MUSIC SCENE 6gig call it quits BY SAM PFEIFLE

Word has been percolating around town since the recent Beautiful Locals release party at the Big Easy, March 4. There and then, 6gig frontman Walt Craven announced that the show would be 6gig’s last. This past week, the Phoenix got in touch with Craven to confirm the bad news.

"I wasn’t sure I was even going to announce it," Craven says. "[Bassist] Weave had told us that he’d play shows booked for the month," after he quit the band in late February, but 6gig didn’t actually have any gigs booked, and "the wheels have been spinning anyway. Once Weave gave his word, I don’t know, it really wasn’t that surprising and it’s really not that disappointing," Craven says. "I didn’t even make a big deal about it," at the show, "I said it before the last song."

"It’s not bitter," Craven emphasizes, "and no one’s really pissed. It’s just like, ‘Yeah, I guess you’re right.’ "

Everything was so rosy back in 2000, when I met the band in the Asylum to talk about their recent signing with Ultimatum. Man, if they weren’t rock stars, who were? And Ultimatum did pretty good by them with the release of Tin Can Experiment, an album that contained the song "Hit the Ground," a minor national radio hit that Ray Lewis used as his hype song when his Ravens won the Super Bowl.

But then they went back in the studio to work with producer Matt Wallace on Mind Over Mind, only to have the release of the record delayed, and delayed, and delayed. Then drummer Dave Rankin left the band, and soon after died unexpectedly, and 6gig seemed to have the life sucked right out of them. The eventual local-only release of the disc bucked them up for a short while, and there was talk of good songwriting sessions, but fans of the band had been noticing a bit of a depression in the band over the past six months.

Craven says those songwriting sessions did produce about five great songs, which they’re considering releasing as an EP, but he thinks will most likely wind up on the Web site, www.6gig.com, available for download in the near future.

And what about a big final show for the fans? "I don’t think we’re going to do the whole one-last-show thing," says Craven. "I don’t think it’s really our style."

What about future projects?

"Just not even thinking about it right now," says Craven. "I got some advice from a friend of mine about not hooking up with one or the other of the bandmembers right away to start something new, about hooking up with other people and seeing what happens. In the back of my mind I have a few perfect situations. I might just write a bunch of songs and record them and see what happens."

If the Portland scene is lucky, this breakup with result in similar great spinoff bands to those (Paranoid Social Club, As Fast As, Seekonk, Inside Straight) that followed Rustic Overtones’ breakup. Regardless, the Phoenix would like to wish all the members of 6gig, the winningest band in Best Music Poll history and long-time friends of the paper, the best of luck.