Port O'Brien - "There's a feelin' in my gut....


....tellin' me to shut the fuck up"

Port O’Brien is a band led by Van Pierszalowski, a songwriter from Cambria, CA. who spends his summer months working 20 hour days on his father’s Alaskan fishing boat. According to Van himself, “The name Port O’Brien is the site of a now-abandoned cannery on Kodiak Island, where my parents met in 1969.” Ahh, how sweet.
His songs are very obviously inspired by his true love of this nautical setting. “I Woke Up Today”, a song that recently got serious attention from both Pitchfork and M. Ward, comes across like a sea shanty sung at the weary end of a long day of hauling fishing nets with all your best friends, legs draped over the stern, watching the moonlight reflect off the black water. If only it was written in time, it could have been used in the drunken sing along scene of JAWS.

From the band’s website: “What started as a solo project of Van's has become a full on rock and roll band featuring Cambria Goodwin (banjo, vocals, baked goods), Caleb Nichols (guitar, vocals, tambourine, melodica), Josh Barnhart (drums, vocals, egg shaker), and Ryan Stively (bass, vocals). They have played with likes of MAN MAN, AKRON/FAMILY, VETIVER, LITTLE WINGS, and many others. The live shows are always different, but the key emphasis is a little old thing called FUN.”

The band has been turning ears lately, having recently been featured on Daytrotter, and impressed M. Ward enough at a recent show that he set them up to open for Bright Eyes in San Francisco in March. They have 2 releases available for purchase at their website - When The Rain Comes, an LP released in March of 2006, and Nowhere To Run, an EP released the following September.
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MP3 - I Woke Up Today
(from Nowhere To Run)
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MP3 - My Eyes Won't Shut
MP3 - Five And Dime
(from When The Rain Comes)
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Port O’Brien myspace
Port O’Brien website
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