Well it appears that that a local transplant of six years has discovered a bit of sad news for local music history. Willy Week music editor Casey Jarman has unearthed that one of the most important and influential venues in Portland is closing its doors to the public forever in October.
Satyricon, whose stage has carried the weight of such legendary musical acts as Nirvana, the Dharma Bums, Dead Moon, Poison Idea, Hitting Birth, Crackerbash and the Dandy Warhols – along with pretty much every single punk or underground rock band ever to have toured through the Northwest – is being demolished for a children’s shelter. The trade-off takes the wind out of any real opposition, but it still marks the death of a certain, special era in portland.
The city that works used to be a gloomy, drippy, yet-to-be-super-condo-ed gray haven for junky creativity. Some of which means nothing to kids today. But all those bands helped mold and shape pop in its current form, and believe me, all the good stuff floating around the indie scene owes its soul to that movement. So, as more of downtown becomes usurped by white affluent monyfied culture mongers, they destroy a culture’s past and replace it with their future – free of punks and grimy dark corners, free of landmark all-ages music venues like Satyricon, once the longest-running indie rock nightclub on the West Coast.
Goodbye Satyricon; apparently the world no longer needs you. Until they do.
– Paul Valladon
