For The Record-16. August. 2025

Some thoughts on the bygone music venues that once meant everything to us.

“It had a sort of dreamy quality, and you never knew what was gonna happen.”

I recently found myself on the phone with a friend trying to direct him to where the X-ray café was…or rather, once was. You should know that I am awful at giving directions, like awful enough so that on family trips, my kid at some point will sigh and take the phone from me to run things from the backseat.

Nevertheless, I was doing my best- this was a relatively easy place to direct someone to. Still, more importantly, it was incredibly important not just to Portland's history, but to my own. The X-Ray café was a 'third space' before any of us knew that term existed (and a pizza place before that).

One of the harder things about growing up in strip mall Babylon is that there isn't much there. Sure, if the garden hose memes are anything to go by, it was a wonderland--and to be fair, it was pretty rad--but when you're into shows, living somewhere with no music spaces is a drag.

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