"in the ocean" at scb in omaha with the shanks


"hopi" at the outland in springfield, mo
video by blondie


"kill it" at scb in omaha with the shanks


"the lost art of keeping a secret" (qotsa cover)
at scb in omaha with the shanks


"whey" (dallas at the curtain club)

"desert god" at the outland - Springfield, MO

where is my mind? (pixies cover) - lawton OK

'No Wind' live at The Hurricane in KC, May 2006

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'Desert God' live at The Grand Emporium in KC, April 2006



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'Hey' (pixies cover) live at the Hurricane in KC, March 2006



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'So Nice Being Warm' acoustic version from radio performance


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All Information is Everywhere - homemade music video


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"Is It A Gay?" from 96.5 THE BUZZ Homegrown Buzz Show at The Lucky Brewgrille, Nov. 2005



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Media

and done with.  not forever,
but for a long while.

it seems the timing of our last booked show,
last saturday in st louis, was meant to be.

as i was driving home after taking back the uhaul,
my clutch went all the way to the floor.
a tow truck took the car to a repair shop.
so i'm carless all week while they get the part.

but the elantra handled itself well, got us home from
our last out of town show before she broke down.
that was very thoughtful of her.

so, anyway, we're done playing shows this year.

it will be a nice break from spending all our free time
in cars and bars playing guitars.

we did a bunch of tracking for our new album
with justin mantooth at chapman last thursday.
i'm doing some extra vocals and feedback guitars
at the house with james.

then i'll be taking those tracks back to justin
so he can do a final mix.

that album, and another one i'm working on,
along with a solo EP from james (with piatt playing drums),
will all be released sometime in the winter,
with a full blown east coast tour supporting them
in the spring.

picha///
josh///
     ///
    ///
  ///
///

..>..>

July 21, 2007	The Way Out Club w/ Jetpack, Hated Nixon	St. Louis, MO
July 14, 2007	El Torreon w/ Adamant Eve, Deviant Machine, Tripp Algiers	Kansas City, MO
July 7, 2007	The Hexagon (7/7/7 Festival) w/ Parts for all Makes, many more	Minneapolis, MN
July 6, 2007	The Hurricane w/ Boo and Boo Too, His Mischief	Kansas City, MO
July 1, 2007	Club 115	Austin, TX
June 30, 2007	Novacaine promotions showcase w/ Delusional 13	Cache, OK
June 29, 2007	Shamrock Lounge w/ Peerless Princess of the Plains	Wichita, KS
June 12, 2007	playback:STL show @ Cicero's w/ .e, the high violets	St. Louis, MO
June 2, 2007	Danny's w/ Jetpack, Deviant Machine	Kansas City, MO
May 27, 2007	Save The Mule Benefit show w/ about 20 bands	St. Joseph, MO
May 26, 2007	Lizard Lounge w/ J.A.N.E.T, The P.O.O.R.	Wichita, KS
May 19, 2007	The Blue Fugue w/ The Results, Miniature Poodle Gang	Columbia, MO
May 18, 2007	Saddle Creek Bar w/ The Shanks	Omaha, NE
May 10, 2007	Outloand Ballroom w/ Beautiful Losers	Springfield, MO
May 3, 2007	Jackpot Saloon w/ Horse Mountain, Bomb Squad	Lawrence, KS
April 8, 2007	Jerry's Bait Shop w/ Deviant Machine, Stolen Winnebagos	Lenexa, KS
March 24, 2007	Mike's Tavern w/ Attack on Uranus, Delorean, Pretty Little Nothings	Kansas City, MO
March 16, 2007	The Rendezvous w/ Alice	st joseph, Missouri
February 11, 2007	kirby's beer store (josh acoustic)	wichita, Kansas
November 17, 2006	Replay Lounge w/ My Robot Has A Soul	Lawrence, KS
November 12, 2006	Room 710 w/ Opposite Day	Austin, TX
November 11, 2006	Andy's w/ three finger fist	Denton, TX
November 10, 2006	Novacaine promotions showcase	Duncan, OK
November 9, 2006	Grand Emporium w/ My Robot and the Brainwaves	Kansas City, MO
November 5, 2006	Jerry's Bait Shop w/ I Love You	Lenexa, KS
November 4, 2006	Shamrock Lounge w/ Thunder le Boom	Wichita, KS
November 2, 2006	The Outland w/ PSA and I Love You	Springfield, MO
October 19, 2006	The Blue Fugue w/ I Love You	Columbia, MO
October 17, 2006	Cicero's w/ Jetpack	St. Louis, MO
October 12, 2006	Bali Satay House	Ames, IA
October 7, 2006	The Newsroom w/ the results, sterilize stereo, open systems	Kansas City, MO
September 30, 2006	Vermont street bbq	Lawrence, KS
September 28, 2006	The Outland w/ Bogart	Springfield, MO
September 23, 2006	Mike's Tavern w/ Pleasure Seeking Animals and Alice	Kansas City, MO
September 2, 2006	American Ichouse w/ kill.pop.	Kansas City, MO
September 1, 2006	Davey's Uptown w/ the Brainwaves	Kansas City, MO
August 4, 2006	Vermont street bbq (acoustic show) w/ the armory	Lawrence, KS
July 20, 2006	The Brick w/ I Love You	Kansas City, MO
July 19, 2006	The Bottleneck w/ The armory	Lawrence, KS
July 16, 2006	Roadhouse w/ My Robot and Thunder le Boom	Wichita, KS
July 13, 2006	Davey'sUptown w/ The Belated	Kansas City, MO
June 24, 2006	Mike's Tavern w/ Thunder le Boom and My Robot Has A Soul	Kansas City, MO
June 21, 2006	The Outland w/ Moonshakers	Springfield, MO
June 20, 2006	George's Majestic w/ Pleasure Seeking Animals	Fayetteville, AR
June 18, 2006	The Curtain Club w/ Strongpoint	Dallas, TX
June 17, 2006	American Legion w/ The Villins and The Poor	Lawton, OK
June 16, 2006	Shamrock Lounge w/ Thunder le Boom	Wichita, KS
June 4, 2006	Jerry's Bait Shop w/ Grand United	Lenexa, KS
June 3, 2006	Gaia's Garden w/ Pontius Pilot	Salina, KS
June 2, 2006	American Icehouse w/ The Grand United	Kansas City, MO
May 23, 2006	Cicero's	St. Louis, MO
May 21, 2006	The Anchor w/ Notice Everything and Wave on the Barrage	Kansas City, MO
May 11, 2006	Davey's uptown w/ Alice and The Follow	Kansas City, MO
April 15, 2006	The Bottleneck	Lawrence, KS
April 8, 2006	Grand Emporium w/ Wave On The Barrage	Kansas City, MO
April 1, 2006	The Pub w/ Flak and Sidewise	Maryville, MO
March 16, 2006	The Hurricane w/ the belated	Kansas City, MO
March 7, 2006	Mike's Tavern (Boozeday Tuesday)	Kansas City, MO
February 9, 2006	The Brick w/ The Extraordinaires	Kansas City, MO
January 25, 2006	Gaslight Tavern (acoustic)	Lawrence, KS
January 21, 2006	The Gaslight Tavern	Lawrence, KS
January 8, 2006	Jerry's Bait Shop w/ kill.pop.	Lenexa, KS
November 17, 2005	Lucky Brewgrille w/ Davan and Walter Alias	Mission, KS
July 23, 2005	Garagestock - Camp Zoe	Camp Zoe, MO

when nothing really important is taken.

we woke up yesterday in austin about 10 or so.  we started loading our shit to leave.  as i went around to the driver's side, i noticed the back window was busted out, fuck.  so we looked in the car to see what was missing.

the first thing i checked out was the trunk, where my laptop and cameras were at.  they were still there.  after checking out what should have been in the car and was was left, we came out pretty lucky on the whole deal, as lucky as you can be when your window is busted out and you have at least three thousand dollars worth of electronics in the trunk.

they took:
- two books of CDs (mostly burnt)
- all the loose change (maybe five bucks)
- they partially broke my cd player trying to steal it, the face falls off when you hit bumps, but it still works.
- an unopened bag of cape cod jalapeño and aged cheddar chips (those bastards)

they left:
- an empty can of natural light
- some weird brown goo on the cd player face.

someone said we should report it to the cops, but i didn't see the point.  it's not like they're going to dust for prints or anything, they'd probably just search the car and give us shit.  ben duct taped the window up and we left town.

friday in wichita:

was awesome.  eric set up a sweet show with his new band, the peerless princess of the plains.  there were a ton of people there and everyone played awesome.  they put on a killer show with confetti and a crazy upside down american flag curtain they made earlier that day.  i'll be posting videos of ppoftp's set as soon as i get a chance.  we crashed at joey's apartment after the show.  thanks eric and joey, for real.

saturday in cache, oklahoma:

was also awesome.  tyler (novacaine promotions) and ricky rapechild (day of the sick, delusional 13) booked a place called the cahoma building in the middle of nowhere and got over 100 kids to show up.  we scared most of them out of the room because we weren't playing hardcore punk or death metal.  it had a really nice under the radar/diy type feel to it.  delusional 13 was awesome.  thanks tyler and ricky.

after the show we drove to phillip's place in texas to spend the night.  i was way fucking tired and hallucinating towards the end of the drive from sleep deprivation/road hysteria.  a deer almost ran into the side of the car.  we were able to take showers the next morning, and it was good.  thanks phillip.

sunday in austin:

this part of the trip was slightly cursed.  as we were getting close to austin, we got pulled over for having a theoretically stolen trailer.  i think we got pulled over for looking weird on a sunday.  the cops were pretty much total douche bags.  they pretended to be super cool, but were just trying to get us to admit to doing something they could bust us for.  they kept saying shit like, "you can tell us if you were smoking weed in the car, it's cool, everybody does it, you can tell us."  yeah right, sure, we'll tell you, then you'll give us a fat possession ticket, asshole.  

at one point, they separated us and asked me how i felt about marijuana laws, so i told him.  i told him how i didn't see how making things illegal does any good to anyone and how i felt about the hypocrisy of drunk people telling other people not to do drugs, as if alcohol is any better for you than weed just because it's an officially sanctioned and state sponsored drug.

then he said, "well, if marijauna was legal, wouldn't that make drug cartels more powerful?".  i really couldn't believe this guy was serious.  i told him about how the act of making things illegal is what gives drug cartels and gangs power.  

i told him about how when alcohol was made illegal in this country, it didn't stop anyone from drinking but gave tons of money and power to the mob because they had a new product to make money on.  as soon as it was legal again, it was taxed, regulated, and no longer a tool for the mob to make money, the same is true of all illegal drugs.  

if drugs were legal, those people would lose their exclusive ownership of the market.  making things illegal is what creates drug cartels and gives them their power.  the cop was silent, then he looked at me and said, "you know, i've been asking everyone i pull over that question for years, and no one's ever said anything like that to me before."  i didn't get it, i thought it was all common sense.  then he shook it off and kept trying to get me to admit we had drugs in the car.  what an asshole.

i had every illegal substance in the car in my underwear,
we kept our mouths shut, and escaped without citation.

that  kind of killed some of our chill time before the show in austin, but we still had time to get to dino's house, change broken strings, smoke, eat, and go over some lyrics of the songs i was going to do in my acoustic set before the full band set.

so we go to the bar:  club 115.   the booking guy comes up to me and tells me we're late, even though we were there an hour before i was told we were going to play.  this guy was a real asshole.  it was supposed to be us at 8 and karaoke at 9.  i guess they fired the karaoke guy and hired a country band to play every sunday at 8 in july.  no one told us anything.  after arguing with the booking asshole for a while, i went over his head and talked to the bands playing after us.  they were all very cool and didn't care if we pushed everything back an hour.  i told the booking guy what we were going to do, he was pissy, but stopped arguing with me.  our friends got there before we started.   

i'd thought about dosing before the show, but i'm glad i didn't, there was a lot of bad energy in the air for a while, all of it coming from the fat-fuck with his face buried in the laptop at the corner booth, the booking guy.  so i didn't get to do an acoustic set because all that time was spent arguing with the booking guy about set times.

the bar seemed decent enough though, even though it's about a mile away from where i thought it was going to be, in the preppy/martini part of town, and not really that close to 6th street.  if you look at a google map, it seems very close, but it's not really that close.  there was zero street traffic outside the bar.

the sound guy  was really amazing, and we actually sounded really amazing ourselves that night.  we killed in front of about 15 people.  the rest of the night was a lot of fun.  at the end of the night though, i talked to the bartender about what we were getting paid.  we were supposed to get a cut of the bar, and even though everyone we brought was drinking a lot, he said they weren't going to pay us anything.  super.

so.... touring bands, do not play at club 115.  the booking guy is an asshole, they changed everything about the bill without telling us, then tried to make us play before any of our people got there.  and they didn't give us our cut of the bar.

after the show, we rolled out to check out brian's new place, it was tight, then we went back to dino's.  on the way, we stopped because brian needed gas.  as he pulled the gas hose out of the car after filling up, it shot everywhere, soaking brian in gasoline.  it was kind of insane.  he changed into some of piatt's clothes when we got back to dino's, but gas is a hard smell to get off.

about three in the morning, we played a baddass acoustic and bongos version of paranoid android before we all passed out.

the drive home:

we made good time getting out of texas, but we were fucking hungry.  chinese sounded good so we stopped in norman, oklahoma on a mission.  after asking for directions from multiple people and driving around for over an hour, we get to the promised land, a chinese super buffet with statues of chinese warriors guarding the entrance.  then, as we try to open the doors... we can't.  they're locked.  we look at the sign on the door.  they're closed on mondays, i almost cried.

we sucked it up, ate at taco cabana, and rolled out.  in an experiment with time compression, we listened to ok computer the rest of the way home, about eight hours.  i think the experiment was a success.  it was hard to tell how far we'd gone at any given time because the music just kept looping.  i think it made the trip seem much shorter than if we'd been changing discs every half an hour, but maybe it was just me.

it was a pleasantly uneventful ride home with lots of insane, cracked out joking.  there was a period around the time of the norman, oklahoma chinese buffet debacle that my face was hurting from laughing so much.

so sometime this week before we go to minneapolis and chicago, i need to go to a salvage yard and find a new window.  oh, the glamorous life.

love/josh 

It's hard to say if the members of Bodisartha even care about "being successful" in the music industry anymore. They just float from one thing to the next, occasionally pulling themselves together for long enough to throw everything into a car and play a show.

The joke's on them. It's true. In a fast food culture that suggests anyone can be a rock star and everyone is special, Josh Thomas and Justin Piatt have woken up, six years and two bands deep, into a world where you can no longer sell music. Music is free now, haven't you heard?

One day, Josh, birthed in Memphis, raised in Germany, and shipped around to a handful of states of the American variety, ended up in the lovely, oceanside property of Springtown, Missouri. There he met a young man from Texas named Piatt and within a few hours, Josh was throwing up from over consumption. The meeting was a success.

A band called Grasscanon followed, with Josh on bass (but writing a majority of the guitar parts) and Piatt on drums. There were comparisons made to such bands as the Deftones and Radiohead, but I'm with you, I don't believe the hype.

Parties, broken things and arrests ensued (Piatt's still on probation). Some not-so-fun things happened as well.  Then, almost two years invested, as Grasscanon was preparing to record its first full length album, the band fell apart on stage at the Burgundy Room in Springfield, Missouri. By the end of the evening, several guitars, a few glasses, and a band were irreparably broken.

Josh drove around the country for a few months attending hippie festivals and Indian pow wows, piatt hung out in springtown doing whatever it is he does. So what's next? Why not move to Kansas City?

Two years into its formal existence, Bodisartha has played over seventy-five shows and released an album, 'Find Yourself Getting Lost', recorded in equal parts at Chapman Recording in Kansas City and at the band's home studio. As far as I can tell, the band is most often compared to the Pixies, Nirvana, and Queens of the Stone Age.

Album number two is completely written and recorded. Bodisartha has traded in the power chords and screaming for weird jazz chords and moaning. A concept evolved around the songs. The album seems to be based around a revolutionary character that thinks it's possible for one person to change everything. The songs are equal parts philosophy and narrative: the philosophy of this character and the reaction he gets from the general public, more specifically, the authoritarian government of the United States. Reactions include: stalking, wiretapping, crucifixion, you know... the classics.

As of May 2007, Bodisartha has two new members.  Ben Breathwaite (Notice Everything) started playing bass after Trevis had to quit. After Gavin had to leave the band for medical reasons, James Capps (The Girl Is A Ghost, Pixel Panda) stepped in on noise guitar.

The new album, tentatively titled leave the poor people alone was recorded with this lineup in June 2007, it's almost done being mixed, there will be a small pressing in Sping 2008.  James, Piatt, and Josh are in Spidermums.

"Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves."
~Henry David Thoreau

On the eve of the trip, Trevor was nervous because we had only practiced with him one time before leaving town.  He really didn't have much to worry about, he knew the songs, he was just nervous because he hadn't had a lot of stage experience.  By the end of the mini tour he was dancing with people in the crowd while he played bass.  His stage fright passed quickly.

First stop was Wichita.  After picking up the Uhaul trailer that we were to pull behind my Hyundai Elantra (a very small car), we were off.  Every time we hit a bump there was a sickening sound made by the trailers connection to the car grinding on the pavement.  The word from that section of the tour was:  "Ohhh".  The sound you make when your grandma falls down right in front of you but youre too far away to do anything about it.  All you can say is:  "Ohhh". 

Trevor figured out that we just had to turn the hitch upside down and we'd get about 6 inches more clearance, but we didn't come across the tools to flip it until we were in Dallas a few days later.

We pulled up to the Shamrock Lounge way too early.  We thought the show was supposed to start around 9pm, but we were wrong.  We were playing between In The Wake and our friends who set the show up, Thunder le Boom, both the bands were from Wichita.  We saw there was a special on rum and coke and started enjoying Wichita almost immediately.  After some drinking, we retired to the trailer for some "groceries" before a bunch of people started showing up.

Sometime during In The Wake's set, it started storming outside.  Really storming, and raining.  We loaded in during the storm and all of our sleeping bags, clothes, and equipment got pretty soaked.  Out of town for less than 7 hours and everything we brought was wet, super.

The set was a lot of fun.  Eric from Thunder le Boom ran sound and some people we knew from Wichita, Erin and few ICT Roller Girls, came out and were having fun a good time right in front of the stage.  We love those guys.

Thunder le Boom played after us and were amazing as usual.  They played with us a week later in Kansas City at Mike's Tavern with My Robot Has A Soul.  We had a great time at that show too.

After loading out, while it was still raining, we headed over to Adam's (the bass player for Thunder le Boom) house where we ate "groceries" and hung out.  About half an hour after Eric let us in and left to get food, Adam came back to his house with an extremely drunk girl named Dixie.  She walked in, soaking wet, with a bottle of Jager, missing one sock. we found out later she had gotten herself stranded in the bad part of Wichita and Adam had to go pick her up   We found out the next day that shed also lost her underwear the night before, but its a long story so you'll have to ask her about it.  After some more drinking and smoking, we all crashed.

We woke up feeling not too hung over, hung out with Dixie and Adam for a bit, then got in the car and headed south.  We ran into more storms on the way to Lawton.  When we got to the venue and opened up the trailer we found out that the trailer had a leak, yeah.

It had finally stopped raining so we decided to load in before it stormed some more.  I found Bobby from the Oklahoma City band The Villins and talked to him about what was going on with the show.  The drummer from An A Setup had a deep fryer accident a few days before the show so they'd cancelled.  The show was pretty cool.  There are a lot of tough kids in Lawton, OK.  From what I heard, the place wasn't as packed as usual because of all the storms in the area, but we still had a good time.  It was one of the wildest mosh pits we've ever had at one of our shows.  Bobby videotaped it; I'll post that somewhere sometime soon.

The Poor, from Wichita, played after us.  We'd met them the night before at our show in Wichita with Thunder le Boom.  Cool guys, good band.  After them, The Villins played.  They were a lot of fun.  There were some sound issues, but I enjoyed it and invited them to come up to KC whenever they want.  I also met Tyler (Novacaine Promotions) and Taniel.  They were very cool.  We signed some cell phones, shoes, a few CDs, and got in the car and headed south.

We spent the night at Piatt's brother Phillip's house in Sanger, TX about 45 minutes North of Dallas.  It was nice waking up so close to the town we were playing in.  We didn't have to do much of anything all day except break off the lock on the back of the Uhaul.  After the show in Lawton, I somehow put the lock on the trailer upside down, it was a weird lock that came completely apart, it was dark, and i just shoved it on.  Since I put it on upside down, there was no way to fit a key into it.  I broke one trying.  We trying beating it with a hammer, but that didn't do much except ding up the Uhaul.

Phillip was able to score us a hacksaw and a new lock.  We were able to saw the old lock off and get the new one on.  So we jump in the car to go down to the Curtain Club:  No Air Conditioning.  The digital signs on some banks we passed by said it was 102 degrees.  I was sweating my ass off.  Thankfully the drive was only about 40 minutes.

The Curtain Club was a really amazing venue (thanks to Chris of Four State Shows for hooking up the show).  It had two levels, three sound guys, and an amazing sound system.  But we had some bad luck.  The same night we were playing there, there was a Dallas Mavericks playoff game and a radio supported 20-band show called Edgefest that had 30,000 people there, so 100,000 people in the Dallas area were busy that night.  The whole Deep Ellum area of Dallas was dead, except for the hundreds of cops that were looping around the area all night.  After our set, I started to sober up a bit for the drive back to Sanger.  The night was alright.  We sold a little merch and met some people but when i asked the promoter what the pay situation was, the night got worse.  There were five bands, three sound guys, and only about fifty people showed up.  The bands didn't get paid anything.  Ouch.  The Wichita show saved us though, we got paid really well there.

After the show, we all headed back to Sanger, the band, Phillip, and a few of Phillip and Piatt's friends.  We broke into the pool at his apartment complex.  At first, we were pretty quiet; we weren't trying to get the cops called on us or anything.  But as the night turned into morning, we got louder and louder.  We were throwing each other up in the air, doing back flips.  In general, we were acting like five year olds.

This was the setting of maybe the funniest moment of the tour.  One of Phillip's friends was topless because she didn't have anything to swim in.  This isn't as cool as you might think, because she wasn't super hot or anything and she was being really weird about keeping herself covered up, like any of us cared.  Phillip and this girl were in the hot tub, the band was in the pool, all of a sudden I hear someone running from the hot tub, I turn my head and see the girl stumbling, slipping, falling, arms flailing, boobs flopping, she slipped and made a very ungraceful entrance into the pool.  It was all over in a second, but it was hilarious.

We took the next day off.  It was Monday and there isn't much to do on Monday nights.  It's probably the worst night of the week for touring bands.  We swam at the pool, watched The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and that's about it. 

Tuesday I recharged the AC and we headed off to Fayetteville.  The trip was fairly uneventful.  We got to Fayetteville a little early so we just went straight to the bar and started drinking whiskey and cokes.  The bar had one of those subzero Jager machines so it wasn't long before we started hitting that up.  The bartender there was extremely cool, he made an amazing shot called The Jesus Christ, and tore up our bar tab at the end of the night.

What can I say about The Pleasure Seeking Animals?<span style="">  They were great.  They're the ones that booked the show for us and we're having them up to KC in the fall to return the favor.  They were super cool guys and we can't wait.

The show went really well.  Trevor was so trashed he was out in the crowd dancing with some people while we were playing.  There was a really nice crowd there for a Tuesday.  My brother, uncle, and aunt were all able to make it out to the show, so that was cool seeing them too.  The Jimmy John's across the street from George's Majestic was a great place to sober up a bit and eat before we left town to go stay at my uncle's house for the evening.  Trevor fell down on his way to Jimmy John's and messed up his ankle pretty good.  When he showed it to me the next day, I was pretty impressed.  Nice ankle, Trevor.

After the bar closed, the band and Zack, my brother, headed north to my uncle's place.  We slept in.  I woke up in not too bad of shape, considering what had happened the night before.  Trevor on the other hand, was wrecked.  He lost the contents of his stomach shortly after waking up.  We hung out for a while in Fayetteville, checked our email, and headed to our last stop before coming home, Springfield. 

Trevor had a rough drive to Springfield.  It was only about a two hour drive, but he threw up three times on the way.   The last time was a violent explosion of neon green.  We don't know what that was.  When he threw up blue we knew it was the powerade he was drinking.  The green puke is still a mystery.

Springfield is where we all met at.  When my last band was looking for a drummer, Trevor introduced me to Piatt.  Bret and I had some college classes together and ended up living together my last year there.  So we knew some people in Springfield.  We expected a crowd. 

When we got to Springtown, we went to a friend of Trevor's place and did whatever it is we do for about an hour, then headed down to The Outland.  Eric, the bartender, showed up about the same time we did.  We went in and started doing our thing.  We backlined our amps, loaded the drums in the back, and waited for the crowd to show up.  Tim and his wife were among the first there.  I hadn't seen them in forever.  Then Marty, Jody, and his lady showed up.  Josh, not me, another Josh, made an appearance.  Dizzle and crew represented.  Trevor's girlfriend Becki and a few of her friends made it out.  I know I'm missing a bunch of people but thats all the name dropping I can take for now.

We had a great time, even though I had some technical difficulties from the start.  My guitar sounded kind of weird, but it was okay, then I broke a string.  I tossed that guitar aside and grabbed my backup guitar, an old Silvertone piece of crap from the 60s.  It looks cool, and sometimes it sounds decent, but that night it sounded like someone crapped down the headstock.  I was able to finish the set, masking the guitar shortcomings by playing a lot of feedback and single notes.  It really didn't turn out that bad, but I'm definitely in the market for a better backup guitar.

After the bar closed, we stuck around and Eric made us some more drinks, then he tore up our tab, sweetness.  Then it was back to Dizzle's place for some more drinking and smoking.  I mostly remember lying on his porch, there was a nice cool breeze.  But the porch laying was short lived, we had to go drop Trevor off at the place his girlfriend was at.  Her friend had smoked something that freaked her out.  I wasn't getting the best vibes from that place even though the people there were cool.  Me, Piatt, and Sara headed back to Dizzle's where we ended the night watching some movie and passing out on his couch.

The next morning, we picked Trevor up from the hotel where he and his lady spent the night and we headed back to KC.  The air conditioning went out again, but thankfully it wasn't too hot that day.  When we got back to town, we unloaded the Uhaul and took that back, took showers, naps, and tried to recover from the lack of sleep and the abundance of driving.

A few days later we played at Mike's Tavern.  That ended our little run of shows, that thing called a mini tour.  It was too much fun.  We're doing a few more in the fall one down to Austin and back, the other to Minneapolis and back through Chicago and St Louis.   We'll have videos and pictures posted within a few weeks.

picha.josh.

"whey" (dallas at the curtain club)

"desert god" at the outland - Springfield, MO

I'm not sure who talked to them for us but we recently had a promotional piece written about us in a Kansas City music mag, The Pitch.  It's short but pretty cool.  Even cooler since we didn't have to ask them to write about us.

Bodisartha

Tuesday, March 7, at Mike's Tavern (8 p.m. matinee)

By Mike Warren

Article Published Mar 2, 2006

Nirvana-like has become shorthand for any band both noisy and melodic. The word fits Kansas City's Bodisartha (born in the wilds of Springfield, that name can't be an accident), especially with singer Josh Thomas' ragged screams and shattershot guitar chords. Shoot, there are songs on the group's debut, Find Yourself Getting Lost "Is It a Gay" or "Like a Virus" come to mind that are better than those last few fossils turned up for Nirvana's recent rarities box. The band finds its own unexplored mountain ranges of loud and catchy bits. It won't be long till Frances Bean is um dating, so maybe a band inspired by her dad's songs (important note: not imitating them) is something we can pay attention to again.

The article in The Pitch

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A review of our new album from The Giant Snail

"Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves."
~Henry David Thoreau

I am a knowledge addict. Every time I hear a name, it rings a bell, and it won't stop ringing until I know where I'd heard it (or imagined I'd heard it). Wringing my brains, googling, wiki'ing, and urban dictionarying for a good fifteen minutes convinced me that I've probably never heard the name Bodisartha. It fits in my brain right between Boanerges and Boethius.

And that's a good place for them, too. They are Boanerges, sons of thunder, flashes of light and silence followed by roaring guitar lines and vocals. But there's also something of the resigned philosopher in them- lines like "REVOLUTION PLEASE" show that the band is so frustrated and suffocated by the society we live in, that they are ready, willing, and able... to ask someone else for a revolution.

That said, the tame lion doth still roar in good health. They're quick to point out their similarity to Nirvana, and I'll grant them that- although (for now, at least) it's the early Nirvana, suffering from some of the same production quirks: tin can acoustics, too-sweet choruses, the infamous double vocal track. They do break out of the mold with varying success- Leave That Over There comes out like a droning shoegazer abortion, and when their throats aren't bleeding, tracks like Disagree smack of late nineties rockers like Miranda Sex Garden.

The weakest point is their lyrical reluctance. They seem to pull their punches, self-conscious of their own shortcomings- after all, "if you wouldn't mind i can fix you / but of course by me i just mean you"
But their rebellion should be much more manifest if they espouse the spirit of Henry David Thoreau. The catch phrase is "Fuck You, Robot," and not gently.

But I'm really pretty proud of them- their release is available at no charge through their website http://www.bodisartha.com , in a gesture of acceptance of the new paradigm which many, many, crappier bands *cough*Metallica*cough* are reluctant to lend a finger, although most of us have already taken the arm. It definitely merits a listen, especially if your ears lost their virginity to the post-punk movement.

Apologies if I sound too Pitchforky- I'm just trying to be honest.

~The Giant Snail
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playback:STL CD Review

Bodisartha | Find Yourself Getting Lost (Circleview)

Written by Jason Green

Bodisartha take the loud-soft transition that Cobain stole from Black Francis to the extreme.  Nirvana or Pearl Jam? The competition over which of those seminal '90s alterna-rockers deserved to take the throne as Grand Poobah of Grunge is close enough that picking an official winner is pointless, but there is one title for which there is no debate: which band gave birth to the worst knockoffs. Kurt Cobain & Co. may have heralded the arrival of a fair amount of mediocre bands in their day, but none that even comes close to the sheer crapitude of, say, Creed. Setting their sights on the sound of Aberdeen's finest, Springfield, Mo., trio Bodisartha joins a long list of bands to echo Nirvana's loud-soft dynamics and fuzzed out punk. The results sound, by and large, like a lo-fi version of Failure, which is not a bad place to be. Bodisartha take the loud-soft transition that Cobain stole from Black Francis to the extreme, slinging Josh Thomas' thudding electric guitar and blood-curdling scream vocals onto "Revolution" after 90 seconds of acoustic guitar balladry, only to come to float back down in the song's final seconds. "So Nice Being Warm" thrashes like a cross between Nirvana's gibberish classic "Tourette's" and the lighter "Radio Friendly Unit Shifter," and a nice Melvins homage pops up in the murky guitars and Justin Piatt's whip cracking drums on "Is It a Gay?" It's nice to see a band influenced by Nirvana that chooses to use the rough edges of Bleach and In Utero as their template instead of the well-worn, radio-ready Nevermind, but the one big play that Bodisartha forgot to swipe from Cobain's songbook is the pop hook. Thomas seems to think that the secret to writing a catchy, memorable song is to repeat the same single line of lyrics over and over and call it a chorus, and while that works on some songs (most notably "Disagree" and "Like a Virus," which manages to infect like a, well, you can imagine), it also gets painfully irritating on others ("Is It a Gay?", "Whey"). The good moments outweigh the bad, however, and the familiarity of Bodisartha's sound isn't the distraction it could have been. Find Yourself Getting Lost is a largely enjoyable debut, even if not a largely original one. RIYL: Failure, The Vines, Nirvana

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Find Youself Getting Lost review by Brainscab zine

To begin with I am not sure where to take you on this journey with Bodisartha. They are somewhere between Nirvana to the Beatles to a hole in the head. Yes hard to nail down with the twelve songs coming my way right now. I do know that this CD takes a couple of listens to get what is going on.  Not that it is very complicated but the depth of the message of the songs being thrown at you. In some ways the structure is of that of the Cowboy Junkies coming at you with a heavy message but not heavy riffs. Its a good listen and worth getting into your collection.

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Frequency of the Month - HeavyFrequency.com 

Frequency of the Month

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Show review for June 17th at the American Legion Hall in Lawton, Oklahoma by Novacaine Promotions

Alright, to be honest, I think this was my least favorite show at The Legion. There were a couple things that saved it though (I'll go into more detail later). Half of the bands sounded the same, it got boring quick.

An A Setup didn't come out like they were suppose to, instead they had another band there (whose name I forget at the moment) they didn't do that bad, but I know there were some people who wanted to see An A Setup.

The $5 it cost to get in was worth it though, for one main reason.. Bodisartha. I'll be honest.. they were the main reason I wanted to go in the first place, and from the time I saw them getting ready to go on, 'til I left that night, they didn't disappoint. They played great, had a great set, a lot of people seemed to like them, and they were fun guys to talk to. I talked to Josh quite a bit, he was one of the nicest guys I've met in my life! The whole band was really nice. It was really awesome seeing them. I really hope they get to play in Lawton again sometime.

The Villins, from what I heard, wasn't that bad. I had to leave before they played a couple months ago, and I had to leave half way through their set Saturday. Not too shabby..

Anyways, like I said, the show wasn't that great until Bodisartha got on, and from then on, it wasn't that bad.

If you get the chance, go to their MySpace and check them out.. hell, buy a cd. I have one.. it's great. Really cheap price too for such an amazingly made album. (Hopefully, I'll get around to doing an album review soon)
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Interview by Novacaine Promotions

Who are some of your biggest influences?

Nirvana, the pixies, the beatles, the velvet underground, Bob Marley I love music that's dangerous but still has melody.


What's the best part about being on stage?

Getting to make an ass of myself. There aren't many places you can go and scream your ass off for 45 minutes and have people clap for you. Usually people get locked up for acting like i do, but when you're on stage, you're somehow immune to that kind of judgement. Im sure people are judging me but I feel so comfortable on stage that I don't care.


What's the best part about being on tour?

The best thing about being on tour is meeting new people. That's what playing music live has always been about for me: connecting with people. There's a lot of people out there that are waiting for something to blow their minds and that's what we try to do. I don't know if we're successful or not, but that's the idea. I like novelty, so when we're on the road and we're in a different city every day, it keeps me fresh. When I'm in one place too long I start to feel kind of stagnant.


The worst part?

When there's a ton of other shit going on the place you're playing and no one shows up, so you don't get paid. That happened in Dallas. We played at the Curtain Club on the same night as a Dallas Mavericks playoff game and a huge music festival called Edgefest. It was a great venue to play, but the timing was horrible. That kind of stuff happens when you're on tour sometimes.


What are your favorite songs to perform?

I love playing So Nice Being Warm live. There's so much energy in that song. So Nice Being Warm started off as an acoustic song, but once Piatt started playing drums to it, it got louder, before I knew it I was screaming. Most of the songs that I scream on started off quieter, but Piatt plays so loud, I kept having to crank the guitars up and scream to hear myself.


How does it feel driving hundreds of miles to play for people who have never heard of you guys before?

It feels great. I feel free when I play in front of strangers. They have no preconceived notions of how we'll sound and there's no pressure because if we suck, oh well, we'll most likely never see them again anyway. I love out of town shows.


What's the most memorable show you've had?

GrassCannon, the band that Piatt and I were in before Bodisartha, had some really crazy shows. There were things being thrown, holes knocked into walls, near riots. We haven't been banned from any bars yet with this band.

One night that comes to mind was when we played at The Hurricane in Kansas City in March, I broke both my guitars during the first two songs of the set. So i had to go out in the crowd and find a guy from the band after us and use his guitar. One small problem, I play in an alternate tuning so i had to retune every string on his guitar, bret and piatt made noise while everyone waited.

I enjoy technical difficulties. It makes the show more real to me. It keeps us on our toes and stops us from just plowing through the set mindlessly.


Where did the name "Bodisartha" come from?

Id been looking for a band name for months but i couldnt think of anything that fit.

One day I was listening to an Alan Watts tape and he said Bodhisattva, but i thought he said Bodisartha. I checked google for the word and didn't find anything. 0 results for Bodisartha. So i took it. Its been a love/hate thing ever since. Most people have problems spelling and/or pronouncing our name, but at least it's not 5 words long.


What is the crowds usual response to the band?

There isn't really a usual response. It really depends on the age of the people there. Shows at bars that are 21 and over are pretty calm and laid back compared to all ages shows. I prefer all ages shows, it's a lot more fun. They seem to get into it more and they're not just there to get drunk and try to get laid.


Do you ever listen to your album and think like, "Oh, I wish I would have done this here" or are you pretty happy with how it turned out?

I don't think I've ever been fully satisfied with anything I've done. There's always something that could have been a little better. I spent about 6 months mixing and editing the audio on the new album so it's as close as I've come to being totally happy with a finished product, but theres still a few things that I'd change.


Any advice to today's youth?

I don't know how old you think I am, but I'm kind of still a youth myself, but if I've picked up any wisdom over the years, it's this: think for yourself. question authority. Live in the present tense, and take care of each other, no one else will.


If you want to plug anything, thank anyone or tell any band news, heres your chance!

Nothing i really want to plug. I guess people can buy our cd on amazon.com if they want, that might be worth mentioning. Thanks to everyone that let us sleep on their couches while we were on the road.
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Indie-Music.com CD Review

Artist: Bodisartha

CD: Find Yourself Getting Lost

Home: Kansas City, Missouri

Style: Alternative/Punk Rock

Quote: "The music Bodisartha makes is nirvana, indeed."

By Dan MacIntosh --> COMMENT- 2 br tags between byline and first paragraph -->

During the track "Is It A Gay?" Josh Thomas' screaming vocal is a dead ringer for the late Kurt Cobain (Nirvana). Bodisartha hardly sounds original, but for some reason, their music is so doggone easy to love.

Much of this CD's appeal has to do with its crisp and clean production. It may lack a lot of studio sheen, but the guitars are chunky, the drumming is tight, and the vocals are painfully sincere. In some places, such as on "Leave That Over There," Thomas's vocals are altered and muddled, almost beyond recognition. Like Nirvana, Bodisartha is also a trio. And sometimes smaller can be better and tighter. I mean, look at The White Stripes. It's quality, not size, that matters most anyhow.

It isn't always easy to pick up on what this band is singing about, but some song titles, like "Like A Virus" and "Manufacturing Dissent" at least raise curiosity levels. There is intelligence within these thick, hard rock grooves without a doubt.

Many remember Cobain because of the singer's tragic death. But Bodisartha shows that the rock sound he pioneered was/is also something truly noteworthy. The music Bodisartha makes is nirvana, indeed.

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entertainmentnutz.com
Review by The Audio Nut

Bodisartha
Find Yourself Getting Lost - 2006

Grade: A

http://www.bodisartha.com

This trio brings some solid rock to the table on this full-length release. Mixing various rock influences and styles that remind me a lot of Nirvana, Bodisartha, has some great songs. They display sheer talent and grace

on this twelve song disc, which is a must have for fans of groups like Seether, Breaking Benjamin and of course Nirvana. Be sure to check out the bands website for some information about getting the CD or you can just go ahead and buy it from amazon.com Go ahead, get this disc. I am certain you will love it.

It's true.  The CDs are finally pressed and in our possession.

As soon as I fill out some paperwork, the CD will be available on Amazon.com, CDBaby.com, iTunes, Rhapsody.com, and Borders.com. 

In the Kansas City area, the CD will be carried by 7th Heaven, CD Warehouse, Prospero's Books, and some Best Buys.

The CD will still be available on our website as a free download, but i'm sure you realize that unless some people buy it we can't keep touring and making more CDs.  We're not rich.  We're usually totally broke. 

Another thing, if you download the album, you won't have the beautiful artowk that was created for the album by brian maschler of digital bbq creative in Austin, TX.

If you want a CD, they'll be available at all of our shows.  Or you can mail $10 for a CD (shipping included) to:

Bodisartha
210 SE Circleview Drive
Lee's Summit, MO  64063

or paypal us 10 bucks.

Thanks to everyone that helped us get the CD together and all the people that have been coming out to our shows.  We appreciate the support and hope to someday quit our day jobs.

love/josh

I'm going to attempt to book us two tours this year.  One in the Summer, the other in the Fall.  I've got the cities figured out but I'm not toally sure on which venues in each city would best suit us.  If you have any ideas, feel free to share....

we just got back from a week long mini tour and managed to break even, so we're going to do two more mini tours in the fall.

Fall tours:

wichita

tulsa

dallas

austin

dallas again

fayetteville AR

springfield mo

back home

________________

ames/des moines

minneapolis

madison

chicago detroit

champaign IL

st louis

Well, that's about it.  Just thought I'd announce our overambitious plans.

love,
josh

I can't say much about the situation, but it has to do with the artwork for our new album, Find Yourself Getting Lost.  The painting, by Brian Maschler, is based on a photograph that he took during his college years. 

Now, one of the people in the photograph is insisting that we change the album's artwork because we "illegally" used their likeness.  Apparently they did a google search on "Brian Maschler" that led them to our website, then they had a brilliant idea.  Let's threaten to sue these guys to see if they'll give us any money!!!  genius.

This is funny for a number of reasons. 

First, the painting looks nothing like the original photo - there's no way you'd recognize the person based off their "likeness" in the painting.

Second, he/she willingly volunteered for the photo shoot and now they're insisting that they should be financially compensated for this volunteer work - 6 years later!!!

There's no way that we're going to lose the case.

Random people suing us....so does that mean we're famous? 

UPDATE:
After several emails between the model and Brian, the model has realized that there is nothing he/she can do to keep Brian from using his own original painting based on his own original photograph.  So it looks like the situation has been resloved.  Bummer, I was hoping we could get some press from this.  But I guess frivolous lawsuits aren't news anymore anyway.

love,
josh