GENESIS
THE HISTORY OF BLASTING TROUT OVERBITE
THE SHORT VERSION
blasting trout overbite is the name of a band formed by dan jircitano, arthur bond, matt brewster, and john plasket. we all wrote songs, and all played whatever instruments we felt like. it was kinda loose, you see. we played a bunch of shows, but we never made any money. we made all our songs available on the internet, for free. we played at parties, but we were not a cover band, nor a crowd pleaser. we had a sizable following (who were probably just being polite). our music is amateurish, spontaneous, and pure, in its own way. we let -- no! forced -- all our friends to be in our band. because of the fluid nature of our lineup, blasting trout overbite can be considered a collective; the name is an umbrella term that captures all we've done, but we have many, many, many pseudonyms 'cause we just like coming up with good band names.
THE LONG VERSION
PART ONE
2001-2002: THE FRESHMAN YEAR (albums)
(b-sides)
the
first seed of blasting trout overbite was planted when arthur and matt were
appointed roommates at the pennsylvania state university. neither had met
previously,
as arthur was from maryland and matt was from new jersey. in the summer of
2001,
arthur called matt on the phone and they exchanged their first words. matt
was on his
way to see the new star wars movie. matt asked arthur if he liked star wars.
arthur said
"yes."
that
fall, the two moved into their dorm. dan, who lived upstairs and had noticed
something matt left on a message board in the dorm, stopped by their room
to strike up
a friendship with matt. unfortunately matt wasn't there and dan had to strike
up a
friendship with arthur instead.
later
all three of them ended up joining wehr, penn state's student radio station.
arthur
and matt had a show called "screwknocking" and dan had a show with
his friend mohan
which had a title having something to do with owls. it was through the radio
that the
three of them met plasket, who also had a show ("radio asinine").
one
fateful night in october, the four of them and dave (a neighbor from the dorm)
sat
down to play risk in the student union (or "hub," as they call it
at penn state). since
dave, matt, plasket and arthur were all film majors, they began to brainstorm
an idea for
a short film. it was to star plasket, and the plot would consist of plasket
carrying around
two buckets of paint and spilling them in various locations around campus.
every time
he spilled the paint, someone from offscreen would yell "plaaaaaasket!"
in a chiding
manner.
the discussion ended there, and the group of them walked back to their dorm
at
3 in the morning, stopping only to briefly watch a meteor shower that was
taking place
that night.
the
next evening, matt, arthur, dan and plasket convened for dinner in the "big
onion,"
one of the fine eating establishments in the freshman dining hall. again the
short film
came up in conversation, and this time it was decided that the four of them
should form
a band in order to record the soundtrack. immediately after dinner they went
back to
matt and arthur's room and recorded "the
fish song." sadly, the short film starring
plasket was never made.
the
band was immediately highly prolific, recording their debut
ep and first album
in a
matter of months. during that time they also met taylor, who had his own show
at the
radio station.
for
a brief period a guy named parke was in the band. he lived upstairs and played
drums pretty well. the idea was that arthur would play keyboards while parke
played
drums. luckily that didn't last very long. you can hear parke's drumming on
the great
song disaster "th'."
in
the spring arthur met jess through his japanese class. dan had already met
her earlier
in the fall, so she was a clear choice for joining our collective. on top
of that, she already
had a radio show with her friend amy, who became one of our biggest fans.
in
march the band recorded their first birthday album, for dan. since dan was
not
involved in the recordings, the other members decided to work under a different
band
name - the three meefs. the
album was recorded in one night, and was mostly
improvised. this inaugurated two blasting trout overbite traditions: making
birthday
albums for their friends and bandmates, and recording under many, many different
band
names.
towards
the end of the school year, dan met paul (who also had a radio show at wehr),
although the rest of the band would not officially meet him until several
months later.
on
the whole, the band tried too hard in its first year to be a "funny"
band. this was
probably due to their lack of proper equipment - most notably a drum set -
but also it
was emblematic of a band full of uniquely talented individuals who were trying
to feel
out their niche. despite this confusion, blasting trout overbite's first year
yielded many
still-classic songs.
PART TWO
2002-2003: THE SOPHOMORE SLUMP (albums)
(b-sides)
the
band came back from summer vacation highly motivated. everyone was excited
to collaborate with paul, who was almost certainly a new member of the band,
and also
arthur, matt and dan now lived in the fancy west dorm complex, all on the
same floor.
matt and arthur were still roommates, and dan lived right next door to them,
with an
awesome roommate named joe.
sadly
plasket and paul lived across campus in the south dorms, which caused a bit
of
tension since they could not always make it to recording sessions.
the
band's sophomore year was perhaps their most creative. many awesome projects
surfaced, most notably the 10 and 30
second song series. the band experimented with
loops and
a
crazy
effects
pedal. they
recorded their first concept
album. they planned
(but never finished) a noise opera to be called "the
rise and fall of tom dish." they got a
ton of hits on their website by posting flyers around campus telling students
"DON'T
VOTE" in the upcoming student government elections. a host of new band
names
surfaced, including dr. perfect, fewn, donut disaster, hitler lives in shunk,
john and frank,
fucking molly ringwald, the kid rock expert band, mean machine and his merry
mud, president sheep, the smashing zwans, hot choice, jool, set your phasers
on rock,
sexy grandma, spitty saucecup, the new zeal, and we ARE the bus. also the
band played
its first actual live show in a coffeeshop on campus, ushering in a long tradition
of
crashing campus open mics.
in
some ways it is incredible that so much material was recorded that year, considering
that the band members spent a majority of their time being mad at each other
for a
number of wildly varying reasons which we will not go into at this time.
PART THREE
2003-2004: THE BIG COMEBACK (albums)
(b-sides)
when
the band returned from vacation this time, arthur and matt were living in
the same
room in west halls (for those keeping track, it was a22 hamilton hall - dan
and arthur
once drew a comic on the inside of the cabinet above the mirror which is theoretically
still there). dan had moved down the hall and now lived with paul, and plasket
now lived
next to matt and arthur (with a parade of obnoxious roommates). for the first
time the
entire band lived in the same building, on the same floor.
rather
than being super-productive, however, the band chose to put more of an
emphasis on quality. more time was spent recording with the four-track, rather
than with
arthur's computer. they put more effort into song structure and lyrics, rather
than on
improvisation (except, of course, for the pBOTe
project). and arthur finally had a real
drumset.
the
band played a greater number of live shows that year. arthur and his friend
zachary
from film class made a documentary about the band. matt got his theater
group to like
the band. the band had an entire entourage of fans, including rachel, kenny,
april, amy,
morgan and liz. new people sort of joined the band, including the great foodbag
who
lived down the hall, and neil, who lived upstairs and thought it was cool
that dan and
paul had a guided by voices poster on their door.
however
by the end of the year things began to look grim. the band was too busy to
make birthday albums, because there were just too many people to make birthday
albums for. on top of that paul and plasket were still feeling left out, which
discouraged
the other members of the band. blasting trout overbite recorded a birthday
ep for taylor
in early 2004, and then there was silence. deafening silence.
PART FOUR
2004-2005: CONFUSION, LAZINESS AND DESPAIR (albums)
(b-sides)
so
now then: matt, arthur and dan, along with two guys named tom and kevin, lived
in
their own apartment near campus. paul and jess shared an apartment on the
complete
other side of town. and plasket still lived in west halls, though this time
he had a single.
for
most of the year, absolutely nothing got done. blasting trout overbite was
essentially
dead. a very short ep was recorded
for the band's friend ava's birthday, but that did
nothing to inspire the band to record anything else.
matt,
arthur and tom briefly formed a band with the goal of actually playing a show
at a
local bar. their friend ana would be the singer. although they came up with
some good
songs, the project inevitably fizzled. however, one of the songs eventually
became
the blasting trout overbite song "ambrosian
wine."
finally,
with the end of college fast approaching, arthur, matt and dan realized that
time
was running out for the band, and that one final swansong must be recorded.
this
became the album "yes."
it was not perfect, and it did not involve the entire band, but
it was a fitting goodbye to their legacy of musical mischief.
PART FIVE
2005-?: LIFE AFTER THE OVERBITE (albums)
(b-sides)
it
seemed all was at an end with blasting trout overbite until arthur was feeling
bored
one day in the summer of 2005. he digged up some old lyrics for a very, very
long song
called "gumball machine part one" and recorded the first stanza
on his own.
immediately he shared it with dan using the miracle of the internet and a
new project
was born - the gumball project. it is a way for blasting trout overbite members
(and
members of the general public) to continue to collaborate even at vast distances.
it has
also been highly successful, as the first gumball project album is nearly
complete as of
the time of this writing, and already involves all four original members of
the band (with
some surprising guests!). you can check on the progress of this ambitious
project in
the forum.
so
it looks like blasting trout overbite's story isn't quite over. in fact, you
could say it's
just beginning! you'd be wrong though.
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