The summer I met Evan B Harris, Portland was in the midst of a heatwave. People sat hot and listless on their porches, and took trips out to Crater Lake. In the backyard of my rental house, the grass grew dry and yellowed.
One evening, a friend invited me to an art opening across town. Inside, Ben Gibbard from Death Cab for Cutie was playing an acoustic set, but most of us were out in the yard, drinking beer in the lowering sun. I remember Evan, heavily tattooed and wearing a wide-brimmed hat. He asked how I was enjoying the exchange rate – in those days two dollars to the pound – and I joked I’d bought so much vintage clothing I was thinking I would have to buy a house to keep it all in.
