Street roots
March 1, 2013
MARCHFOURTH, from page 8
the bus when we tour.
S.Z.. M 4 are much like traveling minstrels
in that you tour a lot, you share stories o f
Portland with other places and stories o f other
places with Portland. Give me a peek into what
tour is like fo r MarchFourth, a little vignette
that exemplifies M 4 on the road.
J.A.: The atmosphere and life on the bus
are pretty chill. Because there are so many
of us, people tend to get really small with
their personalities on the bus. There isn’t
room for all of us to be popping off and
being wild and crazy.
An interesting phenomenon is that we’ve
built a community of hosts around the
country. We can’t afford to get hotels. We go
for cheap or free lodging. Most of the time
we stay at people’s houses.
All over the country there are households
small and large that welcome us back.
People have put us up and let us sleep all
over their floor; put us up in spare
bedrooms, or let us put tents in their
backyard. We do our dishes, and we usually
leave places looking better than when we
found them. And we’re really kind of proud
of that. It’s great. We roll back into town,
they know we’re coming, we put them on
the guest list, they bring a couple of friends.
After the show, we all go to their house and
so we’re building these relationships with
our audience. Some of them are relatives of
people in the band, that’s how it started.
But now it’s fans too.
We’ve had moments where we’ve had to
announce from stage, “Hey we don’t have a
place to stay tonight, so if anybody has a
place for a 45-foot bus to park, come talk to
our merch person.” It works.
S.Z.: How many days a year are you on
tour?
neighborhood your home base for the past 13
years, since you moved to Portland. What are
some of the changes you have seen in that
time?
John Averill: The Alberta of 12-13 years
ago was a little more ‘punk rock’. It felt like
a small town kind of happening versus a city
destination, a trendy thing to do. The
biggest thing I’ve seen change on Alberta is
the green space disappearing. I walked
down the street yesterday and looked at
some of these new businesses. They look
like they belong up on 23rd Avenue in
Northwest. I love Alberta - 1 still do. I’m not
dissing it. When you live near a street for 13
years, you get attached to your little vistas.
I love that there’s a venue on Alberta —
The Alberta Rose Theatre. That’s maybe
one of the best things that has changed
about Alberta. I like the idea of being able to
walk to get everything that you want to get
out of living in a city.
and homelessness in your travels?
J.A.: There is poverty all over this
country. I was in L.A. recently and we had
parked the bus on this side street off
Sunset. A friend of mine, she has a house
there and I went walking around on this
hillside and I saw these little paths. So I
started following them. There was just a
sprawling hillside with no development on it
or anything, it was near Dodger Stadium. I
found a home that someone had built out of
woven twigs. It had a little table and chair
and it had flowers. You see some pretty
ingenious structures as far as homeless
camps go.
S.Z.: Have you any
thoughts on the
importance o f art and
music education in
our schools?
J. A.: Thoughts
S.Z.: What about Last Thursday?
J.A.: I am a friend of Last Thursday, but
it’s kind of a clusterfuck. There are just a lot
of people. It’s not just people coming from
the neighborhood. People are coming from
everywhere. A good thing becomes popular,
and it attracts people. That’s what happens.
I think it should continue, regardless.
S.Z.: As I understand it, you are living out
o f a storage container.
J.A.: I1 m staying with friends and house
sitting. I put all of my stuff in storage in May
because of the touring. Basically, I paid rent
in a house — the only way I can afford rent
in Portland is to share a house — that I
didn’t really live in. So in between tours, I
now have the option of whether or not I
want to come back to Portland. I’ve got
places to stay all over the country, so I’ve
that it’s way
underfunded and
under valued by
society in
general. You
teach kids how
to create and
problem solve
at an early age
and you
encourage
them to have
resources to do
cool things, you’re
going to get a
society
of
very
functional, creative, integrated people. You
cut all that funding and you’ve got a bunch
of people that watch TV.
My fantasy is that MarchFourth could
tour as an art project. A step beyond
MarchFourth being sustainable as a band, it
would be great to take excess money and
put it into school programs. I would love to
give back in that way.
There is a program that Ariel, one of our
dancers, started. She doesn’t dance with us
so much anymore, but she started the Joy
Now Foundation. Basically, there are two
camps a year and they’re camps for kids of
all ages up through high school. She’s taken
the MarchFourth model and music as the
study material and she puts this camp
together. Former MarchFourth members —
those that don’t tour anymore — are part of
the teaching staff and they work with
these kids over a weekend and they
learn a handful of MarchFourth
songs. The camp culminates
with a performance or a
parade down Alberta.
S.Z.: “Joy Now” is kind of
your rallying cry.
J.A.: Yes. It comes from a fan
from Bloomington, Ind., who
presented us with a banner at a
show at the Kennedy Center in
Washington D.C. Stevie Jay
showed up and held up this giant
sign in the audience that said,
“Joy Now, Bitches.” We thought it
was the funniest thing ever. He gave
it to us and we dropped the bitch
and kept the Joy Now.
started treating Portland like another tour
J.A.: The last two years, it has been about
200 — each year.
S u e Zalokar: You have called the Alberta
stop. I’m just here more than any other
place.
S.Z.: Have you any experiences with poverty
"My fantasy is that MarchFourth could tonr as an
art project. & step beyond MarchFourth being
sustainable as a band, It would be great to take
excess money and put It into school programs."
— JOHhl AVERIL
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