Thee Electric Bastards

Thee Electric Bastards are many things to many people and everything to nobody at all. Influenced by science fiction, 60's psychedelic garage rock, Bowie-worship, Kinks-worship, and more than a little bit of good old-fashioned misanthropic paranoia, thee Electric Bastards sing the soundtrack to the ongoing evolution from meat-and-bone based life to the hybrid cyborg organisms we post-humans are in the process of becoming. If you think we're wrong, just fire up your iPhone or Blackberry and ask all of your closest virtual friends what they think. We'll give you time to form your own opinion while you crank up the google machine and check the wikipedia.

Based in Boston, MA, thee Bastards have taken many forms over the past decade, all of which originate in the fragmented brain of one, John Parker Northrup (a.k.a. Johnny Northrup/Johnny Coolbreeze/Johnny Destructo/Johnny Thorazine/thee Evil Elvis – anyone with that many alias' has to be just a bit off, don't you think?)

Having recorded a couple of 4-track albums under his own name (the Maine Album, 1999; thee Evil Elvis Ep, 2001), Johnny began giving home made cassette copies to friends, associates and other musicians around Boston with whom he felt shared an artistic affinity in the early 00's. He hit the jackpot when these tapes fell into the hands of a friend of a friend who happened to have recently acquired the monetary resources to start a small record label–the short lived, Rob Rekords. Johnny pitched his idea for an album called, 'Thee Electric Bastards' to Rob, himself. Even though it was largely a solo album, Johnny was bored of the singer/songwriter aesthetic and wanted for 'Thee Electric Bastards' to be perceived as a band and to have significant contributions from other musicians.

Thusly, the first incarnation of thee Electric Bastards was an album bearing that name. It was recorded in 2002 at the old New Alliance studios behind Kenmore Square under the watchful eye of co-producer, Matt Squire (who later went on to great success producing such bands as Panic Act The Disco and Cute Is What We Aim For and all sorts of other bands who bear zero resemblance to thee Bastards). Aside from Matty, Johnny enlisted the help of many of his very talented friends in creating this album, including Geoff Tarulli (drums), Jenny Townsend (cello), Don Pascucci (woodwinds), and Jerry Lyons (percussion). At the very last second, Rob flaked out and disappeared without having paid the final installment to the pressing plant. Johnny–broke as always–borrowed money from a pot dealing friend of his and paid the final $400 or so dollars to get his hands on the CD's. After many hours of laboriously hand assembling CD's, the first Electric Bastards album was born. In the future, when the situation got a bit more complicated, this self-titled release would be referred to as 'the Brown album.' This was in reference to the heavy duty brown cardstock that the CD jackets were pressed on by a now defunct plant in Chicago that used turn of the 19th century letter pressing machines to make what the band whom Johnny borrowed the idea from, Shellac, referred to as 'Tortoise style packaging.' Shellac, of course, borrowed the idea from Tortoise. And so on.

It didn't take long for Johnny to realize that if he wanted anybody at all to hear this record that he was so proud of that he'd have to start a band. Dipping once again into an seemingly inexhaustible pool of talented friends who for some reason liked his music enough to put up with Johnny's wild mood swings–both artistically and otherwise–the band, thee Electric Bastards was born. The first incarnation of the band called thee Electric Bastards included, Johnny (lead vocals, auxiliary guitar, keyboard), Geoff Tarulli (drums), Michael Gowell (lead guitar), Ben Patterson (rhythm guitar, vocals), and Marc Campiola (bass). After a few practices, Marc Campiola stepped down to be replaced by Josh Fiedler (bass). This lineup played its first show at a little hole in the wall in Central Square, Cambridge called All Asia that was infamous for being double booked and otherwise shoddily run. This particular Tuesday night was no exception. Thee Bastards loaded their equipment into the club to be told that they would be playing in between the acts of an open mic comedy night. It was a bad scene for the open mic night, as thee Bastards brought a decent crowd in to witness the popping of the band's live cherry. The comedy being delivered on stage was no match for the heckles of the many comedians in the crowd that had come to see thee Bastards and were stuck watching local jokesters ply their dubious craft. However, the club owner quickly saw the direction that this was headed in and basically kicked the comedians out of the club so that the rock show for which 90% of the people in attendance had come could commence. As far as anyone knows, that was the end of open mic comedy night at All Asia.

Over the next several years of the early to mid 00's, thee Bastards went on to become regular fixtures at all the Boston-area clubs–the Middle East, TT the Bears, Great Scott, O'brien's Pub, P.A.'s Lounge, just to name a few–as well as venturing south to Providence, NYC, New Jersey as well as many, oddball out of the way places including a memorable appearance in the nowhere town of Troy, NY. The Troy show came at the behest of a fellow named Jason Zemniak who ran a label called, Chromepeeler records. Chromepeeler's claim to fame was two compilations called, 'You've Got Your Orders.' The idea behind these comps was that the artists were to write songs around titles that Jason came up with, and included the participation of such artists as Mike Watt (Minutemen), Thurston Moore (Sonic Youth) and Thalia Zedek (Come), Twink (Pink Fairies, Pretty Things), Nikki Sudden (Swell Maps) and Steve Mackay (Stooges). Also amongst the ranks for volume two was a fellow named, Steve Brodsky. Steve's band, Cave In, split the rehearsal space in Allston with thee Bastards that would in the coming years become formally known as the world famous, Club Awesome. Steve and Johnny had become friendly due to mutual aquaintances, as well as a mutual respect for eachother's music. As far back as high school, Johnny had admired Steve's work as the leader of the seminal Boston hardcore-cum-"space rock" band, Cave In. Later he would become a fan of Steve's solo albums, 'Expose Your Overdubs,' and 'Ole Sunday,' which were more in line with Johnny's own musical influences. Johnny had given Steve his 4-track tapes, and was somewhat surprised to get very positive feedback from this accomplished young musician. At Steve's reccomendation, thee Bastards played the Boston version of the "You've Got Your Orders" CD-release show at TT the Bear's alongside Brodsky and the late Nikki Sudden. Steve's song for the comp was entitled, 'The Voice Electric,' which would later become a staple in the set of Steve's new band, the Octave Museum, for which he would recruit Johnny to play bass (his primary instrument) and sing backups.

In the meantime, the band went through another line-up change. In late 2005, Ben Patterson would amicably part ways with the band to satisfy his own musical aspirations. Ben was a proponent of Johnny's 'alt-country' leanings which had been especially prevalent in the 'brown album' songs, "Texas," "the Fear," and "Problem Song, but had since given way to the more 70's-styled guitar rock that Johnny was now writing around the 'triple guitar attack' of what he thought of as 'the live band' version of thee Electric Bastards. Marc Campiola re-entered the picture, this time on rhythm guitar and backup vocals. It was during his initiation that the documentary film, "Hanging Out With The Dudes," was filmed around thee Electric Bastards by Dutch film-maker, Charlotte Goavert, whiched aired to nobody on Somerville Access Cable Television, accompanied by a well-performed, but hilariously awkward TV studio live set.

In 2006, Steve Brodsky volunteered/was recruited to record the next Electric Bastards album, which was to be called, "Live! at Club Awesome." 'L!@CA' was the first of several Club Awesome recordings, the most notable of which was probably the first Clouds album, 'Legendary Demo' (Hydra Head Records), which Johnny had a small part in mixing. The idea behind 'Live! at Club Awesome' was rather simple. The band had started out as what was basically a studio project, but had been working for several years on being a real band and wanted to reflect thier endeavours by recording an album that sounded like what they actually sounded like–no overdubs, no bullshit. All of the music was recorded live, aside from the vocals. The vocals themselves were not multitracked, in that Johnny and Marc (and sometimes Steve) sang together. The notable exception is the last song, a loose acoustic romp called "Millenium Blues," which had Ben stuck around, he probably would have enjoyed immensely.

Midway through mixing the album, there was a computer problem which resulted in the loss of half of the original songs. After much wailing and gnashing of teeth, the boys and Steve regrouped and re-cut the lost tracks in exactly the same method as the first time–live. Having learned a harsh, but valuable lesson about the merits of backup discs, the Live! at Club Awesome album was eventually completed. By this time Johnny had joined several other bands, including the Octave Museum–who would eventually give way to Pet Genius, which was Steve and Johnny with Cave In drummer, J.R. Connors. Also in operation within the hallowed halls of Club Awesome at this time was a prog-metal band called Hydronaut featuring Bastard's lead shredder, Michael Gowell and Johnny on bass (which still survives in slow burn mode to this day). Eventually, Johnny would go on to join Clouds who toured the U.S. extensively in the late 00's.

In late 2006, thee Bastards submitted a DIY-packaged finished version of the "Live! at Club Awesome" recording to Jason Zemniak and Chromepeeler records. Jason agreed to put it out. Packaging was re-designed, plans were made and the album was sent off to the presses. However, by this time, several things had happened that would eventually bring about the end of the 'live band' phase of 'thee Electric Bastards.' Michael Gowell announced that he would be taking a temporary step back due to the impending birth of his first son–who's mother, incidentally is Johnny's younger sister, Casie. This was not as controversial a situation as one might assume, as Michael and Casie had been in a steady relationship and living together for several years. However, even before the news of Gowell's impending hiatus, Johnny had become increasingly dissatisfied by the band's musical direction. Johnny had begun to feel penned in by his perception that he needed to write songs that would best suit the talents of the musicians around him as opposed to having the freedom to write whatever came naturally to him on a song by song basis. His newest songs were increasingly less dependent on the presence of multiple electric guitars, and he loathed the idea of forcing ideas into place that did not seem to fit and/or needed to be there to make the song better. This also led to dissatisfaction within the rest of the band, as some of the proposed newest songs called for long periods of inactivity by one or both of the guitarists. There was a stasis in which Johnny no longer wanted to write around the band, and the band seemed unwilling or unable to adhere to his constantly shifting taste in musical aesthetics. Also, by this time Johnny had joined as the bassist of Clouds and began what would be several years of extensive touring, writing and recording. Clouds was the classic 'new girlfriend' band for Johnny. He was re-energized to be recruited by a band that was musically adaptable, lightning fast as far as learning new songs, open to his ideas and seemed to be 'going places' that thee Bastards were not. In 2007 the band called thee Electric Bastards dissapeared into the night. It was just after this that the now post-humous, "Live! at Club Awesome" album was released by Chromepeeler records.

Here is the part of the story where some grand analogy about ressurection is supposed to be–some crap about the phoenix rising once again from the ashes of its own burnt out corpse or some such flowery, idealic nonsense. However, despite heavy activity as a role player in other bands over the last years of the 00's, Johnny has continued to write, record and hoard Electric Bastards songs–many of them on the same old Tascam 4 track that generated those first cassette tapes. So, yeah…maybe an analogy toward the eternal cycle of life and the universe is appropriate. Who knows? I'm just a guy writing a bio about his band in the third person like some sort of crazy megalomaniac…so why listen to me? The only thing I can tell you is that thee Electric Bastards will not be ressurected because thee Electric Bastards did not die, and will never die as long as I've got songs in my brain where feelings and emotions are supposed to be. Some people laugh and cry and carry on; I write songs. If I didn't I'd go crazy….er. Expect a new Electric Bastards album sometime in 2010. There may even be a new band called thee Electric Bastards to go with it.

Thanks for giving two shits.

=J.P.N.= 2009