The Ash Street Saloon is Rock-n-Roll Fortified

By Sam Dodge Soule, pdxguide.com

Over the past two years, downtown's Ash Street Saloon has shed itself of its long-standing reputation for being a music venue catering to Portland's shimmying hippie and watered-down blues communities for that of being one the most promising up-and-coming underground rockin' clubs in the local scene.

It's been a slowly evolving process, involving a revolving door of in-house promoters, but today you can catch bands of a typically roughshod ilk seven nights a week on the Ash Street Stage.

The emphasis on the Ash Street's musical calendar is local music. Competition for the ever-dwindling supply of touring independent rock bands is fierce, though the Ash Street does manage to land some notable bigger names that other local clubs with more clout might overlook. As of right now, the Ash Street distinguishes itself by being one of the few local rock venues that does not pad their nights with easier to support DJ's, opting instead to comb the town for full bands and fill their schedule with raw, decidedly organic, sounds.

The Ash Street has a rather charming feel of crumbling grace. The front door dumps you onto a bar typically inhabited by crusty punks, teetering old drunks and the rare lithe bike messenger who has strayed around the corner from Captain Ankeny's, a well-known HQ for the Rose City fashionable two-wheeled delivery system. A cozy space, to be sure, the bar and the hardwood floored band room it opens onto are dominated by walls of royal purple and exposed brick. They are separated by series of somewhat imposing archways.

On particularly busy nights, a bar opens up on in the corner of the hardwood floored performance space. A fringe of purple couches line the backside of the room. To its credit, the Ash Street has one of the most fan-friendly stages in town, approximately four feet high and extremely modest in size; few venues in town provide as intimate sense of connection between artist and audience as the Ash Street. For those looking for a reprieve from the brash entertainment, there is a small and enclosed back patio surrounded by neighboring two and three story buildings, a serene little pocket of calm with an almost Old World feel.

For the hard-drinking and budget minded, the Ash Street offers one of the most affordable Happy Hours around. Seven days a week, from an astonishingly accommodating 4 p.m.-8 p.m., well drinks and items on an abbreviated bar menu can be purchased for a low impact two dollars a pop -- with impact on the alcoholic strength and grease saturation scales, respectively speaking, being very, very high. We' re not talking glamour here, just the tight-fisted sensibilities and hard-living essentials that couldn't suit Portland' s vital rock-n-roll scene better.

The dinner menu, all white bread and mealy meat portions, cannot be recommended. This should not be seen as a significant criticism of this establishment. People don't come to the Ash Street for fine food and atmosphere. They come to rock, and get rocked.

After a prolonged happy hour spent over several throat-blistering gin and tonics and solid hamburger pucks dropped in the gut, one is nothing less than rock fortified and primed for the night's show.

Way primed.

The opinions expressed within are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of pdxguide.com or The Columbian Publishing Co.