Swingin’ single

>> Portland’s the Blow goes back to basics

ALONE AT LAST: Khaela Maricich

by LORRAINE CARPENTER

“It’s kind of like, if electro could be not boring,” says Khaela Maricich (aka the Blow), describing her show. “It lets people in on where the music is coming from. It’s pre-recorded music though, I’m not playing live, but you get to experience the album, with me!”

Maricich does indeed sing to a backing track, and although she’s the master of no instruments, that doesn’t stop her from using them for flair in the studio. The Blow was originally a solo act, but from ’04–’06, Maricich was accompanied by Jona Bechtolt, who left to focus on his solo act, Yacht. Now, Maricich’s only, occasional on-stage companion is multimedia, a familiar device for fans of like-minded acts such as Chicks on Speed, who are also artists first and songwriters second.

Having lived in Olympia, WA, during the blossoming of its bohemian scene (a cousin was in the band Beat Happening), Maricich immersed herself in conceptual and performance art, but music had been on her mind since the grunge explosion in her native Seattle.

“Everybody in my high school, all of sudden, thought it seemed really cool to be in a band,” she says, “except the nerds who never got wrapped up in listening to the Steve Miller Band and going to keggers. They’d been paying attention.”

Maricich eventually followed suit in Olympia, where a supportive community encouraged her to book a gig with only two songs to her name.

“I just got in my head the notion, ‘Oh, I could probably write a song,’ even though I wasn’t musical at all. We didn’t even listen to records at my family’s house. All I knew was MTV, really.”

Since 2001, the Blow has produced five albums, the latest being a stark pop gem called Paper Television. The “loud and boisterous” dance parties that she and Bechtolt instigated together may be a thing of the past, but Maricich is a soloist at heart, and has perfected her latest show over the past year.

“I’m not worried that people are gonna think I’m doing karaoke.”

With Marnie Stern and Republic of
Safety at la Sala Rossa on Saturday,
July 7, 8:30 p.m., $15