ARTiST: Avi Buffalo
ALBUM: Avi Buffalo
BiTRATE: 196kbps avg
QUALiTY: EAC Secure Mode / LAME 3.97 Final / -V2 --vbr-new / 44.100Khz
LABEL: Sub Pop
GENRE: Indie
SiZE: 66.67 megs
PLAYTiME: 0h 44min 57sec total
RiP DATE: 2010-05-06
STORE DATE: 2010-04-30
Track List:
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01. Truth Sets In 3:35
02. What's In It For? 5:09
03. Coaxed 4:22
04. Five Little Sluts 2:56
05. Jessica 4:23
06. Summer Cum 3:33
07. One Last 3:59
08. Can't I Know? 4:30
09. Remember Last Time 7:28
10. Where's Your Dirty Mind 5:02
Release Notes:
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Avi Buffalo was once just the kid named Avi (short for Avigdor Zahner-Isenberg).
HeÆs now singing and playing guitar, but was then a vaguely aspirational
skateboarder living in Long Beach, who figured between hip trauma and a
never-quite-conquered fear of dropping into a half-pipe that he might need to
come up with something else to do with the rest of his life. (Maybe journalist?
If there were gonna be any left?) His parents never got around to getting him
the Game Boy he wanted, so he turned to a handily local guitar. Years of 12-hour
days attacking that (plus lessons-to-mentoring with seriously iconoclastic local
blues guys) revealed a pretty preternatural talent for making a very special
kind of bent but lovely pop song. ôYou know why itÆs good? Because it sounds
OLD, but itÆs NEW!ö said Blues Mentor, sparing the world more labored analysis.
And that is the connect-the-dots story of how Avi Buffalo became a bandù-boy
meets guitar. ItÆs a good old story.
Then boy meets rest of his band at Millikan High in Long Beachù-Sheridan Riley
on drums, Rebecca Coleman on keys and piano and Arin Fazio (the old man at
almost 21, whose dad was a session musician during L.A.æs glossier days) on
bass. By the time you read this bio, they will pretty much all be out of high
school. And that means we can push past the age thing into the music thingù-yes,
theyÆre young, and yes, says Avi, they can effectively metabolize even the most
ill-advised tourslops, and yes, many an article is gonna haul out a word like
ôwunderkind.ö But what can you do? TheyÆre gonna graduate into a beautiful
little album, and not everybody gets to do that. But even this young, itÆs been
a long time coming.
Avi (the guy) also loves (like his inspiration Nels Cline) noise. What he calls
ôreally tasteless brutal speaker gargling,ö is why the Long Beach Police
Department no longer permits him to rehearse in his own garage. But he spent the
mid-2000s singing quiet yet resolutely sophisticated songs into whatever free
programs he could put on his PC. And they were about as lovely and scruffy as
the songs analog guys like Pollard and Barlow and Fox would sing into tape decks
during their own long late nights.
A solo show at a much-loved vegan restaurant magnetized Avi Buffalo into a full
band; full-band Avi Buffalo magnetized L.AÆs Eastside musicians (plus they hit
all the major press in the city before they had ANY kind of record out at all);
and engineer Aaron Embry (Elliott Smith and Emmylou Harris sideman, among
others) invited Avi Buffalo to help him test out the new studio heÆd built in
his house. This was the big leapù-except for some after-class time at a local
recording school, Avi Buffalo had never existed anywhere but a laptop or a
really good house party. One of the first songs recorded just for fun was
ôWhatÆs In It For?ö; it was also one of the first songs Avi put up on MySpace
(ôBecause thatÆs all it takes,ö says Avi, still a tiny bit shocked). And once
Sub Pop came inquiring, WhatÆs In It For? became the first single from the album
(which hadnÆt even been thought of as a possible album until all this). This all
happened within a few monthsù-it even screwed up their grades at Millikan.
(DonÆt worry, no catastrophes.) And then, says Avi, everything got kind of
freaky!
ThatÆs where they are now: about to follow their first ten songs into the
outside world, and about to celebrate a 21st birthday, and about to figure out
whose foibles metastasize in what way after ten hours in a little van, and about
to settle into something that they could do for the rest of their lives.
Avi Buffalo is:
Avi Zahner-Isenberg û guitar, vocals
Rebecca Coleman û keyboards, vocals
Arin Fazio û bass
Sheridan Riley û drums