Seattlest Roundtable: Is Portland's Music Scene Cooler than Ours?

In Slate today, Taylor Clark declared our -Ist-less neighbor to the south "America's indie rock Mecca," then spent several paragraphs dropping names and figuring out why. His conclusion?

It's easy to live here. In the words of a friend of mine who used to be the music editor at the local alt-weekly, Portland is like a resort community for indie rockers who spend half the year working themselves ragged on tour. You can venture into public dressed like a convicted sex offender or a homeless person, and no one looks at you askew. It's lush and green. Housing is affordable, especially compared with Seattle or San Francisco. The people are nice. The food is good. Creativity is the highest law. For young, hip Portlanders, financial success is a barista job that subsidizes your Romanian-space-folk band or your collages of cartoon unicorns.

Seth: I'd just like to point out that I went to the Someday Lounge last weekend in PDX to see Magnolia Electric Co., and that place is light-years better than any music venue we have in Seattle. It's nice, not gross, and even though it was a sellout, the place wasn't jammed. Also, they'd cordoned off the sidewalk with barricades so you could smoke and drink outside. suh-weeet.

You know, as if they were running the place for the sake of making the customers happy.

Katie: The front-page article of this week's Sunday Oregonian was on this very same topic and I tend to agree. Though being from Portland, I'm kind of biased. In fact, with the exception of that little fact that James Mercer lives in Elliott Smith's old house (both creepy and totally something I would do), it's pretty much the same article.

Jeremy: Not to always be the snarker (I actually like a lot of things, I swear!), I actually don't much care for Portland anymore. It's what Seattle could become, which frightens me. I grew up there, and it's lost most of the local color it used to have. There are a lot of great musicians living there (as well as some way over-hyped ones), but most of them are transplants.

Kim: Having been a musician in both towns, I have to side with the article. Seattle's music scene pales in comparison to just about every other music town in the country. There are a ton of very talented bands and artists here, but only about four clubs (estimation) for them to share. As a result, venues have to decide whether they're going to cater to the great bands or the eager music fans. There's not a whole lot of community among local musicians, either, because bands have to compete with each other for their poorly paying gigs at the four local music clubs (many with not-so-great sound systems).

Portland may be a smaller town, but the venues are nice and plentiful, the musicians actually commune with one another and help each other out, and as a result bands and artists are constantly leaving here to set up shop down there.

It's a shame. Seattle has enough great artists to have a really powerful music scene, but it's just not working out that way. And the fine little nightclub ordinance issue doesn't really encourage new music venues to open and cater to what could be an inspiringly vibrant, diverse local scene. Instead, we're in a constant state of Great Scene potential while our neighbors to the south get lauded in the press.

I think Seattle's also lost in a sort of identity crisis, trying to hold onto the heydays of the local rock scene. Meanwhile, hip-hop, rockabilly, all variations of Americana, jazz and other styles are burgeoning here, but there are even more limited venues for those styles of music, for whatever reason.

Jeremy: Kim has a lot of good points. One thing I'll definitely give Portland is that it's not anti-club, anti-teen-dancing, anti-bar, anti-music, like this town is. I don't get why Seattle's so uptight about everything, but they really are.

Seattle's music scene is pretty clique-y, too. There's definitely the "in" bands and those on the outside who aren't invited to play.

Hey, rise888 -- thanks for throwing that pic of Viva Voce into the Seattlest Flickr pool!