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Blake Boris-Schachter couldn’t even attend the opening of his own club.
“I caught COVID for my opening weekend,” says the owner and founder of Southeast Portland music venue The Get Down. “I ended up watching the grand opening from my security feed at home.”
If all goes well, though, Boris-Schachter will be able to indulge in a much-delayed celebration at The Get Down’s first anniversary party on Saturday, April 8, with live music by electronic-rock duo BoomBox.
The Get Down has been Boris-Schachter’s dream since 2009, when the Massachusetts native graduated from Clark University in Worcester, Mass. “Out of college I decided that I wanted to own and operate my own music venue someday,” he says.
A venture in Worcester converting the basement of a hookah bar into a venue fell through in 2010—”not a great time for getting bank loans,” Boris-Schachter says—and he put his plans on pause to work in tech in San Francisco for most of the decade.
Eventually, his attention drifted to Portland as a launchpad for his project due to its cheap liquor licenses and “strong collection of independently owned music venues as opposed to venues mostly owned by the larger conglomerates,” leading to fairer competition as opposed to competing with the likes of Ticketmaster and AXS. He moved north in 2018, and after one abortive attempt and another major setback in 2020 as COVID brought live music to a screeching halt, he finally signed a lease on a spot in December 2021.
Boris-Schachter says the name “The Get Down” has carried through the longest of any of his ideas for a club. “By coming up with that name, I always thought of it as a place to go see music that you would more than likely dance to,” he says.
But Boris-Schachter knew he had to book some serious talent before anyone would come to groove.
“One of the key elements that I was told by multiple venue owners is to have a really good booker who knows the industry, who’s done it for a long time,” he says. Enter Josh Pollack, an event promoter with nearly 20 years of experience who met Boris-Schachter through a mutual friend in San Francisco. Already well connected and reputed among promoters, Pollack was crucial in getting artists and agents to trust the as yet untested venue as a potential place to play.
“From the get-go, I basically just had to put my personal reputation on the line and leverage the preexisting relationships I had with artists I’ve been booking already for years,” Pollack says. “I was able to convince people, hey, this is a great space, you’re going to want to play here.”
The first event at The Get Down in April 2022 was headlined by Mark Farina, a house DJ who’s been performing since 1988.
“If I had tried to reach out to his agent, I doubt that they would’ve been interested in booking something they didn’t know with someone they didn’t know,” Boris-Schachter says. “But Josh, who’s booked Mark many times and knew his agent, reached out, and they said yes.”
Since then, the 400-capacity venue has hosted regular performances by both local and international touring artists, plus the occasional comedy show.
Another crucial consideration for any dance club is the bar. The Get Down uses a kegged cocktail system, aiming in the words of bar manager Andrew Harrison “to keep the line moving and get you back out to the show without sacrificing on quality or service.”
Inspired by author and cocktail wizard Dave Arnold, Harrison makes frequent use of a culinary centrifuge to create, among other drinks, the clarified lime cordial crucial to the house, the Delorean Margarita. This complex concoction, alongside others such as If the Dove Fits and the Ella Spritzgerald, will be available at The Get Down’s anniversary party.
As for BoomBox, they have no prior affiliation with the venue; comprising two sons of the Grateful Dead’s Donna Jean Godchaux, the band just happened to book The Get Down on this auspicious date. Yet their rhythm-forward music fits in neatly with The Get Down’s vision—and Boris-Schachter will finally have the chance to boogie along after missing his brainchild’s birth.
“It carried a lot of emotion with it, to miss something I looked forward to for so long,” he says. “Which does make the one-year anniversary something that I’m extra excited for, to be able to be there and celebrate.”
SEE IT: BoomBox plays The Get Down, 615 SE Alder St., Suite B, thegetdownpdx.com. 9 pm Saturday, April 8. 21+.
