E-Mail This Article to a Friend Don’t give it up Monoman auditions for INXS; the Information find Paradise BY WILL SPITZ

A week ago Wednesday, the Lyres’ Jeff "Monoman" Conolly was just paying his daily afternoon visit to the Middle East — his "living room" away from home — when he stumbled on a potential new gig. By chance, Mark Burnett Productions, the people who brought us Survivor and The Apprentice, were in the club filming open-call auditions for their newest enterprise, a show (to air this summer on CBS) centered on the search for a new frontman for the almost-forgotten Australian pop band INXS. "I had no idea this was happening today," said the graying, disheveled soul belter of such garage-rock hits as "Help You Ann" and "Don’t Give It Up Now," who these days introduces himself as Pokemonojeff. "I figured, ‘I’ll do this for the experience.’ " He says this in between gulps of his patented Poke-Echter-Punch — Julius Echter Hefe-Weißbier and cranberry juice. "You gotta try everything."

Pokemonojeff just happened to be carrying a disc of some new songs that he was planning to show his band but instead became his backing track. "Not that you asked, but the most exciting thing for me was being scared, scared, scared," he recounted. "Then they put the CD in, and I was like, ‘This is my favorite song in the world. I don’t care who these people are.’ " There was a supporter closer than he thought. "I’ve been a Lyres fan for years," said one of the show’s sound engineers as he passed by on a break. "I couldn’t believe it when I saw you get up there."

Despite the pleading of reporters and the Middle East staff, no observers were allowed in the upstairs room during the auditions. But there was no shortage of commentary from the participants. The singer of a fairly well-known local band reported, sotto voce, "There was one guy doing Radiohead really poorly."

"I did [Radiohead’s] ‘Karma Police,’ " said Monoman’s younger but no less, uh, eccentric pal Roger Nicholson, who hosts an open-mike night at the Middle East Corner on Mondays, "and I fucking nailed it." Cave In’s Stephen Brodsky, whose group parted ways with RCA last year, filled out a contestant application only to get cold feet after reading the jargon-riddled two-page contract. "After the events of the past three years, I’m a little frightened of contracts," he said, a few minutes before he tore up his completed form and walked out. "I’ve got other things in mind for myself than being on a TV show that’s looking for a replacement singer for a lame band."

The Information formed only a year and a half ago, but in a curious display of chutzpah, they not only held the CD-release party for Mistakes We Knew We Were Making (Primary Voltage) in the big room at the Paradise a week ago Wednesday but also held out for an encore. It worked: the room was packed (given that the balconies were closed), and even their bassist, Heath Fradkoff, had an entire section cheering his name. With former Weekly Dig music editor Luke O’Neil, frontman for openers the Good North, jumping on stage for "I Lose Control" (already a local hit on WFNX) and Mistakes getting love from the local press, you could forgive them for letting success go to their heads a bit. Yet though the night belonged to the headliners, visiting art-rockers Asobi Seksu turned the most heads. Their sound could be described as a cross between the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Deerhoof, and their diminutive, bi-lingual singer, Yuki Chikudate, has a gorgeous, powerful voice. They’re from New York, but as the crowd filtered out, a familiar refrain could be heard: "That Japanese band was amazing!"

Ryan Stewart also contributed to this report. Will Spitz can be reached at wspitz[a]phx.com