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Slabtown Karl Marx is rolling over in his grave by Courtney Mumma Matt Simons, who calls the shots when it comes to the atmosphere that is Slabtown, says that he’s tried to create a place that is like a “rich kid’s rec. room basement”. Instead, the bar gives the impression of being a stage set for a play someone wrote about Hal’s (If you don’t know Hal’s, insert any old man dive bar here). But why the basement of a rich kid in particular? More on that later. If Matt wrote a want ad for bands, it might go a little something like this: Wanted: Band to play good music in “working man’s” bar. Management favors 60s or 70s throwback rock and roll. Qualified applicants will not be too loud. Candidates who know one of my friends or one of my friends’ friends will receive preference. For a list of those friends, refer to a roster of downtown rock bar employees over the last 10 years. Benefits to include most of the door, which is 5-6 dollars per patron, depending on your popularity. Must be available for Friday and Saturday night shows. Bands that have played in the past are as follows: The Out Crowd, Telephone, Rick Bain, My People, My Regrets, Blitzentrapper. Call 503-223-0099, or send demo to Slabtown, 1033 NW 16th Avenue, Attn: Matt Simons or Brian Coates. * If your band were the lucky band to be picked, you would play on a stage which is raised about a foot from the bar floor in a space that is, on regular nights, occupied by tables of young men and a few women watching sports or cowboy westerns on big screen TVs. Your backdrop would be a vertically striped orange, black, and light yellow wall. You would be lit by a combination of retro yard sale lamps. You would eat some excellent bar food. You would maybe play some pool or lotto before you went on stage. You would have a few drinks. But, most of all, you would be playing to a handpicked crop of the Portland proletariat elite. The bar patrons are noticeably a tight-knit group of familiar Portland scene regulars, which is at once comforting and disappointing. I’ll admit that this critique does not apply to Slabtown’s crowd alone, but the place seems to typify a trend that’s spread throughout Portland for quite some time. It’s a given that the regular Joe’s who live or work around that part of town are grateful 0">for a clean bar where the food is tasty and the walls you stare at aren’t dingy and smoke-stained. Maybe Slabtown is just the patsy in my personal mission to ignite the proletariat revolution. * The information in this ad is a result of a conversation with Matt. ** In my on-going quest to avoid name-dropping, let me just say that if you really need to know the name of the musicians indicated, you can ask anyone who goes to Slabtown and they’ll tell you. Or Matt will tell you. But, seriously, do you really need to know this to go to a show there? Slabtown, 1033 NW 16th Avenue, 503-223-0099, Courtney Mumma can be reached at cmumma@comcast.net |
Comforting, because it’s nice to be surrounded by people of similar interests, many of them attractive and single. But one doesn’t have to listen too closely to overhear a bunch of white kids dressed in thrift, pretending to be something other than the group that is just as responsible for the gentrification that they rant about as the Wieden & Kennedy employee who just moved into a house near Alberta. This is where the rich kid slumming it rears his ugly head. What is it with Portland hipsters’ desire to appear blue collar? Is it the myth that one has to suffer to create good art? Since when did “musician” have to imply destitute? And, this is just a guess, but Slabtown’s well-known patron rock stars are likely far from being penniless. **