employees are allowed to listen to whatever music they want on the job as long as it's not too offensive to customers, the clerk says. In addition, there's the always-reliable background noise of the lovely convenience-store philharmonic orchestra, which includes the harmony of the ding of the front door, the sucking sound of the cooler door opening and closing, and the everpresent hum of fluorescent lights and refrigerator motors. (AV)

4:33 AM: THE ORIGINAL HOTCAKE & STEAK HOUSE, 1002 SE POWELL BLVD.

The jukebox at the Hotcake House, which is famous for playing different songs than the ones selected, is silent just now. Two couples in a booth are talking; they're drunk and don't know each other well. One of the guys, sporting a shaved-head/goatee combo, coolly flicks his Zippo lighter open and closed, to impress the ladies. Thinking it might help set the mood, I cue "Love Me Do" in German on the jukebox. TLC's "Waterfalls" plays instead. (JP)

5:45 AM: IN CAR

The entire 18-minute version of "Alice's Restaurant" is playing on 105.9 The River. I've never liked the song, but you got to respect its airplay. I'd rather hear this stuff during drive time, since I've heard enough of the George Harrison Memorial Concert to last me 'til B.B. King recites the Bhagavad-Gita. Let's try 99.5 The Wolf. "Proud to Be an American." I think of country radio as a lesser, but just as tragic, casualty of 9/11. Remember when Toby Keith sang about being OK talking about his girl's period as long as he could talk about himself, too? Damn near male emotional empowerment. That made me proud to be an American. Say it ain't a bygone era, bubba. (JP)

6:13 AM: WEST BURNSIDE STREET

Nearly dawn Saturday morning, and I'm on foot, crisscrossing Burnside. Quiet out here. Two sparrows sing from inside a dumpster. A broken Benson Bubbler shoots water across the pavement. The Rescue Mission's letting out, and from the crowd, some guy lets out a loud "AHH-OOGH!!" and a tugboat's air-horn answers from down below on the Willamette. I try to find whoever made the sound so I can tape-record it. Now he's on the opposite side of the building. The tug answers again. Too much! I follow--the man's beneath the bridge now, but then he's nowhere in sight. Another "AHH-OOGH!!" and this time I can't tell whether the sound comes from the tug or the man. (JP)

7:40 AM: SATURDAY MARKET, DOWNTOWN

From a Saturday Market booth, a portable radio blasts Jammin 95. The sleepy freedom of the early-morning playlist has passed, but the guitar part on "Suga, Suga" still sounds outstanding in the fresh sunlight. The steel bracings of the booths clink as they're attached, a train rumbles by, and conversations in Spanish and Vietnamese float on the air. "Suga Suga" is on the outro. That guitar loop sounds downright spectral out here. Bouncing around the girders, into the booths where everyone's yawning and slurping coffee, rising up into the noise of the first cars passing over the bridge above. What's he saying? "So high/ like I'm a star/ azucar..." Poetry, baby, sheer poetry. (JP)