The
Delines: [from Portland OR] Life’s been a lot lately and I
hadn’t met my goal of seeing *at least one* gottam live show a month. I
combed the sad collection of options that is the contemporary Portland scene
and gasped – it was a March miracle! An early show! At the very likeable Music
Millenium music store! Most miraculous of all, featuring The Delines! I don’t
remember how this band came to my notice – maybe FrustratedPhilosopher from
Austin, who kindly keeps me in new bands still to this day – or maybe I tried
to convince him he should love them as much as I did. They have a song about
Louisiana and he’s from Louisiana. I fell hard and fast for them. Their moody
mellow vibe – these faded grainy videos – I mean it’s been decades since I’ve
paid attention to a band’s *music videos.* They even mentioned their videos mid-set,
citing one as inspired by The Rockford Files, the show that deeply satisfies my
need for 70s LA. They joked that Rockford is a “man
with the worst friends of all time,” which is kind of a common theme across
their songs. The kindredness was sealed and certified when I found
out, that despite being a Portland band, the lead singer, Amy Boone, had Texas
roots – was in a band called The Damnations back in the day. I dragged NiceButAlsoDangerous away from his
greenhouse on a Saturday afternoon – promised there’d be a keg – and that he
should count himself lucky that it finally wouldn’t be a loud electronic show.
They were a guitar, drums, bass guitar, keyboard – and the keyboardist often
pulled out a trumpet. Amy just sang- in an effortless easy whiskey voice – not grand,
not beautiful – but evocative and nice. She was a bit… unkempt. Baggy
ill-fitting brown pants – a brocade top that an older woman would put on to ‘dress
up.’ Slack hair. I came around to it though – her dark aura matched the content
of the songs. I filled in a backstory of drugs and streets and depression. And
every song featured a female lead – I was positive she wrote the songs for the
band. She dedicated the song about a pimp who lives on Orange Crush and donuts
to her nephew in the audience, shaking her head that he hadn’t been able to see
her shows yet because they don’t let thirteen year olds into bars. I was wrong
on all counts – well most as far as I can tell. For maybe the first time in my
life, I bought their album and waited in line to get it signed. I gushed at her
that her music is gorgeous and I lived in Texas too and I know she did – and she
returned my sunshine in full force – she asked Austin? You know it Amy! I was flattered
she hadn’t guessed Houston or god forbid, Dallas. She lived there decades – went
there to make it in music and formed a band with her sister, The Damnations.
She’s from upstate New York but went to high school in New Mexico. I was trying
to build on our Austin connection to shit talk Portland a bit but she was even
too gracious to do that. All this to say, she was really nice – no indications
of mental disturbance haha. I realized her lack of eyebrow may have been at the
root of her distressing experience – see Pink Floyd: The Wall (1982). Amy also
appeared to have a very good relationship with her bandmate, her polar
opposite. I’d forgotten Willy Vlautin is in this band. Good ol’ winsome Willy.
Willy’s pants fit him just right. Willy had on a dapper pearl snap shirt and
sported a polite pocket chain. Willy twinkled and charmed all over the stage.
He’s a storied Portland resident, famous for his books, his bands, his
winsome-ness. And, of course, as life goes, Willy writes the songs. I haven’t
read his books but from what I remember hearing about them, they’re a lot like The
Delines’ songs. Riddled with tragic larger than life characters (“Every night's
the same I wake up at three a.m.. The car I'm in is in the river sinking”)—steeped
in the gutter all the while peppered with the amusing relief of day to day
minutiae (“don’t miss your bus Lorraine!”). Lyrics are typically my lowest
priority in music but The Delines’ lyrics are inescapably interesting. A sociologist’s
dream. And every single song featured a woman as the central character: Nancy
with her controlling pimp, Lorraine with her basement room by the freeway and
her felon label, Maureen who went missing. Dam winsome Willy. Despite the
lyrical content, the sound of their music is consistently upbeat… jazzy…
soulful.. loungey… slow and soft. Steely Dan comes to mind…. … But, winsome Willy may win in the end. I did
my best to break his cycle of advantage and triumph by refusing to meet his
eyes in the album singing line and maintaining fierce eye contact with Amy
only. But I listened to a bit of an interview with him that night. He was a
social reject as a child or so he claims. Worse, they were handing out little
flyers at the shows with the Delines opening for X, the 70s LA blues punk band
that was pretty pivotal for a lots of lines of music. I thought it was some
fluke because there’s little to link the two bands soundwise. But then, during
the interview – about his book, not his band- winsome Willy goes off on a
tangent about his passion for X and that whole scene – ratting off the names of
a bunch of the bands (e.g., The Blasters). So he’s legit. Winsome Willy wins
again :) I took today, a Wednesday, off for a Portland walkabout and went to
Music Millenium to capitalize on my goal attainment and see a mid-day music show…
Los Straitjackets, I know their name and that’s it… I milled about and then
positioned myself in the watching aisle of the store at noon sharp – why was
everyone still milling about come 12:05p??? … unfortunately it took me eleven minutes
to figure out that this in-store was a meet and greet, no live music… in other
failed goals, both vintage clothing shops were closed, because Wednesday-dumb. Finally,
for due diligence, there was a Nirvana t-shirt that excited NiceButAlsoDangerous
so much, he started babbling during the show & I had to shush him like a
librarian. It features someone named Tom Peterson on it, who was apparently a
Portland legend for his flattop haircut, outlandish late night commercials, and
free on-site haircuts for visitors to his furniture store in east Portland.
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