Famous musicians I've almost known

The public radio station in Portland used have a Friday night radio show, In House, playing mostly local releases with occasional live sets. On the nights I didn't make it out of my apartment, or after coming home, I'd tune in, cook something, live my life.

I'm writing from a place of nostalgia- remembering things better than they were. I listen to old PDX Pop Now cds and I know that the music was rarely as good as I thought it was. On my train ride now, I meander through Leonard Cohen's catalogue, or I play the same Paul Simon songs on repeat. I understand myself better and it makes life easier.

The first musician I knew personally was John Fahey, who worked in my stepdad's bookstore, writing a novel upstairs while I did homework. Fahey is well-loved by guitar people, but when I knew him, he lived at the Union Gospel Mission and drove around in a Ford Pinto full of junk. Memorably, he told me what John Steinbeck told him: everything is a song.

I courted music for myself at the Grand Theater, a venue in Salem, Oregon, that brought down the best bands from Portland in 1993 and 1994. There, I saw Hazel, Pond, the Spinanes, Quasi. We would get to the theater early, stay late, and talk to the bands before and after sets. Somewhere I must still have the playlists. Later, as we got older, we drove up to Portland to see Elliott Smith, Sunny Day Real Estate, Modest Mouse, etc. play La Luna. Modest Mouse played terribly each time we saw them, too much drinking, and La Luna was a firetrap. There were countless interactions at the merchandise table where I bought recordings I already had for the privilege of silently handing moneys to people I secretly adored but about whom no one else much cared.

One of the best shows was Pond at the Oaks Park Roller Rink on my friend Adam's birthday. We skated around while the band played.

My friend from school, Andrew Cameron, with whom I played guitar for some fleeting afternoon in eight grade, later gained notoriety as musician in Mexico, with Polka Madre.

It was hard to see good music in Vermont, but some great stuff came to school, including Josh Ritter, Idaho, and the Roots. Anais Mitchell had the radio show after mine on WRMC and complimented my playlist once or twice. After graduating, Kris and I drove back west. We stopped in Missoula, Montana, and met a guy who was in Tarkio, which was Colin Meloy's band before the Decemberists. We asked at the record store where we could find Tarkio tapes, and the guy was bitter- we may have been the first people to pass through, looking for the excitement that left him. Later, Danny M was Chris Funk's neighbor, and I got to feed the famous guitarist's chickens while he was out of town.

In Peru, I fell completely in love with huayno music, and danced my way onto the stage with Dina Paucar and Sonia Morales.

Returning to Portland, music was less important to my life. I'd motivate myself to go see Mirah or Billy Bragg or Sun Kil Moon at the Aladdin, because it had seats, but I didn't listen to anything made before 2003. It was only by happenstance that we ended up in a bar on Alberta to hear a very early set of y la bamba-- I  met them later, introduced my a mutual friend, on the night my bike got stolen. The mutual friend played in Hearts and Minutes, and they're great, but I never managed to see them. Also, my friend Maria was friends with Donna Dresch, whose music I had loved back in the aforementioned 1994.

I faithfully attended nearly every show of Mary Shelley, for whom my friends David and Ray played drums and cello, respectively. More than I miss the unravelling sweaters of 764-HERO, I miss the grinding noise of David's side project in an unbreathing bar on Alberta, some July night.

Now, in New York, there is music? I got to see Jeff Mangum a couple times, and the Magnetic Fields. Oh goodness, and some great shows with my friend Lou, who manages bands. So yes, this is wonderful, I have had some peripheral contact with quasi-famous musicians. Lucky me.