Los Angeles band brings unique brand of music to the Bluebird

The only way the crazed fan could describe it was "space porn."\nAfter its first show, Eric Gould, bassist for the band Particle, recalls the reaction of a female fan who was amazed by the new sound she had just heard. Gould says he wasn't surprised by the fan's reaction when she said the music was indescribable, and space porn was just the best explanation for it. \n"It kind of made sense," Gould says.\nSo much sense that at its second gig, the band played its form of electronic funk under the name Space Porn, but the band quickly decided that it was more than extraterrestrial intercourse and chose the name Particle. \n"It's a real universal name," Gould says. "It's what it's about. A particle can be completely minute or just greater and larger than you can imagine."\nGould and the rest of the band will bring their tour to the Bluebird for the fourth time on March 24 at 10 p.m.\nDave Kubiak, the general manager of the Bluebird, is ready to have the group play again in Bloomington, citing them as one of the most upcoming and respected jam bands.\n"They are obviously very talented," Kubiak says. "They are great guys and I'm happy to have them back."\nIt is difficult for the band to place a label on its music. Even Gould struggles to come up with a concrete definition, but finally says, "If people like to dance then they're going to enjoy us."\nSeth Eisenstein, an aspiring freelance music promoter from Los Angeles, has been an avid fan of Particle since its inception a little over two years ago. He first saw Particle in a club and has been hooked since.\n"I was totally impressed with the energy of the band," Eisenstein says. "The wackiness of the keyboard player, the goofy grin of the bass player and the excitement of the crowd. I make it a point to catch Particle as much as possible."\nEisenstein says this goal was not too difficult to attain since the band was native to Los Angeles and played twice a month in the city.\nFresh out of film school at Ithaca College, Gould headed Los Angeles to fuel his dreams of both film and music.\n"As I was learning movies, music was taking a role in my life," Gould says. "L.A. was good for both."\nGould spent three years in Los Angeles before he met Steve Molitz and the two jammed on and off together. The duo added drummer Darren Pujalet, and before a guitarist was added, they had their first gig. The group was hired to play on a cruise boat. The three snagged guitarist Charlie Hitchcock and Particle was formed.\n"We had a gig before we had a band," Gould says.\nWhen the group boarded the ship that night, Gould says neither they nor the audience had any idea what to expect.\n"It blew us away. The response was crazy," Gould says. "We were like, 'Let's keep this going,' and we kept going with it."\nSince then, the fan base for Particle has grown like wildfire. \n"They're the ones that we're pouring our soul out to," Gould says. "They are giving us our passions."\nEisenstein is a case in point.\n"For me, Particle is like the soundtrack to my life," he says. "(It's) full of peaks and valleys, tension and release, emotion and excitement."\nA fellow Particle fan, Chris Solloway, an IU alumn and former member of the IDS Editorial Board, says that the music's intensity is one of the band's highlights, and why he keeps coming back to see them play.\n"(It's) lots of free-form improv around a structured core that ebbs and flows, but often increases in intensity at points that move you to believe in the impossible," Solloway says.\nKubiak also says he is not worried about hosting a nightclub tragedy, like the ones which occurred in Chicago and Rhode Island in late February.\n"We don't have to worry about pyrotechnics from Particle," he said.\nPyrotechnics, no, but lights and projections, yes. Recently, Particle added the talents of lighting specialist Justin Halgren and projectionist Scott MacKinnon to enhance its show. Gould says he is excited about the visual enhancement.\n"We wanted some multimedia behind the show," Gould says. "We want to up the ante and take the music to another level."\nGould attributes much of the band's success to word of mouth and the Internet. He says the fact that fans could download \nParticle's music online was good publicity. The fact that the band does not yet have an album may also have contributed to its touring success because fans needed to see them to hear the music.\nThe band began work on its first album before its recent tour began and plans to complete it when the tour is finished. Particle has been together for just over two years and Gould says it has been a whirlwind of festivals, but its fan base is ready for an album.\n"There's a lot of anticipation for it," he says, "and we are excited to give it to them."\nEisenstein is more than ready for the new album.\n"Hell yeah," he says. "The hardcore fans have been waiting for their debut album for so long and they are going to blow people away. I think some amazing pieces of music are going to come out of this album."\nSolloway says he is also excited, but a little skeptical about how the group's music will translate onto an album.\n"The group has the whole package with no weaknesses," Solloway says. "Each time they play a given tune, (it) comes out slightly differently, akin to what the Dead did in their heyday. So, I like listening to their shows and trading CDs with tapers. I'm looking forward to their CD release only in terms of the increase in well-deserved exposure to the mainstream listener."\nThe hardcore fans, also known as the Particle People, are a quickly growing group of music lovers. Unofficial Particle websites and message boards have sprung up across the web as a way for this national community to stay in touch.\n"The Particle People are some of the most creative, talented and adventurous people out there. It really is a family," Eisenstein says.\nCurrently the band performs without vocals but Gould says they are open to change, as is obvious from their love of improvisation. Particle wants the album to have some of the live vibe that has made them famous.\n"We play different songs," Gould says. "Within the structure we leave room for open-endedness. We go with the vibe of the surroundings."\nGould says the beauty of driving through the Colorado mountains might show up in the show in Boulder, Colorado's Fox Theatre and Café, which would give the songs a completely different feel than if they were driving through a city or a college campus.\n"I love playing to a college crowd, its such a different energy," he says. "When you're in college you're in that place in life when you're doing your own thing. It's a different vibe."\nAfter the tour and the album, Solloway believes the best is yet to come.\n"Change is often good," he says. "This band has already made their mark on contemporary musical history and helped other bands become better in the process. This is primal, musical evolution at its finest. Their vision is two steps ahead of the contemporary music paradigm."\nNo one knows for sure where Particle will end up, but Gould hopes to be playing music with Particle well into the future.\n"Going around and making people happy, smiling, dancing and loving it," Gould says. "Playing music is a blast"