East of the river, the stretch of Burnside Street you are on serves as the transition zone between inner and outer southeast Portland and has functioned for two decades as the center of Portland's independent music scene. East Burnside, between the bridge and roughly 28th Avenue, hosts a concentration of music venues, recording studios, practice spaces, and music-related retail that has made this corridor the spine of Portland's underground rock and experimental music communities. The Doug Fir Lounge, opened in 2004, is the venue most associated with the aesthetic that made Portland a destination for independent music acts — it sits adjacent to the Jupiter Hotel, a converted 1960s motor lodge that has been the preferred lodging of touring musicians who want to stay in the neighborhood they're playing.
Mississippi Studios, which you may have visited on the north side, draws from the same community. Portland has produced an unusual number of nationally significant indie bands — the Decemberists, Elliott Smith, Modest Mouse (based partly in Portland), Sleater-Kinney from nearby Olympia — and the east Burnside corridor is where that scene has its physical infrastructure. The food cart pods and coffee shops along this stretch serve the musicians and the audiences who sustain them.