Today's spotlight is on: Chokebore
The first thing I should say about Chokebore is that they made very sad records. Some of the saddest records of the nineties, even. Now that is out of the way, you can't say that you were not warned.
Chokebore really began somewhere about 1993 when they moved to LA and were eventually signed to the much loved yet underappreciated (and dearly missed) Amphetamine Reptile record label, though they first formed in Honolulu with Jon Kroll, James Kroll, Johnee Kop and the incredibly named Troy Bruno Von Balthazar. Jon left Hawaii for LA while the band continued briefly (one year) as a three piece before deciding that he was likely having far too much fun on his own and that simply would NOT do. Without too much hesitation beside a brief six month pitstop in San Francisco, they booked their tickets and hunted him down in LA before forcing him back into the band to make him play sad music again.
Existence as a band in LA is tough at the best of times, but during the 90s one can imagine it would be significantly harder, given the sudden appearance of new sludgey rock bands every single day. Initially, the band were very confused by their new surroundings and were somewhat unsure about what 'the LA way' actually was. They each started 'tissue paper diets', began wearing fancy dresses, wearing excessive ammounts of makeup and very nearly got breasts implants before they finally understood what was actually going on.
The band recorded a demo which they sent to AmRep records, which was impressive enough to warrant their first 7" being released just a month later, followed by their debut album "Motionless" shortly afterwards. The sound fit comfortably into what has come to be fondly remembered as that nineties lo-fi indie rock sound, but with a bucketload of extra character injected by their downbeat melodies and Troy's rather bleak and hopeless lyrics. The album was a modest critical success but it seemed like the only copies sold were sold to members of their band. The band decided to take their minds off this with a 6 week tour through the US. They began to receive some extra attention with these shows which quickly resulted in a small tour of the west coast, opening for Nirvana and the Butthole surfers. Quickly realising they could do just about anything, they decided to conquer Europe just for the hell of it and beat 11 countries into submission with their special sad indie rock.
Following this impressive string of shows, they went full-on bear mode and hibernated in holes they dug in the ground. Unfortunately, they forgot to keep track of the time and missed winter, eventually coming out of hibernation in early 1995 to record their second full-length (and final album with Johnee Kop, who would be replaced by Christian Omar Madrigal Izzo), "Anywhere Near Water". Anywhere Near Water took everything they did with Motionless and pushed it even further. Sobbing critics said about the album, "very good, we should probably hype this up" before ultimately deciding "oh what is the point. everything is bleak and hopeless and we're all going to die anyway". It was a modest success, and got the band a fair ammount of attention. As if they somehow went easy on us the first time, Chokebore decided that they would re-visit Europe for two months while playing shows every single day, taking weekends off to allow the audiences to wipe tears away from their faces and recover. Just as we thought we wouldn't be able to take anymore, the band finally sauntered back off to LA leaving a 6 month long path of weeping audiences in their wake. Miraculously, they found the time during their stay to visit every coffee shop in France as well as record a third album, "A Taste For Bitters" in 1996. The album reduced their European fanbase (which was considerably large as a result of all that touring) to tears and excessive whining.
The French never really recovered from the release of Chokebore's third album.
Image of a huge Chokebore fan in 1996.In 1997, Madrigal Izzo left the band and was replaced with Mike Featherson, a chihuahua the band adopted from the local pound. Before long, they began to complete their fourth album, the unstoppable "Black Black". Black Black was to be remembered as their masterpiece, and it was the best piece of work the band have yet put out. Rather than branch out and try something else, they decided to further refine all the things they tried on the previous albums, and the result was a record that was close enough to perfect. Their saddest album to date, a lot of people cried.
For the last part of their career, the band became more playful and less concerned with being sad as people were doing a good enough job of upsetting people on their own by this point. Mike Featherson ran away and Izzo returned, they released two more albums on Pale Blue before they were finally down to their last few tears. The band collected their instruments and went to the beach, standing infront of the sea and played one last sad song. As they cried their last tears, their bodies turned to sand and were erroded by the wind until all that was left was a small collection of shoes by the coast.
Chokebore were gone, but some say that if you head down to the shore to mope, you can still hear the pained delivery of Troy Balthazar and those swirling instruments. There are those who believe that some day, when we all get too happy or forget how hopeless things really are, that Chokebore's bodies shall reconstitute from the sand like the T-1000 and begin playing music again. There are also those who believe that's a crock of shit and that the band just went on Hiatus in 2005, but where's the evidence? That solo album could have been faked, and nobody has had a close enough look at Christian Death 1334 to make sure.
Chokebore playing with their asses.Official band websiteBand MyspaceChokebore: Introduction.
http://www.mediaf!re.com/?ge2mxzymj3u
A collection of arbitrarily selected recordings.
Live performance of "A Taste For Bitters" where Matthew McConaughey stood in for Troy Von Balthazar.The video to the instantly memorable "You Are The Sunshine Of My Life" from Black Black.
