In Conversation With: San Gabriel
The synth pop artist stops by to talk about his latest EP, his creative process, and the vibrant scene in southern Oregon.
San Gabriel. Photo: Kassy Balli
Good morning!
Today we’re talking with synth pop artist San Gabriel.
Retail jobs are an incredible incubator for side projects. Some people use the downtime to catch up on schoolwork. Others may work on a side hustle. James Bookert used that time to work on his music. Initially, something to do in between tours became San Gabriel, a fully formed synth-pop project.
If that name sounds familiar, trust your gut; last year’s Nights and Weekends caught the attention of many here in the community, and I recently took a quick look at the follow-up EP Adult Onset Goth, noting:
Last year’s Nights and Weekends was a revelation. Adult Onset Goth is the follow-up EP, and all of the dreamy synths, washed-out guitars, and sugary hooks are here. Are you a fan of New Order, or even Tame Impala? Maybe you spend a lot of time mining the crates for early 80s synth pop. This’ll scratch that itch.
Lead single “Paradise” explores themes of avoidance, emotional stagnation, and the tension between moving forward or remaining in unhealthy but familiar places, with Bookert saying, “This song is about avoiding the complicated feelings that come with growing up. It’s about avoiding moving on. It’s about avoidance and the fear of growth. It’s about feeling stuck in life, admiring the past through a not-so-healthy lens, and not knowing if to move forward into an open uncertainty, or stay rooted in a place/relationship that isn’t healthy.”
I wanted to talk more with James about the threads he’s been pulling in his work—both the lyrics and the sound—but I was also curious about where he’s at in life, both literally and figuratively. He currently calls Ashland, Oregon, home, and while I can tell you that Ashland is known for a lot of things, synth-pop ain’t one of ’em…or so I thought. But I was happily surprised (and happy to be corrected) by his take on life in Southern Oregon.
In our wide-ranging chat, we cover the local scene, what his creative process looks like, and what the rest of the year has in store for him. It’s only been lightly edited for grammar and flow.
Congrats on the new record! Can you walk us through the backstory of how ‘Adult Onset Goth’ came together?
Hey, thanks, Kevin! I’m pretty psyched on these songs! When I’m not on the road, I’m pretty much always writing. It feels like a productive way to distract myself from all of the crazy stuff that’s happening in the world. And since I’m just kind of always writing, I tend to have a ton of songs sitting around. Cayle, who owns and operates Share It Music, gave me a little nudge to put some of these songs out, which was super helpful. But, in short, they’re songs that I love, but maybe didn’t feel like they were fitting in with my next record, and I still wanted them to see the light of day.
I’m curious about the title (which I love, btw). What does it mean to you now, and has it changed since you first landed on it?
I’m 41, and it’s been crazy watching the world, or maybe just the US, turn into what it’s turned into. I think social media rewards a lot of performative negative behaviour (our president), and when that’s all that we see of society, that’s what we believe. If I’m perfectly honest, it’s really hard not to be cynical and give up hope, or think that we’re all against each other.
But I’m fortunate to get to tour, play music, and meet new people. And what I see is the exact opposite. I see and meet a lot of people who are sweet and kind and accepting and weird, and not afraid to be themselves.
Maybe the title was just me making fun myself, or maybe the songs on my EP are “the cure for adult onset goth” (take twice daily) I don’t know. It just sounded fun.
Did any of the tracks come together particularly quickly (or slowly)?
Yeah, I got pretty lucky with some of em! Sometimes, if I have a good idea, I’ll set an alarm for 30 minutes and tell myself that by the end of these 30 minutes, this song has to be finished. That means 2 verses, 2 choruses, and a bridge if needed.
With “Paradise,” I think I was playing bass and just said, “t t t take me back to paradise.” So I set an alarm and wrote the rest.
That said, “Magic” was the opposite. That was a completely different song that I shoehorned together, and that was over the course of maybe a year. I was just banging my head against a wall trying to write a chorus, and was like, wait a minute…this fits with this other song, and boom, Magic was born.
Double-clicking on that, what comes first for you: sounds or lyrics?
You know both. There’s never one thing that works. For “Paradise,” I was just sitting around playing bass, and the chorus came out. Other times it’s just been the rhythm of a set of words that will inform the rest of the song. It’s kind of all over the place.
Sometimes I’ll write a whole instrumental track, walk around, and sit in the park listening to it, trying to write lyrics; it all just kinda depends.
Shifting gears, you’re in Ashland, Oregon. I grew up in PDX, and synth pop is the last kind of thing I’d expect from that part of the world. What brought you there? What’s the scene like?
Ashland is freaking awesome. This place is crammed full of musicians and artists that you’d never expect. Ashland seems to function on its own terms, in a way that I really love. Super vibrant and healthy music scene.
For one, Sylvia Massy has a studio here. Sylvia is this genius engineer/producer who recorded Prince, Johnny Cash, System of a Down, you name it. She actually let me mix some stuff from my last record in her studio.
There are also a ton of local people here who would blow your mind. My buddy Mitch fronts a band called Slow Corpse. Dude has the voice of an angel and will write 5 amazing songs a week. I used to play bass in his band, and he’d come in with a whole new set every week.
Then there’s Sean, who is a synth wizard, and he fronts a band called Yaaro Light; there’s Casey and the Cutoffs, who are an amazing local band; and this dude Kyle, who does DIY shows out of his warehouse/skatepark.
I just randomly saw a Brazilian band at a thrift shop last weekend. We just heard music and walked over there.
Also, there’s a super vibrant theater scene here. That’s not ever what I’d considered “live music,” but boy was I wrong about that. Because, man, I just saw a play called “Come From Away” that had a full live band playing the entire time, and it was mind-blowing, from both a musical and technical perspective.
In short, Ashland is awesome. Super cool vibrant scene.
For someone that might be new to your work, what do you hope they take away from this record?
That’s a great question, and I don’t know if I have an answer, but I’ll try.
I feel like music has given me so much, especially as a young person. Life can be super isolating, and lonely, and confusing, and we’re always expected to put on this face and say things are okay when maybe they’re not.
Like, there are song lyrics that we’ll sing and fully 100% relate to, that we’d never say in a sentence. I feel like music is a place we can let our guard down and be immersed in our feelings. I think of it as the little friend I keep in my back pocket that understands me 100%
That said, I don’t know that I have any hopes for people’s takeaway from this record, but if it makes you dance, or tap your toes, or you like a little synth sound in there, I’m happy with that. If there’s lyrics in there that you really resonate with, that’s cool too. I just hope that it helps somebody in the world in some way.
What’s the rest of 2026 look like for you? More shows (I saw you recently did one with Limerence)? Back into the studio?
I’m about to jump on 6 weeks of touring with my buddy Griff, who is Goth Babe.
We’re doing 6 weeks opening for Foster the People, which is gonna go everywhere. I’m working on booking some PNW and California stuff for the end of the year, which will definitely include Limerence.
And yeah, always in the studio. I got a bunch of music I’m working on for whatever my next record is gonna be!
Last one, just for fun: I bump into you as you walk out of the record store. What records are you carrying?
Oof. Probably “Don’t Shoot Me I’m Only The Piano Player” by Elton John. That was my favorite tape when I was 5, and every time I see it I’m like, woah, look, it’s “Don’t Shoot Me I’m Only The Piano Player” by Elton John, only to come home and realize that I’ve forgotten that I already have three copies of “Don’t Shoot Me I’m Only The Piano Player” by Elton John.
But honestly, anything. I was a banjo player for years, so if I find any old bluegrass or old-time records, I’ll scoop ‘em. I’m also a huge prewar blues fan. I will say, I’ve been looking for it for years, but my hope is that I’ll walk out of the record store with a copy of “Tupelo Honey” by Van Morrison
Listen:
Click the record to preview/play ‘Adult Onset Goth.’
A Few Thoughts on Some Records From 2001, Cleaning Airplanes, and CDs as Comfort Food.
Also: a buncha new tracks.
I ended last week by meeting another MusicStack writer in town for a show. More of that, please! I am lousy about getting to shows, but the next one (lightly) penciled in on my dance card will be Sweeping Promises, who I’ve been waiting to see for a while now. They’ve got a new record out, and hopefully I’ll spill some ink on it soon. I found the previous one by chance, and it wasted no time locking in its spot on my AOTY list. It was definitely a case of good timing.
Meanwhile, the Best Album of 2001 is rounding third for home, and the last few standing are exactly who you might think (spoiler: with three of the last four records, suburban dads are in fat city). The lone exception is Björk, who found time to beam down from whatever planet she’s from to gift us Vespertine.
This sent me down a rabbit hole of records released on September 11 (talk about bad timing). Bob Dylan dropped Love and Theft, and if you know me, well, you know how that movie ends. Not the worst record I’ve heard, but this is still as good as it gets for me. It made it to Round 3 before being bounced by Rilo Kiley.
John Hiatt also dropped The Tiki Bar Is Open, and I’ll listen to that any time. I first found him via Perfectly Good Guitar when it was mandatory in-store play at the record store where I worked. I didn’t listen to it much until the summer of ’01. In those days, we still did our own cabin cleaning, and to make it a little less miserable, we’d jury-rig the PA system to play music. The guys on my crew were all Hiatt’s target demographic (read: dudes older than me), and he got a lot of airplay.
I don’t remember listening to him much after that fateful Tuesday. After that, my listening diet switched almost completely to a mix of news radio and old favorite CDs as comfort food. I’m not even sure I heard this record until much later, but I did manage to see him play, which was an incredible win in an era where they were pretty scarce.
That whole stretch colors a lot of this week’s picks. Dylan and Björk aren’t here, but there’s plenty of what I’d consider comfort food with Yo La Tengo, Afghan Whigs, Nada Surf, and more. There’s also some Dismemberment Plan, who might be my fave (re)discovery from this tournament. And the shared-member org chart of them, Maritime, and Promise Ring is (*chef’s kiss). If they’re new names to you, all three are well worth your time. Might I suggest starting with what might be the most Milwaukee-coded video ever?
Fear not; this isn’t a total retrospective. There’s plenty of killer new tracks from likes of The War on Drugs (new War on Drugs!), M(h)aol, and Teenage Fanclub—a band that took me way too long to come around to, but was totally worth the wait. We’ve also got some great fresh sounds from Jacob T. Simons and Working Men’s Club. Perfect for cleaning airplanes or wherever you might be listening.
One quick note before you press play (v2.0): You may have noticed there’s no Spotify link this week. That’s intentional. I’ve been yapping about supporting artists for a while, and it felt like the right time to finally (!) put my money where my mouth is. Nowhere’s perfect, but small steps matter. It’s also worth noting that the platform with the lowest-quality sound and worst pay for artists is also the most expensive. I first rolled this out with the playlists that go out to paid community supporters, and now I’m rolling it out fully.
Maybe you still really like Spotify or find value in it. That’s ok, too. No judgment here! Promise. Either way, if you have strong thoughts on the matter, I’d like to hear ’em! Please weigh in below.
On to the music…
KA—
The Playlists: | Apple | Qobuz | YouTube Music | Tidal (NEW) |
Now it’s your turn.
What’s been exciting you lately? Any releases or shows you’re looking forward to? Whatcha got? Share your thoughts in the comments!
Discussion: What’re You Listening To?
A few thoughts on Airports, Dolly Parton, and pivoting away from a popular platform. Also: a buncha new tracks.
As some of you know, in addition to this here newsletter, I also edit an online music publication. We have a few rules around what is kosher to publish and what’s a no-go.
One of our informal rules is that we’ll turn back an otherwise fine piece if it’s the one too manyieth1 in a row on any given artist/topic. Think of it like the stock market’s circuit breaker mechanism. We like giving the people what they want, but there’s a limit. In five-ish years, I’ve only had to invoke this rule twice: once for Taylor Swift and once for Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter.
In theory, I could’ve—or should’ve—invoked it a 3rd time for Dolly Parton, but, well, I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. Sure, there were some submissions that were all too easy to decline—if you’re gonna write about an icon, maybe don’t have a machine do it for you?—but most showed a person who managed to touch a lot of people in a lot of different ways.
In our case, these indexed toward her records rather than things like Dollywood (and the second-order economic effects of an amusement park), but I’m still struck—as I assume many of you were—by how universal the sentiment seems. It’d be easy to just chalk it up to being hungry for something positive, but, well, you gotta earn it, and in this case, the hagiographies’ll write themselves.
There’s even a movement afoot to change the name of Nashville’s airport to honor her. Seems like a no-brainer, and the only argument one might make is that technically Knoxville’s airport is much closer to her hometown, and even that’s really just grist for the pedantry mill or avgeeks like me.
At any rate, I hope it goes through. It’d be a nice antidote to what recently happened to West Palm Beach’s airport.
On to the music…
This week, what’s old is new again with a fresh track from Dinosaur Jr. Our pal Brian K. Pagels (aka Brian K. & the Parkway) has a new one out (spoiler: It’s fantastic). We’ve also got a few old standbys that sound as good as ever from James and Peter Murphy. Speaking of Nashville, there’s a double dose of Total Wife. Parquet Courts came up in a discussion on songs about NYC, and, well, they’ve been in heavy rotation here ever since.
Closer to home, Madison continues to punch above its weight with killer sounds from both Mossmen and Get Well Now. From north of the border, there’s a little bit of Royal Ottawa. They’re on Wallytbm’s The Beautiful Music label, and you can check out the presser here to learn more about ‘em- really, though, just make some time to spin the EP. From across the pond, there’s a new one each from groove merchants Getdown Services and Cosey Mueller—not the first or last time we’ll see either of them.
One quick note before you press play: You may have noticed there’s no Spotify link this week. That’s intentional. I’ve been yapping about supporting artists for a while, and it felt like the right time to finally (!) put my money where my mouth is. Nowhere’s perfect, but small steps matter. It’s also worth noting that the platform with the lowest-quality sound and worst pay for artists is also the most expensive. I first rolled this out with the playlists that go out to paid community supporters, and now I’m rolling it out fully.
Maybe you still really like Spotify or find value in it. That’s ok, too. No judgment here! Promise. Either way, if you have strong thoughts on the matter, I’d like to hear ’em! Please weigh in below.
KA—
The Playlists: | Apple | Qobuz | YouTube Music | Tidal (NEW) |
Now it’s your turn.
What’s been exciting you lately? Any releases or shows you’re looking forward to? Whatcha got? Share your thoughts in the comments!
Remembering Steely Dan’s Walter Becker
Perfection and precision can be funny things — especially in music, where all you really need are “three chords and the truth.”
Rarer still is the group that turns that alchemy into sounds with a unique (that is to say, hard to categorize) but universal appeal.
Donald Fagen and Walter Becker, aka Steely Dan did just that. Obsessive musicians on a perpetual quest to hit just the right mix of notes, they would’ve been at home in a lab. And in many ways, the studio was their lab. Edison had Menlo Park. Becker and Fagen The Village Recorder.
To operate smoothly, a machine needs every part to work well and work together. Becker and Fagen did this by swapping musicians in and out of songs. On the Aja album, there were 6 different lineups for 7 tracks. Recognizing that Chuck Rainey could play the parts better, Becker even took himself out of the lineup for “Black Cow,” “Aja,” and “Peg.” The end result of this endless iterating? Timeless music. Music that is (strangely) at home on the AM dial, at your local college radio station, and in the grocery store. You can still hear songs like Hey Nineteen and Peg fairly often.
As Becker himself noted:
“We have been fortunate enough to do something that has always been out of the mainstream and yet have an audience for what we do.“
We lost Becker on this day in 2017, but his legacy lives on the sounds of Steely Dan. On our radios, in our earbuds, and overhead in the aisles at Safeway.
Have a favorite track by Steely Dan or Becker himself? Let me know in the comments!
Discussion: What’re You Listening To?
A few thoughts on living with abandon, old cars, and a buncha new tracks.
I was supposed to be at the Milwaukee Mile this weekend, but well, there was rain in the forecast, and well, I’m at the point in life where such things are now a dealbreaker. Instead, we wound up at a car show about a half hour west of here. It was at a church, and whatever you’re picturing in your mind right now is correct. Small white building straight out of central casting… on relatively high ground overlooking an impossibly green valley broken only by the occasional farm field… wind turbines running across a distant ridge. Real “amber waves of grain” stuff.
At any rate, I’m also at the age where I’m just old enough to share some small talk with the people showing these cars. I generally have zero idea what I’m talking about, but it’s amazing what doors having gray hair and wearing cargo shorts will open for you.
One of the cars was a ’73 Malibu, and in this case I did sort of know what I was talking about. I mentioned to the owner that my first car was a ’74 Malibu, and that’s the sort of opening gambit that buys you 3–4 mins of chit chat. My car had just enough horsepower to be dangerous in my hands, and I still remember just enough about it to get in trouble. I can tell you about the engine (V8, 350, 4-barrel carb, etc.), and that it had a landau roof, because of course it did. We went a little ways into the weeds, but the short version is that this car was immaculate. Doubly so for being 53 and maybe triply so for spending its life in a place not afraid to use salt half the year.
I was curious about how it stayed that way; had it just been garaged most of the last half century? Was this the result of an extensive rebuild? Something different? Turns out it was a bit of both. You can do a lot to keep a car from rusting or parts wearing out, but time is undefeated. So where was he sourcing these parts, I asked? He rattled off a bunch of different places, “but really,” he said, “once you start looking, you start seein’ ’em everywhere.”
That’s the second time I’ve heard something similar in recent weeks, the first being while chatting with an artist for an upcoming article. Both are right, of course, and it’s also correct that the playlists below this text block are the result of mining all kinds of different sources; friends, articles, radio stations, the records in my living room, etc. In other words, actively looking and active listening. And if you’re here, the smart money says this is how you find stuff, too. No set-it-and-forget-it for this crowd.
I also (somehow) made it to a show Friday night, and got the chance to see John McCutcheon play. Other than a couple of kids in the crowd wrecking the curve, I’d say the median age was, well, older. It was also fantastic. The kid ripping that Malibu around Washington County wouldn’t have been here to save his life, let alone say something like “It sounded beautiful in the hall we were in (another thing meticulously renovated),” but here we are.
I’ll leave it with this: while he played, McCutcheon would share stories and riff on whatever, and something he said really struck me: he was talking about the current state of play in 2026, and rattled off the same list most of us know by heart, but his point was that now more than ever, it’s crucial to live not with control but with abandon; love with abandon, share with abandon, speak and listen with abandon. Maybe go all in on something you’re really into like rebuilding a muscle car.
Teenaged me would’ve recognized the hammer dulcimer on his right only as something gathering dust in the high school band room, but 110% would’ve understood his message.
On to the music:
This list kicks off with one from the Strokes, but really I want to talk about Comedown Machine’s cover art. It’s impossibly retro and looks like something that would’ve been right at home in either Malibu on the way back from the record store. There’s also some tracks from the Posies, the Amps, and the Judybats, who to this day are still the most polite people I’ve ever seen on stage (not derogatory). Snapping back to today, there’s a brand-new one from Thao and Neko Case, Immersion (new record later this week!), and one from Swervedriver whose latest track sounds just as white-hot as “Rave Down” did all those years ago. It’s best played loudly, with abandon.
KA—
P.S. O.R.R. fave Hazel English also dropped a new EP late last week!
The Playlist:
Other sources: | Apple | Qobuz | YouTube Music| Tidal (NEW) |
Want a little more Dolly Parton? Of course you do, and our friends at Qobuz have just what you’re looking for.
I’m trying Tidal out after getting a couple of requests for it. We’ll see how it goes! Mostly, I’d like to slowly move away from Spotify and make sure we’ve got as many bases covered as possible.
Now it’s your turn.
What’s been exciting you lately? Any releases or shows you’re looking forward to? Whatcha got? Share your thoughts in the comments!
What’re You Listening To?
A few thoughts on friction and a buncha fresh tracks.
I am finally getting around to going through a box of 45s my mom gave me. Ostensibly, this was “payment” for helping her downsize her house a few years ago. Really, I think it was just a face-saving exercise for her.
Wherever you fall on the friction spectrum, 45s sit at the far end.
Friction and intentionality are all the rage these days—I’m as guilty of yapping about this as anyone. I’m also a fan of it. I spend my entire workweek splitting my attention and keeping multiple plates in the air. Sitting down to do nothing but listen to a record is a great way to recover. There are, of course, all the other sensory experiences that come along with it: the smell of the vinyl…reading the liner notes…appreciating the art—all the tactile things.
Still, 45s feel like a bridge too far. I like friction, but not this much. My turntable is on one side of the room. Playing 45s means no couch; it means sitting right in front of the sound machine. That’s partly why it’s taken me so long to get around to this. Real life gets in the way, of course, but it also takes some work to get through a box of these things.
The upside is that going through a small collection like this lets my mind wander a bit. Everyone’s collection says a bit about who they are, and in my case, I’ve known this person my entire life—but I know very little about the almost one-third of her life before I showed up. These little slabs of wax help fill in the blanks a bit, but they raise almost as many questions as they answer.
I know the story behind my own 45s. Each of them tells its own little story, a plotline I can recite: where I was in life when I picked them up—literally—what buses I took to get there, and so on.
Did my mom find these on her own, or did someone else tell her she “had to hear this”? If she found them herself, the likely source would have been the radio. What station was she listening to? I know the house she lived in, but I also know it wasn’t close to any stores. Did she ride the bus to get these? I can pick up the story, but only from the midway point.
The station I remember playing constantly in the house has since become a talk-radio station. That’s a rant for another day.
Also, while I know why everyone put address labels on their records, it still strikes me as strange. Today, we live in a world where everything is collectible, and Lord help you if there’s a 1 mm crease on a corner. They were betting the other way. Records weren’t meant to be preserved; they were meant to be played, even if that meant someone changing things up every two or three minutes.
Maybe that’s the best takeaway here: treating records—or any physical media, really—purely as an investment vehicle is a weird choice. Of course, you should take care of them. Putting them in sleeves and storing them in the right place is the way to go. But ultimately, their place is on the turntable, spinning around and delivering sound.
On to the music…
This week, we’ve got killer tracks from all corners of the music universe. There’s a ripper from Wristwatch, one of my favorite Madison bands—it’s a long list—and one from Maritime, one of my favorites from just down the road in Milwaukee. Our pal Jodaki also sent us one he thought I might like. He was right.
There’s some Lungfish, because of course there is. Indy-based indie darlings Wishy keep their streak of great singles going, and the latest from Afghan Whigs is finally out. It’s been a long time coming, but it was worth the wait.
Catacroma from Riviera Gaz also dropped, and if you like the sort of stuff Winged Wheel—or Lungfish, for that matter—puts out, this is for you. This is also a Steve Shelley side project; he’s having quite the year.
Last but not least, there’s a track each from ORR favorites Wussy and The Paranoid Style. Lisa Walker and Elizabeth Nelson are pairing up for a series of upcoming house shows, and, well, if your favorite baseball team is in the NL Central, gas up the car and make a plan to get out and see them. There are a couple of East Coast dates, too.
KA—
The Playlist:
Other sources: | Apple | Qobuz | YouTube Music| Tidal (NEW) |
I’m trying Tidal out after getting a couple of requests for it. We’ll see how it goes! Mostly, I’d like to slowly move away from Spotify and make sure we’ve got as many bases covered as possible.
Now it’s your turn.
What’s been exciting you lately? Any releases or shows you’re looking forward to? Whatcha got? Share your thoughts in the comments!
What’re You Listening To?
It seems like I’ve been here before
Note: This first ran on this day in 2024. It was well received, but let’s be real; I’ll take any excuse I can get to yap about New Order.
If you’re looking for this week’s playlists, fear not! They’re at the bottom of the page. There’s even a New Order track on there.
P.S. My coworkers had an awesome trip.
The well, well, well, if it isn’t the consequences of my own actions edition.
Earlier this week, Noah Kalina asked the following:
How many years do you need to live somewhere before you are considered a local?
It’s an interesting thought exercise: if you ask 10 people, you‘re likely to get 11 answers. In fact, that’s exactly what happened, with people responding with things like:
- In New England, the rule is simple. You are considered a local as soon as you have three grandparents who were born in the town where you live.
- You have to be born there. That’s the rules.
and
- If you’ve integrated into a place, accepted it, love it and committed to it in any way, you’re a local.
It is a nuanced subject indeed. I was born and raised in Portland, but I have now lived in Wisconsin almost as long as I did in Oregon (with Washington and Tennessee rounding out the numbers). The last time I had a 503 area code, George W. Bush was president. So why does it still feel like home?
I love Wisconsin and have lived here since… GW Bush was president. I also talk about home as more of a state of mind than anything. I have raised a family here, yet I still feel like an expat.
What gives?
I’ve made this joke before, but how can you tell if someone is from Oregon? The answer, of course, is to wait 5 seconds, and they’ll tell you. I’m no exception. What can I say? I love my home state. I still talk about PDX as if I live there. It’s only a little hyperbolic when I say it’s the city that raised me.
A lot can change quickly in a place like Rose City. The clock never stops, and neither does urban renewal/development. I can still tell you how to get just about anywhere in the metro area, even if I don’t recognize a single thing along the way. But two of my coworkers are visiting tomorrow, and it didn’t stop them from asking where I thought they should go. How do you handle a question like that? Do you give them a list of must-hit places? An “insider” tour?
How do you ensure it isn’t just a punch list of places you wish you could still hit?
Do they want to see the places I used to hang out? The bars I misspent my youth in? The record stores I more or less lived in? Really, I coulda had my mail delivered to a couple of them.
The bars I hung out in have either been bulldozed or have been converted sanitized into “sports pubs.” My favorite used to have Off-track betting in the basement, and a group of surly dudes straight out of Central Casting would come/go with regularity. Now it’s all shiplap, vinyl flooring, and big screens. Hard pass.
Back when it was still known as “Northwest Portland,” the Pearl District was just sketchy enough to be interesting, filled with a lovable cast of characters who gave Portland a flavor all its own. It was long on personality but short on cachet. Many of them are long gone, too, either because of time—everyone ages out eventually—or because of gentrification.
Most of the stores and restaurants met the same fate. The Greek deli with brothers who would yell at you for reading magazines while making you the best sandwich you ever had. Nights out that ended at Quality Pie as the sun came up (IYKYK). And a few record places where I bought some of my first CDs, including New Order’s Substance, which just happens to be turning 37 39 today1.
How do you know Kevin likes New Order? Give it 5 minutes, and he’ll tell you.
By 1987, New Order had fully risen from the ashes of Joy Division. Along the way, they’d shed the post-punk sound and become arguably the leading synth-pop band in the world.
They’d already released four studio albums, but their fascination with disco & (then) new technology had left them with a habit of reworking and remixing album tracks into 12” singles.
It was time to put together Substance, a collection optimized for filling the dancefloor (the CD release has a second disc of B-sides and extended instrumental remixes). Serving almost as a de facto greatest hits record (future hit “True Faith” debuted here), each of the 12 tracks showcases the band’s masterful ability to marry gorgeous pop melodies, frontman Bernard Sumner’s endearing vocals, and thunderous beats.
There can be a fine line between an insider’s tour and a list from TripAdvisor. The same goes for greatest hits and compilation albums. The former can be a lazy way for a band to make some easy money. The latter can be a tidy place to house B-sides, remixes, etc. Both can be gateways to a band—an on-ramp for new fans, as it was for me.
It’s not hyperbolic to say this is a record that changed everything for me.
Released on vinyl, Double CD (which I initially had), and double cassette, the first “side” had A-side singles, while the second had their respective B-sides. This is not a hard and fast rule, as there are a few exceptions. There are also a few other variants depending on your listening format and edition. Ask me how I know this.
The result was a sound that sounded as good coming out of a car coming down the block as it did in the club. Though very much a product of its time, the music is timeless and is a testament to the band’s outsized influence on the rave & house music world.
It is an excellent two-and-a-half-hour ride. And there probably isn’t an inch of real estate in that town that didn’t see me playing it at least once, whether on my Walkman, in my car, through an iPod, or on my phone.
I listened to it when walking by PGE Park. It’s Providence Park now, but it was Civic Stadium before that, and even now, sometimes I catch myself thinking about it. Old habits die hard.
I listened to it on the way to Powell’s to buy books about the band in the Orange Room. Later, I would hit the Rose Room for airplane books. You can see how that ended up.
I’d listen to it while waiting for a sub at the Greek deli, but just quietly enough so that I could hear one of the old men announce that my food was ready. Maybe I didn’t need to worry because they usually just yelled.
Quality Pie had its own soundtrack. No New Order required.
I’d listen on the way to Dudley’s—another record store lost to time and high rent—where I’d buy even more New Order records and merch.
Sometimes, I’d sit in the park blocks on the Portland State campus and people-watch, daydreaming about someday joining them. Which I eventually did… for, like, three weeks.
Voodoo Donuts didn’t exist yet, but the X-Ray Cafe around the corner did. I didn’t listen to it on the way to our show there. Or maybe I did; I was in too much of a state to remember.
New Order—or rather their graphic designer Peter Saville—also habitually released records with beautiful covers. Every release was a marriage of sight and sound. Saville wasn’t picky, either; he was at home tapping into Bauhaus or Constructivist influences as much as he was classic art.
This time, though, he opted for a simple white cover with black type, not unlike a generic label.
There’s not much substance to it (sorrynotsorry) there, but in this case, there needn’t be; the music was the message.
Today, the record has sold well over a million copies and remains one of the band’s most popular and critically acclaimed releases.
Even the usually churlish Robert Christgau was effusive (by his standards, anyway), saying,
…Pure rhythm machine with an ironically mysterious overlay of schlocky melody to help it go down, this album is a case study in sensationalist art, and I say the world is better for it,” and issuing the record a rare “A.”
He’s right; the world is better for it.
As for my friends, I think I’ve given them an outline that shows both the bright & shiny side of PDX and the must-see parts Yelp doesn’t cover. I even included a couple of record stores. Whatever they wind up doing (or playing), I hope they have as much as I always did.
KA—
The Playlist:
Other sources: | Apple | Qobuz | YouTube Music| Tidal (NEW) |
I’m trying Tidal out after getting a couple of requests for it. We’ll see how it goes! Mostly, I’d like to slowly move away from Spotify and make sure we’ve got as many bases covered as possible.
Extra: Here’s a playlist of New Order’s closing tracks I did as part of a guest series at The Runout Grooves.
Now it’s your turn.
What’s been exciting you lately? Any shows you’re looking forward to? Maybe one with an early start? Whatcha got? Share your thoughts in the comments!
Kevin Sent 