Mix CD - Viva Portland

Our second installment of Burnside Mixes hinges on our love affair with Portland (are you surprised?). Portland has been a hotbed of music for a while now, right up there with Austin, Nashville and New York. We will now offer you a wide cross sampling of songs about and from Portland. Most of these songs are available on iTunes.

1. “Viva Portland”, Chad Crouch, Portland, OR.

This mix starts with a gentle Portland anthem. Chad Crouch is a local songwriter, and Portland, OR is a concept album that he recorded around town, about Portland. No song captures the city like this one, running through history and landmarks that make Portland special. The song is subdued, but intense.

2. “Los Angeles, I’m Yours”, The Decemberists, Her Majesty The Decemberists.

No song captures Oregon’s love/hate affair with California better than this one: a quintessentially Portland band singing “The smell of burnt cocaine/The dollar and decay/it only makes me cranky”. The dichotomy of hating Los Angeles, but being strangely drawn to its yellow air and urban sprawl is summed up in the final line, “How I abhor this place/It’s sweet and bitter taste/Has left me wretched, retching on all fours/Los Angeles, I’m yours.” Love songs are always better when duality is involved, and this love song is just transferred from a woman to Southern California. I listen to this song every time I arrive at LAX.

3. “Portland, Oregon”, Loretta Lynn (with Jack White), Van Lear Rose.

This is kind of an obvious pick, what with its title and all. The song doesn’t really capture a particular aspect of Portland, but it’s the best song off of Van Lear Rose. The guitar chimes and percussion lead into one of the best duets of the year: Jack White’s reedy yowls over Lynn’s powerful pipes.

4. “Vincent O’Brien”, M. Ward. Transfiguration of Vincent.

This song drives on Ward’s raspy voice and a catchy guitar roll combined with the high-key pounds on a piano. “Vincent O’Brien” is sublime, kicking off with Ward singing, “He only sings when he’s sad/And he’s sad all the time so he sings the whole night through/Yeah, he sings in the daytime, too”. The song would almost rock off into the stratosphere, but M. Ward keeps the song tacked firmly to the ground with his vocals.

5. “Horns”, Climber, Climber.

After “Vincent O’Brien”, the mix dives into a prog rock phase with two promising bands that can be seen regularly around town: Climber and Menomena. “Horns” is a hopeful song, despite its beeps and bloops, almost like the optimism of Coldplay’s Chris Martin mixes with the musical landscape of Bjork and Kid A-era Radiohead. “Horns” fades out…

6. “E is Stable”, Menomena, I Am the Fun Blame Monster.

…And in rises the slide guitar and wavering loops of “E is Stable”, one of the sexiest computer-generated songs ever recorded. As the song builds, the drums kick in and lead singer Brent Knopf’s voice spits, “Cold. Ness. Sets. In like fingernails/Raked across. The door.” This song is inventive, but crowd-pleasing at the same time. Keep an eye out as Menomena builds a following across the U.S.

7. “To Destruction”, Dolorean, Violence in Snowy Fields.

“To Destruction” is an incredibly beautiful love song, sighing on slide guitars, rhythmic strums and Al James silky vocals. When James sings “Make no mistake of my intentions/Your arms are the place I like the best”, you wish you’d thought of such a poetic line years before. “To Destruction” is played with the simplest instruments: a piano, drums, and two guitars. Its simplicity is mesmerizing.

8. “Bled White”, Elliott Smith, XO.

I’m only assuming that this song is about Portland because of Smith’s brief mention of “Rose City”. The fact remains that this is a great rock song off one of the best albums released in the 90’s. Elliott Smith is the greatest Portland musician, and a Portland mix wouldn’t be complete without at least two of his songs.

9. “Bohemian Like You”, The Dandy Warhols, Thirteen Tales from Urban Bohemia.

From what I’ve heard, The Dandy Warhols are not a particularly popular band around Portland despite the fact that their roots are based here. This could be because of the commercial success of this song, which you’ve definitely heard in…well…a commercial at some point. Whatever the reason (the personality and arrogance of lead singer Courtney Taylor-Taylor may be cause, as well), this a great song mocking the pretension of the bohemian lifestyle that is Portlanders sometimes adopt.

10. “Broken Man”, Luther Russell, Spare Change.

This is a bit of a personal addition. I heard this song during a show 3-4 years ago at Berbati’s Pan in downtown Portland. It’s a very nice tune, stripped and rough, but a nice folksy tune by a nice, folksy Portland songwriter.

11. “Oh!”, Sleater-Kinney, One Beat.

Bands like Sahara Hotnights and The Donnas are just pretenders to the torch that Sleater-Kinney have carried for the last decade or so. “Oh!” is punky, quirky and pleasing. While Sleater-Kinney were originally-based out of Olympia, Washington, they now call Portland their home.

12. “Rose Parade”, Elliott Smith, Either/Or.

“Rose Parade” chronicles one of Portland’s most famous traditions (the Rose Festival) from the view of an outsider with a jaded eye. The beautiful acoustic guitar riffs sing over the top of Elliott’s hushed voice as he walks along behind the crowd, tripping “over a dog in a choke-chain collar” and trading “a smoke for a food stamp dollar”.

13. “California One Youth and Beauty Brigade”, The Decemberists, Castaways and Cutouts.

We close out our Portland mix with this track, which clocks in at nearly 10 minutes, and sings of the “castaways and cutouts” that make up our city, the “board-bench warmers”, the “light loafers”, and the “ambulance chasers”. Even though this song is long, every second is interesting. Toward the end, Colin Meloy’s eccentric voice sings “I figured I had paid my debt to society/By paying my overdue fines at the Multnomah County Library”, bringing to mind a childhood of Summer books lists and Choose-Your-Own-Adventure stories. It’s a great song, and great finale to these love songs to a city.

Jordan Green notably left Everclear off of this list, because that song where Art Alexakis sings about buying a house “way up in the West Hills” is slightly annoying. Nonetheless, “Santa Monica” is a great song, and if it mentioned Portland, it would’ve made the cut.

Posted on February 10, 2005 1:45 PM