THE BATTLEBLOG

The COMPLETE Desolation Tour 2010 Post

2011-05-18T14:56:00.000-07:00

THE 2010 DESOLATION TOUR

(All Media Collected July-November 2010)

Here's ALL the Vlogs, ALL the Desolation Videos (plus some extra goodness) and ALL the Blog Posts from our epic Odyssey last year. Looking at all this stuff assembled in one place is pretty intense.

So much happened. I SAID GOD DAMN!

Well, here it is. Now on to the next thing...

(Did someone say Live album? Burlesque dancers? Interactive psychedelic BRAIN applications?)

The Complete Vlog Series

The Complete Desolation Videos

(bonus) Live @ Astor Place, NYC

and Live for BreakThruRadio (in the BATTLEVAN):

The Blog Posts:

Part 1 (Tour Kickoff)
Footnote to Part 1

Part 2 (SNAFU)

Part 3 (Seattle and Capitol Hill Block Party)

Part 4 (Portland)

Part 5 (Eugene and California Return)

Part 6 (PREVIOUS Recap POST)

Part 7 (Las Vegas)

Part 8 (Utah Music Park)

Part 9 (Denver)

Part 10 (Oklahoma)

Part 11 (The South)

Part 12 (ANOTHER Recap Post)

Part 13 (The Midwest/The Sprawl)

Part 14 (Detroit)

Part 15 (New York)

YOU BELONG TO THE CITY NOW - BATTLEHOOCH U.S. Tour 2010 Part 15

2011-03-12T11:52:00.000-08:00

NYC.

I really don't know what to say.

(New York City?)

What else is there to say about New York that hasn't been said in countless books, movies, songs, albums, poems, ETC. ("E! T! C!" - D. Boon/The Minutemen)

NYC.

It's the (THE!) American City.

LITERALLY NEVER SLEEPING! (I really thought it was hilarious how New Yorkers complained about how they hated people that stood on the sidewalks... even for like 5 seconds, PEOPLE SHOULD BE MOVING CONSTANTLY!!!!!!!!!!)

NYC was a big part of our tour.
At least 1/4th of the whole adventure.
We used it as home base for 6 weeks.
We LIVED in New York basically.

It was a madcap adventure.... full of dizzying highs and trying lows....
but most of all it was just simply an astounding adventure. So many things happened in those 6 weeks, I could ramble for days and days... pages and pages... hours and hours... and still leave out noteworthy things that happened.

How could I even TRY to convey what it felt like to go to that city for the first time and REALLY experience it and LIVE in it.... The thrill of seeing Time Square in ACTION.... The frustration of dragging our gear through the subway system (that includes our battery bank which is the heaviest thing ever)... the elation of our Astor Place gigs (dig some of those videos, yo... it was heavy!)... the nerdy pleasure of walking past Kyp Mallone (the beardy dude) from TV on the Radio like it AINT NO THANG.

(TOO MUCH TOO MUCH TOO MUCH)

I think that in this situation, it might be best to let the vlogs and the videos speak for themselves. And dear friends we got A LOT of footage while in New York. The sheer amount of footage that we amassed in New York alone was staggering.... sifting through it all was a daunting task. Dizzying. Just like the experience itself. But I do feel that even if I can't express the FULL scope of our New York experience with the following videos, I do feel like one does get a sense of what it felt like for our band to be husling in the city... looking for fortune and glory!

.... even when I was there, I had trouble communicating/understanding what it felt like for me personally to be in New York... the city was/is just PULSATING with energy... constantly bustling.... living and breathing and expanding....

And here I am, in a coffee shop at the corner of 21st and Bryant in San Francisco.... been home for months... and I feel like I'm still reeling from my time in New York... still processing it.... making sense of it... and ACHING to get back as soon as I possibly can.

(NEW YORK, I LOVE YOU BUT YOU'RE BLOWING MY MIND.)

"BATTLEHOOCH IN NEW YORK" LIVE VIDEOS

Various songs from our residency at Pianos

A video of us playing at the DUMBO street fair for a bunch of wild lookin' little kids can be found by clicking on THIS LINK.

Various Songs from Astor Place

"Someone To Remind You" (unreleased song) - In our van, driving through Bushwick, for Break Thru Radio

"Boog Woogily" - Union Square Subway Station

"Red Tide" - Washington Square

Various Songs From our set at The Levi's Photo Workshop

"Get Ur Freak On" (MISSY ELLIOT Cover w/ Kira from Magicland)

A DETOUR TO BOSTON, MASS

Our original plan was to tour all over the East Coast and use New York as home base. However, for various reasons (weather, booking SNAFUs, etc.) we never managed to really get out of the city that much. Besides a quick trip up to Danbury, CT (birth place of CHARLES F&$#$# IVES - father of America composition!) early on in our stay, we only managed to successfully get away from New York for one gig in Boston.... Jamaica Plains to be more specific.

Anywho, we played a house party that was TOTALLY ludicrous. We played in a tiny, sweaty room and everyone in the audience THREW DOWN HARD. In fact it was so rowdy at one point that the people who lived at the house had to stop the show to ask people to stop jumping up and down. They were afraid that we were gonna rock the house down. BOOM! That video is down below and I think it might be my favorite live video of us every filmed. I'll never forget that night, fo sho.

We also had a rather enjoyable time street performing at Boston Common as well.

We didn't get a chance to sample Boston's INFAMOUS clam chowder, though.

Next time. And there WILL be a next time.....

"Seraphim (unreleased song)" - Boston Common

"Hope (unreleased song)" and "Only Baby Sharks" (featuring the Jamaica Plains Mutha-ship Tabernacle Choir) - Jamaica Plains

Battlehooch live in Boston from Angelina on Vimeo.

ALIVE IN THE MOTOR CITY - BATTLEHOOCH U.S. Tour 2010 PART 14

2011-02-10T17:51:00.000-08:00

WELCOME TO THE MOTOR CITY.

(THE REALNESS) Out of all the places we visited on the 2010 Desolation Tour, Detroit sticks out as being the most Desolate place we visited... except for maybe that 12 hour drive from Austin, TX to Las Crucas, NM... there is literally NOTHING out there.

(Far as I can tell) Detroit is essentially the ghost town of America. One day while we were staying there, I took a cursory look around the neighborhood and realized that AT LEAST 80% of the nearby buildings were condemned. FACT: the population of Detroit has gone down from 2 million to 900,000 in the past 20 years. MARINATE ON THAT, YO.

It never occurred to me that places like Detroit exist in America.

A Brokedown Palace.

America is supposed to be the land of prosperity.... Yet Detroit is literally crumbling at this very moment. We shot a desolation video there in an abandoned car factory... whole floors had collapsed.... there was graffiti and broken widows everywhere... tons of piles of JUNK and CRAP. Spooky as all hell. Don't even get me started on what the downtown area reminded me of....

(PRODUCTION NOTE: This particular desolation shoot was cut short because we got spooked by all the homeless people that were lurking around the car factory, eyeing our expensive gear and our scrawniness... far from "police protection"... that's why that particular video is a little more on the raw side... cause it was MORE RAW. RAW-ER. RAAAAAAAAAAAAWR. (P.S.) - They were filming Transformers 3 nearby. No joke.)

The people I saw walking on the streets of Detroit looked SO HARD.... as if their bones were made out of steel. COLD SKELETONS.

(Audience Member: "WELL AIN'T THAT A LOT OF POO TALK ABOUT DETROIT!")

SORRY. sorry. You are correct. No need to dwell on how messed up Detroit is... because Detroit is also TOTALLY GREAT! Don't believe me? Watch the #15 VLOG and you'll SEE that we had a great time...

SERIOUSLY. We had a $%#^@ (Hi Ryan!!) great time in Detroit. Hung out with our booking agent Kim Paris, visited the original Motown studios, etc. and so forth... good times. We found this excellent street fair called the DALLY IN THE ALLEY and got in some much needed (musically, spiritually and financially) street performing. Lots of new friends. Even though the city seemed kinda dour and down in the dumps, there was still lots of friendly smiles and dancing feet to be found.

Good vibes from the people of Detroit.

So peep the VLOG, dig the latest Desolation Video and enjoy a collection of some of the band's favorite jams that came from the Motor City:

Stevie Wonder - "I Was Made To Love Her"
(There are simply too many Motown songs we love so I just picked this one cause its... well... you know... just listen....)

Iggy Pop/The Stooges - "Penetration"
(FUN FACT. We played this song at the very first ever BATTLEHOOCH show. Were YOU there?)

DJ Assault - "Yo Relatives"
(DJ Assault is a genius. The end.)

The Amboy Dukes - "Journey To The Center Of Your Mind"
(YOUNG NUDGENT)

The White Stipes.....

(DETROIT RELATED TANGENT ALERT!!!!)

The White Stripes broke up last week.

13 years and 6 amazing albums (seriously, not one of their albums if close to bad... all awesome in their own way).

No one died so I'll spare you a long winded rant about the White Stripes and how important they are to me a la my homage to Captain Beefheart (Audience member: "THANKS!"). Bottom line, I thought they were the bees knees and Jack White is easily one of my very very favorite songwriters and guitar players. I was lucky enough to see em live a couple of times (on the Elephant tour. boom.) and it really did feel like I was seeing one of the GREATS. Ya, know. They were HUGE. Titans. Giants. My favorite memory of seeing them live was when they busted out a medley of "Lets Shake Hands", Bob Dylan's "Isis" and the Yeah Yeah Yeah's "Man". It was REALLY exciting. So stoked I got to see the epicness that was their cover of Death Letter Blues LIVE!!! Just two people laying it down HEAVY and I could've listened to it for hours.

Anywho. LOVE THEM. And really.. kinda glad they stopped when they did. That way, they'll have never released a bad album... goin' out on top. What a career.

GOOD JOB JACK AND MEG.

Here is a small hand full of some of my favorite White Stripes songs (songs, not VIDEOS, even though pretty much ALL their videos are epic...)

BLACK MATH

HANDSPRINGS

RED RAIN

I'M SLOWLY TURNING INTO YOU

THE SAME BOY YOU'VE ALWAYS KNOWN

THE SPRAWL - BATTLEHOOCH U.S. Tour 2010 PART 13

2011-02-03T12:35:00.000-08:00

THE SPRAWL.

Part 1

Part 2

(Thesis)

What you will learn about is the following: Reality.

Yes, we toured for 4 months. Yes, it was the most fun I've ever had in my life. Yes, we met some incredible people/bands. Yes, there was something enjoyable every where we went...

(here it comes.....)

BUT!!

(Here's where Reality creeps in...)

Life on the road during this trip was not one glorious sequence of huge victories. Before we reached New York we had a roughly 2 week stretch of shows/driving that literally zig-zaged (spell check didn't like that last word) across the heartland of America. These weeks were more trying than previous weeks, which had seen an abundance of memorable shows, insanely good times and steady financial standings. Which brings us to THE SPRAWL: The place where skin was thickened and dues were paid.

(Body)

What is THE SPRAWL you may ask?

THE SPRAWL is the space in between the coasts. THE SPRAWL is the guts of this country. THE SPRAWL is miles and miles and miles of (apparently) very little. THE SPRAWL is a different country. The SPRAWL is THIS country. THE SPRAWL is MOST of this country. THE SPRAWL is different from everywhere else I've been.
(THE SPRAWL is also an Arcade Fire song... about the same place. It is amazing and was definitely was on my mind while we were traveling through this area. )

THE SPRAWL is the land of HUGE churches. Sarah Palin voters. Midwestern Kindness. Vast oceans of wheat. The sweetest corn I've ever eaten. Salt of the Earth. REAL America. Drawls. Drawls in the Sprawl. (Space all around me where my soul can breathe.)

Each day the drives were enormous... something like 8-9 hours on average (cue the sound of violins playing tragic music). We were rapidly arriving/leaving from brand new places at a disorienting rate. In some cities, we only spent 4 or 5 hours in it before we hit the road. It was hard to wrap my head around the fact that each place was a unique entity, with it's own vibe and personality. More so than almost any other stretch of the tour, our time in THE SPRAWL felt the most like a dream.

When you're an up and coming band booking your own shows in new towns, it's inevitable that there will be some bummer shows. (FACT OF LIFE). More specifically: sparsely attended shows with bands that we don't really enjoy that much (Don't worry THE MATT DAMON EXPERIENCE, I'm not talking about you guys. Ya'll are boss in my book). These shows get ya down but like I said, its part of the gig... part of payin' DUES. However, when shows like this start to become more common, it gets harder and harder to remain cheerful and keep the cynicism at bay. This started to (kinda) happen during our time in THE SPRAWL.

One starts thinking about THE BIG PICTURE. One starts to compare the amount of time and effort expended with the net result of what they get back and it often seems wildly lop sided. You suddenly realize that you're miles and miles from home, eating poorly, sleeping poorly.... and you don't even know what CITY you're in. (Bring back the sad violin music, please). It can also get pretty strange because we're constantly playing the same songs over and over again. You know how if you have to write a word over and over again it starts to just look like gibberish after a while......

well....

(You know where you are? You're in THE SPRAWL, baby. You're gonna die!!!!!!!)

Now, lets be clear... I'm not saying THE SPRAWL is a bad place and I'm not saying that all our shows in THE SPRAWL sucked. We had amazing shows (Holla Chicago! Newport! Detroit!), met wonderful peeps (Brendasaurus Rex! Another shout out to The Matt Damon Experience!) and we are hugely grateful for the hard work of our booking agent Kim Paris. She did an awesome job helping us with our tour and we know booking shows is seriously BRUTAL. We love her and are thankful for all her hard work.

The way I see it, these Blog posts are meant to sort of help tell the story of the Desolation Tour Experience. (RIGHT?) Therefore, the bleak and trying times must be represented as much as the fun and silly times. Driving those huge distances, having bunk shows.... it really gave me a sense of how mammoth the task is that we're embarking on.

BATTLEHOOCH VS. THE WORLD!!!!!

We're trying to operate on a national level and on this tour I really got a taste of what doing such a thing really MEANT. Our country is huge! So many different kinds of people! So many different kinds of philosophies! So many unknowns! Nowhere else was this concept more vividly experience than during our time in THE SPRAWL. This was a crucial part of the overall Desolation Tour experience because this was essentially what the whole tour was about.... seeing the WHOLE country and seeing what happens when BATTLEHOOCH dives into it's center.

(Conclusion)

I don't know.

Even just thinking/talking about THE SPRAWL I feel like I'm getting overwhelmed. Trying to keep my head above water. It's so big... (SOOOO BIIIIG) There's so much space between thoughts... between people... and somehow we have to figure out how to tell THE SPRAWL about BATTLEHOOCH.

I think in the end all I can say about my time in THE SPRAWL on this tour... much like the tour itself... it was utterly dizzying and it's grandeur and scope was almost too much for me to fully take in...

...but I'm intrigued. It would be easy to just write it off and look at the negatives. ("It is kinda boring, barren and backwoods", says the hater) It would be easy to just say "FUCK THE SPRAWL". But that would be a disservice to all the wonderful peeps that dwell in SPRAWL (and love living in the SPRAWL!) The SPRAWL is too big and unexplored to write off at this point. As weird as it may seem, THE SPRAWL is still part of America... and from what I've seen America is a pretty groovy place and worth giving the benefit of the doubt.

We're going back into THE SPRAWL in the near future... when we know how to maximize the effectiveness of our time spent there... and I look forward to exploring it more and trying to connect with it further.

RECAP! Episode 1-11 of BATTLEHOOCH U.S. Tour 2010

2011-01-02T20:49:00.000-08:00

Parts 1-11: Chronicaling our journey from San Francisco to Florida

Part 1 - Tour Kick Off

KICK OFF Vlog Episode

Link to Tour Kick Off Blog here (and footnote here)

Part 2 - Technical Difficulties

Link to Technical Difficulties Blog post here

Part 3 - Seattle, WA

SEATTLE Vlog Episode

Link to Seattle Blog Post here.

Part 4 - Portland, OR

PORTLAND Vlog Episode

Link to Portland Blog Post here.

Part 5 - Eugene, OR - Solar Living Institue - San Francisco (Visit) - LA

EUGUENE Vlog Episode

SOLAR LIVING INSTITUTE Vlog Episode

SAN FRANISCO/LA Vlog Episode

Link to Eugene - SLI - SF - LA Blog Post here.

Part 6 - PREVIOUS RECAP POST.

Part 7 - Las Vegas, NV

LAS VEGAS Vlog Episode

Link to Las Vegas Blog Post here.

Part 8 - Moab, UT - (UTAH Music Park)

UTAH MUSIC PARK Vlog Episode

Link to Moab, UT Blog Post here.

Part 9 - Denver, CO

DENVER Vlog Episode

Link to Denver, CO Blog Post here.

Part 10 - Oklahoma City, OK

OKLAHOMA CITY Vlog Episode

Link to Oklahoma City Blog Post here.

Part 11 - The South (New Orleans, LA and Florida)

NEW ORLEANS Vlog Episode

FLORIDA Vlog Episode

Link to The SOUTH Blog Post here.

"Trumpet Poop on the ground with Peanuts" or "A Tribute to Captain Beefheart"

2011-01-02T18:35:00.000-08:00

Don Van Vliet, AKA Captain Beefheart, has died.
Long live the Captain.

I didn't get my license until I was 19... so I used to get rides to high school with my dad. We'd drive in his '88 White Toyota Corolla (that's OOF OWF to ya'lls) and listen to cassette tapes of dubs he'd done of his old record collection. This is where I first heard such future favorites as "Box of Rain" by the Grateful Dead, "All Along The Watchtower" by Jimi Hendrix, "Camarillo Brillo" by Frank Zappa and "Positively 4th Street" by Bob Dylan. It was on one of these car rides that he first showed me Captain Beefheart. The Captain was a favorite from his college days and he showed me two songs that were among his favorite in the whole world : "This is The Day" from Unconditionally Guaranteed and "Tropical Hot Dog Night" from Shiny Beast.

For YEARS, I thought "Tropical Hot Dog Night" was the weirdest song in the world. Stranger than strange lyrics and the backing band sounded like they were stumbling backwards through a samba parade. The song in general sounded like it was telling the wackiest joke ever. On top of it all, Captain Beefheart sounded like a Muppet with mad cow disease.
Obviously, nobody at High School gave a shit about Captain Beefheart. Some of my friends knew about him cause he sang "Willie the Pimp" on Zappa's Hot Rats album, but that was it. It was just strange music and I was the only person in the world who knew about it. As a matter of fact, I remember once I read a quote in some magazine where Trey from Phish said "Tropical Hot Dog Night" was one of his favorite songs ever and it blew my mind that someone else knew about Beefheart!
Whenever I tried to show "Tropical Hot Dog Night" to people, they'd just glare at me and get angry that I was playing such annoying crap. Heck, at this point I wasn't even sure what I thought about "Tropical Hot Dog Night". I appreciated how it was odd, bizarre and impenetrable but I wasn't sure if I REALLY liked it yet at that point. The music had a veneer of novelty, as if it was too weird to be really true.

I think my dad and myself are part of only a hand full of people on earth that really love "Unconditionally Guaranteed". The more I researched Beefheart, the more I found that the album was pretty much universally loathed by all his fans for being too "pop" and too "smooth". I guess I understand why that would be... After all, here was the dude who laid down "Lick My Decals Off, Baby" and "Frownland" playing smooth, laid back AM radio music with the dudes from BREAD! Might be a tough pill to swallow for some....
...But I don't care! I love the album and after all these years, I still think "This is the Day" is one of the most beautifully haunting songs I've ever heard. The album wasn't released on cd for years, so for the longest time the song only existed to me on vinyl. In other words, I only heard it when I would hang out with Grant Boardman, a friend who had a record player. (I have many fond memories of listening to the vinyl at Grant Boardman's house: black light, candles, shitty orange carpet and all. The music still evokes that room EVERY time I hear it.) The fact that it wasn't easily accessible and existed only on an outdated form of media created a spectral feel to the music. Fleeting, like an old memory. Also, I knew it was one of my dad's favorite songs, and Unconditionally Guaranteed was one of 3 record albums he brought with him when he dropped out of college and headed west. I think the combination of a unique back story, the fact that the album was out of print and the sweeter nature of the music created a sort of aura to the album that I always found compelling. It was like the tender feelings of my young parents preserved in amber. It was also an interesting balance to "Tropical Hot Dog Night". "This is the day" sounded like the same monster that was barking on "Hot Dog", but now he was sad and lamenting love long gone. A poignant example of seeing the sensitive side of the bizarre.

Either way, these two songs established an emotional and intellectual connection with the Captain that came to full fruition in years to follow.

When I got to college, I became obsessive about discovering new music. I was always asking people about what music they were into, downloading albums in bulk and trying to learn as much as I could about rock history. As I became exposed to artists like Os Mutantes, Fela Kuti and Syd Barrett, I started to realize that my musical tastes generally steered towards the direction of the more bizarre, outer reaches of rock music. It became obvious that "weird" was what I liked. So, inevitably I began to come across Beefheart's name more often and gradually got exposed to more of his music.

In the latter part of my college time, I moved into a house with some of the members of my band and it was there that I (we) started to really get into avant garde music. We spent hours and hours making experimental recordings - sound collages, white noise, atonal jams, you name it. In this environment, Trout Mask Replica became a very important musical reference point and the first full Beefheart album that I personally got into for my own reasons. The fearless spirit of Trout Mask Replica was extremely influential to my band mates and I and informed much of our experimentation. Heck, we even covered "Moonlight on Vermont" for a while. (Apologies for the kinda brutal sound quality... but that's SEX WITH JON for ya.)

Moonlight on Vermont (SEX WITH JON Cover) by AJ McKinley

Also, the deeper into Beefheart I got, the more I realized how relevant he was to my music studies. At the time, I was getting into the abstract regions of music theory in my college courses and being exposed to people like Schoenberg, Stravinsky and Webern. All the things we were learning about (atonalism, chromaticism, poly rhythm, word painting) were elements that he explored extensively in his music and presented in a much more intriguing way than the stuffy classical dudes I was learning about (no knock on Stravinsky et all, just sometimes I like my atonalism without a bow tie, feel me?). When the world of classical music became too heady and mathematical, I'd go back to Trout Mask and it would take me back down to earth... back to the human body. He became more and more crucial to the way I thought about music... I even briefly considered writing my entire senior thesis on Trout Mask Replica.

Eventually, I graduated from UCSC and moved to San Francisco. While I didn't get over Captain Beefheart, for a while he stopped being something that I referenced constantly. While still retaining a desire for progressive, forward looking music, I was no longer spending most of my time actively wading in the choppy waters of the avant garde. He was with me more and more in spirit and not in active practice...
Then, one day last year a good friend of mine showed me how to do BitTorrents. (If you don't know what it means to do a BitTorrent, it's basically the reason why no musicians can make money anymore off their recordings.) Long story short, I soon found myself with the full Captain Beefheart discography. As I started to revisit old favorites and dig through all the tracks I hadn't yet heard, it started to dawn on me: This was music that was crucial to ME.
This wasn't just music that I was intrigued by or that I thought was technically important... This was music that I profoundly connected with! Music that I really loved! I realized how his whole body of work was a vast treasure trove of brilliant ideas that pointed in a thousand directions... most of which had yet to be explored! It was (in my mind) the very definition of artistic bravery. It showed how much was left to be found out. It was music that STILL sounds like it was made tomorrow.

I may be venturing into hyperbole, but this is REAL TALK here, yo. I loved his weird music AND I also loved his simpler, more melodic music. I liked his simple, brutal blues work outs AND his obtuse, intricate compositions. I loved the musical complexity AND I also loved his abstract lyrics and surreal word play. I loved the fact that the dude who made "This is the Day" also made "Pena". (Seriously, marinate for a moment on what those two songs say about the scope Beefheart's music covers. It's staggering, yo.)

When I listen to his music, I feel like I'm able to go to a place of limitless creative fertility. It's like sitting in a garden where you can watch the most incredible flowers blossoming right before your very eyes. The longer you're in the garden, the more incredible the flowers are that you see. The day after he died, I sat in my room and listened to Trout Mask Replica front to back and I was knocked out (like I've been many times before in my life) at how singular that album is. He had forged a completely new musical (and lyrical!) vocabulary that was wholly separate from everything that came before it (and after). Yes, you can hear elements of things like Howlin' Wolf, Ornette Coleman, Stravinsky, Shakespeare, et all but these elements are so disembodied that the music transcends mere pastiche. It's like genetic recombination. It's musical mutation. A wholly new organism with it's own distinct characteristics and DNA.

This is tip of the ice-berg type material. I could ramble for much longer about Beefheart. I could talk at length about all his albums, his side men, and I haven't even touched on the fact the he was a painter for much more of his life than he was a musician (and a damn good one too. SHEESH!). But, I will say that I the man made a whole self contained universe with his art and it's a universe I can go to whenever I want and feel a unique and special kind of freedom and inspiration. For that, he'll always be huge in my mind.

R.I.P. Don Van Vliet (January 15, 1941 – December 17, 2010)

-Archaeology Johnson

P.S. - a couple more crucial Beefheart videos from YouTube. Never enough.

BATTLEBLOG 2011 UPDATE (Includes info about the Tour Videos, New Album and More)

2011-01-02T12:30:00.000-08:00

Quiet, but not Forgotten. (The BATTLEBLOG).

("I will begin again" - U2)

It's 2 days into 2011 and that means I'm surging with the awesome power that is NEW YEAR MOTIVATION. Yes, dear friends, Archaeology Johnson has a "To Do List" - filled with all manner of things that will (hopefully) enrich my life and (hopefully) infuse my existence with purpose and meaning. That's just a fancy way of saying that for the next few days I'm gonna be sitting around in my PJs listening to Mothers of Invention bootlegs, goofing around with my crazy new distortion pedal and spending money to get broken stuff fixed. (Really?)

This post is meant to be an update of sorts. A State of the Union, if you will on some BATTLEHOOCH related topics.

FIRST:
The Status of the Vlogs from the BATTLEHOOCH 2010 U.S. Tour.

We are obviously home and the tour has obviously been over for a couple months now. Yes, there hasn't been a peep on this Blog for a couple of months but what can I say.... we got home and I needed to take a break from the self contained universe of madness that was the tour and focus on the NEW, the COMFORTABLE and the FRESH. I visited home a couple of times. I got majorly caught up on sleep (Ed note: Still relishing in the novelty of having my own room and my own bed. Each night of sleep since being home has been delicious boys and girls. Delicious.) I spent long stretches of time working on new songs. FRESH PERSPECTIVE. However, to prove that we weren't just sitting on our asses, here's a video of us playing in Berkley since we're been home.
Now, it's a New Year and it's time to resume telling the tale. In the next few days we'll have the next official Tour Blog post which documents the conclusion of our winding, wayward jaunt to the east cost. (These episodes will cover the existential conundrum that was BATTLEHOOCH IN THE MIDWEST. Profound. Deep. Exhaustive.)
If you followed our trip via Twitter, Facebook, E-mail, Carrier Pigeon, etc. you know that we spent over 6 weeks in NYC and had a ridiculous amount of adventures. An overwhelming amount of said adventures were captured with our cameras (Thanks Kickstarter Backers!) and will be presented in some form (short film? concert movie? episodes?) shortly after the next Blog post. STAY TUNED!
While you await the exciting conclusion of the story of our 4 month Odyssey, please feel free to revisit all the prior episodes. A collection of all the Vlog episodes and accompanying posts can be found if you press THIS LINK.

SECOND:
The Next BATTLEHOOCH Album

We have started working on the next BATTLEHOOCH album. However, unlike past releases where we would work on a hand full of songs for a while and then record them on the cheap as quick as possible, we are going to be trying things differently.... cause we like to be

SO DIFFERENT
(said in sarcastic mocking tone. we're so meta, yo)

So this new plan kinda is shaping up as follows:

Everyone is writing songs/riffs/progressions/rhythms/concepts/etc. (We'll call these little musical units TIDBITS.)
We're gathering together each week and showing each other the new tidbits. The tidbits are then demoed, jammed on, rehearsed, altered and generally molested and mutilated.
We move on and do it all over again with a new batch of tidbits next week.
Net Result: LOTS OF TIDBITS. A Whole Pile of New Ideas that we cherry pick the tastiest, funkiest, most mind-blowing parts.
We put it together so you can listen to it while you a) do your homework or b) get high. (Ed note. BATTLEHOOCH does not endorse doing homework or getting high.)
If any of these demos are presentable, we'll share on this blog.

This doesn't mean that you'll have to wait indefinitely to hear the next new, sexy and official BATTLEHOOCH recording. No ma'am/sir! In fact, if you've seen us in the past year, you'll know that we already have 7-8 new, unrecorded songs that have been prominent parts of our live sets. The plan as of this moment (Sun 1-2-2011 - 1:16 PM - In bed, listening to "Mud Shark" by Frank Zappa) is to go into the studio in the next month or so and record one or two of those songs. The sad fact of recording music is that it always takes way longer for the song to come out than you ideally want, so these recordings probably won't be out until spring BUT... still Spring will be here before you know it. Promise. :) STAY TUNED!

THIRD:
What Are They Listening To? - New Years 2010/2011 Edition

Captain Beefheart -

He died. Here's my post about Captain Beefheart. Avant Garde Sentimentality. True Hero.

Ariel Pink -

2010 was a big year for Mr. Pink. The men of BATTLEHOOCH were among the throngs that fell in love with the twisted alchemy of his music and we fell hard. It started with a friendly interest in this year's BEFORE TODAY album. The interest continued to grow, so when we were filling up my Ipod with new music for our 4 months on the road I made sure to get a whole gaggle of Ariel Pink albums. It wasn't until New York that we started digging through them. First it was THE DOLDRUMS, whose "For Kate I Wait" became a band favorite. Then "L'estat" and it's epic "(Popping noise)-CHEER UP!" breakdown became another favorite. Then we discovered "Among Dreams" and it's serpent bass line and sun burnt beach boys wobble. Then we found out WORN COPY was an amazing album. Now, we're obsessed with it all. On our recent drive down to LA, our van playlist was utterly dominated by Mr. Pink. BEFORE TODAY is hands down my favorite album of 2010 and seems destined to be one of my favorite album ever. (He also gets points for reminding me a lot of early Mothers of Invention albums and leading me back into yet another major Frank Zappa kick.)

Can - "Turtles Have Short Legs"

Grant showed me this jam last night. So good. Tago Mago-era B-side. I love how the piano kinda sounds like "Penny Lane" style Beatles but the rest is pure juicy KRAUT. Also, a Damo lyric for the ages, "Turtles have short legs, not for walking". Wonderful example of juxtaposition working out (i.e. Bouncy 60s style pop AND tribal, sprawling, textural future beats)

Tame Impala

INNERSPEAKER was another album that got played a ton during the tour. Different members had different favorite songs, but it could always be counted on to provide a sweet blast of hazy rainbow bliss. Recently discovered their EP is pretty baller also (accompanying video is of a song from said EP). Saw them recently at the Independent and it was totally epic. They opened their set with "It Isn't Meant to Be", "Solitude is Bliss" and "Why Won't You Make Up Your Mind". It was fucking beautiful and me and my homies danced like tripped out animals.

Depeche Mode - "Everything Counts"

I don't know if everyone else in the band feels this way about this song, but I always kinda felt like it was a "Theme Song" of sorts on the tour. Or at least I often found myself thinking about the chorus during brutal points of the tour: "It's a competitive world. Everything counts, in large amounts".

Tobacco -

This music is filthy, trippy and funky in all the right ways. Both FUCKED UP FRIENDS and MANIC MEAT are flaming gobs of awesomeness. Don't eat the berries around you.

Kanye West - My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

A quick RANT, if I may.....

This album wasn't a band favorite per se. In fact, I think at least half the band hates this album. But this album has been a big topic of discussion as of recent in the music world (I guess getting a 10.0 from the fork will do that.) and that includes the world of BATTLEHOOCH. We listened to the whole thing as a band on the drive back from LA and it lead to some interesting debates (Is he any good at rapping? Does it succeed based purely on ambition? Are the incredible beats compromised by his tabloid status? What does a 10.0 rating mean?)
Personally, I think the album is pretty staggering. When I listened to it by myself for the first time, I couldn't help but feel like I was being enveloped... Like I was in the presence of something GARGANTUAN. I'm amazed by the scope of the music: how unabashedly ECCENTRIC and WEIRD it is AND how unabashedly EPIC and POP it is. And dig the half hour video for "Runaway". That's some seriously mind bending Fellini style shit at points.

This is a GRAND artistic statement. It sounds like the Future.

I think it proves Kanye West is very simply the bravest pop musician out there currently. Lady Gaga might be more conceptually out there, but she still is seriously lacking in the over all jams department (Even though I admit Paparazzi influenced the bass line in our song "Joke"). Even if you don't dig his raps, you can't deny he makes HUGE BEATS and has some straight up EPIC HITS. (Or as the man himself says, "At the end of the day, I'm KILLING THIS SHIT. I know damn well you're feeling this Shit"). I don't think the album is perfect but I don't think that's what these mags/blogs are talking about when they drop a 5 star/10.0 review on it. I think this album's ambition is undeniable. Just the other day, a homie told me that to make this album Kanye block booked a whole studio indefinitely, flew in his favorite musicians (RZA, Bon Iver, Elton John, etc.) and would work all day at making this music!!! He would take a 90 minute power nap every 4 hours but otherwise, this dude was working all day to bring this vision to fruition. I think that's tight and quite inspiring as a matter of fact. I feel like it'll be a while before this album really sinks in and peeps can really discuss what this album means, what it attempts and what it achieves. For now, I'm kinda just in awe of it.

That's all for now. Peace and Love (and Kanye West).

-Archaeology Johnson

The South, in 2 Parts OR PROVE IT! PROVE IT! PROVE IT! - BATTLEHOOCH U.S. Tour 2010 Episode 11

2010-11-07T12:47:00.000-08:00

THE SOUTH

Say goodbye to the comfort zone, yo. (i.e. - Places where family/friends are in abundance. Places where we've played on tours past. Places where we weren't always a LITTLE bit afraid that some crazy police officer or roided out bro would pounce on our brains and faces. Places we know.)

Say hello (HELLLLLLLLLLLLO!) to strange new worlds and undiscovered territory.

We left Oklahoma, stopped through some cities in Texas, making our way into the SOUTH.

(Editors Note: we certainly had great times in Texas but for some reason we didn't really accumulate that much footage. My memories of this visit to Texas were as follows:

Best grilled Chicken Sandwhich I've ever had in my life in Austin.
Generally, miles and miles and miles of Texas.
Walking barefoot on a bar, while doing a guitar solo, while the bartender poured vanilla vodka into my mouth.
A HUGE twister matt at a backyard party (Everything is bigging in Texas).
Another long night of hanging out with Shaggy.
Visiting old buddies, whom I love.
More epic BBQ than you could shake a stick at.
Drunken weirdos spouting out vaguely racist utterings and then pulling a French Exit....

All this and more went down in Texas, yet it wasn't captured. Use your imagine perhaps, dear readers.

Here's a video of the BUTTHOLE SURFERS. They are from Texas. We love them.)

The REAL South. A land that for as long as I could remember existed purely in abstract. I knew it was a land responsible for a wide variety of things such as Gumbo, Racism and The Allman Brothers... a place that I had been told time and time again was basically just a totally different country.... a place that seems to love Republican politics... a place that wasn't the Bay Area in Northern California.

(Delta Blues. Cotton Fields. Scarlett O'harra. Rugged Accents. Bugs and thick heat. Gators. Hospitality.)

The South.

But I wanted to see if for myself. I think we all did.

PART 1: New Orleans

First we rolled into the utterly delicious city of New Orleans. Here's the New Orleans Episode--->

This city was probably the hottest city we visited during the course of the tour. Como ce dice, "HOT AS FUCK". I have a vivid memory of sitting in the house we were staying at, in my boxers, working on video blogs, sweating so intensely, with a fan on full blast about 5 inches from my face. There was no other way to operate. It was too hot to think.

Sticky. Slimely. The air was like roux. Which brings us to the next point of interest for Nola....

THE FOOD. In my humble opinion, 'twas the best food we ate on tour. They got their own thang goin' on in Nola in terms of food. Jambalaya. Po' Boys. Red Beans and Rice. Beignets. All amazing. And I assure you, dear readers, the authentic food is the way to go. It reminded me of when I went to France for the first time and I had a real French croissant. As I bit into it, my whole concept of the croissant melted. I ate croissants every day for lunch in 7th grade. I've eaten lots of croissants. Or so I thought. As I bit into said pastry, it was an utterly different experience. All I could think was "What the fuck have I been eating all this time?" Upon my return to the US I couldn't eat a croissant for years because I knew it wouldn't compare.

That's essentially how I felt went I had my first plate of authentic red beans and rice. Words can't do justice to how gooey, warm and delicious that stuff is. And the Beignets at Cafe Du Monde. Fried, chewy heaven. So much powdered sugar that it gave ya nightmares. DELISH.

(Battlehooch @ Cafe Du Monde)

We had an amazing show and a lackluster show in Nola. Lets just ignore the lackluster one. Not worth getting into. Not really bad... just kinda.... Smeh. Ya Know?
The amazing show was at a place called The Saint. We rolled in on a rainy, muggy Sunday night and from the outside the venue looked dead. But upon walking in we found a room full of crazies getting down HARD to epic jams (in a 10 minute period I heard "California Love" by Dre and 2pac and "I want to be your lover" by Prince. These cats knew how to mix jams). Apparently the occupants of the bar this evening were a wild crew of kick ball players who had just finished their kick ball season and were looking to get ROWDY. They were wearing costumes, yelling exuberant gibberish and all kinds of stuff. We set up our gear in a corner and within the first 2 minutes of our set it was clear that these people were ready to throw down.

AND THROW DOWN THEY DID. (what a crowd)

It was here that we learned about NoLa's distinctive chant: "WHO 'DAT?!? WHO 'DAT?!?"
At one point, I was tuning my guitar and the crowd just started in with the WHO DAT chant. Not missing a prime opportunity, Ryan dropped a fat beat behind this chant and quickly the rest of the Hooch fell in. Before ya knew it, we were laying down some greasy funk with a crowd full of nutsy southerners chanting. Dear readers, it was really magical. Silly, but awesomely magical.
They also liked yelling "PROVE IT!" For example:

(After playing some rowdy music and getting a super rowdy response...)
Battlehooch: Alrighty, enough of this mellow shit, we're gonna play some crazy, rowdy music...
New Orleans Crowd: PROVE IT!!!!!!!
Battlehooch: (starts playing "The Special Place")
New Orleans Crowd: (GO. FUCKING. CRAZY.)

God damn. Even just writing this stuff I'm getting giddy. One of the best gigs of the tour for sure.
Great city.

Nola. You have stolen the heart of BATTLEHOOCH.

PART 2: Florida

(St. Augustine, FL with our new BFFs, Jane Jane Pollock and Lighthouse Music)

Here's the Florida VLOG---->

Full disclosure: Wasn't really TOO stoked on visiting Florida. Just had a feeling it was gonna be kinda mediocre. But such low expectations meant that the AWESOMENESS that was Florida was felt much more intensely.

It all started off with us filming our 3rd Desolation Video. We played a song standing in the middle of a swamp. Definitely one of the most memorable "venues" on the tour, fo sho. Every official show we played in Florida was cool. Cool bands, cool promoters, cool venues, and cool crowds.

First, there was Orlando.

(Will's Pub - Orlando, FL)

(I - Archaeology Johnson - turned 26 in the fine city of Orlando. My birthday consisted of swimming in a natural water spring, going to see "Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World" in a movie theater and grubbing down hard on Sushi - thanks for the meal, Ma and Pa.)

Orlando is also, sadly, where we had to bid farewell to our soundman GABE. Thus, the end of THE GABE LEG. :(

(Then Lake Worth....) While in Lake Worth, we made a point to make it out to the Atlantic Ocean for a swim. The water was over 80 degrees. Best experience I've ever had swimming in the ocean. So delightful. Here we played at a joint called "Little Munich". The version of Hope from Vlog #12 is taken from this performance.

In St. Augustine, we played a music festival that was held in a Surf Board making shop. (The word on the street was that St. Augustine was the Santa Cruz of Florida. In general, Florida reminded me a lot of California.) We also played with my favorite bands that we've come across on the tour: Jane Jane Pollock and Lighthouse music. I was laying in the grass, staring up at the sky when Jane Jane started playing... and (sorry to be laying the cheese on thick right here) I found the music literally calling to me, ushering me to get up and go to it... I made my way through the crowd and just stood totally transfixed by their music. The way I described it after the fact was some kind of lo-fi, Chinese(ish) dub pop music: mellow electro beats, awesome vocal harmonies, GREAT GREAT GREAT songs. (I don't know why I describe it as Chinese. Just feels correct.) After their set I stumbled up to them and gushed like a loony fan. Because I was.

LOVE THAT (Those) BAND(S).

(The Red Moon Festival)

In St. Augustine we also got free pizza from the promoter. Free food means SO MUCH MORE to me now than it ever has. Especially pizza. It was like happiness covered in greasy cheese.

Before leaving Florida we stayed in Jacksonville with new friends... at a college dorm. It had been days since I had stayed over in a college dorm... We watched that shitty Oliver Stone Doors movie and went for a swim. 'Twas nice. We also got a healthy dose of southern hospitality in Jacksonville from BIG WALT. BIG WALT was a friend of a friend, and we rolled up to his house one night and he brought us in, told us hilarious stories and gave us a bountiful RIB FEAST for free. (Once again, free food is so incredible when you are struggling to stretch yr money to get enough food just to survive.) Here's a video we shot of BIG WALT doing a rant about how Bay Area sports sucks... in effort to ruffle the feathers of our buddy Petechow... Squire of the BATTLEPAD and avid sports fan.

THE SOUTH. What a place.

"Wayne Coyne is kinda like everyone's Dad..." - BATTLEHOOCH U.S. Tour 2010 Episode 10

2010-10-22T13:39:00.001-07:00

... and then the mid-west.

A state called OK. An OK State.

(This certainly wasn't California... or anything close to the west coast, really.)

This was new, this was different. This was Oklahoma. And Oklahoma was where my conception of this whole damn country started to mutate.

Before the tour, I'd spent 99.9 (with a line over the last 9) PERCENT of my life in California. Day in day out in a place that as far as I could tell was heaven on earth and the most desirable place to be...

I mean, why be anywhere other than California? I wasn't necessarily HATING.... I just didn't understand.

California: The sunshine state, with the bomb-ass hemp beat. The State where you never find the dancefloor empty.

But there was something under the surface in OK (Oklahoma). Anyone there would tell you that everything was a little bit BEHIND... it's not the center of the world... not really EXCITING... and it doesn't necessarily explode with eccentric creativity (see NYC, Portland, SF, etc.). BUT BUT BUT BUT BUT... the people who live there (in OK) were great people.... interesting people... friendly people... open minded people... basically people that you would find in a stereotypically progressive city (see previous city list).

AND MOST IMPORTANTLY, most of the people I talked to loved OK.

I heard tales of going out to the shooting range and firing off some AK-47 rounds. Tales of cow tipping. Tales of crazy hippie freak outs in the woods of Missouri (!!!!). Tales of wild jam bands that live in the outskirts. And then I recalled that the Flaming Lips are from OK (The title of this blog is a direct quote from the resident "OK Super Hippie" (Johnny) talking about the infamous Lips front man).... Sounds like GOOD TIMES, Right?

... So a cursory glance at this mid-western institution would reveal it to be so very very boring. So very very up hip. So very very UN-noteworthy.... but such an assessment denies the fact that there's still wonderful, creative and interesting people that dwell within it's borders, having a blast and living a good life....

The core essence of this realization - THERE ARE GOOD PEOPLE EVERYWHERE - kept popping up in my brain constantly with every new town/state/scene we went into. This is a beautiful thing. Makes me love this country A LOT.

HERE IS THE VIDEO DOCUMENT OF OUR OK ADVENTURE:

WHAT ABOUT THAT ARGUMENT IN THE CORN FIELD?

What can I say? Some of us lost our tempers. We yelled. We got in each others faces. SHIT GOT UGLY. But at this point in the tour (As of this writing I am in the early stages of week 15) we have yet to have another blow up.

(HA?)

Yet, I think this little squabble that we had, while quite unpleasant, was necessary. I have never had people this UP IN MY GRILL before in my life. I literally spend every day with these guys. And not just every day, but pretty much the ENTIRE duration of each day, too. We wake up together, we eat together, we travel together, we unload/reload the van together, we play shows together, we even sit together when we're on our computers just chillin out. WE ARE CONSTANTLY IN EACH OTHERS FACES... thus we are aware of each others little delightful quirks, eccentricities and randomness.

(VERY AWARE.)

And that's what I think our little fight in the corn field was all about... trying to figure out how to deal when you have no personal space and when your mental state (or really just ones GENERAL state of being) is directly tied to another person (or persons). Its like we're a creature with 6 personalities inside of 1 head. If one personality is angry or bummed... it's hard not to have it effect the other personalities in a negative way. I personally got to a point where I was letting another persons mentality totally dictate the way that I was feeling and that ain't healthy at all. (Fuck, we're getting into some DR. PHIL Shit right here. Maybe we can get Dr. Phil to be our personal band psychiatrist, just like METALLICA!!!!!)

BATTLEHOOCH, QUIT YR BITCHING.

... but thus is the nature of this whole adventure. Learning and discovering with my brothers. Going out into the deep end... doing what is hard in order to achieve something MORE...

My dear, dear brothers. Love 'em.

But it's all good now, friends. Whatever ugliness that may have occurred is but a small smidgen in an ocean of good times. We may be in each others grills, but we know how to work together.

Basically what I'm trying to say IS....

PEACE.

"...And we entered the Mountains to test our METAL" - BATTLEHOOCH U.S. Tour 2010 Part 9

2010-10-14T14:42:00.000-07:00

THE MOUNTAIN REGION, boys and girls.

Where air is thinner.

Where we had our first real "struggle" finding lodging. (Admittedly struggle is far too extreme of a word, but it WAS the first time that we had to really hussle to figure out where exactly we would lay our heads each night.)

Where gawdy weed dispenseries littered the roads, devoid of tact.

Denver, What are you? (COLORADOoooooooooooooooooooooooo???????)

Here's this edition's Vlog ---->

HERE'S A DETAILED TALE
(illustrating an aspect of the existential nature of a touring band's life on the road)

Our time in Colorado was quite interesting. It was the first place we visited where we had some truly STRESSFUL shit to deal with. Days that would probably lead to any other band getting INSANELY PISSED at each other... Yelling and fighting and what not.

Not BATTLEHOOCH, dear friends. We're a band of brothers.

(Audience member: "Hey, didn't ya'll get in a shouting match in a field in Oklahoma?"
Archaeology Johnson: "QUIET YOU! That's the NEXT Episode. We're talking about Colorado.")

Actually, it was basically just one particular day that was kinda rough. So here's how it went down and how we persevered:

We roll into Downtown Denver, totally jived from how well street performing went in the PacNW... we pick a chill looking spot and set up our gear. We start up our first song and then we are IMMEDIATELY SHUT DOWN. The culprits were a small gaggle of smarmy little "Hospitality Officers", who peruse Downtown Denver... keeping it "In Order". Apparently, "Order" did not entail "Electric BATTLEHOOCH Street Performing". "Electric" being the key word here.

So we packed up....

Then we argued. "What should we do?" "Where should we go?" "Should we give up?"

Lots of options were presented and debated... and somehow the one that we decided upon was that Grant should go buy an $800 acoustic bass. Logical, correct?
So we returned to the same spot and then tried our first ever all acoustic street performance AND (drumrolllllllllllll)....

it BOMBED. So Ruggedly. Here is a picture taken from this show....

The cars passing by were just too loud for our instruments, it was wimpy sounding and worst of all the brand new Bass was totally inaudible if you weren't standing right next to it.
Defeated, we packed up. Then Ryan almost got arrested for being smart alecky with the cops.

So we regrouped and argued more and made lots of snarky, bitchy comments to each other. Tempers did get a little heated but we still didn't FIGHT.

(...also keep in mind, all we had eaten that day was some Cereal early in the morning. Grumpy boys, indeed.)

Once again, after all the ideas were presented, we made a logical decision on what to do.... We ended up deciding to drive 30 miles away and try to play for people in the parking lot of a Primus/Gogol Bordello show at the legendary RED ROCKS Amphitheater.

(Again, very logical, right?)

This gig, however, turned out to be a big success. We met lots of cool folks, people seemed to enjoy our music, and we made a little bit of money. General faith for the band was restored.

After all that, we drove back to Denver and then headed to our actual, official gig of the evening. In the car, we bro'd down pretty hard and everyone apologized for being irritable. The bro bond was strengthened. Or as my man Ari Gold says.....

As luck would have it, the venue we played that night gave us a delicious and free full on BBQ meal and free bowling. Very excellent.

SO THE MORAL TO THIS TALE:

When street performing, just about everything is uncertain - where to play? will we get caught? will anyone like us? should we play electric or acoustic? etc. The only thing that is certain is that perseverance will lead to success. When all was said and done, despite all the setbacks, we made some new friends, played our music in an amazing location and then got free Ribs. Sounds okay to me.

The rest of our time was much more delightful. We checked out Boulder, CO the following day and gave the acoustic street performing set up another go. This time we found a more ideal acoustical spot, far away from cars. We played two sets and ended up making about $300. No hassle from the FUZZ. (You could even hear the bass!) Someone even shot 30 seconds of video. (see above.) GOOD TIMES. We played a gig later that night at a Pizza joint. Free Pizza. Flamenco dancers. We played last of 3 acts and only 15-20 people were around when we played but funny enough, we sold merch to about 15-20 people.

BATTLEHOOCH. Gettin' across to ya.

And then we came down from the mountains and stumbled into Oklahoma... that LITERALLY is another Story that will have to wait.....

(P.S. - the lateness of this post is blamed on the fickle nature of YouTube uploads. that is all)

BATTLEHOOCH MEETS THE MORMONS (BATTLEHOOCH U.S. Tour 2010 Episode 8)

2010-10-06T10:17:00.000-07:00

LAZY LIZARDS IN THE UTAH HEAT

This blog will probably end up sounding something like this (in some order):

(fill in the blank with ramblings about tour)
(fill in the blank with ramblings about how the stuff in this vlog took place a long time ago)
(fill in the blank with ramblings about new york - where I/we currently are)

HERE WE GO!!!!

We are in NYC and have been for the past few weeks. I think that once we rolled into New York, my brain's capacity for retaining/processing all the events and adventures from tour completely broke down.

MY BRAIN OVERLOADED.

Thus my lack of blogging for the past couple weeks. At any given moment I felt like I was half asleep... half awake... bombarded by stimulus.... struggling to take it all in.
Yes, I became awash in the electricity that is the GREAT AMERICAN CITY and before I knew it, it had been weeks since I last did a post on this (lovely) little blog.

So......... yeah, sorry.

I think I'm slowly getting my wits back... Or at least my ability to process the madness going on around me... and thus my ability to process the madness that came before.... (sometimes it blows my mind that I'm STILLLLLL ON TOUR. Still.... I kinda almost feel like how I did in all those years of public school... like I know that SOMEDAY it'll be all over, but it's so far off that dwelling on it's conclusion doesn't make sense... thankfully The Desolation Tour is nothing like 3rd grade... well, other than the constant poop and wiener jokes that go on in the van...)

So this blog is going to cast us back a month or so... as we were moving into the GUTS of the country. As we moved past the GODLESS MECCA OF SIN (Vegas) we entered into the mountain region... with UTAH as our first stop.

Utah was the first place we visited on the tour where I started to notice people staring at us when we went into gas stations and grocery stores. On the west coast we blended in with the general population... our eccentricity being fully noticeable, yet not something that stuck out amidst the fray. UTAH WAS DIFFERENT. Suddenly I was very aware that I was wearing California surfer shorts, Mardi Gras beads and a headband with a feather in it... and my hair suddenly felt WAY longer. Everyone else looked like they shopped at a store called BLAND CLOTHING ETC.

We didn't have a show to play in Utah, but the drive from Vegas to Denver was quite brutal so we broke it up by staying in Moab, Utah at a hostel called the Lazy Lizard.

At the Lazy Lizard, they had a common room where the various travelers could congregate. Here, I would sit and work on Vlogs and various other BATTLEHOOCH RELATED LOGISTICAL STUFF. While I sat in this room, the owner of the establishment (a very humorous fellow with ONE EYE) sat watching "The Shining" and spouting out ridiculous one liners/non sequitors. He was spouting them out faster than I could write them down, but one of my favorites was him talking about the actress, Reese Witherspoon: "Oh yeah, I love [her]... I'd fuck her cat." What could he MEAN by this? He also had lots of little funny little stories about the behind the scenes madness during the filming of "The Shining"... kinda boiled down to Kubrich essentially torturing Shelly Duuvall to get her to give the performance he wanted... and then Jack Nicholson would do the good shit in ONE TAKE. (That movie is awesome.) I wish I had one eye and had funny shit to ramble about in terms of 70s horror movies. (No I Don't)

BUT THIS ISN'T (REALLY) IMPORTANT.

2 (Important) things did happen in Moab, Utah.

THE MUSIC PARK: Utah is covered in Mormon. Moab is a little eccentric oasis amidst this Mormonism. This is perfectly exemplified by the fact that in Moab there is a little park (off the beaten path) where there is a whole gaggle of percussion instruments that are free to be played by the general public. We recorded almost an hour worth of stuff at this park, and it was whittled down for Episode 8 of the VLOG series. This place was truly magical. There should be free musical parks EVERYWHERE... and it was so pleasing that it was found in the middle of MORMONLAND. Weird America. Popping up in the funniest places. Constantly Surprising Me. Redefining WEIRD (WEIRD WEIRD WEIRD WEIRD WEIRD WEIRD.)

DESOLATION VIDEO #2: Remember our video that we shot in Arizona on the way back from SXSW? That was Desolation Video #1. It was a huge moment for our band because we had discussed the idea of doing shows in the middle of nowhere for a long while BUT THIS TIME WE ACTUALLY DID IT! So, with all our new cameras and all this new terrain we'd be visiting, we decided to try to make more Desolation Videos on this tour (Thus this tour being THE DESOLATION TOUR). With "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly" not far from our minds, we found a cool location (off the beaten path) in Arches National Park and lugged ALL OUR GEAR into a red rock canyon... In mid-day desert summer heat... Twas, in a word, BRUTAL. In two words, BRUTAL SAUCE. But wouldn't ya know it!!! we pulled it off!!! BIG THANKS to our sound-guy Gabe Armstrong, who surprised us all with his amazing FILMIC SENSE (yes, I used the word FILMIC) and keen eye for framing shots. His involvement made the shoot VERY SMOOTH. Sadly, I can't show you the video JUST YET because we have big plans for how it'll get unveiled BUT I can show you some of the screen shots to give you a sense of how EPIC this shit was. (EPIC EPIC EPIC EPIC.)

After this point we moved on to Denver, CO. There is a Blog ready to go about our adventures in Denver BUT, wouldn't ya know it.... I've been waiting for DAYS for the Denver Episode to finish processing on YouTube..... (literally Days, yo. been constantly checking it, too) So I'll wrap this blog up with the guarantee that the Denver Blog is coming very very soon.

I know I know... you'll believe it when you see it....

LOVE and MUSH.

Lets Revisit Shall We (BATTLEHOOCH U.S. Tour 2010 Part 6)

2010-09-06T16:50:00.000-07:00

Woo-wee we are lounging! LOUNGE LOUNGE LOUNGE. That's how we roll here in Seymour, Indiana at Pat's G'mas house. Seems like enough stuff has gone down in the past Vlogs that a recap of sorts was (is) in order. Sooooooooooooooooooo.... here's the first 6 episodes of the BATTLEHOOCH Desolation Tour 2010 VLOG.

EPISODE #1 - Start of the Tour Interview

EPISODE #2 - Seattle, WA

EPISODE #3 - Portland, OR

EPISODE #4 - Eugene, OR

EPISODE #5 - Solar Living Institute - Hopland, CA

EPISODE #6 - San Francisco, CA and Los Angeles, CA

ADDED BONUS!!!

Here's the playlist from the BATTLEPOD (My Ipod) from our drive to Atlanta, GA to Seymour, ID. Ya know.... just incase you were wondering what we've been listening to on the road....

Playlist Order: AJ-Ben-Pat-Grant-Ryan-Tombo

Keep The Streets Empty - Fever Ray
Sinner Man - Nina Simone
I Don't Really Mind - Tame Impala
Suspicious Minds - Elvis Preseley
Spring Hall Convert - Deerhunter
Agoraphobia - Deerhunter

Forest Fire - Dead Kennedy's
Trill - Clipse
Sunshine Superman - Donovan
Zig Zag Wanderer - Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band
Heaven or Las Vegas - Cocteau Twins
Soldier's Grin - Wolf Parade

The Fall of Mr. Fifths - WHY?
Friend of the Devil - Grateful Dead
The Wayward Part 4 - Harry Partch
Freak out Requiem - Amon Duul II
Fluorescent Grey - Deerhunter
Rainy Day Women #12 and 35 - Bob Dylan

Flume - Bon Iver
Tropicalia - Beck
Bunch of Lonesome Heroes - Leonard Cohen
Seek and Destroy - Metallica
Intermede - Oliver Messaien
El Azteca - Man Man

I'm Your Man - Richard Hell and the Voidoids
1979 - Smashing Pumpkins
Zig Zag News - Sound Sandwhich
Hairy Candy - Tobacco
Sheer Heart Attack - Queen
Where It's At (Skanky Remix) - Beck

(Slight Change Up In Seating Order)
2nd PLAYLIST ORDER: AJ-Ben-Ryan-Grant-Tombo-Pat

Dancing Queen - ABBA
Skeng - The Bug
S.O.S. - ABBA
Looking at the Invisible Man - The Dead Weather
Hellhole Ratrace - Girls
The Attic - Van Dyke Parks

Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me - U2
(BEN WAS PASSED OUT)
Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight) - ABBA
You Can Make It If You Try - Sly and the Family Stone
Pastime Paradise - Stevie Wonder
Dirty Diana - Michael Jackson

Jogo Da Calcada - Os Mutantes
Shake - Otis Redding
O Religio - Os Mutantes
Where I End and You Begin - Radiohead
People of the Sun - Rage Against The Machine
Cold, Cold Heart - Hank Williams

History Lesson, Pt. 2 - The Minutemen
(BEN WAS PASSED OUT)
Roulette Dares (The Haunt of) - The Mars Volta
Transformer Man - Neil Young
Smash - The Offspring
One of Us Cannot Be Wrong - Leonard Cohen

Master Song - Leonard Cohen
Travelin' Band - Creedence Clearwater Revival
Vanished - Crystal Castles
New Electric Ride - Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band
(...and then we arrived)

Mad Love for ya'll. Episode 7 is finished, I'm putting it up in a few days.

PEACE. (I've never felt like more of a hippie than I have since being in the midwest...)

Gonna Set My Soul On FIRE (BATTLEHOOCH U.S. Tour 2010 Part 7)

2010-09-04T21:04:00.000-07:00

VIVA!

Its a wild thing...

...this whole "being away from California" thing.

Archaeology Johnson (Moi) is born and raised in California, dear readers. The longest I've been away from Cali was back in fall of 2007 when I traveled around Europe for 3 and a half weeks with my good friend Sofia Bell (who currently plays in the truly mind boggling Little Teeth). I've done some domestic traveling too. Always short jaunts, and mostly just visiting the kin in the east coast and occasional Nevada and New Mexico jaunts...

YES SIR, until this past July vast swaths of this fine fine country had remained unexplored/inexperienced by your humble Blog wrangler (Archaeology Johnson... moi).... and really pretty much the whole band (in various degrees).

All previous vlogs covered our last days on the West Coast (the west is the best) so all ensuing posts document the band's journey into new and wild frontier... ...seeing new parts of the country that we've never visited before. New experiences and adventures coming at us everyday.

(The last time I woke up in California was on my blow up mattress on the outside deck of the apartment inhabited by the band's good friends Sasha and John Paul (who play in the marvelous band "The Hot Moon")... It was a beautiful day (Of course. Ya gotta love San Diego in the summer, yo)... not too far from the ocean that you couldn't smell some salt... we had a delicious breakfast of homemade tacos and then gorged on free (FREE!!!!!!) gelato before saying good by to our sweet, sweet home.... good bye for Months..... AND Months.... AND Months...)

So now that I've rambled on (briefly) in a hyperbolic (superdupercrazylooper....) manner... here's some footage of us being stupid in Las Vegas.

(Gambling. Dancing to FUNKY MUSIC. Playing some jams in a sleak bar. Gambling.)

Vegas is enjoyable. Had some good times in Vegas every time I've gone. (Ya'll seen the Beatles Cirque de Soleil show? In a word... sakdfjyasdbfascjsydnsdfkjsfabsmdfas!!!!!!!! <------- TONGUES) Vegas is SUPER FAKE though. Not that that's even really a bad thing... more like it's kinda amazing. Like, Las Vegas shouldn't be where it is. It's in the middle of the Desert. There's no water. And yet through Sinatra, mobsters, vice and light bulbs it's become THE GODLESS MECCA OF SIN (or something.) A place to go for FUN FUN. A place to go to act like a FUCKING ANIMAL. I've always liked it. I've been there 4 times since I've been of proper Vegas age... and every time it mystifies me in some new way. Always looking for tangible soul in THE GODLESS MECCA OF SIN... always feel like I'm getting close BUT I still haven't found what I'm looking for... (hey, maybe that's why U2 filmed their video in Vegas... cosmic?(?).....)

So there ya go. As an added bonus I've added some super BOSS photos of us playing Frisbee and just looking HARD at a Nevada truck stop. If you've watched our vlog posts from this tour, you've probably noticed that we do a good amount of Frisbee playing. We're getting super good, yo. Getting dangerously good actually. Thinking about leaving behind this whole MUSIC thing and trying to make our money on the road hussling pick up games of DISC. We cannot be stopped.

(We're currently in Detroit Rock City, listening to Loretta Lynn, eating tamales and hanging out with the ever so charming Kim Paris, otherwise known as the booking agent for our Midwest/South/East Coast dates on the tour. She's groovy groovy groovy, to say the least)

Many Worlds Have Come Since I First Left Home (BATTLEHOOCH U.S. Tour 2010 Part 5)

2010-09-02T00:32:00.001-07:00

A MOTHER Post!
(as in "don't turn it loose, cause it's a MOTHER!" as my man James Brown says)

So much activity recently. (you always say that, lame-o)

Right now, we couldn't be any more in the South, boys and girls. Yes, we are knuckle deep in the bible belt.... visited so many states that until now have existed only in abstract forms in my mind (Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, Florida, North Carolina, Georgia, ETC!) Learning so much about this country... people... stereotypes... weirdness...

The spectre of religious madness and corrupt asshole police are always around, yet they have yet to interfere with the tour (knock on wood).

All this southern livin' is funny cause all the vlog posts I'm about to put up/talk about are from events from a month ago.... When we were still on the west coast (awww, the beautiful west, how I miss thee).

You wouldn't believe how hard it's been for yr humble blog wrangler to find a decent Internet connection to upload these videos, let alone write this very blog post. Quite difficult.... (oh, 1st world problems....) so, sorry for the lag since last post... (you always say that, lame-o)

Last time I posted, it was to tell tales of adventure in Portland, OR. The next 3 vlogs track our journey back home to SF and down to LA before we left the west coast and embarked on the guts of the tour. (We are NOW in the guts)

Episode #4 - Eugene, OR.

We were only in Eugene for a little over 36 hours but it couldn't have been more action packed. We rolled into town on the late night tip and shacked up with our friend of a friend of a friend of a GIRLfriend, the lovely Francesca McCormick (what a babe). Being that we arrived very late, I chose to turn in while the rest of the boys went out to check out the town. I brushed my teeth, put on my jammies, whipped out the sleeping bag and pillow and literally had just closed my eyes when RRRRRRRRRRRRRRING my celly starts blowin' up. Wouldn't ya know it, it was the other battleboys with an important message! Apparently, the downtown area of Eugene was absolutely CRACKIN and the word was that we would be damn fools to not street perform. Next thing i knew (literally), I was standing on a street corner amidst a plethora of drunkards, piecechows and foxy ladies. We started our first song some time after 2:15am. Cars kept driving past and each time I was sure that it was a cop car coming to shut us down and throw us into the brig..... yet, it never happened (!!!!!!). As the set progressed, the whole downtown scene basically turned into a ridiculous dance party: bumpin, grindin, pop lockin, and there was even Russian dancing at one point! Tripped out weirdos headbanging! Boobies being flashed! Sexy glances this way and that.... it was literally insane. When we busted out our trusty cover of "billie jean", things just went OFF. It was literally a night I will never forget... so glad I didn't demand to be left alone so I could sleep. Episode 4 is a highlight reel (of sorts) from this event. The show was so hot, you must be careful that your youtube doesn't blow up. (okay, Archaeology Johnson... calm down, yo)

Episode #5 - Solar Living Institute (SLI)

After a failed attempt at trying to street perform outside of a Ringo Starr concert (closest I've ever been to a Beatle, yo.) and a show with our good friends Dirty Wink (not to mention the most splendid night of romantic gallivanting I've had in recent memory... word up Allison, :) :) :)), we bid farewell to Eugene and started making our way back down the west coast. Before getting to SF we stopped off at the Solar Living Institute in Hopland, CA. Our drummer, Hubaloinz, went to SLI for a spell after he graduated from UCSC. He lived in a little trailer for a few months and learned the nitty gritty about green energy, climate change, etc. and so forth. (FUN FACT: It was here that he got the initial idea for our trusty battery bank.) Since we were more or less going to be going right past SLI on our way back to SF, we decided to stop off there and get some upgrades done to the battery bank.

Episode 5 has Hubaloinz explaining a little bit about the battery bank, Grant giving you a luxurious tour of the premisses of SLI and as an added bonus some footage of nearby Clearlake... which, in a word, is really FILTHY. (Like, FILLLLLLLLLLLLTHY.) Also, Pat slept in a house made of hay that night. The rest of us slept in a yurt. A good time was had by all. Don't use plastic. Long live the Sun.

Episode #6 - San Francisco Visit/Los Angeles

The 2 or so weeks that we spent up north were textbook examples of perfect weather. Delightful breezes, comfy warm temps, blue skies, etc. and so forth. Utterly perfect, yo. So it was certainly a shock to come upon the Golden Gate bridge and see how completely smothered in fog our beautiful city by the bay was. It just looked like a huge, cloud shaped fat guy was sitting on the whole city... and it was COLD!!!! For the majority of our time up north I was wearing shorts and a tank top, yet as soon as I got to SF out came the sweatshirt and the knit cap. (love this town, no matter what) That night we played a "secret" show of sorts at one of the best sounding rooms in the city, the Rickshaw Stop. It was a mellow affair with some close friends, but damn good fun none the less. We shared the bill with New York's absolutely radiant Setting Sun and Quitzow (which is actually the same people in both bands, but don't tell anyone).
This show was also noteworthy because it marked the beginning of THE GABE LEG. THE GABE LEG was/is the section of tour where we had our invaluable sound engineer Gabe Armstrong joining us for the adventure, making sure we sound GOOD and STUFF.

After the show, we went back to the Battlepad for an after party with the homies. Now, the Battlepad is certainly still our home, but while we're gone on this 4 month adventure we have a bunch of people subletting. We may have only been gone for 2 weeks but the place was already VERY different looking once we came back.... Yet, it was still very clearly the same Battlepad. It reminded me of those dreams that you have when you go back to an old house from your past/childhood and you can tell it's the same place, but everything is moved around and a little off.... was a little bit trippy, if you ask me.
It was so nice to see our homies one last time, have a day off sitting on the couch watching tv (On Demand)... seriously love the BATTLEPAD... Clips from the Rickshaw Stop show and some of the after party are in part 1 of Episode 6.

...but we weren't meant to stay in SF for too long... the road beckoned. We got down to LA and played a show in a guitar shop in Venice, CA. This, unfortunately, was the first BAD show of the tour. Not so much that we played bad but I think pretty much everyone was bummed out during the show. The fellow (or should I say FUCKTARD) who owned the guitar shop refused to let Gabe do our sound, took fucking forever to set up the mics, didn't listen to our requests for what should be mic'd and then proceeded to a REALLY shitty job of mixing our band. UGH, he was just a smarmy little bastard of a man and totally took the wind out of our sales. Also, Ben's keyboard completely crapped out right before the show, which he was not too pleased with (in fact, this couldn't be more perfectly illustrated than the look on ben's face during the footage from Time Warp music in Episode 6. LOOK AT HOW FRUSTRATED THAT MAN IS!!!!! AHHHHHHH!!). The funny thing is that two separate videos of us playing that show wound up on Youtube within days of the show. Oh well.... so much for putting the best foot forward.
That night we fit a good chunk of the band into our friend Amelia's TINY little studio apartment (gabe and I slept in the battlevan)... probably the smallest place we've fit the band for a night sleep, yet. The next morning we were chilling hard and Gabe shot a video of me being super EMO and playing classical guitar improvs on a fire escape... (Gabe wanted the video to look French.... does it look French?)

Luckily, the next day's shows fared much better. First, we played a really fun street performing style show in the upstairs loft of Origami Vinyl in Echo Park and then we played a concert at the Hobbie Shop recording studio in Highland Park. Our set from the Hobbie Shop was also recorded on a 16 track mixing board and run through a bunch of sweet (sweet) analog gear. We are currently working at putting together the footage and recordings from this show for inclusion in later battleblogs... However, our musical abilities sadly don't translate over to competence with film editing software, so it's taking longer than expected. (EXCUSES EXCUSES.) Snippets from the LA shows are in Part 2 of Episode 6. (Seriously, yo. Check out ben's scowl. So HARD.)

You know the drill at this point. We're trying to crank this stuff out as fast as we can... thanks for reading... love ya'll.

If only you could hear the bugs in the Athens, GA night..... so lovely

I Think I Recall Portland...... (BATTLEHOOCH U.S. Tour Part 4)

2010-08-11T22:48:00.001-07:00

MAD PRODUCTIVE.

(Setting records, boys and girls. 2 blog posts in (almost) one week.)

(Archaeology Johnson pats himself on the back)

Time for Tour Vlog Episode #3!!!

(Is the word "Vlog" lame? I think it's kinda funny... sounds like the name of a Russian butcher...)

As I'm writing this I realize that it's only been 2 weeks since the events captured in this VLOG/Post have happened. A short amount of time, yet the past few weeks have been so dense with adventures that I'm wondering if I can recall it all... EH! Lets just give it the ol' college try...

Episode #3 finds the Battlehooch crew returning to the beautiful and ideal city of Portland, Oregon after our successful jaunt in Washington state. We were in Portland for longer than we were in Washington so in turn the Vlog itself is a little bit longer. (Lots and lots of good stuff). The first cut of this episode was approximately twice as long as it is now... I had to cut a bunch of videos of various performances and different Piecechows and what not... leaving in just the cream of the crop.

SOME POINTS OF INTEREST!
(or NOTES ABOUT SOME OF THE LIVE SHOWS WE PLAYED, as seen in Video Blog #3:)

• Portland State University South Art Blocks - This time around to Portland marked our 3rd time playing on the outdoor stage in the South Art Blocks of Portland State University. This tree flanked and utterly splendid stage has become a highlight of our northwest journeys. The clip of us playing "Fishmilk" is from this show. Another reason why we love gigs at PSU is because we get to hang out with our friends from the SOUND HOUSE.

Our relationship with the SOUND HOUSE started a couple of years ago when we met a fellow named Joel in SF. He came upon us while we were street performing and we became fast friends. He worked for PSU and invited us to come up and play there next time that we were in Portland. We took him up on his offer and thus started a great partnership. Assisting Joel with the sound at our PSU shows are his good friends/house mates. This crew of gentlemen are all well versed in the ways of live sound (thus their house being called the SOUND HOUSE) as well as the subtle art of allowing Battlehooch to sleep on their floors/couches. On this tour we spent a solid chunk of time hanging out on their porch, shooting the bull and checking out the many trinkets that hung from the overhangs.

You can see us all hanging out by the BBQ in the Vlog. Exciting. Their neighbor Jim is a whole other story. His house is the one above that has the "Krusty The Klown" face painted on the garage door. We'll save an in depth look at Jim for another time... Probably it's own special blog/vlog combo... He'll blow yr mind.....
(SLIGHT TANGENT ALERT!) Another particularly funny thing about this recent PSU gig was the fact that in a nearby building a convention was being held for the association of medical illustrators. More importantly though, they had a BIG FAT BUFFET. (contextual note: In order to make ends meet on tour, each member is trying to live off of $100 a week for all our food/random expenses. In other words, we're often hungry.) So, most of the band decided to head in and mingle with the crowd... and grab some snacks.... this little (mis)adventure can also be found in the newest Vlog. Utterly Classic.

• "PDX Pop Now" Guerrila Show -

At the same time that we were rolling through Portland, the PDX Pop Now festival was revving up. The festival is a groovy annual soiree with all manner of bands playing at some outdoor stages in downtown PDX. We rolled up looking for an opportunity to set up and do some street performing but the vibe didn't quite seem right.... we didn't want to ENCROACH, dig? We were getting ready to head home when we bumped into the fellow who had booked us earlier in the week at Portland's own Mudai Lounge. It turns out he (THE BOOKER) also did some booking (BOOKING) for the festival (!!!!!!). We asked him what he thought about us setting up our street performing gear in between bands. He gave us the go-ahead. We made haste and set up on a loading dock behind one of the stages and played a quick 5 song set for a group of a few hundred people. A snippet of the (unfortunately poorly lit) show is also in this Vlog.

• Alberta Street Fair/Saturday Market - In Portland, on the last Thursday of every month there's a fatty art crawl/street fair on Alberta street. The scene is truly something to see: quirky folks selling their home made wares, street bands abound (Editors Note: Portland truly is the land of Street Performers. So many street bands, yo), and tons and tons of people looking for something to catch their eye.

We found a cool little spot amidst all of this and set up our gear. Shortly before we got started, we were approached by a group of "breakdancers". These "breakdancers" informed us that they were going to be setting up their "breakdancing" station in close proximity to us and, in all likely hood, drown us out with their P.A. system. We figured we'd give it a go anyways and started doing our thang. The set started well, we got a crowd going... you can see a fragment of a version of "Red Tide" from this performance in the Vlog. However, right at the end of "Red Tide" the "breakdancers" started "breakdancing" and basically totally took away out crowd. We were all but ignored from then onward. We were pretty damn super pissed yo. HOWEVER, a few days later we came across these same "breakdancers" at the Saturday Market. Like Alberta Street, the Saturday Market had a bunch of really wild street performers, crafts and other madness (Note: dig the 10 piece gypsy/pirate/punk band and blues guitarist who had a stump for an arm in the Vlog #3 ).

Also like Alberta Street, we came to the market to do our street performing set... but the "breakdancers" were already setting up their stuff near where we had signed up to play. But we had learned our lesson the last time we dealt with the "breakdancers", so instead of getting out the busking set up, we pulled out the FULL set up. Big amps and everything. (I've mentioned/included a video of us playing at the Market in a past blog post, but you can also just check it out here.) This time we were the ones that did the crowd steeling.

DON'T FUCK WITH BATTLEHOOCH.

(Look at these Thugs..... LOOK AT THEM!!!!!!)

• Fireworks Pizza (in Corvallis, OR) - this show is sure to go down in the BATTLEHOOCH LORE OF MEMORABLE SHOWS. After having a rip roaring good time in Portland, we cast off and headed south a little ways to play a show at Fireworks Pizza in cozy Corvallis. This was a sit down restaurant, boys and girls. Quiet, mellow and far from the type of places that we normally play (insane street corners, sweaty bars, tripped out hippie parties, the like...). On the posters that advertised our gig we were billed as "Folk Rock from San Francisco".

Right......

So we set up our quiet street performing set up (so as not to blast away the dinner patrons like we would with the big amps) and started in with "I'll Crawl Into Your Mouth", a new jam and one of our mellowest, quietest songs. Shortly after we finish it, the waitress comes up and says something along the lines of "you guys are a little loud, can you turn down a little bit?" This left the band a bit freaked out. We were supposed to play for 2 hours, but our quietest song was already too overbearing.... WHAT TO DO!?! So what did we do? Well, we did what any shape shifting orchestral rock band would do... we shifted shape. We took all our nutty ass material and just went ahead and played it smooth and mellow. Like Hall and Oates does the complete BATTLEHOOCH songbook (except "Fishmilk", I don't think I can even fathom what a smooth version of that would entail). If this is too hard to imagine, just check out the clip at the end of Vlog. Yes that is "Human Ram", yes Pat is crooning and yes a few feet away families were eating Pizza.

So much of the touring adventure falls through the cracks of my story telling.... the NBA JAM battles, the silliness during the HOURS and HOURS of driving we do, visiting Ben's cousin Asher and his epic band called "My Dads", the sheer joy of being able to sleep in a real bed for a few days when we stayed with "My Dads", the PDX food carts, visits with our good friends Jeff Green and Nate Goldman, "The Mist", the list goes on and on...
Yet, I suppose that's just the way it is... I mean, as I write this, I'm in an Executive Inn in Amarillo Texas, and only last night was I dancing with a belly dancer, slamming free pineapple juice, watching people willfully electrocute themselves and hearing the murmur of a shitty biker blues band butcher "Roadhouse Blues" in close proximity.

Too much is happening. Too much is happening.

Hopefully you can kinda get a sense of what it is that we're going through out here in Weird Ol' America... A Weirdness that only gets more elaborate and all consuming with each day and each new experience....

I'm Out. But just for a bit.

P.S. - we found Ryan's soul mate... or at least the residual echoes of their great explosion.... or something like that....

A PLAN TO STAY CLEAN AND ORGANIZED (BATTLEHOOCH U.S. Tour Part 3)

2010-08-09T19:54:00.000-07:00

I'm currently in the "Old Man" (Official Title of BATTLEVAN 2.0).

Remember in the last post when I was lamenting technologies lack of dependability... and the general frustration it (Technology) had dispensed on me?

SCENE: (Dark interior)-(Crying noises)
Archaeology Johnson: "I can't blog cause my compy is FUCKED."
(Crying noises)

Well enough of that boys and girls, I'm hear to sing the praises of the 21st century and it's numerous technological marvels.

My Computer is working fine. (knock on wood)
I'm writing this blog in the van.
While it's driving.
Around these parts we call that AWESOME.

(QUICK, COOL STORY ALERT!)
We are speeding along into the night (9:01pm Mountain Time @ The Moment), and plan on staying in Moab, Utah for a couple days. We just stopped at an In and Out Burger and much to my delight and surprise, one of my favorite new songwriters, Avi Buffalo, was there as well. If you don't know who Avi Buffalo is, DIG this song. I LOVE THIS SONG.

Very pleased with the fact that he owns all our albums now. Nicest fellow too. It was almost like he was more excited to meet us, they we were him. Looking forward to jamming with him in the near future.

MOVING ON!

So, here's the FULL SEATTLE BLOG POST (with notes)

First off, if you haven't seen it, here's Episode 2 of the Vlog.

The first week of the Desolation Tour made us a bit worried. While we certainly enjoyed ourselves, played some great shows, made new friends and managed to save lots on food costs by cooking at friends/family houses, we also barely made any money. While the experiences certainly make the journey worthwhile, we also understand the reality that we need a certain amount of money in order to make a journey of this length sustainable. So, as we rolled into Washington state we had serious fund raising on our minds...

AND wouldn't ya know it, brothers and sisters, everything turned around in the most wonderful way.

First off, we went and visited Tom's sister Joanna in Olympia. This visit was extra special because Tom's Dad and Grandma were also visiting when we were there. You can see G'ma killing everyone at Gin Rummy in VLOG #2. We played a quirky show in the hallway of a practice space in downtown Oly... good times for sure, but like the previous gigs didn't lead to crucially needed funds. We also filmed our second Desolation Show in the forests around Jo's house.... (still editing it though... keep an eye out...)

But then things started to really turn around with our show at The Black Lodge.

For those who don't know, The Black Lodge is an awesome live/work space in Seattle. Super colorful psychedelic walls and is inhabited by a crew of some of the coolest chaps around . Twas our 3rd time playing there... probably our (MY) favorite Pacific Northwest venue. We played with our old friends GOD and they sounded great. Stoked. Good night of music AND we started to chip away at the deficit.

Dig some of these pictures. Feel the Vibe.

Feelin' good, we went off and sought to street perform in close proximity to the Capitol Hill Block Party. The Block Party is basically a couple of downtown blocks set aside for HIP concerts by HIP bands. We set up near one of the entrances of said Block Party and played for a few hours.

And I say without hyperbole that it wasthe most successful day of street performing we've EVER had.

It was just completely fucking ridiculous. No other way to state it. Lets just say that with that one day of playing pulled the tour/band out of the red (financially speaking). The whole evening culminated with an impromptu concert in a park, where we had a deliriously raucous dance throw down with a whole gaggle of new friends. Scenes from this are also in Vlog #2.

After the gig we were elated but exhausted. We planned on just heading back to the place we were staying and then calling it a night.
OH NO SIR. Before we new it, a bunch of our new friends hopped right into our van and demanded that we drive to the beach. So, about 12-13 people deep, we rolled out to Madison Beach at Lake Washington.
Appropriately, the band and our new friends went for a night swim. We swam out to a diving board in the middle of the lake. 20 feet high. No clouds. Full moon. Everyone took a jump. Twas absolutely amazing.

Love my/our life.

We did a little more street performing the following day, and we managed to capture a video of us doing "Piecechow"-era track, "Looks You Can't See".

We wrapped up our weekend with a brief set in a coffee shop and then headed back down to Olympia for a day off.

We were literally elated for days afterwards. Where we had been apprehensive and nervous before coming to Seattle/Olympia, we were now filled with supreme confidence and excitement! Thanks Washington State!

That's it for this edition of the blog, ya'll. But I promise more good stuff happens in the next episodes... Wait till you see the footage from our second trip to Portland.

Love you. See ya when I see ya.

(Utah is weird, yo)---------------------------------------------------------(Utah is Beautiful, yo)

(Bonus Bonus Bonus Bonus Bonus!!!!)

This one fellow really dug our set and then came up and asked if he could play Ryan's drum set. Normally, we don't let people play the set because most people who ask are morons who either hit too hard and/or don't know how to play at all. But I had a feeling about this dude. So we let him play. I think the video speaks for itself. Peace.

KEEP DISCO WEIRD!!! (BATTLEHOOCH U.S. Tour 2010 Part 2)

2010-08-02T21:11:00.000-07:00

WHAT A LIFE I LEAD IN THE SUMMER!

There once was a band called Maus Haus. (was? is? was? is? DEFINITELY is. Love those dudes.)

This band wrote a really nice song called "We Used Technology (but Technology Let Us Down)".

I can relate to this song.

My computer had an epileptic fit and swallowed its tongue... Started yelling something about folders full of question marks.

It was mildly distressing. (understatement, yo)

So for the past week I had a FUCKED computer and thus my abilities to blog, make videos, make songs, etc. was basically totally compromised. THUS, 2 weeks without new blog stuff.

(SILVER LINING ALERT!!!)

I took my computer into the good people at the Apple Store in Pioneer Square in lovely Portland, OR. The girl who checked me in got a kick out of my headband and lucky feather. ANYWHO. Not only did the GENIUSES fix my computer.... but the GENIUSES did it for FREE.

Love it.

When I found out it cost NOTHING, I clicked my heals together and then went and played a very loud E major chord (in root position) on a piano.

So I am currently writing this blog entry on my own computer.....

...Inside a Yurt. A REAL, HONEST TO GOD YURT, yo. (We are currently at the Solar Living Institute kinda near Santa Rosa, CA. Yurts and Teepees ABOUND!)

Even though my computer died, we still filmed TONS and TONS and TONS of footage from the past couple weeks and we're gonna be putting it up over the next couple days. As I had mentioned in previous blog posts (here), we were doing a KICKSTARTER project to raise money to get the band some snazzy new cameras. Well good friends, we met our goal and then some! Now, pretty much everyone in the band has a camera/video device and we are trying to capture the seemingly never ending barrage of crazy wonder that surrounds us on tour.

(This is by far the most thoroughly documented adventure/tour for the band yet)

Seriously so excited to post some of the videos we're gonna post (...can you say "Human Ram: Lite Rock style in a small town restaurant"? Believe it, it happened. We have proof.)

But first here's all the videos (so far) that have been made by new friends we've met on tour. (Maybe you saw em on the ol' BOOKFACE)

The first video we're showing off actually just got posted today, and it's of us doing Human Ram/Somersaults at the Saturday Market in Portland, OR.

(BACK STORY: while staying in Portland, we attempted to street perform at the Alberta Street Fair. We played for about 35 minutes or something before a crew of break dancers, set up shot RIGHT NEXT TO US, turned on their loud ass P.A. system and drowned us out and completely stole our crowd. Needless to say we were bummed. A few days later, we bumped into the same crew when we went down to the Saturday Market to play. But we learned our lesson before and this time we rolled out our FULL ELECTRIC SET UP.

They HAD a crowd, but after two songs by us, their crowd became our crowd.

We leveled them. Sweet Revenge, yo. So Sweet.)

The next video is a little mini montage that a friendly chap made from one of our sets we did outside of the Capitol Hill Block Party in Seattle, Washington.

...and last, here's another video of us playing outside of the Capitol Hill Block Party, doing our new Sly and the Family Stone cover, "Stand".

BUT THAT'S NOT ALL. Here's some pictures of various Piecechows we've seen on the road.

WE SEE A LOT OF PIECECHOWS ON THE ROAD, boys and girls.

Here's just a taste:

MANY MORE TO COME!

(BONUS!!!!) here's ben sleeping.

Alright, now time to get cracking on putting together some videos. See ya in a bit.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot. I met Jimi Hendrix. AWESOME.

Footnote to FIRST TOUR POST (Playlists #1)

2010-07-19T18:36:00.000-07:00

Here's some anthropological data.

The BACK STORY: while driving in the van on tour we listen to lots (to the millionth power) of music. For this 4 month tour, I filled up the empty space left on my 160G Ipod with music I've been meaning to listen to/music I feel like I should like/music that other people have recommended/etc. thus guaranteeing that our drives will always have unique and intriguing soundtracks.

The DATA:

Yesterday we had a monster of a drive: Davis, CA to Portland, OR. For the first few hours we just listened to radio because my Ipod mysteriously erased itself before we left. (Thank you APPLE.)

We also used Ben's mini-Ipod for a bit and listened to Aquemeni by Outkast (editors note: this album was thought provoking when contemplated in the context of WEIRD AMERICA) as well as some choice Motown cuts.

After getting dinner in Ashland, OR my Ipod had been fulled restored and we began passing it around and adding songs to the 'On The Go' playlist. The following is the play list we all created for the drive from Ashland, OR (depart approx. 9 pm) to Porland, OR (arrive approx 3 am).

Playlist order:
AJ
GRANT
BEN
RYAN
TOM
PAT

Round 1) No Theme/Random Songs

Berkeley Mews - The Kinks (Note: Pat and I, Archaeology Johnson, kinda think this song is FUCKING AMAZING.)
Computer Love - Zapp and Roger
Octopus - Syd Barrett
Solitude is Bliss - Tame Impala
Only In Dreams - Weezer
Everything Counts - Depeche Mode

Round 2) Theme: Britannia (2 full rotations)

Instant Party (Circles) - The Who
Melody - Serge Gainsbourg (note: Mr. Gainsbourg is DEFINITIVELY FRENCH. Grant was harassed ruggedly for this selection)
War Pigs - Black Sabbath
Cry Baby Cry (Anthology Version) - The Beatles
Lauft.. Heisst Das es lauft oder es kommt bald.. lauft - Faust (note: a cursory look at the title will demonstrate that it is DEFINITIVELY GERMAN. Tombo suffered a similar fate as Grant.)
Disorder (Live) - Joy Division
Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious - Mary Poppins (note: I intended to pick "Feed the Birds", also from Mary Poppins, but the labeling was wrong for some reason. It was really intense hearing this song blast out of the stereo when I was expecting the other song. But still, any way you slice it, it doesn't get more British than this, does it? Commentary, Claire Lester?)
I'm So Glad - Cream
Jimmy - M.I.A.
Suspended in Gaffa - Kate Bush (note: Pat just calls her "Bush". As in, "Oh, is this 'Bush' we're listening to? --- AWESOME")
Anarchy in the U.K. - The Sex Pistols
Rocket Man - Elton John

Round 3) Theme: Africa (note: this playlist in general was kind of an embarrassment. once again, Grant and Tom are the main culprits... something about "Chain of Fools" and "Black or White" in this context feels.... WRONG. We swear Africa, we really like you and do in fact think very highly of you.)

Wubit - Mulatu Astatke
Chain of Fools - Aretha Franklin
Africa Tree - The Residents
Tell Me Something Good - Lee "Scratch" Perry
Black or White - Michael Jackson
Timbindy - Ali Farke Toure

Round 4) Theme: Spooky

From The Edge of the Deep Green Sea - The Cure
On The Tweek Again - Primus
Hesitation Blues - Ledbelly
Synchronicity 2 - The Police
Dancing Gods - Silver Apples
O'Malley's Bar - Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds (note: Grant hated this song. The song was at least 17 minutes long. Grant kept saying, "Is this STILL Nick CACA?")

Round 5) Theme: The 1990s

I Hate Myself and I Want To Die - Nirvana
J.A.R. - Green Day
Arc Arsenal - At The Drive-In
Rhinosaur - Soundgarden
Aneurysm - Nirvana
Losing My Religion - REM (Note: Doubling the acoustic guitar with a mandolin makes it sound SWEET.)

After this point, we rounded out the drive by listening to the U.K. version of the first Clash album, Green River by Creedence Clearwater Revival and Highway 61 Revisited by Bob Dylan (starting from "Tombstone Blues").

Assignment:

WHAT IS THE PATTERN?!?!?!?

Militant Mellowness or In Search of WEIRD AMERICA (BATTLEHOOCH U.S. Tour 2010 Pt.1)

2010-07-17T15:39:00.000-07:00

(it begins)

Yes. It's July.

Yes. The last post was in May.

Yes. BATTLEHOOCH is still alive and well. (More alive and well than ever, IN FACT)

(No. We are not in San Francisco. Technically we don't live there (OR ANYWHERE) right now...)

YES YES YES YES!
WE ARE ON TOUR!!

It's been a busy past few months leading up to this current tour, which as of this writing a wee 4 days old. (yes that is wee, and in a "wee leprechaun". What? Uou didn't know I was Irish? Oh yes, the whole time you read this blog, your inner monologue should be in an Irish accent.)

(don't listen to him)

Thanks to all our friends/fans/family/pets/etc. that came out to our last two SF Shows: Opening for Forest Day at Great American Music Hall and our Exodus show at Bottom of the Hill. Both were shows that meant a lot to us, and it meant even more that we had friends to boogie down with. (Sentimental violin music. The violins catch on fire, and melt like wax. TOO GOOPY, Archaeology. TOO GOOPY.)

Another BIG BIG deal was that (drum rolllllllllllllllllllll)... we all QUIT OUR JOBS!!! (HUZZAH!)
For the moment, our only jobs are BATTLEHOOCH/music related ones and that, my friends, is a beautiful thing... something that I personally have been awaiting since I was in 7th grade. I don't mean to gloat or anything.... just sayin' I'm happy, is all.

ANNNNNNND... even though our self-titled, second LP came out in April, we've already written the bulk of the follow up. We have prepared no less than 10 new, unrecorded songs to be roadtested over the course of the tour, and if all goes well, we'll be able to jump right into the studio when the tour is over and squeeze out the next album before ya know it! Keep checking back to the blog periodically to hear live recordings of these new songs, they will surely morph over the course of this crusade.

VERY VERY VERY IMPORTANT INFORMATION!!!!!!

FACT: We are currently running a Kickstarter Campaign which we need donations for.

Q: What is Kickstarter?
A: A super amazing website where people who need money for projects put together a proposition, and people who have money to burn can invest money in those proposed projects.

We have created a Kickstarter campaign in order to finance the purchase of a whole gaggle of cameras, tri-pods, etc. so that we can properly document our adventures. If you are interested in investing or you just want to find out more information, please follow THIS link to the page that our beloved drummer Huberloinz setup that explains the whole project in GREAT DETAIL.

In Portland now. Making sandwiches. Drinking Lemonade. Trying to find Weird America.

Signing off for now, see you SOON SOON.

(it'll continue......................................)

MEGASUPERULTRAPOST (including SXSW '10 wrap up and TOUR SONG 2)

2010-05-07T12:34:00.000-07:00

Just gotta take a moment to say I love my brothers.

GRANT.
RYAN.
BEN.
TOMBO.
PAT.
GABE.
FUEGO.

Octo-phenia YO! We are an eight headed beast. Many minds. One Goal.

(...AND THAT IS COMPLETION OF THE WATER SLIDE AND MOON TRAVEL. - editors note)

First off. I am proud to unveil TOUR SONG #2 entitled "Click of a Button". Have a listen, friends.

Tour Song 2 - "Click of a Button" (Battlehooch/Judgement Day SXSW '10 Song) by Battlehooch

(READ AS YOU LISTEN - editors note)

Similar to TOUR SONG #1 (see corresponding post here), TS #2 is made up of sound recordings and "relevant samples" gathered on the road while touring (this time, our trip out to Texas for SXSW). At points we found ourselves literally spending day after day driving through epic, expansive desert wasteland. TS #2 is meant to sort of convey what that experience was like. Its a sort of musical landscape if you will, made up of smaller landscapes (someone gets out of the audience and kicks Archaeology Johnson square in the balls----- thanks i needed 'dat!)

(ABOUT SOME OF THE SOURCE MATERIAL FOR TOUR SONG #2, "Click of a Button.")

1) The Speech:
We did the first leg of the SXSW tour with our new BFFs, Judgement Day. Pretty much every night we played with Judgement Day, their violin player (Anton) would give a speech. The exact words of speech changed from night to night, but the gist of it was this: We are all living in an age when music fans have an unprecedented amount of access to and influence on the music going on around them. People should use all the various outlets available to them (facebook, myspace, e-mail, chat rooms, etc.) to share music that they feel passionate about, thus bypassing corporate BS and creating an environment where progressive artists can have a voice.

GROOVY STUFF, right? (wipes a tear from his eye)

I've included snippets from this speech in TS #2. The ideals conveyed in the speech are definitely shared by us BATTLEHOOOOOOOOOOOCHERS, so I wanted put this thing front and center in the piece of music that was meant to (in a way) convey this particular touring experience.

Seriously Love Judgement Day. SLJD. SLJD. SLJD.

2) Dogs, Dishwashers and Disturbed Grandpas

The first group of recordings were done at the LA Branch of the BATTLEPAD. There was a tweaky keyboard with an arrpegiator lying around, as well as a guitar with a backwards whammy bar. All cheesy pin-wheels of sound and rubber guitar chords found in TS #2 were gathered during this sesh.

A few days later we were staying at Pat's parents house in luscious BREA, CALIFORNIA and we recorded a whole gaggle of cool sounds. All the acoustic piano stuff in the song is culled from various improvisations done by different Battlehooch members on the Smith Family Piano. There was also an out of tune auto harp that made some excellent squealing noises. SPEAKING OF SQUEALING NOISES!!!!..... The Smith Family dishwasher is a MUSICAL GENIUS. While cleaning up after breakfast (We're professional house guests, ya'll. We don't fuck around), we realized that when opening the dishwasher, it made screeching noises similar to an ill tempered analog synthesizer. We immediately ran for the microphones and recorded a free form improvisation on said dishwasher (captured on SXSW TOUR VIDEO #1). These recordings, as well as some rhythms I banged out on some Peanut Butter and Nutella jars, make up a large part of the basic rhythm track of this song. Also, MVP award goes to the Smith Family dog, Charlie B. Barkin for laying down a fat bark rhythm.

(Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky DAWG. DIRTY DAWG.)

Later in San Diego, Anton enthusiastically ran up to me saying that he wanted to make a song "RIGHT NOW"! Out came the mics and we started making music with whatever was around. At the time, we were sitting in the Battlevan 2.0 outside of that night's venue, so we just started banging on the walls of the van, clicking seat belts together, and shaking a single egg maraca. At one point (much to every one's delight), Anton started rapping. What did he rap about, you might ask? Well, he rapped about not being able to rap. Some choice lines ended up in the end song, but sadly some of the most glorious bits, ended up on the cutting room floor.

(Isn't that how it always is.... SIGH.... how french... Also, his brother Lewis' whole-hearted endorsement of the Martin Lawrence classic "Black Night" wasn't successfully captured by the mics, ALAS. )

The last significant "recording session" took place in Corales, New Mexico at Archaeology Johnson's (that's me) Grandfather's house. In the living room was a little keyboard with some whimsical sounds and a funny little electro drum bank. This keyboard yielded some great stuff, but i had to record most of it in a back room, cause my endless keyboard drones were kinda rubbing Grandpa the wrong way. Sorry Grandpa. It's Art, I swear. Thanks for the chicken and pie!

(still confused about that last PARENTHESIS)

There were so many other recordings made on this tour that we could seriously make a whole album for the SXSW tour. So there ya go. Tour Song 2 (who knows, maybe there's be a Tour Song 2 Part 2?)

Also, in case you missed it, the band's resident visual mad scientist fuegodamus, put together a few more videos showing highlights from the SXSW 2010. Collect all 4! Love ya'll.

PART 1

PART 2

PART 3

Desolation Show #1 - Caliphate: Skip The Bobcat Hunter Edition (Sedona, AZ)

What Are They Listening To These Days??? (March/April 2010 Episode)

2010-04-11T18:45:00.000-07:00

I was on track to have Tour Song #2 all ready to roll out in this blog post but to quote Maus Haus: "we used technology and technology let us down...."

(Invalid ID Number?!? Really?!?! COME ON!)

So it'll be another couple days before I have the second batch of SXSW tour roundup (including the new tour song)... so onward to the GUTS of this post....

WHAT ARE (THEY/WE/BATTLEHOOCH) LISTENING TO THESE DAYS???

Normally, dear blog reading lovelies, this would be a hard thing to quantify. Being that there are 6 BATTLEHOOCH members running around this city of ours (SF SF SF SF) on any given day... each with a unique array of aural stimulus attacking and working its ways on their psyche.... all vibing on some detail or some riff...

its hard to keep tabs, is what I'm saying.

BUT, we just got back from tour... and let me tell you something about tour, germs and ladies.... we listen to A LOT A LOT A LOT of music together when we're on tour... (I mean, when you have an 11 hour drive to do... there's not much else to do... at least nothing that wouldn't get you in trouble at border check... FEEL ME?)

So, while hardly the tip of the iceberg in terms of the full scope of music we've been listening to...here's some stuff we (the band) had some overlap on:

1) KRAFTWERK.

Lots of Kraftwerk these days ya'll.

So much to say about this band and most of it has probably already been said. What I WILL say, is that this music has been profoundly inspiring to me in recently months.

I love KRAFTWERK's melodic sense and the warm, pastoral pieces they do, which to me are a perfect balance of the organic and the electronic.
I also get a kick out of how their their chord progressions work. They'll stay on a single chord for long enough that they can create a certain mood or feeling so that when the chord changes, the change is felt on a profound level. Each chord evokes it's own "mood" and the cumulative effect of all these moods being put together is quite profound, if I do say so myself.

A sublime mixture of drone music and impressionistic harmony. (MUSIC NERD ALERT!!!!!)

Here's another video we stumbled upon recently. Dig the flute part. Savage.

THIS. IS. SICK.

2) Gary Numan

More early electronic(ish) music. SO GOOD.

Cold. Synthetic. Futuristic.

Bass and Keyboard unison lines. Tritone Synth Blurps. Detached Vocals.

Songs about machines with inferiority complexes. Being unplugged.

(England in the 80s.)

(This dude wrote that song CARS... as in "here in my car, I feel safest of all"...)

3) Sly and the Family Stone

("Enough of that late 70s-early 80s european electro mess!" - so says the hater. Shame on you, hater.)

FUNK. FUNK. FUNK.

This song is so bloody funky.

My buddy Max Foreman hooked me up with the Sly and the Family Stone albums "Fresh" and "There's A Riot Goin' On". Max Foreman is kinda like my go to guy for discovering hard beats and funky grooves... deep cuts and new joints. Foreman is the man. (he sang "Creep" by TLC at karaoke one time and it blew my mind)

I've been a Sly fan for years but up till now I'd never spent time with these albums.

HOT DAMN!

(If anyone has seen me on the L Train in the past few days and I've been bobbing my head SUPER hard, it's because I was listening to "In Time". Max told me that when Miles Davis heard this song he flipped out and made everyone in his band listen to it 40 times in a row (IN A ROW!!!!!) until they GOT IT. I love this story. Even if it ain't true.)

Do you know what poly-rhythm is? It's when there are multiple rhythms (and if you don't know RHYTHM, check the WIKI.) laid on top of each other thus creating a complex tapestry of rhythm (as opposed to there being just a basic simple rhythm everyone does). Germs and ladies, "In Time" is POLY RHYTHMIC MUSIC. I wanna write music that sounds like this song, but i can't even wrap my head around it... I love that fact.

So dense. So dank. So confoundingly amazing. (yes I just made up the word confoundingly. As herbie hancock said: "we just don't have the proper vocabulary to discuss funky music." lets start making that vocabulary...)

(THINKING while DANCING, baby.)

4) Joanna Newsom - HAVE ONE ON ME

(People who complain about how long this album is are FOOLS.)

Joanna Newsom has been a favorite of the band's since well before the days of Battlehooch and her profound new triple album was another body of songs that we listened to a lot on tour... talked about a lot... sat collectively in awe of a lot...

Could ramble on for days about this album... (In California, Soft As Chalk, King Fisher, Easy, ETC ETC ETC ETC)

I'll simply quote PREBEN: "...with this album you can count on discovering Amazing songs for the rest of the year..."

AND say bravo Ms. Newsom, you are truly a Master.

(BONUS - amazing cover of "On A Good Day" from said album, done by Robin from Fleet Foxes)

5) "Our Lips Are Sealed" - The Go Gos

We're currently working on a song that Tombo wrote. Grant had a jolly idea that the bassline should be modeled after The Go Gos. He suggested the bass line in "Vacation" as a specific reference point. It turned out he meant "We Got The Beat". After comparing the two songs, we ultimately decided that "Our Lips Are Sealed" was better than all of them... and then we just copied Santogold for Tombo's song instead.

The chorus in this song has such a tight chord progression. Chopin would probably be into this song. :) (HOW DOES HE KNOW?)

6) Neil Young

The Real Deal.

One human making SO MUCH MUSIC.

Also... CSNY. Pretty tight.

8) George Gershwin

Folks just call him, THE GERSH.

What a treasure, yo. What a baller, yo.

He wrote "American In Paris"! "Rhapsody In Blue"! "Porgy and Bess!" Tons of musicals, Preludes! He INVENTED the "Rhythm Changes"!!! In the early 1900s, he was basically a straight up mash-up artist... mixing traditional classical with jazz, blues, show tunes and 20th century harmony.

THE GERSH... (s'wonderful, yo.)

9) The Frogs

Of course, there's always the Frogs. Probably our band's favorite band. Because really... The Frogs are the best band EVER.

(Right?)

(Right - so says the hater. Good For You Hater)

Love you folks, see ya soon!

Greetings from the Road!

2010-03-27T12:10:00.000-07:00

TOURMIN.

I'm sitting on the floor of my parents house in Aptos, CA. For the past week or so we've been slowly making our way back home from Austin, TX. We've been staying with family members, doing 8 hour drives, listening to hours of music, discussing definitions of "lo-fi" and "punk rock", debating, planning, trying to figure out how to sleep... cleansing..... sitting still in a van... endlessly.

TOURMIN.

This has been a really incredible tour (and all tours are incredible, but this one especially so!) It is by far the longest time we've spent out on the road, and we've seen parts of the country that I've never seen before. (Lots of Desert! Lots of Scrub!) But we've met some really wonderful people and had some totally epic adventures that I'm sure we'll remember forever. (5 am, sitting at the black jack tables in Vegas... comes to mind... ALSO, playing in the middle of the Arizona desert while the sun went down... or walking around downtown austin, a little fuzzy, giving strangers high fives...)

SO I know that it was my promise to update at least every 2-3 weeks, but we've been on the road...what can i say.. it's hard to find time during tour to get access to the net for longer than a minute (HOW DO THEY SURVIVE?!?!?!)

But now... relaxing in beautiful APTOS (i just won $10 at darts, hell yeah!) I have some time to put up a bunch of stuff I've been meaning to share.

First off, TOUR SONG #1.... TOUR SONG #1 (Fall 2009) by Battlehooch

BACKSTORY ALERT!!!!! For the first batch of tours we did we talked about how it would be cool to try to write a song during the course of the tour... but we never got around to it. However, on our tour to Southern California last November we were finally able to make it happen! Huberloinz and myself used our recording devices to record little fragments of random dialog and also quick improvisations on whatever instrument we came across. Then, I cut it all up and put it together in Abelton Live. It pretty much doesn't sound like anything we've ever done, but somehow I still think it sounds like BATTLEHOOCH. Try to pick out the Charles Mingus Sample, if ya can :) :) :)

(SIDE NOTE ALERT!) - we've been working on a second tour song for this current tour, but it's not quite ready to be shown yet... but it includes recordings of screeching washing machines, dog barks, peanut butter jars, and Anton from Judgement Day freestyle rapping. COMING SOON.

To wrap up this post, I just wanted to gather together some of the videos that we've been amassing over the course of this tour. The first one is a video that a newspaper in Austin did about us street performing during SXSW...

.... the next video is something that a new fan shot while we played in a field on the first day of SXSW...

...and finally here is the first part of our own video tour journal, edited by our 7th member: Fuegodamus (i.e. the dude who does all of our trippy visuals at our live shows). We have tons of footage that we're still editing together, but like I said, it's been hard to find free time for the past week or so, so we'll be putting that stuff out ASAP.)

This tour was amazing and while I'm excited to sleep in my own bed tonight (!!!!!!) I'm sad to know that I won't be zipping all over the country playing music and meeting new friends. Hopefully these videos can give you a sense of what the experience as been like. As always it is a joy and an honor to travel the country with my brothers. For a more detailed description of what the tour was like, check out our twitter accounts HERE. We were all trying to tweet like fiends, trying to capture the intangible madness that is touring.... moment by moment.... and if i do say so myself, i think we did a damn good job.

LOVE YOU ALL!

NEW BATTLEHOOCH REMIX - Human Ram (DJ PHYZK Remix)

2010-03-01T20:46:00.000-08:00

(scene: the middle of the ocean on a raft)

I'm starting to see how this all works.

The planning necessary for execution.
Multiple ideas being fashioned simultaneously.

A PLAN will lead to victory.

(end scene)

So we have a new remix to drop on you all.

This time around the song being remixed is "Human Ram", from our soon to be released self titled sophomore album (editors note - coming out April 17th, 2010!!!!).

Q: And who (you're certainly wondering) is it that remixed this "Song"?

A: DJ PHZYK

Follow Up Q: Who DAT?

A: This guy. One of my (and the whole band's) good buddies.

PHYZK and the BATTLEHOOCH crew go way back. PHYZK, myself (Archaeology Johnson) and Steamboat Ravis lived in a "Triple" dorm room on the 2nd floor of A building @ Porter College in UCSC.

INTERESTING FACTOID: BATTLEHOOCH's own Dr Spankk and Huberloinz also lived on this hall (as well as many many classic clowns such as the Guat, Punk Rock Chris, Smac, Annie and Heather, Bobby Rawson and a good portion of San Francisco's own sublimely freaky NEW THRILL PARADE, just to name a few.)

(REPRESENT A2 NORTH!!!)

(Here we are in the UCSC Electronic Music Studio... back in the day, ya'll)

After we lived together in the dorms, we later moved into a house along with Huberloinz, Dylan (from Swanifant) and the infamous G-MAPS. The house, being on Mentel Ave., was dubbed the Mental House.

(editors note: I'm currently sifting through the HOURS AND HOURS of Mental House recordings I have - jams, shows, demos, freak outs, experiments, general madness - in effort to put together a blog post on that in the not so distant future...)

Here are a couple pictures of PHYZK hurling himself off of the couch in the living room of the Mental House. THESE ARE RAW PICTURES. NO PHOTOSHOPPING, YO.

PHYZK is impressive on many levels. He plays many instruments including tabla, steel drum, congas, turn tables, and all manner of crazy auxiliary/hand percussion type doodads. He also makes FAT Beats. He was ALSO also an astrophysics major.... and word on the street was that that was the most brutal major at UCSC. Word.

Anyone that knows PHYZK was tell you that he's a daredevil (thus him constantly jumping off of our couch... the daredevil!). Be it snowboarding, mountain biking, dirt biking, or just jumping off of a really big tree stump, PHYZK always seemed to be in a hurry to throw himself off of a cliff or something.

I've made days worth of music with DJ PHYZK and spent 10 times as many days kicking it super hard with him. Getting candy at Walgreen's. Watching Mr. Show DVDs over and over.

SHTONEY.

He's a true homie.

So that's why we gave him our track to fuck with, because we knew that he'd make something EPIC.... and lo and behold he did not fail. In fact, he outdid himself.

And without further adue (the crowd: "TOO LATE!") I present... Human Ram (DJ PHYZK REMIX)

Human Ram (DJ PHYZK Remix) by Battlehooch

A Taste

2010-02-10T16:08:00.000-08:00

In case ya'll don't know, there is a new BATTLEHOOCH LP coming out in April 2010.

The (currently untitled) affair was recorded at Studio Paradiso in our fair city of San Francisco with the help of our good friend and contemporary psych rock boy wonder, Jason Kick (of Maus Haus, The Lovely Public and Social Studies fame). The album was recorded entirely over two days, and every song was tracked "live" (we did a couple tiny overdubs and rerecorded some vocals) with all the band members in "the same room" (some of us were separated by soundproof glass). Compared to our previous albums "Oof Owf" and "Piecechow", which each took months and months to record and each had literally hundreds and hundreds of tracks, this album was a walk in the park.

As of today, the tracks have all been thoroughly mixed, adjusted and mastered. In terms of the physical recordings, the album is done but there's still a couple more loose ends to tie up.

Just yesterday, the 6 members of BATTLEHOOCH put on some swanky threads and headed out to the Albany Blub in the East Bay to take some photographs that we plan on using for the cover art of the album. Once we get a album cover picture and an album title picked out, then we can send it all off to the presses and before you know it, you all will have a dandy new piece of BATTLEHOOCH music to listen to. ALSO!!!!! This album is especially exciting because it will be the first album we're releasing on vinyl.

Here is a taste of said album, the first single, "Somersaults" (Here's a link). Within the next month or so there should be a music video for this song, directed by the lovely Easton Grainer.

(Current projects being worked on:

A special love themed Battlehooch Valentines Day Mix
Trying to get 3 more brand new songs learned before we head off to SXSW. If we succeed then, we'll have 8 brand new songs in our repertoire (that's not counting the songs on the new album). Album #4 ain't too far off ya'll and album #3 hasn't even come out yet!
Making a music video of the "tour song". (What's the tour song?)
Compiling a little video of us recording the new album (we've got some cool studio footage. or maybe it ain't cool. maybe. maybe. MAY-BAY!)
Trying to book a tour in Germany
Street Performing 2010 campaign.
TOO MUCH STUFF.)

Extra bonus!!!! Here's a (slightly blown out, but still cool) live video of "Only Baby Sharks" from our recent show at Bottom of the Hill with Judgement Day.

Back to work.

The first ever BATTLE-REMIX

2010-01-26T14:28:00.000-08:00

HELLO! Look At This! A new post in under 2 weeks. We're Setting records.

Thus is the nature of BATTLEBLOG 3.0!

There's a town called Aptos in California. Here, I'll Prove it to you. Aptos is about a 2 hour drive from SF AND it is where I (Archaeology Johnson) grew up.

Sleepy beach town. Lots of Trees and Fog. Approximately something like 8-9 Pizza joints. An old rotting WWII battleship sitting at the end of a wharf. Utterly mellow. Deliciously wonderful.
(MEMORIES, YO.)

Moving on....

I went to Aptos High School.

Here's a picture of me on a typical day hanging out with my friends during lunch.

One of my friends at AHS was Tyler MacCauley. When I was first getting into "indie rock" (most of high school was spent listening to Jam Bands... I know I know I know...) or whatever you'd call it, I used to get together with Tyler (and our good buddies Dan Merrill and "Chuck" Fenster) and do our best to stumble through playing all of "Is This It" by The Strokes. (LOVE that album, don't give a fuck what anyone says).

After AHS, Tyler and I have continued to be friends. It's the kind of bond that only two total music dorks who love talking about music can forge.

Tyler went to UC Berkeley and I went to UC Santa Cruz (and met my brothers).

Tyler formed Tempo No Tempo.

My brothers and I formed The Sex (which begat The New Rectangle, which begat Sex with Jon, which begat Platypus Rex, which begat BATTLEHOOCH and If you don't know who BATTLEHOOCH is, and you are reading this blog, you are an anomaly.)

Tyler and I stayed in touch throughout college and whenever possible our bands played together.
At this point (January 2010) we've done tons of shows together... we're serious bros. (MY CHEMICAL BROMANCE: The Battlehooch/Tempo No Tempo Incident - coming to paperback in March 2090)
Together, we've played in barns, fat clubs, coffee shops, co-ops, more barns... there have been multiple shows where we merged both our bands together into a super behemoth of FUNK (Think Power Rangers or Captain Planet). Once, we even did a show with Tempo No Tempo where we covered each others songs.

They covered our song, DEEP KNEE BENDS....

....we took 5 of their songs, chopped them up and put them back together.

YOU GET THE PICTURE? MAD MAD MAD MAD MAD MAD LOVE.

The latest development in this bromance is truly exciting!

I present the first ever BATTLEHOOCH remix, done by Tempo No Tempo. The song being remixed is "When We're Trying To Be Quiet" (from the OOF OWF EP, 2007)
When We're Trying To Be Quiet (Tempo No Tempo Remix) by Battlehooch

Cool, yes? I sure think so. This remix was actually done a couple years ago, but we never had a good opportunity to show it off. It seemed that with the new attention being paid to the blog and the fact that the new DISKO version of "Quiet" has been standard in our recent sets, it seemed like the perfect time to bust out this little nugget of wonder.

ENJOY.

Thanx again Tyler/Tempo No Tempo!!!!

THE RETURNER....

2010-01-16T13:43:00.000-08:00

... hath returned.

January 16th, 2010. (Twenty-X!)

Hello.

Just purchased some fine fine music (legally, thank you very much).....
Some Lee "Scratch" Perry, some Kraftwerk, "Tell me something good" by Rufus/Chaka Khan....

HELL! (close your ears, children...),

I even picked up some Lady Gaga and some Aaliyah (no joke, the Synth in the song "Try Again" is pretty much totally Divine, a la FUNK) and ..........

(can't forget fever ray either... words that make me think about the knife/fever ray: icy, remote, glaciers, haunted, ghosts, empty, cavernous, fleeting, SCARY AS $#!%)

Starting sifting through it all while cooking breaky this morning (eggs, bacon and potatoes "mckinley" style.)

THAT SOUNDS LAID BACK!!!!!! (right?)

I know what you're thinking...

"so if YOU (Archaeology Johnson/BATTLEHOOCH) have enough time to listen to music and eat eggs, surely you have enough time to maintain the flippin' blog (LIKE YOU PROMISED!!!!!)"

you're correct, invisible personage! the past couple of weeks/months whatevs have not been spent in constant state of such luxury. NO MA'AM/SIR!

we're gonna start rolling the goodies out again (STARTING NOW) and the plan is to keep this updated on an every 2-3 weeks basis.

(Hold me to this yo. I got a bunch of content lined up so I SHOULD be able to do this. if it doesn't happen, it's just cause I'm being lazy. or am engaged in some kinda of brouhaha. dig? you know how brouhaha's can be...)

First thing I'm gonna unleash is some tidbits from our New Years Eve 2009/2010 show with Maus Haus. For those who weren't there, it was a pretty ridiculous event... confetti, balloons, champagne, neck beards, smoochin' and of course a gaggle of hooch/haus collaborations:

Here's a video (shot by the infamous SOUL DONUT) of one of said collaborations, "Looks You Can't See" (from our album PIECECHOW, buy it here). We added some extra horns (thanks pope and aaron), some extra vocal firepower (thanks kick and rampage), and joe genden held it down how only joe genden can, and that's HARD.

(if you wanna see more video from our new years set, including our new DISKO revamp of "When We're Trying To Be Quiet" clicke here.)

We returned the favor later on in the night by joining MAUS HAUS for their song, "Reaction" .

Reaction (MAUS HAUS and BATTLEHOOCH Live Collaboration NYE 2009/2010) by Battlehooch

To wrap up the night we also did a gaggle of covers. While surely fun and jubilant in the moment, our collaborative "California Love" (2pac and Dr. Dre) and "The National Anthem" (Radiohead) covers didn't quite translate over to recorded formats.... a little too much of the "guess you had to be there" factor, ya feel me?

However, our cover of the B-52s "Rock Lobster", while still raw (and brother I mean RAW) is such a document of epic rock absurdity (I mean come on.... an 11 person band on the stage at Hemlock... singing about some kind of kinky mushroom trip of a beach party.... with Narwhal and Bikini Whale sound effects...) that it's worth sharing as well. Featuring Ben Juodvalkis, Pat Smith and Josh Rampage on main vocals and yours truly and the pope on the "girl vocals" Rock Lobster (B-52s Cover - BATTLEHOOCH/MAUS HAUS LIVE COLLABORATION NYE 2009/2010) by Battlehooch

Chew on that for a minute. LOVE YOU.

see... you.. in........................................... 2-3..... we.... eks.......

BABY.

Battleblog M.I.A.

2009-12-09T11:44:00.001-08:00

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.

"Ugh. Are they honestly Jamming?"

2009-11-04T14:10:00.000-08:00

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

Back From Tour OR The Making of Piecechow Documentary

2009-10-20T21:48:00.000-07:00

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....)

Chickenman Presents: Battlepooch (plus full KXLU Acoustic Set)

2009-10-08T00:45:00.001-07:00

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?!?

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

2009-09-27T21:11:00.001-07:00

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.

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

2009-09-12T18:31:00.000-07:00

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

Deep Knee Bends - BLUE GRASS VERSION

2009-09-01T12:02:00.000-07:00

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)

Timbaland Beats (specifically his work for Aaliyah and Clipse)
Declare Independence (Bjork music video, dir: Michel Gondry)
St. Vincent
The work of music video director Patrick Daughters (DIG HIM. He's THE MAN)
Rare Funk 45s
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.

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

2009-08-25T10:43:00.000-07:00

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?)

New Battlehooch VIDEO

2009-08-14T16:35:00.000-07:00

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.

LUKE

2008-03-05T20:22:00.000-08:00

Hyoobs log 4

2008-02-10T18:20:00.002-08:00

1/30 La Cave, Costa Mesa:
Stop at Pat's parent's house for a home-cooked meal. Christmas carols at the piano. Show in La Cave underground red light stead house where Sinatra once played. Fluid skatechow steeze. Dolphin City Sirens are super cool. Drummer hooks us up with tangelos. He and bassist dude trippin on lysergic. Good natured dudes all around. Gloria is excitable. She likes my contact mic show. I feed her some grapefruit, squish it in her face. She spits a nipple of bitter flesh onto my crushed velvet jacket. Potent plant genitals. Long drive in the dark to Encinidas past nuclear reactor boobies. Wobbling in the road as the wind rocks the ship. Paradise beach cliff gazing down on distant wave paintings unfolding in the moon glaze. Let Port's coral snake curl my fingers. Great to see Davenport. Remember what a great artist he is. Wish he wasn't laying dormant on his skills. Seagull with a gun barrel coming out its beak. I invite too many people to his house and arrive too late. His housemate is PMS pissed, a great text message war ensues ('I didn't know you had become an 80 year old grandma over night!') Have to find a new place to sleep tomorrow night. Perhaps it would be best to travel just as a band of fraternal brothers next tour. Its awsome having support of homies, but at some point you just gotta jump off the cliff and greet the outside world naked and exposed. Additionally, the more people in the caravan, the more logistical difficulties.

1/31 Chasers, San Diego:
Weak sauce idle unproductive day searching for a Kaoss Pad power adaptor. Easton's birthday. Interview in the car with Peteums. What's our preference? What is this tour all about? Intense retrospection. Idea for web album: release one song every week w/tracks, video, photos, lyrics. Compile whole ting at end into an album. Took a shit in a bush near a parking garage. Grant is watching, laughing. Soon after I am doing cartwheels down a grassy hill in the park. Something stinks: It's dog shit on my hand! Karma or poetic justice? Pizza on El Cajon Blvd. Nietzsche provides new perspectives. Shaming people is sinful. Chasers is empty when we arrive. Stochastic sound of cheap computer lottery games. Vaginals offshoot is odd and refreshing. Junk percussion ratchet rhythms and chaotic synthpop sounds. Maria (the drummer) got wind from her friend who played at the Hyperion tavern the same night as us that we were a bunch of premadonnas. It's hilarious that there's a pack of electrogoth rockers in LA that have a vendetta against us. Nevertheless, we get along great with Maria. She's super cool and lets us stay at her artful house. Insect x-rays and formaldehyde bat specimens from Necromance, a taxodermy-style shop. Toy keyboards and superhero dolls with cameltoes.

2/1 San Diego
Next day has 3 shows in store for us. An arty high school in Encinidas where the kids get enthused. Probably our most engaged audience. Asking about odd timesignatures, the programs that Ben uses, snatching for Battlerags, buying CDs. These people are the future and I'm stoked! Show at UCSD radio. Wacky interview, live set, songs from our EP. Ben quits. We break up at the end of the Bahs. Make-up reunion show at downtown nighttime house party show. JP is super chillin as the host of our evening. Ceiling is head high. Airplanes zooming overhead less than 100 m away. It's like Back in the USSR is starting every 15 minutes. A ton of awesome, supportive people at the party. MC's in mexican wrestler masks open for us. Step up rappers rock the house. MC Universe spiting mad inspirational flow. Kristin is beautiful and elusive. The GOP play five new songs under the pseudonym 'Le Elephantes.' New homey Randy comes to all 3 of our San Diego shows. Port describes local middle-aged washed out hairmetal heros: coke exploits and drunken shenanegans. Pat finds a bag of yayo. Lucky lady down the street. Little pomeranian pooch humping stuffed animals, lapping up barf and alcohol.

2/2 Narducci's Cafe, Bakersfield
At breakfast before heading to Bakersfield, Grant rolls into a thrift store with a fork in upper lip. Bananas in hand with a yellow shirt inspecting some yellow hightops "oh, these are Italian." Total passe. Drive to last show is heinous. Tired, disheveled. 2 pot bars in my belly. Girl talk in Easton's car. I'm giddy and pensive alternatingly. Mayhaps I will move to Solvang and raise a gaggle of children. First will be the pipelayer. We'll need water. Next will be the tillerman. We'll need food. Next will be the archetect. We'll need shelter, preferably of a thatched roof style. Windmills, copper roofs, hand-carved scrollwork and leaded windows. The need for a new Bible. Byzantine wing'd sentinels mark Casino gates. Indian braves guard big box store roofs. New memes: Crockus. Shanahan. BRATROCK, Inky Beak Wielder. Fish and chips plus $15 bar tab each at the cowboy tavern. Set is marred by technical difficulties. Amps falling off the rickety stage, cables and effects crapping out. Sound man can't get levels correct. Can't hear each other. Disappointed to not play well for Health. Hardcore band after us: "No more of this hippy shit.' Drummer gets in fight w/ audience member, whose girlfriend thinks it's our band. She runs out of the club and starts wailing on our van. Show gets cancelled at the beginning of Health's set. Smoke a spliff w/ an enthusiastic girl just fresh from Morocco/ Spain. Sniff some yack, long hyper-critical drive home. Trip was a success. No pull overs, tickets, breakdowns, missed shows, nor illnesses (aside from one massively uncomfortable bout with the 7-11 bathroom stiff shits).

Hyoobs log 3

2008-02-10T18:20:00.001-08:00

1/27 City of angels:
Blood pumping fast as we approach downtown. Late night blaplery at Max's house. Grant buys tacos and burritos, punts them into the rafters. Nasty shoe. Snag a bite of the burrito before it gets chucked into the glass Steinway display. "i hate fucking consuming!" Pass out at the blues bar. Big ass bass drum.

1/28 LA
Street performing at the Santa Monica promenade. Shoe shiner wants us to play next to her. Cedric Bixler-Zavala rolls by twice with eyes that burn distant, vacant like Mercury. The original singer for Motley Cru is dressed in black like a space cowboy. He's 'just here to set the record strait, clear all the rumors and stories.' We manage 3 songs before the po-po comes. Got a young new fan: junior Nick in a pea coat gets a battlerag and a CD. High Schoolers at the burger joint are lovin it. Rocking the call and response jam while we head back to the battlevan. Trying to find a place to rock out on Venice Beach. The psychic is pissed she has to take her palm reading indoors. Couldn't she see us coming? Her son is flipping us the bird from behind the sliding glass door. Some vagrants want a quarter. I tell them to give me a beer. Homeless harmonica players sit in with us. Harry Perry has some new blades, chasing a girl around with his apocalyptic metal phaser riffs. Buff blackman with hiked up shorts looking fly bouncing up the strip. Japanese chicas snapping shots while i give them the thumbs up; binocular treatment. First LA show is noise rock night at Pehrspace. 6 bands, 20 minutes each. A bunch of friends showed up: The Space Collective cru, Amelia and co., Yoshi and Melissa, Andrew, Janet, Stevie, M, etc. Last band (NASA space universe) is a collective of a dozen or so hipsters dressed in cut n' paste tribal neon w/sweat bands. One dude has piezoelectric whiskers that he solders on in real time. Ex-drummer for the Germs is outside chugging dual 40s wearing a burka. Turns out he's the host of the electro-Goth night at Hyperion Tavern, where we played the following night.

1/29 Pehrspace, Echo Park:
A hole in the wall w/no markings to distinguish the place. Noisy bit-crusha electro kareoke style with the goth punk fashionistas. Awesome videos projected behind us. Stage is far too small for an act like us. I set up minimal style on the ground. Tensions were high, so we played a fast, fierce set. Angry at the tow company that made Easton pay $125. Intimidated by the opening acts that were capping on us, saying that we should play first and leave or come back once everybody else has gone home. I overheard them talking about our set at Pehrspace: "They were causing a scene getting drunk in the parking lot and taking forever to get set up" [not true: we set up outside and brought everything in right away]. Turns out the haters were having some troubles of their own. Couldn't control their equipment, couldn't hold a pitch, cultish and exclusionary. Nevertheless we won over the crowd and had a great time. Way down with the level of piecechow steeze and for the most part got a kick out of the other acts. Mongolian lord with the jeweled pigtail locks. Wonder what his family jewels are like. Max was bellig, yelling "more hooch!" in the middle of other sets. The Church of Scientology Dianetics Center looms like an infomercial: "Free Stress Readings. Just read the Book." Kicking it at the Space Collective pad. Garden of Eden in the back. Bookshelves filled with scifi, technology, art, philosophy, psychology tomes. Rene schools me on immaterial architecture. Emergent computer visuals. Serendipitous film making. Megan's invention of a mirrored box that you wear on your head. You can look out, but others only see their own face. Mad props to Max for being an awesome host. Big old pot of stew, massage chair, more Rock Band. Puter is hilarious. Short college radio show took way too much effort to move all our ishtar. Pretending I'm a stoned, apathetic god with my deep, echoing contact mic necktie.

Hyoobs log 2

2008-02-10T18:19:00.000-08:00

1/26 Notes from the front seat, highway 101:
Aqueducts. Terra-form'd patches of spring green amongst the brown. Morrey patterns in chain-link bridge overpasses. 'Strippers wanted' sign on the warehouse sidewall. WWII biplanes coasting over antique farm equipment. Discarded roses in a drainage ditch. Icy castle complex perches on distant mammary mountains. Bovines speckle rolling spring stubble like pepper in the hills. 'Mr. Lubrication' sign next to 'your pet's best friend.' Golfball water silo lurking over a sleeping graveyard barn town. Single-tooth'd guppy man snatches listlessly at our gift of fruit. Candy apple cornrow girl swigging her redbull outside an overpriced Chevron, yappin on the old cell phone. Scarecrows litter empty vineyards like ghosts with noone to haunt. Grant is the Catfish for today. Silly string strait to the facial. Stopped to play outdoors in downtown San Louis Obispo. While I'm taking a whizz in the creek, a minnie mouse diary whirls right toward me. Nothing too spicy inside, just some contact info. An off duty police officer loves our set; hooks us up with some flow cause we played a Zappa song for him.

Biko Garage, Isla Vista:
Oil platforms look like lite bright clowns in the dark rainstorm. Dancing in the rain. Drunk party girls with limp wrists want to know my name. Silly string comes in handy during the set. Gypsy prog and sea chanty folk from the other bands. Confederate country rock band from the bayou playing at the Isla Vista pizza shop. Contact dancer girl gets buck wild in the music room; pegged with Dissociative Personality Disorder, I think she's just got energy to burn. Gnarley tribal percussion jam late into the night with AJ tossing cymbals onto concrete for the finale.

1/27 Experimental Cafe, Occidental:
Played an experimental set at the cafe with antique mechanique games of skill. Getting down with the contact mic/ microcube set-up. Great to see Amelia and friends. It's been awhile. Vato neighborhood. Cactus-covered hillsides. Dilapidated motels w/ exposed woodgrain. Morose lawn ornaments: Rats on skulls, gargoyles. Chilling tought with Tiff and Chris. Rocking out punk rawk stylee with Chris' electronic drumset. Dancing with Rambo the pooch.Acres of pristine gas guzzlers await their graves. Empty bank offices piss into the night sky. Chevron and MickyDees in cahoots: Rulers of the highway plutocracy. Franchise after franchise strip mall culture. Stormy island looks typhoon windswept with brown murky water; can't see the sun.

Hyoobs log 1

2008-02-10T18:18:00.000-08:00

Notes from the front seat Sacramento-style:

1/24 Fire Escape Bar and Grill, Citrus Heights:
First, confessional time: Smoked my first cigarette in the van after we decided not to smoke in the van. Macked some fried chicken that wuz cleaned at 5 am by tombo's grandma. Met a bunch of roller girls from Sactown. Gave me the nickname 'fuzzy.' Better than my previous 'puber.' Candy Krusha with the golfers' cap sends me spinning on the rock lobster dance floor. Turns out she's married and just likes to drive boys crazy. She's talking with a miserably-toothed ghost of a mang (clearly blap'd and confrontational). I just wanna know why the cocks are crooning in the middle of the night. He points to the moon and calls it 'the sun.' "Figure it out your fucking self" he croaks, eyes half-closed.

1/25 Java Lounge, Sacramento:
Punk as a Doornail is a hilarious duo we lurked with at the Java Cafe: shooting each other with capguns, guitars made out of old skateboards, garbage cans for donations, flipping the bird and chucking drumsticks at each other. Funny self-depricating songs written on the spot such as 'sad and horny' and 'you break you buy' (mosh pit song). Manic woman pacing up and down the sidewalk, ranting about the 'greatest orgasm ever!,' humping street posts, raving to the heavens, trying to snatch grant's leg. Shark tooth'd punk rokker offers some crystal, moshes violently then passes out on the couch during a young hardcore band's set. Got to see Tets again. It's been years. Rolled some claydough with a girl from Ben's job at the old folks home. Senior citizens just want some company. Yellow checkerboard tiles in the diner. Awesome art by a local (Skinner): Quetzalcoatl slithers cunningly above the doorway. Werecats and vampire bats stare intently at the cartoon of a girl getting her ass licked. Mad respect for illustrators who draw attractive figures with the most minimal lines. Todd's neighbor works on his Harley all day long. Two generators and a 45 over the mantelpiece. He knows how to take care of himself. Tom's grandma has a fruit basket scene made up of seashells. Spent the night in the van in front of the Battlepad. Dreamt of destitude badlands of mahogany and navy blue, the land drying out before my eyes. So far, this trip is anything but dry. The news shows giant whorls of twirling white across the whole state, tracking our itinerary perfectly. Storm is raging. Will the tempest continue to build? Could this be the final Biblical judgement time?

battleblitz epologue or FAIRWELL INKY BEAK-WEILDER

2008-02-04T10:27:00.000-08:00

Alright...

Quite a stretch with no blog action, but the close of the tour was packed with activity and lite on wireless internet connection, so here I am writing from the comfort of my bed in the beautiful city of San Fran.... the tour is finished. we made it back alive...

we last left off on a beautiful sunny monday in LA.

me and the boys jumped in the spongevan and jetted over to santa monica. we grabbed our gear and sashayed over to the 3rd street promenade. found a little spot where we could post up our gear. as we set up, i notice out of the corner of my eye a mysterious, dark figure with crazy black hair and crazy lookin' eyes. very quickly i realize that i'm watching cedric bixler from the battlehooch-beloved MARS (mother fucking!) VOLTA! after being a dork and staring for a good 20 seconds, i get my wits about me and hand the good man a copy of OOF OWF, which he generously took. we told him we loved his music and thanked him for his kindness. WOO HOO! hellz yeah! then we played 3 songs before we got hasseled by the man (thankfully we didn't get a ticket). as well as meeting cedric, we also met the original lead singer of motley crue (pre- vince neil) and also we made our youngest battlefan yet. his name is nate, he's the man, look for him in upcoming vlogs.

after getting kicked out of santa monica, we headed over to venice beach to see if we'd have some luck there. we walked up and down the beach, with all our equipment, trying to find a good place to post up but we had trouble. after causing much grief to a beach side palm reader and a seemingly never ending barrage of hobo -harmonica players joining our band mid song, we decided to bail out from venice beach. after all, who is walking along venice beach at 3:30 in the afternoon other than drug addicts and weirdos. not to discriminate against such folks, but we needed gas money. dig?

anywho, we headed back to max's and cooked a mean stew. then we loaded up the van and headed over to echo park for our first ever offical show in LA at pehrespace. the show was put on by sean carnage and it was a great scene. kids chilling, laughing, drinking, smoking, talking. we had a very strong turn out this night with lots of friends from far and wide, from various stages of our collective past turning up to say what up to the hooch. we saw a bunch of great bands this night including Brother from Sacramento, Destroy Tokyo from the East Bay and Kuato which featured our good friend Oliva's (of WiretapMusic/Radio Vago/Lovely Public fame) brother playing bass and singing.

We were the 5th of 6 bands, and played a set that was under 20 minutes long. the sound in the place was a little rough, but the show still went pretty decent. it ended with grant dumping half a bottle of gaurnier fructis on ryan's head. the place smelled awesome for the whole rest of the set.

you can see more pictures on line at seancarnage.com

afterwards, i had the good fortune of meeting jim from the fantastic group, Captain Ahab. we had a great talk and he gave me lots of good advice about playing shows/touring and he was good enough to accept a copy of OOF OWF. I also met members from the awesome group ANAVAN, who we are currently trying to set up a show in SF with.

great people all of them, real nice and genuine.

we went back home and crashed out at a late hour, after some rock band action (any time we're not playing music during our time in LA, we're playing rock band, or rather at least one of us is playing rock band).

now it's tuesday. we played two shows including one at kxlu on the loyola marymount campus. this show was kinda nuts cause we had to carry our gear REALLY FAR! and i mean, REALLY FAR. down a court yard, round the corner through another court yard, down some hallways, up an elevator, then down another hall way.... you get the picture. it was pretty rough. and then we played on the air without a soundcheck and with crappy feed from the vocals. what came out over the air sounded way different than what was in the room. sigh. oh well.

for dinner we dined at the fabulous Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles. a fine meal indeed. HOWEVER, the fates had conspired against us and our eating experience was soured when we discovered that some people were trying tow egg's car. much bally-hoo was raised and lets just say, $125 was exchanged and many tempers boiled over...

that nights show was at a place called hyperion tavern in silver lake. the night was called club ding a ling and it was put on by a dude who used to be the drummer in the GERMS.

Here he is in all his glory. ----------------------->
(he was seen at one point, pounding two 40s at once in the parking lot)

Now the thing about club ding a ling, at least on this particular night, is that all the bands we were playing with were, shall i say, doomy goth karaoke. all the acts basically were people plugging in a laptop/ipod/whatever... and barking out evil, devilish vocals augmented by effects. some of it was pretty groovy, but all in all the scene was just an incredible PIECECHOW REGALIA CONVENTION. hairpieces, hats, frocks and smocks that you all just had to see to believe. the whole thing was organized like shit, and the first two bands took ridiculously long to set up their gear, then played really short sets. we went on 3rd, after having to argue with some dude who wanted to take our slot. this place definitely had the weirdest stage we played on all tour. the stage, was wide enough to have 3 people across, no problem, however, it was only about 2 feet deep, which meant it was impossible to get all of us on the stage at once. also, keep in mind that the stage is like 4 - 5 feet off the ground. so we had it with me grant and ben on the stage, and ryan tombo and pat down below us. there was a video projection of the most crazy random fucked up shit ever flashing right in my face the whole time, thought i was gonna swallow my tounge or something.

all in all though, one of the best shows of the tour. the room was packed when we played, we played a really solid 4 song set, sold some cds, made some friends, made the heckling goths shut their traps. maybe it was the rage from the towing incident being turned into positive kinetic energy? we headed home feelin' good. except we got lost on the way home.

wednesday, we slept in a bit, then hit the road for Dr. Spankk's house in Brea where we were treated to a delicious home cooked meal. we played a little piano, sang some leonard cohen, then set off for costa mesa. the show was at this SUPER posh italian restaurant that was underground, called La Cave. word on the street is the Sinatra played there back in '67. no bull.
we were playing with a fine fine band called Dolphin City. we played first, and had a great ol' time. great sounding place and crowd was nice. while packing up my equipment, the PA system toppled over and a big ol' speaker fell right on my noggin. felt a bit dizzy for a while, but i didn't have a concussion and i didn't die when i fell asleep. woo hoo! dolphin city was really great, good players for sure. and they were way nice to hang out with, they even set us off with a box of free fruit. it was delightful. then we piled in the van a little after midnight and hit the road for encinitas where we would stay with our good friend ryan davenport.

we, arrived late at night, 10 people deep and apparently didn't go over to well with his sick housemate. bummer.

thursday was a strange day, it was like a vortex where nothing got done. in 8 hours we eat mexican food and looked for a radioshack. we took eggs out to dinner cause it was her birthday and we got some grubbin pizza and calimari aka squid aka THE INKY BEAK-WEILDER. the show that night was at a place called Chasers. we were supposed to play at a joint called Scolari's office which we had heard was one of the main spots for touring bands and local bands in San Diego. however, a couple weeks before the tour, Scolari's got bought by "yuppies" and the old booker started doign shows at chasers instead. Chasers was a way cool place, but it was off the beaten path kinda and hadn't developed a name for it, so the crowd wasn't as big as we had hoped but we definitely met some great people, some of whom came out to multiple San Diego shows we played at. very cool people. thanks a bunch. we met up with maria, who helped us organize the show, and who played in a band called "a history of premature burial" (who kicked serious ass) which is a side project of her main band, the vaginals. she was way awesome and was good enough to put the crew up at her house for the night. very kind indeed.

Friday! friday was the probably the gnarliest day of the tour but also, probably the best. we woke at 9... which is insane considering that the whole tour we'd been going to bed at like 3 or 4 and waking up at noon consistently. we grabbed breakfast and all of us were feeling, looking and smelling really haggard. we'd been on the road for well over a week, hadn't been sleeping much, eating well, or showering. perfect time to head over to San Dieguito Academy to play during lunch for all the fine high schoolers. we strolled in and set up in front of the gym, and by the time the lunch bell rang we were ready to go. this show was definitely the most fun of the whole tour. compared to the clubs and things we normally play, the level of enthusiasm and appreciation that the fine folks at San Dieguito displayed was overwhelming. when we finished playing we sold 22 copies of OOF OWF and made a bunch of friends. holy shit did these kids have good taste in music. Kraut rock, Beirut, Deerhoof, WTF?!? we showed some of the kids how to play theramin and gave out the rest of our battlerags that we made for the tour. before the show we all felt haggard. afterwards we felt like kings. but we didn't have time to dilly dally. it was off to KSDT at UC San Diego for a set on NoWaveNoDiego. this radioset ran much smoother and the sound was much better cause we took care of our own vocal levels and we just used a single large diaphram condensor mic to record the set, which sounded much better.
we're planning on putting highlights from that set up on our page soon. so stay tuned for that.
then we jetted to the house where we were gonna play at that night. the show had been organized by a group on myspace called san diego house parties and they were good enough to book us for the evening, which as luck would have it, was taking place at a house where our good friend John Paul (from wonderful San Diego band Grand Ole Party) lived. we made a fine meal for ourselves, and then the party began. it was quite a groovy scene. there was some cool hip hop acts that started the show off and the GOP themselves made a suprise appearance and played 5 brand new songs, all of which sounded killer. they got a really lean sound and it was great seeing them in an intimate setting.

speaking of the setting, imagine this if you a will. a true basement. a ceiling that is probably 6'3" and that's being generous. insolation and wires and beams hanging from the ceiling.
this is the spot where we played. the set went pretty good, we went on at 1 am, it included the first ever mosh pit at a battlehooch show (during deep knee bends). afterwards, DJ Kipper kicked in and rocked a dance party that went to the wee hours. we were crashing at the house that night, so we had to wait until the party was over before we could settle down for the evening. it was well past 5am when i went to bed.

we got up around noon-ish, load up the van and meet up one more time with Davenport for a fine lunch. then it's off to bakersfield for the final show of the tour. it takes about 4 hours to get to bakersfield and we get their around dusk. we were really excited about this show the whole tour cause we were playing with HEALTH who are truly awesome. we got there really early so we got a free meal compliments of the joint, Narducci's cafe. talked a bit with jon from health and he gave us some really solid advice about touring, playing shows in LA, etc. we played second and we all pretty much agree that it was the worst show of the tour. both grant and i had our effects crap out on us. my amp fell over cause the stage wobbled when i jumped (apparently some of the supports had been taken out). the PA system was just FUCKED UP. like WAY FUCKED UP. eggs said that the the sound was fluctuating in a really weird way. i had to rethink almost all my guitar parts on the fly cause i had no effects, which led to a lot of crappy playing. i personally felt the fatigue of touring and having to constantly try and bring the A game the most at this show. a shame really, but c'est la vie. the night was getting on and it was clear that HEALTH was anxious to play before it got to be too late. the 3rd band started, a really bullshit gutterpunk band, (they had the most hilarious song titles ever, grant nabbed the setlist, you really got to see it to believe it) but some drunk morons came in and started harassing the drummer, who then went and slugged one of the dude's in the face. a big bru ha ha errupted and much yelling and arguing took place. the drunk moron's drunk moron girlfriend thought it was our band that punched her man and tried to attack the battle van at one point! the end result was that the bartender pulled the plug on the WHOLE FUCKING SHOW. health weren't allowed to play. they played maybe 2 songs and then that was it. SUCH BULLSHIT!

pretty shitty way to end the tour, but once again, c'est la vie. we left bakersfield shortly after midnight and drove 6 hours home to San Francisco.

so, yeah, that's pretty much the story. it was good fun. we met great people. played some really awesome shows. saw some really awesome bands. laughed a bunch. played rock band a bunch. met one of our heroes. saw some old friends. sang songs ( I LIKE THE BARTENDER....). but i think above all learned a lot of lessons and really saw what it was like to be a real band. when all was said and done we came back with a profit of $500 after gas expenses. and most amazing of all, the battlevan made it the whole way without any hassel. the van that didn't even run when we bought it, trucked us almost 2000 miles in a week a half without giving us any hell. i think this is the begining of a beautiful friendship.

we're already planning the next tour and maybe even a couple mini tours. eggs and peter joined the tour in LA and eggs shot a bunch of great video, which we'll compile into a couple more vlogs to round out the tour story.

OOF OWF in California '08

-Archeology Johnson

Video Battleblog #3

2008-01-31T02:53:00.000-08:00

Things have been really busy for the past few days... things dropping on our heads... missed turns... free oranges... random nameless bars filled with hateful anti hooch goths.

but, we just arrived in San Diego, it's 2:54 in the morning, we just played a show with Dolphin City in an underground Italian Restaurant called La Cave. trying to get caught up on the blog action.... here's the latest video blog, enjoy.

Video Battleblog 2

2008-01-28T17:30:00.001-08:00

the quality on this one leaves a lot to be desired, but it's got some footage from our first sactown show, the epic character that is casper, ryan throwing his morals out the window, and other stuff. the next video should be up shortly, and be higher quality. thanx homies.....

RockBandSillyStringBurgerFeast Pt. 2

2008-01-28T13:13:00.000-08:00

Sleeping in SF was nice. but the road squawked at us to get a move on, so we cast off for SoCal. The weather was the worst it had been thus far on the trip but the Battlevan was not stopped. We grabbed a nice, hardy In N Out Breakfast while on the road and also while on the road the silly string made it's first appearance. Grant was sleeping and ryan gave him a good hosing. much laughter. from then on it's been some kind of a crazy silly string/bubble battlehooch war. before getting to Santa Barbara, we stopped off in San Luis Obispo, to do some street performing. we made $86 in a little over 20 minutes. $20 of that was purely for playing a Zappa song (Magic Fingers) at the request of a find SLO police officer. what a hoot! then we hopped in the car and made the last little push to good ol' Isla Vista. we arrived and the weather was oppresive! the task of unloading the equipment from the van left us all soaked and cold. the rain was working against us cause not that many people were out and about that night, so we didn't have too terribly big of a crowd. however we still played a really solid show and the people that were there seemed to be stoaked. the silly string war carried out through out the set, which made it quite ridiculous. we sold a couple of CDs at least. the other bands we played with were really killer. apple pie hopes were a kind of freaky pirate gypsy band, also from the bay area, that totally rocked the house and local SB band OSO totally blew it up too, lots of time signatures, crazy gypsy melodies and incredible violin playing. for their first song, OSO's guitarist played the whole thing on a unicycle. not bad. quite baller actually. all the while, the rain was still pounding, but we didn't let it get us down and we proceeded to dance in the rain like crazy dogs! at around 1 or 2 in the morning we started having a crazy call and response vocal jam with some of the party goers that turned into a totally insane tribal percussion samba jam. steamy. sexy. cathartic. bangin. we then migrated to the main house (we were playing at a Co-Op called the BIKO HOUSE) and winded down the evening with the BIKO's fine residents. got a couple hours of sleep but then we had to get up reletively early, load up the van and head out to oxnard for an afternoon show. we get to oxnard and realize that we've booked a show in a nowhere town, on a rainy day, in mid afternoon, in some random little cafe. and we were the only band. so in other words, the show was a bit of a bust. we did have the good pleasure of having mr. and mrs. punk rock chris come out, as well as amelia and pat's little brother. we played kinda a loose half acoustic/half electric set. didn't get paid, but we did get free lunch. after we played we grabbed some jamba juice and took a quick relaxation break at Punk Rock Chris's house before pushing onward into the great beast that is LA.

first things first. we met up with MAX MARDER, our good buddy. went and grubbed hard on mediteranian food, the fellows grabbed some brew dogs and then we headed back to Max's pad for an epic sesh of 4 player RockBand. the night wore on, we decided to go out and check out a local bar called the liquid kitty, where we saw a real legit blues band, with will ferrell on sax. i shit you not. or maybe it was tom waits. or maybe tom waits and will ferrell's love child. i'll show ya a picture, you'll crap your pants with laughter. speaking of crapping your pants with laughter, in a moment of true inspiration, Grantaloinz once again rose to the occation and went to Taco Bell at 2 am, in the pouring rain. proceeded to spend $10 on various "mexican" cuisine items, and then immediately after recieving them from the fine workers at TacoBell, proceeded to drop kick all his taco's into millions of little pieces right in front of the people who just made him the food. then he slapped a bean burrito against the window for a piano store. larf larf larf larf larf larf larf larf larf larf larf larf larf larf. then we cacked out at max's. we woke up and OH MY FUCKING GOD! it's sunny! well, no need to be typing on a computer anymore, onward to adventure!

-AJ

RockBandSillyStringBurgerFeast Pt.1

2008-01-27T09:50:00.000-08:00

butterhooch under the buttertree....

it is now 2 am on jan 25th, and i find myself in the middle seat of the battlevan, having just arrived back in San Francisco after the Sacramento run of our tour.

Last night we played a pretty solid set for a bar full of people who pretty much didn't give a shit, but it's all good. o! the joy, who we played with were really cool, and considering that they said that half their band had quit earlier that week, they pulled off their set for skillfully indeed. headlining band SWIMS had to back out at the 11th hour due to family emergencies, which was a shame.

despite the mediocre response to our set, we still managed to sell a cd, and we met up with some friends who live in the SAC area. Dr. Spankk's good buddy Todd introduced us to a small crew of rollerderby girls who were a genuine hoot. Then we whipped out the aux percussion and danced like roosters for the delight of all the remaining bar patrons. they liked our fucked up dancing more than our fucked up music. fuck. then we went out to another bar, where we met a couple groovy characters: Casper (whom you can see (kinda, it's really dark) in all his glory, interacting with Huberloinz in the 2nd Video Blog) and Shoelace, from the Goth Hop band Hurchu. The night wore on and we wrapped up the evening with a quick stop at the local 24 taco shop. Then we APED it hard at Todd's house.

We woke up the next morning, macked some leftovers from the night before, then spent a good chunk of time playing Rock Band. (ryan now swears to purchase rock band for the house after the tour). then we bid fairwell to Todd and then jetted over to Tombo's Grandma's house for some INCREDIBLE fried chicken and general tying up of loose ends. We then went to our second Sac show, when we arrived NO ONE WAS THERE! not even the people that worked there, they were chilling in the back, being assholes. we were really bummed out and afraid the show was gonna be a bust (the venue was really small too, we were afraid we'd blow everyone up) but right before we went on some people showed up, we played a pretty good set and sold 8 cds and made 40 bucks from the door. we played with a band called punk as a door nail, which consisted of a drummer and a dude who playing a guitar he made out of a skateboard with a tequila bottle for a slide. other highlights of the show were the meth head with shark teeth (who was so punk rock that he wore an anthrax jacket and showed up for the show 30 minutes early so he could snort meth out of a huge straw out front), the CRAZY horny drunk lady (who looked like an elementary school yard duty) running into the room and falling all over the nice sacramento kids, and grunting erotically during Riot on Rosewood's set (those guys were way chill too, high school age band, totally rocked it, played a killer Minor Threat Cover.

after the show we grabbed a quick burge across the street from the venue then cast off for good ol' san francisco to catch a wink of sleep before setting off for Santa Barbara.

ButterHooch

2008-01-25T11:58:00.000-08:00

Nothing to say. . .

Cold and creamy, slightly dreamy

2008-01-25T11:27:00.000-08:00

Greetings from the road

First off, thank all of you profusely for coming to the retox lounge, or for supporting us in general - you give me the hunger. Also thank you so much to hey three eyes and little teeth for playing at the Retox lounge. It was our first show at the retox, and I for one really liked the experience. After the first sound guy "set" for hey three eyes, he left, and said it was gonna sound great. After further inspection, I noticed he had failed to turn on one of the PA speakers, which meant everything needed further workings. Some adjustments were made, and hey three eyes sounded great.

Aside from what felt like a long set up; our set went off well, and I for one was really excited for new songs we had played, as well as for my first use of the new effects loop I have started. Maybe thats why it felt like a long set up...

Yesterday we left san francisco in the middle of a downpour - but once we hit the road, I felt liberated, and overcome with joy, that my childhood dream was coming true, a few miles at a time. I slept in the van last night, (its part of our agreement that we will not leave our equipment alone), and it was actually quite Comfy. We are stopping at my grandmas house this afternoon for fried chicken, and more vblog! With dinner last night, and our first show on the road in the bag, I am left with a heavy feeling of solidarity with my brothers, excitement for the short term and long term future prospects, and a certain level of anxiety for the show to go on.

Thank you todd and johanis fir shackin us up
Long Live Butterhooch!

Tombolomitron

Video Battleblog #1

2008-01-24T19:43:00.001-08:00

NEU LYFE

2008-01-24T17:25:00.000-08:00

The skies resembled this character on our way to our state's crapkrital!
xo
-grantaloin

Flagship Battleblog (from the gills of FishMilk McForeskin)

2008-01-24T17:16:00.000-08:00

Start 5:18 PM
Davis, California

First off, thanks to everyone who came out to our show at the Retox last night and a BIG BIG BIG thanx to the brilliant members of Hey Three Eyes and Little Teeth. It was an honor, a joy and a profound privilege to share a bill with should unique and brilliant musicians. It was a great way to kick off our first ever Battlehooch blitzkrieg Tour.

We in Battlehooch find ourselves presently in the fine (and cold!) kitchen of our lovely keyboard playing friend Preben. We are constructing a salad and pasta dinner meal composed with concerto like perfection that we will eat in order to gather strength for our first ever sacaramento area show at the fire escape with our homies SWIMS and O! The Joy! It's been raining all day, but the Battlevan got from SF to SacTown no problem. We've been filming various acts of merriment and silliness (for example, as I write this BLOG, Preben is wrestling with his dog, NASTY NATE) which we will post in a more extensive blog a little down the line.

A brief blog, true, but that is because we are merely hours into our tour, with much more adventure coming down the pike. Stay tuned friends for frequent updates from all the members as we wind our way on tour.

Love,

Archeology Johnson (the legendary fishmilk, himself)

End 5:31 PM (Dinner Time)