PEOPLE IN THIS CITY pull all kinds of crazy tricks to get you out to shows. From Heroes and Villains' circus last year to costume contests, celebrity appearances, pudding wrestling, and free drink tickets, it seems as if Portland bands are in a constant tug of war to lure in the audience. Sometimes it's nice to just go out to a normal ol' CD release party and see a band play its heart out in support of its new music. Tonight that means Wet Confetti's Laughing Gasping and openers Swan Island's The Centre Will Hold. Wet Confetti's Alberta Poon fills us in.

MERCURY: Your new record is out on Pamplemoose. Talk about that.

ALBERTA POON: Well, Dave Allen [Gang of Four, Pamplemoose owner] curated a show about two years ago at the Crystal Ballroom and asked us to play and I guess he liked us. And then about seven months ago we were planning on self-releasing a totally different version of this album that we had recorded ourselves. We talked to Matt Wright about doing PR for us and gave him the album to listen to. That's where it gets funny. Matt thought the album was a mess and at some point showed it to Dave, who saw a lot of potential in the album, but also agreed it needed a lot of work. So Dave approached us and asked if we would want to work with him, which of course we immediately said yes, because how could we turn down working with someone we all admired so much. So we have Matt Wright to thank for thinking our album was a mess, which was true.

What was wrong with it?

First off it was self-recorded, and for anyone who has self-recorded their own music, they know that they can keep tweaking it to try to make it sound better, because they aren't on any time or budget limits. Well that was us times 10! We just kept adding more and more overdubs, and trying crazy experimental things to the point where the album didn't even sound like us anymore. The album became the white elephant in our lives, and I'm pretty sure Mike [McKinnon, drums] and Dan [Grazzini, guitar, keys] became temporarily insane.