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Category: Music
At the same time, a small but devoted Portland underground scene was thriving. With the advent of the Sex Pistols' first album, Never Mind The Bollocks, released in 1976, several independent individuals began counter-cultural musical enterprises of their own, in a town that had only barely accepted the notion of hippies, let alone punks- ostensibly abhorrent nihilists, profiled in several conservative national publications of the day. There were a few early pioneers in the local punk music scene, the foremost of whom was Fred Cole.
In 1976 Cole formed King Bee, a stripped down, Zep-inspired Blues band with his wife Toody's brother, Pat Conner on drums and Mark Sten (Stanley) on bass. Even at that early date, Fred was no stranger to playing in a band. For, Fred Cole was born to play in a rock band, and, since childhood, rock and roll has been the only lifestyle he has ever known.
Beginning at the age of thirteen, Fred played a series of bands, early on, with the Little Red Roosters and The Barracudas. But his recording career began at fifteen, with Deep Soul Cole, an all-black soul revue from Las Vegas, Nevada. Fred was billed as "the white Stevie Wonder," touring the Western states and recording a series of acetates, including one for MGM entitled "Poverty Shack," produced by Larry Williams (who wrote the songs "Bad Boy" and "Slow Down," made popular by the Beatles, as well as "Boney Maroney"), who also played guitar on the track.
From there, Fred went on to play in a band called the Weeds in 1966. The story goes that the Weeds were enroute to Canada to escape the long arm of the draft, when they ran out of gas and money, while passing through Portland. Destitute, they asked a citizen where they might find a place to play and were told of a coffee house called The Folksinger. It just so happened that young Toody Conner worked at the club. Quickly she and Fred became a couple and were soon married- a fact that his record company ordered the groom to hide.
The Weeds' first manager also managed the Seeds, who had a hit with a song called "Pushin' Too Hard." The Weeds were subsequently signed to a contract with the UNI Records, whereupon the label assigned the legendary "Lord Tim" Hudson (who claimed to have coined the term "flower power") to manage the band. Hudson promptly convinced the lads to change their name to the Lollipop Shoppe. That band's first release for UNI, "You Must Be A Witch," became a minor hit. The Lollipop Shoppe went on to appear with the Peanut Butter Conspiracy in the B-movie, Angels From Hell, released in 1968.
In 1969 the Lollipop Shoppe broke up. After a few failed attempts to revive the band, in 1970 Fred, Toody and their two infant children moved to the Yukon Territory, where they lived for two years in an effort to avoid the draft. The family returned to Portland in 1971, and, with Piers Munro, a fellow former-member of the Lollipop Shoppe, Fred and Toody opened their first music store, Freedom Guitar, which they operated for about a year. After that, Fred and Toody opened Captain Whizeagle's, which quickly became a hang-out for every new band to hit the pavement. The Coles became foster-parents to a legion of underground musicians from all cultural corners of the city: as Fred and Toody were widely renown to have a generous credit policy.
In 1973 Fred formed a band called Zipper, which released an album on Whizeagle Records in 1974. With King Bee, in 1976, Fred was firmly ensconced in what there was of the local "scene," and he has never once looked back; leading one band or another, almost continuously, ever since.
Another seminal figure in the local alternative music scene was John Shirley. An avid connoisseur of the budding DIY ethic related to the new music sensibility emanating from the United Kingdom, Shirley, along with Mark Sten, opened the first punk venue in Portland, the Revenge Club, in 1977. Shortly thereafter, Shirley formed one of the first punk bands in town, Terror Wrist.
It was right about that time that Greg Sage first emerged upon the landscape. Sage grew up as something of a musical fanatic. His father, who worked in the broadcast industry, gave Greg his own record cutting lathe when he was in the 7th grade. From that point on, Greg spent endless hours peering through a microscope into the grooves of the records he cut. In 1977 he formed the Wipers (named after his day-job at the time, as a window washer), with drummer Sam Henry and bassist Doug Koupal.
Sage founded the Wipers intending for the band to be strictly a recording project and not a performing act. His original goal for the band was to release fifteen records in ten years, which is a pace of about an album every eight months. While he failed to live up to that goal, Sage created a body of work with the Wipers that was acknowledged by Kurt Cobain, himself, as an early influence upon his songwriting (Cobain, like Sage was a left-handed guitarist). Cobain would produce a Greg Sage tribute album fifteen years later.
1977 was a pivotal year for the burgeoning Portland music scene. KGON radio had begun participating in "Catch A Rising Star" promotions- in which, for 92 cents fans were treated to a concert at the Paramount Theater (now the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall) by a couple of up-and-coming acts, whose music, in most cases, KGON- a station dedicated to mostly traditional rock and metal, never played. Occasionally the new band was paired with a non sequitur established act. Such as Elvis Costello with AC/DC. It was the first opportunity that Portland audiences had to see bands such as Costello, Blondie, the Cars, the Pretenders, the Divinyls, Talking Heads and, perhaps most importantly, the Ramones. Seeing the Ramones in concert motivated Greg Sage to make the Wipers into a live act.
And following that same Ramones concert in late 1977, countless local musicians were inspired to form bands. One of the first bands from that renaissance to break out was Dave Corboy's Sado Nation. Minnesota-born Corboy, began playing in rock bands in 1963 at the age of fourteen. After migrating to the Bay area in the late '60s, he continued to play in a variety of rock bands until 1973, when he migrated to Portland to attend art school.
Corboy continued his schooling through 1977, when the call of rock and roll lured him back to the stage. Inspired by John Shirley's songs with Terror Wrist, Corboy was prompted to launch his own band, when Shirley's subsequent band, The Monitors, broke up. With Mark Sten (this time playing drums) and bassist Dave Propp, Corboy and Shirley broke new ground with Sado Nation.
Another band to form as a direct result of that fateful Ramones concert was Hari Kari, which featured, among others, guitarist Otis P. Otis (who was profoundly affected by the Ramones concert), guitarist Spencer Heime and drummer Chuck Arjavac, who also eventually drummed for the band the Ziplocs (which featured guitarist Jeff Williams). Unwittingly, Hari Kari and the Ziplocs were to take part in one of the most memorable events of the early Punk years in Portland: the infamous "Linnton Community Center riot" of 1979.
Accounts vary, but this much is known- Hari Kari were the hosts to the all-ages affair at the Linnton Community Center on Highway 30, outside Portland city limits, heading north towards Scappoose. Besides the headliners, and the Ziplocs, also on the bill were the Wipers, the Neo-Boys and a Thin Lizzy cover band, who brought with them a throng of beer-swilling, flat-head fans who were "uncomfortable" with the new kind of music they were hearing. Not only that, but a large contingent of redneck local yokels were also in attendance, drinking heavily in the parking lot and spoiling for trouble- which was not far off.
Hari Kari had only gotten a song or two into their set when fighting broke out among various factions in the crowd. The band attempted to soldier on, continuing to play, but when members of the throng began taking the stage and heading for their equipment, Hari Kari quickly retired. It was not long before the police arrived, restoring order once more. The following day, the members of Hari Kari collected empty beer bottles from the premises in order offset the bill for broken windows and other damages to the community center. Hari Kari broke up shortly after that legendary gig, with Arjavac joining the Ziplocs.
Soon there were dozens of "punk" bands playing the stages of the Revenge, the Earth Tavern, Euphoria and Long Goodbye. Bands such as Lo-Tek, Fix, the Rubbers, Pell Mell, the Cleavers, the Malchicks, the Kinetics, Stiphnoids, Faceditch, the Dots, Bop Zombies and SLA; the cult noise bands Smegma and Rancid Vat; the Marcel Duchamps of the music world and tres dada-esque Wallpaper Music; Ice 9, the Braphsmears and Suburban Guerillas, Hari Kari and the Ziplocs- all joined with headliners, such as Sado Nation, the Wipers and the Neo Boys.
The Neo Boys were Portland's first all-female rock band. Though they were still basically novices on their instruments, their enlightened political stances and sophisticated demeanors are still in time with today's standards. Vocalist Kim Kincaid, guitarists Jennifer Lobianco and Meg Hentges, bassist KT Kincaid and drummer Pat Baum, became outspoken feminist fixtures in the local underground scene. Hentges eventually migrated to Austin, where today she is still a very popular performer.
John Shirley left Sado Nation late in early 1980 to pursue a writing career in New York City, where he became the acknowledged (by William Gibson, no less) father of the "cyber punk" genre of science fiction literature. In early 2004 he published the book Gurdjieff - An Introduction To His Life & Ideas, about the noted mystic and spiritual teacher. Shirley was replaced as vocalist for Sado Nation by Leesa Nation, who sang with the band for the next three years. Alec Burton replaced Mark Sten as the drummer for the band. When Burton failed to show up for a gig (something he was frequently known to do) early in 1980, Chuck Arjavac replaced him. Meanwhile Eugene native Steve Casmano became the regular bassist. In 1982, Mish Bondage, lead singer for the Braphsmears, replaced Leesa Nation as lead vocalist for Sado Nation.
Also in 1979 (and also affected by that Ramones concert), Fred and Toody Cole founded the Rats with drummer Rod "Rat" Hibbert. The band's name came from the fact that all three members were born in the Chinese "Year of The Rat." After leaving the Wipers, Sam Henry briefly replaced Rod Rat in 1980 to help record the band's second album; before Louis Samora permanently settled into the drummer's chair. Rod Hibbert committed suicide not long after (an event which had a profound effect on Fred. Many of his songs refer to it).
Meanwhile Greg Sage brought in bassist Brad Davidson to replace Doug Koupal and drummer Brad Naish to replace Sam Henry as the rhythm section for the Wipers. These various shifts began an extended game of "band musical chairs," which continues to this day (in some cases, involving some of these very same names).
And that is where our story truly begins. By the Spring of 1980 an incredibly hospitable musical environment had evolved, spawning whole cultures of various musical breeds. The "club" scene became so raucous in fact, that the Neo Boys, among several other punk and new wave alternative bands (possibly mindful of the Linnton Commmunity Center riot), threatened to abstain from attempting to perform in venues where drinking was promoted, citing the dulled audience consciousness at such gigs; preferring the wired-up energy of underagers over the glaring, jaundiced eye of the average pub-goer.
Urban Noize was just such an all-age haven. Run by Fred and Ronnie Noize (Seegmeuller) the club catered mostly to alternative punk audiences with local bands as varied as Upepo and the Wipers, Urban Noize was also the locale for several early shows from touring acts such as Joan Jett, Black Flag and DOA. Ronnie Noize led a band of her own, Toxic Shock, which frequently played at Urban Noize. Clockwork Joe's was opened by Mark Sten who, along with a small coterie of other undergrounders and punks, had become disenchanted with Fred and Ronnie Noize's venue.
Instrumental in the development of the Portland music scene in the late '70s was Tony DeMicoli, whose wild, outlaw bar, Club Long Goodbye (located in Old Town at Northwest 10th and Everett, where Jimmy Mak's is now housed) served as an unbiased proving ground for any band of any musical persuasion, but most predominantly for up-and-coming new wavers such as the Cleavers, the Neo Boys, Sado Nation, the Balloons, Modern Problems, Casey Nova and, most importantly, for the Miracle Workers, the Rats, the Odds, the Untouchables and the Malchicks.
Born on the island of Malta, Tony soon migrated to the U.S. (Brooklyn); with a profound appreciation for the rich culture of music that existed in this country. While living in New York, Tony even briefly played congas with Elephant's Memeory, a band whose (only) claim to fame was that they backed John Lennon on his Sometime In New York City album. Upon arriving in Portland, Tony quickly became a fixture in the local music scene, at first at the Long Goodbye. Tony launched the careers of innumerable local musicians from Long Goodbye, not the least of whom was Jeff Lorber.
Euphoria continued it's reign as the Eastside's dominant "A" Room, offering a selective mix of touring national acts and a variety of local bands, One of those local bands was the Untouchables. The Untouchables were Chris Newman's brief, stunning new wave four-piece SWAT team, with Mark Nelson on rhythm guitar, Dave Koenig on bass and Chon Carter on drums. Unbelievably compact, concise songs such as "If Jesus Played Electric Guitar," "My TV," "Soylent Green," "Fake ID" "Lake Of Fire," and "Walking On The Water," and a majestically operatic vocal delivery instantly distinguished Newman as a cut above the competition. His fiery, lead guitar work was peerless, invoking Jimi Hendrix and Steve Cropper, sometimes within the context of the same song.
In the void left by the closure of Urban Noize in 1981, the Met, became host to the local punk/alternative contingent. Located at the corner of Southwest 3rd and Burnside, the Met was one of the earliest scenes of "slam dancing" (a precursor to moshing) to take place in Portland. The Untouchables became Napalm Beach at the Met.
The Wipers played several triumphant shows at the Met after returning from a long US tour in support of their first independent release, Is This Real. Before Sam Henry left the band- Sage was preparing material to record for what became the band's monumental follow-up, Youth Of America.
Henry and Chris Newman founded Napalm Beach with bassist Dave Dillinger, a darker, heavier band than the Untouchables. The new group displayed volcanic intensity and served as the perfect launching pad for Newman's pyrotechnic displays of sheer sonic majesty on the guitar.
The Met was also the location where Poison Idea broke onto the scene. The Rats briefly became the Torpedos and went back to being the Rats at the Met. The Torpedos were a '60s Punk cover-band side project, which featured Fred Cole on guitar and vocals, the Untouchables' Mark Nelson and Sado Nation's Dave Corboy on rhythm guitars, Mark Sten on bass and Louis Samora on drums. Together the band tore through such classic '60s hits as Love's "My Little Red Book," Them's "Baby Please Don't Go," The Yard birds' "Heart Full of Soul and the Music Machine's "Talk Talk," among many others.
Still, the Rats commanded the most attention for their vibrant, stripped-down form of rock. Their music was referred to as 'grundge" in a local review of the day. They were not the only "grundge" band toiling in Portland a full decade before the Seattle Sound.
New, larger halls opened, to challenge Euphoria's dominance in booking national touring acts. While Tony Demicoli had managed to contract some touring alternative acts into his club, La Bamba, with a capacity of only 250, was simply too small to accommodate the big crowds that punk and new wave music were beginning to attract.
Al Salazar was one of the first to respond, opening the Pine Street Theatre, at Southeast Pine and Sandy. Formerly housing a Church of Scientology franchise (as well as the 9th Street Exit), the building was a three-story honeycomb of small, run-down offices and larger meeting rooms, which encircled the expansive main hall. Salazar hung an extensive collection of antique swag lamps and crystal chandeliers from the high ceiling in the main room, scattering among them the outstretched skeletons of massive birds of prey. Upon the walls around the area, Salazar mounted an eerie array of animal skulls. All in all, it created quite a disjointedly appropriate atmosphere. When the Psychedelic Furs played a gig at the Pine Street on their first US tour, the volume and pressure of their sound was such that it set the lamps and chandeliers to swaying ominously above the audience.
One of the first local bands to exploit the Pine Street stage was Theatre Of Sheep. Led by mercurial vocalist Rozz Rezabeck-Wright, the Sheep were an imaginative, if sometimes sloppy quintet, which always made superb use of the talents of lead guitarist Jimi Haskett (late of Film At 11) and classically trained keyboardist Leslie Arbuthnott; along with the efforts of the rhythm section of drummer Brain Wassman and bassist John Clifford (later replaced by Jim Wallace of the Odds). They lent symphonic support to Rozz' mostly extemporaneous songs and unpredictable antics, which might include his hiking a long, skinny leg over the mic stand- easily a height of six feet. Theatre Of Sheep rapidly rose to prominence within the alternative community, achieving especial success among underagers; such that their popularity rivaled that of even the Unreal Gods in that demographic.
Salemite Brian Berg made his first appearances as a solo singer/songwriter of enormous talent and promise. Louie Samora who was the best drummer ever for the Rats, stepped out from his kit (álà Jon Koonce) to form The Jackals with former members of Sado Nation, guitarist Dave Corboy and bassist Steve Casmano. Raunchy punkabilly with a hint of surf in the turns, their music was an instant sensation.
The Miracle Workers- with Danny Damiankow on guitar and organ;
drummer Gene Trautmann, bassist Joel Barnett; vocalist Gerry Mohr and guitarist Matt Rogers- were a punky pop band that had been around for a few years. They played on vintage Rickenbacher guitars through '60s Vox amps and rose to prominence behind Mohr's impassioned vocals and Rogers' powerful fuzz-drenched lead guitar phrasings; releasing several albums, EPs and singles along the way, before moving to LA in 1986.
The Jackals were "pants down rockers," as band guitarist David Corboy once asserted. Joined by bassist Steve Casmano (who also played with Corboy in Sado Nation, earlier in the decade) and Louis Samora, who had left his position as drummer with Rats to play rhythm guitar in the new band; as well as drummer Robert Parker- Corboy and the Jackals played a stripped-down, snarling, high-energy form of rock that included elements of rockabilly and late '40s era rhythm & blues. In 1987 they released Prowlin', a full-length album, which met with rousing public response.
Chris Newman's Napalm Beach elicited a similar response, if not greater still. Their new alter-ego band Sno-Bud and the Flower People, were also extremely popular. While, with drummer Sam Henry and bassist Dave Dillinger, Newman was laying the foundation for the entire grunge movement with the heavy, Hendrix-influenced guitar sounds and dark lyrics of Napalm Beach- they explored Chris' more playful side with Sno-Bud, whose only lyrical subject, with perhaps one or two exceptions, was weed. The joys, the woes, the highs, the lows, the love, the need for weed, glorious weed.
Local promoter and musician Jan Celt was in the midst of building a roster for his newly formed Flying Heart label, from which he had recently released an album by his own Soul revue, the Esquires. The Napalm/Sno-Bud catalog seemed as particularly well-suited for Celt as Flying Heart did for Chris and the band. It was a marriage made if not in heaven, at least in High Times. Celt proceeded to produce a long line of recordings for one or the other of the two manifestations, beginning with Napalm's Monster, released mid-1987.
Celt's Polish heritage served as an excellent entré into Europe for Newman and the boys. That European connection served Napalm/Sno-Bud and several other bands quite well in the years to come. Through Celt's encouragement, Newman also created several comic books, which helped to expose his abundant talents as a cartoonist, as well as further his reputation as a true renaissance man.
But the scene at Satyricon involved far more musical factions than the aforementioned. Bands with a surlier motif also held forth. The wholly sarcastic hardcore musings of Poison Idea- featuring the mythically menacing likes of vocalist "Jerry A" Lang, guitarist Tom Roberts (aka Pig Champion) and drummer Steve "Thee Slayer Hippie" Hanford; Jerry A's rugged spinoff band Gift; and Oily Bloodmen; the found-sound experimentation of Michael Lastra's Smegma and the very strange and acerbic Hell Cows.
Singer/guitarist Fred Cole, along with his bassist wife Toody, had struggled for several years to find the right vehicle for his broodingly paranoid rock anthems- since drummer Louie Samora's departure from the Rats to play guitar with the Jackals. When the Coles elected Andrew Loomis, part-time bartender and well known figure around Satyricon, to chair the drum position in their new band, they could not possibly imagine the incredibly long road that was about to unfold before them. Loomis, a veteran of the Boy Wonders and a stint with Sno-Bud and the Flower People, was not initially interested in playing with the Coles, until they deserted their adopted cow punk leanings for a more traditional punk rock format.
The band selected their name after viewing a red moon rising over the Nevada desert, coming home from an early gig. The first inclination was to call the band Red Moon. But, always with the eye of a graphic artist, Fred thoughtfully determined that two four-letter words would look better on a marquis or poster, so the band soon became Dead Moon. Their first gig was in September of 1987
Fred Cole's unflagging dedication to making honest, original music led to the formation of his own Tombstone Records label (he had earlier founded the Whizeagle label), whose very appropriate motto "Music too tough to die," set the tone for the releases that would follow on that label.
In 1988, for his 39th birthday, Toody presented Fred with a 1954 Presto-88 mono disc cutter (the very disc cutter upon which the "Louie Louie" was cut for the Kingsmen). Fred immediately became the envy of nearly every musician in the world. He could actually cut his own records, which he proceeded to do with clockwork regularity. The limitation of the lathe, to produce only monophonic records, was of no great hindrance for Cole, whose rough-hewn manifestos were not necessarily conducive to multi-track layers of rich stereo sound anyway.
The last of the vital clubs in the scene that erupted in the early '80s, the club whose legacy extended back into the '70s, closed. Concurrently and, as if to signal the definitive changing of the guard, drummer Brad Naish left the Wipers replaced by Steve Plouf, initiating an enduring tenure with Greg Sage. Bassist Brad Davidson married and moved to London where he was an occasional member of the Jesus and Mary Chain.
In 1987, the Wipers on the indie Enigma label (which had recently signed a distribution deal with BMG) released Follow Blind, their seventh album. While it was only half of the albums, Sage had hoped to record in that time, the Wipers' first decade was only the beginning of an extended career for Greg Sage.
After recording an eighth Wipers album in 1988 and an extensive tour in 1989, Sage and Plouf moved the band to Phoenix, Arizona, where Greg could be closer to his aging mother. The pair have recorded another half-dozen albums since, including three Sage solo albums and three as the Wipers.
http://www.sp-clarke.com/historyofportlandrockpart1.htm
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