History in the Making: Part 1

Dudes and Dudettes,

The Chop is (for real) one freaking day away from finishing our damn record.

We effing swear.

In conjunction with this impending, momentous occasion, and as a special treat for you, the rebellious youths who have so made us so popular, here is a brand new song.  It's called The Pace. It's only a rough mix (courtesy of Hollywood P.) but hopefully that'll be enough for you to continue on for another day.

Sunday Sunday Sunday!

Rest assured all appropriate historic moments (I told you it would be momentous) will be photographed, analyzed, catalogued, and placed carefully inside an earth-orbiting pod known as "The Timeless Project" so that futuristic civilizations can learn about the legacy we have wrought.

be excellent to each other,

rob

The Pace:

Boosh for the masses

This unsolicited tag has demonstrated to us, the men/boys of The Chop, that we are on the verge of a cultural revolution - Snoop Dogg-style.

While we cannot claim to have coined the phrase, The Chop definitely credits our own Jimmy Southbound with the introduction of the term to our group, the west coast, and the correct use of the term (according to the unwashed masses at Urban Dictionary - see definition 1).

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=boosh

It seems like only yesterday that I posted a cartoon to The Chop's MySpace page resulting in the evil, tyrannical, hateful, villain that is Johnny Bass Magrans trying in vain to end The Boosh Revolution. It was very frustrating. For weeks every time my ears would echo with the sweet sweet sound "boosh", John would say "boosh is dead, give it up", then he would blame me.... "you ruined it". Well Bass, you were wrong. Dead wrong. BOOSH!!!


- Philly Boosh Matarese

The DIY Aesthetic - A Cautionary Tale

In December 2006, The Chop completed their first bit of recorded material, and decided to have it printed up under the name "Gold Stars". At the time we were, quite naturally, very excited. Over one year later and amidst the numerous emails that continue to flood our inboxes praising our unbelievable production value therein, we are able to look back on those days with at least some measure of wisdom and maturity. We've made some questionable decisions over these past two years, many of which have resulted in us spending lots of money on things we don't need (or that don't work) or us doing lots of work on stuff that no one cares about (or doesn't "work"). But today, amigitos, read the saga that is...(ominous music)


THE MAKING OF GOLD STARS

Now...before I go any further...I don't want to come off as bitter. Money was meant to be spent after all, and time was meant to be wasted, all in the name of fun. It just continually cracks me up the way The Chop tends to process its ideas. Please note: I am most certainly one of the biggest culprits of this, so I'm really just laughing at myself to take some of the immediate pain and tedium away from.....

THE MAKING OF GOLD STARS

Let me tell a bit about the saga of making these CD packages. We decided that it would be cool if each copy of the disc could be personalized, by us. This is not a completely original idea (as I've seen other bands execute it) so I have to wonder how their processes differed from ours, and if they went through the same range of emotions (from self-congratulatory happiness, to self-satisfied efficiency, to self-immolating hatred of this concept). The Chop may never know.

In any case--The Chop opted to purchase an inordinate amount of these printed discs (1000), and the printer forgot to turn off the machine in time, and therefore printed an extra 180 copies, which they gladly gave over to us. This means we set ourselves up to "decorate" (by sticker and sharpie marker) 1180 of these discs, front and back.



Like most grandiose schemes it was fun in the beginning. We all got together on a Friday night and worked for a few hours, drinking, laughing, and commending ourselves on our ingenuity. It really seemed like we made a whole bunch of them. Like, at the time, in my drunken state, having worked for around 3 hours with the entire Chop crew and others, I would have ventured to guess that we would have completed around 100, or maybe 150 of these things.

In fact--we made just over 50. 50 of 1188.

This was the first indication. The first indication of the true treacherousness of what we would come to know as...

THE FUCKING MAKING OF GOLD STARS

We got together a few more times like this, each subsequent meeting becoming less and less jolly...all for the purpose of manufacturing this CD package in droves. As our interest deteriorated, I came up with an idea. We distributed all necessary equipment to each Chopsman's apartment, and we made a little bet: Ten CDs a week were to be turned in by each man. The motivation? Not having the discs meant a 5 dollar (cash) contribution to a fund: a shot fund, for the purpose of buying shots of booze once the ordeal was over. Ingenious, yes? Using alcohol payment as punishment, yes? Despite an initial snag when Tommy "Lone Wolf" opted not to participate because "betting" for "alcohol" is "childish" and also "dumb" -- the plan worked smashingly and the CDs began to be churned out.

Everything was going great--we were nearing our goal, we were nearing our shots (the fund grew to 50 dollars)...then we hit a brick wall. We lost our rhythm, America. Our rhythm! The shot fund (which we all agreed could only be used once all Gold Stars discs were completed) reached an almost unfathomable 80 dollars. With only 200 or so left to go...a compromise was reached. I was paid a nominal fee to finish the damn things, once and for all.

A small sampling of some of the ones I made today:


It was long. It was hard. I laughed. I cried. I hurled. But now, friends...it is done!

DONE!

Bring on the shots!


don't i know you from the cinematographer's party?,
rob

Straight out of New Castle

Vintage:



Modern:



Great taste! Nothing has changed! Tom still thinks Pink Floyd is "dank!"

Brasilians love Antonio Carlos Jobim (and other news)

Dear Loyalists,

Apart from The Chop having had a hell of a weekend, things are sluggish at best on this post-President's Day Tuesday afternoon in rainy old San Francisco. Over the hoilday we managed to rock Davis and Bottom of the Hill (both) with a little hard drinking at a skeevy, subterranean, motown-jukebox-having Japantown bar in between. With few to no pictures back yet from either gig, I will speak of them only briefly, in hopes that the events will be much better immortalized with clever captions and pedantic sentence structures at some future date.

The G Street Pub in Davis was great. We did not receive any bar napkin hatemail or anti-beard rhetoric this time, but managed to retain our ability to impress the UC Davis crowd with our big-city born, Arby's-induced melodies. We played with Sacramento band Pets who we all agreed were great, so please check them out.
The Bottom of the Hill show on Sunday night was truly awesome. It was hands down the best night of music we've ever been a part of. The crowd was great, The Chop was in stride, and the headliners were amazing. Sugar and Gold went on after us. They have that fine tuned sense of fun that we Delawareans always admire. Grand Ole Party played last and, seriously, if you have chance to see these guys on tours up and coming, please do. They were a commanding presence on the stage, with killer rhythm, vocals...you name it. They deserve the accolades they've been receiving in full.

That all aside, I thought I'd mention one other thing that's been on my mind. Brasilians love Antonio Carlos Jobim.

It is February, and I suppose I've finally gotten back into the swing of things here in California (as have my innards). I'm thinking one more post on my alt-hemispherical vacation ought to take care of things nicely. There's just more I want to say...namely, that Brasilians love Antonio Carlos Jobim.


And I mean, who wouldn't? But they really love him. They give him a bear hug everytime he comes over, (even though they see him all the time), and then they hold on a little too long and let their hands wander a little too far and it's sort of uncomfortable for all involved. Prove it, you say?

First piece of evidence: They named their international airport after him! The audacity!

El Segundo!
They named a street after him in Rio. This doesn't seem like much, right? The street is called Presidente Antonio Carlos. Amazing! This type of subtle "art-meets-politics" social commentary stuff doesn't get past the bumper sticker phase stateside. Kinda makes you jealous there's no "Senators Bacharach and David St." in Kansas City.

And as if that weren't enough...here's the most fiendish display of their affection: They opted to shorten him name significantly, arbitrarily cutting 5 syllables from it to call him "Tom". This mod makes it all the easier for people to name their children after him, chant his name at a soccer match, or pretend they overheard his name on a crowded street. Friends, this is a truly subversive act of devotion. Like spiking the water with smooth jazz and inflecting it with Latin flavor.

Don't say you hadn't heard. They love him. And you should too.

Alone again (naturally),

Rob

Epic Sesh!

Dear Global Martketplace,

This weekend The Chop was at it again recording ever-so-timeless drum and bass tracks for our upcoming (first, full-length) album, which we've decided to call "We Want It All". We all agree that this sentiment aptly describes our lusty ambition for, well, everything.

On Saturday, we went into the studio for the old 8PM to 4AM graveyard shift. We layed down the bass and drum tracks for four songs...two old ones we re-arranged and made way better (these were called "Falling Asleep" and "Five Points") and two brand new songs called "Signs" and "The Pace'. We're pretty excited about all of them, and we're going back in there to do the overdubs (i.e. piano, guitars and all the vocals) on Tuesday night. We probably won't 100% finish any the songs, and we'll end up finishing the tracks at home sometime in the next couple weeks, putting in some instruments we either don't play or own or both (cello maybe?), refining our takes, and also adding weird shit like we do.

Here's how it looked on Saturday:












Now here's the exciting news...this was the stated "last" tracking session for "We Want It All". We've now recorded 15 tracks for this thing, so we'll be able to cut 3 or 4 or 5 out of the final product--which means better songs for you!

We're expecting it all to be done (like done done) in about 6 weeks. We're excited about this. You should be excited about this. Are you getting excited about all this?

rob

Beardist Thought is Alive and Well

America,

There's something troubling me. As a free and extremely diverse society, we face many challenges regarding tolerance and understanding of differences. No matter how enlightened you see yourself, you are instinctually driven to make judgements about other people based on their looks alone. I'm referring, of course, to Beardism.

Many of us (Freedom Fighters) have long purported that these stereotypes are being bolstered and supported by the entertainment media. The evidence is overwhelming. One can't help but notice that there's a strong and forceful campaign (of late) to portray facial hair as a the equivalent to a fringe lifestyle akin to junk addiction and eventual depressive suicide.

When the producers of ABC's LOST wanted to convey the idea that (normally ethically impeccable) Jack Shepard was sinking in the bog of an alcoholic stupor...did they brainstorm for hours on the proper story arc of his drug-addled descent? Do you think they factored in the timing of their revelations throughout the episode to maximize his character development as a hopeless wino? Did the director coach actor Matthew Fox endlessly on the Jack-curate facial expressions that would convey a sense of longing, loss, and seething anger from beneath an ocean of booze? No. They slapped a big beard on him and figured we'd get the gist.



ABC Audience: "Whoa. Check out that grizzly beard...this cat must be hitting it pretty hard to forget to shave that long."

Or,

"Holy shit, he's totally lost all will to live and has probably been doing some "Leaving Las Vegas"-style boozing to the death while eating Vicoden like they were Pez and oh what the hell let's throw some depraved hookers into this fanciful orgy of self-loathing while we're at it"

All as indicated by a relatively trim beard!

One of my other favorites is the all too blatant "shaving as redemption" plot point. Once they've carefully established a character as bat-shit insane on a liquor binge (see above) there's usually a scene where this character is confronted openly about how batshit insane they've become, and are instructed to "pull it together!" The character then responds by shaving his face, which indicates to the audience not only that he's kicked his alcohol/drug/gambling addiction, but that he's managed to slough off the inner turmoil/regret/longing that's been plaguing him (a nightmarish, spectral remorse which haunts his days and prohibits shaving) like the superficial weight that it is.

The writers/producers of NBC's Heroes pulled this one on us in the first half of the show's second season. In case you missed it, here's a picture:

Nathan Petrelli, a normally clean cut politician wallowing in regret and sorrow over his brother's untimely death...and sweating alcohol from the exertion of turning his head slightly...



who thens "cleans up his act," and shaves away his depression! A True Leader!



Beardist nonsense!
For shame, Media Conglomerates!

Beards are nothing to be feared! The Bearded live and work among you! Please don't stare at us on the bus! We are simply asserting our right to be lazy when it comes to one small aspect of personal hygiene. I am not drunk, crazed, or addicted to precription drugs. I have a job, a girlfriend and a family!

Stroking my chin,
Red Robbie

Post Script: Abraham Lincoln has a great, bolshy beard. So did U.S. Grant. Leaders among men and trendsetters of their respective eras, one marvels at what a beard heyday that must have been.