Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Battleblog M.I.A.

FOR WHAT ITS WORTH....

the following....

We're busy as (expletive) these days, due to (insert excuse). So due to (prior noted excuse) the boys and I (Battlehooch) have fallen behind on (stuff that isn't music, that has to do with our musical existence, i.e. THE BLOG). so we're aiming to have our (prior expletive) together by the end of this (unit of measuring long distances of time) and ready for (a mythical creature that is so into battlehooch and actually likes what we do, that they sought out battlehooch's obscure and poorly maintained blog and (semi) frequently check it.)

(parenthesisisisisisisisisisisisis).

Anywho, believe it or not, we're working on tons of new stuff... compiling old tour and concert footage, mixing a new album, doing tons recording experiments, learning brand new songs, traveling thai land (no joke), and plotting general revampage.

(does anyone want to take pictures of us? or shoot a music video with us? or anything cool like that?)

If you read this blog, you are AMAZING and i have no idea how you stumbled upon it.

I'm REALLY happy you found it. I hope you like it. (honestly, yo)

I still intend to keep up on it (thebattleblog), just need to get a bunch more material ready to be posted and then it'll be pumping out rare battlehooch gems (GROSS) like nobodies buisness.

don't want to publish anything SUBPAR (irony?)

love,

Archaeology Johnson

P.S. - I want to live my life like how Greg Saunier plays drums.

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

"Ugh. Are they honestly Jamming?"

When Battlehooch was first getting started (back in UCSC when we were called The New Rectangle and/or The Sex) we would jam.

ALOT.

There are many shows we played (with upwards of 10+ people in the band at some points, mind you) where no more than 2 people at any given time "knew" what was going on. someone would just yell "we're in the key of G" and then we'd blatch for a a while.

bless our patient and supportive college friends and their "approval" of such musical expeditions.

yet despite the near critical role that improvisation has played in our foundation as a band, once we moved to San Francisco and started calling ourselves Battlehooch, the improvisation dried up. Sure we'd twist things around every show, and sure we'd noodle around in practice, but things became very calculated and exact (trust us, it was all for the better). we never would reach points in the set where we'd all be jamming super hard, driving ahead full bore towards a cliff, not having any idea if our parachutes would work once we flew off the edge.

...slowly it's starting to make it's way back into the fore.

here's a recording of an improvisation that we did to start off our suprise show in our buddy joe's basement.

it's based on a groovy interlocking rhythm that we've been messing around with since the new rectangle days. (BRINGING IT ALL FULL CIRCLE)

Joe's Basement (A Battlehooch Improvisation 10 24 09) by AJ McKinley

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Back From Tour OR The Making of Piecechow Documentary

We just got back last night from a jaunt up north. We played Seattle (twice), Portland (twice), Olympia and Eugene (in a tattoo parlor!)

Check out my tweets from November 13th-19th to get a (cryptic?) idea of what that was like.

Link to Battlehooch TWITTER.


Cool.

BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY...

I present the long awaited documentary: THE MAKING OF PIECECHOW. (My mom was waiting for a long time for this movie)



Still pretty exhausted from tour. Too tired to be clever. (don't get ahead of yourself, son).

Gonna go over the footage from tour and make another documentary probably.

SO BUSY, YO.

(about to watch TOP GUN... nothing gay about that....)

Thursday, October 8, 2009

Chickenman Presents: Battlepooch (plus full KXLU Acoustic Set)

Now. We have cable.

Utterly hypnotized by the "gnarliest car crashes" show.

(a room full of people yelling "oh shit!!!" while one firetruck crashes into another one)

like ...
not complaining really though, good times... ("all i could think was, i hope Ricardo is okay)

ANYWHO. here's some STUFF:


As promised, we stormed San Francisco's own Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival for the second year in a row. There were many highlights (Chickenman! New Friends! Blonde Afros! Backup Tambourines! Playing at night in the trees!) but the true highlight was when... OH HELL! you'll just have to see for yourself!
(watch this video, the event in question happens approx. half way through or something.)


HOW ABOUT THAT!!!! I'll tell you one thing, it's given our whole band pause. Our music didn't get nearly as much applause or response... back to the drawing board? (they just killed my ballet!!!...... oh no wait, there it is!)

Also, if you're interested, our acoustic set from KXLU (which we posted some highlights from a few weeks back...) is available in full at the following website.

http://www.kxlu.com/blogs/Live_on_KXLU.htm

The Documentary is done! But apparently theres this thing called color correction.... apparently eggz says i can trim down like 4 mintues off..... IS SHE CRAY CRAY?!?

read my tweets yo... http://www.twitter.com/battlehoochaj

IS RICARDO OKAY?!?

Sunday, September 27, 2009

"Would you like to go digging through the vaults of BATTLEHOOCH material with me?"

Blog time.

Time to blog the Battleblog.

Log + B

OH MAN are the tracks i'm posting silly.

One is the infamous original demo of our song "Ringtone". It's INFAMOUS because it is performed (and SUNG, ladies and gentlemen) by the tremendous Ben Juodvalkishlikisusoudjukis.... Battlehooch's KeyboardER.

rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr (sound of motor scotor motor, idle)

he sings like a bloody (english bloody, yo) bird! see?!?!... Ringtone DEMO March 2009 by AJ McKinley

the other thing, song... songthing... DEMO... is a song called "chimps", which before too long was taken up to Churr, chopped up, put back together, and given a new heart and was then redubbed "Somersaults" (see prior blog post for "acoustic" version of said newer version of said song.)... but here it is in it's original glory... sorta... its not to glorious to be butchered and put back together (song running through head right now: "sewn back together wrong" by dethklok)



...SNAP. we're here. this is what we're talking about. a song called CHIMPS...... listen? (fake ending?) All vocals/instruments by yours truly, Archaeology Johnson...

Chimps (Somersaults Demo Nov. 2008) by AJ McKinley

ALSO, in other exciting news.... we went into the studio and recorded 8 brand new battlehooch songs in 2 days. we'll be posting some of that in the coming weeks, just need to mix the suckers....

and the making of piecechow documentary is about 98 percent finished, should be coming out soon, just need to holla at EGGZ GRAINEY about helping me fix some crud.

EGO YO. (is he talking like a rapper?) -

a bullet whistling across the desert at night time... or something like that. (climax?)

IGNORE.

Saturday, September 12, 2009

A trio of videos from our live acoustic set on KXLU 9/11/09

Currently writing to you (who?) from MAX MARDER's pad in Echo Park. Currently in the midst of an LA mini-tour... played a couple shows yesterday... one at the Echo Curio (with our soul brothers, 60 Watt Kid) and a show at the Loyola Marymount Radio Station, KXLU. Twas an acoustic set, a bit of a hectic set up but when all was said and done it turned out pretty well....

but don't take my word for it, here's a couple snippets of our set... with swell multi camera angles (dig the sepia tone shots!)

also in the coming weeks i'll be posting a mini-documentary about the making of our album "piecechow".... keep checking back....

ONLY BABY SHARKS

HUMAN RAM

SOMERSAULTS

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Deep Knee Bends - BLUE GRASS VERSION

Salut! (HE DID SAY BANJO! HE DID HE DID! BANJO BANJO BANJO!)

We've been getting into all kinds of groovy stuff recently boys and girls....

The following things have been making various members of BATTLEHOOCH very stoked recently.... (in no specific order)

  1. Timbaland Beats (specifically his work for Aaliyah and Clipse)
  2. Declare Independence (Bjork music video, dir: Michel Gondry)
  3. St. Vincent
  4. The work of music video director Patrick Daughters (DIG HIM. He's THE MAN)
  5. Rare Funk 45s
  6. Hall and Oates
we've also been spending tons of time fine tuning the new batch of songs for when we go into the studio after our LA mini tour. New songs are sounding SWEEEET. Got SO many others on deck too... there will be no shortage of new battlehooch material for at least another year or so.... (did he really say that?)

ANYWAYZ!!!!!! onto the new blog post.... The INFAMOUS(?) Bluegrass Version of "Deep Knee Bends". You might remember "Deep Knee Bends" from our 2007 EP "OOF OWF" (Remember OOF OWF? Remember my '88 White Toyota Corolla??!?!? (Big ups to Aptos, California!) ...and the dayz go by... diggin' the parenthesis within parenthesis)

(meanwhile...)
Deep Knee Bends BLUE GRASS by Battlehooch

The Lineup for this recording was:

Archaeology Johnson - banjo/mandolin
Dr. Spankk - vocals/acoustic guitar
Grantaloonz - bass
BDB - drums
Tombo - sax
Hubaloinz - Family Reunion

We recorded this version when we were trying to get onto the lineup for SF's very own "Hardly Strictly Bluegrass" festival. Still waiting to hear from them, but we'll probably just storm the front gates like we did last year... (PROOF ---> http://www.flickr.com/photos/battlehooch/2948340270/)


ENJOY, CHICKENS! Come over and Jam!

(does anyone read this? hahahahahahahahahahahaha)

THE END.

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

"Classic Clowns and Lords" (Live @ Slim's in San Francisco) + SPECIAL GUESTS!!!!

As promised we have returned! (echo echo echo ...)

The BATTLEBLOG rolls on and here's the newest post! It's a video of the opening of our most recent SF show @ Slims.... it includes toilet paper, implied gang violence and adorable children... (thanks to anyone that was actually AT this show too, twas a hoot and half!)

ENJOY,

see ya again real soon for more stuff.... (banjos?!? did he really say banjos?)

Friday, August 14, 2009

New Battlehooch VIDEO

Here is the BRAND NEW video for "Looks You Can't See", the second single from our LP, "Piecechow". It was directed by the wonderful Penelope Allyn Collins. ENJOY!

Looks You Can't See - BATTLEHOOCH from Penny Feather on Vimeo.