Saturday concert to revitalize Orono’s music scene

By Pattie Barry

Posted on Nov. 30, 2006, at 12:00 a.m.

It’s not often that the Orono music scene is infused with fresh energy – especially from an old source.

WMEB DJs and Orono scene veterans Patrick Anderson and Beth Farnham, better known as DJ Clarity, hope to change that. This Saturday night at the Blues Cafe, the pair are bringing back many of the old names in progressive electronic music from Orono for a “rebirth” of the music scene.

“Not only are these people the best in the state of Maine as far as the genre, but we haven’t seen them in years,” Farnham said.

Joining DJ Clarity will be Unity, Jefferson Hobbs, KTF Terison and Anna Schauffler for a variety of progressive music including breaks, house, artist work and trance.

Five to six years ago, the progressive dance scene was big in this area, cresting around the year 2000, Anderson said. Over time the scene had changed and many of the people who were major figures had moved away.

“At least my last year at UMaine, there was a lot of problems within the techno house DJ scene,” Farnham said. “No one was really having conversations on Facebook anymore about songs or what was interesting them, it was all just ‘come to this show’. A lot of it was that these people had left.”

Anderson said that though electronic music is not as popular as it has once been, he feels that it is becoming more and more pervasive in today’s music, appearing in hip-hop and indie rock.

“I think that enabling [this concert] to happen will spark people’s minds with the music,” Anderson said.

Anderson reflected that, in the going-on-four years he has been a student at UMaine, the musical styles haven’t changed much from jazzy jam bands or the vibrant punk scene, which is good but stagnant.

“Change needs to happen, and it needs to happen more often,” he said.

The event, titled “Rebirth,” will take place at the Blues Caf� starting at 8 p.m. on Saturday night. The event is free, and admission is 21-plus.

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