Skip to main contentMusicians are a dime a dozen in Portland. But musicians who grew up soaking in the sonic culture of Portland and then stayed here to form their own successful bands? Now those individuals are about as rare as sunny days in January. In a town filled with hundreds, if not thousands, of transplanted musicians looking for inspiration—and good weed—the history of this city, in song and word, is often lost. So, on the occasion of Portland's biggest annual music party, MusicfestNW, WW asked four Portland-area natives from some of the WW-sponsored fest's best bands to let us in on what it was like to grow up in the Rose City. Our musicians spanned generations (from Dead Moon's matriarch of rock, Toody Cole, to the Helio Sequence's fresh-faced singer, Brandon Summers) and styles (from the hip-hop of Lifesavas emcee Jumbo to the drone pop of the Dandy Warhols' Zia McCabe). The stories that follow are remarkable for their glimpses into the lives of young local music lovers—and the bands, clubs and people who shaped their sounds—over the course of the past 50 years.
Zia McCabe from the Dandy Warhols
The Dandy Warhols are currently one of the most widely known—and perhaps most widely reviled—bands in Portland. Seen as a preening group of pretentious pop musicians, the Dandys don't fit in with the angst-ridden grunge crowd that preceded them in the early '90s or the aw-shucks indie kids who have arrived since the quartet won national acclaim with Thirteen Tales of Urban Bohemia in 2000. But unlike the former, the band survived the '90s, and unlike the latter, they actually grew up in and around Portland. So who's to say they don't belong?
A few days before the band left for Spain to open several stadium dates for the Rolling Stones (shows that were eventually canceled due to Mick Jagger's laryngitis), keyboardist Zia McCabe sat down with WW at the 32-year-old's Northeast Portland home. The Battle Ground, Wash., native spent the next two hours talking about how grunge, psychedelics and the Grateful Dead's final Eugene concert helped make the Dandy Warhols happen. Before we could start, though, she took some time to gush about Dead Moon's Toody Cole, whom she met for the first time during the cover shoot for this story.
—Mark Baumgarten
WW: So when was the first time you heard Dead Moon?
Zia McCabe: It was probably at the X-Ray [Cafe]. As soon as I could drive, I was going every Friday night to the Quest to dance to the '80s music and then every Saturday night to the X-Ray. It didn't matter who was playing, you just would go. I'm sure I saw Dead Moon. I'm really surprised I never saw the Dandy Warhols in the six months before I joined, when [bandleader Courtney Taylor-Taylor's] ex-girlfriend was the bass player.
When LaLuna started having dollar Fridays where the gigs were a buck, it was the coolest thing for all these kids to just go see whoever was playing. It didn't matter. But once the grunge scene started to die down, I realized that I didn't really ever like the music. [But] I really like Hazel. Hazel was my band. I questioned my sexuality because of Jody [Bleyle].
What was the first album that you bought with your own money?
Guns N' Roses' Appetite for Destruction. I think it was in the eighth grade. We had a luau at school, and I had the best grass skirt/coconut thingies, and so I got a gift certificate to Sam Goody, the music store I ended up working in. It was still when the vinyl was down the middle of the store, and then cassettes were on the walls. And I bought it on cassette.
What was the first band you truly loved?
I think that it would have to be the Beatles. I would come home after school, and my parents were at work, and my dad had this awesome record collection. I was probably 13 or 12 when I figured out how to use the record player, and I would just trip out on, like, Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon—couldn't believe it. But The White Album just moved me like nothing else ever did. If you're gonna fall in love with a band, that's a great introduction.
Were drugs a big part of your music experience early on?
Oh, yeah. Well, there were two years [when I first started going to shows in Portland] when there were no drugs. It was just music and dancing and having a good time and being a kid. My mom did psychedelics, and I heard about them my whole life. I was always the authority on the subject. Still, today, it's like, OK, where are we gonna be when we get high? Where are we gonna be when we come down? What are we gonna need? I was always the one with the adventure pack; I brought the water.
What was the first concert that you ever went to under your own terms?
I went to a lot of shows through high school, but the Grateful Dead was the first concert I got tickets for ahead of time at Fred Meyer. Right when I joined the [Dandy Warhols], I'd been saving up nickels and dimes for months to have enough money to buy tickets to the Grateful Dead. Not because I was a huge fan—I don't think my parents had any Grateful Dead albums—but just for the scene. It's the ultimate crazy freak-out group of people enjoying music. So right after joining the [Dandys], I got to have that experience, in Eugene, the last time [the Dead] ever played in Eugene. That definitely helped with being in the band. I never really thought about it till now, but that was a really good Psychedelic Live Performance 101. Ya know, it set me up for playing two chords for a half-hour in Courtney's basement.
So why did you play keyboards and not an electric bass?
It was the drone. There were just a few bands, like Stereolab, that were just really droney right at that time, right when grunge was starting to just get soooo tired. It was just a complete cesspool, and we wanted to have cocktails and feel sexy and not have everyone be so full of angst for a while. It was a reaction to needing something other than the grunge scene and nobody really taking the initiative to start this new scene. And we decided, fine, we'll do this ourselves, then. We'll be soldiers of rock and we'll take this to the next place that it needs to go.
The Dandy Warhols play at the Crystal Ballroom at 11:30 pm Thursday, Sept. 7.
Jumbo from Lifesavas
Aside from being the most widely known Portland hip-hop outfit, the Lifesavas are also among the most entrenched in the history and culture of the Rose City. Emcees Jumbo and Vursatyl came of age in the neglected, pre-gentrified neighborhoods of Northeast Portland in the 1980s. That's where they still keep homes today, and where they wrote the verses that would eventually land on the Lifesavas' well-received 2003 Quannum debut, Spirit in Stone. This winter they will release their much-anticipated follow-up, Gutterfly, a sound pastiche of various blaxploitation films with both emcees and founding DJ Rev. Shines in the starring roles. We sat down with Solomon David, a.k.a. Jumbo, to talk about Portland hip-hop's forgotten past, uncertain present and life-savory future. —Casey Jarman
WW: As far as Portland goes, do you remember the first thing that blew up hip-hop here?
Solomon David, a.k.a. Jumbo: Yeah. There was a spot in Northeast Portland called the Burning Spear. That's where all the concerts, ciphers—that's where hip-hop went to just to gather, because people's basements were only so big. All of the b-boys, b-girls came there, the graf writers. That's where I saw the Untouchables [later known as U-Krew] battle this group called Freak Control. It blew my mind. [U-Krew] actually had a live show back then. Freak Control were just more straight-up battle cats. They never came across national success with a hit song like the Untouchables did, so we kinda got to see two sides of the coin.
What was the first album you bought on your own?
It was definitely a cassette [he laughs]. You know how people have mix tapes now that are CDs? They used to be called "blend tapes." It was from WBLS, the station in New York where DJ Red Alert was breaking the Jungle Brothers. There was a song [the Jungle Brothers] had on it called "Bragging and Boastingâ" and another track called "Jimbrowski." That was the first time I'd heard about being able to brag and boast as an emcee, but also put some knowledge into it. The first record I bought, from hearing that tape, was KRS-One's Criminal Minded. I will go on record to say that I was the first one to have Criminal Minded here in Portland.... I pulled that out and everybody lost they minds.
You are a big supporter of local hip-hop, but do you also feel like there has been some stagnation?
Where Portland hip-hop is, it seems like a lot of artists have hit a wall creatively. Portland hip-hop went through a phase where it created a fantasy world for a lot of people, you know? It gave them this character to act out or be rebellious with. People who are introverts or maybe don't have any people skills, it gave them a platform to be social. Which is cool, but that cold morning comes when you realize that your superpowers wear off and the interest wears thin. You gotta take it to the next level.
But what is the next level for Portland? Is it telling stories?
That's part of it. I don't know if there's a way to sum it up, but just really being honest, being yourself. A lot of artists here in the city kind of want to do what's winning, which is hard to figure out because right now music is fickle. And we've got to challenge each other, we really do. I hope that message goes out to the rock bands and the singers, anybody who's doing music in Portland. If you're not challenging each other, it is going to sound small-city and it's going to stay here.
So do you think being from Portland has helped your style or hindered it?
I think it helped a lot, man. We kinda had a vantage point to look at what everybody else was doing and not just say, "We're gonna do something different." We said, "We're gonna establish the Portland sound." Before there was snap music and all that, Outkast established an Atlanta sound, Redman and the Fugees established a New Jersey sound. You've got Too Short in Oakland, and with E-40 and all them doing the Hyphy movement. We don't have a name in Portland yet, but I'll go ahead and call it the Gutterfly movement. I'll call it that.
On some level, though, Portland has to be in an earlier stage than those cities, right?
I don't think so. We hit a wall, but they've hit a wall as well. I think we have more of a scene than some of those cities, because some of those cities don't have shows. But we only have a few all-ages venues here. That's sad, because a lot of our shows get missed by a lot of younger cats. When [Portland] kids have gotta hear about us online or from a relative in another city, that makes them feel bad. That's cramping our style. [Those kids,] that's who we're passing the torch to, that's who we'll be giving jobs to. [Jumbo leans into the microphone] Police, OLCC, leave hip-hop alone, because really we could, economically, do good things for this city.
Do you feel a responsibility to share your success with Portland?
Definitely. We don't feel like we owe anybody a record deal or anything like that, because we're still trying to feed our families, and still be free just to be artists. But we found a new freedom, and we feel responsible to share that with people in the most honest way possible.
It's funny, though, because you talk about the importance of being yourself, but then on the other hand, for the record's sake, you are playing characters.
Particularly for myself and Vurs, this album has some pretty dark moments on it. You haven't heard this from us on any other record, because we went through a lot; there was a lot of death that went on around us. Being the Lifesavas, and making tributes to life through song, we kind of have to fight through self-doubt. Stepping out of ourselves and being these other characters encouraged us; it helped us through that process. So being a character sometimes involves a little acting, but you can still be an honest actor.
Lifesavas play at the Roseland Theater at midnight Friday, Sept. 8.
Toody Cole from Dead Moon
Beginning with the punk hangout Captain Whizeagle's, Toody and Fred Cole have run a music shop of some sort in the Portland area for more than 30 years. Most recently the Coles peddled axes at Tombstone Music in Clackamas, which was known for its Old West facade and the fact that it was the premier shop to pick up albums by the Coles' own seminal Portland punk band, Dead Moon. The store closed in 2004, but the candle mounted in a Jack Daniel's bottle on Dead Moon drummer Andy Loomis' kick drum continues to burn at shows across the U.S. and Europe—when it's not stashed at Tombstone, which the band now uses as a headquarters and recording studio.
There, past a foyer littered with instruments and junk, up a staircase and past a sign reading, "Smoking Area," WW found the couple in music and matrimony, both smoking and both dressed in Dead Moon T-shirts. Fred took off to pack the van for a trip to Seattle that night while Toody—who spent the '50s and early '60s growing up in deep Southeast Portland, back when the area around her 146th and Division subdivision was dominated by berry fields—stayed and talked about her role in the musical history of her town, smoking five or six cigarettes in the course of our hourlong conversation. —Jason Simms
WW: How was the music climate in Portland different when you were a teenager in the '60s?
Toody Cole: You were surrounded by live music all the time. There were a lot of all-ages places because we were—and still are—the biggest bulk of the population, so they had to cater to us. There were all kinds of teenage clubs. There was the Folk Singer; there was another place [Caffe Espresso] that Darcelle [the female impersonator] used to run. There was one out in Beaverton, some skating rink way out in Southeast, and Division Street Corral was going on. Paul Revere and the Raiders used to play there all the time.
What was the first show you saw?
Oh, gosh. I used to go to Cafe Orpheus, and at that point, it was all acoustic music rather than electric music. So I listened to a lot of people that were amazing, like Michael Grimes, who played flamenco guitar and was just incredible, and a lot of different people who played folk songs. PH Phactor, which was a jug band, had a guy who played washboard and did off-the-wall stuff like weird versions of "Teddy Bear's Picnic," just real campy kind of stuff. I used to go see Steve Bradley, who at that point was a young kid like us, too, 16 or 17, and he had a band called the U.S. Cadenza, which was great, and the Tweedy Brothers came around that same time and they were both electric bands.
What was the first album you ever bought?
The first album I ever bought was the original Meet the Beatles, and I pretty much bought all their stuff.
Would you say the Beatles was the first band you ever loved?
Oh yeah, of course. I actually saw the Beatles on their first tour in 1964 up in Seattle, so that was my first big concert. I saw the Stones in '66 here in Portland, but there was a lot of stuff going on locally, too: I saw the Kingsmen when I was in eighth grade when they played a sock hop in the basement of some Catholic school.
When did you meet Fred?
I met him when [his former band] the Weeds first came to [Portland] in October 1966. They were all draft age and freakin' about that, so they were actually heading to Vancouver, B.C., ran out of gas here in Portland, and asked a young girl on the street who happened to be a friend of mine if there was any place for live bands to play. And, of course, there definitely was at that time, and she told them about the Folk Singer, and they went up there and auditioned.... They were the house band there for a while. I used to go there after school and on weekends.... We just kind of saw each other around for a month or so, and he finally came up and talked to me, and shit went from there. We got married in June of '67.
When did you start playing music together?
After the Weeds' album came out, everything just sort of fizzled [for that band].... Then [Fred] just sort of meandered around with a lot of different bands that didn't really do anything with people he knew here in Portland.... In the mid-'70s he was just tired of revolving players and just thought, "Hey, you'd be great! If we go on the road, we can go together, it'll be cool." So we started the Rats, and he started playing guitar and taught me how to play bass.... We knew Andrew [Loomis] and thought he looked great and was an interesting person and knew he played drums, and thought we'd just do something real basic. It just took off from there.... The first gig that we played [at a house] was about two weeks after he taught me four songs or something like that.
Wow, just two weeks?
Luckily, punk was just real simple. Not only that, but with a few exceptions almost everybody was just learning their instruments and experimenting around.... Here in Portland, luckily, there was a very wide variance of what was considered punk at the time—between Smegma, which is basically a noise band, to the Four Skins, which was in the Dead Boys/Sex Pistols vein, to Greg Sage and the Wipers. And [Fred] to this day goes, "I don't know how I got lumped into punk," [like] pretty much anything that anybody was doing that was original and different.... The camaraderie between musicians, period, is always amazing, and Portland bands seem to upnotch that a couple. There's always been such a huge diversity in town that it's not really competition—everybody does a completely unique thing, and it's just great to see something happening for everybody.
Did you ever think about leaving?
A lot of people were packing up and moving to San Francisco or what was supposedly the hot spot at any given time, but being from Portland, I'm glad I got a chance to be a part of the history of this town, and to see all the changes Portland's had in a million different ways and to have been a part of it.
Dead Moon plays at Dante's at midnight Saturday, Sept. 9.
Brandon Summers from the Helio Sequence
The Helio Sequence is a freak of suburban nature, a pair of old friends who escaped the Beaverton void unwarped by mainstream media overload and indie-culture isolation. The duo of Brandon Summers and Benjamin Weikel have continued making music now for 10 years, since their teens, keeping their friendship intact through the highs and lows of being together in one of their hometown's most beloved bands, and releasing four albums of gracefully sweet electro-pop, garnering praise from glossy mags across the nation. WW sat down at the computer and, fittingly, e-chatted with guitarist-vocalist Summers about kicking it at Starbucks, Pond and MC Hammer. —Michael Byrne
WW: How do you think growing up in the suburbs affected the Helio Sequence?
Brandon Summers: I would say the Helio Sequence was made by the suburbs, inspired by all of the limitations. Benjamin [Weikel] and I really came together as friends when we were teenagers because we were both hungry for more...more than what was handed to us in the suburbs. Because there was nothing there culturally, we had to both make and search for things.
I think that the music we made on our first two records especially reflects the desperation that we felt to get out of the suburbs. The DIY aesthetic we have stems from the limitations of the suburbs. We had to learn to record ourselves, because there was no studio or recording community to support that. If there's one thing that is positive about coming from the suburbs, it's that the isolation was like an incubator.
Right now, underage kids in Portland have places like Food Hole, Disjecta and Loveland to go lurk and hear music. What the heck did you have in Beaverton?
The closest thing to culture, ironically, was the 24-hour Starbucks on Canyon Road. At least there all of the kids would congregate and there would be some kind of exchange.
That probably didn't totally cut it. Did you feel like you had a strong connection to what was happening on the other side of "the hill"?
I definitely had a huge connection to what was going on in Portland, because it was the only place where stuff was actually "going on." The bands in Portland at that time, especially Pond, Thirty Ought Six, Hazel, King Black Acid and the Dandy Warhols, were really a huge influence. It was really exciting.
Given that, how did your tastes in music differ from your Beaverton peers'?
The fact that we listened to and actively searched for "non-radio" music was enough to make our musical tastes different than our peers. There used to be a video show that we would watch called Bohemia Afterdark on late at night, which was extremely influential. The show played videos by bands that you wouldn't find on MTV. And whenever we'd see a video and hear a song that was interesting, we'd rush downtown to Ozone to find the record and start following the thread to find other similar bands. One band always leads to another.... It's exciting in that way...it seems endless.
What was the first album you ever bought?
God, I hate to say this.... The first album I bought was MC Hammer's Please Hammer Don't Hurt 'Em from Costco when I was 10 years old.
OK, first significant album...
I remember picking up a promo copy of Pond's second album, The Practice of Joy Before Death, at a small record store called For What It's Worth in Beaverton when I was 15. It was purely by chance. It was sitting on the front counter. I liked the promo photo on the cover, and it was only like $5, and I had heard their name in zines and weeklies and was curious. I was hanging out at Beaverton Mall with a friend right after I bought it, and I was so curious what it sounded like that I went into GI Joe's to the stereo section and put it in one of the stereos on the sly. I was so blown away that I stood there and listened to half of the record in the middle of the store!
First show?
Stacey Q and the Bangles in Salem when I was really young...5 or 6.
What was your first band?
Does school band count? I was in school band. But, besides "un-serious" rock bands that would cover songs and write a few originals, Helio Sequence was my first proper band. It's kind of an endearing or embarrassing story about how the Helio Sequence came together.... I was 16, this was in '96...I was asked to play at a family picnic at Oaks Park!
Have you ever thought about cutting town?
There was a period of time when I was really thinking about moving. Portland just seemed too small. But the more that we toured around, the more I realized that I was happy to come home to Portland. And the more I saw of other cities, the less I really wanted to leave. The song "Everyone Knows Everyone" is kind of a playful muse on this whole realization. It's a Portland song. And ironically, since I've decided to stay, Portland has become one of the best music cities, in my opinion. There's so much going on right now...so many new bands and new places to play. It's amazing. Portland has definitely changed over the past few years. It's pretty safe to ask the question, "So where are you from?" when I meet someone new in Portland. Almost everybody I meet is from somewhere else. When I'm asked the same question and I say I grew up here, I get a wide-eyed look and "Wow, you're the first person I've met that's from here."
The Helio Sequence plays at the Crystal Ballroom at midnight Saturday, Sept. 9.
A PORTLAND GLOSSARY
Don't let our name-dropping Portland natives intimidate you. WW provides you with a glossary of terms that might not be familiar to those unlucky enough to grow up elsewhere.
Bohemia Afterdark: Alternative music-video show that aired on local-access television in Portland in the '90s and played clips from cool local bands as well as national acts.
Cafe Orpheus: Underage club run by Portland State University in the '60s.
cipher: Circle of freestyling hip-hop emcees.
Quest: Underage dance club located downtown on the corner of Southwest 2nd Avenue and Pine Street in the '90s. In the 21st century it was replaced by another teenage meat market called the Zone.
The Folk Singer: An underage folk coffeehouse located in southwest Portland in the '60s.
Division Street Corral: Southeast Portland music mecca through the '60s and '70s, located on—you guessed it—Division Street.
Burning Spear: Northeast Portland hip-hop club in the late '80s and early '90s.
Jody Bleyle: Best known as drummer and vocalist for Hazel, a Portland power-pop, fast-rock band that emerged in '92, Bleyle also played guitar in notable queer core group, Team Dresch. She now lives in L.A.
The Kingsmen: A five-piece Portland rock band originating in 1959, famous for the garage rock sound of "Louie, Louie," which was released by a local label. It was recorded in Portland on bootleg equipment, including a boom mike hung 10 feet above lead singer Jack Ely, causing him to shout those famously indecipherable lyrics.
King Black Acid: A Portland guitar-rock band that originated in 1995, heavy on the psychedelics and long jams à la My Bloody Valentine. Led by Daniel Riddle, former leader of Hitting Birth (industrial percussion and bass-heavy space rock), who enlisted friends after picking up the guitar and released several albums. The band has lasted over a decade, and some of its songs are nearly that long.
Oaks Park: An amusement park in the Sellwood area of Southeast Portland with rides, a huge roller-skating rink, a dance pavilion and lots of picnic areas. It was built by the Oregon Water Power and Navigation Company in 1905 and has a lot of what you would expect: a ferris wheel, tea cups, a looping roller coaster, a slow kiddie train ride, a huge slide, etc.
X-Ray Cafe: A famous all-ages schizo performance venue in Portland during the '80s and '90s, owned and operated by Ben Ellis and current Voodoo Doughnut co-owner Tres Shannon, X-Ray Cafe was located on West Burnside Street between 2nd and 3rd avenues. It was quite a scene due to its eclectic and daring nature: Performance art, anarchic riots and punk rock were all par for the club. Ellis made a film about it called X-Ray Visions.
LaLuna: LaLuna opened on New Year's Eve 1992 on the corner of Southeast 9th Avenue and Pine Street, in a former Methodist church that had housed the folk club Ninth Street Exit and the pre-grunge incubator Pine Street Theater. A The club was best known for its cheap shows filled with local acts.
Hazel: One of the PDX bands credited with providing Portland's alternative to Seattle's grunge scene, Hazel formed in the early '90s and signed to Sub Pop Records. Their female-male vocals (with now-omnipresent Portland musician Pete Krebs), simple chord structures and interpretive dancer Fred Nemo established them as an arty indie band with a unique flavor. Due to personality conflicts, the band broke up in 1997.
Sam Goody: Sam Goody is a bad mall-chain record store owned and operated by Musicland, which used to own Sam Goody, Suncoast Motion Picture Company and Media Play until the holding company filed for bankruptcy in February of this year. Trans World Entertainment, whose flagship store is FYE, bought Musicland a month later and has either gotten rid of many Sam Goodys or changed them to FYEs.
Mix tape: Kids these days make mix CDs with their iTunes, but years ago, when the other plastic (cassettes) roamed the earth, hippies, punks and hip-hop connoisseurs compiled songs from the radio, CDs and scratchy recordings of records onto cassettes. Often themed (romantic, hyped-up, low-key), mix tapes are typically given as a gesture, gift or attempt to expose one's own music. In this case, "mix tape" refers more specifically to a DJ-mixed rap compilation album.
WBLS: A New York City radio station that began in 1974 as an R&B station targeting a newly coined "urban contemporary" (read "young and black") demographic of 18- to 34-year-olds, WBLS was one of the biggest purveyors of NYC hip-hop in its earliest stages.
DJ Red Alert: Red Alert began his career with Afrika Bambaataa and the Zulu Nation as a DJ in the early '80s around Manhattan and Harlem. The DJ eventually landed his own radio show and promoted some of hip-hop's finest pioneers, including A Tribe Called Quest and the Jungle Brothers.
Steve Bradley: A Portland rock and blues musician since the 1960s, Bradley has played with Steve Miller, the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane, among others.
US Cadenza: From 1966 to 1969, a Portland band featuring Steve Bradley.
KRS-One: Rap pioneer and leader of the influential group Boogie Down Productions. Known for his political lyrics, KRS-One paved the way for "conscious" hip-hop.
Criminal Minded: Seminal 1987 album from KRS-One's Boogie Down Productions. Ranked in Rolling Stone magazine's Top 500 Albums of All Time.
The U-Krew: Also known as the Untouchables, the Portland foursome blended R&B and rap during the '80s. Their single "If You Were Mine" cracked the pop charts' top 30 in 1989.
Tombstone Music: A Clackamas music store run by Dead Moon's Toody and Fred Cole. Until it closed in 2004, it was the spot for old punk and new guitars.
Michael Grimes: A versatile Latin jazzman now based in Albuquerque, N.M., he plays the bass, guitar and mandolin.
Yardbirds: An incredibly influential 1960s rock band that set the stage for psychedelia and heavy metal. Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Led Zeppelin founder Jimmy Page were all part of the band's lineup at one time or another.
Paul Revere and the Raiders: Successful '60s rock band out of Boise, Idaho. Before making it with music, Revere—his real name—owned several restaurants in Portland.
The Jungle Brothers: Afrocentric trio of NYC rappers, the JBs hit the scene in the late 1980s and influenced De La Soul and A Tribe Called Quest, among others.
b-boys, b-girls: Break dancers.
graf writers: Krylon bombers, hip-hop's fourth element, Enemy No. 1 of transit authorities everywhere—graffiti writers. Act like you know.
Darcelle: Portland's leading drag queen and owner of cross-club Darcelle XV Showplace in Chinatown.
PH Phactor: Weird folky, bluesy jug band based in Portland in the 1960s.
"Teddy Bear's Picnic": The best song about plush-toy potlucks ever.
Ozone Records: Since 1992, one of Portland's best record stores. It split in two in 2002, with Ozone O3 crossing the river to the east side and Ozone UK remaining to rep the West until it closed earlier this year.
MC Hammer: Hammer is best remembered for popularizing parachute pants and spoke eloquently about the importance of being "legit." Now he's a preacher.
Pond: Influential 1990s P-town grunge band.
"For What It's Worth": Stop, hey, what's that sound? It's Chuck D maiming this 1966 Buffalo Springfield classic for the He Got Game soundtrack. Its namesake secondhand record store currently has outlets in Southeast Portland.
GI Joe's: Oregon and Washington sports and auto chain that started as an army surplus seller in Portland.
Costco: Seattle-born warehouse superstore that lures customers with bulk discounts and free samples.
Stacey Q: 1980s one-hit-wonder famous for her dancy smash "Two of Hearts."
The Dandy Warhols play at the Crystal Ballroom at 11:30 pm Thursday, Sept. 7.
Lifesavas play at the Roseland Theater at midnight Friday, Sept. 8.
Dead Moon plays at Dante's at midnight Saturday, Sept. 9.
The Helio Sequence plays at the Crystal Ballroom at midnight Saturday, Sept. 9.
MusicfestNW is rockin' various venues around town Thursday-Saturday, Sept. 7-9. $TK. 21+.
To check out MusicfestNW's full 150-plus band lineup and schedule visit musicfestnw.com.
WWeek 2015