Tickets for Blissmas ’24 can be purchased here.

Highly Irresponsible is out now via Sharptone records. Check out our review here.

*This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and brevity.

buffaBLOG: Better Lovers has just released their debut album Highly Irresponsible. What was the influence behind the name of the album and how do you think the songs play into the overall concept?

Jordan Buckley: Greg came up with the name – it’s one of those things that felt like “it has a nice ring to it” and looks good on a t-shirt *laughs*. But I like when names are open to interpretation – not just necessarily that there’s a guy blowing up fireworks in his face on the cover, that’s a more literal interpretation… I kind of felt that way about starting a band when you’re 40 in general. I’ve got a kid and it’s not considered a very “responsible” thing to do. I guess it’s just looked at as a young man’s game, or at least that’s how I saw it since I’ve been in a band since I was 14 years old. Is doing this all over again the right thing to do? Am I really signing up for that? But you know what… We all kind of got that “itch,” it’s a part of us and it’s going to be a part of our lives forever I guess. Is that irresponsible? Is it not? Who knows?

You’re on tour supporting the new album right now – how has the reception to the new songs been? Do you have a song you look forward to playing each night?

JB: We made the mistake of making our songs very difficult to play *laughs*. There’s so much focus and concentration that goes into playing the new ones. The old ones, you get that muscle memory going, but with the new songs, it’s a lot of staring at the guitar still… It’s a nice mix of – you have the perfection of trying to play like your recording, but you still want to mix in that dangerous live energy that people expect and that we expect when you hit the stage. Having said that, the response has been amazing… And what’s amazing is that what’s old to you might be brand new to someone in the crowd. I’m on stage playing a riff I wrote on my couch two years ago. So there’s no one answer – there’s a lot of transposing time and space where we’re all meeting in one spot and maybe I’m playing a song for the 100th time and maybe someone in the crowd is hearing it for the first time. We’re just trying to live in that experience.

In our review of Highly Irresponsible, we referred to your iconic riffs as “Buckleyisms.” What’s your inspiration for riff writing and how do you keep the creative juices flowing 20+ years into your guitar-playing career?

JB: You know, I am lucky in the fact that Will is just a musical genius and he knows scales, and notes, and can just point at a fret on a guitar and say “this will sound good.” It just blows my mind with his mastery of music theory. I am… The opposite. I don’t know notes, I don’t know scales, I don’t know chords. I can get as spiritual and wacky as you want and tap into some sort of frequency where these ideas are out in the universe waiting for me to find them. But really, stuff comes into my head, and then I sing it into my phone, and then I try to make my guitar sound like the thing I recorded on my phone. Some of my ideas are just called “Lowe’s Riff” or “Home Depot Riff.” The one song, track two, is just called “Halloween” and it’s got three riffs and it’s because I recorded them all on Halloween last year.

Photo credit: Gabe Becerra

For all the gear nerds out there, is there an iconic piece of gear that means the most to you?

JB: This is for all the Buffalo people – I have a Marshall 800 that I bought from Scott Sprigg of Buried Alive; who got it from one of the guys in Snapcase, I think Salemi; who got it from Sick of It All, and it’s literally on stage with me today. That’ll be on stage with me the last time I’m ever on stage.

3/5 of Better Lovers are Buffalonians – as someone who grew up in Buffalo, how do you think the city has influenced your music and style over the years?

JB: Quite literally, I got my start going to Buffalo hardcore shows at 13 and 14 years old. I was going to Mercury Theatre, Showplace Theatre, VFW halls – I mean, I look back now and I can’t believe my parents were letting me go. Basically, you’d find an older friend that your parents trust and you’d be set. Despair, Snapcase, Buried Alive, No Reason… Everybody… Plagued With Rage, Half Mast, I would go to a show – it wouldn’t even matter who was playing. Mercury Theatre every Sunday. Kenzie’s in Lockport. You just went. It didn’t even matter who was playing, you just went. The next thing you know, your parents were letting you go to Syracuse or Erie, PA. All of a sudden you had Brother’s Keeper and Earth Crisis. This was pre-internet, so you had to go get the music… If you wanted hardcore from Erie, PA, you had to hop on the 90 and go. I think locationally, Buffalo helped – Slugfest… I mean I could go on and on. I just got lucky man, Buffalo just had a great hardcore scene when I was a teenager.

Blissmas has become an iconic Buffalo tradition – what’s your favorite part about hosting such a one-of-a-kind festival?

JB: We’re trying to do some charity stuff, that’s a big thing. At this point in my life, I’m all about giving back, even if that doesn’t necessarily mean “money.” We do what we can… But as an “experience” too. We want to make people happy. We want people to come into town and have a great time on Thursday night, and on Friday night, and on Saturday night. And we want not just the people, but the bands too, saying “I’m coming back next year.” It’s an opportunity to put good into the world. I’m okay with the fact that I can do that with music. You kind of go through that “impostor syndrome” – you want to help the world out but not everybody is a nurse, or a doctor or a first responder. I kind of downplayed my role as a human for too long, and now I’m really owning it. As silly as it sounds, I make riffs and I’m in bands that make songs that make people happy. It’s weird considering it’s loud and it’s angry sounding… But once you’re ok with that contrast, you realize “I want people to be able to come to Buffalo and have a great time…” It’s a trickle effect – I gotta be careful, I don’t want to pat myself on the back too much, but there’s a lot of people who make lifelong friends, get married, find their soulmates. That’s fucking awesome to me.

Photo credit: Gabe Becerra

You’re an accomplished artist beyond your musical endeavors – where do you find inspiration as a visual artist and what keeps you motivated to keep making different kinds of art?

JB: This one’s a little tougher for me. Art has always been my solo project, music has always been a group project where the other guys I write with make it better. Art is just me, so it’s a little more terrifying to be honest. I don’t want to say it’s more rewarding, but it is a lot more challenging. I tend to get so excited about the final result – somedays I’m a patient person and somedays I need to work on my patience. When I get a big idea, I know how obsessed I get. I know how focused I get. I know I tend to shut off everything around me, so I know when I’m about to start a big project I need to get everything done – pay every bill, get everything clean, because I know I’m going to shut down for 3 to 4 weeks. I don’t do anything small, so even a merch design will take me very fucking long *laughs.* I wish I was quicker and could approach it with less thought and more spontaneity.

It’s funny, the current poster I did for Better Lovers, the first time we had it for sale was at Furnace Fest. We’re set up next to that band Coalesce. My poster is on the table, and I’m very proud of it, it’s this gnarly fuckin’ dragon on a leash and it took me like 100 hours, drawing every scale… And I’m looking at this Coalesce shirt and it’s just this apple on a skateboard giving the double middle finger and smoking a cigarette. And it must have taken like 20 minutes and it’s 1000x cooler than my poster. And I’m just having an existential crisis, Will is next to me saying “dude you’re having a crisis right now,” and I was like “This makes me want to quit! This is why I need to figure my shit out! I’m sick of blocking off three weeks, I wanna sit down for 20 minutes and I want to draw an apple on a skateboard!”

You recently purchased a bar in Buffalo (The Buffalo Tap House) – how did that come to fruition and do you have any exciting future plans in store?

JB: I’ve just been kind of open to opportunities, and when something just falls into my lap, especially post-pandemic, I’ve just been saying “everything happens for a reason” and going all-in on it. When that came across our lap, the owner just wanted to retire. That was it. She didn’t wanna make a billion dollars on a sale, she just wanted to retire and move to Hawaii. Our mutual friend Chris Ring heard about it and next thing I know… She didn’t want us to change the name or the staff, it was really a turnkey kinda thing. I just couldn’t say no to that. I’m just bummed I can’t be there more often, living in Arizona and being on tour.

It’s gonna be a good time this December. We just got my dad’s chicken wing sauce added to the menu. Go get the warped wings. It’s so cool, I’m so glad that we got to do that, too. Quick story – whenever we’d play the Warped Tour in Buffalo, he’d make chicken wings for the entire tour. I’m talking hundreds of pounds. He’s got this secret sauce he’s been making for all my life, it’s so good, and we put it on the menu – Mr. Buckley’s Warped Wings.

As an artist you’ve watched yourself evolve across different projects – what’s one piece of advice you’d give to your younger self that you think would surprise him?

JB: Just learn more. You kinda get stuck in certain ways of doing things… I didn’t really realize that my tastes were going to change as I grew up. 20 year old me is like “I know how to watercolor, I don’t want to use acrylics.” Well guess what, 40 year old you wants to use acrylics, so pay attention! I would just go back and tell myself “the point of it all is just to learn.” You’re proud when you’re young and you strike gold and you’re like “I love my style, I’m set for life, I’m gonna draw comic books, so get out of my way.” I wish I would have been open to needing to know as much as possible down the line. Luckily, now there’s YouTube, so anytime I need to know anything I just watch that.

Thanks so much for your time Jordan! Anything else you’d like to say before we let you go?

JB: No man, this has been great! Just check out the record, check us out on tour. Go to Blissmas, do the whole thing. Go Bills.

The post Jordan Buckley of Better Lovers first appeared on buffaBLOG.

We had a chance to speak with the co-creators of Portland is the New Portland  in the midst of their media blitz for the short film. The picture has been making the rounds for the past month in the national film festival circuit, securing screen time on multiple curated showcases including the Nashville Film Festival, Santa Fe International Film Festival, Woodstock Film Festival, Newport Beach Film Fest and the Buffalo International Film Festival.

Portland is the New Portland will make its Buffalo debut Saturday, October 12th at 7:15pm at the North Park Theatre as part of the WNY Stories block. Tickets are available here.  After the showing, there will be a free rock and roll show in the neighborhood at Revolution Gallery featuring sets from star Matthew Danger Lippman, a Space Wolves reunion, and jangly local act milkweed.

buffaBLOG: First off, welcome back to the buffaBLOG. It’s been a while. The last post we covered on your endeavors was a Space Wolves show at Allen Street Hardware in 2015. It seems like there’s been a lot going on since then. Last time we checked in you were a two-piece power pop band and now you are a movie production tag team. Can you give us a brief synopsis of your new short film Portland is the New Portland?

NICK REYNOLDS: Am I allowed to open an interview with a David Lynch “no”? Can you use that meme here?

CHRIS SCAMURRA: Ah, the infamous Hardware gig. Nick and I got into a fight at that one. The short film is a 17 minute film about a guy who makes music in his parents basement in a small town. He doesn’t have friends so he pretends his music is made by a bunch of bands and sends the music off for reviews. When Rolling Stone calls he has to figure out how to keep up the lie. In retrospect, it should have been Mike Moretti from buffaBLOG calling. That’s more realistic.

Can you tell us a little bit about how you two know each other and about your creative partnership?

CS: We went to elementary school together. We became friends in middle school. We played music together in high school and we have pretty much been working on stuff together since. Our creative partnership is constantly teetering on the edge of “this is going to be great” and “wow, we suck.”

NR: Chris and I balance each other out pretty well. I’m likely far too devil-may-care – that is to say that without someone to temper my “let’s just start making this” attitude, I would be making things one step above home-movies. It takes Chris to harness that pinball and actually shoot a double-super-jackpot, you know?

CS: Am I supposed to compliment Nick here or something?

NS: Use that David Lynch meme again.

Obviously you both are well-rounded creatives. How long have you been looking to dive into film? How long have you been working on Portland is the New Portland?

NR: Chris and I failed at making a feature film in 2015. We shot 90% of it, but ultimately didn’t have the Huston-esque charisma and leadership to be able to keep a cast of amateurs together and on track for a month.

CS: I’ve been working in film since 2017 here in LA. This is our first released project together, but we’ve been working on different film ideas for years.

In the short, lead character Jesse is a one-man-PR machine. Do you see a parallel to that and your success with getting accepted at all of these film festivals?

CS: I actually think there’s more similarity between us and Jesse when he is making music alone for no one.

NR: Yeah, Jesse is far more the manifestation of our failures than our successes.

Matthew Danger Lippman as Jesse in the short film “Portland is the New Portland.”

The movie stars fellow 2010’s Buffalo local scene alumni, Matthew Danger Lippman, as multi-band megapower Jesse. How did you end up casting MDL to star as Jesse?

CS: We re-connected with MDL a couple years ago. We played a show together (and our friend Dan Licata) in 2022. Around that time we started bouncing around some ideas and projects with him and when we wrote this script we knew he would be Jesse. I knew he would be great, but I was not prepared for how comfortable he would be acting alongside Siobhan Fallon Hogan and Creed Bratton.

NR: Matthew asked me to watch a no-budget film he was in called Samantha Rose. He had a bit part in it, but I was very impressed. I called up Chris right after I watched and told him that he needed to put it on. “Ignore the film; just watch MDL. He’s too good to not be the lead in something.” So we wrote him something.

The film takes place in Portland, NY. Do you see yourself as part of the growing Buffalo, NY film scene or just more of a DIY thing that takes place in WNY?

CS: To my knowledge, no one involved in the film lives in Buffalo, NY. Most of our crew lives in Los Angeles. As much as I’d love to be part of a growing scene in WNY, the story and our background are why we shot some of it in Portland, NY.

NR: We actually did have a few people involved who live in Buffalo, but none of them were film-insiders. We asked a couple WNY film people for help with costuming and locations, but they declined. So yeah, I think we are definitively not part of the WNY film scene. It is almost comical how many people involved are from Western or Central New York, though. Our very small cast and crew in LA had six people from the WNY area– basically half of the people on set.

There have been examples of indie hits like Napoleon Dynamite that started off as a short and evolved into full-lengths. Is there any chance of an expansion or continuation of the Portland is the New Portland universe?

CS: We’re finishing the feature script. The intention has always been to make this character and world into a feature.

NR: If we had the money, we might have started with the feature version, honestly. Hopefully someone will see the short and believe that it can be bigger. We know it can.

What’s next for your writing/producing partnership?

CS: Documentaries.

NR: Yes, we are actively working on a couple documentaries. Those are the most likely to be “next.” If you come to the after-party, ask us about The Pride of Utah, though.

Lastly, we are very excited for your show on Saturday at Revolution Gallery. What is the deepest cut Space Wolves song you will be playing so we can study the lyrics on Bandcamp?

CS: I’m sure the set list will mostly be songs that I can’t possibly fuck up.

NR: It’s going to have to be things I remember how to play, yeah. At this point, every Swolves song is a deep cut, even to me.

The post Chris Scamurra and Nick Reynolds of Portland is the New Portland first appeared on buffaBLOG.

Collectively, Julia Cumming, Nick Kivlen, and Jacob Faber have been dubbed “NYC’s Coolest Young Band” by Rolling Stone, among high praise from other widely known publications, but they don’t see their age as anything but a number that will inevitably change whether they want it to or not. Their primary focus is to simply play out as often as they can, and they sure have the show roster to prove that.

I was recently able to chat with singer and guitarist Nick Kivlen to pick his brain a little about what this whole experience has been like for him so far.

bB: You guys just ended a ten week tour and have another tour lined up through the end of the year. Have you become accustomed to being on the road so much at this point?

Nick Kivlen: Yeah, very much so. Now that we’ve been back for a week, I kind of feel crazy being home. I feel like someone who’s been in prison and has finally gotten out and doesn’t know how to cope. It’s kind of sad actually. Sitting around watching TV or something isn’t how I enjoy spending my time so it’s rough. But we’re working on new music and it’s good to have time off for your creativity and your own sanity.

bB: So your debut LP Human Ceremony came out in February — what’s the feedback been like so far?

NK: Really amazing. The first night it came out we did an in-store show at Rough Trade and it was also Rough Trade’s album of the month. Then we played a secret show in London and the line was around the block. There hasn’t been a lot of drastic change, but our lives have changed a little bit, where now some of our headlining shows are selling out and they’re all very well-attended. It’s really exciting.

bB: Compared to your last release, to me, Human Ceremony sounds distinctly different. How would you describe the difference between the two?

NK: They were recorded very differently. The EP [Show Me Your Seven Secrets] was recorded over the course of a year and it was home recorded in my best friend’s basement. All of those songs except “2013” end with like a two minute jam, and it’s pretty excessive. It’s more of a psychedelic sounding record. The new one was recorded very concisely within 11 days by a professional so it felt like a completely different thing. We had a producer work on it who really helped us put our songs into more concise formats. And of course, it came out on a label, which involves a lot more people working for it, a lot more money being put into it.

bB: Aside from being on a label and the recording process, did you approach the songwriting process any differently?

NK: A little bit, but some of the songs on there were written maybe two years ago. Then there were newer songs too, that were written maybe like two months before we went into the studio. It was a culmination of a lot of months working on these songs.

bB: One of the things I really love about this new record is the lyrical style. This album tackles some pretty vast, sprawling themes like spirituality and loneliness, yet the lyrics are so sparse and open-ended. Is lyrical ambiguity something you intentionally strive for?

NK: I think it’s just how I personally veer when writing lyrics. I like to stay away from more literal stuff. I like that they’re kind of ambiguous — if you read them on paper they might not make any sense, but I think once you hear the music and the mood that the instrumentals create, they tell a story together.

There’s something to be said for lyrics that can stand on their own too, though. Me and Julia have pretty different styles when it comes to writing lyrics. She’s a bit more into matters that are more literal and the lyrics by me are more abstract. I have some rules that I use, too. I try not to use “I” and “you” as much as I can but it’s really hard to write lyrics without those two words.

bB: That’s such a unique way to approach writing — I try to do the same thing when I’m writing poetry or something and it’s a lot harder than you’d think it’d be.

NK: I know. Having a statement and not involve “I” or “you” is really hard to do because it almost seems like it’s coming out of nowhere. If you pay close attention to a lot of songs, especially from artists like Kurt Cobain, you kind of take them for what they are because paired with the music you know exactly what he’s trying to say. But when you actually read the lyrics on paper it seems like they’re coming out of nowhere and completely random. It’s as if you opened up a notebook and read two separate paragraphs from the middle.

bB: I think that’s something that plays to your advantage when you play live or even in your recorded stuff because it separates a single person from the subject matter and creates this vibe that people can take and really individualize for their own experience.

NK: Yeah, thank you very much!

bB: I’m sure you guys hear this over and over from media outlets, but you are a fairly young band. Not just in age but you’ve only been a band for about three years. Is that something that you ever stop about and think about in depth, or is it something you don’t even acknowledge or focus on?

NK: It’s kind of just our lives — being young, we don’t have any other life experience than what we’ve had so far. As far as the band being almost three years old, that’s crazy to me at this point. I’ve been out of high school for basically the same amount of time since the band started, and it really doesn’t feel that long to me. It’s a shock. It’s so quick in so many ways and so slow in so many ways. I feel pretty old [laughs]. By the time our next record comes out I’ll probably be 22, if not 23, and that’s a lot different than having a record come out when you’re 20.

bB: It seems like Sunflower Bean has been working at a really fast pace and at a high caliber since the band started, and not everyone gets to experience that right out of the gate. What do you attribute that to?

NK: We’re very lucky. Artistry and stuff like that aside, I think it’s because of our backgrounds. Me and Jacob both grew up in Glen Cove and started playing in bands at the age of 16 so I knew tons of people involved in music in Brooklyn. We were both playing in another band that was gigging pretty regularly.

Julia grew up in Manhattan and was in a group that did a European tour when she was 14, just by chance. We all grew up doing this and have learned from the last few acts that we’d been in. No one really knows what to do to make yourself a success but you have these instincts that come easier when you’ve already been doing it from a younger age.

When I was a freshmen in college, I ended up booking us like two or three times a week and we ended up playing probably about 100 shows just in New York in a year. At the end of that year we ended up at the top of the list for the hardest working band on Oh My Rockness — and the number they clocked in was so much lower than it actually was because they didn’t list some of the DIY shows we played.

That’s the number one thing for any band to do. Just play. It’s positive in every way. It helps you learn how to perform, helps get your name around, gets you a fan base. There are only upsides. I think when bands start, they should play as much as they can in the first year.

bB: Speaking of shows, you guys have already played with some incredible, well-established bands. If you could assemble a dream tour, who would you put on the lineup?

NK: Aw man, we have one that’s already in the works, one of my favorite artists ever. But I can’t say it, I really can’t say!

We did a tour with DIIV and No Joy recently. DIIV are good friends of mine and when I was 16, they were getting really popular so they kind of taught me how to be band. I followed their example and it was a lot of fun going on tour with them. We’ve supported a lot of really cool bands and people.

bB: What current bands are you into right now?

NK: I’m really into Sheer Mag. They’re one of my favorites. We went to see them at SXSW and because they were playing the inside stage while Erykah Badu played the main stage outside, we waited in line for two hours and we were one of the only 50 people there to see Sheer Mag while everyone was there to see Erykah. It’s probably the most I’ve done to see a group.

bB: What are the plans for your second full length?

NK: It’s in its beginning stages but that’s the most intense stage for me. I conceptualize most of the ideas early on and then bring them to Julia and Jacob. When we play full band, that’s when the songs become how you’ll hear them on the record. Even though I’m home, I’ve been writing every day and we write during sound checks too. I have a tentative tracklist written down but that’ll probably change a year from now. I think it’s gonna be better than our first record for sure.

bB: It’s awesome that you guys are already stoked to get going on new stuff even though your LP came out so recently!

Kivlen: Yeah even though the record just came out, we’ve been playing the songs from it from the past year, so we’re all just personally ready to start playing and writing new songs.

You can catch Sunflower Bean in Buffalo on Sunday, May 8th at Mohawk Place.

The post Nick Kivlen of Sunflower Bean first appeared on buffaBLOG.

At some point during a Phish show years back, Jerry began making rounds in the crowd — you know, like the token beach ball at any largely populated outdoor show. Though drummer Jon Fohl was uncertain of his return, he successfully reappeared in one piece by the end of the second set. Fast forward to the 2011 All Good Festival when keyboardist Donny Frauenhofer was bestowed custody of Jerry and told specifically by Fohl to not lose him. Long story short, he loses him and spends a decent portion of the fest asking concertgoers and staff if they know of the stuffed animal’s whereabouts.

Since then, the monkey has been replaced a few times and for the most part has adopted a position as a stationary ornament on stage. But, just in case anything else happens to Jerry 3.0, he has been immortalized in the form of the band’s 2014 EP, Have You Seen My Rainbow Monkey?, and handy little Jerry stickers, to be placed anywhere and everywhere by wanderlusts alike. This is the spirit of Intrepid Travelers in a nutshell and I can immediately sense it when I sit down to interview them in their cozy, self-renovated attic-turned-practice-space.

Though their name was born into existence in 2011, the guys didn’t really ever consider themselves a serious band in the beginning. Like a lot of super tight musical groups, the formation wasn’t at all premeditated. All four members grew up in the same area, were grade school pals and just kind of fell into playing together all the time because it felt natural. It wasn’t until roughly two years ago that they decided to actively seek out gigs.

“There’s no way I’m going to grad school,” says Frauenhofer, recounting the period of time when he and guitarist Brian Calisto decided to wholeheartedly pursue Intrepid Travelers with bassist Dave Neimanis and Fohl.

A long history of both personal and musical friendship is the foundation of the group. A foundation that has prompted them to not only thrive as bandmates, but also as housemates sharing a spacious 3-story apartment on Buffalo’s West Side.

When I begin the interview, everyone reads a little timid — it’s their first time being interviewed. But not even five minutes into it, I hardly have to pry for answers or conversational topics. They carry what I can best describe as a natural buzz around each other. All four members feed off of what the other is saying and it’s almost like they’re finishing each other’s thoughts before they’ve even materialized fully. To assume that this exact habit is what drives the band creatively would be safe.

On a very elemental level, you could pigeon-hole Intrepid Travelers as a “jam band”, but that genre label does a great injustice to the type of music they actually play and are influenced by. It’s a sort of potpourri of jam-oriented funk with elements of bluegrass, jazz, pop and even post-rock at times.

Frauenhofer puts it like this: “I think it’s the spirit of Phish, The Dead and jazz that we have in terms of improvising. We’ll have structured songs but we’ll have parts that are completely improvisational. And not just in a way where one person is soloing and we’re all just responding by improvising, but where it’s truly collective and everyone is soloing at once but almost no one is soloing. I don’t know how to describe it.”

And that’s just it. It’s hard to describe exactly where these guys fit, but wherever that may be, the true magic of this band lies in the fact that they all have each other’s best interest at heart musically.

“We’re going to go with anything that someone puts out there and make it better. We definitely like to dive into the unknown and have each other’s backs,” Neimanis mentions.

The support extends far beyond the scope of their own friendship. Their reach has spread far and wide enough for them to fully fund a Kickstarter campaign for a new tour van this past September. Over $3,700 was raised from over 50 different people in just one month’s time. This has allowed them to complete a two-leg East Coast tour this past fall and has opened up the tremendous floodgate of touring opportunities.

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I listen to the guys play a few tunes after the interview and it’s difficult to not be absorbed in their performance. For being such a young band, their purpose is pretty well defined and that confidence is apparent. They’ve set out to create the ideal band that they’d want to listen to and cultivate sensory experiences rather than strictly impressive performances.

As far as what the future holds, Intrepid Travelers are focusing on their live set as much as possible. They have a first-time tour of the West lined up for this coming January thanks in part to their manager CJ Cook, and are flirting with the idea of a full length concept album. All in all, they know exactly where they want to end up and they’re in no particular rush to get there.

“Time is a big factor in success,” Neimanis imparts, which for these guys honestly seems like a small and enjoyable feat. If their choice method of achieving that success is through internal support and organic conveyance of their talents, there is no doubt that they will arrive where they need to be perfectly on time. In the meanwhile, here’s to hoping Jerry 1.0 makes his way back home.

You can catch Intrepid Travelers on tour this January at the dates below.

Photos by Courtney Denk

The post Intrepid Travelers first appeared on buffaBLOG.

Earlier this year, the band released their latest album Glitterbug, which saw the Wombats’ new electro-pop sound flourish. The band has become famous for it’s raucous live show (a sweaty dance party of back to back singalongs), and tonight, brings that show to Buffalo. Prior to their set tonight at Waiting Room, I had the chance to chat with drummer Dan Haggis about the band’s changing sound and upcoming show.

buffaBLOG: So the band’s sound seems to have change over the years, with your first record, A Guide to Love, Loss, & Desperation, being quite guitar-heavy, while The Modern Glitch started to introduce some electronic elements before the latest fully-embraced that sound. What do you feel might have influenced that decision?

Dan Haggis: I think on the first album that was kind of the first three or four years of the band’s life and it was very much just drums, bass, and guitar. We used to concentrate on doing as many gigs as we could and when we were recording the album it was pretty much recorded live. I think we just wanted to get across how much energy there was from the stage to the CD somehow.

With the second album, we wanted to do something a bit different and challenge ourselves in a different way, so each of us got a synth next to us and started messing round with different sounds. We didn’t really think about what fans or anyone would think, it was just about whatever we felt like doing at the time. And then with the third one, we sort of found a sound that we were really happy with and just fine-tuned it bit. We recorded that one mostly ourselves cause we had learned a lot while producing the second album as well. But who knows, the next album we might go back to just guitars.

bB: And in terms of the band’s evolving sound, Glitterbug does seem thematically darker than previous albums with many of the lyrics referencing to drugs, heavy drinking, and heartbreak. Was there anything during the songwriting process that influenced that?

DH: Yeah, I think pretty much every song we’ve ever made stems from real-life experiences. Matt obviously writes all the lyrics and it’s very much based on what was happening in his life at the time. With this latest album, he broke up with a girl who he had been together with for awhile and got together with a new girl. He spent a lot of time in Los Angeles, obviously big cities and partying go hand in hand and especially around the tumultuous time there was a lot of heartache but also a lot of excitement and just that unknown.

I think that we’ve always made sure to stay true to whatever’s going on in life and write about things you actually know what you’re talking about and hopefully people can relate to those experiences.

bB: So with your first album you guys were still based very much in Liverpool at the time and you mention the experiences in LA. How do you think the two very different locales informed the two works?

DH: You can’t help but be influenced by the city that you’re in, you know your surrounding and the people around you. A lot of the music for the third album was still made in Liverpool, but we had quite a bit of emails sending back and forth between Liverpool and LA and LA back to Liverpool. But I guess there is a slightly more summery-feel, but I think our music’s always been quite upbeat and summery-sounding and they lyrics are the thing that give it a bit more darkness.

bB: And as for Liverpool, as a city, it’s quite working class, but it’s got this real artistic scene and culture. How do you think that has influenced your music?

DH: I think probably more so our outlook. People in Liverpool are very down-to-earth and you know if anyone who ever gets above their station, Liverpool always drags you back down. In terms of the music and the city, when we grew up there it wasn’t the city that it is today. It’s improved a lot and it’s obviously got quite a reputation as being very industrial and high-crime levels and stuff like that, but we had a great time growing up there. And when the weather was terrible we’d have nothing else to do but make music and find an indoor hobby, so that definitely forced us into the practice room a lot.

Obviously, the Beatles gave a lot of bands from Liverpool a chance to believe that if four guys from Liverpool could do it back then than why can’t we do it?

bB: I feel like that down-to-earth quality does come through in the music. Lyrically there are a lot of very emotionally honest sentiments expressed but it’s done in a way where it’s also undercut with a quite a bit of humor

DH: Yeah, there’s always been that sense of humor in Liverpool, like things may be shit, but you got to at least laugh about it.

bB: And in terms of touring, do you find there to be a big difference between touring in the UK and touring in the States?

DH: I think there was definitely a few years back, but we did so much touring on the second album and we’ve been over on this album as well, and I think it’s getting closer to being similar. It’s actually really exciting for us coming over to America and feeling that sense of “Wow, people are actually getting to know the band more” and people know the new album as much as they know the first album. There’s lots of new fans coming through and so it’s definitely getting close. I mean the size of the venues we fill is probably a bit smaller than it is in the UK but again, that’s where we came from, sort of playing these little sweaty clubs and everyone’s in there, hanging from the ceiling and losing their shoes and that’s what’s been really nice about those small club shows, just the energy we get in the room. So yeah, we absolutely love it.

bB: What have been your favorite songs to play live?

DH: I think recently it’s been between “Emoticons” and “Pink Lemonade,” just cause it’s the moment in the set where I come off the drums and play keyboards and gives me a nice break. We only just started playing it recently, so it’s always more exciting when you have like 10 songs you’re not quite sure about and there’s that sense of excitement like what’s gonna happen, are we gonna pull it off, and the crowds’ reaction to the new songs have been so good as well, so that helps.

bB: Also this being your first time playing Buffalo. Is there anything in particular you’re excited to see while here?

DH: The only thing I really know is Niagara Falls; we saw that a couple years back, but that’d be quite good. What else would you recommend?

bB: We’re also the birth place of chicken wings

DH: Oh yeah, chicken wings, I suppose we’ll try to eat our own body weight in chicken wings

bB: I think probably the one thing that connect Liverpool and Buffalo is both cities are quite working class and obsessed with their sports teams, though your teams might be a little more successful than our’s.

DH: Is soccer popular in Buffalo?

bB: Yeah, actually, for a smaller city in the States, we have one of the biggest audiences for it.

DH: Yeah, there’s obviously two teams in Liverpool, Liverpool and Everton, and myself, I’m a blue.

Doors at Waiting Room open at 7pm with tickets still on sale for $20. Be sure to get down early to see openers Pop Etc. (formerly known as the Morning Benders) and Royal Teeth. This will be one show you won’t want to miss.

The post The Wombats first appeared on buffaBLOG.

You can also catch Surfer Blood tonight at the Town Ballroom opening for Nate Ruess of Fun. More details and tickets for tonight’s show can be found here.

buffaBLOG: You guys are currently on tour, how’s it been going so far?

John Paul Pitts: So far so good. We’re a week in right now, we’re doing some of our own shows and a few in support of Nate Ruess. So far everyone’s been really cool. It’s been a very low key and fun tour for us.

bB: It seems rare to see you guys not on tour — you’ve been touring non-stop for the past few years pretty much.

JP: I feel like we definitely tour a lot more than a lot of other bands. We’ve been doing it on and off for 5 years without any real time out unless we’re recording stuff, but we like to stay busy and we like to travel. It’s good. The more you play, the better you get.

bB: So you’re pretty well adjusted to being on the road all the time at this stage of the game then?

JP: I think touring has definitely become much more natural and second nature than it was years ago. We have a new bassist with us, her name is Lindsey, and explaining to her all this tour stuff, I’m like, wow, I really do take a lot of this stuff for granted. But it’s been so long and you don’t realize how much you grow or how much your band has changed or evolved when you’re in it every day. It’s nice to take a step back and see what you’ve accomplished so far.

bB: Your new album 1000 Palms has been out for a couple months now. What’s the reception of it been like so far?

JP: 1000 Palms is definitely a grower that needs to be listened to more than once, but the more we play songs from that, the more I see people’s faces light up and that’s a big part of the reason why we do this year after year. I feel like people are really starting to warm up to it.

bB: You guys have released three full length albums and an EP in the span of 5 years which is not an easy feat. Do you feel like your sound has evolved in any significant way since Astro Coast?

JP: Our sound is constantly changing and evolving. I think all of our records are kind of different from each other. They’re all kind of like little islands on their own. I like it that way. I guess the development on this record is sort of scrapping traditional song structures and trying out different production techniques. There’s a lot of attention to detail on this record that wasn’t necessarily around when we first started. I feel like Astro Coast is a 23 year old kid throwing all of his favorite ideas from his favorite bands at the wall and seeing what sticks. These [new] songs make use of our sonic palette a little better.

bB: How do you think your writing process has changed as a band?

JP: Well, it’s more collaborative now than it was in the past. Astro Coast was me locked in a room working on stuff. This record we were all sort of locked in a room working on stuff. That was definitely different. I feel like writing is another thing like touring or doing interviews on the phone that becomes more natural the more you do it. When I’m home, that’s pretty much what I focus on all the time and I’m so grateful that I can wake up in the morning and do that. It’s just becoming easier and easier.

bB: You’ve experienced some pretty wild and rapid success since you first started, which definitely isn’t something you see every day. What would you attribute that success to?

JP: I get asked a lot about how we sort of stumbled into the limelight and for us, it was just playing shows out of our hometown and taking a leap of faith. I was enrolled in a state college in Florida  and I went on tour with these guys after I met Thomas, who played guitar in our band for close to 5 years, and we pretty much decided we weren’t really gonna look back. We booked shows all up and down the East coast in a van loaded up with stuff and making no money and people thankfully started to take notice. Getting in a van and getting out of your hometown is the best thing for a young band who knows that that’s absolutely what they want to do.

bB: You’ve played with some pretty insanely big acts (Pixies being one of them) on some huge festivals that most bands dream of playing. Who is still on your list to tour with or play with?

JP: Oh god, I’m totally open to ideas. Doing the Pixies tour was obviously a huge life affirming moment for us. If they were looking for support again, we’d be happy to do it. Never got a chance to meet Jay Mascis, I’ve seen Dinosaur Jr. like seven times and I would love love love to play shows with them some day.

bB: That would be awesome!

JP: And if Fugazi every reunites, I’m going to that show one way or another.

bB: So I want to switch gears a little bit to talk about Thom and his longstanding battle with sarcoma. This kind of situation is overwhelming for anyone in general, but especially for you guys who have been touring and writing together non-stop for the past 5 years. How has the band been dealing with it all?

JP: He’s getting really strong through all of it, so I feel like we have to, too. He’s really just a very determined individual and a real fighter. This is no easy thing for anyone and I know the decision for him to get off the road, which is obviously the right decision in hindsight, was very difficult for him to make. It’s gonna be a long struggle for him unfortunately so we’ll have to take it one day at a time.

bB: How crazy has it been to see so many bands and artists you guys admire come together and offer so much support?

JP: It’s really amazing. If I ever had doubts in people in general, this whole thing with Thomas has changed that. There are so many people who have been so generous.

bB: It’s definitely even overwhelming  for me, or I’m sure any fan, to see all of the support from other fans and bands that we all probably listen to, which is awesome.

JP: With this compilation we did recently, seeing Guided By Voices and Yo La Tengo on that for me is baffling because those are two of my favorite bands and definitely two of Thom’s favorite bands. So while I picture that he’s exhausted and scared and all that, I know that he’s at least grateful and happy to see so many people giving so much support.

bB: What have been your favorite dates to play so far and what are your most anticipated dates?

JP: We played at the Rough Trade store in Brooklyn, and I hadn’t been there before. It sounds amazing in there on stage, and they have probably one of the nicest record stores I’ve ever stepped foot in so it was really cool to see that. Dates I’m looking forward to would be Montreal — we happen to have a ton of friends there. There’s a band called No Joy from Montreal and a guy named Alex Calder who we’ve toured with both extensively in the past and are coming to the show tomorrow. Part of touring is seeing different pals who you don’t get to see all the time so I think that night’s gonna be a blast.

bB: What kind of reception do you guys get in Florida or your hometown?

JP: There’s definitely some pride in Florida. It’s not every day that a band comes out of South Florida that sounds like us so I feel like Florida shows are special for that reason. People come to the shows and you can just tell that they’re happy that they can be proud of a band from their part of the world.

The post John Paul Pitts of Surfer Blood first appeared on buffaBLOG.

buffaBLOG: For those unfamiliar with your band, care to give a brief history of how you all met and began making music?

Ally: We formed in 2011. I met Victoria when we were students at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. We didn’t know Abby at the time, but we met her through a close friend who was also a student at Smith named Pheobe, one of our original guitarists. We knew Abby also wanted to be in a band at the time, so we all kind of got together and just practiced. We didn’t really have any goals or expectations, we just kind of wanted to jam and see how it came out. Victoria was a really good drummer and had been playing since she was a little kid, but the rest of us we fairly new to our instruments, so we wanted to do a thing where we were all figuring it out together.

bB: Listening to the Sun Damage EP, it is cool to see how far Potty Mouth has come, both lyrically and sonically. Is it more of just a natural progression, or was there a more specific reason?

Abby: It was definitely more of a natural progression. When we first started, it was a really new thing for a lot of us to be in a band and write music. Once we started to get used to it and figured out our roles and what we were doing in the band, it just sort of became obvious what kind of sound we wanted to produce and what we could produce.  It was just time and getting used to playing with each other.

bB: The production on the new EP is far more professional and clean sounding than your past records, and to great effect, it sounds awesome. How was the recording and production process different from your past releases?

Abby: This last recording was a lot more professional, I guess. Usually we just record in a local recording studio in Western Mass with our friends; its very low key. We usually just lay down a couple takes and just overdub, but this time, we went into it with really intentional sounds in mind and how we wanted everything to turn out. John Goodmanson (producer to Bikini Kill, Sleater-Kinney) was really awesome with everything in the process. We recorded in a studio that had endless amounts of gear that we could use in whatever way we wanted. John knew the gear really well, so we could just say we wanted a particular sound and he would know how to make it, so it was really awesome in that way.

bB:  What was the process behind the release of the new EP? I see on bandcamp that it says released on Whatever Planet Records, which is kind of your label, correct?

Abby: We actually had this thing set up with our distributor, ADA, and they really helped us out in making and funding the record, they were cool about us testing out our new sound.

Ally: Yeah, we had a lot of help from ADA. It’s not necessarily a true self release, where we had to find our own distributor and handle all that, but they found us and they allowed us to create our own imprint under ADA which is now Planet Whatever Records. In the future, I’d love to to releases for friends and their projects under the label as well, but for now, it’s just our thing. Also, doing it ourselves meant we just had total control over everything like the art, and things like that. We don’t have it pressed on vinyl right now, just digital and CDs that we sell while we’re on tour, but that’s fine for now.

bB: How would you compare shows you are playing now to the shows you played starting out? Are you still into playing into the more DIY ethos of punk, or do you want to be playing slightly bigger shows? I’m sure a handful of people reading this were at the show you guys played with Aye Nako in Buffalo at Ocean Garden last year, which was easily my favorite show at that venue.

Abby: I think it really depends on who you’re playing with. We like playing big shows and we’re playing with bands that we like in places that we like, but it can be really hard playing at some dumb bar where you don’t know anybody there, and you don’t know the bands

Ally: Totally, it’s all about who you’re playing with and the kind of crowd you’re playing for. We’ve played lots of bigger shows that are at legit venues, but we’ve also played some not so great shows at legit venues. I think that house shows and DIY shows are always going to feel really fun, there’s something kind of amazing about the whole idea of DIY and that there’s this self sustaining and internationally standing network of people that put on their own shows and tours. That’s how we started doing things, so we definitely feel an affinity for that.

This is something we have been talking about recently, like how to grow as a band but keep one foot within the DIY world and still play those shows. Not that money is everything, but sometimes those shows can even be more profitable in a given city, like if the packet of punk kids organizing shows in that particular place know what they’re doing more than a promoter at whatever venue, then you could be playing a DIY show to a bigger audience than a conventional pay-to-get-in audience.

bB: Are there any bands from your hometown that you recommend checking out? Any bands nationally that you love playing with or you think people should be checking out?

Abby: When we were in Oakland, we played with this band called Never Young that were really good.

Ally: We went on a tour with Aye Nako last year and they’re still our very good friends and they’re always really fun to play with. We play with them in Brooklyn on this tour, so I’m really excited for that lineup. Another band that I love and are great friends of ours, who also have an album coming out this month, is Stove. It’s our friend Steve from the band Ovlov, and they got together when Ovlov broke up, and we’re really excited for their record coming out this month.  Also Speedy Ortiz. Sadie lives in this area and we always love seeing them. Downtown Boys are also great; we played an amazing show with them at CMJ this year at a car wash with some of the best bands around right now like LVL Up, Sheer Mag, Perfect Pussy, Protomartyr. That was an amazing lineup.

bB: To me, the new self titled EP screams 90’s movie soundtrack. If you had to pick a favorite 90’s movie, what would it be? If you could replace any movie with your songs, what movie would you chose?

Abby: One persona actually told us that some of our songs reminded them about The Ten Things I Hate About You soundtrack, but I guess Empire Records, because that feels more relevant to music.

Ally: Yeah, Empire Records is definitely a good one. It’s weird to say this, but some of the old Mary Kate and Ashley movies from when they were little kids are corny but actually have super good soundtracks with some pretty obscure 90’s bands.

bB: What’s the deal with the dog on the cover of the new EP? I’ve seen it on your merch designs too, and I just had to ask.

Abby: Yeah, we’ve always just had a dog as our logo. We had a different sketch of a dog on our old merch too, and it’s just sort of like our thing, kind of like the theme of our merch. We have a song called “Dog Song” which is about being a dog, so it kind of came from that and has been our theme throughout the band’s history. The new, reinvented version of our old logo.

bB:  If you had to pick four modern bands for your dream lineup, who would you chose?

Abby: This is really difficult. I haven’t seen Bully or Dilly Dally, and I really want to see both those bands. Can you think of anything Ally?

Ally: When we played those shows with Joanna Hatfield Three, I felt like I could see them play every night, and not really get sick of it. Also, I feel kind of weird saying this, but I guess the Lemonheads because they are one of my favorite bands, but I have never ever seen them live before and I have had the opportunity to but have always missed them. Through playing shows with Joanna Hatfield, we met Evan Dando and it’s weird to know this person and I’ve never seen his band before which I love SO much, so I definitely, definitely would want to see them.

bB: To end this, if your band had/has a motto, what would it be/what is it?

Abby: My motto is “You have to give a shit to get shit done.”

Catch Potty Mouth at Mohawk Place tonight opening for Screaming Females. Tickets are only $14 dollars at the door, and things are set to take off at 8pm.

The post Potty Mouth first appeared on buffaBLOG.

We caught up with Meric and snuck in a few questions before the band’s Buffalo visit brings them to the stage of Mohawk Place later tonight.

buffaBLOG: Compositionally, did you approach your latest album Individ any differently than your previous work?

Meric Lonh: The approach was pretty carefree with the one focus being that the songs be exciting and had parts that would push the limits of our abilities.

bB: The interpretative dance in the “Competition” video—did you work with a choreographer? Tell us of your preparations.

ML: Katie Gaydos did the choreography, but it ended up being quite collaborative since we were limited by our capabilities. It was a lot of prep, I kind of had a health renaissance just trying to get in shape for it.  It was all one take and boy were we sore the next day.

bB: There’s a lot going on in the artwork for the album. Can you tell us about it?

ML: We’ve known Victor Cayro for a while and he’s always been pretty out there with his work, lots of “taboo” things I suppose. He reigned it in for us a bit but I’m glad he was able to sneak a big red devil butt for the inside cover.

bB: Thematically, the new album takes on an air of resilience. How did this concept find its way into the record?

ML: Lyrics mostly, but I’d say the album has a sturdy sound, lots of girth.

bB: Of your extensive catalog, what are some of your favorite songs to play live?

ML: “Precipitation” and “Pattern/Shadow.”

bB: Individ marks roughly 10 years for The Dodos. To what do you owe your longevity?

ML: Being in this band for 10 years or more was something I certainly didn’t think about when we first started. There have been many moments along the way where things could have gone a different way but by some outside factor we were steered back into doing more so some it’s luck. But I think ultimately there are certain kinds of songs that I write this band is best suited for and that kind of song I seem to always come back to. I want it to be the best it can be, and Logan and I happened to be the most qualified for the job.

The Dodos take the stage at Mohawk Place. Doors open at 8pm and tickets are still available for $14. Moody Cosmos are set to open.

The post Meric Long of The Dodos first appeared on buffaBLOG.

buffaBLOG: Escape From Evil feels more succinct and focused than the band’s previous work, was there anything that inspired a more intimate approach both sonically and lyrically?

Jana Hunter: I wouldn’t call it intimate. It’s direct. It’s simple. It has a simple message (for a thing I’d write anyway) about keeping things simple. We’re complicated. Our lives are too complicated. We just want our family and our friends and maybe our job, but we’re also convinced we gotta buy things and live up to expectations and act right and all this nonsense. Our whole society is overly complicated with nonsense ranging from the mildly annoying to the purely evil. That’s what inspired this record. I want my family and my friends and my job and I want you to have those things, too.

bB: Working in isolation during the early stages of writing the record, did you consciously decide that the albums’ transparent, personal subject matter was more effective as a more pop-oriented sound?

JH: Yes. Pop is the lowest common denominator. And it’s fun. Pop is fun, and it’s a challenge to write. Writing music that can hopefully have a broad appeal that isn’t also pitiable is hard. It’s easy to get it wrong. So many people do.

bB: Were there any non-musical influences from either Baltimore or your time on the road that influenced any of the songs on the album?

JH: Everything. Every single thing that happens to somebody influences what they do. Today, I bid on some EBows on ebay. If I win them, they’ll probably show up on the next record. If I don’t, I’ll probably forget about them until we’ve already tracked all the guitars for the next record. The chorus pedal I use on everything I bought in a local record shop for $20 on a whim. Some of the songs are probably better than they would’ve been if I’d been in a better mood the day I wrote them. There’s a book called Escape From Evil and another one called Within the Context of No Context that are both incredible and had a big impact.

bB: Your past albums, specifically Nootropics, seem to have been accompanied by intellectual conversations. Were there any similar recurring ideas or discussions you had?

JH: We talked a lot about how hard people work just to scrape by and what a scam that is.

bG:  Escape from Evil is very much inspired by the sounds of the 80’s, is there any other era or genre you could imagine Lower Dens being drawn to in the future?

JH: Yes, any of them. We all like classical music and jazz and some of us are big fans of old-time or hip­ hop or noise. Genre has become an outdated mode of categorization for new music, and sooner or later we’re gonna have to abandon it all together. As far as “era” goes, everything is recycled at a faster and faster pace and it seems like as these two processes converge, we’ll have more and more music that defies categorization as a means of description.

bB: Exploring the concept of transhumansim on your last album and now dealing with the limitations of human interaction on your latest record, how would you describe the thematic relationship of the two?

JH: The main thing I think about every day is what humans do vs what would make us happy. What would make our lives work for us? What will it take to get us there? Nootropics is about how hard we try with technology to make ourselves happy and how gloriously that will always fail because it ignores our animal nature. Escape From Evil is about how hard we try to make ourselves happy with things and how gloriously that will always fail because it ignores that what we really want is each other.

bB:  You’ve stated that your intent while recording was to make these latest songs as fun for you and the band to play on tour night in and night out, what allowed you to take a different approach in your performance style and which songs from the record best represent the change you we’re looking to make when playing live?

JH: We worked hard to make songs that are fun, then worked hard to make them sound amazing, and I stopped playing guitar as much so I can move around a lot more. “To Die in L.A.” works very well. It’s incredibly fun to play. And “Société Anonyme.” I dunno. They all work. It’s a great show.

Music tonight starts at 8pm, with Baltimore rapper Abdu Ali opening the show. Tickets are $12 and can be purchased here.

The post Jana Hunter of Lower Dens first appeared on buffaBLOG.

We picked the brain of OPP co-founder Stephen Floyd–who currently resides in Buffalo–to dig a bit on the origins of the label, their mission statement, as well as a few current and future projects. Dig in.

buffaBLOG: One Percent Press has called home to a few different cities. In what ways does your locale influence what you do with the label? Do you scout primarily in WNY / Minneapolis or does your focus extend into other areas?

Stephen Floyd: So I really only work with people I develop some sort of relationship or rapport with, and that’s a little easier to do with someone who lives in the same place that you live.  So in a sense, I tend to work with people locally, but by no means is One Percent Press an expressly regional label. Max de Radiguès, who let us do his book Rough Age, is from Belgium, but JP, the label’s co-owner, met him at the Center for Cartoon Studies, where he went to school. So it just fell into place organically. It has to be that way for me or it’s not fun. I don’t ever really look for a record or a comic book to put out, but I usually just mention it to my friends that I’m happy to help getting a record or a book made. I mean, of course sometimes I pitch ideas, but I wouldn’t say I’m ever “scouting for talent” or anything like that. It’s just more like if something speaks to me I might mention, “Hey, let’s make a thing together.”

bB: Do you think having almost 1000 miles between you and JP helps diversify your roster, or perhaps make operations more difficult? How do you divide the labor?

SF: JP and I started the label to help each other out with our creative projects. A label seemed like a good idea because we’ve never lived in the same city, and it was something we could work on remotely. It wasn’t, like, a conscious decision to make sure we had something to do together so we would keep in touch for ten years but that’s what happened and I’m very grateful for it. The label has always been a part-time or hobby type thing. Depending on how hectic our lives are sometimes we’ll swap roles but JP is a little more computer savvy than me so he handles a lot of the back end stuff and usually has a hand in prepping the artwork for print. I am currently doing most of the mail order but JP did that for years.

bB: Music and comic books—that’s quite a niche. Is that combination a direct result of shared interests between you and JP? Is your publishing situation and your record label run as separate entities under the same name, or is there more of a symbiosis between the two?

SF: I think the general perception is JP is the “comics guy” and I’m the “music guy,” but we are both very passionate about both those things. When we first started, I was really interested in the intersection of music and comics but I would say people who are interested in the stuff we release seem to stick to one or the other. We rarely get orders where people are buying both the comics and the music. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve often thought that maybe it was a mistake to do it as just one big “Comix & Record Label,” but that’s what we did and we really like doing it as it is, even if it is potentially confusing for people. It’s bad branding, for sure!

bB: How does your punk cassette label Drug Party Tapes fit into that equation? How did that come about?

SF: Drug Party Tapes was started as a collaboration between my friends Dan, Laura, and myself to help document the Buffalo DIY punk scene we hang out in. The idea was to make the tapes super cheap and everything free to download. For me it was to have a project that I didn’t have to do a ton of boring work like updating spreadsheets or doing accounting. I wanted everything to be really cut and dry so I never had to get stressed out about cutting royalty checks or hunting down people to pay me for consignment. Of course, it turns out working with 20+ bands even on a small scale is a lot of work and Laura and Dan have since bowed out due to other commitments.

So currently, it’s just me doing Drug Party Tapes. I have thought about winding it down due to the work load, but the label has become a nice snapshot of some of the bands in Buffalo and I still get a lot of orders and emails from people out of town who get clued into how awesome Buffalo is via the label.  There have been times when I was spread too thin and didn’t do the best job with some of the releases but I think in the long run the music is available for free and it has connected a lot of people to Buffalo and I think that’s a positive thing. Hopefully people keep digging in because there are a lot of other cool local labels and bands.

The newest release is by Boy Scouts and they are a really inspiring band and I’m super stoked to work with them.

bB: Ten years is a quite an accomplishment for an independent label in today’s crowded music industry. To what do you owe One Percent’s longevity?

SF: The reason I do One Percent Press is to have something to do with JP and to help out some friends when I can. I think that as long as JP and I are friends and have fun doing the label, we’ll keep doing it. I don’t really think of it in context of anything else like the “music industry” or in context of anything else other than my life and the people who have found it to be valuable. I know we’ve been a positive force in a few people’s lives and that is so vital to me to be able to engage with people. I try not to get hung up in worrying about whether we are getting lost in all the noise because I think the people who need to find this stuff are finding it. It might take years after it was released but I believe this stuff finds its way into the right hands. Luckily I am validated by the quality of interactions I’ve had and not the quantity or I would be very, very displeased!

bB: Where do you see One Percent Press in five more years?

SF: Hopefully still releasing stuff! Nothing has really changed in 10 years so I have no real reason to believe things will be any different. Unless people totally abandon physical media, in which case we’ll just make fewer copies of stuff. I’m still gonna want physical copies of stuff, so I’m always going to want to make stuff.

bB: How is the Buffalo scene different than the one in Atlanta, where you grew up? What are your favorite aspects of the Buffalo artist community, and in what ways would you say the scene needs improvement?

SF: I would say my experiences in Atlanta and Buffalo have been more or less the same. I helped put out records, booked shows, had bands stay at my house, etc, etc. All the normal stuff people do when they are involved in whatever DIY music scene they are in. Atlanta is a bigger city and it has the advantages and disadvantages of big city, just as Buffalo has the advantages and disadvantages of a smaller city. I guess in Atlanta, I had a harder time disseminating information but I was also like 15 years old and I didn’t know anything. I think the smaller size of Buffalo has helped me get a handle on what is going on in the city, but I’m still learning about new scenes and communities all the time.

I love Buffalo and there are a lot of amazing bands, a lot of amazing places to play, and a lot of amazing people to work with. There are a lot of rad resources to help start projects or to get involved in (including buffaBLOG) so check out Sugar City, Dreamland, WNY Book Arts Center, D.O.P.E. Collective, More Power Tapes… oof, just listing stuff is making my head spin, but the point is if you wanna get things going in Buffalo I assure you there is a way.

bB: As both a musician and co-head of a local record label, do you feel you have a higher-than-average understanding of what it takes to “make it” (whatever that means nowadays) in today’s music industry? Do you apply what you know regarding One Percent into what you do with Mallwalkers?

SF: No not really, I don’t really think like that. If anything, I hope that One Percent Press is viewed as part of a larger culture of people who feel like making things and communicating is a way to exist against mainstream culture. Like, I need to believe when people look at DIY in America that they are seeing independent media that reflects the attitudes of people who are not capitalistic or exploitative in their motivation. All the bands and labels and zinesters and micro-publishers and etc. add up to something very real. I think it shows the world that not everyone is interested in pumping out the garbage that mainstream culture dishes out, and while we’re all complicit in what goes on here, there’s at least a document of people making stuff and supporting each other.

bB: 2014 finally saw the long-awaited release of Wooden Waves’ Wilder Dreams LP, one of the top contenders on buffaBLOG’s Best of Buffalo list. What does One Percent have in store for its tenth year?

SF: We’ve got a record by Ithaca’s Why+The+Wires coming out as a split release with Jetsam-Flotsam Records in Chicago. The Buffalo release show will be November 7^th at Sugar City with Del Paxton and this band I play guitar in, Returners. I’m also going to have a hand in releasing the LP by Buffalo’s Alpha Hopper and Philadelphia’s Todd Killingz. I’m also re-issuing the first album by Providence’s Downtown Boys.

As far as comics we are re-releasing One Percent Press editions of Jeremiah by Cathy G. Johnson and The Aeronaut by Alexis Frederick-Frost, along with a new issue of Simple Routines by JP Coovert and are shooting to have them all available by the Small Press Expo in Bethesda, MD September 19th & 20. We’re are also hoping to have to have the 4^th square bound collection of Simple Routines available by then too.

Also, I am doing a show for this excellent band Worriers at Sugar City on September 23^rd so check it out!

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