Last week, Bobble Tiki intended to publish an interview with The Artichoke Project prior to the band's show at Stonegate Pizza Saturday night.

Long story short: that didn't happen.

This tragedy may or may not have had something to do with food poisoning, and wild, projectile anguish spurting from both ends of Bobble Tiki's being. (In fact, since Bobble Tiki's not the type of island-themed souvenir to be bashful about sharing diarrheal details - Bobble Tiki just made that term up - it seems like a safe bet. The fact that Bobble Tiki's pants feel two sizes two small today only backs it up. ...)

All of this said, rather than add #epicfail to the end of this Tweet and pack it in, Bobble Tiki is instead going to regroup and post the interview with Lou Blanco of the Artichoke Project anyway. ...

BOBBLE TIKI: Quite simply, where did The Artichoke Project come from? How long have you guys been jamming together and what makes it work?

LOU BLANCO: The name itself connected with us from a "Who Killed John Lennon" theory.  In further research we became fascinated by the thought that through FM radio waves, drugs and electronic devices one could, in a sense, lose themselves - "attitude, beliefs, thought processes and behavior patterns." We thought: FM radio waves, drugs, and electronic devices?!!!!! Holy crap! We're The Artichoke Project! Tacoma grown and based. 

The Artichoke Project was formed in 2002 and we've been jamming since 2000.  We explore the space within a song, not allowing pointless doodles and not enforcing any specific genre.  We may play a crazy space country tune after a punk song that follows a prog monster and ends with a sample of Clay playing a delayed mouth harp with his teeth. 

TIKI: Recently, the Volcano's Rev. Adam McKinney summed up The Artichoke Project as, "best described as progressive rock, but it seems to lack all of the vacant noodling that is a defining element of the genre. ..." Fair or unfair?

BLANCO: Fair and Perfect! We call it doodling and we are best described as: "I don't know what the hell that was, but it rocked."

TIKI: According to the trusty "Wikipedia" Project Artichoke was a early '50s "CIA project that researched interrogation methods ... The project studied hypnosis, forced morphine addiction (and subsequent withdrawl), and the use of other chemicals, among other methods, to produce amnesia and other vulnerable states in subjects." Does this explain the creepy voices on your recordings and the warnings about the government?

BLANCO: Great question! Yes and no. We wanted to add to it by putting together an Artichoke Project experiment of our own. Most samples on the record were secretly recorded using our minidisk recorder in Paris, Port Townsend and La Push, with a few phone messages too. ...