Idolator
Today Slate ran a piece on why Portland, Ore., is like omg so awesome because of its impeccable indie cred, which is apparently epitomized by bands moving there once they've hit it medium. "It's easy to live here," says author Taylor Clark, although how easy that might be there will probably change at least a bit for the artists whose dwellings are pointed out in Clark's Tour Of the Indie Rock Star' Homes:
Allow me to illustrate. From Brock's house, drive—or bike, if you want to avoid hipster scorn—up Southeast Belmont Street for a bit and hang a left and you'll run into the residence of James Mercer, lead man of the Shins. Go about six blocks north of there and you'll see the palatial home of Stephen Malkmus, whose former band, Pavement, created today's incarnation of indie rock with 1992's Slanted and Enchanted. A few blocks west stands Beulahland, a bar where for years a team made up of Malkmus and the members of the all-girl punk group Sleater-Kinney thoroughly (and irritatingly) dominated the weekly trivia challenge. Follow East Burnside Street for a mile or so and you'll land at the Doug Fir, the club where newly minted Portlander Britt Daniel of Spoon recently unveiled his critically lauded new album, Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, at a secret show. Or, alternatively, you could follow Northeast 28th Avenue up toward the Alberta Arts District, where Death Cab for Cutie guitarist and producer Chris Walla lives. His place is just a few short blocks from the lovely home of singer-songwriter Laura Veirs, where I attended a party a few months back and met her boyfriend, Tucker Martine, who—aside from being responsible for the sound clip you hear every time you start up Windows Vista—produces records for Portland favorite sons the Decemberists.
Clark goes on to mention the type of car former Sleater-Kinney drummer Janet Weiss drives, and where she gets her coffee, and how Mercer is really into the city's public transportation, and how Malkmus' house looks like a "castle." Seriously. I look forward to future installments of Slate's Guide To Stalking Your Favorite Indie Rock Luminaries—if only because maybe it'll help further drive nails into the coffin of this little boomlet that the genre has joined, since everyone will either move or want to go into hiding.
The Indie City [Slate; HT Matthew Perpetua]
Comments
They were all hiding out in their palaces when I was just there. The snobs.
OMG, AUSTIN IS SO OVER, IT'S NOT EVEN MENTIONED. HAHAHAHA. Good luck with that, Portland.
Are there indie stalkers? I thought indie rock people only politely averted their eyes and whispered to their friends when they see a member of one of their favorite bands out in the real world.
I know where the drummer from REO Speedwagon lives.
Perhaps we could bury all the unsold copies of This Is Next in Portland and try to market the gravesite as a tourist attraction to hipsters, something along the lines of "Don't let this happen to your new release."
Going off of that excerpt it would appear then that Isaac Brock lives somewhere in the Hosford-Abernethy neighborhood. James Mercer lives in the Sunnyside neighborhood and Steve Malkmus lives in Laurelhurst (oooh! Fancypants!)
And with that, my beloved hometown jumps the shark.
well who's going to start marking all this on google earth???
Bitch all you want, Portland-haters, Portland-lovers and Slate-haters, but it was a good topic for an article. He avoids most of the usual pitfalls of a piece like this, especially trying to define "the [name of city] sound"; there is no Portland sound, as he admits right there in the article.
Just saying, this could've been so much worse; imagine, like, Jennifer 8. Lee tackling it for the Sunday New York Times and going all on-the-flippity-flop on Portland.
@dennisobell: At least it didn't have a completely misleading headline on the front page like every single contrarian Slate article.
@denisobell: agree that it's a decent topic, but the level of detail makes it both cred-boasting in tone and a borderline privacy invasion for the musicians mentioned.
besides, chicago's where it's at if you want to stake out alt-rockers. i (unintentionally) saw jeff tweedy and sons (unspeakably cute) at whole foods a couple of years ago, and just last week happened to spot mr. andrew bird at my local target. if he bought a wine cube then we are TOTALLY soulmates.
A lot of those people lived in Seattle (or within an hour's driving distance) before they lived in Portland. Portland seems to be where you move when Seattle gets too "mainstream." Like how people are leaving NYC to live in Jersey City and Hoboken. Ugh.
@therichgirlsareweeping: This totally makes me want to move back to Austin.
The 'Alberta Arts district'? Oh, that's rich. Two bars, a shop that sells dreamcatchers and some ill defined non-profit filled with suicide girls.
What, nobody has moved to the 'Mississippi Arts District' yet?
Nah, Hoboken hasn't been an artist's destination since the early '90s at the latest - it's every bit as expensive as Manhattan or Park Slope now.
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