Members of the Vancouver band Faire du Surf were taken aback when songs they posted on the music-sharing site purevolume.com went from a handful of downloads to thousands.
“It was crazy. We thought something was wrong,” said Ian Cunningham, 18, who founded the band with his friend Griffin Taylor, 17, in December.
The band recently added Brennan Jung, 19, and Tyler Peterson, 17. The four attended Skyview High School together. They play local coffee shops and venues other than bars, since they’re all underage. Cunningham describes the band’s sound as “indie surf rock — very happy and poppy.”
“Our stats have been going up and up to almost 17,000 downloads,” Cunningham said.
The track “Lit Up” was listed by purevolume.com as the No. 1 download as of Friday.
“We don’t know how it happened, but we’re definitely not complaining,” Cunningham said. “It’s kind of impossible to say it’s not a sign.”
Disaster relief takes Felida resident abroad
In the year since he began volunteering with the disaster relief agency ShelterBox USA, Felida resident John Cordell has been deployed to Sri Lanka, Malawi, Tanzania and twice to Haiti. His most recent deployment took him to flood-ravaged northeastern Brazil.
Cordell, a 59-year-old retired Portland Police Bureau investigative sergeant, left July 3 for Brazil. He planned to stay only two weeks but the need was so great that he didn’t return home until July 30.
ShelterBox volunteers help distribute boxes with tents and supplies to those in need. The boxes are designed to sustain 10 people for six months. Cordell and the other volunteers helped set up eight camps for displaced families in the Brazilian states of Pernambuco and Alagoas.
This trip presented different challenges than his previous deployments, Cordell said. There was a greater language barrier, as well as telecommunications difficulties that made it tough for volunteers at the various camps to contact each other.
Cordell plans to take a couple weeks off from volunteering to celebrate his 20th wedding anniversary, but then he’s ready to go wherever he’s needed.
“The sky’s the limit,” he said. “I think it’s going to be a matter of waiting and seeing what Mother Nature has planned.”
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