Saturday, Jun 27th, 2009 seattle...we're back and enjoying the killer summer vibe. this year summer showed up early, and is holding strong. we had a great time down in san francisco recording at tiny telephone. big props go out to jay pellici for helping us make a great sounding album. it was great to get to explore san fran a bit...we stayed at a luxurious place called the cable car court hotel. you can get a room there for about $300 for ten days...which is a killer bargain, since it is right by a grocery store, and all the rooms have a refrigerator. it wasn't five star, but was great for crashing after a long day's worth of recording. one nite we even hoofed it back from the recording studio, which was across town on the west side of the mission. charlotte borrowed the blanket out of sean's kick drum for the walk home, cause it had gotten a bit cold. we tried to sit down and get pizza at this place around the corner from our hotel, but they told us they were closed, even though almost all the tables were full and they were serving people. we convinced them we'd leave if we could take slices to go...i think they thought we were homeless, with charlotte wrapped in a blanket, and all of us bum rushing the bathroom after walking three miles from the studio. i guess we look a bit ragged after a long day's work.

the drive down and the bus and cab rides, were spent playing the lunch song game...a real easy game, just find a song with the word love in it, and replace it with lunch. we laughed for days playing that stupid game...'tainted lunch, da dunt duh, tainted lunch or 'all you need is lunch, all you need is lunch'...or how about 'shot through the heart and your to blame darlin' you give lunch a bad name'...the options are nearly endless. i think we eventually got lunched out, but it was seriously entertaining for awhile. most the cabbies thought we were crazy...or were at least spending a lot of energy trying to convince us the ladies around our hotel at nite weren't really ladies...cabbie 'that's a guy!'...me 'that's a guy?'...cabbie 'that's a guy!'...me 'that's a guy?'...cabbie 'that's a guy!'...me 'that's a guy?' quite fun to pull the cabbie's leg, making him think we didn't understand what he was talking about. he was completely exasperated, but didn't want to elaborate. i think the signs in the window at the polk gulch kinda clued us in.

anyway, enough rambling...we've got new tunes in the mp3 player here on the site. check em out...painted black enamel, please advise, and n.m.'s eulogy are all from our recent recording sessions down in california. we'll be putting them out officially late this summer along with another handful of tunes. let us know what you think...

Friday, Apr 10th, 2009 guess what...we're playing in oly tonite. guess what else...we're going down to san francisco to record in three weeks. we'll be spending seven days at tiny telephone putting together the next album. one last thing...we're stoked.

archived news:

Saturday, Jan 24th, 2009 yo...thanks so much to all the folks who ventured down to georgetown last nite. it was awesome to get to play and see so many people shake a leg. jules maes was a total hoe down. thanks to the ...more

albums:

giraffe riot

...tugging at the abstract notions worn on the everyman's sleeve. giraffe riot bolts thru the angles of shifty brain rock...careeming off obstacle to obstacle. a stampede of songs yelling out the observations of forward motion. a circus barker delivering a garage rock band through the acrobatic show. 'soupcan telephone operator' is a fine example of the nerve this album tries to strike...voice after voice played out before the words even begin to form. sound tracks of places where the microphone tuned in. found sounds breaking into the clever atmosphere of a twisted folk tune. a clawing crescendo of questions posed in the way of answers. 'wobbly arrow' steps in with a scattered groove that steers itself by the skin of it's teeth all the way to the finish line...perfect sounds teetering in and out...a pulsing indie rock dance number. it leads further into an album that continues to escalate the vibe...'mr.e' shreads, 'wittle' dives on, and 'truss' uses all the twists and turns to clamber it to the brink. the sounds continue to please as 'nacimiento' is a replenishing truck stop off the highway, a place to put chains on in order to drive thru the pass. on the other side giraffe riot continues to roll on until it explores every nook and cranny along the parade route...the final destination is reached in 'circle the wagons' revisiting the daylight, bringing back to a head..the other end of the ribbon. an oragami bow tie start to finish.

garage philosophy

...in late October of 2003, five inches of rain fell in such a short time span in seattle, that lance found his new album's basic guitar and drum tracks in serious danger of become a part of the flotsam jetsam of a quickly flooding basement. a bucket brigade was formed though, and with science tips picked up from zoom, the water was held at bay...the salvaged tunes were brought up to the main floor to be finished in dryer confines, but in the light of day it was evident that these were songs meant for a band sweating them out in one room live, not how the past albums had been built around a sole guitar...estocar's first release as a garage rock trio would hit the pavement two years later...some of those original songs rescued from the oncoming waters in the basement of the nougat house would survive...songs like 'invisible mayan', a full throttle indie folk punk anthem, 'blue heron', a bipolar art rock number, and 'capable+1', hippie metal groove rock at it's finest...those songs and other songs on garage philosophy capture the true spirit of a solid rock trio unleashing a racous sound that could only be realized within the confines of their own rehearsal space. self recorded and self released this album delivers the essence and urgency of a band completely at ease with it's underground stature...a raw intimate look into estocar's earlier psyche.

tinfoil halo

...pawn e5, king's knight c6, pawn a6...from the opening lyrics of the poet's blindspot, one can tell that this will be an album with intentions of seeing a game thru. an album truly taking form in the studio...from layered vocals, door slams, kitchen knifes tapping on linoleum, popcorn being poured into glass bowls, beer cans being crushed, sounds amped and reamped, drum tracks made from found objects, and even horn players brought in to add that true experimental texture that these four songs would coagulate into. strange birds meant to clear the palate, act as a sorbet for the upcoming entree. one where all the stops are pulled out. like a kid who just learned how to play with matches and has found a stash of them...each song strikes another and another until every match in the box is ignited and used as fuel to the fire for these intuitive soundscapes. this ep stretches out estocar's feathers, goes overboard and climbs ashore in order that no stone is left unturned...

traffic noise

...as estocar's first release eludes to in it's title, there are plenty of moments of idling buses, rumbling semi-trucks, revving motorcyles, passing cars, ambulance sirens, and even the voices of a steady stream of pedestrians wafting into the small crowded room above street level where it was recorded...an array of folk songs given a psychedelic white washing, peppered with the happy accidents that create an album when the recording process becomes an instrument as well...'six degrees from seventh heaven' the opening track is a loping mellow folk number brought in by drum rolls as it gathers steam like a tumble weed in open field...'render' adds a more sinister side as the album twists and turns thru layered guitars and keyboards. traffic noises from north street in chicago poke their head thru now and then as the album grows more rock oriented and full blown as wah wah guitars join the ruckus and drums add more drive. traffic noise continues to go down as many streets, avenues, nooks and crannies as a long commute...stretching out toward a foreboding blues folk number, 'atmospheric kettle', that explains the pit falls of finding oneself in hot water that continues to get hotter and hotter...traffic noise is a glimpse of the folk tunes in lance's head beginning to grow into numbers that will require a full fledged band...in the mean time it explores the freedom that can be found in the studio as sounds are piled up and around sturdy songs laid down on acoustic guitar.