Anyways, Larry and I got back from our mini-trip to Portland about an hour ago. Man..just being on the Greyhound for even a little over two hours really drains me and makes me irritable.
We had a good time in Portland. We got there on yesterday (Sunday) at a little after NOON. We caught a bus to the Hawthorne Hostel and checked in. They put us in the "Babgy" room, and I was amazed when we walked in because the walls and ceiling were bright red (like much of the walls in our room are) and even the bedside lamp (70's kitsch) was nearly identical to the lamp in our living room...pretty funny. It made me feel right at home!!
That hostel is really great....it's really clean and the staff is friendly/helpful/polite..even the bathrooms are cute..it's in an old house..everything just has a quaint and slightly kitschy touch.
After dropping off our heavy backpacks in the room, we headed off to explore the area a little and I had a little trouble getting ahold of Darryl Zero, but he finally met up with us in this place called Cross Road Records which had alot of fairly decent used vinyl and cd's. It was good to see Darryl, brief as it was..he's a social butterfly and a busy man..hee hee!! I bought 6 cd's while up in Portland..Larry didn't find as much stuff he wanted. He only bought The Waterboys Greatest Hits. At Crossroads I bought my favorite Jefferson Airplane recording "While Bathing at Baxters" and also FairPort Convention's "Heyday-BBC Sessions 1968-1969" which I was happy to find. Darryl was sweet enough to actually BUY me a cd I wanted (I was complaining out loud about my inability to NOT buy everything I wanted in front of him)..he bought me The Bombora's "Head Shrinkin' Fun" which is SOO Great..if you haven't heard the Bombora's, you should (if you like garagey surf)..I'm pretty sure that The Bombora's are no longer together but that at least one of them went on to form Lord of Altamont (who also rock, esp. when they set their keyboard on fire..I've seen them play live a few times)
After we parted ways with Darryl we went back to the hostel and took a 2 hour nap (we've been so tired ALL weekend, I thinking we have sleeping sickness) and then took a bus downtown where we went to what is obviously the best music store in town (Darryl was right) Ozone records where I bought Sonic Youth's "Goo" (I lost my copy probably a decade ago!) and Cat Power's "Moon Pix" (which I have always meant to own, but never got around to it!) and then we went to McMenamin's and ate some pub grub. We had a little time before The Mission of Burma show (and we were right there at the Crystal Ballroom) so we walked across the street to EveryDay Music (which also has an amazing selection of new and used cd's) and I ended up finding and buying The Forty-Fives "Fight Dirty" which was on my list, so I was happy (esp. because it was a used copy!) and then we headed in to the Crystal Ballroom, which is a really cool place visually (and the floors almost float...you can bounce up and down on them..it's surreal) but I don't think it has the best acoustics for loud, distorted rock bands.
The opening band was Kinski (who are from Seattle)...I've always wanted to see them live and they didn't fail me. I was actually more into them than Mission of Burma...I thought the sound for Mission of Burma was kinda fucked up, truth be told, so I didn't enjoy it as much as I thought I would, but I was still into it despite the muddy/muddled sound (which got better later on)...It was good to hear all the classics and the guys seemed friendly enough, bantering around on stage. I was REALLY blown away by Kinski, though.
We were beat by the end of the show (a little after midnight..it was ALL ages) so we hailed a cab back to the hostel and went to sleep. We woke up this morning, checked out, took a bus downtown, looked around Powell's bookstore for awhile and then ate some yummy Thai food before going to the Greyhound station to wait to board our bus.
Sorry...I think this entry is rather lifeless though I did have a good time. It wasn't quite as fun as I expected.. mostly cuz both larry and I just seemed fatigued the whole time and sort of un-inspired (which is how I feel while writing this entry)..Anyways, there's the synapsis. Now, I'm gonna watch TV and turn off my brain.
