There's a new (and awesome) new band in town and they go by the name of Rival Tribes! Founded by Pete McHugh (aka Pete McAwesome) and Jesse Lafian and mostly instrumental in nature, it's nothing quite like anything else going on in Ithaca right now. Ithaca Underground's Bubba Crumrine catches up with Pete to see where they're coming from and where they're going.

IU: How would you describe your sound to someone who is looking to come out to your show on Feb 11th?

Pete: Battle surf/knightly psych. Come ready to shake thy hips, stomp thy feet and ponder thy existence. I would encourage everyone to check out our EP on bandcamp. The whole thing is streaming for freeeeee!!!

IU: What tour plans do you have for 2011?

Pete: We're starting our tour with Porches (Aaron Maine of Space Ghost Cowboys) in Westchester, NY at the end of January. Then we'll swing back up to Ithaca on the 11th. We had planned to stay down south until it warms up, but Jesse is going to be filling in on drums for Summer People while they tour down to SXSW. We'll be getting back into town at the beginning of march. Anyone who has never been to Austin, go. It's magic.

Aaron will also be playing bass for us, so our sets are really one awesome party of a set.

IU: Any goals or purposes behind the band that we should know about?

Pete: We wanted to be in a fun band instead of a hard band. We've both done a lot of heavy music in the last few years and this was our foray into something a little more accessible. It came out a little twisted, but we think it works.

IU: What gear set up do you each use?

Hi, Donna Here…




Band Name: Donna

Location: Binghamton, New York

Formed: We are Donna, comprised of the Balles Twins Justin and Kyle who were formed my by Mike and Donna Balles at some point in late 1985. When birthed on August 12th 1986, Donna got a 2 for one special with these boys. Justin was infamously born two minutes before Kyle. They were both pulled from the belly. C-section saved them from drowning in the amniotic fluid.

Members:
Justin Michael Balles - Guitar/ Wayne Gretzky, Effects
Kyle Edward Balles - Drums/ Jungle-Set/ Barrel-Master/ Frank Thomas
Videoscope KP5040/KP – Visual Stimulation

Releases to date:
-Ed’s House of Cards c. 2010. Only six sets of ten have been released thus far. Each set of 10 consists of handmade Chunky collages, hand painted cd’s, inside of 45RPM Chunky record sleeves, essentially a 7” cd. Each unique to its own, Kyle does the outside collage chunking, Justin does the inside disc drawing/painting, Videoscope just watches…
-We just finished recording material for our new full length album in December 2010 which will be released Feb./March 2011, no title as of yet, also hoping to have it pressed on vinyl, really excited about the new material, hope you like…

Tell us about yourselves!
We are a three piece band; Drum, Guitar, and Videoscope KP5040. We call her KP for short because she’s with both of us. We are two-thirds remnants of the previous bands Smith Hill and The Bibits. After almost ten years with those bands, we made the swift transformation of ditching the bass player presence. An immediate flood-gate of repressed material began pouring from us, which has now been pumping insatiably since June 2010, heavy flow... A few months ago we added KP, she is a cute big-screen TV / glorious visual stimulator. KP plays re-appropriated movies while we do the music; it is mutual and groovy all at the same time. We face her and she guides us through. Sometimes when she rubs our synergy just right we improvise tremendous loads. This is where we are currently at in our Balles evolution, exploring reverb realms and the rhythms of bouncy bouncy B-boy beats. We’re not really into vocals, nah… although we really dig the sounds of Keets and old washing machines…

We’ve also played shows with the likes of Kayo Dot, Zach Hill, and Cheer-Accident…

Get more Donna here:
http://www.facebook.com/kyle.balles
http://www.myspace.com/hidonnahere

Don't miss Donna live at Waffle Frolic (on the commons) on Friday, Feb 11th with Gull, Rival Tribes, and Plasma 36. 8PM $5

About a year and a half ago I (Bubba Crumrine) was going through some old photos from my days in Fairport/Rochester while visiting my parents. I came across a photo of me and a boy named Michael Rheinheimer from my middle school tech class. It dawned on me how many people I used to know and how I have no idea where most of them are. Fast forward to last summer at the Genital Holograms/Ailments 7" release show with our Rochester friends TUMUL and low and behold, the name comes up in our conversion.  Michael's in Rochester with his own, excellent project. As paths would have it, that band, Attic Abasement would be heading out on a month+ tour in mid-Jan across the east coast. I can't up with Michael for the first time in years in preparation for Attic Abasement's show at The GreenStar Annex this Thursday with Underground River, DAADs, and Kaboosh!.

IU: What have you been up to since we left FHS?

Michael: After high school I went to a couple different colleges, wasting my time trying to stay wasted, and finally transferring to R.I.T. I'd go to school during the day and try to catch shows at night. I made some great friends that way and ended up in a few bands. I got my bachelors in mechanical engineering and haven't used it since, really. I work at restaurants and play music.

IU: How did Attic Abasement get its start?

Michael: I was in a band called Science vs Witchcraft, playing guitar and singing sometimes. We'd write these noise rock songs, sort of intentionally ugly with lots of dissonance. Shows were very cathartic for me with that band and I tried to make the guitar sound like it was breaking. I started Attic Abasement as an outlet for some prettier style guitar playing and songs that I was writing as well, because I like pretty stuff too. It was just a recording project for a long time. It wasn't until we broke up science that i got other musicians involved to play shows.

IU: Any story behind the name?

Nothing that interesting really. I think the word abasement was in a book I was reading and I thought it would be clever. I like the name sometimes and other times I don't like the name but im not gonna change it now. So, eh, doesn't really matter.

IU: When did you first take the project on the road?

Band Name: Underground River

Location: Binghamton, NY 

Formed: 2003 (as Onemanriot) 2009 (as Underground River)

Members: Led by Hunter Davidsohn, performances can range from an intimate solo acoustic setting but also performed with with Lewis Cheseborough Adam Southard and Daniel Morosi, who play on the "Whos Fallowing Who" EP. Appearances on other recordings and releases include Jade Soto of Summer People, as well as Andris Balins of Future By Now, and Mim Readling of Ithaca's very own Ladykiller.

Releases: What Are the trees reaching for? (2004) The Industry Will Not Marry (2008) Whos Fallowing Who EP (2010) Volume One (2010, UK Compilation)

Tell us about yourselves!

Band Name: Kaboosh!

Location: Lansing, NY

Formed: June 2010

Members:
Parker Callister - yells and strums
Conor Stanhope - hits stuff (and plays keyboard...)

Where is your music available: You can check us out at myspace.com/kabooshmakesnoise and reverbnation.com/kaboosh. In the near future, we are probably going to release some self-produced/recorded EP/demo thing that we'll just hand out at shows.

Band History: We basically formed to make music that we hadn't made yet while the actual formation of the band was kinda accidental. It was one of those things where I wrote a song and asked Conor if he wanted to record it with me and play on it. And then BOOM! Kaboosh!

Sounds Like: Folky, poppy, sometimes melancholy music that's fun to play.

Upcoming Shows: January 15th, starting at 8pm, we will be playing a show at Waffle Frolic in downtown Ithaca with Mike (A)!, Rye 'N' Clover and Fight A Scary Dog and of course January 27th, also starting at 8pm, we will be playing a show at the Greenstar Annex with DAADs, Underground River, and Attic Abasement.

School Of Rock: In Ithaca, Nick Bullock, from Revision fame, has a program called the School Of Rock. This is where a bunch of teenagers are put into bands at Nick's house and each band has  a different category of their choice. At the end of the last session, Nick asked us if we would like to have a slot at the closing performance. The bands that played were all put together within a matter of about two months and it really astounded me as to how many people out there need to get in a real band due to the sheer talent i saw on the stage from all that participated.

Ithaca Underground: We in Kaboosh! feel that the idea behind our band is to play music with and for some of the coolest people on the planet while having fun doing it. And with IU, this is possible! So, hats off to the Ithaca Underground, Bubba Crumrine, awesome bands that take the time to play here, regular concert goers, venue owners, and anyone that has helped in any way to support one of the best things in underground music!

(pic coming soon!)

Band Name: Painted Rust (all positive and negative comments about the band name can be addressed to Rich the guitarist, but be warned, he will probably take you down and submit if you are below a purple belt)

Location: The hard streets of Flatbush, Brooklyn (BURN WILLIAMSBURGH! BURN!) and the non-shores of New Jersey.

Formed: Painted Rust started when Andrew and Rich started jamming together in the beginning of 2008. Sometimes we were fortunate enough to jam with this guitarist by the name of John Mansfield, but that ended up not working out. Things started coming together in February of 2010 when Charlie Forsyth joined and Pete in May. We were ready to audition vocalists in October and that is when Mike Goncalves auditioned and joined to solidify the lineup of PAINTED RUST.

Members: Richard Michael Emory: Guitar/leads/Arm rendering ju-jitsu and arm bar dive bombs, Charlie Forsyth: Bass and taco domination, Peter Llyod: Guitar and shredtastic aerial support, Mike Goncalves: Brutal vocal assault, Andrew Hernandez IInd: Drums and lack of respect for winter fashion Accouterments.

Releases: We recorded a 4 song demo that we will have with us at the show and on the 5 day mini-tour. I don't know when we'll get around to recording a proper release, we haven't discussed if we will move towards that and record an EP or hold out and record an LP, but I'd assume we would record in 2011 with late release in 2011 or total Mayan calendar meltdown in 2012.

Band history: It has been a long road to where we are today and I applaud my band members for sticking it out, thankfully we all have busy lives and side projects, I am probably away from home at least 3 months and up to 6 months out of the year, that is a lot of practices missed.

Band name: Mouth To Mouth To Mouth

Location: Ithaca, NY

Members:
Gabe Millman: drum gits & percagits
Corey Fox Mahaney: gits & vix
Bubba Crumrine: bassgits & vix
Peter Pillardy gits & bits

Formed: Fall 2010. About a year and a half ago Corey, Peter, and Gabe first discussed starting another band together because initially they were all in Makeshift together. More and more bands were formed but the idea kept lingering between the three of them. Corey mentioned the idea to Bubba around the time he was contemplating starting up a band more akin to his first Ithaca project, Bazaar of Guillemots, after playing some of the material for friends Sleep For The Nightlife. Corey and Gabe started writing what became "Open Hand, Insert Mouth" in August of this year while Peter was in Poland. The three who were in Ithaca started jamming while Peter started learning the material via Skype. We played a secret show in November and people said we were smokin'.

Releases: Nothing! We're on the face and the my though. Three tracks on each but they're different.

Sounds like: Mathpunk... a bit of an oxymoron?
Feels like: You're a spool of thread tied to an antennae of a car heading a high speed chase, rapidly unraveling.
Tastes like: Kiss your Mom and your Dad at the same time.
Smells like: Teen spirit! Wait.. that's taken. Naked men. Maybe we should have used that for sounds like.

Features members of: Speak Daggers, Ballistic Shit Circus, Makeshift, Fight A Scary Dog, Genital Holograms, Brian!, Angry Furniture, DAADs,

Upcoming shows: Friday, Jan 7 with Beach Parade, Longitude, Cattle Drums, Sirs, and Johnny Lucas at GreenStar Annex. 8PM $5. We've got a show coming in Feb but we can't talk about it yet.