Published by The History Press
Charleston, SC
www.historypress.net
Copyright 2017 by Laura Pope
All rights reserved
Front cover, top left: photo by Andrew Edgar Photography; top center: photo by Karl Koga; top right: photo by Andrew Edgar Photography; bottom: photo by David J. Murray, ClearEyePhoto.com.
Note: The dozen essays in this book by Laura Pope are updated versions of pieces she wrote for a column called The Public Garden for the Portsmouth Herald in 200102. The Portsmouth Herald is one of several newspapers owned by Seacoast Media Group.
First published 2017
e-book edition 2017
ISBN 978.1.43966.206.9
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017938340
print edition ISBN 978.1.46713.760.7
Notice: The information in this book is true and complete to the best of our knowledge. It is offered without guarantee on the part of the authors or The History Press. The authors and The History Press disclaim all liability in connection with the use of this book.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form whatsoever without prior written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
FOREWORD
AND THE BEAT GOES ON
DENISE J. WHEELER
Once upon a time, between the days when its wayward waterfront was a boozy haven for sailors and todays intoxicating array of upscale cultural, culinary and consumer options, Portsmouth was a city where you could come to fulfill your creative callings. Rents came with artist-friendly price tags. There was ample parking on streets flanked by beautiful historic buildings. A museum and an arts festival were coming of age along the mighty Piscataqua Rivers edge. Locally owned shops nurtured a unique sense of place.
Golden memories pave the streets of cities around the world that have revitalized to the point of gentrification, and Portsmouth is no exception. As of 2016, ours is a city with one foot forward and one behind. Beyond the seemingly simple choreography of moving onward is a complex sequence of deliberate steps and random stumbles that have alternated over the years from a hustle to a ballet; these stories are told in this collection.
As Portsmouth moves forward and new opportunities unfold, this volume shares the voices of those who carry a specific segment of the citys history in their DNA. Natives and the native-ish, with two or more decades of living here under their belts, reflect and revel in the wonder and loss that carried Portsmouth from a gritty, dynamic stage to a shinier, taller one teeming with tourists.
I think back on my nights as a twenty- and thirty-something arts editor in the early 1990s, running around the city from music venue to music venue with fervent abandon. Folk legends, the most literary of songwriters and proficient of performers, like Greg Brown, Shawn Colvin and Taj Mahal, would be playing at the Unitarian-Universalist South Church or in Prescott Park. R&B from Rockin Jake would keep us dancing til closing at the Rosa. The Elvis Room was kinetic and sticky, hosting up-and-coming punk rockers like El-Vez and the Donnas.
The local rock music scene I stumbled on seemed to be a colorful, talented and prolific microcosm of what was going on in Seattle and Austin. The bands to see back then, in no particular order, were Heavens to Murgatroid, Fly Spinach Fly, Say Zuzu, Gandhis Lunchbox, Thanks to Gravity, Groovechild, Grover (soon to become Pondering Judd), Scissorfight, the Doc Johnson Blues Band and morelots more. Those I followed tended to play across the bridge in Kittery, Maine, at Nortons, upstairs at the vaunted Press Room and at the Portsmouth Brewery, where the bass hammered through its subterranean lounge.
There were lines to get in everywhere on the weekends, and when we funneled onto the streets at closing time, we could feel everyones appetite for adventure and kinship. That led a good many of us to Gilleys diner for chili dogs. Some mornings, the evenings heady sense of possibility segued to a relentless throbbing, because, even twenty-five years ago, it was nearly impossible to buy aspirin downtown. But good coffee? Mercifully, Portsmouth had plenty of that.
In the center of this orbit of musicians and their fans was Kevin Guyers independently owned Rock Bottom Records, a record store that the book and movie High Fidelity could have used as its model. Local audiophiles networked, sold CDs, contributed to its fanzine and, sometimes, even worked there.
Tom Colletta, the lead singer of Gandhis Lunchbox, was behind the counter, and he had an opinion on just about every band spanning every genre on the planet. Colletta was that rare, iconic lead singer figure, a staple of the local music scene, with personality, quick-to-rev-up energy, a real fashion sense and an almost robotic ability to mentally catalog scores of bands and shows, big and small. He was a master raconteur and showman, known for jumping on stage and joining in with other bands. He once joined Sharon Jones at the Music Hall. Afterward, she joked that he should join her tour.
The rock community was not a group donning leather jackets, out for their own gain. The performers showed genuine respect for and developed friendships with their fans, the owners of the venues and the members of other bands. They played charity events, raising thousands of dollars for fistfuls of causes.
Theres no question Portsmouth had been discovered by the time I came here in 1991 to start a weekly arts publication for the Portsmouth Herald.
Residents had long been watching their working port city morph into a boutique destination.
Whats different about then and now is that there was still a sense that the city was a place where multiple demographics could come, settle and contribute to its wealth of beauty, character and culture. There was hope that Portsmouth would watch its artists backs; that the line between cultivating neighborhoods and tourism would be walked with balance, especially after the trauma inflicted by urban renewal.
When the fulcrum shifted, it was time to start humming the revitalization blues.
Ours is a country with story after story of cities where artists, local entrepreneurs and community advocates lifted up neighborhoods, only to have gentrification whistle past them, move in next door and change the vibe. We could join in a communal chorus of woe with Greenwich Village, Denver and even Detroit, a city once synonymous with urban apocalypse. We all know change happens. Just this week, the daily paper had a front-page headline: Big Debate over Future of Portsmouth. The real difference between Portsmouth and other thriving cities is its history. The stories you will read here show change as both the virus and the antidote.
I was not privy to all facets of the local arts scene, but the long view is that Portsmouth is made up of survivors passionate about their work and savvy enough to sustain it. In the early 1990s, there was an event worth going to just about every night; its still that way today.
