truckasauras, dude!

One of the more depressing casualties of the Keenan Bowen Debacle of Ought-Six was the feature I wrote on Truckasauras that was going to run before their opening slot for Daedelus. It was slated to run in the October 19th edition, but was shelved on the 11th... Two days later, Dave and I were unemployed. Sigh. What with all the hullabaloo surrounding the Truck now, I revisited the story, and it amazes me how well, in a 45 minute conversation the first time we met, I was able to capture their personalities and dynamic. Having spent tons of time with them in the last few months, I've borne witness to the constant finishing-of-sentences and psychic abilities these guys share, and I feel like the people I purport them to be in the story are pretty spot-on representations (with the exception of Dan, who, it turns out, is the spawn of Satan). Without further ado...

The Party’s Crashing Us Now
Truckasauras’s Advanced Nerdery
By Keenan Bowen Bailee Martin

     There’s a moment during every Truckasauras show, usually midway through the set, where the group drops a banger. It’s the same song every time, and every time one can feel the collective, yet silent, round of “Oh, shit!” rattle through the masses. The heads up front start bobbing a little stronger, fists begin pumping in the air, and the three dudes behind the expanse of drum machines, keyboards, and Game Boys begin bopping back and forth in unison.
     “Even if we mess up, which we do a lot,” admits Adam Swan, Truckasauras’s keyboard/Commodore 64 specialist, “it still sounds good. We get going, and just kinda listen to it; we’re just tricking all the machines into doing something that we like.”
     With whimsical analog loops skirting over darkly minimal drums, Truckasauras’s sound toes the line between goofiness and sincerity, and does so with aplomb. Such is to be expected from a group comprised of members of Seattle’s Fourthcity collective.
     In a roundtable conversation with Swan, his brother Tyler, childhood friend Ryan Trudell, and visual ace Dan Bordon, the giddiness and excitability expressed by the group when discussing their gear is palpable. “There was a show a few years ago at the Hugo House; some 8-bit themed thing,” Trudell explains when asked about Truckasauras’s origins. “I had recently gotten the Game Boy program [NanoLoop, a German synthesizer /sequencer program for Nintendo’s handheld systems], and Tyler and I threw together a set on a whim.”
     Tyler breaks in. “Like, that day. We just started drinking at noon or something, and it was born.”
     “Initially, it was just me and Tyler,” continues Trudell, “but then I got a Commodore 64 and Adam started rocking that, doing keyboards over it.”
     “Basically we pulled this guy out of his bedroom,” says Adam, gesturing at Bordon, who spends the majority of the interview with his fingers laced, quietly watching his musical counterparts wax effusive over the intricacies of vintage Roland drum machines.
     “There’s a lot of modern software that’s all based on this stuff, but you can’t beat it,” Tyler boasts.
     “And just the way you use [the gear] in a live setting dictates the music to a certain extent. It’s super fun,” adds Trudell. “We’re just rocking hardware, you know, the old 808 drum machines and stuff. [Being able to] plug that into a nice system and let that bump is just…pretty awesome.”
     “It’s a lot of fun to buy gear, too, so…” Adam’s thought trails off slightly. “Nerd stuff,” he grins.
     “Total nerd stuff!” Trudell agrees enthusiastically. “It’s the 808 that’s really constrictive [live], but it sounds so pure, and it’s got such character.”
     “It’s a classic,” attests Adam.
     “About as old as us, I think!” Trudell concurs.
     When asked what label the group’s upcoming album will be released on, Tyler smiles. “This is gonna be an independent release, hand screen-printed, the whole thing.”
     “We really like the DIY aesthetic of Truckasauras,” Adam declares.
     “The first time we did a show,” says Tyler, “half of it was live drums, and we were excited because it felt like punk rock.”
     “The visuals are pretty punk rock, too,” his brother agrees.
     Live, the group resembles (as Portland Mercury’s Chas Bowie so eloquently put it) “a trio of Larry the Cable Guy devotees who would spit Skoal in your eyeball after kicking your hipster ass for no good reason.” Fishing vests, trucker hats emblazoned with bald eagles, and American flags-as-capes are the fashion de rigeur for these fellows, who stand three-strong in front of a screen projecting images of monster truck rallies, explosions, and WWF matches.
     “Even just the name ‘Truckasauras’ is just so over-the-top,” insists Trudell, referencing the monster truck destructive icon. “The other day I saw a semi with a big Confederate flag for the grill. That’s so Truckasauras. It’s pseudo-patriotism. If someone was kinda into that stuff they’d look at it and be stoked, but we just look at it as so…”
      “It’s parody style— Truck has become its own entity.” Tyler continues, in the habitual pattern of finishing each other’s sentences like only a tight-knit group of established comrades can. “Truck definitely has plenty of gimmick, but with the album, we want to make it so it’s good to listen to—not reliant on the gimmick. We really do put a lot of thought into it.”
     “We didn’t initially,” interjects Trudell. “It was more of just a fun thing to do, but then…”
     “People started taking it seriously,” Adam concludes. “And it just turned into… it’s just way cooler than any of us just on our own.”

this is why going to sleep sober isn't all it's cracked up to be.

I had a vivid and disturbing dream last night. I was shacking up in this flop-house on northeastern Manhattan (in my dream it was in Harlem but I don't think that's correct). Instead of being on the water, though, the building was smack up against a hillside, a huge, rolling hillside with a metal fence running the length of it. Like, one whole side of the building was without windows because it was almost built into the hillside. People hung out on the rooftop, much like they do in front of the halfway houses that run the length of Summit Ave b/w Howell and Pine. Two of those people were jbin and Woody Harrelson, and the three of us started smoking crack out of a pipe fashioned from a test tube, with a screw-on cap/screen combination reminiscent of a Mason jar. The next thing I knew, I looked over, and jbin had shot an arrow through his dog's head. He'd done it from behind so that the arrowhead was protruding from between her beautiful (and now lifeless) eyes. Blood was trickling out of her mouth. I LOVE this dog as though she were my own, and this action broke my heart. I got up and walked to the edge of the roof, looking out at the fence. I wondered to myself if it were an electric fence, and just then I saw two raccoons come scrambling down the hill. One of them lost its footing and tumbled into the fence, and I watched it spasm and jolt as a current ran through it (Is that equivalent to lucid dreaming? I'm kind of inclined to think it is). While I was distracted by that, the other raccoon jumped over the fence and started to hiss and growl at me, shoulders haunched and fur standing straight up. I started to back away slowly, when he lunged and sunk his teeth into my wrist. I swear, I've never physically felt the pain in a dream like I did last night. It burned. I could feel it on my nerve endings. At times like these remembering dreams is overrated.

i really do hate to say i told you so...

My camera is en route to me, so once I get that I'll throw up a huge post about the Truckasauras/Portland weekend. Until then, however, maybe this GLOWING FUCKING PRAISE from PITCHFORK and Line Out will tide you over.

I called this shit like a year ago. Those boys are gonna be famous. Much love to the Truck.

feel my iPain.

So. Last week at Ratatat's "DJ" set at Havana, I lost my iPod. jbin said he saw me, at one point, look down at my bag and see that my headphones were no longer attached to anything, and whimper. The next morning, in a slightly-less drunken state, I realized it was long gone. I went through brief moments of incredulity and irritation, and then just decided that instead of spending my next Chop Suey check on my bike, I'd replace my Nano with the top-of-the-line 80GB video iPod, which I did in Portland (no sales tax).

Last night, a conversation with one of my coworkers went something like this:
Him: "I want to start filling iPods with music and selling them, rather than burning discs of stuff."
Me: "iPods are expensive."
Him: "Yeah, but I find a lot of them. Like, last week at Havana I looked down and kicked what I thought was a flyer, and this iPod went flying across the floor."
Me: "..."
Him: "And it's got some hella good shit on there. Aesop Rock, MF Doom/RZA..."
Me: "OHMIGOD you found my fucking iPod! God DAMMIT!"

Needless to say, I'm slightly annoyed this conversation didn't take place BEFORE Saturday. So now I have two iPods. Annoying.