Dig dig dig

A recent post in Oh Dog (first post here) lead to me listening to a couple of live Elliott Smith shows. The first one, which I didn't finish, was from the Roseland in November 2000. But I just listened to the short set played at Umbra Penumbra in September 1994, supposedly his second live show solo. It was gorgeous, with a lot of early songs, like many of my favourites from Roman Candle. It sounds like there's all of 10 people in the audience; in any case they were very quiet. I can imagine Elliott might have been very nervous playing this new acoustic stuff live when people mostly knew him from the loud, rocky Heatmeiser, but the songs still come off with a certain confidence, well, confidence in an Elliott sort of way.

I did a bit of searching on stuff about Umbra Penumbra, which I thought I remembered as more of a coffee shop that did performances than a real club, which I think is the case. I can't figure out though if it still exists or not. I thought it was long closed. One link that came up in my search was the alphabetical listing in Willamette Week of who played at the North by Northwest festival in 1998. God, all these bands and places that I'm reminded of when I scroll through the list: beloved LaLuna, EJ's, Satyricon, bands like At the Drive-In, Citizens' Utilities, Creeper Lagoon, Hummingfish (a earthy kind of band that played at my university a few times), The Jimmies, Jr. High, Kind of Like Spitting, Kerosene Dream, The Maroons, Pinehurst Kids, Richmond Fontaine... I think all of those bands are no longer. Also most of these bands I only know by name, seeing them listed time and time again in Willamette Week and The Rocket. Seeing their names still makes a late-90s feel rise in my head.

Some bands or artists are actually still around now: Death Cab for Cutie, Damien Jurado, Pedro the Lion (um, except I think I read that they just broke up)...

A couple of other listings of note. A "Charles M Palahniuk" is listed, and at the time of this festival, it was a year before he was boosted to worldwide stardom due to the Fight Club movie. Miss Murgatroid, Portland's queen of the accordion, played along with Petra Haden (though WW spelled her name "Hayden" and "Haydn"), preparing the latter for her recent days with the Decemberists.

I should bring myself back to the present now and remember that it's not Portland circa 1998, but it's much more fun to pretend that it's still then.