Pocketknife Sunday, July 31

[JUST DANCE!] Portland's Pocketknife has more than one thing in common with Lady Gaga. For starters, its overriding philosophy is "just dance." Case in point: the jumpy, synth-sparked "Space Invaders," from the band's debut EP, Tough as Snails. Although the quartet's communal lyric-writing process often involves each member pooling childhood memories, this song—its first—is not about spending an afternoon at an arcade blasting hordes of digitized interplanetary attackers.

"The concept was aliens coming down to Earth, just wanting to dance," says babyfaced singer-guitarist Marlin Gonda, 25, laughing on the couch in the living room of the North Portland home he shares with bassist David Chase, 23, and drummer Karen D'Apice, 25. 

"Every time I listen to that song, I just picture this giant ballroom full of spacey aliens waltzing and dancing," D'apice says, with slightly more seriousness. "I picture them adorned in beautiful ballgowns."

Along with its desire to create the music that makes the universe cut loose, what the four-piece also shares with Our Lady of the Meat Dress is a deep appreciation for the art of the great pop earworm. It's evident on Tough as Snails: Each of the record's six tracks pulsates with hooky, keyboard-driven energy. Its antecedents are easily detectable—'80s club-fillers such as New Order and swooning New Romantics like Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark—but more than an era, the group is most interested in perfecting a timeless infectiousness.

"More so than specific bands, I'm intrigued by the idea of pop music," Gonda says.

"I like things that stay in your head," D'Apice adds. "That is what is most appealing to me. It's like, I want to be happy singing this for days and days."

After spending a few years playing in navel-gazing indie rock bands and a college punk band "that no one liked," respectively, in 2009 Gonda and D'Apice were looking to do something more upbeat and danceable, even though they didn't know each other yet. Gonda asked his co-worker Chase, a classically trained cellist, if he had any interest in starting a pop group. They began kicking around ideas, then linked up with native New Yorker D'Apice via Craigslist. When the band's original keyboardist left to continue school, Jennifer Boudreaux, 20, was urged to join—even though she hadn't played keyboards since childhood—at the urging of her boyfriend, who became a fan of Pocketknife through its first house shows. Not long after solidifying its lineup, three-fourths of the band moved in together—into a house perpetually decorated as if it's Christmastime, complete with fake tree and stockings, where the group likes to say it's "living the Pocket-life."

Even with its heightened sense of camaraderie, the band didn't feel legit until it started recording Tough as Snails last year at Klickitat Studios. As often happens, these "new" songs are now are a few years old, and Gonda says the band has gotten better since, inching closer toward his pop ideal. But the EP still represents a confirmation that he's on the right track.

"Once we put this out," Gonda says, "we'll be a real band."

SEE IT: Pocketknife releases Tough as Snails on Sunday, July 31, at Mississippi Studios with Vanimal and Pegasus Dream. 9 pm. Free. 21+.

WWeek 2015