BANDS UH-LIVE/BARFIGHT

[October 29th, 2003] BANDS UH-LIVE

It would be easy to understand why folks who listen to old-fashioned radio (that kind that is transmitted through the air, not through broadband) might think no one in this town makes music. Big, bad corporate radio gives no support. KPSU gives up a spot of time to the locally brewed, if you can manage to find the coat hangers and tin foil. And last spring, KBOO dumped Church of Northwest Music despite much protest against the move, making the airwaves virtually Portland-music-free.

Well, KBOO is giving local music another shot with Station to Station , a live and local show hosted by Sean Flora from his super-secret studios in Northeast Portland. The show airs at 11 pm every Wednesday on KBOO (90.7 FM) and features a different band each week. The band plays, an in-studio audience dances and applauds, Flora chats with the band...you get the idea.

So far Flora's studios have hosted the likes of Mic Crenshaw , Dylan Thomas-Vance , 3 Leg Torso and Dr. Theopolis (who had an in-studio Little Sue shakin' her ass ). It's definitely a diverse lineup--an issue that allegedly got the indie-rock-heavy Church of Northwest Music booted off the air.

Upcoming shows include Hoary Poury tonight, Johnny Connolly on Nov. 5 and the Chosen on Nov. 12 . Check www.kboo.org for future shows.

If you want to be in the studio with the bands (and maybe get a chance to see Little Sue dance), contact Flora at station.station@comcast.net and learn the super-secret location. Or just listen, and support your local scene on radio, dammit!

BARFIGHT

File this one under "What the hell were they drinking?"

It seems that a new nightlife publication slithered its way into Portland bars last week. The Lounge Lizard sets out to entertain, well, lounge lizards while providing reviews of a number of bars throughout the city. It's a lot like 4-year-old veteran bar mag BarFly . According to Barfly publisher Jen Lane , it is a little too much like BarFly: She claims the publishers of the Lounge Lizard have not-so-brightly copied many of their bar reviews and creative pieces from barflymag.com . (Hint to plagiarists: If you want to hide your plagiarism , it's a good idea to correct the typos that ran in the original publication.)

Well, Lane just won't have it. She's threatening legal action against the publisher of the Lounge Lizard, credited as "Washington and Associates," and sent out this statement in a mass email: "Frankly, in my opinion, the Lounge Lizard is so ineptly organized, so poorly written and edited, it makes BarFly read like The New Yorker. But I cannot allow my work to fall victim to such plundering, however absurd. I will pursue all means of recourse at my disposal, to ensure that Washington and Associates's suspected thievery is exposed, and their profiteering terminated, immediately."

Lounge Lizard attorney Lake Perriguey contends that the issue at hand is not whether his client (publisher Andre Washington) copied content from Lane's publication. The issue, he says, is whether such information would be considered copyrighted.

"The legal question is whether there is proprietary interest in the information in question," says Perriguey. "If the information lacks a creative element, then it does not qualify. Copyright protection does not extend to the sweat of the brow in putting together factual information."

Perriguey said his client denies copying any "proprietary" information.

Ooh. Them's fightin' words.