Starfuckerssss

Some friends and I saw Portland's own Starfucker play last night at Reed College's Student Union.  They played with [New Zealand's] the Ruby Suns, whom, dear listeners, I painfully sacrificed my attendance of for your sake, in the honourable name of Naughty Ezra!

My fourth time seeing Starfucker perform affirmed the fact that any time I see them, I will end up much happier in life.  It's true.  And I realized that I can say that my relationship with Starfucker is different than that with most artists and comes the closest to qualifying as just that--a relationship.  A Wilamette Weekly blurb describes the recent release of their self-titled debut as a "[nostalgic collection of] songs that, strung together, are a document of Portland’s year-plus romance with the band."  I remember having no expectations, unimpressed yet by their name or their large glasses or their pink tank tops as they took the stage my first time seeing them at PSU with Kick Ball.  Both bands provided what would turn out as the best show I'd attended up to that point.  Starfucker, I now know, are one of very few bands who will consistently compel the fuck out of a crowd with a true presence.  Never speaking between songs, their sounds tell the audience of a time when artists acted as a green light for social action.  Whenever I see them, their synth-melody-heavy sound deeply impresses both senses of melancholy and carefreeness, demanding clapping, bouncing, and a bit of showing off.  As one Reedie somehow pulled off a hanging striptease above the band, others in the front of the very crowded Student Union were emboldened to get up onstage alongside the band.  While Starfucker is primarily a project of songwriter Josh Hodges, the band proves a smooth cohesion of the necessary layers of their pop songs, especially when moving crowds are surrounding the three members and 'uckin with their shi'.  I appreciated this intellectually and then proceeded to know why such a sweet sound ironically riles up such mosh-y crowd behavior throughout their rather satisfying length of a set.  Despite not playing a large portion of their album, an overabundance of obnoxiously-colored pants and shirtless dudes, and the general overwhelming sense that a Lewis & Clark student traumatized by write-ups gets when visiting Reed, seeing Starfucker play again made me feel like an extremely refreshing meet-up with a good friend and a hundred new friends.  And you know we'll be there when they're back on Dec. 4 with Blitzen Trapper at the Wonder Ballroom!

I am fairly certain of a tirelessness of spinning this album, so you'll get Starfucked too, my Naughty Ezras!

-Katia K. Krusselovsky