TA-80 Will Bury You

TA-80's new c.d "TA-80 Will Bury You is now available at TA-80's new cd "Will Bury You" is now available to purchase at http://interpunk.com/item.cfm?Item=200983& Just copy and paste the link into your browser and it'll take you right to our new album. We spent a lot of time on it and we think it's our best one yet... Hope you enjoy it!

Track Listing:

1. Brandy and Boardgames
2. Public Housing
3. Seasons in the Slum
4. I Wanna Watch T.V. All Night
5. I Don't Wanna Think
6. Red Candy Vinyl
7. Gleaming the Cubicle
8. Oh, Lonesome Us
9. Trading Diamonds for Dominoes
10. Phantom Turntable
11. Circuits
12. Bury You
13. Swiss Chaps

01/03/2011 update

TA-80 are STILL working on their new album "Will Bury You"...We actually pretty much finished a month or two back but after listening to what we had it felt like it could use about two more "poppy" songs, so we started a new batch of demos. So now we have about 13 new demos which I'm currently writing lyrics for. Once I'm done with that we'll have a better idea what the strongest songs are, and hopefully record the 5 or 6 best ones and replace the 2 or 3 weakest songs on "Will Bury You".

Here's a list of the (mostly) finished songs that I'm pretty sure will make the final track list of "TA-80 Will Bury you":


1. Brandy & Boardgames
2. Public Housing
3. Seasons in the Slum
4. Phantom Turntable
5. I Don't Want to Think
6. Gleaming the Cubicle
7. Trading Diamonds For Dominoes
8. Bury You
9. Suicide Doesn't Go With My Shoes
10. (A special cover song I can't reveal yet since we havent got the rights to the song yet but hopefully I can name it soon...)

We also have a hardcore song called "Circuits" that I'm kinda on the fence on but a lot of people who hear it seem to think is super-great or something ... so we might end up using it...definitely in need of another vocal take though...

And we are going to definitely cut "Losing Time" and "Desperation Moon Landing."

Yesterday I finished writing words for a new song Klae wrote called "Oh, Lonesome Us". I laid down a rough vocal and once it was done I was like, "Hell Yes!" So that one will definitely go on the album once we record a final version. I also wrote 2 songs called "You're Sorry Now" and "Now I Hear the Knives" which we might use... too early to tell..."Now I Hear the Knives" needs a proper chorus. And we still have about 10 more sitting around without real titles or lyrics yet, but our goal is to have the final demos narrowed down and record the drum tracks by January 16th. And then hopefully record the remainder of the instruments and vocals by the end of january...

whoo...wish us luck!

- Jamin 80

.......................................................................

I'll start by talking about the hardcore song that Jamin mentioned, "Circuits." At first when I listened back to it with Jamin, I completely agreed that it wasn't strong enough for the album. I really like the idea of including a couple of hardcore songs on each album because we're all really big fans of Midwestern hardcore music. However, I don't want to include a hardcore song just for the sake of having one on there. If the song's not good enough, it shouldn't go on the album even if it means having no hardcore song at all. So Jamin and I talked it over with Jens and Klae who both went along with Jamin and I and it was decided that "Circuits" would be cut from "Will Bury You."

Then Russ came up to visit. We played him all the new songs and he flipped when he heard "Circuits." He thought it was great. At that point, I hadn't listened to the song in several weeks and I too thought it sounded pretty great and not nearly as bad as I remembered it. Now I feel that if we revisit the song and redo all of the vocals, because right now it sounds like we're all guessing at the melody and hit parts out of sync...it's still in demo form. It has a great, catchy hook with some Misfits style whoa-ohs and it'll be damn fine if we give it the normal TA-80 vocal treatment. We'll see.

The song I'm really on the fence about right now is "Suicide Doesn't Go With My Shoes." I absolutely love this song and think it's pretty and weird and something different sounding from us. I'm just not convinced it belongs on the album. I think we already have quite a few slower, indie, noise type songs and "Suicide..." may just be one too many in my opinion. Again, we'll see. Nothing is ever decided until everything is mixed.

Everyone has been writing new songs like crazy though. I'm definitely not worried about having enough great material for the album. We have enough songs for a double album. This won't be a double album. If I have my way, we will never release a double album. I think I may have mentioned that here before. 30 minute albums are the way to go! Leave 'em wanting more!!!

- Amy 80

.........................................................................

Amy 80: (to Jens 80) Did you wanna write one?

Jens 80: Nah, but we can watch a movie...

A soon to be world famous, TA-80 quickie!

Or not...but it sounded exciting. I'm just posting a quick update to say that we never brought the studio computer online again because we damn near lost everything we've worked on in the past 3 years. We now have a seperate computer to be used for this type of nonsense and will begin doing regular updates shortly. Thank you for your incredible and undeserving patience.

xoxoxoxo -

Amy 80

Is This Thing On???

Hello, faithful readers. We have been silent for many weeks. I apologize for that. As always, TA-80 has been experiencing some computer problems. Jamin 80 was talking to his mother earlier today and mentioned that we always have computer problems. I realized in an instant (and about 8 years too late) that the reason we have so many computer problems is because all of our computers are pieced together with parts from older, non-functioning computers that can still be raped for parts. We doom ourselves, right from the very start. Every time. So, I'm very sorry for not learning from my mistakes being wasteful with the little income TA-80 has.

I just stopped updating this post for about 15 minutes to unsuccessfully look up (and then eventually remember) the old name for a local Tucson brewery's, Nimbus, brand of beer. The beer is now called Old Monkeyshine. It's been my favorite Nimbus beer since when it went under the old name, No Evil. I remembered! Internet fail, be damned! I am the memory master!!!! Bwahahahahahaaaaa!!!!

Back to the point...We have not been sitting on our asses, drinking beer during our long silence. Okay, that's a lie. We've been getting drunk and fat. But we've been working our asses off too. Bury You is well over half finished, and when I say finished, I mean ready for mastering. We're still on our goal deadline of a January release. Everything is running along mostly smoothly and we're making some real progress. That's not too exciting to read about though, so let me tell you about some of the hiccups.

To start on the drums, I need to first say that Russ did an amazing job as usual. With that, we've just decided that this album needs about 4 new, kick ass pop punk songs before we can feel comfortable with calling it finished and Russ is ready and eager to get to work on finally finishing the drum tracks. Poor guy, he thought he was done 3 months ago. We can always drag everyone back into the studio. It's for the good of the new album. It'll be better because of this.

Next, and the start of my big bitches, comes the bass. I went into recording the bass for this album thinking that I would either buy a new bass and re-record all the bass parts or I would borrow the Gretsch from Jessica and re-record all the bass parts. That means that when I initially recorded all of the bass parts that are currently on the songs, I was planning on redoing them all with a better, more intonated instrument, thus playing all the parts better because of playing them for at least the second time. This idea started about 5 months ago and the songs not only have the original bass parts on them, but I am now moving into intensive mixing and I don't see myself fixing the bass parts any time soon. I don't know if I'm going to do it and that makes me feel lazy. It's not that the parts currently on the recordings sound bad. It's the exact opposite, in fact. Despite a total of 3 identified flubs which will never be noticeable by the final mastered product, the current bass parts sound perfect.

I should just leave it alone. It doesn't have to be a problem. But the perfectionist in me, the part that only comes out in music or competition, says that I need to kick myself in the obsessive video game playing ass and get to work. This is my job right now and I have no excuse to call in sick or lazy. I love this work and I need to work just a little bit harder to make to record sound just a little bit better.

The guitars ended up being almost as frustrating for Bury You as they were on Born Insecure. I had nothing to do with the instrument mixes on Born Insecure. At that time, the studio belonged to Russ and was called Russville Studios and Russ did all the programming, editing, mixing, etc. for the instrument tracks on Born Insecure and a fistful of other songs, old and new, that we feverishly recorded when Russ first rejoined us.

The obstacle that guitars presented on Born Insecure was in the form of the tracks being recorded with an amp that has a blown speaker. I should say that this amp is a Marshall classic and it sounds amazing (though small in size) at live performances and is sensitive enough for our amazing guitar feedback player, Jens 80, to work magic on. It's amazing for what it can do but there's nothing more. It's not a good amp for the main guitars to be recorded with. It ends up making a guitar track that is hissy, crackly and dirty sounding. Before you can even start mixing the sound, you have to try to isolate the hidden guitar sound underneath all of the noise.

For the guitar tracks on Bury You, we decided we would either use Russ' Marshall half-stack or Klae's tube amp. We ended up going with Klae's amp because it's so versatile and always has a nice, warm sound that really lends itself to pop punk. This is a good time to remind you that we just bought the studio from Russ. I am now in charge of all engineering on this album, on a program that I've never used before. I'm learning fast but I'm jumping into this head first and hoping that I don't completely fuck up. I know that if I do a good job I'll be able to keep engineering and getting better and that's a good thing. I'm just worried about learning how to do this with the band's product at stake. I don't wanna fuck it up.

Anyway, since I'm still learning this shit, I set the levels wrong on the pre-amp and ended up over compressing the guitars at the input, thus making it sound about the same as it would have had we used Jens' classic Marshall amp to record the guitars instead of Klae's fancy-schmancy tube amp. The only fix was going back and re-recording about 12 different guitar tracks. It could've been worse but still, a set back.

Vocals are coming right along. Main vocal parts are there for, I think, 10 songs right now. We're planning on the album having about 12-14 songs so we're just about there. There are still a mess of songs that need a mess of backing vocals. This album is definitely more music heavy than Born Insecure but I don't want to lose how vocal heavy our sound is. I think we have a way with harmonies and arrangements and it's important that we don't lose that with the addition of a super talented lead guitarist.

Keyboards are just getting started. We only have the Korg in the studio right now, which severely limits how much keyboard can be done at this point. Russ just bought an awesome new car and says he plans on driving up here to Phoenix to visit us all the time now so hopefully we can get him to bring up the USB keyboard next time so we can do all 'dat midi shit!! It's looking like the final drum tracks will be recorded back in Russville with Phat Phorty's mobile studio.

Other than that, we're busy trying to get some end of the year shows set up. Updates are still going to be a little spaced out because the only computer we have right now is the studio computer and right now, that tower mostly needs to stay in the studio because we're busy working. But I will try to drag this sucker out here once a week or so and give you all an update. Take care, kitties!!

xoxoxoxxx -

Amy 80

TA-80: Still Recording....

This is the actual beer (in the actual white-trash beer cozy) that I actually just cracked open, right now, and am actually drinking as I, in all actuality, type this post. Really? Yup!

I figured it was about time for another recording update. Last time I posted, I really just did a build up so that I could leave myself time and stories to fill up the space until the album is finished. I waaaaaaaaaaaayyyy underestimated our work ethic and stamina when it comes to recording. And at that, I have to immediately derail this into talk of work ethic.

I've been told by people that I look up to as working musicians that TA-80's work ethic is something to be admired. I have no other response, every time I hear this, other than to laugh it off. Let me break down this band for you. I, Amy 80, dropped out of college and either quit or get fired (or laid off) from every job I get; Jens 80 dropped out of college and either quits or gets fired (or laid off) from every job he gets; Jamin 80 dropped out of college and actually does really well as a worker bee (if it wasn't for his dead-beat, drifter of a wife, Amy...); Klae 80 dropped out of high school and gets fired or quits, etc. from every job; Russ 80 dropped out of college, was on his way to getting fired and/or quitting every job he got until he got his new, fancy-schmancy job that he has now. He's easily the most responsible of us all, and I'm sorry Russ, but that's not really saying much. Aside from Russ and his insane computer knowledge, the only thing that any of us are good at is being in a band. Not even a band, but this band. We've all been in other bands that did absolutely nothing. But when we get together and write songs and make music, something clicks and we all want to put in 200%. It's not because anyone is pressuring us or anything. This is what we're good at. We figured out what we're good at, and amazingly enough, we all happen to enjoy it just as much so it leads into us doing pretty good work, really fast. I guess that's work ethic. I call it having a good time.

So let me tell you a little bit about this album. Right now, we're planning on it being 13 songs. We don't have a track listing made yet because we haven't finished recording. I know that in this age of digital music, a lot of people wouldn't think of the song order as being relevant but TA-80 does. We don't think you have to listen to the songs in order to enjoy them, and by all means, if you can find free downloads, go to town...But, if you happen to listen to a full copy of our album and get to hear the way we lay it out, I sincerely hope it adds something to the overall experience, because that's definitely something we're going for. We're all fans of albums, not just single tracks. It's good stuff. I hope that doesn't totally get lost.

The track listing, as it appears right now (and in no particular order) is:

1. Trading Diamonds for Dominoes
2. Brandy and Boardgames
3. Bury You
4. Seasons in the Slum
5. I Don't Wanna Think
6. Losing Time
7. Desperation Moonlanding
8. I Don't Wanna Start
9. Gates of Steel
10. The Only Man Conway Twitty Every Loved
11. Suicide Doesn't Go With My Shoes
12. Too Long, Too Slow

Okay, I know there are more, but for the life of me, and can't remember them right now. Some of these are not the real titles, also. "I Don't Wanna Think", "I Don't Wanna Start", and "Too Long, Too Slow" will be changed. Those are the songs that don't have lyrics written yet. Or if they do, I haven't heard them. Jamin writes the majority of the lyrics so we don't really hear them until he records a demo. Then I listen to that demo (and no one else) and do a new demo with my voice. Jamin doesn't like his voice and usually doesn't want people to hear him try to sing. It's not as bad as he thinks but whatever...We all have our quirks.

We have 8 songs that are almost completely done right now, including punch-ups and vocals. We've all decided that our goal is to have all recording done by Halloween and start mixing after that. From there, we want to have everything ready for mastering by December so we can schedule a January release. Get ready Johnny Love!! We have shit coming your way! (Johnny is our AMAZING mastering guy.)

That's about all I have for you all for now. I'm going to work on some super rough mixes and get them up online for some very exclusive sneak previews. I am only going to give the link out to people that directly ask for it. In case you want it and are reading this now, just send me an email at amyta801 at aol.com and I'll send you the link when it's available. It might not be for another week or so, so don't hold yer breath or anything.

xoxo -

Amy 80

A Break From What You're Used To...

For any of you faithful readers out there, you may have noticed that all has been quiet on the TA-80 front for a while now. Hopefully you know, from our posts thus far, that that means we've been busy little working bees. Yes, it's true...TA-80 is back in the studio. It may seem surprising since it took a whopping 5 years for an album to come out after "Junk Car Grand Prix" but the truth is, we work and record constantly. Whether or not we get to actually enjoy the fruits of our labor is always up in the air but with this new and most recent endeavor, I'm feeling confident that we're building up to the most impressive TA-80 release this world has seen yet.

The big plan is that we will switch over this blog to become a recording blog. We want you to experience the recording of this album along with us. In order to do that I feel I need to start from the beginning.


I know. But this is the way it goes.

The demos for this album started several months ago. Actually, they pretty much began right after we got off of our U.S. tour with the amazing bands, The Queers and The Leftovers. The tour didn't go the way we expected and we left the whole ordeal knowing one thing for certain: We had to do what we felt (really felt) was right and keep working no matter what happened. It was the only way for us to continue as a band. That tour was a very hard test for us and at first glance, we failed miserably. However, if you take a closer, a longer look, you can see that we fell hard and came back even stronger. We were detrimentally naive and crushingly inexperienced but we have always learned fast and we took our short tour in as the biggest learning experience of our lives.

Our tour ended in Phoenix, AZ and we moved into an apartment complex across the street from our last show. We were flat broke, homeless, unemployed and the band was as close to being over as I've ever seen it. We were at our lowest point. I really wondered if we could actually pull ourselves back together. It was so bad that everyone was donating plasma twice a week just for enough money to buy some bread to eat and cigarettes to smoke. The cigarettes were unnecessary if you ask my mom, but with the stress that I and everyone else in the band was under, it wasn't even an option. If I could've been drinking a fifth of vodka a day at this point, I would've been drowning. I can't stress enough how not good the situation was. The only thing I had...the only thing any of us had, was our determination to not EVER make the same mistakes again. This is still our drive.



So, with that unhappy scenario, let me bring you into the most amazing and wonderful world of the new album, TA-80: Will Bury You. This album will feature Russ 80 on drums and vocals; Jens 80 on rhythm guitar and vocals; Klae 80 on lead guitar and vocals; Jamin 80 on keyboards, programming and vocals; and Amy 80 on bass and vocals. The album will be recorded and mixed by TA-80 and recorded at the (for now) official studio of Phat Phorty Records. One song will feature a steel guitarist, though we haven't hired that person yet. I'm sure they will be amazing because, at this point, we won't settle for much less.

We've been busting our asses on this album so far. We already have all the drums and bass done. We started recording guitars a couple days ago and only have about 6 more songs to completely finish before we can leave guitars behind and move onto vocals, keyboard and overdubs. Overdubs usually involve another instrument (or vocals) that has already been recorded but needs some punching up. So far, nothing needs any punching up, which is incredibly exciting for me, as one of the main engineers for this album.

My main goal is to get a sound that's near perfect with the initial recording so that I don't have to do any punch ins or anything. It's hard to do and near impossible if you don't have great musicians to work with. Luckily, I have phenomenal musicians to work with. I can't wait to give all of you readers a sneak preview of the album. You're going to get it. Just keep reading and in one of these upcoming posts, there will be a link to a site that will be exclusively streaming some of the new songs.

We have hardcore, country, folk, punk, pop, rock and all the genres that come in between, on this new album. I've included a few random pictures from our sessions so far. Unfortunately, Russ 80 is missing from these. We captured a lot of his input for this album in a video recording we did during a practice at his house down in Tucson. Russ is a huge part of this album and his lack of pictures should not ever make anyone think he wasn't around. He is there from beginning to end, as always, and will be on this album too. And he'll also be having a beautiful baby with his beautiful wife during the recording of this album. It's a busy time for all of us.

I hope this whets your palates enough for the time being. We all have a 3 day weekend coming up and will be getting shit-tons of recording done. I'm hoping that I'll be able to share some music with you by Monday night. If not, I'll for sure have more stories and pictures.






xoxoxoxoxo ~

Amy 80

TA-80: Angry Young Computer e.p.

Angry Young Computer





"Angry Young Computer" is the 11th TA-80 release. It is a 4 song e.p recorded in Russ' laundry room studio and was released in an extermely limited 20 or so copies, that were only given to close friends and family members, in December of 2008.

This was shortly after Melissa 80 left the band and Russ returned as drummer, and aong with me, Amy and Jens, I referred to this at the time as the "All-Star Line-up." We were all finally on roughly the same page and we all fully understood TA-80.

The first track on the e.p was a song I had just recetly written on a break while I worked at Citibank, called "Late Night Breakdown." This song appeared later in a slighlty different version on the "Born Insecure" l.p. This is one of my favorite TA-80 songs. It has a late 50's - early 60's feel that's fairly common in pop-punk, but is something we actually don't do very often (except for maybe "Stop the Clock" on this same e.p.). But this version is very much still a work in process.

The remaining three tracks are from an abandoned(?) project called "Weekly World News of the World", which was basically going to be an album of new recordings of our old material. The thing about our old albums is that the songs aren't necessarily always bad but the recordings and performances often were, and we had played alot of these countless times live over the years, so we thought we'd revisit about 13 or so of them. All in all we only finished five.

"Never Forget" was a live favorite from "Junk Car Grand Prix" that was plagued by the shittiest drum sound ever put to tape. This new version is cracking though.

"Stop the Clock" was a re-recording of an old "Hepatitus Bees" song me and Russ wrote back in the day about a particularly boring trip to the mall to buy socks. It's great fun though, and I love Jens' "Heathcliff" vocal at the end.

"Warm Kites" is a frantic, high speed revision of the "Junk Car Grand Prix" song, which usually gives us a reason to freak out during our live shows. I originally wrote this for me and Jens' side project "Admiral Fantasticus & the Zodiac Shower Curtain", which was devoted to bizzarro music that would never fit on a TA-80 record, but Amy wanted to use this paticular one for TA-80, and we still play it live quite often.

We are actually planning on re-issuing this e.p along with a few more rare and unreleased tracks in the very near future. I love the cover for this record. It was basically a collage made out of an old Starlog magazine and a book of 60's magazine ads. Like I said, only about 20 were given out, but I still have a big pile of these lying around but they're not mastered and we've remixed this substantially since the original release, so the re-release should be pretty cool.

Track Listing:

1. Late Night Breakdown
2. Never Forget
3. Stop the Clock
4. Warm Kites

Note: we've actually played all of these live.

- Jamin 80

......................................................................

This E.P. opens with a track from our (then) upcoming album, "Born Insecure". It's still one of my favorite tracks from that album. This is a slightly different recording than the one that appears on "Born Insecure." For one, this one is definitely not mastered. It also has a completely different lead vocal part (notice how bored I sound? I fixed that later...) This version is also severely lacking backing vocals. It wasn't finished but we knew it was good and decided to let everyone hear what our new rough mixes sounded like.

As for the older, re-recordings of songs on this E.P., well....We have much better recordings now and we're going to reissue this E.P. and get everything mastered, so when anyone reading this finally hears the E.P., it should sound pretty damn good. However, the original release of this was rough, to say the least. But it was the most amazing release we had put out. Even in its roughest stage (the original release) it was a million light years ahead of "Junk Car" or anything on "Atari." This was when Russ came back into the band and we re-entered the studio with full-fucking-force.

We got back together with Russ and it instantly felt better and sounded better than anything we had ever done. This was the first time the line-up included Jamin, Jens, Russ and myself. Maybe it all comes down to the right timing, but something about Russ coming back at that exact moment seems like something more than just a happy coincidence. Maybe not. It just worked really well and I'm still excited over it.

"Stop The Clock" was an old song of Russ' that he recorded with his old band, The Hepatitis Bee's. This side project included Russ, Jamin and a bassist named Mike Parker. There is an old split that Phat Phorty put out with the Hepatitis Bee's and Rainy Day Schedule. I'm sure there will be more on that later...

"Never Forget" was pretty old at this point but we had never gotten (what we considered) a good recording of the song. We decided to try it one last time with this new, seemingly unstoppable line-up. That did the trick. I had to completely redo the vocals. The original release of this had some pretty rough vocals that I did in the midst of being almost deathly ill for 2 months. I went back and resang them several months later and they came out great. We finally did this song some justice. I've always felt like this is my best pop-punk song. Apart from the vocals on the pre-chorus, I wrote everything on this song and I'm damn proud of it. It's only a tiny bit pretentious. Not bad!

"Warm Kites" was always one of my favorite songs off of "Junk Car" and especially one of my favorites to perform live. The version that appears on "Junk Car" had a long, ridiculous bass solo/outro that I've always been embarrassed of. As soon as we started to practice it in our live set, I insisted that we come up with a better, punchier ending. The result, I believe, was completely Jens' idea. It's always nice having a punk rock band that is comprised of people who have spent their lives listening to and picking apart some of the most awesome punk rock out there. As soon as I said, "Let's punch it up," Jens simply held the notes of the pre-chorus a couple extra beats and we came up with a nice vocal harmony outro that nailed in the hook. Everyone always either calls this song "Breaker, Breaker" or "911". Either is fine. But the actual name is "Warm Kites" and it does say the title in the song. Twice.

- Amy 80

......................................................................



Recordings...yea, put that..pretty good...

- Klae 80

......................................................................

I like this, the re-recordings were good...I liked the new stuff. The cover was really funny.

- Jens 80

...................................................