In anticipation of this weekend's CD release festivities, we've made our new full length record Dirt Bathed and Quilted available as a FREE download for this week only. Simply visit openchoirfire.com and click the "Download Album for Free" link. Simple as that. No sign-ups, no logins, no nothin'. You're welcome/Thank you. Spread the word.
 
We hope to see you all at one or both of our CD Release shows this weekend, where you can do our bottom line a favor and purchase a wonderfully retro-inspired CD of the new record. But wait, THAT'S NOT ALL! With your purchase (for what...ten bucks? is that fair?), you'll receive a FREE copy of the OTHER new record (soon to be released on J-Shirt Records), No Recession, by our jerk-off country band Mississippi Painful. That's a lot of free music. I don't exactly know why we're giving all this shit out for free, considering I can hardly afford to feed my scaredy-cat dog her "with oatmeal for sensitive stomachs" kibble, but oh well, it seems the be the thing.

Seattle trio Open Choir Fire’s mother tongue is alternative, but as the once-supple dialect of alternative has hardened over the years into a rigid paradigm, Open Choir Fire has smoothly eluded its grasp â€" by inventing a new language.

Hell, Bobble Tiki doesn’t know what to call it. Guitarist/vocalist Amo DelBello, drummer Terry Kyte, and bassist Brian Massey construct a brilliant, rockin’, quirky and sweet sound in their new album, In Each Appropriate Everlasting and Not, often in the same song.  It’s Talking Heads inventive.  It’s Kings of Leon soulful.  It’s Pixies rockin’.

BOBBLE TIKI: How did three guys from the Southwest end up in a band based in Seattle? 

TERRY KYTE: Amo the guitar singer and I both moved to Tacoma to attend the University of Puget Sound, where we met in 1997 and have been playing together since with various other folk. After graduating and moving to Seattle, I paid to have an old high school friend, Brian, shipped up here to play bass for us. He’s a rocket surgeon during the day, and he’s had the same haircut for 20 years.

TIKI: Bobble Tiki hears a bit of that early ‘90s Seattle sound in your indie wonderfulness.  Did this area’s history influence your music? 

KYTE:  We’ve gotten the grunge thing before. I don’t exactly know what that refers to in our music, and I think all of us are quite hesitant to talk about musical influences in that sense. We’d like to think we have an original sound, but I guess we were all growing up around that time so perhaps Bobble Tiki is not crazy.

TIKI: Oh, Bobble Tiki is crazy, but not as crazy as the name Open Choir Fire.  Story please.

KYTE: Story behind the name is we needed a band name, and so when you’re really tired and or drunk, have someone give you a few letters, and then you spew out stream of consciousness type stuff that the letters trigger in your head, and somehow someone came up with open fire choir. We thought that name was dumb and stupid and racist, so we switched the words to have it make no sense and have no meaning as all good band names should.

TIKI: You are playing with experimental hip-hop band MC Vagina Saturday at Bob’s Java Jive.  Are they friend or foe?

KYTE: Tough question. MC Vagina is probably both friend and foe. They’ve mad rhymes though.  They are pretty amazing to see.

TIKI: What’s your favorite cover you perform?

KYTE: The only cover we have played is Talking Heads’ “Warning Sign,” but we gave it up recently.

TIKI: After a show nothing tastes better than?

KYTE: After a show nothing tastes better than the blood in my mouth? Is that what you mean?

TIKI: Well, not really.

Do you think your music saves lives?

KYTE: Our music hasn’t saved any lives that I’m aware of. It has ruined three lives and five relationships to date though.