Angry Orts are sure to be on time

The Angry Orts is a Portland punk-pop band making its Olympia debut Friday. But what’s an angry ort?

“An ort is a small leftover or a scrap,” said Sara Wiltshire, the quartet’s lead singer. “We actually did a lot of crosswords, and that’s always in the crosswords. It’s a disgruntled crumb or something.”

That’s far from the only example of the band’s self-mocking good humor. Its MySpace page touts the Orts as “Portland’s most punctual rock band.”

Now there’s a claim to fame.

“Anytime we play a show, the sound guy or the booker is like, ‘Why don’t you get here at 8, and we’ll do sound check at 8:15, and the show will start at 9:30 or 10?’ ” she said. “So we’ll show up, and no one will be there. We’ll be like, ‘Where is everybody?’ and the other bands will show up at like 9:30.

“We forget that everyone works on musician time because we all have regular jobs. We’re super-punctual, and then we look like dorks.”

Then there’s the mustachioed publicity photo. And the title of the band’s first album, “The Purple Rhino Squad vs. The Blue Whale Super Heavy Assault Troops.”

In a review in the Portland Mercury, Ezra Ace Caraeff called it “an album of thrilling little pop songs that transcend the silly moniker of the band — and the album.”

The Orts have been compared to both the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Blondie.

“Our biggest influences are The Pixies and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs,” Wiltshire said. “I used to listen to a lot of the Pretenders. And when I was little, No Doubt was huge. Gwen Stefani was a big influence in my life.”

Other band members — guitarist Aaron Ettlin, drummer Matthew Hernandez and bassist James Puryear — have different musical tastes, she said. But they’re all a little young for Blondie.

“Definitely I’ve listened to Blondie,” she said. “It was something we grew up around, but it was obviously before we were intensely listening to music.

“I can hear why people think we have that same poppiness,” she added.

The Orts are currently at work on a second album, due out next year. “The stuff we’re working on now is more disco-punk going more towards dance,” Wiltshire said. “The last album totally runs the gamut of musical styles.”

The Olympia stop is part of a quickie tour — from Portland to Vancouver, B.C. and back — inspired by a couple of more or less momentous events.

“We just got a new van, and we want to take it on its maiden voyage not too far from home,” Wiltshire said.

“This is the first time we’ve played out of town,” she said. “We decided that summer time is a really good time to go on tour, and Matthew and I are getting married in about a month, so we decided, ‘Let’s do it before that.’ ”