Wesley Allen Hartley is leaving.

One of his bands, Dead End Armory, was among the early group of local acts I encountered when I moved to Portland in 2008, and I was immediately drawn to his songwriting and performance, which often took on an highly caustic and unpredictable nature. I love danger in music, and you’ve never heard so much danger in a man’s voice as Wesley Hartley solo in a dark room with an acoustic guitar, or fronting a rock trio on the verge of destruction while climbing on everything in sight, or decimating the expectations a Port City Music Hall audience as his alt-country group raises the bar for everybody, or, damn, doing the honor of kicking off a friend’s going away party at SPACE. Tonight at Geno’s, celebrate all the great music this friend has brought to Portland with the Wesley Hartley Farewell Show presented by Leif Sherman Curtis, featuring performances by Aleric Nez, The Coalsack in Crux, HeeBeeGeeBees and a very special duo set by Wesley Hartley and Leslie Deane (of Dead End Armory/the Traveling Trees/There Is No Sin). 9:30pm, $5. Wish Wes luck and say “thank you” from us.

Peter McLaughlin interviewed Wesley last night over a case of Sebago Lake Trout Stout, a bag of Humpty Dumpty ‘All Dressed-Up Chips,’ and a can of Pringles (Original Flavor). Special thanks to Scott Nebel for unwillingly providing the beer, Tim Alan Walker for willingly providing the chips, and Henry Jamison for, well, being there.

HT: What is your earliest memory?
WAH: I was wearing a camouflage cowboy hat at the age of four, shooting a bow & arrow into a fucking sparrow’s eye and I felt really bad that I had killed it. It was kind of unintentional but intentional at the same time. It’s what they call bloodlust. It went through one eye and out the other. Then I went and saw how beautiful it was and yeah… Never wanted to kill anything else again.

How about your first love?
First love was a girl named Robin. I think I was like eight or nine. However old you are in the second grade. I took her out on this boat that had a hole in it and we road through this apartment complex pond that was green because they had put this chemical in it to kill the algae. So it was just this green puke disgusting pond that bread three headed fish like you’d see on The Simpsons. People would fish in it still. I took her out on this boat and romanced her. I kissed her on the lips and that was my first kiss. I told her not to tell anyone even though I didn’t really know anyone… But I never told anyone till years and years later. Robin. Robin was her name.

Around the same instance, there was a really profound moment… I was running around with this group of people. They were older kids and they had jumped this other kid for some reason. I remember he had blue like snow clone dregs around his lips. They pretty much beat him senseless and I sat there and watched it and pretty much couldn’t do anything. When he walked away crying, I went home and sat in the bath tub and cried most of the night. Then my Mom asked him what happened. I told her this kid with blue snow cone lips had been beaten up and it wasn’t right. That was kind of a beautiful moment. The first time I can remember feeling compassion for a person I didn’t know: an outcast because he had blue snow cone lips. I had been beaten up a bunch because I had big ears, but I usually did the beatings. People would pick on me and I had to retaliate. But this kid couldn’t fend for himself because he had blue snow cone lips. He couldn’t control it. Maybe he could. I don’t know. Read on…

Leave a comment   interview   interview, wes hartley