Media Orphan

by Carlos Ramirz, Staff Writer

Friday night at the No Future Café, the crowd is swelling with anxious fans; the air grows thick as the energy in the room starts to rise. Media Orphan hits the stage after opening band, Audio Maac, finished its hard hitting set. As soon as Richard Petteys hits the stage and greets the crowd, you can immediately hear the swooning of all the girls in the audience and the echoing of the many claps generated throughout the venue. It was a tell-tale sign, this is Media Orphans crowd and they were about to show us why.

Falling a bit under the genre of pop, Media Orphan expressed great rhythm within the band. The arrangement of their music was very well done and contained a nice assortment of interludes coupled with a very nice lead guitar. The chops and leads used by Negrete are reminiscent of Santana and blends perfectly with Petteys rhythm work. Negrete confesses the force behind his lead work, "Inspiration, I mainly get it from the man upstairs. It's all about trying to get that focus, but once I have it, it's heaven on earth." Drummer, Paul Almazan admitted what goes through his mind before the show, "I'm just thinking if I'm gonna throw up. You know, just trying to get the CD out and getting ready for the show, it's all pretty hectic but cool."

Oct. 7 was the official CD release show for Media Orphan's new album Silhouette. Media Orphan filled the small venue with a strong melodic rock sound that could be identified as a cross between Weezer and Third Eye Blind. Media Orphan consists of front man Richard Petteys (lead vocals/guitar), Eddie Negrete (lead guitar), Eric Glenn (Bass), and Paul Almazan (Drums/vocals). Together they're able to produce a very positive and inspirational type of music, a quality that seems to be lacking in today's music scene.
- Pasadena City College Courier Online

By Naughty Mickie notymickie@earthlink.net

Local rockers Media Orphan are creating a buzz.These boyz have their act together, conduct themselves professionally, have musicianship and talent and, most of all, a can-do attitude. I sat down with the power pop quartet, vocalist/guitarist Richard Petteys, guitarist Eddie Negrete, bassist Dave Johansen and drummer Paul Alamazan, to learn more about them and their project.

Alamazan explained that Negrete was looking for a bass player and a drummer to form a band and put an ad
out in several papers, as well as at Lake Avenue Church. A friend told Alamazan about the ad.

"The influences were pretty interesting because the first thing I noticed was Eddie put the Beatles and then Ozomotli, so right off the bat I was, 'Oh my gosh, I love Ozomotli and I love the Beatles. I've got to call this guy up'," Alamazan says.

They got together, just hanging out at first and then playing later. For their second meeting, Alamazan brought a bass player with him (who is no longer in the band). But Media Orphan has been together three years, with the current lineup since August. Johansen had come in to substitute on bass and ended up being recruited permanently.

Petteys shares his experience, "I was playing at a church and Eddie came to visit. I had really, really long hair, so he thought I was a girl. He said, 'You're a beautiful girl, you sing really well.' Nah, he saw me playing in a band and asked me if I wanted to play in a band... He heard me sing and he wanted me to play bass, which was really weird because I've never been a bass player. I was playing bass at church because people tend to do different things a church," Petteys laughs. "So I was supposed to be the bass player, but it never happened. I never played once, they lost their singer. I went from bass player to lead singer in the matter of a day."

So what's in the name I wonder about Media Orphan?

"Eddie was reading through an article and it talked about some band or musician and it had the phrase 'radio orphan' because they were able to keep things going even though they didn't have a lot of radio play," Alamazan replies. "There are tons of bands out there like that, Grateful Dead is the first one I think of, but he liked the phrase and what it signified, but he didn't like the word radio. He thought what else is radio, radio is a part of media and media is a broader word."

"It has a lot of different meanings behind it, like spiritual meanings," Negrete adds. "Words always come out and you never really know what it means until you think about it, like our songs and our future CD coming up. You think, 'That's a good word, but what does it really mean? I don't know. I'll dream about it and tell you tomorrow.' So I thought about it and I thought, us being Christians in this world we have what's called the Worldly Father who does whatever he wants and we're not children of the same father so it's like we're orphans of this world in that spiritual sense.

"I thought it out a very deep meaning behind it, but I didn't want to tell everyone, hey, this is exactly what it meant, I wanted to make it more ambiguous," Negrete goes on. "It also had more of a radio-friendly meaning behind it and it had more of a spiritual meaning behind it."

The members of Media Orphan are also Christian and point out that they are Christians who have a band, but not a Christian band.

"I think for us it's not important that Christians clap for us," Alamazan says. "It's more important for other people to listen and hopefully get to know us and in talking with us they realize that there's something behind this."

Negrete adds, "It's about relationships- we became friends and then we became a band. We'd like our fans to be friends and then fans."

"We notice that a lot of our fans say our music spoke directly to them in situations," Johansen pipes up. "We would rather pick someone up off the ground than pat someone on the back who's already standing up on their own feet."

I decide to get to know each member a bit better.

Negrete grew up in Southgate, California.

"My family on both sides are musicians. They all play guitars, piano, drums," he states. Negrete started on guitar at age 12, "That's my main. I've tried everything else, but I wouldn't say I played it."

Negrete majored in art at at Biola University, Pacific Christian College and Cal State Long Beach. He has a degree in art for drawing and painting, but has not done graphics for band yet. By day, he is a married social worker with a five year old son.

"I write, I'm a songwriter, a music writer, I read books," Negrete says of his free time.

Bassist Johansen spent his childhood in Eagle Rock, California. He is recently married.

"My first instrument was piano lessons for a year when I was in second grade. I went from that to guitar, then guitar to banjo, back to guitar, then eventually the bass. Oh, and ukulele. I ha - DaBelly.com