[To satisfy popular demand, we include the following, which was written about Porfiry by a friend.]


The Pre-History of Porfiry
by John the Louse

I reckon I have known the Porfiry boys longer than anyone excepting their kin; which is to say, I have known them for a great deal of time. I can still remember my first encounter with Bradley gene... Paris between the wars, I stumbled into a little cafe on some little side street and misplaced my foot on the back of some poor sap's chair and softly fell into bradley gene's lap as he was watching his drink turn dutifully from green to milky white. "Hi, the name's John," I offered my hand. "Bradley gene Smith and I'll shake your hand when you get off my lap." And that was the beginning of our friendship.

Now the day I met Jason, well that was a little more interesting. It was New York City in the thirties (early or late, i'm not sure, asking me to remember an exact year is a little like asking a bull to give milk...). I do remember quite clearly that it was Saint Patrick's Day: green hair, green beer and green ass... Bradley gene and I were out honky tonking and perhaps had knocked back a few too many. Now Bradley gene had told me about Jason Hoss, but I had yet to meet him. However Bradley gene promised this particular trip would be fruitful-- for the pair were to meet up to do a coupla spots on the ever popular Stoopnagle and Budd Show. At any rate, the two of us, that being myself and Bradley gene, found ourselves in a rather uncomfortable situation in a smoky bar that was filled with some rather unsavory types. Now, I ask you this, how was I supposed to know that the woman I was becoming amorous with in the back room was the proprietor's wife? Would you have known? Well, this led to that, and that led to some fists-a-flying and an all-out bar brawl. And in my experience, friends, I have found that alcohol consumed in mass quantities can turn even the weakest and meekest of men into the great Joe Louis, well, at least in one's own self examination of one's self. Yes. I had barely picked myself up off the floor when damn near the whole lot of us were thrown into a paddy wagon. And much to the bleary-eyed Bradley gene's surprise, non other than one Jason R was already in the wagon as if awaiting our arrival, loudly proclaiming, "BUT I'M NOT IRISH!" I've never really known why he was shouting thus; while it's true that he's not Irish, I don't know what he hoped to gain from raising such a brouhaha. And we never really found out why he was in said paddy wagon; all we could extract from him was something about a chinese laundromat, a bad game of mah-jongg and the "wong" seat... And so began my friendship with Jason Raibley.

Now the thing about the Porfiry boys is that they plum don't remember these encounters or most of the stories I tend to tell about that era of our lives. "Dude, I was born in 1976," Bradley gene is apt to say. And for his part Jason is wont to say that he was born after Bradley Hoss. And so it goes. But this much I do know, those Porfiry boys have been making music together for quite some time, though not always under that name. It seems as though I remember one of their early groups going under the odd and somewhat awkward name of Aardvark Nation. And what's more I'm pretty sure for the whole duration of that group Bradley gene couldn't play an instrument, though he sure looked good trying. Some time later they got together with some other folks, Joseph Asher (now guitarist for Mock Orange) and Chadwick Meyers (now medical student at Indiana University) and formed iNTRiCATE FiSTiNGS. They recorded one song, something about pliers, Indian reservations, crack cocaine and the Doors. They played live once, an unlikely medley of Garth Brooks' "Friends in Low Places," Tribe Called Quest's "Buggin' Out," and Bauhaus' "Bela Lugosi's Dead." When it was all over, you could hear more katydids than clapping... Raibley and Bradley gene moved on and formed effigy. The "ff" on the effigy logo was a fortissimo sign and I don't know Italian and I don't know music talk but I'm told that means loud and that I know they were. During this period of time Bradley gene played bass and Raibley sang, played some guitar and did all of the programming. They recorded some songs but, well, "they were no hank williamses." Though, I guess they weren't really trying to be, but I'll tell you this, "they weren't no nitzer ebb neither." But I'll give them this, they were diligent and they were cocky and they weren't afraid to wear women's blouses on stage. They seemed to delight in angering the crowds and their fellow musicians, all of which made folks madder than a bible thumper at a hootenanny. I remember they were the opening act at this one show; they put their own names real big like at the top of an advertising flyer and the headlining bands' names way down at the bottom and in the Greek alphabet. This was typical effigy behavior. One critic derisively called effigy's stuff "music for intellectual twelve year olds." True, they got a good laugh from that, but they also knew there may have been a little grain of truth somewhere in there. And well, maybe that made them laugh even a little harder.

Now as the Porfiry boys matured they started to realize that maybe effigy wasn't exactly the image they wanted. They changed their name to Age of Consent and went to work writing a new batch of tunes (I reckon there was already a band called that, but our boys didn't know 'em). Though they had yet to get a handle on their sound, they were clearly heading in a different (and I would say, better) direction. The Porfiry boys were a little like a country tyke trying to catch a frog: he spies it in the creek, he jumps and grabs, but as soon as he catches it, it gives a little wiggle and hops right outta his hands. But that sure don't stop him from trying again and again. So the boys continued working but soon decided it was time to do some moving and some living. Bradley gene strapped on his knapsack and hitched a ride to Bloomington, Ind. and Raibley packed up his Delta 88 and drove that golden horse to Greencastle, Ind. While in Bloomington Bradley gene began hanging out with bottom of the barrel types and going to parties where he would play the popular songs of the day while all the pretty girls sang along. His tongue was firmly planted in his cheek. He even went on to co-found a band, Full Frontal and the Comedys, which played a variety of songs from the pens of Albarn/Coxon/James/Rowntree, N. Diamond, F. Mercury and N. Thoeming, among others. Meanwhile, Raibley was busy playing the piano for students (and spare change) in study lounges. In addition Raibley was organizing (truth be told there was little "organization") weekly group outings to various Hoosier towns. The goals of these spur of the moment adventures were always a little suspicious: running maneuvers in Terre Haute, stealing barn yard animals from Roachdale and something about a race horse and a bottle of whiskey in Anderson.

But fate had something more in store for Bradley gene and Raibley. One cold and snowy night the two were tossing Ôem back at Old Toppers' in Greencastle when they decided to help out a poor boy in distress. The kid was being held down on the bar by a pair of burly men and a third had drawn a knife and was holding it to the neck of the unlucky boy. Well, how's that ole saying go? "Music soothes the savage beast?" So, Raibley sat down at the piano, Bradley gene whipped out the no-pussyfooter and the two broke out in a rendition of Merle Haggard's "Mama Tried," followed by "White Lightning," and "On the Road Again." Well, during the first number the attackers had stopped to listen, for who can deny the tragic beauty that is "Mama Tried?" By the third song the poor boy had managed to slowly work his way off the bar and out the door. And when the boys had finished that last sweet chorus of "On the Road Again," that's exactly what they were and their newly found friend, and as fate would have it band mate, Charles Christopher Brandt III was with them. That night the boys drove an old and battered german luxury sedan (its owner was... unkown) down to Evansville on the Ohio and met up with their friends the Hoopers. They all went down to the Angel Mounds Boat Dock and took a little trip out to a sand bar for a little swimming and drinking. While shaking the Ohio from their hair and settling down into make-shift sand chairs, Raibley and Bradley gene asked Brandt to join the band. The next day they entered Dead Man's Hand Studios in Newburgh to start work on an untitled EP. Working under no name and no expectations, they recorded something akin to a computer, a hog and a blender mating. And much to their chagrin the stuff was well received by their friends and acquaintances, prompting them to ponder a more serious direction for their music. With all this in mind the two formed their current musical project, the mouthful, Porfiry Petrovich Is Still Looking For Me, which, fortunately, they later shortened to Porfiry.

They began work on a record titled Beyond Belief. Now between the recording of the EP and the new album some changes occurred in the Porfiry lineup. Charles now peppered the music with some kinda electrical hoodoo voodoo. Jason took over on bass (he was always a better bass player anyway). And one warm Mississippi night Bradley gene went down to the crossroads and struck a deal with Lucifer, Beelzebub, the Devil. Now Bradley gene couldn't bear to part with his soul, it just didn't seem worth it to him. So after haggling with ole Lucy for awhile the two reached a compromise: Bradley gene promised the Devil his "first born kid" in return for moderate talents on the guitar. The group's hard work paid off with an album's worth of their finest, most mature material to that date. But they had little time to pat themselves on the back, for shortly after its completion both Raibley and Bradley gene moved overseas. While overseas the boys continued to write music and eventually America called them home to begin the long and intense process of recording their most recent album State.

The recording of State also ushered a new member into the Porfiry fold, Andy Paternoster. As you might imagine there's a story behind the meeting of Porfiry and Paternoster.... In Southern Indiana there is one time of year that brings revelers from all around the tri-state area into the town of Evansville, the Westside Nut Club's Annual Fall Festival. It's a week long celebration of, well, nothing I guess. I suppose at one time it was a celebration of the fall harvest but today it's not much more than a scaled down Mardi Gras. But there is something grand in the sights and smells the festival offers up to those willing to give themselves over to it: the crisp fall air striking your cheek, the swirling, flashing lights of the midway and the aroma of burning leaves mixing with the fragrance of fried foods. One is obliged to stop and turn his head this-a-way-and-that, filling his nose, eyes and ears with the maddening scene. It really is something. Well, one Friday evening the Porfiry boys headed down to Franklin Street and the Festival for a long night of excess and a little karaoke. Raibley signed up to sing OMD's "Enola Gay" and Bradley gene had a hankering to do John Mellencamp's "Hurts So Good." But before the two could even hit the stage they were stunned by a young man's impassioned performance of Bruce Springsteen's "Born to Run." The two sought out the young man and over many a nights drinking and listening to albums by George Jones, Leonard Cohen and Nick Drake, Raibley and Bradley gene asked Paternoster to add some guitar to a couple of the songs they were working on, and the current Porfiry line up was born.

Raibley and Bradley gene labored long and hard to write and record the material contained on State, and it shows in the songs themselves. Never satisfied working within one genre, the boys have harvested crops as far afield as Dock Boggs and the Cocteau Twins, brought them into the kitchen, and prepared a meal that tastes unlike any other.

-- John the Louse, sometime 'round the turn of the century