Bands gaze at shoes as things get 'fuzzy'

By Rob Cullivan

The Portland Tribune, Dec 16, 2010, Updated Dec 16, 2010

Michael Fitzgerald was a graduate student in Dublin, Ireland, back in 1994 when he caught the shoegazer rock ’n’ roll bug.

“I just fell in love with it,” he says, noting he dug the shimmering, effects-laden, noisy, neo-psychedelic sounds of Irish bands like My Bloody Valentine and Brit rockers Ride. “It was really hard to get away from it.”

Not that Fitzgerald wanted to.

“This was still . . . punk rock with melody that you could get into,” he says.

Fitzgerald owns the Portland label Reverb Records and is organizing The Fuzzy Ball Dec. 17 night at the Wonder Ballroom. A couple handfuls of bands will each play one original number and three covers of such groups as The Stone Roses, The Verve, Jesus & Mary Chain and Lush.

Local heroes The Prids, Go Fever and Pete International Airport – a side project of Peter Holmström from The Dandy Warhols – are among the bands set to caress the stage.

The shoegazer phenomenon – so called because its performers were often seen staring down at their guitar effects pedals – echoes to this day in such bands as The Raveonettes, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, The Black Angels and Brian Jonestown Massacre.

In fact, if you sashay down to the Wonder, you can get a free 20-track CD compilation to help you update your shoegazer catalog. The CD features tracks and re-mixes from such artists as Norway’s Serena-Maneesh, Portland’s The Upsidedown, Rebel Drones (featuring members of Brian Jonestown Massacre, The Dandy Warhols, Warlocks and Grails) and Brit band Insect Guide.

Fuzzy wuz they

Fuzzy Ball band Go Fever consists of Tony Hilsmeier on guitar and vocals, Lance Dinauer, bass and vocals, and Ian Bixby on drums. The band is not sure which original it will play, but is rehearsing “Cupid Come” by My Bloody Valentine, “Gravity Grave” by The Verve and “I Wanna Be Adored” by The Stone Roses.

“We don’t often do any covers so it’s fun to have an opportunity to pay tribute to things that had an influence on us,” Hilsmeier says.

The Fuzzy Ball bands all pretty much know each other, he adds, noting “we’ve seen each other tons and tons of times.”

But if you’ve never buried your ears inside a slightly distorted mess of sustained guitar squeals, milky bass lines and splashy drums, what’s in this scene for the uninitiated, man?

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