Wednesday, May 20, 2009

All About Backflips - Sleep Is For Dreamers [2002 - USA]

The short lived yet legendary All About Backflips. We could have been big...maybe.

After hearing about an upcoming battle of the bands, some friends and I spontaneously decided to form a band and write some original songs just days before the competition. This was our senior year in high school. It was Will, Reid, and I on the mics. Bobby on guitar, Paul on drums, Chris on sax, and Special Ed on bass. Ed and I also collaborated on the turntables. What came out was some sort of hip-hop/rock/jazz/jam thing. We practiced hard and pumped out 4 songs in probably 4 days. We rocked the battle and ended up tying for 1st place with a already well-established local rock band. For the last song we decided on a truce and played out an epic double band jam with our fellow victors. We also got the opportunity to rock our high school fashion show, and play a totally awesome and irresponsible after hours show on Santana Row at an art gallery. Then we went our separate ways- most of us went off to college. But that first winter break we got back together to record those 4 songs. We found an ex-junkie weirdo named Rick in the ghetto of East Palo Alto to record our tracks for a good price. Afterwards we realized he had no idea what he was doing. But, at least we can still live out those memories in these songs, regardless of the recording quality.

I'm glad to say that we are all still doing the music thing. Bobby graduated with a degree in guitar shredding, Will is in the music biz, Chris is still playing sax, Ed has formed a dope hip-hop group called NOV8RZ, Paul is the drummer for Thriving Ivory, I'm still making beats, and Reid is probably strummin' on his guitar at this very moment.

I look forward to future collaboration with my ex-band mates.

Peace out Fellas!

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Saturday, May 2, 2009

The Spiders - Back [1970 - Mexico]

Here's some more great Tapatío rock.

For me, The Spiders really stick out among the many Mexican rock bands that spawned from the Avándaro movement back in the 70s. If you don't understand Spanish, don't be hesitant to give this band a listen- all of their songs are sung in English with a totally undetectable accent.

To read more about this fascinating movement check out this site: