The X-Ray Cafe was a small music venue in Portland , Oregon , United States from 1990 to 1994. An all-ages and community-oriented club, the X-Ray played a "heavyweight role in shaping Portland's underground culture ", fostering such musical acts as The Dandy Warhols , Dead Moon , Elliott Smith , Team Dresch , and Quasi , and hosted national acts like Bikini Kill and Green Day and was described by Details as one of the best rock and roll clubs in the country. Located at 214 W. Burnside St., it was characterized by a surreal environment and performers; owners Tres Shannon and Benjamin Arthur Ellis, who took over the U.F.O Cafe to establish the X-Ray and were in the band The Kurtz Project, encouraged acts that featured instruments that aren't typically associated with rock music, like Big Daddy Meatstraw, who performed on stage in clown costumes. As grunge and alternative music were emerging in Portland and Seattle under a national spotlight, the X-Ray served as an important stage for smaller acts in the genre, and along with nearby Satyricon nightclub , established Portland as an important regional performing destination for touring bands.
9-462: The X-Ray was in operation from 1990 to 1994. An archival recording of the Dead Moon concert on X-Ray's closing night, August 16, 1994, was released by Voodoo Doughnut Recordings. A few songs into an already cathartic set, marked by the themes of an ending epoch and an inevitable changing-of-the-guards, singer and bassist Toody Cole remarks to the crowd, "What a way to see the old girl go!" The old girl
18-501: Is both the venue–the widely venerated, black velvet painting-decorated X-Ray Cafe and the community it created. The club is the subject of a 2000 documentary, "X-Ray Visions," directed by former owner Ellis. Owner Richard "Tres" Shannon III has remained a prominent figure in Portland. He booked music for neighboring club Berbati's Pan, and later opened Voodoo Doughnut . He has also run for Mayor of Portland and City Council , and founded
27-504: The Ash Street Saloon in Portland with the reformed Poison Idea . Loomis played drums for a band called The Shiny Things from Longview, Washington . Andrew Loomis died on March 8, 2016, at the age of 54, from cancer. Fred Cole died on November 9, 2017, at the age of 69, also from cancer. Toody is known to play a late-1960s semi-hollow Vox teardrop bass guitar, due to its shorter-scale length and ease of use. She often plays through
36-584: The Past tour, Dead Moon announced that they were breaking up. Their last gig was at the Vera club in Groningen on November 26, 2006. The Coles formed a new band called Pierced Arrows with the Portland punk musician Kelly Halliburton (whose father played in a band called Albatross with Fred Cole in 1972) of Severed Head of State, Defiance and formerly Murder Disco X. Pierced Arrows played their first show on May 18, 2007, at
45-498: The U.S. The Tombstone label also provided cheap mastering and duplication for other bands, serving more as a co-operative than a promotional vehicle. Though the Coles were in their fifties, they showed no signs of slowing down on their 2004 release Dead Ahead , continuing to tour until 2006, when they released the Echoes of the Past compilation. In December 2006, near the end of the Echoes of
54-573: The band's recordings and mastered them on a mono recording lathe that was used for The Kingsmen 's version of " Louie Louie ". Their early records, such as In the Graveyard , were released on the Tombstone Records label, named for the musical equipment store the Coles operated at the time. Soon they caught the attention of the German label Music Maniac Records, and toured Europe successfully. Not until
63-423: The deaths of Loomis and Fred Cole. The band released ten studio albums, six live albums and three compilation albums. Dead Moon was formed by singer/guitarist Fred Cole , singer/bassist Toody Cole and drummer Andrew Loomis. Veterans of Portland's independent rock scene, the band combined dark and lovelorn themes with punk and country music influences into a stripped-down sound. Frontman Cole engineered most of
72-602: The innovative karaoke band Karaoke from Hell . The X-Ray Cafe was the site of a small but controversial riot in 1993. 45°31′23″N 122°40′22″W / 45.523188°N 122.672733°W / 45.523188; -122.672733 Dead Moon Dead Moon was an American rock band formed in 1987 in Portland, Oregon . The band consisted of singer/guitarist Fred Cole , singer/bassist Toody Cole and drummer Andrew Loomis. Dead Moon initially disbanded in 2006, before reuniting in 2014 and disbanding again in 2017 following
81-678: The mid-1990s did they tour the United States. Much of their following was in Europe. A U.S. filmmaking team consisting of Kate Fix and Jason Summers produced a 2004 documentary, Unknown Passage: The Dead Moon Story , which played in independent theaters in the U.S. and New Zealand and at the Melbourne International Film Fest, and was later released on DVD in fall 2006. Dead Moon has recorded for labels such as Empty Records, but most releases are on Music Maniac worldwide and Tombstone in
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