“Forest Dwelling Hippie Weirdos”: A Pacific Northwest Perspective

1. Greg’s Sage Perspective

For anyone who didn’t grow up in the Pacific Northwest, there’s a story that Greg Sage tells that is particularly apt when getting at the heart of our relationship to the outside world. The year is 1980. The Wipers are doing pretty good with their regional hit, “Better Off Dead,” which was self-released, even. There’s a bit of a scene happening in Portland, and as he starts to collect this motley crew of oddballs (Smegma), punks (Stiphnoyds), retro nerds (Napalm Beach) and girl groups (The Neo Boys), his tiny label — Trap Records — might have some juice outside of the local scene. If we rewind the clock to the previous generation of Northwest acts, they were only ever successful “regionally.” (The Sonics, The Kingsmen, The Wailers, etc.) Greg started to surmise that if punk from LA and NY was getting major label attention, perhaps he could at least get some larger distribution for his 45s as a by-product of this trend. He knew other people through the grapevine who said it had worked for them in bigger cities, and the impending Wipers record he was slaving away over was the perfect item to try and get bigger distribution for. 

Ever the go getter, Greg does the research, finds the names of the key people who make deals for record distribution at various mid-sized national labels that deal with punk and new wave bands, and he starts making calls as the, “Trap Records Rep,” to see what his chances were. Usually, the calls all started roughly the same: “Hello, I represent an independent label, with a roster of New Wave acts.” And everything would be going great; these were, after all, companies used to distributing this kind of stuff. This wasn’t strange, right? However, there would be a point in every conversation where they would ask, “So, where are you from?” And when Greg would answer with, “Portland,” there would be a moment of silence, the most imperceptible laugh — as if someone just realized there was a joke being played on them — and then a sharp click. 

It was the same everywhere he called. 

People forget that the canonized view of putting the first three Wipers albums into some sort of punk rock Valhalla has to eventually come to terms with the fact that during the three short years that those records were being made, The Wipers were essentially unknown outside of hardcore punk rock nerds, and people who lived in the Portland area. Even 10 years later, when I was coming up as a young record collector, you could still find a lot of the back-catalog used in stores for a few dollars. Certainly, Nirvana did a lot toward changing their reputation tremendously, and the difficulty with which it was to find those first three albums AFTER they covered “D-7” was the indicator that the Wipers were suddenly becoming “known.” 

There is more than just humor to the idea that most record distributors in 1980 couldn’t believe that punk rock or new wave could come from the Northwest. It points to this larger reputation that we have with us, that not even the Grunge Revolution of the ’90’s or the eight seasons of “Portlandia” can get at. Maybe “Twin Peaks” paints a better picture of Northwest life, or better yet, “Northern Exposure,” a show set in Alaska but is so much about rural Pacific Northwest life that it is hard NOT to read it as such. Suffice it to say, there is a strangeness, let’s say, to this region. An oddness that seems to permeate, not just our punk rock or our TV shows, but the very way of life that many of us lead. We grow up next to conservative pot smokers in Oregon, who are side-by-side with Lexus-driving deadheads who are the CEOs of major tech companies. Kids of every sub-culture in the Northwest make pilgrimages to The Country Fair in Eugene, a drug-infused bacchanalia of Grateful Dead parking lot style shenanigans. But, of course, only on the weekends; everyone has an 8 AM meeting with clients from San Fransisco tomorrow. There is a duality and a strangeness that moves through all of the Pacific Northwest. For many states, they are quite excited about Legal Recreational Marijuana. In the Northwest, it has essentially been “legal” since 1969. While simultaneously having one of the most conservative liquor commissions in the United States. 

This conservative weirdo / urban deadhead persona that the Northwest carries with it is no better personified than by a comment I got from someone I met in Virginia in 2003. My girlfriend and I were going out for a drink, and we met up with some locals she knew vaguely. In the commotion of chatting and introductions, I was talking with one girl who was about to start her Sophomore year at VCU. In my sweater and bow-tie, in fairly decent, educated English, I tried to explain to her where I was from. She looked at me quizzically, cocked her head, and in a thick southern accent, said, “You? Live out with those Forest Dwelling Hippie Weirdos? What are you, in the Peace Corps?”

As proudly as I can hold my head high, I would like to introduce you to the Forest Dwelling Hippie Weirdo from Salem, Oregon, as I try to present our little corner of DIY strangeness to the readers of the Electronic Cottage. 

​2. Origin Story 

I grew up largely in my mom’s record / book / comic store, “a.k.a. Used Books & Records,” which was located in Cottage Grove, where I graduated from High School. In the late 80’s / early 90’s, you would probably find me there, either listening to George Carlin records, or reading Green Lantern comics, dreaming of other places. It was through her and her girlfriend that I first learned about Science Fiction, and as I sat in that store, imagining what hanging out with Ray Bradbury might be like, I began to imagine myself as some sort of writer, not really knowing what I was going to do with that. I loved listening to the radio, I imagined myself in bands too, but the fantasy I came back to was that of traveling the world, going from Sci-Fi convention to Sci-Fi convention, selling my new space novels about time travel… or something. 

This fantasy entirely fueled my desire to publish some sort of literary magazine, inspired by back issues of “Analog” and a magazine my school had compiled, of student writing. But my vision was something student run. In a story that is incredibly strange and much longer than I should get into here, I managed to talk my way into making four issues of a magazine of student writing and fiction that was financed by the school, titled, “Bob’s Imagination.” The first issue was published in March of 1993, and I distributed 100 copies to my friends, classmates, and to a couple of local stores. (At one point, the Cottage Grove Library had a copy that you could check out and read.) For about a week or so, I imagined that I would do this for the rest of my life: read fiction submissions and wade through poetry, trying to pair it all with the right artwork. 

And then JP Otto gave me a copy of his zine, “Shrapnel.” 

I’d never seen anything like it. Music reviews, sarcastic social commentary, collages. It was… unlike other things I’d read. It was knowing, it didn’t have all the trappings of formality. It looked like… something I could make. It had an attitude and a style that I could relate to. And I was probably going to be better at it than these intense spy stories I was trying to put together. 

When the last issue of “Bob’s” was paid for, and I had graduated, I immediately took the lessons of “Sharpnel” and continued making ’zines, and as I began to find shops that sold them, and places where I could get more, I began to immerse myself in the world of DIY, and everything connected to it. 

By the fall of 1993 I had moved to Eugene, where I met Semi-Colin, kiisu d’salyss & The Ramen City Kid, and they completely reshaped my view of the world in ways that I still feel here and now. They all had their own ’zines: “The Portal” for Colin and kiisu, and “Ramen City USA” for you know who. But their interest in music and other art very quickly revealed to me something more fascinating than the hair metal I was previously enjoying, and certainly more sophisticated than the Nirvana albums I was humming along with. As I began to see how DIY culture was connected, they took me to my first DIY show at Icky’s Teahouse, with Holy Rodent, an experimental act! It became very clear to me that I was no longer interested in being in Bon Jovi. Now, I wanted to be in a small band that could play at Icky’s, which seemed much easier to do than it did when I was in High School.

All three of them were in this band, and in the following year, Cathead — which had been largely talk and a few practice sessions up until then — began playing shows. On Halloween of 1994 I was recruited to join the band. I had fantasies of making music, and had even recorded some home-made stuff here and there. When I would sing along with They Might Be Giants, I could imagine doing something like them. But playing that show with Cathead that night blew my young mind in a way that no album had ever done, and no book would ever do. I lost myself in that night, where I met scads of people I’d never seen before, experienced performing experimental music for the first time, spent the night partying with strangers and women who were introducing me to thoughts and ideas I’d never had, and I knew that there was something happening in my head that I could never turn off, even if I wanted to, which I certainly didn’t. 

I listened to the radio A LOT growing up, and in Eugene, they had KWVA, a college station that had punk, indie, DIY and experimental music on the radio, along with a lot of other stuff, too. (To this day there is great radio on this station.) ’90’s College Radio was THE way to learn about music outside of record stores and friends handing you albums directly, and I listened to more than my share of it. Inspired by listening to recordings of Negativland’s radio show, and hearing stuff that was in an adjacent vein on that very same station, I took my years of listening to it and synthesized it into an application for a show, and got on the air by April of 1998, again, largely through talking my way in and suggesting that I might have almost 100% more experience than I actually did. 

Between 1992 and 1999, I went from a teenage weirdo who longed to see the world outside the small town I was living in — a town that I was convinced would never offer my anything — to someone who was producing DIY ’zines, music and radio of which I was quite proud. And, I didn’t have to compromise on the content of the stuff I was making at any point in those early years. Rarely did anyone come in and say, “You can’t play this!” I never got mail saying, “Don’t print stuff like this.” It was so empowering to be able to make the stuff I wanted, the way I wanted, without anyone ever getting in the way, and I didn’t even realize how important that was, or that I had something special, unique, or unusual. Once I had it, I sort of expected it, and figured that if I could do it, anyone could. I wasn’t any smarter than anyone else. I didn’t have any more skill than anyone else. I just wanted to do it… so I did.

Eugene, in many ways, is the perfect place for a young artist to begin their life, and it is an analog for what the rest of the Northwest is also like. In the heart of a place that is being re-defined by the culture of hippies and DIY / punk rock, this new perspective is incubated among religious conservatives, backwoods hillbilly rednecks, and a landscape that looks like some sort of mystical rainforest from a fantasy novel. There are contradictions in everyone here, and in the mid-90’s, Eugene was cheap, had plenty of jobs, and had a wide range of people making strange music and wonderful ’zines to keep any kid occupied. Mysteriously, I discovered that Semi-Colin’s mom worked in a bookstore, and again, talked my way into a job I was very much not nearly as experienced to do as I may have accidentally implied, and that was how a corporate chain of bookstores funded my young creative life until I decided to go to college. 

It was in this kind of environment that Austin Rich was born. 

​3. Resulting In… 

In just over three years from today, I will have been making my own version of art for 30 years. What happened in the time between would be a blur of completely forgotten nights folding and talking into microphones if I didn’t have decades of recorded radio shows to listen to as a sort of “diary.” Those zines certainly do a lot to help keep the timeline in order, too, when I try to recall where I lived when I was in what band, or who was I living with when I was on which radio station. Living as cheaply as I have over the years has sort of caused me to need to live out of closets, boxes, storage units, basements, and anywhere I could suddenly move into when one thing dries up overnight. Suffice it to say that in that time, I still play in bands, I still make ’zines, and I still make radio. Maybe not all three all at once; I would take a break from bands to focus on ’zines, or take a radio break to get a band going. But those three things have been at the focus of most of my waking thoughts, for almost three decades now, even during the down-time. And all of it was produced with what extra cash I had lying around, and with no one else ever cracking the whip, to tell me when I need to turn my drafts in, or when I need to write a song. 

The bug to keep making things with a DIY spirit seems to be a part of the Pacific Northwest way of life in all the artists I know and love here. We are all incredibly proud of the work we do, and we love sharing it and showing it off as much as we love weirding people out with the oddness of all of it, too. The most reasonably looking people I know, with very straight jobs, give me a look when they reveal their music to an audience, an impish look, like they are very excited about possibly freaking out the squares… mostly because it’s what the squares all want in the end, anyway. They expect it out here. I’ve seen some crowds in Oregon get mad because an experimental show is too boring. It’s a strange dance we all participate in out here. There’s a meme going around about the bar in Salem where I put on shows, which is almost 100% a result of a show that I put on: “Went to the Space Just For Food And Now I’m At A Noise Show.” No one seems to think it's as odd as it once was.  

​It’s certainly not exactly easy to be a weirdo, though. Some of the same problems we had in the 90s are still common here, too. In my county, we have consistently voted “red” in the last several elections. Even my city is split almost in half, in terms of voting, with a strong conservative streak in the City Council. Venues close as fast as they can pop up, and when one place starts having DIY shows suddenly, that doesn't mean it will continue. I can still get a negative reaction out of some locals for playing the most straightforward music, and it’s not like everyone walks around listening to experimental jams and quoting everyone’s self-published manifestos in the Northwest. Like in a lot of places, our scene ebbs and flows, we gain and loose venues and shops that sell our stuff, and we are always trying to find ways to continue doing what we do, often with fewer and fewer resources at our disposal.

But I’ll close with this anecdote: my wife grew up in Salem, and when she first started going to shows, the idea of a monthly showcase of experimental music of any kind just wouldn’t have been possible, at any venue, and any weirdness occurred when John Fahey’s experimental trio would play out occasionally (which is another story entirely). But here in 2020, a monthly showcase is now a reality; the aforementioned and memed Space Concert Club has had monthly Experimental shows for a few years now… sometimes more often than that, depending on the month and who is touring through. (It was one of the stops Mark Hosler made on his Northwest tour, where I was lucky enough to be his opening act.)

I was just contacted the other day about playing a show in Cottage Grove of all places, a town that I STILL can’t imagine being into experimental music, and yet, here we are, 30 years later, about to negotiate playing at a place that I'm sure I rode my bike past in High School, wishing I could find real culture in a real city. In many ways, the more things change, the more they stay the same. On January 24th, I played samples in an experimental band at a show almost exactly 20 years after I played in an experimental band at a venue one block away, a band that also had pre-recorded samples in our songs. 

So I must be doing something right. 

4. Mission Statement 

Between radio, playing and going to shows, and being an avid fan of ’zines and music and film, it occurred to me that the scene I get to participate in might suffer from some of the problems that Greg Sage was experiencing 40 years ago: the perception of the Northwest might make any understanding of what happens here seem dim, or incomplete, or backwards, compared to more metropolitan areas of the United States. We have a sense of the entire world via social media, certainly. But there are some true gems in the Northwest that might not be known outside of it, and we may be experiencing a regional scene here in a way that is only really understood by the outside world to be more ‘Forest Dwelling Hippie Weirdos’ doing their thing. And, certainly, there are genuine Forest Dwelling Hippie Weirdos out here, too, making experimental music that you should, in fact, hear. (Forrest Friends comes to mind off the top of my head.) So I hope to use this node as a way of bringing some of this to the Electronic Cottage community, not just as a way of documenting the experimental music world that I get to experience, but to also keep me back in the habit of writing like this in a regular way. 

We’ll see how successful I’m able to be at this project. In the meantime, it seems appropriate to offer some insights into my own work, and the art and stuff that I make. Here’s a rundown: 

Mid-Valley Mutations (midvalleymutations.com): A continuation of the experimental radio program I’ve been doing since 1998. It’s had a few different names, and been on several stations, has had stops and starts, and has even been a podcast-only show for a while. But it’s now on KLFM.org in Split, Croatia, and is podcast just afterwards (you can find it in iTunes, or most podcast aggregators, or you can just listen to it from the website, or download the shows at your leisure). The show is usually produced between 8 AM and 10 AM on Sunday Morning for later broadcast, and we do try to stream that video live, when possible. We’re hoping to have a proper studio with phone and Skype interactivity in the future, but for now, it’s a low-tech operation that I love doing.

WTBC Radio In Beautiful Anywhere, Anywhen: (anywhenanywhere.com): This podcast is part of the They Might Be Giants Dial-A-Song network, and features interviews and live performances, with artists and musicians that I find interesting, largely in the experimental world, but there’s all sorts of people on this show (past guests include the members of Negativland, Zander Schloss, Hal McGee, univac, Jan Freya (the woman who wrote, “Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo”), Rodney Anonymous, Little Fyodor, and many others). This program alternates, every other week, with Mid-Valley Mutations. (You can also find it in iTunes, or most podcast aggregators, or you can just listen to it from the website, or download the shows at your leisure.)

Mini-Mutations: (wtbc.bandcamp.com): This is a collage-based solo project I'm in that produces “Audio Essays” and cut-and-paste mash-up music, with a focus on different political themes and ideas that I've been considering. This is the thing I play in the most, and is usually what I’m making, musically. There’s often a Mini-Mutation component to almost every new episode of “Mid-Valley Mutations,” so you can get a taste for free on the radio before actually buying anything. What a bargain!

The Olsen Twins Ghostlight Ensemble (midvalleymutations.com/totgen): This is a free-improv group that I play in, where I perform synths and samples, along with our guitar player and percussionist. This is a new project, that just began in 2020, though we’ve been recording since 2019. There’s a couple other musical projects that I participate in, too, but those are still in the beginning stages, and we'll see how they go...

’Zines: (wtbc.bandcamp.com/merch): Along with CDs, tapes, and lathe-cut records of my bands, you can also find a number of ’zines I’ve produced and / or written for sale on my Bandcamp page. The most recent 'zine is titled, “The Ghost In You,” a collaboration with artist Jeremy Hight, which is a 100 page novel, with editing and design by Austin Rich, all wrapped in an attractive vellum cover. 

Video: (youtube.com/user/BlasphuphmusRadio): While I only recently began producing video, in terms of my overall output, I’ve become quite fond of it as a format. All of my videos end up on my YouTube page, for now.

And, of course, there’s always the old-fashioned way: austinrich@gmail.com

Be seeing you!