Triclops! began in 2005 as an experiment in trans Bay friendship. Christian Beaulieu from San Francisco's Bottles and Skulls bravely chose to collaborate with cross town rival/would-be-ally Johnny from Oakland's Fleshies. They made a tape with echo-laden guitars and drums, the vocals run through broken solid state amps with phaser explosion. The duo attacked noise pedals/tape loops/randomly modified guitars and began to realize the band required a rhythm section.
Finding their native punk scene poached dry of experimental-friendly comrades, they randomly responded to a Craigslist ad and struck gold in a drummer, Phil, from the defunct band Lower Forty-Eight. By January of 2006 they called out to megaveteran bass player Larry Boothroyd (of Victim's Family/Hellworms/Saturn's Flea Collar fame) and Triclops! was born, a mutation of this hybrid gene pool.
In August 2006, Triclops! recorded the Cafeteria Brutalia EP (w/ engineer Phil Manley of Trans Am, Fucking Champs, Golden) for renowned Chicago indie label SickRoom. It was also released on picture disc format on with a 12" Picture Disc version on Missing Finger Records from Brooklyn. On September 9th, 2007 Gold Standard Labs (original home of Mars Volta, the Locust, !!!, and many others) ended its long run as an active label with the Triclops! picture disc 7 inch "Too Many Humans".
In this short but productive existence, Triclops! Has shared the stage on some exciting and diverse show bills with bands such as Acid Mother's Temple, Don Caballero, Big Business, Pinhead Gunpowder, Melvins, Comets on Fire, and Circle. The group has toured with 400 Blows, QUI (David Yow of The Jesus Lizard) Federation X, Burning Brides, The Hanson Brothers, Ho-Ag, and The Arrivals, and played the GSL showcase at SXSW 2007 to a packed house at Emo's. Fall 2007 had the quartet in NYC for the CMJ Music Marathon and then to Gainesville, Florida for the No Idea Fest 6. Triclops! released "Out Of Africa" on Alternative Tentacles on March 25th 2008, recorded with Melvins engineer Kurt Schlegel at his Lucky Cat Studio. Jello Biafra personally chased them down to secure the album's release on Alternative Tentacles Recordings; the album also came out in USB format as part of a hand-crafted Noize Toy created specifically for the band on Starcleaner. Since the album has come out, they have done two-and-a-half months of crisscrossing the United States on tour, playing tons of great shows with lots of good bands. They are currently writing new material and playing select shows, more info to come!
TRICLOPS! Noise Toy Sculpture USB drive release of Out Of Africa + a ton of extra media (including two videos, one for 'Lovesong for the Botfly' and an exclusive video for 'March of the Half-Babies' not available anywhere else!) available NOW on Brooklyn's fabulous STARCLEANER RECORDS, run by Shellhead and Jen of Shellshag! Here is a writeup from the Starcleaner site:
"This 8" tall plastic toy sculpture has a detachable club with a usb device fitted inside. Plug the USB device into your computer and you will find the new Triclops! album "Out of Africa" in high quality digital format! Also loaded into the 1G USB drive is an exclusive video and tons of other bonus features from Triclops!
The Triclops! Noize Toy is 8" tall and weighs 1 3/4 pounds. It was hand sculpted and plastic casted by designer and Noize Toy inventor John C. Driver, A.K.A Shellhead. Each Triclops! Noize Toy is hand painted and is part of a limited edition of 50."
To check it out and/or order one for yrself, go HERE.
Since embedding video on myspace pages tends to suck, just click HERE to see Live footage of the last half of the last song (Bug Bomb) of the Triclops! set from 10/26/07 at the Gainesville Fest - video by Jonathan Yi! Also, try HERE to see more recent footage of Triclops! in Portland playing 'The World's First Recreational Crack Smoker' or HERE to see Triclops! playing 'Freedom Tickler' at the Great American Music Hall (both videos by Idlehanz). There's also some footage from Thrillhouse Records (R.I.P. shows at Thrillhouse) over HERE, shot by Radkol. If you want access to a bunch of Triclops! video footage and odds n' ends, head over to our YouTube page for updated links to all the stuff that we can find.
Here's a link to some photos from August 2008 in Chicago by G33kgrrl, and some great photos from Shannon Corr taken at 12 Galaxies from the BIG BUSINESS/TRICLOPS!/TOTIMOSHI show in July 2008. He's also got some great shots from Jello's 50th Birthday at Great American Music Hall in June 2008, with JELLO/MELVINS/AKIMBO/TRICLOPS!, and from the Annie's Social Club show back in March for the Out Of Africa record release!
For a remarkably thorough review of the latest LP Out of Africa, head over to Audiversity. For a very recent interview (Sept. 2008), head on over to Alarm Magazine.
i saw you in Bologna,great band,great show!i listen to your new record out of africa and i like it very much!greetings from bologna!i hope we'll see you soon in another euro tour! HOWLING MACHINES
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