Spaced

Adventures on MySpace, Starving Weirdos, and a peek at the new CenterArts season

(July 10, 2008) I’m not really into MySpace. I heard they upgraded the whole thing recently, but it doesn’t seem any different. It’s just as slow and clunky as ever. But despite the shortcomings, I end up using it pretty much every week to check out one band or another.

Today I was taken to Space by accident. It happened like this: On the 4th-o-July I spent most of the day at a party at my friend Vinnie’s house. A few bands played in his backyard: a raucous punk band called AMA from the Co-op where Vinnie works, then Brett the Truck with a special guest fiddler. I missed their set because, believe it or not, I had a haircut appointment that day. I stopped off at the Plaza after the trim to see the always awesome Ishi Dube and Massagana tearing it up, but was back at Vinnie’s in time for a wild ambient/noise set by a pickup band combining Vinnie and Merrick from the Starving Weirdos, Erin from Pipe(s) of the Doctor of Witchcraft on electric fiddle and a guy I know only as Shoegazer on keys. I shot a few pics and sent one to Merrick the next day.

GALLERY >

So today I get a message from Merrick saying thanks for the photo, and, “feel free to pump our next event: Sunday, July 13, at steve’s (across from the clothing dock). bbq beforehand, music at dark or 9pm.”

He then included links to the MySpace pages for the three Portland-based bands coming: “youth oriented maraca mosh-ers” White Fang (/whtfng), “healing vibes” White Rainbow (/whiterainbowwhiterainbow), Rob Walmart(/robwalmart), “ghetto beats from a parked van,” plus his own “Manila floor-core” band, Starving Weirdos

(/starvingweirdos). He added, “actually really looking forward to this one… should be our last public performance for a while… we’re gunna hunker down and get our Euro-set in order. [They’ve booked a tour over there for later this summer.] so no more gigs till we get back in Oct.”

So I wouldn’t forget, I copied the whole e-mail and pasted it in a Word doc I’d started for this column. A while later I was mousing around and I guess I accidentally hit the Weirdos link. Their page opened up in my browser and there I was. Lost in Space. First thing I did was re-Friend the Pipe(s) (/pipesofthedoctorofwitchcraft). I don’t want to get into the details, but we were Friends, then we weren’t, now with a click of the mouse and an invite, we’re Friends again.

Then I figured I’d better check to see if I had new Friend requests. I had one from “Melissa” who does not appear to be a real person. (She wants me to see her “naughty pictures.”) Another came from Alisa Turner, a songstress from “Everywhere” who is real, but whose name I did not recognize. I clicked on the “View Mutual Friends” link. We share two: the anti-folk singer Regina Spektor and John Ludington, a “folk/lyrical/progressive” songwriter from Eureka (also one of The Tao Jonesers).

John just happens to have a CD release party coming up Saturday, July 12, at the Jambalaya. Bouncing over to his page, I was able to hear some of the album and learn more about it. Some Glitterwas recorded 10 years ago, “but it’s awesome so we’re putting it out there,” says John, adding, “Since then I’ve written mostly stories while continuing to steer clear of as many ‘normal’ chords and progressions as possible. An album with recent material will be out spring ’09.” John’s style is something I’d call post-folk, taking the genre in new directions to spin literate tales. He mentions traveling up and down the West Coast with a “stilt-walking ballet” where he provided the soundtrack. Is that how he ended up here? I don’t know. I don’t think we’ve met in person, although we are Friends and we share 29 Friends in common, including Regina and, now, Alisa, who I’m hoping will come out this way sometime. By the way, Quitzo and Setting Sun share the bill with John that night.

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