Husky Boys - The Know, Portland OR - September 3, 2016

[Portland OR] I’m not squeamish about dirty or rough clubs but this was just disrespectful to music – and I should have known with the club actually billing themselves as “low-budget.” A curtain divided the drinking crowd from the listening crowd (Oregon’s got weird rules). You paid your cover and found yourself stuck where you paid because the listening side was jam-packed, with all of 30 people, 30 low-brow cheap-ass people… and not in a cute, scenester, or sexy way. The band was at ground level and essentially interspersed in the crowd. And you can imagine what this all did for the sound. I decided a week or so ago I was going to work through the Portland clubs A to Z (more or less – this one’s about to close, for obvious reasons) so these trials satisfied me – rewards come to those who barrel through the brambles. Power pop and 70s punk with a lot of proggy guitar. Plimsouls crossed with Weezer. One of the band member’s (from my limited viewpoint) had a man bun stuffed through the back of his ballcap. Most troubling part was the woman walking around with a “Gentrification is weird” t-shirt on – was she for gentrification to keep Portland weird? Was she being ironic? Was she referencing the gentrification going on in that very club? Despite all that was troubling, I liked this band a lot.

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