For those interested in seeing us again, or for the first time, make sure to come support the Silverlake Lounge performance on April 28th, it will be smashing. Cheers!

We left Los Angeles on November 4th 2008, en route to a performance in Tucson, Arizona - the very day Barack Obama was elected President of the United States of America, taking the stage right after the inauguration speech. The next day, we departed for North Carolina where our album would be created in a building, once a bookstore, now converted to a drafty music venue.

The drive through most the country was exceptionally uneventful. In Little Rock we enjoyed some of the finest BBQ man has ever produced, and Nashville was a night of whiskey and drunken debauchery, as Jon chatted up a Canadian pop superstar and then proceeded to immediately return to our friend John’s house to blow chunks until the wee hours of the morning. When we finally did arrive in North Carolina, Jon (who had to drive the entire way due to me not having a valid license, and Ryan not knowledgeable on the stick) started to become ill. The weather, and frigid conditions of our “studio” eventually made us all sick. The heater was too noisy to run when tracking, so we had to wear large jackets and were forced to warm our fingers before takes.

The team we had signed up with was elected because of the unconventional recording methods and the sounds they produced. Virtually everything was tracked on quarter inch tape, and many of the instruments were done live and into room mics. It was all very rough, live and vibey takes. We experimented with percussion that ranged from conventional tambourine to unconventional storage locker. Ryan Gustafson (singer/songwriter) and James Wallace were the brilliant minds behind the process and we all just took it in. The philosophy was vibe at all costs. If the take was sloppy but had a character, that was the take we went with. Essentially, we learned how to record interesting-sounding records.

The importance to us was not neccessarily the resulting record, but the process we learned in making it. Within a month of returning home, we had purchased our own quarter inch tape machines, a tascam interface, microphones, preamps and all the other various requirements to track albums WITHOUT the overhead of professional (and in our case utterly unneccessary) recording studios and boutique gear. We even mixed the songs ourselves and paid only for printing and mastering. We wo’nt need to sell nearly as many of them to support ourselves, and it’s all going to go on iTunes. If anyone can suggest a purpose for record companies, for us, feel free. I’m all ears.

Our first show in Hollywood since the days of old (last year), we once again rejoined with the forces of the mighty Tin Panda. I’m not a fan of Knitting Factory, most the staff there appears to have committed felonies and have little regard for skinny indie/hipster kids. They also made us pay for parking which I think is total bull sheit, BUT Tin Panda always sweetens the sour by buying the bands free Pizza and hooking up some beverages.

The turn out was great, it was good to see some faces we haven’t seen in awhile. We have many more LA shows in store so if you missed this one, be watching our calendar (best place to check is our last.fm, or our myspace or subscribe to our mailing list on this homepage).

Photos were taken by our talented friend Chris Pycior.  See more here.

Fortunately Jon’s apartment was minimal enough that it wasn’t difficult to clear out any non period items and scatter about as much vibe setting accoutrement as we could get our hands on. Much of said accessories were obtained from our own collections, friends, distant relations and multiple trips to the local thrift stores.

No good cocktail soiree is complete without crudites, and for the preparation of the eats we were fortunate enough to have the services of the ever fashionable Tish Hargens, who donated her time for the good cause. It goes without saying that we stocked a bar of a variety of options, drinks prepared to perfection by yours truly.

The most nerve racking aspect was by far attendance. We had no idea who for certain would show up and if they would be attired properly for the occasion. Fortunately our policy of sending detailed invite emails, and keeping exceptionally cool friends, paid off. Amongst the many attenders, whom we all appreciate greatly (even the ones I don’t mention here), included none other then the LAB alumni Brian Sadler, drummer for Big Bang Olaf Olsen, renowned singer songwriter Greg Jong and even the well known blogger Kristin Peach.

The photographer herself, was no small part of what ultimately resulted in an outstanding shoot. Within a few weeks we were provided with dozens of shots, each capturing a very special moment taken with the framing and subtlety that could be seen as none other then the work of Kay Gautraud herself. We feel that the photoshoot not only captured the vibe and intention of our new release, but also documented a very special evening that we are glad you all shared with us and made it what it was.

View the entire gallery >

For an unspoken generous some of cash payment, accommodations at a resort south the border and free food, Last American Buffalo had been contracted by Young Presidents Organization to entertain the team of volunteer philanthropic YPO’ers that had been put together for a week of house building, topped off with an end of week concert.

Aside from, unbeknownst to us, our ex keyboardists hidden stash of questionable accruement, which fortunately was not detected by the Mexican Officials, the drive itself was uneventful. In fact the show itself was nothing spectacular. We performed our set on the patio area for a group of 50, the music was received we sold a good amount of our merch (fortunately lightening our load).

The after party in the hotel room, however, was the highlight of the trip. Mile’s set up his circa 50’s Camera and began taking photo opps of the group. I featured some of the pics here.

Mention: After 2 trips to the liquor store, we still ran out of alcohol, so we had to raid the last open bar for the little bit of time that we could. The next day we managed to get up by noon to make our check out and left prepared sit in line for 3 hours at the border. All in all we made a mexico trip with next to no losses… well Jon broke his car’s rear window loading gear, but that’s not the first time that’s happened.

Three weeks prior Jon had approached us with the proposal of a road trip to North Carolina, where we could record with the guys behind one of our favorite new records, Ryan Gustafson’s “Sunshine EP”. The plan was for the rest of us to fly back while he stayed there, with his family, to visit for the holidays. We were to bang out our next release in under two weeks. It wasn’t until a meeting over spicy chicken go wraps that our drummer, Steven Wills, explained he wouldn’t be able to swing the trip. Though we’d prefer to get all of Buffalo on the record we came to the decision to push ahead and pull from Jon’s resources. So it’ll be a communal effort of friends and family from the ol’ south that we will embark to record our new EP.

We finished tracking that evening sometime around late and late:30, many overdubs, retakes and guacamole chips taken as attrition for the effort. The overall feel of the song was to convey a rawness reminiscent of Delta sounds, with a feel more prevalent today, in the rhythm. We tracked the guitars in an open room, the acoustic performed with an aggressive banging on the strings to achieve a droning, aggressive twang. We needed a lot of percussion to get the desired affect of blues meets something new, tambourine and a boot stomp were both recorded in the shower of Jon’s bathroom. While standing near the shower head, it occurred to Jon we needed something else percussion wise, he found his mini guitar and tracked a knocking against the back of it. I suggested he try a more sparse performance and on the off beats, it worked really well adding an almost primal vibe with a lot of space in the mix. To enhance this further we tracked about 4 takes of hand claps in an open room with a room mic, some distance away. In the mix, we pushed the claps slightly off beat, which really made it bluesy. We found the vocals sounded best in the shower as well and the final result is definitely the aggressive, raw vibe we had intentioned.

Recordings like these are never meant to be released as is, on the contrary they provide a guide for ideas, sounds and vibes the producer can reference as we begin tracking the studio versions. Its this process that refines a song and brings it to a point where ideas come to fruition so that the studio work, with all its emphasis on perfection, doesn’t loose in the process, the feeling. As is often the case, however, its the journey (not the destination), that one finds the most satisfaction. Its this journey that we give to you in our Demo Sessions, all the way to North Carolina.

I had been driving for two hours and with every passing exit grew more anxious over rather the stop I was assigned to rendezvous was past already. It was dark now and my only company was The Rolling Stones Exile On Main Street, an empty can of Red Bull and a bag of Pretzels. Just when I was about to take any stop I could find for gas, the sign for Baker flashed by my eyes. Sweet. I pulled off and realized nothing looked at all like the directions, I scrambled for my phone and tried to get a call out, no luck. Then it rang, it was Jon. So ya the directions were wrong, we were two exits back. After a moment of pointless bickering I got my bearings and headed back on to the freeway. Not long after I pulled into a rather poetically shabby gas station that resembled more a shed with pump stations in the front and broken down trucks in the gravel field that substituted a parking lot. Just as I parked, out of behind a propane tank I see a shirtless mullet bearing, mustached monsieur with a cowboy hat and a can of Tecate heading my way, it could be none other then Miles Lauridsen, genius photographer and virtuoso ladies man.

Jon hopped in my audi (about to undertake the roughest terrain its 8 year career had yet to see) and we begin to follow Miles on to the unknown of a dirt road. Darkness all around, contrasted by glaring headlights bouncing over what were more like rocky dunes, then bumps. We came to stop at a rather Kerouac inspired congregation of propped tents, make shift chairs, guitars, beers and steak crowned barbecue aligned beneath the gaze of a giant boulder, casting lighted shadows upon its face. The officials of the ceremony were laughing and carrying on as one of them imitated Bon Jovi to the delight of the others. And at that moment we were in its fullness, Last American Buffalo.

The night went on as such, pictures, tecates, hot dogs and other accoutrement to the late hours. After passing out in the tent, the next day would awake us before sunset in a scramble to throw clothes on and assemble lighting. We lined up near the flash stand as Miles tested shots, just as the sun came out took as many as he could. The rest of the day would consist of climbing rocks, walking around dunes and basically taking the torment of the sun as Miles followed us around the wasteland documenting our sojourn. At one point we drove off to a distant mudflat, parked and took shots of our deliruous escapades, our brains flimsy from beer, sun and.. well, you get the idea. The experience as a whole solidified in my mind the philosophy that if a band is going to do a photoshoot, the shoot should be of an experience, rather then the shoot being the experience itself. We certainly didn’t take it as far as I would want, but it was a good step in the right direction. My hope for the future would be a longer trip, time spent becoming invested in the journey, with the goal of writing and/or recording a record as part of the process to not only be documented by photography but video as well, and hopefully in a foreign place rich with subtleties, the point of which hopefully becoming the life experience that would change us and influence our craft. we spoke briefly of Argentina.

Much love

- Us