“The Soft Hands is all things to all people: little bit punk, little bit rock & roll, little bit country, said one guy after their first show, or little bit bald guy, little bit buff guy, little bit really awesome, said another drunker or just less polite guy a little later on. (Thanks, that was a compliment, I think, singer/guitarist/barely balding guy Matt Fry said back.) But they tend to play tense and fast punk and they run to catchy chorus sometimes rock & roll and they put an untouched guitar through nothing but a tuner and present themselves without anything to hide under besides their own carefully rehearsed skill country so you can see how a guy could be thinking. Bald/buff/awesome: eight months after meeting through dread Craigslist (not desperate, Matt says, but maybe next to desperate, he allows) want-ads, Soft Hands are welcomed with open arms.

Their songs move fast and so did they, going from a first handshake with drummer Casey Stuht to watching him screw his kit together to bouncing out most of the tracks on their first demo within a few weeks, playing wild in a UCI storage roombassist Elizabeth Lindsey would move projectors out of the way so they could practiceand then trimming the songs back to a minimum, a clean, careful sound that a chemical engineer could appreciate. In now-band terms, they hammer away like good, old Thermals and do choruses like Spoon, chasing the tail of unprocessed rock & roll. They dont even have any effects pedals, says Matt. Nothing but a tuner, two amps and a drum kit, and now a new practice space at the Koos komplex in San Pedro, which he describes by stretching his arms as wide open as theyll go, then reconsidering and tightening in about six inches (the small space has an effect on them, he addscompression made pressure made them play tighter and faster).

And in old-band termsnone of them are much into anything new, says Elizabeththey have Talking Heads with the first Modern Lovers momentum, a very simple sound, in that conveyor-belt way that characterized Ohio-factory-shadow bands like Human Switchboard (currently leading a monster revival in mentions in this section) or Ubu or pen pals the Girls. Every Soft Hand laps the rest through a three-minute average of verse-chorus-extra-bits and then theyre packed-up and ready to split in another 10 (theyre an easy band at travel, says Elizabeth). But theyre also a very calculated band: Matt says they just happen on their songs without even really trying to write, but they do record everything they do and then the music happens in the editing; all accidents written back with intent.

So modest lovers: the best Soft Hands songs are achievements in design; they seem formed of one piece at first and then crack open into millions. Im On Fire goes through three big changes in its first minute, and each of those changes is lattice inside, with Matt singing or Casey channel-changing his drum pattern or Elizabeth peeling her bass back down to a lower octave, and theres a cute chorus like Eno with a little vinoif it were a punker song, it would then have all its pieces defined and one more arbitrary shuffle would finish them up. But by the time its almost half-over, it hasnt really repeated itself yet, and when it does repeatchorus too nice to not swim in twiceit repeats with new inflections and accents that mimic the feel of conversation more than music compositionthe lightest, politest tap on the back that something a little new is coming up.

Matt laughs that he tries to keep his David Lynch . . . obsession, he calls it . . . out of the lyrics, but its all over his architecture: he writes his parts with the same precision that makes it pay to watch the background in a good filmparallel narrative hiding at the edge of frame; parallel music around the outline of the song. Elizabeth, too: a Joy Division/Bauhaus fan (bands that learned their bass lines from Toland and Murnau) and Casey, too, a drummer who thinks of Horsemouth Wallace at Studio One when its time to think role models, a drummer who Matt says never plays the parts they thought he would play, a drummer who can restrain himself into a hypnotic mamas-heartbeat pattern for almost a whole song and then blow out into some roaring Actuel-jazz 10-second non-composition (:47 into I Hope So) before dialing back to quiet standby and a caterpillar-crawl guitar line by Matt, which doesnt announce itself until you have agreed to at least several listens. Thats Soft Hands soft sell: another bit part hiding in the background, another song floating into focusanother little bit really awesome, like the guy said.”

It must have been around the year 2000 when i was hanging out at my friend Christian Smith's house in Norwalk, California. He had a small room we built in his garage filled with tons of crappy music equipment. We started jamming with one of his buddies that i'd met a few times previously, Jeff Watson. I think i was playing bass, Christ on guitar, and Watson on drums. after a while, i hopped on guitar. Jeff and i jammed and every time i'd try to 'trick' him with some weird cut, or timing, he was all over it. after that session, he says: You should come play with my band sHoeGazeR.

A few weeks later, Jeff and i are at the 6740 in Whittier's Historical Uptown Business District. I meet Oscar Rey, of sHoeGazeR, for the first time. He later tells people: This guy wouldn't even look at me. They give me their unreleased CD and tell me to learn the songs. I learned about six of them. I'd only just heard about sHoeGazeR through my buddies Andy and Isaac. About a week later we practiced. Two weeks later we had a show with BLACK STAR ACADEMY, Days End, and friends in the mountains.

sHoeGazeR has one more show. The Icarus Line took Jeff all over the world. Oscar asks me to play bass in his side project, disrespect for joy, with drummer Bernie.

Just prior to my joining sHoeGazeR, my old drummer Troy (friend-ship7 a.k.a BLOOD DRIVE, who would later play a show with HORNS) tells me to come play bass for these guys he's jamming with: Andy and Isaac.They were the guitarists in BLACK STAR ACADEMY. When i get there, they already have a bass player, so i just watched. The bassist left for some reason, and i hopped on bass. Since I'd been watching, I sort of new the song, and what i would play on bass. I think I got Andy's attention when i played that first chord on bass. That day, Andy and Isaac ask me to join their new side project: The Republic Of Lions.

I tell Andy and Isaac about jamming with sHoeGazeR, and that i'd never really heard of them. They show me some disrespect for joy (Oscar and Bernie only) video, and play me some sHoeGazeR cd's (or was it records?).

So later on Troy joins TOYS THAT KILL and goes all over the states. I'm playing with sHoeGazeR and disrespect while Jeff is off with The Icarus Line.BLACK STAR ACADEMY ends up changing their name to The Republic of Lions. They open up for us at a disrespect for joy show. That was our last show.

disrespect for joy disband. Andy, Isaac and I go to some studio in Santa Fe Springs just to jam. When i get there, there's a drum set already set up. I hop on just to mess around and we play the three  Republic Songs i learned on bass.

I used to play drums at Christian's house back in high school. We started a band called burnout. We end up breaking up burnout to join our friend Eddie's band: Friend-ship7. I played in f-s7 off and on for a few years, even as BLOOD DRIVE, opening up at one of the first HORNS shows

Somewhere around 2001 Andy asks me to do a quick tour with this band called Ex-Fork that he's playing guitar in. For some reason, I was supposed to play drums, but i had no clue what i was doing. I end up playing guitar because i learned them all after listening to the record twice, yet, still couldn't figure out the drums. Even when Mike Felix came over to Christian's house to show me how to play them! During that tour, Andy and I kept playing the Republic songs, and working on new stuff. Later in 2001, i play roadie/merch bitch to The Icarus Line. Holy shit, the first show i go to we're hanging out with The Dillinger Escape Plan!

Oscar had shown me a lot of sHoeGazeR and disrespect for joy stuff on bass. I figured, why not ask him to play bass with Andy, Isaac and I! I show him one of my bass lines (later on, that song would be Evil Ending... by HORNS!) and we all jam. By the way, this would be the first and last time i show Oscar a bass line. we learn a few of Andy's songs. Since disrespect was no more, i suggest we learn some of those songs and play them! (we end up stealing A rising sea, Lazy in Comparison,  and The Outskirts of Cattle Country). we go through various name ideas, including the 'then-dead' Republic of Lions. (Also: Your Kings Are Doomed!).

One day Oscar goes, oh yeah, we thought of a name. you're totally gonna hate it: HORNS!

http://www.thesoundofhorns.com
http://www.myspace.com/horns

Sexytime Explosion - 2003-2006 

Now no longer together, this debut album from this local Long Beach band is still available through Fidotrust Records.

"Any pop music aficionado over the age of 25 knows that all names bearing any esoteric relevance to a band's sound were used up by 1989, so judging a band by its moniker is a terribly antiquated measuring stick. But Sexytime Explosion (the name is an Ali G reference), a group of Long Beach lifers, have been known to induce a palpable overstimulation with their thick and rhythmic rock/punk/kool-thing amalgamation. We'll stop short of calling the demented circus keys of "Yesterday/Tomorrow" orgasmic in their push, spin and pull through the first moments of the album, but the ensuing racket certainly gets our rocks off. Some quick intros aside, this debut album stampedes along, herded into form by the imaginative rhythm section of Travis Laws and Chris Clawson.

Always happy to chat about the bass lines running through Rudimentary Peni or Subhumans music, Laws plays his four strings with the same kind of melodic abandon that made those indignant British punk bands so fun. Drummer Clawson has surprising finesse for a guy who can match pace and volume with the rest of this band. Guitarist Veronica Cruz bends her Flying V guitar through wild waves of mutilation, and if you are getting all these references you'll agree it's not too far a stretch to think of singer Jackie Ojeda as our little version of Karen O. And a few drunkards in the drunken Long Beach scene have been heard to mention such things that cause us to wonder whether she might be the object of desire in the fantasies that lead up to their, uh, alone-time explosions. This town is full of perverts—and good music."