Zevious find themselves at the advent of their March East Coast/MidWest tour, eagerly awaiting their latest opportunity to share their unique electric jazz compositions with fans and engage those unfamiliar with the NYC trio. This past fall saw the release of their latest creation, "After The Air Raid" on Cuneiform Records which the band takes a smooth left turn from their mellower self-titled debut.  With increased intensity, distortion, and complexity, these three men are on the rise. Ithaca Underground's Bubba Crumrine sits down with guitarist Michael Eber to tell us more about the new album, its players, and more.

IU: What brought on the transition from the more acoustic jazz of your self-titled to the amped up intensity of 'After the Air Raid'?

Michael: We started the band initially to get paying gigs in restaurants playing jazz. It really wasn't in any of our natures to stick with that mentality so we moved on to writing our own material pretty quickly. It took us about a year and half or so to find our voice as a band, but once we discovered it, we started gravitating towards a heavier sound. You can hear glimpses of it on our first album, but "After the Air Raid" is a much more focused and honest sounding record.

IU: What were the most trying and most exhilarating parts of the three years of composition & recording?

Michael: Every show is exhilarating since we just get to relax and play - all the hard work is pretty much done. Recording "After the Air Raid" was pretty amazing too - I literally didn't see daylight for 5 straight days. Each day was at least 14 hours worth of work, but in the end the whole week was a great creative experience - draining and rewarding. Definitely the hardest part is rehearsing. Some songs take us 3-4 months to be able to play and turn into music, so rehearsal is kind of like bashing our heads against the wall for 3 hours at a time.

IU: How has the reaction to “After The Air Raid” been from those who were familiar with your earlier work?

Michael: Some mixed but mostly positive. There were people who liked listening to some jazz that was a little different but still relatively relaxed. Overall the

Ever wonder where all the metal went after the first two Kayo Dot albums? It went right into the avant-black/doom metal band Ehnahre! But the story on this twisted trio from Boston treks back much farther that the founding members involvement with KD and with a new limited edition 12” under their belt, more material in the works, and percussionist/noise artists Ricardo Donoso behind the kit, Ehnahre are poised to take their heady, hyper complex, experimental metal to the next level. Ithaca Underground’s Bubba Crumrine gets the skinny from bassist/vocalist and Ehnahre co-founder, Ryan McGuire in preparation for their Ithaca debut on February, 20th at The Shop.

IU: Let's start with how the band began. You and John started the band prior to each of your involvement with Kayo Dot, correct?

RM: Yes. Actually John, DJ and me started an earlier version of Ehnahre in high school. We went through a variety of phases, playing hardcore, metalcore, doom/sludge, and grind. We disbanded sometime around 2000. Then when I joined Kayo Dot in 2003, we needed a soundguy and a guitar player, so John and DJ joined up. After leaving KD in 2006 we started up another band together. We kept the name Ehnahre, even though musically we were doing something totally different, because we still had a burned screen (for screen printing) lying around with the old band logo on it, and we could print t-shirts easily.

IU: How did noise guru Ricardo Donoso get involved with the project?

RM: I have been playing with Ricardo for years in a variety of free improv/noise/free jazz groups and pick up bands. Even back when I was in Kayo Dot we had been working together on other projects. After a night of drunken

Mr. Bungle, Fantômas, John Zorn Masadas… legendary projects all involving legendary bassist, Trevor Dunn.  After more than two decades of groundbreaking musicianship with the aforementioned groups plus helping found Secret Chiefs Three, his own Trio-Convulsant, and many more; this would surely suffice as enough achievement to ride the wave from here on out to your average Joe.  Then again, Trevor Dunn is certainly not your average Joe.  Ithaca Underground’s Bubba Crumrine sits down with the bassist/composer – who has just returned from Europe with yet another project - to discuss his latest endeavor, MadLove. 

IU: How was Europe?

TD: It was good! It was a bit of a whirlwind tour.  We played 10 shows in 11 days and was on a lot of trains (laughs). 

IU: Which project were you performing with?

TD: I was touring with a cellist named Erik Friedlander – the project is a jazz project of his.  That was one of the freelance things that I do.

IU: What cities did you end up hitting?

TD: Amsterdam, Milan, Venice, several cities in Austria and a few others.  We didn’t see the light of day too often.  We would arrive after dark and have to get up before sunrise so, it was one of those kind of tours.

IU: Wow, I’m glad everything went well despite the packed schedule.

Turning our attention to your latest and much more personally vested group, MadLove… what inspired you to start up the new project? 

TD: That’s a good question...

Welcome to the first edition of out "Meet The Band" series, where we will attempt to shed some light on the great local and regional bands and artists involved with the underground music scene in here in Ithaca, NY.  You can look for several of these a month!

Band Name: The Motivators

Who is in the band?
Eli Ben-Yaacov (Guitar, Vocals)
Daniel Stackman (Drums)
Dylan Wells (Bass, Background Shouting)
Chris Marr (Guitar, very occasional Vocals)

Founed: Summer of 2007.

Releases:
Self released nine song demo CD in 2008
Self released, self-titled 18 song double album in 2009.

Tell us about yourselves!
As pretentious as it sounds, we actually have a pretty hard time describing our...

Rosetta, Battlefields, City of Ships, Mill Bastards, Makeshift at The Haunt 
by Bobby Jackson

Upstate New York is generally frigid with a wintery gelid in January, but in an odd mix of coincidences I was walking around with a sweater avoiding the rain to the best of my cognitive ability. Journeys anywhere in the state would have been super perilous with icy roads, cops attempting to bust you for whatever they can to compensate for their low paychecks, and the malignant motor vehicle operators sharing the road. Despite the grey and melancholy atmosphere, our day was sweet with serenity and wrought with ease. Past the countless miles of lakefront realty and wineries on route 89, I wondered what to expect out of the upcoming event. Rumor had it that the show was going to be an intense conglomerate of sludgy hippy metal if one could even make such a genre of musical endeavors. I had listened to some of the bands previously so I would subsequently be prepared for the upcoming onslaught of music. I enjoyed the dirges of Battlefields, City of Ships, and Rosetta based on previously being exposed to them via Ithaca Underground, but the question that remained was whether the serenity of the endless lakefront drive would be reticulated or preserved during the event. My trip was to be something memorable, and I hoped it would enlighten me to new delicious music.