You can learn a lot about a band from listening to their music. You can also learn plenty by what they say about themselves. Buzzgrinder scours the web and brings you the strangest and most desperate of verbiage that comes from the mouths of musicians — or their overbearing publicists.

Most bands have normal bios that give a little history of the members, giving details of their approach to the genre and maybe a few words about new material. However, if a band’s bio says nothing of the above, you can be assured that their the band probably aren’t being groomed as the next pop supergroup.

Enter Chicago’s American Heritage and the first two sentences of their bio:

Uh, Some dudes jammed and, lo, a name was picked. The name narrowly squeaked by its nemesis, “meow meow kitty meow”.

Basements were abandoned. Firesides were abandoned. Raitonality was abandoned. Hope was abandoned about a trillion fukn times, yo. Old Style was adopted. The people on the river were happy to give. Fuckers came and went. Record labels existed and stopped existing. Airplanes were taken. Coolant was spewed, Dodges pushed into the wrong damn country. The “Best in the West” was identified. Teeth stained, bidets full of mail, poo-smelling digs as well. Emceed Meier-like box stores were hung out at. Kevin Seconds’s doppelganger went to the Holy Land to fight alongside the Resistance. Two Hairs had a bellyache. Someone’s daughter got high with the wrong person, asses were wiped and dyped, as in the case of Buzz. Oh, Canada happened once. Thanks for the grand whole-country-as-North-Dakota thing. Hoo-eee. Spacious. Uhh, Chicago got even more boring. Nobody ever had any money anymore. People slept in uncomfortable places. Again with the alcohol. Heaviness happened, but slowly, over time, like a big roast or a boar on a spit. Everything continued to suck. Studios were chosen out of ignorance. Equipment was sold. One fella left and found other people to leave real fast, too. Shit kept happening. Everyone but us knew that we had ceased to exist. That’s when it all came together. Not existing is the best way to jam. Then: when a fella tries to buy his way in he is shown the door. Enough with the bad ideas already.

Photo by Scott Kinkade

One Response to “Bio Riot: American Heritage”

1. On 01/3/09 12:11 PM, Matt said:

   

   As someone who writes bios I love when people break away from the shitty boring format that reads like a press statement. This bio really works for the band. I’m tired of how serious every band is. Let’s just have some fun.

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