January 08, 2003
Bringing Local Music to Local Kids
Sticking with the WW for one last item, there's this mention of a plan by local all-ages club The Meow Meow:
Meow Meow, the li'l romper room upstairs at 527 SE Pine St., long ago surpassed the newtlike average life expectancy for all-ages clubs. Now, tireless club commando Todd Fadel intends to add to his altruistic empire with a monthly CD series, aimed at turning the Kids on to that crazy rock-and-roll beat. Fadel figures Teenland is crawling with potential fans for local bands, but radio and other castrato commercial outlets give young'uns precious little chance to hear anything besides frickin' Good Charlotte. "I just think they don't even know what they'd be into until they heard it," quoth Todd. So starting in late January, Fadel will bless the world with compilation CDs featuring bands scheduled to play Meow Meow and other PDX acts.
The CDs will be handed out free to high schoolers by Meow Meow volunteers. Were I still regularly checking out local music, the Meow Meow would be on my short list of haunts. Back when I was spending at least two nights a week checking out local bands, it meant a lot of time at the late, lamented 17 Nautical Miles during that all-ages venue's final months.
Interestingly, the former location of Nautical (which used to be a laundromat) is now part of the Delta Cafe. It's quite the surreal experience being in there now and seeing how much it doesn't look like a dank and gritty basement anymore. Strangely, when I was there recently to see a friend play, no one seemed to realize it was the old Nautical space until I pointed it out to them.