Bitchin Bajas

They did a whole soundtrack for Water Wrackets!

cos i already had an armful of awesome records! also the cover art was a bit iffy. xp

Guess I can't argue with that. It's good though.

I bet it is! I actually got Water Wrackets off emusic and that was very good.

Pared down to 3 players for the 2nd half.

3rd dude played sax mainly or exclusively iirc. was good to see how different the main set was from what they're presumably normally like!

looking fwd to this. krausened is fantastic

Frippertronics / Alice etc is totes my wheelhouse but can't, won't, on principle, listen to a band that can't come up with a better name for themselves than Bitchin Bajas. Sorry. What if I choke to death on a cookie and this is the last thing they find on my turntable? "Looks like he checked out to...'Bitchin' Bajas.'"

I know, but you should still give it a try. It has been a few years and I've come around. I prescribe time and patience.

yeah, it's remarkably terrible. plus when they appeared, i was boycotting all beach-related band names & chill 80s ephemera in general. but the lecher's right. they're like harrison bergeron.

Don't call me that! Geez.

I know from having an unfortunate moniker, obvs. A lifelong burden!

all apologies. meant only in respectful jest.

Tell that to the Nestlé corporation, buddy :)

:)))

Frippertronics / Alice etc is totes my wheelhouse but can't, won't, on principle, listen to a band that can't come up with a better name for themselves than Bitchin Bajas. Sorry. What if I choke to death on a cookie and this is the last thing they find on my turntable? "Looks like he checked out to...'Bitchin' Bajas.'"

― Jimmywine Dyspeptic, Saturday, July 13, 2013 6:54 PM (1 month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i think they are very deliberately trolling with their band name (and album titles). certainly evokes four non blondes or a jimmy buffett cover band much more than any of their musical reference points.

Saw them today, & despite them arriving late and only getting to play for ~20 minutes, it ruled. Nice mix of guitar, mostly sax (a little flute), and keyboard/oscillator (?) running beneath it all, along with some pre-recorded percussion tracks. great guitar sounds...wished the set had gone on for 60. took some video i'll put up at some point.

love the new record, too.

so sad that some people won't listen to them because of the name! lol

awesome band, good people, great music

Maybe someday they will accept live percussion :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzWX9V894so

ha, love the grass cam!

I couldn't help but just chill in the shade on a grassy patch. Wasn't anyone around when they started, but a good 30 or 40 accumulated behind me by the end of the jam.

nice!

personally i love the band name

i hope they call their first album with a drummer "hit with the rhythm stick"

love this drone + sax noise https://soundcloud.com/bitchin-bajas/rip-this-joint-stones-cover

it's kind of a mess but i like it anyway

SMOKIN'

Last night I saw them perform Terry Riley's In C with 20+ extra musicians, many of whom i have never seen before (and some I have) -- i'm really curious who coordinated this performance? getting 25 (26? some people were out of my view) people in the same place once is a challenge, but ostensibly they had to practice at least once? Also, I know the score is fluid and can be adapted -- who was in charge of that? I could have stayed after to ask, I guess but I don't like to bombard people with questions after they spent roughly an hour playing music in a room that was getting increasingly hotter as the hour went on.

Overall it was great!

that sounds rad

I think that the three Bajas coordinate all of it.
They are remarkably talented and well connected.

I know that Dan has arranged performances of In C before, and Cooper has been recording with a diverse group of musicians working in Jazz, Rock, and Folk styles.

There is a collaboration with Joshua Abrams Natural Information Society forthcoming that I am pretty excited about.
I saw them play in St Louis earlier this year and enjoyed it a lot.

Ah, the recording job -- that explains it! I would gladly ask Cooper in person (I see him ALL THE TIME) but I'm a complete failure at cold introducing myself and he always seems busy. I feel lucky to be on the far periphery of something this cool though! I like where they're headed.

New album is excellent, BTW. Should have a review running soon.

Can't wait to hear & obtain the new one on wax...and see them play in a couple weeks. That Terry Riley show sounds awesome.

Baja O'Riley

haha!!

know what else was weird? i just read the part in my eno book about the happenstance recording of no pussyfooting, and how it was just old fripp and eno noodling around, and to sit there and hear almost 30 ppl play this strange captivating influential ~avant garde~ composition to a hot room full of people in 2014, it made me glad to be able to see the inheritance of 50 years of pushing the boundaries of what is considered music. i'm glad they are celebrating their inheritance, i guess! it's an honorable artistic gesture.

That sounds incredible! I've been in hot rooms listening to dozens of people playing long compositions but nothing as exquisite as what you're describing.

lol @ Baja O'Riley

i know this i sound like a one trick pony ..
but will any of this bands material appear on cd ?
not into doing the digital/vinyl option ..
summary : i really want this stuff on cd.

please edit my first sentence in that post as you see fit.

i.e. wine flowing @ hq.

lol @ Baja O'Riley

― lol on hoosly (crüt), Monday, August 11, 2014 8:20 PM (37 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i'm with you mark e, but it's not looking promising. the new album in August is coming on LP and cassette, though, so i guess they aren't completely averse to outdated physical media. i would love to give them some $$ though.

nevermind me, it does look like they've been releasing stuff on CS all along. not sure why they are so averse to CD.

fucking cassette !
again.
ok.
that's it.
fuck this band.
back to my gorgeous sounding tangerine dream cd reissues.
i would love to throw money at this bunch of media format elitists, but i do not want a cassette (seriously ! i lived in the 80s - was a dreadful format !), nor scratch friendly vinyl
oh, and fuck a digital only option.
despite the growth of digital/vinyl, the cd is still the format choice for the masses.
so, yes, i am one of the masses.

New record is really good. Really, really good. More after I digest it a few more times :)

You don't even get a download with the vinyl, Mark E!

That's a Drag City thing. They never give downloads with vinyl, it's stupid.

looking forward to getting this. lol @ an extra hour of material on the cassette version!

slowburner.gif amirite

kind of hilarious (and in keeping with their confrontationally awful band name) that this is pretty much on every format EXCEPT compact disc. and the cassette bonus tracks! jeez, guys!

it's rockin my world though.

cassette turnarounds (in europe anyway) are around 2 weeks currently, yet i'm seeing lots of tape release delays. my guess is that labels underestimated demand.

The bandcamp page now says cassettes ship 11/30, so I'm assuming they sold out of the first run and are ordering more.

From what I can tell, it's not the manufacturing as much as the shipping. I pre-ordered the new Howlin' Rain CD that was released on 10/8. Got an update on 10/16 that the LPs and CDs were still sitting on a container ship waiting to unload in San Francisco. Two weeks on from that and still nothing new, shit is just a mess.

ah yes, US ports are crazily backed up.

I love this so much. It captures Ra's starry-eyed space age optimistic side in a really reverent way while remaining extremely BITCHIN

Agree - it's wonderful

this band can do no wrong imo

this album gets better each time I play it

Yeah, this is great!

I wouldn't mind a new CAVE album while we are at it.

samesies

doing a short Midwest tour with Ryley Walker in March:

https://townsquare.media/site/838/files/2021/12/attachment-ryley-bitchin.jpeg?w=540&h=675&q=75

new one sounds great

https://bitchinbajas.bandcamp.com/album/bajascillators

heard it on the radio! yeah it's pretty cool

Can we get these dudes and Horse Lords to tour all over the country, please? Seems to be timing out well this time.

This year's album is utterly lovely, especially the first track which is like Steve Reich meets In a Silent Way.

Yes, first track is a highlight.

There’s also an alternate version of “Quackenbush” floating around out there which I prefer to the album version.

They just did a dc area gig and one in Baltimore both near me and I missed em both unfortunately

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cmsi-CBnyOk

Thanks for the heads-up, 'Amorpha' is delicious

wow this band has been around for almost a decade!!

haha, i still sort of think of them as a Cave side-project, but I guess that is not really the case, is it

understanding its origin as a side project makes it considerably easier to look past the truly shitty band name imo :)

i love BBs but i do miss cave

every now and then Cave's instagram will spring to life (with generally random posts), so maybe they're not entirely kaput.

I miss Cave, too. But they just released an album in 2018 ... which I recognize is 4+ years ago, but I don't think they're gone for good.

feels like literally a million years ago, haha

personally i love the band name

― the late great, Monday, 26 August 2013 18:04 (nine years ago)

New album is bitchin, as usual!

yeah i love the name

i think i remember them saying at their last show NYE a few years back that one of the cave members lives in nyc now? given how local scene oriented the other members are, it would explain the relative inactivity