Branx
320 SE 2nd Ave Portland, OR 97214Phone: () .
Located in: Southeast Portland & near Downtown Portland - Visit Website
BarFly's Review of Branx
(note: this is a Branx/Rotture 2 for 1 combo review! Don't say we never gave you nothin')
Branx (the first floor space) expanded in 2011 into a full size, all-ages, rock club, with full bar. Unfortunately, the kids get the prime real estate, while the adults are cornered in the back of the room. The speedy service at the bar keeps things flowing, but claustrophobia is always a popular topic of conversation at shows here. It doesn't help that the room sweats like a rain forest, even on winter nights. Note: you'll find the entrance to Branx on 1st Ave.
Rotture (the second floor), in its many previous incarnations, alternately housed such failure and such hopes, from B-Complex (the electro-palace that wasn’t) to the preening preciousness of Meow Meow, but Rotture (Italian for both rain and tears and pronounced with a Canadian 'eh?' at the end) is by now a fixture among Portland music venues, its fingers throttling the much-too-frantic pulse of the mod fops and rock fops and post-electro-clash refugees.
It's all fashion-forward booking and fashion-damaged people—the bathroom stalls have been shed of their locks, for presumed legal reasons—and always uncomfortably gills-stuffed on the Beyonda soul DJ nights each second Thursday, so that the smoking porch becomes the de facto social lounge.
Along with Tube, Rotture's one of the only places known by name to those impossibly pretty, nervously overstyled Lewis & Clark or Reed girls—college kids are the new townies, after all—and so they surface on Soul Night like Neriads from the deep, flush with daddy’s money, wondering: is that all there is to the circus? Note: the entrance to Rotture is on 2nd Ave.
Well, it's not much to look at, but sometimes that is a good thing. Branx is a dark place where music can be itself with no fancy uptown light shows to distract from the sounds The complete lack of aesthetic is kind of refreshing. The bartender could be better and the venue could maybe hire a female, but the doorguy is usually a friendly one. I heard they have a new sound system in there but I haven't heard it yet.
I go there once a month as my friends do the night Various. I like it. I have never had a problem getting a drink. BT are nice and the place is dark and aweseome. Its changed a lot since the B/complex. Those that like Dubstep and jungle shuodl check out Various every first Sat!
We're actaully starting a new monthly club night there on the 19th (this Saturday). Its downstairs from Rotture. Cool, dark spot with great sound. Not a well known spot, but very promising. I really like what they're doing with that whole building now.
