road journal : q/a with starfucker’s ryan biornstad

They’ve given up silly name changes and they’ve given up on the labels that asked for those changes. They’ve given up compromising their artistic integrity and values… wait Starfucker has values?

What thankfully remains true is that Portland’s most adored indie-electro-pop darlings Starfucker will be releasing their second album under their god-given, started-as-a-joke name after inking a deal with Polyvinyl Records’ West Coast office in San Francisco.

Yet, the latest press release from their new big box publicity company officially refers to the band as STRFKR (even misspelling the new abbreviated/acronymed moniker as STFKR in the title of the email… man those letters are difficult!). Although, it seems that Starfucker long ago accepted this fate when they reverted back to their original being, using the letter mash in for their current MySpace URL (myspace.com/strfkrmusic) and even allowing the family-friendly-spell-out-expletives-because-Johnny-is-too-young-to-understand-and-easily-fooled-by-comic-strip-cursing-#@$%!-approved Starf*cker.

Do you think all the past name changes have hurt Starfucker at all?

Succinctly and assuredly put: “No. It made it better,” says Ryan Biornstad.

Throughout it all, one thing has remained constant: the music. And the fact that Portland wants more of it. Playing their biggest gig to date at the Roseland Theater on Wednesday, October 20th, Starfucker has been co-headlining their current tour with the tight experimental pop of Austin’s The Octopus Project–traveling together and trading off nights as the closer depending on the city or whichever band ate the most cherry pies at lunch. Joining the tourmates are Portland disco-funk favorites Strength and indie-pop rockers Super XX Man.

OMN spoke to Ryan Biornstad on the phone from Washington DC when the band had just breached the two-week mark of their five-week tour and was heading to Philadelphia. Here’s the dish on Starfucker’s new album out in March (if they meet all their deadlines), a road diary of their creepy adventures, and a freshly “amped up” live show featuring tight new tracks off the new album. And you can bet your sweet ass that means new costumes!

Listen to the first single "Julius," available for purchase here...

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q/a : four years of horror : strength’s ‘darker’ sophomore album

What are three art school, almost 30-something white boys doing making funky, sexalicious music? Not asking for your permission, Strength is telling you, “Let’s get down” with the release of their second–long, long, long-awaited–album, Mind-Reader. The self-produced, recorded and released album comes out on September 3rd, coinciding with a CD release gig at Holocene with Fake Drugs, DJ Copy, and DJ Patricia Furpurse.

Feeling up MJ and Prince for their goodies, the California-natives but PDX-transplants since ‘03 set out to make a horror-dance album but got distracted along the way by their normal shenanigans of sexy electro-funk-soul. And why shouldn’t they get diverted? …While diverting themselves with their tongue-in-cheekiness. Ridiculous lyrics, indelible riffs and thumping beats make you wanna get up and freak your girl while trying to lay her down.

Looking to make a “darker” sophomore album, Bailey Winters (vox), John Zeigler (keys, programming), and Patrick Morris (guitars, programming) didn’t get distracted with the production, it consumed them–every sound is delicately and deliberately placed. This is why it took them so damn long–four years long–for the release of album #2. But being seriously scrupulous doesn’t mean they can’t have fun, including a vampire track (“Blood” with lyrics “My body’s weak, I’m out of time, I need her blood before sunrise”) and a bit of punk rock, albeit still quite smoothly produced punkiness, on the energetic “Disaster.”

“I thought it would be great to just have a punk song, one of our own,” says lead singer Bailey Winters. “And it goes over pretty well. I think it shakes things up a little bit.”

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Read the rest of the interview and download a new track on OMN.

starfucker returns, in name + dress

Starfucker is back–in name and tradition. That other band name just didn’t sit right with them, and as the band worked through some kinks on Tuesday night at Mississippi Studios during their second of two sets, Josh Hodges (vox, keys, guitar, and drums here ‘n there) announced that the foursome will “hopefully” have a new album out in fall… under the name Starfucker, which drew congratulatory cheers.

Back to basics, the boys slinked on stage dolled up in lovely party dresses and wigs while their man Ryan Biornstad (vox, guitar, synths, turntables) took center stage, leading his ladies wearing a coat and tie. Awkwardly alternating between American Gothic stoic and cranium slamming spasms, Biornstad’s vocals remained submerged beneath pulsing space lasers and drummer Keil Corcoran’s hollow, reverberating thumps.

With some technical difficulties and cumbersome pacing, the sound from the floor was poor and the show did not flow. Songs ended too quickly and abruptly followed by long pauses, unlike other Starfucker gigs where songs meld together seamlessly smooth. But it didn’t really matter. After the slow opening drone, party people pushed to the front, tweaking out to the layered loops as the band shook frantically on stage causing you to ponder, “How do those wigs stay on?”

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the bill says starfucker at mississippi studios

Starfucker… ahem, Pyramiddd is having an identity crisis. Trying to shed old skin, the original Starfucker MySpace page was finally deleted (well, the URL changed) only to be replaced in Pyramiddd’s Top 8 Friend Space by this Starfucker MySpace.

And Pyramiddd is NOT on tour (but Starfucker is) nor do they have any music streaming on their MySpace… all of those pertinent details are found on the new Starfucker page.

And coming to Mississippi Studios on Tuesday, May 11th is Starfucker, who are currently on a West Coast tour–playing two homecoming shows, one early, all ages gig at 6:30 PM with Wampire and XDS and a second late show at 9:30 PM with Strength, XDS, and DJ Copy that is 21+.

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q/a : strength before rotture’s 2 day, all ages superfresh fest feat. glass candy, may ling + more

http://tinyurl.com/yjjptfe