Portland, 1999-2004: From Indie to Pop

There's this new Mirah remix double album that comes out next month. There are two remixes of her old song "La Familia" on it that make Mirah sound like the Postal Service only, because it's actually a good song, it doesn't suck. Actually, it's very very good.

But this got me to thinking about what production does to singer-songwriters. I was first introduced to this Olympia/Portland nexus of amazing musicians whom I love (Mirah, the Blow, Jona Bechtolt, the Badger King, Dear Nora, etc.) right after I moved to Portland when I was eighteen. There was this amazing Microphones song called "Oh Anna" that I fell in love with in the Fall of 1999. It was a rerecording of Khaela Maricich's song "Ana and Ollie" by Khaela and Phil Elvrum, who would briefly establish himself as Olympia's preeminent producer. Shortly thereafter, Khaela began recording under the name Get the Hell Out of the Way of the Volcano and, later, the Blow. Phil Elvrum, then known as the Microphones, would later become known as "Phil Elverum" and record under the name Mt. Eerie. A year later, Mirah's first album came out on K Records and I never listened to Modest Mouse ever again (there's a deeper story there, as some of you will know). The year 2000 was also the year indie rock died once and for all.

Between 1999 and 2001, I saw Mirah a number of times, most of them sitting on the floor of the Ping Pong Room, watching her also sitting on the floor singing her amazing songs. During this time, she was playing the greatest bunch of songs written by anyone in the last fifteen years, most of which ended up on her landmark 2001 album Advisory Committee. Mirah, you need to know, is also the greatest solo performer I've ever heard play. So I came to love these songs as solo singer-songwriter compositions until Calvin Johnson told me about Advisory Committee, in which Mirah let Phil Elvrum do what Phil Elvrum does to other people's songs (cf. "Oh Anna"). Phil had just released the album that triumphantly killed indie rock once and for all, 2000's It Was Hot, We Stayed in the Water. That album pushed the boundaries of lo-fi recording so far and so innovated the guitar-punk lexicon that there was nowhere left to go. That same year, Modest Mouse released their major label debut, Sub Pop Records signed the Shins, and Nathan Good, who was the only thing keeping Death Cab for Cutie listenable, quit the band. So Calvin told me that Phil was taking Mirah's brilliant songs, which were already perfect all by themselves, and creating something huge and grand and wonderful. Phil and Mirah had just come out with two of my favourite records of all time, so, by all rights, their collaboration should have been the best thing of all time. But I was skeptical. Mirah's songs are unassailable; Phil couldn't have wrecked them. But, at the same time, it was impossible to live up to their original contexts on the floor of the Ping Pong Room with just Mirah and her guitar. Advisory Committee turned out to be the best album recorded by anyone in at least fifteen years. But it wasn't an improvement on the solo versions.

The next year, Calvin and Khaela (then known as the Blow) came through town on something called the Talent Show Tour. I'd already seen her perform solo in some church in Southeast Portland and I had her hand-silkscreened Get the Hell Out of the Way of the Volcano cassette, but, at this time, she was still known as the girl who sometimes sang on Phil's Microphones records. Between bands, they had people from the crowd go up on the stage and perform, hence the tour's name. After Thanksgiving played, some kid did an improvisational dance. People clapped politely. Then some other kid recited a poem. People were getting restless but, again, clapped politely. Then Khaela got on the stage, only most people didn't know who she was. She said, in a timid voice, "I wrote this song for my boyfriend," and started playing. Badly. She kept screwing up and having to start again. The crowd was visibly and audibly impatient but, because this was a Portland pop scene crowd, nobody was rude. Then weird beepy noises came out of the PA and Khaela started performing songs that sounded a lot more like the Blow we know today.

After he changed his name to Elverum, Phil began making less and less interesting music. Mirah and Khaela would eventually both move from Olympia to Portland. Mirah even gave me a few songs for compilation records I put out. Around the time I left Portland, my favourite band, the Badger King, was breaking up. But then Jona Bechtolt, half of the Badger King, began working with Khaela and the Blow became a band. This was better than Mirah and Phil. Khaela and Jona's talents complement each other so perfectly that the Blow instantly went from a very interesting performance art project with one foot still in the singer-songwriter tradition to the best pop band in the world. The Blow's Poor Aim: Love Songs EP came out in 2004 and everyone I know loves it.

Mirah "We're Both So Sorry" (Solo)	Get the Hell Out of the Way of the Volcano "That Boy" (Khaela Solo)
Mirah "Advisory Committee" (with Phil)	The Microphones "Oh Anna" (Khaela with Phil)
Mirah "La Familia"* (Remixed by Chris Baker)	The Blow "Fists Up"* (Khaela with Jona)
* = brand new
bonus tracks:
The Microphones "Get the Hell Out of the Way of the Volcano" (Phil solo)	Mirah "Advisory Committee"** (Solo)
The Microphones "The Glow" (Phil with Khaela)	Mirah "La Familia" (Original Version)
The Badger King "Red Ships of Spain" (Marianna Ritchey and Jona)	Khaela Maricich "Ana and Ollie" (Solo)
Dear Nora "You Looked Like a Portrait" (Katy Davidson and Ritchey)	The Microphones "The Glow, Pt. 4" (Version)
Calvin Johnson "When Hearts Turn Blue" (Produced by Jona, with Khaela and Mirah)	The Badger King "Red Ships of Spain" (Original Version)
** rare — only two other people in the entire world have a copy of this show.