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)
Friday, May 7, 2010
Sunday, April 11, 2010
What Are They Listening To These Days??? (March/April 2010 Episode)
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!
(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!
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Greetings from the Road!
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!
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!
Monday, March 1, 2010
NEW BATTLEHOOCH REMIX - Human Ram (DJ PHYZK Remix)
(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
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
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
A Taste
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:
Back to work.
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.)
Back to work.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
The first ever BATTLE-REMIX
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!!!!
Saturday, January 16, 2010
THE RETURNER....
... 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.
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.
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