Botch "The John Birch Conspiracy Theory" 7" OOP Converge Coalesce

$

22

Botch "The John Birch Conspiracy Theory" 7" Phyte Records (US)

Out of Print!! Rare!! 

Record is NM, Jacket is NM!!

Pressed on Blue Wax!

Track Listing:

Botch was an American metallic hardcore band that formed in 1993 in Tacoma, Washington. The band, featuring Brian Cook, Dave Knudson, Tim Latona and Dave Verellen, spent four years as a garage band and released several demos and EPs before signing to Hydra Head Records. Through the label, Botch released two studio albums: American Nervoso (1998) and We Are the Romans (1999). The group toured extensively and internationally in support of their albums with liked-minded bands such as The Blood Brothers, The Dillinger Escape Plan, Ink & Dagger and Jesuit. Botch struggled to write a third studio album, and in 2002 the group broke up due to tensions among the band members and creative differences. Hydra Head posthumously released an EP of songs the group had been working on before they split titled An Anthology of Dead Ends, and a live album documenting their final show titled 061502 in 2006.

After Botch broke up, most of the members went on to form or join new bands in the Seattle/Tacoma area including: Minus the Bear, Mouth of the Architect, Narrows, Roy, Russian Circles and These Arms Are Snakes. The complex tree of interchanging band members among these newly formed groups has been described as "incestuous."While Botch received high levels of acclaim from several music publications and was cited as an influence among numerous hardcore bands in the years following their break up, the group was initially cast aside by the local Washington underground hardcore scene. The group spent their active years "poking fun" at the local music scene by avoiding common hardcore clichés. Botch composed complex music later to be known asmathcore opposing the simple "chugga-chugga" riffs, they were unique in terms of presentation, opposing common norms of what was accepted in the underground community. Overall, the band, avoided the common "skull and crossbone" imagery, and wrote lyrics that were abstract and about personal experiences opposing the common political or straight edge lyrics of their peers.

History

Early years (1993–1997)

Bassist Brian Cook, guitarist Dave Knudson, drummer Tim Latona and vocalist Dave Verellen formed Botch in 1993 while they were all still in high school. Tim Latona, who at the time was a jazz drummer considering attending the performing arts school Juilliard, was approached by Dave Knudson in the high school cafeteria and asked if he would like to start a rock band. According to Knudson, "We were probably 16 or 17. I brought my amp over to Tim's house, and we ended up on his back deck playing Helmet covers for a couple of hours." Dave Knudson enticed Brian Cook to join the band by promising that the group would record a Dead Kennedys cover, but this recording never took place. Dave Verellen was the last to join the band, and only became the vocalist because he couldn't play an instrument. The group selected the name Botch simply by "opening a dictionary."

Early songs written by Botch were described by Knudson as, "some of the worst music you've probably heard in your life," which he attributed to each of the members' differing tastes in music and the lack of experience in composing songs. Some of their early song titles included: "Barney the Purple Dinosaur," "Vegetarianism Is Anarchy," "Barbed Rectal Thermometer" and "Pudenda."

After a couple years of playing local shows, Botch went on their first tour outside of the Seattle-area in 1995. Dave Verellen's dad drove the group on a mini-tour through Canada in an old van he owned. John Pettibone, then of Undertow and Nineironspitfire, praised Botch's ability to tour outside of their hometown, commenting: "Botch was the first band from the next generation that went out and pushed it—and pushed it their way. It was remarkable." In early 1997, Botch went on a seven-week tour throughout the United States and Canada with Ink & Dagger and Nineironspitfire, which gained them a significant amount of exposure. According to Brian Cook, "Ink & Dagger were kind of a big deal at that point, so we were playing a lot of club shows. I think we did a show at some theater in Buffalo, New York, with Snapcase and there were, like, a thousand people or something like that."[3] Also in 1997, Excursion Records released The Unifying Themes of Sex, Death and Religion—a nine track compilation album composed of the EPs The John Birch Conspiracy Theory and Faction in their entirety, and "Closure" from the various artists compilation I Can't Live Without It.

Hydra Head Records (1998–2001)

Aaron Turner, formal vocalist for the post-metal band Isis and founder of the record label Hydra Head Records, was following Botch's early career. He praised the group's interpretation of Carl Orff's classical piece "O Fortuna" off of The John Birch Conspiracy Theory EP, describing it as "amazing" and also saying that, "anytime I made a mix tape for someone else, I'd put ['O Fortuna'] on there." Turner contacted Botch and asked them to contribute a song to Hydra Head's In These Black Days—a compilation album of Black Sabbath cover songs released as a series of split singles. Botch recorded a cover of "The Wizard" from Black Sabbath's 1970 album Paranoid, and also sent Turner a demo album they had been working on at the time. About the demo, Aaron Turner said, "I can't remember if I had solicited it or if they just sent it to me. In any event, it was more than I was expecting from them even though I already thought they were good. I think I gave them about six or seven grand to do the record, which was probably more than I had given any other band that we had worked with at that point."

The demos were re-recorded with Matt Bayles at Pearl Jam guitarist Stone Gossard's own Studio Litho. After three days of recording and two days of mixing, the completed songs became Botch's debut studio album American Nervoso, released in 1998 through Hydra Head Records. In support of American Nervoso, Botch headlined a North American tour with The Dillinger Escape Plan and Jesuit. Beginning with this tour, John Pettibone was hired as the group's manager, and it also was Botch's first time bringing their own lighting equipment with them. Their stage setup included several halogen work lamps plugged into a power strip with a switch. Commenting on the lights, Dave Verellen said, "I hated the lights at clubs, which were always on the band, so we figured we'd turn them on the audience. [...] I liked it because I could see people's reaction in the crowd because their faces were totally illuminated." Also during this tour, Botch played music from the girl group Destiny's Child before they went on stage, which was intentionally drastically different from the more traditional "metal music [being played] in between the metal bands." Botch were also rumored to be recording a Destiny's Child covers EP—however, this release never materialized.

In 1999, Botch recorded some live demos with Matt Bayles for their second studio album and follow up to American Nervoso. Two months later, Botch returned to Litho Studios with Bayles to record what would become We Are the Romans. The group only had approximately one week to track the album, and according to Knudson, the group "[rushed] to get everything done and do it as well as we wanted to."[11] As a last minute addition to the album, Botch rewrote and rerecorded the song "Frequenting Mass Transit"—originally released on a split release with Murder City Devils—and changed the title to "Frequency Ass Bandit". We Are the Romans was released in November 1999 through Hydra Head Records on both CD and double LP vinyl formats. The title of the album was derived from the lyrics to the album's closing track "Man the Ramparts". According to Verellen: "Brian [Cook] thought it'd make a great title, but I thought it was a totally silly gladiator song. The riff is kinda huge, so I was thinking about chariots and fire and stuff like that. It sounds like I pulled the words out of Conan the Barbarian. But then we started talking about the social decline of Western civilization, and how Americans are the new Romans—it's all slaves and Caesars. So we made it work."

Botch's first show in support of We Are the Romans was the final show for the Seattle venue Rkcndy with The Blood Brothers, Playing Enemy and Kill Sadie in October 1999. The club was an all-ages venue that was being demolished to make way for a hotel. Verellen expressed his admiration for playing all-ages shows stating that, "People go to all-ages shows to see the bands, but people will go to bars... and while they're at the show, they're just hanging out with their friends. That doesn't mean all bar shows are like that, but that's what makes me not want to play bars, basically." In 2000, Botch toured Europe with The Dillinger Escape Plan, and also went on a smaller North American tour later that year. In 2001, Botch performed at Louisville, Kentucky's hardcore festival Krazy Fest 4 which also featured Coalesce, Converge, Poison the Well and Harkonen among others.

Breakup (2002)

"The way I look at it, Botch didn't break up because of personality conflicts. The conflicts that existed the day of the last show were present since the beginning. Botch broke up because we just weren't meshing anymore on a creative level. Some of us had different musical areas we wanted to explore."

Botch officially decided to break up the band in February 2002. Tensions between Tim Latona and Dave Knudson that originated from the We Are the Romans sessions and supporting tours built up to the point where members weren't communicating anymore. According to Dave Verellen, "it was the best idea for us just to break up while we were on top of things, rather than torture ourselves and keep chipping away till we hated each other." Botch also struggled to write a third studio album citing pressures to write a follow up to their critically acclaimed We Are the Romans and suffering from "crazywriter's block." Knudson had also begun writing softer-sounding songs that didn't fit Botch's style, and formed the side-project Minus the Bear in 2001. Botch performed their final show on June 15, 2002 at The Showbox in downtown Seattle, Washington with The Blood Brothers, Harkonen and Playing Enemy.

When asked about the possibility of a reunion in a 2002 interview with the band, Dave Verellen said, "I'd be first in line to keep this goddamn band together." However, in the same interview, Knudson said, "I could totally see doing anything with any of those people that's not Botch but something else that's creative and fun... and maybe more aggressive." In a 2009 interview with Brian Cook, he revealed that Botch get asked to play reunion shows "on a regular basis." After Botch disbanded, Cook maintained that he would never reunite the band, but in a 2014 interview, he revealed that the rest of members of Botch felt like the band ended too early and that they had been urging him to stop saying the word "never" in regards to a possible reunion.

All records are shipped in professional 7” & 12” box mailers. All CDs are shipped in padded bubble mailers.  Buy multiple items and save on shipping.  Thanks for Visiting!!