North By Northwest -- Portland Rock-Conference Sessions Indicate That It's Back To '70S And '80S Basics For Today's Bands

PORTLAND - Rock-'n'-roll past met rock-'n'-roll future here over the weekend and there was a strong resemblance between the two.

One of the panels at the North by Northwest Music & Media Conference examined the grand and tortuous history of "Louie Louie," the most famous and enduring of all rock songs, which sprang from the wild Portland/Seattle scene of the early 1960s.

On the stages of the two dozen clubs that hosted more than 300 bands Thursday through Saturday nights - the real heart of the fourth annual music-biz regional gathering - most of the music didn't stray far from the standard verse-chorus-verse and simple rhyme scheme of that great classic. A lot has changed in the 35 years since the Kingsmen, a Portland band, had a national hit with "Louie Louie," but rock basics remain the same.

Sampling some 30 bands over three nights, it was apparent that the punk and post/punk movement (which included grunge) is moribund, if not dead. Young bands seem to be reverting to the linear ideas and familiar pop structures of the pre-punk '70s and '80s. Many of the bands could have used some of the feral energy, subversive eroticism and primal fun of "Louie Louie."

Dave Marsh, the distinguished rock critic and author of the definitive book "Louie Louie" (published by Hyperion), moderated a panel that included Jack Ely, the largely unheralded vocalist who was pushed out of the Kingsmen at age 20, before "Louie Louie" made it big.

Now a horse trainer at the Crooked River Ranch in rural Oregon, the slim, slow-talking Ely explained that his famously unintelligible vocal was the result of primitive, one-track recording techniques - and the fact that he had a mouthful of braces crisscrossed with rubber bands . "I couldn't open my mouth very far," he said.

After the governor of Indiana tried to ban the song as obscene, J. Edgar Hoover's FBI launched an investigation, harassing composer Richard Berry and everyone else associated with the song. Berry had already sold his rights to it for $750, and Ely didn't get much either.

"I made three grand," he said after the presentation, adjusting his straw cowboy hat. "That's the only check I ever got."

Rock is still under government attack, according to Krist Novoselic, formerly of Nirvana, who was the most outspoken and articulate member of a panel on rock-as-scapegoat, disingenuously titled "Can Music Really Make You Murder?"

Dressed in a dark suit and tie, and with a demeanor just as serious, Novoselic urged young rock fans to become politically involved, a la JAMPAC, the Washington state lobbying group he helped found to influence legislation regarding rock and rap music, nightclubs and related topics. When an audience member said bands like Marilyn Manson challenge authority, Novoselic retorted, "Marilyn Manson takes controversy to the bank."

He urged meaningful action against politicians who attack rock and rap ("this kind of issue looks real good in campaign material") through political organizing.

One new wrinkle in rock that was a hot topic at NXNW was the Internet and its effect on the music. Controversy flared at several panels over whether the Web is a great new way to make and distribute music without involving corporations, or is just another means of marketing music.

"I think the big boys are gonna muscle in because there's so much money involved," Art Alexakis of Portland-based Everclear said in a musicians' panel. One result he envisions is mass music marketing on the Internet. "I'd be surprised," he said, "if there are still record stores 10 years from now."

No income from record sales

Alexakis brought sobering reality to would-be rock stars in the audience when he said "I still haven't made dime one from record sales," despite the fact that Everclear's major-label debut album, "Sparkle and Fade," sold more than 1.3 million copies, and its current follow-up, "So Much for the Afterglow," a little over a million. The costs to launch and promote a successful group - which the band ends up paying - eat up the profits from the first three or four albums, he explained, unless they sell in the multimillions. "I make my money on (music) publishing and touring," he explained.

Seattle-area attendees got a look at the changing face of rock criticism at two local weeklies, in a panel that included Everett True, the new music editor of The Stranger, and Jackie McCarthy, who became music editor of Seattle Weekly 10 months ago.

McCarthy said the Weekly's music section "is still under construction" and is thinking of adding a nightclub column.

Tough journalism

True, formerly of Melody Maker, the British rock weekly, where he championed Seattle bands in the late 1980s (popularizing the term "grunge"), promised tough, highly personal rock journalism.

"I think you'll find that most writers are a lot more interesting and entertaining than most bands," he quipped. "So The Stranger's music coverage is going to go that way."

A Seattle band True has already trashed, the Western State Hurricanes, got much favorable press for its set at Poker Face, a clothing store stripped to the bare walls each night of NXNW and turned into a music venue. Centered on the virtuoso playing of nondemonstrative guitarist John Roderick, the music featured his contrasting vocals with aggressive riot grrrl bassist Stephanie Wicker.

Among other notable Seattle bands were Muzzle, which also played Poker Face and proved to be tight, entertaining and fun; and Truly, at the venerable dive Satyricon (famous as the place where Kurt Cobain met Courtney Love), which incorporated drum loops into its modern-edged traditional rock.