The frenetic Magic Johnson

Like Siamese twins with an overactive adrenal gland, Armando Blanco and Ana Rodriguez of local punk outfit Magic Johnson have a tendency to tear shit up. By mixing Spanish and English lyrics into the blender with a chainsaw and some asylum bound wailing, the duo is coming up with some of the most original music in Portland.

“We met in middle school,” say Blanco and Rodriguez via e-mail. “It was platonic love at first sight, during a
fire drill.”

Hailing from the Los Angeles area, Blanco and Rodriguez were weaned on The Smashing Pumpkins and Bjork in high school. After that they got into punk and started frequenting an underground hotspot in downtown L.A. called The Smell. They were taken by bands like Abe Vigoda and Mika Miko, and decided to bring their heads together for a musical project.

“Eventually we decided to move to Portland,” say the duo. “We were having a hard time focusing our projects, school and otherwise, so we opted for a place with cheap rent and basements to practice in. We knew we were going to start a band called Magic Johnson, but hadn’t decided other details.”

And those other details never really came up. Magic Johnson thrive because of their lack of details. With Blanco on guitar, Rodriguez on drums and the two trading vocal duties, spontaneity has become a tacit third member of the band.

Staying true to their Hispanic roots and the punk that they are so taken with, the duo crafts songs that never break the two-minute mark. The tunes are often unintelligible and bounce back and forth between two languages, yet the racket is never less than magnetic.

“We don’t mind people not understanding our lyrics,” Rodriguez and Blanco confess. “I think we both assume that if they’re really interested they’ll ask. It’s extra special when other Latino kids recognize references that aren’t translatable, too.”

And it is this anonymity, the idea that they have a perpetual inside joke going throughout all of their songs, that makes them compelling. Like two kids on the middle school playground, they approach their shotgun guitar lines and cymbal smashing beats with a child’s wanderlust.

“We play together until something makes us bounce or makes us feel something,” says the duo. “That’s what we want to share at a show. Live shows sort of put that to the test and we try to have fun no matter what, but it’s always great when an entire room of people is having fun.”

It is this energy they hope to capture in their recordings. The duo recorded its second 7-inch in March, to be released this August. And if it is anything like their debut 7-inch, Telenovelas, then it will be short and sweet. Telenovelas’ entire running time clocks in at less than eight minutes, but leaves you with the most terrifically terrible taste in you mouth.

With Blanco tearing up the scales and tempo shifting like no one’s business, the duo is of one mind, each singing over the other’s freneticism in perfect time.

Having known each other for so long has done nothing but help them. Never are they out of touch with each other. And when the two sing back to back they are not only charming, but the cohesion is pure energy. The two members of Magic Johnson could manufacture a war with the energy that they are able to muster together.

“Energy is important, of course,” says the duo. “That’s what appeals to people a lot about punk music in general. We also have a pretty do-it-yourself attitude, and I think that naturally appeals to people that have that attitude themselves.”

So far that philosophy has proven true as Magic Johnson gains further recognition up and down the West Coast.

If nothing else, the band makes clear that Rodriguez and Blanco are having the time of their lives, and that is something that people are proving keen to join in on.