The B-Side is Genius
The door you've been looking for

by Sam Soule for pdxguide.com
February 2005

Sometimes you've just got to say what you feel.

After scratching out a variety of exclamatory paragraphs regarding the latest bar to open on lower east Burnside (aka "LoBu" — yes, that hurts), my best summation rests in a single statement, both off-hand and direct, much like the bar itself.

That is to say, the B-Side is GENIUS.

I say GENIUS because the B-Side is an effortless and totally brilliant addition to one of the most over-rated entertainment districts in Portland. Not to mention the fact that the place is a damn fine, no-frills watering hole in its own right (note: beer and wine only). And it couldn't be more accessible; if Portland's a dart board, the B-Side is its bulls-eye. Which makes LoBu — FINALLY — a relevant destination. Imagine that.

Anticipation for the opening of this inauspicious bar has been great. It seems like I've been hearing about the B-Side for months.

Credit that to the popularity of B-Side owners Tanya Podolske and Joel Denton who, before going into business together, were individually well-regarded faces in the Portland bar circuit — Podolske having worked most recently at The Basement Pub; Denton a fixture at Club 21 for years.

So it was no surprise that when the B-Side's doors opened for business almost three weeks ago, Podolske and Denton's combined text-and-call cellphone campaign packed the place, to the rafters. That is, if the B-Side had any rafters. But, you know, that's really just part of the B-Side's charm. Part of the genius. Space.

Another part of the genius: less.

As in, it really is amazing what you can do with a simple high-ceilinged room when you decide not to mess with it too much. A little royal blue wall paint, some rather large and obscure-looking paintings, minimal lighting with fixtures made from drum kits and X-ray prints and, well... there you go. Welcome to the B-Side.

Oh, yeah — there's this enormous concrete bar against the right wall with perhaps the widest bar-top in town. The thing doesn't even look like concrete, it looks like smoky wood. And given the sparseness of the room's lay-out, this massive bar has the dominating of presence of a... I don't know... an altar?

This austere feel is in fact by design — the design of smart bartenders. Without the distracting visual noise of television sets and poker terminals — that's right, sports fan, NONE — the bar is enlivened first and foremost by the company it attracts. (Bartenders KNOW.) After that, factor in the power of pinball (one on hand, another coming soon) and a solidly ass-kicking jukebox — the selections on which re-kindle the punk-and-rock spirit of one Denton's previous places of employ, legendary 90s-era rock club EJ's — and you've got a drinking establishment as solid as, well...a freakin' concrete bar.

Now, on slower moments at the B-Side (rare, thus far) the vaulted space of the room echoes. Some find that discomforting, and baffling for the ceiling and house stereo advancements are promised to combat these roomy silences. Whatever. That cavernous feel is part of the B-Sides's charm, part of the genius. In echoes there's history — and that's a force which reverberates with surprising tenor in this weeks-old establishment.

A 12-Stepper might know, but you don't. (I'm not, but I did.) Prior to being the B-Side, the space of 632 SE Burnside was home to Scully's, one of Portland's most infamous "old school" meeting halls for Alcoholics Anonymous. Nice bit of irony there, huh? And though the motto stenciled across the face of Scully's front door — "This is the door you've been looking for" — has been tastefully removed (keeping it might just have been genius OVERLOAD), Denton reports that there have been instances since the B-Side opened of folks walking in for an AA meeting, obviously not paying heed to the extreme interior renovations, massive concrete bar and nine tap handles.

Yes, the B-Side lacks nothing in colorful historical grit. Above the bar hangs a poster discovered during renovations advertising a local pro wrestling exhibition from, by Denton's estimation, sometime in the 1940's. That's older than Portland Wrestling! And then there was that menu stuffed inside Scully's old tract-plastered walls, the one that designated the B-Side address as once being a bar called The Boondocks. The Boondocks! Now that's OLD Portland. That's the rough-and-tumble port spirit this town needs to reclaim.

But what brings the B-Side home, is it's name. That's pure genius.

(Though, according to Denton, the location's AA history and its close proximity to the Hooper detox center did inspire two almost-as-brilliant name alternatives: "Retox" and "The Thirteenth Step.")

B-sides were once songs packaged on the flip of seven inch singles that were perceived by record companies as being obviously inferior to the more marketable A-Side. These were songs meant to be ignored. But geek collectors and snotty music heads (you see them any night at the B-Side bar) know these were the songs that so often RULED — sort of like how after years of local hype selling the (now failed) Bossanova music hall and the (now stuttering) Doug Fir/Jupiter Hotel
scenester complex, the component that finally makes LoBu "happening" boils down to a simple beer hall.

Okay, that might be a stretch, but you know what I'm trying say: the B-Side is the LoBu flip, the tune Portland's more vital bar crowd wants to hear. Let Gresham and the West Hills spin the Doug Fir. And in a town like Portland where most new nightspots sacrifice authentic appeal for contrived image, the B-Side's true-to-its-environs attitude (unintentional, kind of magical) and lack of visual pretense (mostly intentional, maybe a little because they're just opening, I don't know) make it seem foreign, like a bar tapped into a history the rest of this town has forgot.

And, yeah, that might be a bit romantic. But I'm the guy who will miss the echoes if Denton gets around to installing that baffling.

If only the B-Side would put out a pot of free watery coffee for those poor afflicted souls who mistakenly wander in looking for relief. I know I would appreciate it.

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