The Original Jackpot! Building

moving out of the basement -by Larry Crane

In Fall of 1996, my studio, Laundry Rules Recording, was becoming too busy to run out of a basement anymore. I recall trying to record a Stephen Malkmus song for the film Sweethearts that he appears in as "coffee house singer" (directed by Aleks Horvat with actors Janeane Garofalo, Mitch Rouse, Margaret Cho, and Bobcat Goldthwait. My housemate, Francisco, was trying to put a nail in his wall two flights up to hang a painting, and I had to run upstairs and ask him to hold off. Or it might have been the rap/metal band that invited drug dealers and friends over while they sang lyrics degrading women and ran amok in my shared home. But, as you can see, the studio had outgrown my home.

I'd flirted with this idea earlier. I'd had some meetings with Adam Parfrey of Feral House, a publishing company he'd founded. I remember one night with him and Thee Slayer Hippy (Steve Hanford of Poison Idea) where long after midnight we sped out of downtown in a giant convertible, ignoring every stoplight and stop sign, to go over to my house and see the basement studio as my wife and roommate slept upstairs. Less chilling was an afternoon spent with Brian Berg at his fancy home near Reed College. We listened to some of his recordings of what later became his excellent 44 Long project/band and discussed the idea of working together, but I wasn't ready. I was wary of studio partnerships based on other scenarios I'd witnessed in California – and this wariness probably served me well later on.

I was telling friends about my plan to look for a small commercial building, and one night at EJ's (2140 SE Sandy Blvd.) I recall a mutual friend gathering Elliott Smith and me together and saying, "You two need to talk. You're both about to build the same studio." I swore for years that Rebecca Gates (The Spinanes) was the person who did this, though she denies it. Someday I'll figure it out! I'd recently interviewed Elliott for Tape Op, and in the Summer of 1996 I'd even recorded the vocals on his song, "Pictures of Me." Days later, Elliott and I met for pints at Biddy McGraw's on Hawthorne Blvd. (now Mulligan's), and discussed our plans. I mapped out that I would want to be the sole owner of the business, but that if Elliott helped me find and build out a space and bring his gear in that he could have prorated rates that would just cover the expenses of being open. I was nervous that I would be busy enough to justify this venture, so maybe a non-partner/partner would help keep the place afloat. He agreed, I assume knowing that he had touring coming up in 1997 (his third LP, Either/Or, was almost finished). I would also say that Elliott was not the best at, uh, being all that organized or proactive about anything but music, songs, and recording. It's important to have someone paying the rent and utilities on time!

We began driving around in my little blue Toyota pickup looking at rental spaces. I had actually installed an 8-track player from a thrift store in my truck, and I was forcing Elliott to listen to various classic rock tapes I'd thrifted, including Simon & Garfunkel who drew a long groan from him as he'd regretted comments he'd made about Paul Simon in the press! I recall one place that was several floors up, surrounded by offices and yoga studios, and realizing right then that landlords, property managers, and real estate folks have no idea how loud a recording studio could be, what load in was, or how sound treatment works. We drove past a graffitied-up, burned out warehouse (on what later became a very gentrified street) and kept driving, knowing we would likely be broken into every night. I have dim memories of all the places we looked at beyond those, but suffice to say it felt pretty fruitless and exhausting. As I was riding the bus to work one day I noticed a "for lease" sign on a tiny little blue and white building at the corner of SE 20th and Morrison. I dropped by later, got the number, and returned home to leave a message with the owner's receptionist (it was the pre cell phone era for most of us). I waited, and then I left another message. A number more days went by. Elliott said, "Maybe he doesn't want us in there," and wanted to give up. I called again, and finally got a call back. When we met our future landlord, Wayne Lund, we got a tour of the place.

The building was right next to Rex Recording, and Wayne owned the property they were on as well. I thought, "Excellent. He knows what a studio is." Wayne was a no-nonsense kind of guy, and owned Event Rental Communications on Hawthorne Blvd. plus had previously owned Rose City Sound. This building had been Rose City's headquarters before they moved to a larger space on SE Ankeny. By the time we toured the space, Wayne had just changed the locks on someone who stopped paying the rent after a failed recording studio buildout. Ominous. Inside, the building was full of kitchen cabinets in various states of assembly, as he had returned to his previous job to try and make ends meet. The office still had an old mattress and sleeping bag, as the former tenant had been living here. The best part was the pile of reading material: Penthouse and Playboy magazines, a manual on being a great salesman, and a bible.

Elliott and I said we wanted the place, and Wayne had us fill out forms. After a few more phone calls from me trying to get this rolling, Elliott and I met with Wayne at his office on Hawthorne. He'd attempted to run credit reports on both of us, and didn't end up with much. He kept asking Elliott, "Who did you say you work for?" to which Elliott would reply, "BMG Music, as a songwriter." This answer didn't seem to put Wayne at ease, but eventually he said, "I'll take a gamble on you guys. I don’t know why, but I think I should."

That's Elliott Smith's car to the left of Jackpot! and Rex Recording.

We signed the lease, and met up with Joanna Bolme for breakfast at Laurelthirst Pub (they used to offer this, and it was good). I told Elliott that the studio needed a new name, as the Laundry Rules name was way too similar to Barrett Jones' Laundry Room Studio in Seattle, and we'd even both hosted sessions for The Spinanes and likely others. I half-heartedly suggested Tape Op, the name of the magazine I'd started less than a year earlier, but we all agreed that was really "my" name. Thankfully so! I remember stating some naming parameters, as I'd suffered through band names like Vomit Launch and Flaming Box of Ants over the years. No joke names. No “Hot Trax” sort of names. But also, nothing too serious! Back then every table at Laurelthirst had little boxes of Trivial Pursuit cards. We all pulled cards out and scoured them for appropriate words. One of us discovered "jackpot," and something about that struck us. It was lightly funny, like, "Record here and hit the jackpot." It was also a kind of snarky take of the music biz, since so much is based on speculation and "gambling" on artists. It was also unique – I still have not heard of another recording studio with this name! I’m pretty sure the exclamation point was accidentally lifted from Avast! Recording Co. in Seattle, where I’d once visited a session with The Walkabouts and Peter Buck before moving to Portland in 1993.

So we were off. It was early 1997, we had a building, we had a name, and now we just had to clean out the space and build a wall. Little did we know the business name my pal Nate Slusarenko would pick for his little brother's record store five months later…