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Monday, January 18, 2010

They Live Here Akron/Family Move to Portland, Immediately Become Blazers Fans

Posted by Ned Lannamann on Mon, Jan 18, 2010 at 10:36 AM

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Psych-rock-jam-folk trio Akron/Family is playing a free, all ages show on Saturday at Holocene—but that's not all. Two-thirds of the band live in Portland now! I talked with guitarist Seth Olinsky and drummer Dana Janssen about their recent relocation from the East Coast. They're settling nicely into their new hometown, already become Portlanders in the only way that matters—by becoming Blazers fans. They're also looking to play some house shows in town; you can follow them on the Twitter at @akronfamily. We'll have more info for you about Akron/Family in this week's paper and on End Hits; in the meantime, read a portion of our conversation after the jump and find out who Akron/Family's new spirit animal is.

Akron/Family plays with Au and Wow & Flutter on Saturday January 23 at Holocene, 1001 SE Morrison, 6:30 pm, FREE, ALL AGES

SETH OLINSKY: They call us transients, that’s the word for us. I don’t know, I’m here indefinitely at this point. I lived in New York for maybe six or seven years and then got a little burned out. My girlfriend and I moved to Pennsylvania, where actually Dana and I are from the same little town in Pennsylvania. So I moved back there after New York for a little while, kinda needed a break from the city and got into country living and that was pretty nice, and then we wanted to change it up again actually, and so we decided to do West Coast living. We thought about LA but it was pretty expensive and a little close to New York in some ways. Portland seems to be a nice mix of some country aspects and some city aspects.

DANA JANSSEN: Everything’s like you’re camping. You know what’s incredible, though, is that it’s a good thing I came at this point, because it’s a relief to me having grown up in the Northeast. Every single winter I would freeze there, and it’s always the coldest, most disgusting, gnarliest thing you’ve ever been a part of.

MERCURY: Yeah, I'm from Connecticut.

DANA: So you know what it’s like, it sucks. So the fact that this is winter, I’m kinda rejoicing already. A little bit of rain? Whatevs. No problem, I’ll take it.

So, the real question is, why does Miles [Seaton, bassist] hate Portland?

SETH: [laughs] Miles is actually from Seattle, so he grew up out here.

DANA: He hates us, actually.

SETH: I think he really loves New York, actually. And his girlfriend loves New York.

What's it like to live separate places from your bandmates?

DANA: Thanks to technology, you can Rapidshare files over the internet and still work in a productive capacity, regardless of where you are.

SETH: This is the furthest away, distance-wise, the West Coast, but the fact that we’re here and we can work together... In some ways Portland is great because Miles is coming out next week and we’re gonna write some new material before we play that show, but Portland does provide a great atmosphere for us to get together. It’s a lot simpler to navigate than New York.

DANA: It’s so easy, everything is so easy. It’s awesome.

SETH: We met one of the guys from Menomena the other day. Brent, he was really nice.

DANA: Nice dude.

SETH: There’s talk of playing basketball, but I guess their drummer’s, like, 6’9” or something like that?

DANA: So he’ll be center. On our team.

SETH: Us and Menomena versus other people. And Dana’s gotten really into the Trail Blazers.

DANA: Yeah! I don’t get to see my team anymore, the Sixers. I only get to see them when they’re in town or when NBA TV shows the games, so yeah, I started following the Trail Blazers and it’s been fulfilling.

It’s been a dramatic season so far.

DANA: I know, which has totally got me on board. It’s like, oh no, they’re going through so many injuries, they got Juwan Howard playing 30 minutes a game, so I’m just like: I’m in. I like it.

SETH: I would like to nominate Juwan Howard being our band’s animal spirit. I haven’t followed as closely as [Dana] has, but I’m really behind Juwan.

Don’t say that. He’s gonna get hurt.

DANA: Juwan ain’t gonna get hurt. That guy’s bulletproof, man.

SETH: I like Juwan Howard.

DANA: He’s the man.

SETH: I’m into it.

DANA: But I don’t know, it doesn’t really seem to matter as much, because, you know, their bench, like Jeff Pendergraph, stepping up and earning his keep. It’s great. Andre Miller… Can we just talk sports for a while?

Our music editor, Ezra, live blogs the games, he has a press pass.

DANA: Ezra, can you get me into these games? Dude, I’ll go in and blog. Keep me in mind.

 

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