[Roseburg,
OR? Chicago?] I was in a burn-it-all-down-mood (dad dying, men failing) and
came here expecting hard music… dum dum dum singer/songwriter. Burn.It.All.Down.NOW.
But there was a sweet-solemn guy sitting against the wall by the stage next to
me and he soothed me – reminded me of my first love back in Austin. It ended up
being a night of unrecognized greatness. SweetRambler, my new friend, is
well-positioned in the Portland music scene – he described his band as
rockabilly piano & prog rock – this sounded entirely suspicious to me but I
confirmed it all online. He’s a closet jam-bander for sure but I won’t hold it
against him. And the singer/songwriter grew on me … I just couldn’t make out
what he was saying – SweetRambler convinced me it was the bad sound but I can’t
never hear the words the singers are singing. But I could tell he was being
witty and weird. And it came to me that he was a dead ringer for The Mountain
Goats, a band I could take or leave recorded – and a band that floors me live.
SweetRambler got all excited when I told him that because I hadn’t realized
their (his, tonight) name riffs on the goat theme. There was also some Paul
Simon to him. He was an awkward star – mumbled “We’re just getting started here!”
twice. He said he’d come in from Roseburg (where the mass shooting @ a college
happened a few years ago) but I’m not sure where’s he from. His pants were
unexpectedly sagged, belying his nerdy stage persona. Otherwise, I enjoyed
surveying the crowd. Two foolish foolish young men with ridiculous moustaches.
One of them with a beautiful beautiful little girl in mom jeans, long wavy
hair, and a large-brimmed felt hat – she spent a lot of the show thumbing
through facebook or something on her phone. The older guy in a Bahamas shirt
(half frat boy, half Weekend-At-Bernies) nodding his head like the show was a
ringer. Oh and the miniature man in a color-splashed shirt & long blonde
hair rubbing up on all the women. Of note, people in Portland don’t respect
their live music like Austinites, chatting and such when they should respect
and such. And it turns out, or Google tells me, Chris Otepka is semi-famous, at
least according to NPR.
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