All Girl Summer Fun Band

As the Portland pop quartet All Girl Summer Fun Band proclaim in their aptly-titled "Theme Song": "They're nothing big / But they're nothing small / Just four best friends that you'd like to call / With Kathy, Kim, Arirak, and Jen / When you hear their songs / You'll want to hear them again." The group includes Kathy Foster (drums, vocals), Jen Sbragia (guitar, vocals), and New Mexico transplants Kim Baxter (keyboards, vocals) and Ari Douangpanya (bass, vocals). All four have also logged time in other bands, including Baxter's stint with Young Astronauts, Cherry Ice Cream Smile, and One Two; Sbragia with Pretty Face, Kissing Book, and the Softies (a duo with Tiger Trap vocalist Rose Melberg); and Foster with Haelah, Hutch and Kathy, and the one-woman band Butterfly Transformation Service. The foursome came into being after a Softies show in Portland in 1998, when Baxter approached Sbragia with a cassette tape of her music. She and Douangpanya had recently moved to town from Albuquerque, where Baxter had played a gig with K Records' co-founder Calvin Johnson several years prior. Sbragia liked what she heard, and Baxter introduced her to a couple of like-minded souls: Foster and Douangpanya. That summer, Baxter asked if the women would like to make music together. The answer was an enthusiastic, unequivocal yes. She described the potential results as being that of an "all girl summer fun band" and the name stuck. Claiming a wide array of pop purveyors as influences, Baxter and Sbragia began to write the band's spicy/sweet material while fielding contributions from the entire group. Their first single was a four-song release on Magic Marker, issued on pink vinyl and featuring a cartoon-style cover by Sbragia (who also designed the band's flyers). Next came a split with...