Skip to main contentBy almost every accounting, last weekend's 20th anniversary of late and sorely lamented foundational Eastside rock-house EJ's succeeded thrillingly. Reunited bands outshone our brightest memories, persevering veteran acts proved they hadn't lost a step over the decades, and the halls of the Hawthorne Theater filled with such nonstop outpourings of warm remembrance that bouncers worried the group-hugs would impede fire exits.
A great show and fitting tribute, without question, but there's still something a bit strange about recounting the glories of one dearly departed venue inside the bosom of another larger, shinier, exponentially more professional operation emblematic of changing market forces—rather like celebrating a first love's birthday by taking the new wife out for dinner. Life goes on, but, were the old club to peer down (or, yah, glare upwards) from beyond the veil and watch former soulmates raise forearms midst such well-appointed functionality and brisk New Portland-ness, would she approve?
Of course, however far removed these surroundings from the beer-splattered dive of yore, there's some benefit to the trappings of the modernity, and the acts exploited the sheer starriness of A/V presentation a pro showcase affords. Hard to argue, for that matter, that the collected talent deserved anything less. Once and future vocalist for the reconstituted iterations of Lucky Thirteens and Weaklings that opened the weekend, Bradley Shaver was born to the key-light and blossomed upon the big stage, smirk undimmed.
Scarcely changed since their weaponized psych-snarl took the reins from Iggy and the Stooges a decade past, the Fireballs of Freedom still prowl the boards like a post-apocalyptic party-band ready for battle. Iommi Stubbs added sludgier dimensions to the aggro-angularity of yore while punk vets the Jimmies and wandering minstrels the Dickel Brothers seamlessly turned back the clock. The Heavy Johnson Trio, with former frontman across the Pacific, more than made do with a surprise appearance from (past MFNW impresario) Trevor Solomon. The Goddamn Gentlemen, together again after all these years, sounded tighter and looked better than really seemed fair.
Everyone looked a bit better than everyone had expected, considering the punk survivor demographic. Wardrobes largely ignored the weathered hardcore garb for ensembles edging closer to the fashion-forward vintage splendor of DJ Gregarious, spinning between sets. Given every justification to indulge Portlanders' default conversational gambit, just about no one bitched over the evolving local landscape. The mood, if anything, ran eerily pleasant. PBR cans tossed at the Goddamn Gentlemen may as well have been beach balls bounced from the grinning throngs.
One never knows what to expect from club memorials. If the X-Ray's extended anniversary events resembled a destination wedding, the crowds gathered around post-Satyricon events veered decidedly funereal (the Noir reunion felt like a hastily-assembled custody hearing; the Meow Meow reunion felt like, well, a reunion), and this seemed more a Christmas party. Beyond the relief from escaping the cold and anticipatory buzz of looming presents, there's a sudden acknowledgement of time passing after successive encounters with distant acquaintances—a mutual agreement that, while hardly the future we'd imagined, things didn't turn out too badly.
Most of the acts taking the stage weren't together when EJ's opened doors in 1995, and they'd almost certainly have hit their stride with or without the club, though the Fireballs do credit one especially daft concert with cementing their decision to leave Missoula. At the same time, aside from house parties and trusty old Satyricon, the young Portlander cannot conceive just how difficult it was for bands to find a place to play 20 years ago. And EJ's was such a perfect place to play.
Hidden opposite the outsized KATU concrete monolith and Club 21's old man squat along an oddly-deserted stretch of lower Sandy's pawnshop district, the location was perfectly central yet blessed an edge-of-the-metropolis illusion of crumbling urbanity. The neighborhood dive wasn't featureless, exactly, but aesthetics were never the point. Without kitsch or pretension, the shambling confines allowed a no-frills site on which rock could flourish and management stayed out of the way, which is rarer than you'd think. (Around the same time, another strip-bar-turned-venue opened just up the road under precisely opposite strategies, and Tonic Lounge shall outlast the sun.)
Those clubs whose memories endure strenuously cultivated their own mythology. Our children's children shall forge paper-mache Satyricon troughs and X-Ray Cafe dioramas. EJ's focused energies upon the music. You were always aware of the show. The neighbors, fatally, were always aware of the show. The club itself seemed sorta irrelevant—the plywood cabinet in which magic was made. Whether by architectural constraints or conjoined enrapture, attentions were drawn to the stage as if by gravitational pull. There was a shared immediacy about the club. EJ's lived only in the moment.
This weekend held rather different aims. Talk of the future outstripped past memories, and the helpless remove between audience and artists, awash in backlit filters atop the elevated stage, fostered a certain distance and also a newfound appreciation. 'Twas nothing at all like EJ's, but perhaps some moments deserve to linger in the spotlight.
WWeek 2015