Bumtech had the great good fortune to record a track with David J of Bauhaus and Love & Rockets this past Monday. We recorded the track at the studio of producer Kerry Brown and Smashing Pumpkin's Billy Corgan. David J provided an excellent bass line reminiscent of the Beatles' Rain on his fretless Fender Precision Bass. Jonn did lead vocals and guitar, and Sharon played the drums and Micro Korg. Sharon and David did some nicely layed oohs in the background to top off the track. The track was produced by Kerry Brown with assistant Kevin Dippold to a great result! The track is as yet unreleased but stay tuned! The session was made possible by David J fan and friend of Bumtech, Mick Lai. Cale Wilbanks documented the session and captured the spirit of the day with some great photos. See more at Bumtech's Facebook page: www.facebook.com/bumtech
Our three day California tour was a lot of fun. We arrived in Fresno on Thursday, Oct. 27 for a show at the charming Tokyo Garden, an establishment that has been a Fresno landmark since the 50s. Although the streets of Fresno were silent, there was plenty of rockin going on at the Garden. We were joined by some nice Fresno locals, Tommy Marquez, SirenSinging, and Llama Boy. Chris Bochin ofLlama Boy kindly put us up for the night and gave us some Tang.
The next day we drove to Oaklandfor a Friday night show at Mama Buzz, a really cool cafe with veggie food and GOOD COFFEE! We conversed with the with Oakland locals about Oakland, LA, and Portland, Occupy Protests, and the Nov. 2 General Strike in Oakland, which Bumtech is observing from our home base in LA. We played a great show and were joined by Nintendo DSi dj Jahnonymous and Guitar Wizards of the Future.
On the way we had to resist buying this T-Shirt:
On Saturday we went back to Mama Buzz for breakfast, MORE COFFEE, and to see our friend, legendary punk rocker Eddie Morgan of first wave Portland punk band Ice-9. Jonn looks good in Ed Mo's glasses.
Then, off to San Luis Obispo for our last show of the tour. It was Saturday night and there were plenty of drunk people in Halloween costumes as early as 9pm. We had a great time in SLO even though they spelled our name wrong. The Frog & Peach provided plenty of Makers Mark to help me get over my cold.
A while back we made a really awesome t-shirt. Now you can finally get it online, exclusively through Le Spec Gallery! Le Spec is a wonderful new spot for arts and culture near Historic Filipinotown and Echo Park, definitely worth checking out for fun events, or just to see the artwork. They are also carrying our cd, Beautiful Music, in the shop.
The shirt is very comfy and stylish, and made on American Apparel. Everyone wants to know about the guy on the shirt. It’s our good friend, Nate, our neighbor and postman back in Portland. He made his own Bumtech shirt and posted a pic of himself wearing it on our new myspace page as our first posting back in the day. We took it and created this cool design. His hair really was pink!
So support Bumtech and Le Spec with this purchase you won’t regret. It’s a damn fine garment.
Our second music video is out! The video is for the song Spirit, off of our new album, Beautiful Music. We filmed it in the wilds of West LA, where we call home. The first day was filmed in Baldwin Hills, with spectacular views of the city as a backdrop, and the magical natural lighting that brought the film industry to Los Angeles. On day two we filmed at the old defunct railroad crossing at Westwood Blvd. This location will eventually be the site of the Expo Line light rail all the way out to the ocean. For now it is a lush, grassy wilderness.
Spirit
In all I do, I will remember you In all I see, Your spirit lives and breathes The city lights stretch endlessly In the crashing ocean tides I feel it on the sundrenched hillside
I was afraid, so I turned away I was alone, I chose to separate In all I do, I will remember you In all I see, Your spirit lives and breathes In the mountains and the ocean breeze In the burning summer skies In the faces of the people in the street
In all I see, I sense fragility All that I know, I don't know anything In all I do, I will remember you In all I see, Your spirit lives and breathes The city lights stretch endlessly I see it in your eyes I feel it on the sundrenched hillside
We're working on our next video for the album Beautiful Music. It's for the song Spirit, and the video is coming along beautifully. We took some hillside footage yesterday close to home. The natural lighting was superb, and the grass was exactly the shade between green and yellow that we wanted. We got a nice view of the city, but no mountains. It was a nice amount a hazy to provide some good ambience though, and the wind created some drama, and brought in some late day clouds. My sister, Rina, provided us with a couple of gorgeous vintage dresses from her collection.
More work to do today! Here are a couple of pretty stills from what we've done so far...
We flew to Costa Rica for a photo shoot this weekend... well, we didn't actually go to Costa Rica, but rather to a secret local jungle for a shoot with the incomparable Cale Wilbanks. Cale asked us to do the shoot and how could we refuse? So we enjoyed a luxurious rainforest locale, wearing a combination of vintage and modern clothing, and showing off some nice vintage gear.
We'll be posting the pics soon. For now, check out his beautiful photography at: www.ocularsinister.com
Welcome to our new blog! We are Bumtech, a two piece band with programmed drums. We have a lot to say all at once, since we just started blogging this evening. To start with, we have a new cd out that we are very happy with! It's called Beautiful Music, and stylistically, it's very alternative and quite different than anything else out right now. The music is psychedelic, spacey, surfy, and has a shoegaze leaning and some heavy folk, even. So far, we've been getting great feedback on the album and hope you like it too. The artwork was created by talented L.A. artist and our good friend, Pablo Ramos.
Just a little background on the title. One day I was looking up the L.A. radio station KBIG on Wikipedia, and I found out that in the 60s it had a "Beautiful music" format. I had to know more, so I looked up beautiful music, and I found out that it meant easy listening. Well, this had to be the name of our album, so there it is.
You can listen to some of the tracks here: http://www.bumtech.com/music.html
We've just released our first video from Beautiful Music, Melrose Driving School. We filmed it and edited it ourselves, and I think it's as much fun to watch as it was to make!
