BMP (Buffalo Music Players) BREAKING EPISODE: Knife Crazy

Hi Listeners,

If you were around in 2004-2007 you might have heard of Knife Crazy, a rising alternative music band that played in places like Broadway Joes and Mohawk Place, among others. Then they disappeared.

In this episode we're happy to announce they are releasing new material on July 15 on all streaming platforms and BMP is here with an interview from two of them using frewe Zoom software to contact members in New Zealand and Los Angeles. It was a short talk, but very informative and funny.

As alwayis follow us on Instagram @buffalomusicplayers for news of more podcasts and blog posts on the BMP webpages on Wordpress.com and Buzzsprout.com

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:08

It's a BMP park if you are the display. We'll even get a key, but we all got a way of helping the gotta get everybody gotta be quite honest. I'm gonna be in there. I'm not it's not uh pretty of the dumb if the rocking can do it. I sure can I've never fought the stall, so I've got the upper hand. If the rogue can do it, I sure can I've never fought the stool, so I've got the upper hand in the BMP pocket.

unknown 1:06

It's the B and P pocket. It's the B pocket.

SPEAKER_00 1:15

After a long day, it's hard to turn off. That's why I go to Mammoth Cannabis on 212 Ohio Street. Their stuff will have you laid out flatter than a mammoth foot. From flour to pre-rolls, vaporizers to concentrate. You can rest assured that something big is waiting for you at Mammoth Dispensary. Just keep in mind, if you smell cereal from the General Mills factory nearby, they can't help you. You have to go home and get a bowl yourself. It's a dispensary, not an eatery after all.

SPEAKER_02 1:48

Hello, BMP listeners. This is Benjamin Joe with the BMP Podcast coming right out of my own apartment this time. And today we have a wonderful couple guests. They're from a blast from the past, really. Um they vote they uh communicated with me via email, which was still popular when these guys were around in 2007 in the Buffalo area. I'd like to introduce to you all Knife Crazy, Vic, and Fen. Uh, would you guys like to say hello? Introduce yourself?

SPEAKER_04 2:17

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, hi. I'm Fenn uh from Knife Crazy, among other things. Thank you for having us, Fenn.

SPEAKER_02 2:25

Thank you.

SPEAKER_05 2:26

And I'm Vic. Uh and uh yes, I was also in Knife Crazy and uh as we called it machete mandus. Coloration. What was some of the other ones?

SPEAKER_04 2:38

Uh Citizens of the Fang Zone.

SPEAKER_05 2:41

Yeah, Citizen, um yeah, that was part of I was part of that wonderful thing. And uh yeah, I'm in I'm here in Los Angeles. Um well in County. Um yeah, thanks for having us.

SPEAKER_04 2:53

Uh and I yeah, I I guess I should say for the record that I'm I'm in Auckland, New Zealand.

SPEAKER_05 2:58

Which is somewhere on the planet, right?

SPEAKER_04 3:02

Yes, truly, truly wild.

SPEAKER_02 3:05

And you have somehow made a new album to to release for all of us, despite these major uh um your location difficulties. Um, I'll just say over and over again, probably about this podcast, is that I was crazy about Knife Crazy when they were big in the Buffalo area, playing at Mohawk Place, playing at Broadway Joe's. Uh I don't know, Sound Lab probably. The Sound Lab was open during that time period.

SPEAKER_05 3:32

Um I think it's a deserted building now.

SPEAKER_02 3:36

It was a brew pub for a little while in a brewery, and then just kind of like fistled out. I don't I don't go there anymore. But um Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 3:42

Man, we opened for battles at Sound Lab, and I always thought that, you know, I always kind of really felt like we were pushing it, you know? And then I saw battles, and I was like, oh no, actually they're pushing it.

SPEAKER_05 3:55

Like oh yeah. Yeah, they're they're absurd. Yeah. They were they were absurd.

SPEAKER_02 4:01

So uh guys, why why why'd you leave sweet old Buffalo? I mean, uh climate uh, you know, d change is really making this place an interesting place to live, um, weather-wise. Um I imagine, Vic, you're in LA County, so it's probably uh just the same weather every day.

SPEAKER_05 4:18

Yeah, it's funny. I I lived hearing uh today actually a a memory popped up on Facebook uh of me performing with my friend Stacy Clark. I don't know if you know who she is, but she's from she's originally from Buffalo. And it was her and me performing uh Yeah, you know Stacy. We were performing in Niagara Falls, opening for Eddie Money. What? 14 years ago today, and I was like, huh, that was my last summer in Buffalo. That was like one of the last things I did was playing music, opening for Eddie Money.

SPEAKER_04 4:49

I can't I can't imagine you in the same room as Eddie.

SPEAKER_05 4:53

I shook the man's hand and he was very cool. Uh he was super sweet, but anyways, it's just funny to think I moved out here in 2012, so it's like, yeah, that was that was like three months before I moved out here. And uh it's just crazy to think, because I mean I I I still love Buffalo. I still have this like warm warm sweet spot in my heart for Buffalo. But uh moving out here was definitely the best thing I did as far as my choices. But you know, um, yeah, I I think the the the crazy thing is now that I get on I get on Facebook, I see all my friends living their lives in Buffalo, and Buffalo looks like a totally different world. It's like the waterfront looks nice, there's Dundee. Like, what's that all about?

SPEAKER_04 5:37

Uh yeah, it w it it was getting pretty stabby when I left for sure.

SPEAKER_05 5:43

It was.

SPEAKER_04 5:44

I lived on I lived on Elmwood Avenue and um I remember a uh a a the a new tenant had uh had just moved in downstairs and came upstairs and was like uh hey uh some stuff like got stolen um from my place you guys didn't see anything, did you? You know, like it just moved in. And we were like, oh no, no, sorry, no. Uh have you talked to the landlord? And she was like, Yeah. Well, I tried to talk to the manager, but he's dead. Um somebody stole his cell phone and like stabbed him to death. So uh Well, yeah, and it was kind of like it's time to get out of here. I don't know.

SPEAKER_05 6:25

Like, uh easy.

SPEAKER_02 6:30

Yeah, Buffalo can be uh a little scary. Um yeah, it can be a little scary. I was living on Custer Street every night. I I I would come home and I'd be like, well, there's no parking here. I'll just have to go and park somewhere else. And then, you know, kind of make the trip. What was that?

SPEAKER_05 6:47

You're in Custer.

SPEAKER_02 6:48

Yeah, yeah, none of the punk houses are there anymore. Yeah, I believe. I lived in a regular apartment with uh a poet landlord. And um it was nice. It was a really nice area. I I liked it, you know. But yeah, getting home at like 10 o'clock at night in the middle of winter and trying to go and find my way back to my house was difficult. The um you know where that uh you know where that abandoned train tracks were um behind Custer and like by Shoshone Park?

SPEAKER_05 7:17

Yeah, that was like that was like the freak zone.

SPEAKER_02 7:19

Yeah, well now it's all paved over um with the with nature trails and and things like that.

SPEAKER_05 7:24

Uh I missed the scary chin there.

SPEAKER_02 7:26

Yeah, so it's uh you know, it's nice during the day. You're like, oh, I'm gonna take a nice little nature walk. And at night it's just like you, the guy with the with uh with a cart of cans, and no nothing too scary, but just enough to make me think, yeah. Kid and wife wandering home in the middle of the night.

SPEAKER_05 7:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:44

Yeah. But um how about you, Vic? How'd you get to uh to uh the the Great Down Under? Before we start talking about knife crazy stuff, that's weird.

SPEAKER_05 7:54

I I I still don't quite know how that happened. I think it was Stephanie, right? You guys met Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 7:58

Well I I I uh I I I moved after Buffalo, I lived in Tucson for a while, which is a fantastic town, and then I then I moved to New York and um I was living there, and um I met my now uh uh wife, Steph, um, and you know, and we've been playing in a band together uh for a long time called Lives. Um and uh yeah we we got actually somebody that she knew was a was a playwright uh in fact who had written this uh written this play but was was a Kiwi. Um and and uh they had written this play that um was a musical or was supposed to be a musical anyway, and asked Steph um if she wanted to do the music for it, and she was like, Do you want to go over to New Zealand for a couple of weeks and do the music for this play? And I was like, Yeah, sure, you know that sounds great. Um and we did that, and it ended up being like a big success, um, which was like surprising. And we toured that thing for a few years. Like we're you know, like and went to like the Edinburgh French Festival and stuff, and um and then it got made into a movie um over here. And and the directors the director asked us to do the music for that. So it just turned out that we had a lot of work over here. Um and um and then somewhere in there also um uh you know she got pregnant with our first kid, and um our place in Brooklyn was um you know an illegal, uh weird uh apartment that um it actually used to be a uh uh like an Italian delicatess. Um but uh you it it was zoned for that, it was zoned for like commercial use, but the guy who owned the building lived in the building and just didn't want to deal with like an actual tenant, so he was like, uh just give you the rent for real cheap. You just have to pretend like you don't live here, so like uh if the inspectors ever come by, you gotta like pile up all your stuff so it looks like it's in storage and beat it all like you know, get get lost all day. Um, and uh so that was fine. Uh but you know, just when you have a baby on the way, it's well you know, it just it like it was the kind of place that could have gone away at any second, too. And you know, we were paying sixteen hundred bucks a month to rent there, which was nothing uh in Williamsburg, Brooklyn at the time. Um and now it's really nothing. I'm sure that's that same apartment were it to be a legal apartment, would be like five thousand bucks a month now or something. Um yeah, and we you know, and we were professional musicians, we can't afford anything, you know. Um so yeah, yeah. So we came over here and um toured uh the bunch and then um and then kind of woke up and like had finished the movie and had finished having a baby, and we're like, okay, we're here now. What the hell? What what happened, you know?

SPEAKER_02 11:11

Yeah. That's crazy. Well, um, we're running out of time according to my Zoom uh uh schedule. But uh why don't you guys tell us uh, you know, uh we got like 10 minutes, like talk about the new album. It's great, it's great. It's awesome, it's crazy, it's nice crazy, it's it's um you retain some of your sound, but there's differences in as well. And I thought, you know, just how did this come to be? And like, you know, why are you releasing it right now?

SPEAKER_04 11:37

Um I mean, it we actually had it kind of in the can when um when I left Buffalo anyway. And it was almost like it was more or less tracked. Um not completely, but more or less tracked. And it just has been sitting on my hard drive for years. And um uh I the I won't there's a whole big story where uh I I was I was on a radio show over here, and uh the idea was that you had to you had to do it it's called Demo Gods. It's on uh 95 BFM.

SPEAKER_02 12:16

Uh, Auckland, New Zealand.

SPEAKER_04 12:20

And uh and and and basically what happens is the host comes over to your house and uh they give you a prompt and then you gotta write a song to the prompt and then uh and they and record it and that's and then they play it on the show and you talk about it. And so the prompt was You're not the doors, right? Uh that was that was the uh or You're not the doors mate, mind you, because we are down here. And so I told this story, hey Vic, I'm talking too much. Why don't you tell the story about what what what happened? Like the story that we wrote the song about.

SPEAKER_05 12:54

Yeah, no, that I think, and maybe I might be wrong, but we played were we we were at Mojo's in Jamestown, right? Yeah. And uh which is hilarious. Hilarious bar that we still have to play at. Um and Jamestown's like a weird place. Uh it's great, but it's weird. And we were playing a show, and if I'm not mistaken, Bill's brother Jerry was there, right? Yes. He was there. And uh there was a woman there who apparently did not like us. Um she she thought we I uh she thought we weren't the doors, I think, right? Wasn't that kind of what happened?

SPEAKER_04 13:34

That was she was she was heckling us. She was heckling us, she was saying, Why are you guys playing this crap? Why don't you play somebody play somebody I like? Play the play the stones, man.

SPEAKER_05 13:46

Play the doors. The doors and we were like, uh, and and then I guess I guess Jerry like took offense to her dissing on her her brother. Or his brother, which God, him being so defensive of his little bro, or was this little bro or big bro? I don't know if they were. I I don't know. It feels like his little bro, but I don't know. Anyway, so the joke is I guess that's yeah, that thing you came up with was basically like sort of about that.

SPEAKER_04 14:18

Well, yeah, and Jerry, Jerry, what how I remember it was Jerry, Jerry went over to her and said, Listen, I'm not gonna hit you because you're a woman, but go home and get your biggest son and bring him here, I'll kick his ass.

SPEAKER_05 14:31

It was so silly. It was like it was like one of those, like, it just it got it, I don't know, it just escalated in some weird way.

SPEAKER_04 14:38

Yeah. So I so I told that story on the radio show, and then we wrote a song about it, and it's a little like three-act play, basically. Like a quick one he's away, a quick one while he's away by the who or something, you know?

SPEAKER_02 14:52

Nice.

SPEAKER_04 14:53

And uh, and it just I I I was just like I got that knife crazy. You just got me thinking about knife crazy. I was like, I got that record on my hard drive. Like it's let's just let's just let's just do this. And so I just started mixing tracks and sending them over to fucking film.

SPEAKER_05 15:11

Like and the thing is like we we we did, we we had a lot of it recorded, but it was like we hadn't listened to it in forever. And one day I think Phil out of the blue kind of like messaged me about something. He was like, hey man, we got we got a bunch of songs that we never put out. And he, you know, and I was like cracking up, I was like, Yeah, and I sent him I sent him one of the ones that had a drop and a Dropbox save, like a version of it. And he's like, We gotta release this. And then I think that's how it all started. We we started messing emailing you. Like kind of we sent you like an email pen. Yeah. And you kind of came, you kind of came at us with a bunch of like, you know, here's one. And then like, you know, I think it was the the like a butter knife kind of like the the the the outro song of the record. It was the first thing. I feel like you said kind of just like a little taste of like what it was, and it was super weird. And then all of a sudden it was like I I started remembering songs that I hadn't heard in years. Like there was a song called Limp Biscuit vs. Cory, Big Up Sustain. And I was like, man, I really want to hear that weird thing. And you were like, really? This little thing?

SPEAKER_04 16:16

Well, some and some of them are kind of some of them were in pieces and didn't have, you know, like like Vic and I definitely both had to do a bunch of vocals. Um and uh but yeah, I mean a lot of it, I mean, like, you know, Phil doesn't I I don't think Phil even plays uh you know uh like plays out or anything these days. So if if there was anything that needed to be replaced by Phil, I was like, well that's not gonna happen. And uh and but I know that Vic had like had access to you know a studio in uh in in in LA, and so and I and I have a studio here, and so we were able to kind of you know get the last few pieces in in in place. And also I was I'm I'm I'm just better at mixing now than I was back then anyway, so that's it it actually sounds way better than it would have done it 20 years ago.

SPEAKER_05 17:11

It's interesting too, because that's one of the things I realized is like our our acumen as musicians and like as human beings on the planet, like now that we're not 20 something or whatever, yeah. It's like we kinda I think our attitude towards these songs is the same, like it's pretty funny and weird, and some of it's like maybe just absurd, but I feel like at the end of the day, like it's it's it's good stuff, and I think it really should like I've I've shared it with some friends who I I really respect and they get back to me like, oh my god, it's amazing. It's like you know, just a fresh set of ears hearing it kind of makes me laugh because like one of my um you know Rafi, right? Ben Rafi. I sent I sent him uh like a couple tracks, he was just like, This is incredible. And that guy's a really great musician. So to me it was like just getting respect from people that I admire and being like, oh yeah, this is this is good, you know? Like it kind of it kind of made me realize, wow, this is this is you know, like I mean I knew it was good, but like it's just knowing that it's you know not just in my head, like it's like well, and also it it feels very alive too.

SPEAKER_04 18:22

Uh you know, like like which just I mean, music, um it's pretty easy to make music that doesn't feel alive uh these days. There's a lot of it out there, you know. Oh god just computer sort of computer-y, computer stuff, you know.

SPEAKER_05 18:38

Uh yeah, like like a lot of guitar rock music is really corny because it's just like so built on machines and not none of it's even feels real.

SPEAKER_04 18:46

So I was I was kind of like this this record kind of duh even though it's 20 years old, it actually does sort of feel like it's it's the kind of music that like maybe we need a little bit of it, you know? Um not to be all grandiose about it, but I was but I was just like I'm not getting back to just like being in uh you know playing live. Uh and being you know, being being being a a a rock band that kind of goes for it in the studio is something that you don't really hear you know too much of anyway. Um and uh yeah, I I I don't know. I we have less than a minute, don't we? Uh do we need to like re-re up on the zoom or whatever?

SPEAKER_02 19:28

Uh well it's like $169, so I I guess not doing that. But um Oh wow, okay. Um we could wrap it up real quick. Uh when's it dropping? What's it when's when's uh when can we stream it?

SPEAKER_04 19:39

The 15th. 15th of June of July. What month are we in?

SPEAKER_02 19:45

We're in July. We're in July. It's like next week. It's like next week it's gonna be dropping. Yeah. Yeah, eight days. Cool. Is there a song there that you guys would like to uh play a clip of real quick?

SPEAKER_04 19:56

Uh what do you think? Isotopes Isotopes for Silent Record.

SPEAKER_02 20:01

Isotopes? Alright, awesome. Well that is that.

SPEAKER_04 20:03

Or moon moonwalking over isotopes with George Washington's wooden or uh George Washington's Runaway Coda?

SPEAKER_02 20:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 20:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:11

Big names. That's what I remember from the Oz. Really long names. Yes. Sometimes, not always. Punk jacket. Punk jacket, yep, yep, that's a good one. Um that that was and uh listeners, that's the end of our show today. Thank you, and may Sauce be with you.

SPEAKER_00 20:37

The bringer of life, the bringer of unimaginable joy, the cause of catastrophic destruction. Knowing that you have something so powerful, wouldn't you want the best to take care of it? Pardon me for saying this, I am just a humble announcer. But if I had a coochie, I'd probably get it waxed at Cheyenne's Waxing Studio on 830 Elm would have. You have power in between your legs. So why not have it taken care of by the best? Man, life just isn't letting up. I feel like the walls are closing in, and I don't have a way to stop it. I wish there was somewhere I could go. Some place where I could just get away from everything. And just be creative.

SPEAKER_01 22:32

There is the Buffalo Creative Workshop.

SPEAKER_00 22:37

Who said that?

SPEAKER_01 22:39

The spirit of creativity. I heard your play, and I felt a duty the healthy. Okay, in the Grid Arrow building on Elmwood Avenue, use our space, our art supplies, and equipment to your heart's content. Let us hope you beat back the stress and feel centered again.

SPEAKER_00 22:56

Wow, that sounds great. I'll check it out.

SPEAKER_01 22:59

Always remember, if the world has your creative spirits in a rut, come to the Buffalo Creative Workshop for a pick-me-up. More about Buffalo Creative Workshop can be found at Buffalo.creativeWorkshop on Instagram.

SPEAKER_00 23:31

We're leaving Gatekeep and we are gonna end this way of helping Avengers. Everybody gotta be quite honest. I'm gonna be in there. I'm not it's not uh I'm too pretty okay. If the rocking can do it, I sure can I've never fought the stall, so I've got the upper hand. If the rogue can do it, I sure can I've never fought the stall, so I've got the upper hand.

unknown 24:20

It's the B and P pocket. It's the B and P pocket. It's the B and P pocket.