Skip to main contentMike Farara lumbers into the Shamrock in North Portland out of a hot Tuesday afternoon. He orders coffee and cream. His speech, still bearing the heavy mark of his New York upbringing, never strays far from what he knows best: music. Knowledge culled from his collection of about 28,000 records has seen Farara through a 35-year career as a disc jockey, spanning an era that saw the rise and fall of Northwest rock and the DJ's craft.
"The best Northwest band of all time was the Wailers," Farara declares. "Kingsmen were good. Paul Revere with Mark Lindsay at the Corral, in those old military outfits...then you had the Sonics, Gentleman Jim and the Horsemen. Those are the guys I grew up with. Jimmy Hannah and the Dynamics. The Viceroys. I mean, those were awesome bands. At the old Tick Tock on 12th and Sandy, for a buck and a half you could go see those bands, and for 50 cents more you could have a salad and a soft drink."
In 1964, the airwaves buzzed with seasoned disc jockeys riding the rock and roll wave for all it was worth: Cousin Brucie, Wolfman Jack and, in Portland, legendary jocks Johnny Dark and "The Preacher" Pat Pattee, "Reverend" Jim Conway, and a new kid in town fresh from the Bronx's PS186, hot on the heels of a honey from Lake Oswego. A kid full of doo-wop and Little Richard. "Deacon" Mike Farara.
Years later, the nicknames gone, these onetime kingpins of the airwaves bleed the last bits of their fame as mobile DJs for hire. Pattee and Conway seem to have disappeared, and Johnny Dark long since evaporated into Midwestern oblivion, spinning for company picnics and bar mitzvahs. Their radio replacements find compact discs much easier to handle than vinyl, with playlists homogenized by "All Fun Oldies" formats. And then there's karaoke, which has replaced the talents of many skilled selectors with the drunken bleatings of off-duty (and off-key) bank tellers.
"I can't see messing up a good song," says Farara. "I think people would rather hear 'Pretty Woman' by Roy Orbison than by somebody looking at the beat on the screen."
Farara knows the plight of the True DJ all too well. Hired and fired as the house wax-spinner at North Portland's Kenton Club four times in the last 15 years, he suffered his most recent dismissal right on the heels of a Willamette Week "Best of Portland" listing featuring his deejaying.
"I thought they would be glad for the publicity," Farara says. "I walked in there, I liked everyone and everyone liked me. Maybe I'll end up back there." He's vague about whether live bands or karaoke lie behind the firing. A Kenton Club bartender explains that the club "had to let a few people go," and then hired a new DJ who also does karaoke. The bar's co-owner declined comment.
Farara rarely mentions a song without placing it in context: Where did it come from, where did it go?
"You know that song 'Last Night' by the Mar-Keys?" he asks in the midst of explaining how Satellite Records led to Stax and then to Atlantic. "Dum-dum...ahh, last night," he sings. Ground zero for the entire Stax sound. He mentions it in passing and moves on to Big Mama Thornton. Songs based on her songs. Scatman Crothers. On and on.
Farara's encyclopedic knowledge of artists and singles flows freely. He is less forthcoming when pressed on details of his own career and leads most conversations back into the familiar territory of recordings and personal encounters with his heroes.
"I engineered for Wolfman Jack one night out in Beaverton for $50 and all the beer I could drink," he says. "That guy, he was the top jock. He was so funny. You know how he got that voice? He was a womanizer, got caught messing around with some guy's wife who broke his jaw, and they had to wire it. He said, 'Thanks to that guy,
I am a millionaire.'"
Farara engineered for Pat Pattee and others at a variety of local stations, and performed as a nightclub DJ as early as 1967 at the Jade Room in Oregon City. In general, he did whatever he could to be around music. His career is essentially a litany of nightclub gigs, odd jobs and a stint as a video-store owner.
"Stations like KISN are all pre-programmed now," he complains of the shift in his craft. "Lot of us old DJs don't want to go on air, because you can't be creative. That's why I like the nightclub gig."
He is doggedly chasing down leads on job openings, handing out the 500 business cards advertising his Golden Oldies Express. "When I first go into a club, I look at the jukebox. If I hear someone play 'Pretty Woman' or an old Beatles song, I think that they might like oldies. If I hear 'I want to kill your mother and rape your father,' I think, 'This ain't my kind of place.'
"Roy Orbison told me once, 'Just play the music the way you feel.' That has always worked for me. But 35 years later, maybe it is time to get some new blood in there. Maybe they got tired of seeing some old guy playing vinyl."
A moment later, he shakes his head.
"Sometimes I don't work for a couple months, but then I'll bounce back. I always do."
Farara's Top 5
1. "Dream Lover," Bobby Darin
2. "Love Me Tender," Elvis Presley
3. "Looking for Someone to Love, " Buddy Holly
4. "Send Me Some Loving," Little Richard
5. "In Dreams" and "Crying," Roy Orbison
WWeek 2015