I DONT BELONG IN THIS WORLD
a website by the TV BUDDHAS
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us | life | records | band in the modern world | mail |
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9/5/2013 PILOT LIGHT, PRAGUE CZ
10/5/2013 KINO EBENSEE, EBENSEE AT
11/5/2013 STWST, LINZ AT
12/5/2013 ARENA, VIENNA AT
13/5/2013 SECRET SHOW, WEST AUSTRIA
15/5/2013 TBC, LIEGE BE
16/5/2013 ESPACE B, PARIS FR
17/5/2013 CAIRO, WURZBURG DE
18/5/2013 WHITE TRASH, BERLIN DE
See you on the ROAD !
T V B 4 E V E R
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1/2/2012
From the muddy banks of Prenzlauerberg to rainy Israel, we have traveled to
rest before our next massive tour, coming up this spring. For this tour we will
be releasing a brand new EP (streaming above), recorded traditionally in one hour,
and mixed by the amazing Steve Fisk (Beat Happening/Nirvana). This tour will
also be taking us through the UK, and will continue, probably, from April, well
into the summer festival period, which we are keen on hitting hard this year.
So, I guess, see you all very soon ! If you see any hole in our tour schedule
which you think you can fill with your crazy friends in your fucked up living
room, drop us a line.
still jammin' econo,
T V B
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12/12/11
Another tour ends, crashing into the cold Russian winds blowing from the
east and through our Berlin street, with it's now naked trees and soothing greyness.
Our blue van is finally at a halt. We ritually clean it of empty Coke cans and discarded
wrappers of all sorts, as if to thank it in a way for not breaking down.
On the couch, in front of the TV, at the end of a crazy race, our bodies begin to
ache. The pain, held back for the sake of survival, creeps in slowly and increases with every
day at home - our necks broken from sitting in the van all day, our backs twisted from carrying
gear up and down the stairs of endless clubs, our ears ringing from bouncing high pitches off of naked
concrete walls, and our bodies weak from not enough vegetables and too much fried food.
At home, it is winter time. The sun comes up late in the morning and sets early in the evening. The days
are too short, and the nights too long. Theres always lots of time to think about your life, and
other depressing things when you get back from tour in the winter. The whole carefree, everything's
temporary, underground youth, live cheap/die young thing, which celebrates its own self destruction
nightly, out on the streets, down in the bars, slowly loses it's grip on the wheel of indulgence and slips
into a kind of contemplative coma from which one wakes up only to realize he is very lonely and
unsatisfied. Add to that the short days, tempreture drop, and constant seasonal reminder
that you actually have a family back home, with whom you have not been in touch for a good while now,
and you got yourself a good reason to want to bury yourself in your own mess and hybernate.
The periods between tours are full of days where your just counting money, and asking yourself if you have enough
till the next tour. It's funny, working your ass off for two months straight, then getting home to not that much.
The money thing, it's like a weight that someone puts over all your thoughts, and all your hopes,
and all of your rationalizations. An undeniable weight that haunts you and decomposes your soul.
Like a distant echo of your parent's generation telling you to get a real job, before you really hit a wall.
Most bands leave money questions unanswered, never really facing them, because most bands "grow up" and move,
in one way or another, out of this lifestyle, or simply indulge in it on the side, as a hobby in their spare time.
We chose, for better or for worse, to make this our full time job, therefore we find ourselves "growing up" within the
sphere of the underground scene, having to deal with questions of money and stability withing the band.
With every tour, we feel surrounded by more and more young people who have no questions at all, who go on tour to
get wasted for two weeks, before they "move on". On that level, it sometimes feels like we exist as a band in
a vacuum, as if we were the only ones stupid enough to take it so seriously, while everyone around us is getting high
and just being kids. On dark days, it's the promoters who keep us going when we're down, with the hard, and
mostly very unrewarding work they do trying to make something cool in the DIY scene.
This winter tour was really good, even though many times during the tour we thought we should maybe quit and
rethink everything. Alot of that had to do with the accumulating frustration from hundreds of shows, with
very little professional progress. With many van problems, money issues and a sense that as a band we don't
fit anywhere, it was easy to want to throw everything away, and at times liberating to just fantasize about it.
But slowly, through some great shows and with the help of our friends, we realized that maybe it's exactly this
frustration and alienation we feel standing next to other bands and "regular" underground types, that defines
us as a group, defines what we have to say, and defines us sonically as well. Maybe it's our purpose to write
songs about these everyday things that stem from being so deeply invested in underground music, that you can't
see it without it's banalities. Maybe we're supposed to be the ones who are straight-forward and transparent
with our inner conflicts as human beings. Maybe we exist to point out the esoterics of punk rock. Maybe
it's not all for nothing.
So what's in store for next year ? Well, there should be two more 7 inch records coming out in the spring, which
we recorded in one hour at a nice studio in south Austria, and probably a full length by the end of the year.
There's an idea to work on a graphic novel, and hopefuly a new film. Also we started buying some old analog
recording equipment, a reel to reel machine, an analog mixer and such, for the purpose of recording our own
LP next year by ourselves in our very own Berlin studio.
We want to thank all the real kids who are regularly a part of our life. You know who you guys are.
If your in Berlin and wanna watch a movie and eat a pizza with us, just hit us up. And if you live far away,
raise your slices high, and think of us. We are thinking of you.
Makin' by with what we got,
T V B
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NEW LIVE MASH-UP VIDEO FOR "HELLO TO LONELINESS" OFF THE UPCOMING 7"
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25/8/2011
Before boredom completely eats our brain, we would like to announce that our massive,
nearly 50 show long autumn tour in Europe, will be starting in mid October, in support
of a new 7" release on a new label, Staatsakt, and a new distributor, Rough Trade.
You can get the new 7" directly from us at shows (unless it runs out), or order it
from our online shop. Only 500 printed, so make sure you get your hands on one.
We cannot begin to express how happy we are to get our fat asses off the tv couch
and get back in the van. We will be playing everywhere in western Europe with the
exception of The UK and Italy (too slow, promoters, too slow). This new 7" is the
first of a five 7" series, so except much more introspective loudness from us these
coming months.
See you on tour !
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3/6/2011
We started out five years ago as a duo. We would practice in an old bomb shelter
in the town we grew up in back in Israel, and read books about American hardcore
bands in the eighties. Me and Mickey loved each other and were happy together, but
something in our lives had to change. Mickey had dropped out of the army and later out
of college and was basically doing nothing but working and watching TV, and I was
growing very bored of my schooling as well and just felt like i dont belong with the
people around me. We wanted to do what every other band who ever mattered did.
We wanted to tour. We wanted to make art in a really free envoriment. We wanted to
live by our own rules. We wrote about 20 minutes worth of music, researched as much
as we could about touring from other local bands, and left to Italy for our first
European tour. It was really aweful. I was a shitty booker and we had to lend gear from
people because we couldn't afford renting. Mickey hated every aspect of touring. All the
"guy" stuff like getting drunk, smoking weed, and especially the stress of spending time
with strangers every night. I just tried to keep it together. We were new and couldn't get
any guarantees. It was kinda dark.
After the tour we returned to Israel, but couldn't really find something
meaninful to do back there. We were living in an apartment and working at a record
store, barely making enough money to sustain ourselves. A second tour seemed like a
good idea - we could leave our apartment, and we'de have less expensses than when
we're home. Using the contacts we got from the first tour, we booked a second one and
were able to get a few guarantees, rent gear, a slightly bigger car and even bring along
my brother as a roadie.
The second tour was longer and better. Promoters seemed to like us, we made alot of
friends, and sold alot of cdrs, which we would make back then on the laptop before
every show, and then hand paint with sharpies. At a Vienna show we met TROST who
later became our label and good friends. They liked us, even though we were quiet and
awkward and played around 20 minutes worth of music. When that tour was over we
went back to Israel, recorded an LP in 5 days (The Golden Period), sent it to mixing in
the US, and went straight back to Europe for an LP release tour. On this tour we had Uri,
Mickey's brother as the roadie. This third tour was even longer than the second one.
Slowly, the center of our lives became touring. We would go back to Israel for short
periods of time, empty our parent's refrigerators and wallets and then go back on the
road. We were able to save up money this way, and sort of make our living off of touring.
As long as we were touring non stop for about 200 days a year we were OK.
We basically lived in the cars we would rent. We would drive endless hours, over 20,000
Miles a year, talking about movies, punk rock, listening to music, fighting. We decided
to move to Berlin in the car. We decided to get married in the car. We decided we
should be a trio in the car. Our last tour as a duo was in winter 2009. We did 93
consecutive shows in more than 3 months on the road.
With one LP out and hundreds of shows behind us we had made some kind of a nice
medium sized name for ourselves. We could get shows more easily and were working
with some booking agents who became interested in us. We were a weird half breed
between a local band and an international one. Promoters became friends, people who
rented gear to us, printed our shirts, screened our posters, became familiars, people we
later hung out with. When we recorded we recorded cheap and with friends, but under
our terms, and to our taste. It was as close as we had gotten in life to artistic freedom.
It was what we had left Israel for.
Uri, who was our roadie on and off since he was 18, eventually joined our band. I can't
solo to save my life, and we wanted to structure our songs more classicaly so Uri fit right
in. The change was good but the begining was hard. We had scored great shows for a
spring tour, but were having a hard time on stage. People who liked what we were doing
before kept away from the new material which was faster, and "poppier". We
had been listening to the entire Ramones discography over and over for 3 straight
months in the car and just decided that this is what we wanna do. Nothing felt more
real than to write simple songs about ourselves, how we feel, what we are frustrated
with. Nothing felt more experimental. Our first EP with Uri was recorded in 1 hour in
Berlin.
We managed to get through our first tour as a trio, and when it was over, we
were able to afford moving to Berlin. At that point, we planned our biggest venture yet -
A two month long tour of the US. It wasn't the smartest move at the time, money wise,
but we felt we had to go there and give it a try.
It was not my first time in the US. I knew all about conditions there, how underground
bands are treated mostly, and what I should expect. But we had some money saved
and planned not to lose more than a certain amount. Eventually, those plans went
down the drain when more than 70% of the shows were in one way or another cancelled.
Promoters stood us up, or didnt promote at all, audiences were thin, shows cancelled
almost every other day, we drove enormous distances to find out that the promoter had
completely forgotten about us. It seemed like America had become an oversaturated
place and that the underground had become extremely indifferent.
We were completely broke after that tour. We had lost everything we saved for years,
and just felt like failures. But even thought it was a really bad experience and we were
kinda on a bad streak since the change to a trio, we wrote some great songs. Songs that
came out of those experiences, about desperation, about being alone, about caring for
something that no one else cares about, about what we feel punk means, about the
world and not fitting into it. By the time we went back on the road in Europe to try and
make back part of what we lost, we had an entire new lineup of songs. And when we
played those songs, we felt a burn deep inside. For the first time in a long while, we
felt we had struck something rare and we were happy to be together. We even made a
nice little documentary about the US tour so it didn't feel like it was all for nothing.
The last tour we did this spring was a great experience for us. Europe was green
and majestic and it just smiled at us as we drove through it. Our shows were
well attended, and people seemed to really dig the new songs and some even
seemed to understand what we were saying in them. We kept an open mind and
positive karma and we recieved positivity back. Our instruments finally meshed
well. We just found our "thing" on stage.
Now we are home, resting and recording one song at a time. We decided we should
take our time writing and recording from now on. Take the time to understand what
it is that we want to say to the world and how. Maybe thats what growing up means...
Well, that's all i can say about us right now. Hope to see you this winter,
Still jammin' econo,
T V B
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