Press Kitty

Press Contact
If you would like a physical press kit, please let us know. We will gladly send one by, just let us know to whom and where.

Bill Miller
Testing Ground US
60 Frustuck Avenue
Fairfax, CA 94930
[hatfyr@herearethefactsyourequested.com]

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Photo by Jeff Simon
[Download hi-res image for print (300dpi 1.2Mb TIFF)]


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An Interview
Well, introduce HATFYR to the Spanish public. A little bit of your history, current components.

We have been making music together for a long time. This began a long time ago when we were children playing with tape recorders, pretending we had a radio show and pretending to be a band that would come and perform on the radio show. We would make the guitar noises and drum sounds with our mouths. Now we have thousands of dollars worth of high-tech music equipment.

Our favorite thing to do is have one person with a book of lyrics and the others playing music and just improvise something immediately. Sometimes we can make ten songs in an evening that way, often a late night affair. That's the way that most of Shocks+Struts was constructed. From these improvisations we would take the best moments and edit them into songs. It is quite a lot of work actually trying to make all the mistakes go away. We did our best, I hope it doesn't sound too confusing.

How you define the sound and the music of HATFYR?

We've called it "kaleidophonic". Think of a kaleidoscope of sound. What we really want to do is take all the music we like and put it in a blender and then drink it or pour it all over the audience. When surprising elements are combined it just shows that everything resonates with a kind of familiarity around the nature of your brain composition. For us, the real world is in your headphones where can make little pop creatures do your bidding.

I have understood that "Shocks + Struts" it was recorded in your own studio and published in your own label in America, a good experience?

Yes, our first few experiences in recording studios were so painful. It takes so long for us to perfect our recordings and studios can be very expensive. For us it was never possible to capture the sense of fresh life that the demo version had. It was always heartbreaking how the songs would just become frozen. We were determined from the very beginning to have our own studio. Now we can record for hours and hours and capture the exact moment that an idea comes into being.

What do you think as musicians and about internet music distribution?

As we said before, we have been making music on whatever equipment is available to us since we were children. Back then, it was cassette recorders and toy instruments. Now it is digital recording. The cost of equipment and the availability of technology has now made it possible for anyone to distribute music anywhere in the world via the internet. Even children can make their music heard. This is very exciting for artists everywhere. It helps encourage new artists who otherwise might leave their music on cassette tapes in a closet forever.

It is very important that we all support Internet radio, which is coming under attack in America by the monster of commercial music. More good music than ever exists and access to the music is now enabled by the technology of the internet. The key thing now is for labels like Testing Ground and all of the great music websites to perform the work of curating and sorting out all of the music. Then we can only hope that the audience will take it upon themselves to seek and appreciate all of this great music and not just to take the easy way out of accepting corporate mono culture.

» Muzikalia.com October 11, 2002

Clips and quotes
“Here Are the Facts You Requested drags indie rock into the realm of performance art -- and soul music”. Link to Feature Cover Article on Here Are The Facts You Requested
» Nancy Einhart, SF Weekly Cover Story January 29, 2003

“Like all smugly codified traditions, pop music begs to be dismantled, and Here Are The Facts You Requested cheerfully comply.”
» Neva Chonin, SF Bay Guardian

“We could define them like pop post-alternative, opened to all type of musical experiences; a squid that extends its tentacles as far as the present technology applied to music allows; danceable songs with a warm feminine voice and the ululante whine of an exotic bird that transports us to the depth of the amazonian jungle.”
» UniversoPop

“The experimental pop shadow cabinet mixes samples, synths, cello, and layered guitars to create some serious “Avant-normal” tuneage as part of its ongoing dissection of pop music.”
» Sam Hurwitt, East Bay Express

“Catchy…often warped…this is wildly creative stuff, with all manner of processed sounds…by a group of iconoclastic intellectuals with a delightfully refreshing view of poular music.”
» Steve Robey, Expose

“Imagine Ween with laptops.”
» John Sekerka, Thurst Quarterly

Reviews
[Shocks+Struts Reviews]
[FELT Reviews]

Lyrics
[Shocks+Struts Lyrics]
[FELT Lyrics]

Radio Activity
Shocks+Struts:
• KUSF Music Director Brad Stark Top 20 Local Albums of 1998
• KUSF DJ T.O. Ted Top 10 Albums of 1998
• Reached KUSF weekly playlist #70 (29 spins/week)
• Live performance and interview on KUSF April 4, 1998.
• HATFYR Performed a live seamless mix of new songs, spotaneous improvisation and faux commercials on KALX, 1999. Results documented on limited-release CD, KALX Live! featuring cover of Rush’s Spirit of Radio.
• Reached KALX monthly playlist #23 February 1999