Dead Aunt Thelma’s Studio

Mike Moore at Dead Aunt Thelma’s AWESOME! Great engineer and a pleasure to work with. He tells you how it is and does great work! Maybe that’s why bands like Sheryl Crow and Everclear use him: D

Dead Aunt Thelma’s is one of the most intriguingly named businesses in Portland. I walk by it all the time and always stop to look mostly because of the whole mysterioso vibe the place exudes.
Thelma’s, sandwiched between busy 13^th street businesses in Sellwood, doesn’t immediately appear to be selling anything. So, of course, I’m totally interested in what they got!
A lone, old-​school microphone sits in in the front door window and the rest of the store front is blocked from view by heavy grandpa curtains.
The only other indication that this is a business and not experimental art is an intercom buzzer and a piece of black Ronco label tape with the words «Dead Aunt Thelma’s» on it.
What happens is that every time I pass this place, I stop and look and think to myself, «I gotta find out what they do here.»
And then I go about my business and promptly forget over a couple of Manhattans at Gino’s.
Eventually, I remembered to look it up and discovered that Dead Aunt Thelma’s is a recording studio. Ok. Makes sense. I’m not sure that I wouldn’t have preferred a different answer. In my imagination, it was more like the central location for a David Lynch film plot. Not so much.
I only know four guitar chords and I get rejected from American Idol every damn year so I’m unlikely to use Dead Aunt Thelma’s any time soon. But I like that it’s there.
That’s what Dead Aunt Thelma’s is to most of us. Mysterious, unusable, needless, useless, and, yeah, I like it.