So, here we are, a new blog, and the first post (of many I hope) and Riko and Arman have very kindly given us some of there time to tell us about the origin of Flattbush and their influences.
Hehehe…being in a band is expensive. Being in a political band is more expensive! You get your car beaten up once in a while for being too radical or worse get physically beat up in the future. Hehehe…but yeah, I totally agree. If the content of our music is still the usual artsy fartsy, I quit long time ago. Actually the reason I am in Facebook because of Flattbush. I have to push the propaganda while we are not doing any live shows.
Arman: Hey riko,remember the worst days of our lives--high school. God damn,i hated every single day of it. And i thought having a band at that time will lift our moral to survive and counter our boredom. and man,even this days being in a band blows. Well if our music doesn't have progressive messages it would totally blows n i cannot find myself pushing without it.
But we should have stuck with our initial goal. The initial goal is the sound n vibe of BeeGees,Abba and Sade. Fuck i shouldnt bought the expensive bass and gears. Buying those shit made us push the band. I thought we will get our investment back once we start playing bowling alleys. I could have thrown the towel a long time ago but the towel is red and the battle goes on.
Riko: Yeah, high school was a total isolationism for me. I only had a couple of friends. Our common ground is listening to fuck up music and visual art. I think were the only people who like Faith No More and Mr.Bungle.
The worst is dealing with the Filipino-Americans who always made fun of our accents and grammar. There the one who made fun of us the most. You would expect that they are more welcoming to immigrants. So, we made friends with the Mexicans and caucasians instead. The black brothers and sisters are cool too.
Hehehe…being in a band is expensive. Being in a political band is more expensive! You get your car beaten up once in a while for being too radical or worse get physically beat up in the future. Hehehe…but yeah, I totally agree. If the content of our music is still the usual artsy fartsy, I quit long time ago. Actually the reason I am in Facebook because of Flattbush. I have to push the propaganda while we are not doing any live shows.
Arman: And of course we cannot dissect our formula or our influences,people might say we are bunch of rip offs and posers. but u know what, fuck it, we are trying our best to steal from bands and artists. Bands like Faith No More started it all from us. During the 90's our access was only magazines n MTV. Riko and I pretty much clipped all the FNM pictures from all existing magazine in this planet. We will pay attention on the rock shirts they would wear; Napalm Death,Mr Bungle,Carcass,Godflesh,Brujeria,Primus,Sepultura..well pretty much Bill Gould wear the coolest ones. Then we will go to tower records and check out those bands they are promoting.
And the band sthat really struck me was Brujeria. The "Matando Gueros" album,that was my high school soundtrack. It sound so shitty,scary, funny at times,has attitude... What i can remember,is one of the albums that gave us a blue print.
And of course, mr bungle gave us the artsy fartsy retarded edge. First time I saw Mr.Bungle, Melt Banana open for them. and Mr.Bungle kicked my ass,i was blown away. And every time I hear people saying that System of a Down is unique, I told them nah...their shit is remnants of Melt Banana "speak squeak creak"album period.
Riko: Even if we dissect and give our formula out there. Its not going to be the same. We only pay attention to the riffs that is appropriate for Flattbush. I definitely remember pasting Faith No More pictures on my high school folders. Actually I was doing some spring cleaning a couple of months ago and I found all these magazine clippings, posters, tapes, etc. I even found the maxi pads that Trey Spruance signed during the Mr.Bungle concert in the late 90's.
I have to listen to Mr.Bungle a lot of times before I can totally appreciate the music. The second album Caca Volante is just too much. But, it made my ears open to handle any type music. Melt Banana just sounded like a bunch of chickens getting raped in a small shoe box. But I liked them more when we get to hang out with them outside the venue and see how they struggle to push their artistic music. Remember that tour van they had. They divided the inside of their tour van with mini bunk beds and they all slept like sardines in there.
I never liked Brujeria. But I was entertained by its scary CD cover though. You know the decapitated head. What I did was passed it around in my classmates in high school and watch and see how they react. My classmates were just looking at me all weird. Hehehe…fuckers!
Then during our demo on the Smash the Octopus album I was sharing the stage with Juan Brujo singing Revolucion in some backyard show in L.A. Sung in tagalog and spanish back and forth. I taught I was going to get stab when Juan Brujo pulled out his Machete screaming Revolucion.
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