Portland, Oregon, has long been known as a creative hub on the West Coast, yet its music scene often gets overlooked compared to bigger cities like Seattle, San Francisco, and L.A. Specifically, in the club music scene, Portland frequently finds itself as a secondary market, with headlining acts playing in the larger cities up north or down south on weekends, oftentimes leaving Portland with midweek slots, if the A-tier headliners come at all. This pattern can hinder a city’s music scene from reaching its full potential and is often due in part to factors like a lack of venues or the overall promoter and club culture.
Enter the Secret Grove Collective, a group determined to reshape and redefine what underground dance music means in Portland. We had the chance to chat with Daniel Maloney, the founder of the Secret Grove Collective and owner of the Secret Grove venue, about what makes Portland’s scene special, the challenges it faces, and his vision for the future. With several successful shows already under their belt and growing momentum, there’s no better time to get Daniel’s insights on their journey, lessons learned, and what’s next.
Let’s dive into the interview with Daniel Maloney, the driving force behind one of Portland’s newest premier venues for quality underground dance music.
What do you think makes Portland a unique space in terms of music and live event spaces?
This is an interesting question to answer because it seems to be changing consistently over the last 3-5 years. The majority of music events in the electronic and house music genres are run by promotion or collective groups. They create events with either local artists or touring artists and host the events at number of different music or event venues in the city.
There are a very limited number of venues that are dedicated to electronic music.
With the closure of a few key venues, we have now stepped into the role of the only dedicated house and techno public venue. There are a few exceptions that are running some fantastic underground events. What really makes the scene here special is the pop-up and renegade scene. In the summer you can stumble across tons of different groups and sounds of underground, warehouse, and park events. Sometimes planned – sometimes not. This is where we as Secret Grove started. Small renegades or warehouse shows strung together by a dedicated group of music lovers.
Are there amenities or qualities that other cities with bigger markets have that you wish Portland had?
Variety in venues.
I come from the east coast US where the scene is established to a point where you can go out most nights and find house or techno shows at several venues. In Portland there are very few dedicated spaces for this music. When you find it, it’s quality. The issue is finding it.
We have set out to achieve this goal, starting with Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and soon Sundays.
How has the city changed musically since you’ve been involved in the music scene in Portland?
This is a difficult question for me to answer since I have only been here for 3 years. What I have seen in my time here is a strong push to bring more of this music to experiences in Portland. There are a lot of groups that vary in age, experience, and sound that are putting on great events in the city.
This is huge change from when I first arrived post-pandemic where the scene was limited to 3-4 well established groups. It’s an exciting time to be a part of a city’s re-emergence in a music scene. We work with several of these groups and look forward to connecting to many more of the established or emerging cultural movements.
What holes or gaps in the industry are you hoping your space to fill? What needs of the community do you want to meet with the venue?
We aim to be a reliable, dedicated, house and techno music venue in Portland. To have the option to go to a cocktail bar/music venue any night of the week and listen to high quality live performances is a goal we feel is achievable and certainly in our wheelhouse.
What we believe sets us apart from other venues is our no cover policy for local resident nights. We want to be approachable to the local music community and by not charging a cover, we feel this is the best way to remain accessible. As artists ourselves at Secret Grove, we want music and community to be the focal point of what we deliver as an experience.
We also want to maintain the pop-up/pop-in mentality of our roots where many of our events in the past were free and open to the public.
Tell me what you think is the most exciting part about the music scene in Portland right now!
The energy of so many groups of artists hosting events across different genres and spaces. With the variety of different venues in other cities or markets, there is less open opportunity because the spaces are saturated.
With a limited number of public or commercial music venues dedicated to house and techno, there’s a vast blue ocean of opportunity in Portland for new, emerging, and growing artists!
The post How The Secret Grove Collective Consistently Brings The Best Dance Music To Oregon’s Club Scene appeared first on Magnetic Magazine.