2002: A space porn odyssey

 

By Anthony Bromberg
Daily Bruin Senior Staff

Just another band styling their hair and buying matching suits
so they look original? No, no. Aliens having sex while
they’re depressed? Getting warmer. A sound that can be
described as Space Porn Funk? Oh, yeah.

“That phrase came from one of our earliest and greatest
fans,” said Steve Molitz, Particle’s keyboard player.
“She coined it after having heard us play for the first time.
At first she was at a loss for words, and all of a sudden, she was
like, “˜It’s this space porn funk!’ And it caught
us all offguard, but it was also really fitting.”

The band from which this unique genre of music originates is the
Los Angeles instrumental outfit Particle. Particle is composed of
four young men who, together on stage, create a high-energy layered
sound infused with an abundance of musical genres. The boys have
been touring regularly since their maiden gig in October of 2000,
and this Thursday they will be sharing a little bit of Space Porn
Funk, and the bill, with the popular ’70s act War at the
House of Blues in West Hollywood.

The members of Particle, the pioneers of Space Porn Funk
themselves, are Darren Pujalet on drums, Eric Gould on bass,
Charlie Hitchcock holding down lead guitar duties, and the
aforementioned Molitz on the keys.

Particle belongs to the category of jam bands, a group
characterized by the emphasis on instrumentation, and the ability
to draw out songs for long periods of time. Particle prides itself
on its diverse musicality and its aptitude for drawing on different
influences to come up with a sound all its own. It doesn’t
want to be just another Phish or Grateful Dead, but cites
influences ranging from acid jazz, to blues, to Europe’s DJ
scene, and even minimalist composers like Philip Glass.

“This started off as a
funk-improv-meets-ambient-electronic-groove project,” Gould
said. “One of the things we love to do is intertwine style.
We like to not know what’s going to happen next.”

The mindset of the band keys into an unpredictability that
allows its songs to take on lives of their own.

“We never know where the song can go,” Pujalet said.
“A lot of times it can be a standard format; other times
it’ll completely breakaway. It can divert to anything. We
really try to mix it up every night.”

And as for that Space Porn Funk sound?

“It’s something that manages to be down and dirty
and gritty and make you want to shake your ass, but it’s also
something that has a flip side that’s based in the more
cerebral realms,” Molitz said.

Particle got its name when the original members of the band
noted that a particle can be something as big as a galaxy, while at
the same time potentially being an invisible speck resting on a
fingertip. The members of Particle say their sound is driven by the
same expansive principles, with the potential to be anything, and
incorporating a sonic eclecticism that fuses smoothly as many
styles of particles as possible.

The biggest bump in this particle’s journey was the death
of its original guitarist, Dave Simmons, only two months after the
band had started. Simmons was a lifelong diabetic. He did a lot to
chart the course for Particle and help create the desire to keep
moving forward musically, according to Molitz.

When improvising live, Particle often finds ways to insert
little tributes to Simmons into the music, by throwing in a turn of
phrase from a song he loved, or hated.

“In the middle of one of my solos, if I break into a Jimmy
Buffet song we’ll all crack up,” Molitz said.
“When we play songs he helped write or was influential on, we
always think of him.”

After New Years 2001, Particle regrouped and brought in
Hitchcock to fill out the band, and in the past year the band has
matured in sound and gained an audience it only wishes Simmons
could see.

The centerpiece of the Particle musical experience ““ it
hasn’t released an album though the tentatively titled
“Linear Accelerator” is in the works ““ is its
live show. Its performances are centered around the energy of the
monumental jams, and backed by projection art provided by
Particle’s pseudo-fifth member, Scott Mackinnon.

The projections include a live camera video feed, DVD footage,
and computer- animated fractals, all displayed upon screens behind
the band to accompany its music and enhance the audience’s
enjoyment. The band considers its shows a multimedia, multi-art
format, with the projections as only the beginning of a form which
continues to expand along with the music, creating an experience
both the band and its fans can embrace.

“I think our biggest attribute is that we take people away
at shows, and they’re able to dance from beginning to
end,” Pujalet said.

This comes from the band’s passion about communicating its
music to people.

“We all are very expressive people naturally,” Gould
said. “We aren’t necessarily going out there and doing
theatrics like a Tenacious D sort of thing. What we do instead is
just show our true colors. We just show our love of what we do with
music and the energy that is shared with the audience. We’ll
mix electronica with the funk and groove and that’ll create a
really fine product, that will have people dancing, and really just
gets the dancehall crowd, the rave crowd, the jam and funk crowd
just going all together. It’s a really nice blend.”

The band is also notorious for its long sets, one of the most
memorable shows being a gig in Las Vegas, where it performed four
full sets starting around 10.

“Every time we thought we were playing our last song, they
just wouldn’t stop dancing, so we just kept playing and
playing, so before we knew it the sun was up and we were still
partying,” Molitz said.

The fans are the driving force behind the whole Particle Space
Porn Funk experience. Its fans are known as “particle
people,” and the band describes them as being adventurous,
open in their musical tastes, and ready to celebrate life and lose
themselves in the music. According to Gould, Particle is open to
any form of audience; its music has a place for anyone with
imagination, and all of this comes through at the band’s
potent live shows.

“When you come out to see Particle it’s an
adventure,” Molitz said. “You’re not just coming
out to a club where you’re gonna stand around; you’re
going to meet people. It’s a whole community. You’re
going to leave that night with more friends than you came with, and
that’s a cool thing.”