Spring 2011 Update!

It's been almost four years since we last updated this blog! We'll try to keep it updated more frequently going forward, although we have been fairly active on FaceBook for quite some time now. We've posted almost all our catalog in the music player, with more to trickle out periodically. We've got links to all our music videos, and are continually uploaded photos from the archives.

Not only that, but we have quite a few shows coming up between now and the end of June. Check out one of the links below for more details, and we hope to see you out there in the clubs.

More news coming soon. In the meantime, please do what you can to help our friends in Japan as they work to recover from the recent triple-whammy earthquake, tsunami and nuclear emergency. We suggest heading over to Asian Man Records and purchasing a donation package. 100% of the proceeds are going to charity, and you get a lot of cool stuff.

Buck-O-Nine on Facebook

Buck-O-Nine Official Website

Buck-O-Nine at ReverbNation

Cheers,
$1.09

Summer Recap!

Ok, so even though summer isn't quite over yet, it sure feels like it's been packed with enough action to fill up two summers!

After our first string of CD release parties, we returned to San Diego the following week for a sold-out show at the world famous Casbah. Opening the show was a newer local ska band called The Lifters, who have recently relocated to San Diego from somewhere north of here. Judging by their performance, I'd say they are a promising band and we should see good things from them.

After The Lifters, one of the best San Diego bands ever, fluf, took the stage and rocked the house solid! A few days after the show, we were speaking with O and he said that one or more of the tables at the Casbah got ripped out of the ground, and he had never seen anything like that happen at the club before. That is kinda trippy, considering some of the bands I've seen there before, like SLF, The Muffs, etc.

A couple of weeks later and it was back on the road for a few days as we joined up with the Warped Tour for its final four shows of 2007. Things started off rough in Fresno, with tremendous heat and a late set time that had us on stage at the same time as Flogging Molly and Coheed and Cambria. Still, the people who showed up to the Ernie Ball stage to watch us had a good time, and we enjoyed playing for them.

Onward from Fresno, we headed to Marysville and had a fun show before hitting the road for a 10 hour trip back to San Diego. The following day was absolutely the best Warped show for us, as the San Diego fans came out in force to listen, dance and sing along. We were extra energized for this show, and we really fed off the energy of the crowd. It turns out we were camped out in the parking lot right next to Adrian from No Doubt, who had taken a detour from a camping trip to spend the day at Coors Amphitheater watching his brother's band play.

Finally, we rolled up the 405 to Carson (familiar territory for us after just recently playing X-Games there) for the final show. Once again, Los Angeles came out and showed their support for us, and we had a great time. Highlights of the day included seeing Fishbone tear it up, watching old-school punk bands like Adolescents and Circle Jerks, and getting to talk with Norwood from Fishbone backstage. He's a cool guy, and his personality off stage is just as vibrant as it is onstage.

'Til next time.....

-crAig

Sustain CD Release Shows Part I

We're currently driving south on I-5, heading home from Stockton, CA. We'd like to thank everyone who came out to party it up at the CD release shows! Friday night at the Bottom of the Hill in San Francisco was a very memorable show for us, and we feel it was probably our most fun playing in S.F. ever. Also, we had a blast playing with Bomb the Music Industry, Chotto Ghetto, Flip the Switch, Monkey, Dead End Darlings, Telecommandos, and all the other bands who performed with us over the last three nights.

Highlights of the trip include...

*Realizing in Hollywood that every single page of the Sustain CD booklet is black, and that we'd have to get special sharpie pens that write in silver ink to write on them (sign autographs). Yes, this was perhaps our most "Spinal Tap" moment of recent memory.

*Bringing our own beer into one of the clubs to drink so it wouldn't go to waste!

*Jaeger shots before, during and after the San Francisco show. That's right, we had our own bottle on stage.

*Listening Mike Park talk about the prison basketball league he plays in. Mike had an early game at San Quentin prison on Saturday!

*Grabbing burritos to go at Balazo on Haight Street - can't go wrong with the Super Burrito! We drove around Haight-Ashbury and then the wharf for what seemed like hours trying to find a parking space. Thanks to the huge SF Dragons lacrosse game going on at Kezar stadium, we couldn't find parking anywhere!

*Crossing the Bay Bridge no less than three different times while trying to meet up with Tony yesterday on route to Stockton. We were hoping an earthquake would strike at least once and make the day more interesting.

*Late-night drinking session after the Stockton gig in the motel parking lot...we actually made it to bed before sunrise this time!

The Dawg Days of Summer...

It's the night before the official release date for "Sustain" and we're stoked!

Yesterday we played at X-Games 13 in Los Angeles, and we had a blast. Everyone on the X-Games staff was super-cool, and the people who watched us play really made it worth the early morning trip up the 405 to Carson.

We got to see some killer skateboarding, and thrilling "Dukes of Hazzard" style rally-car racing over in the stadium before heading home last night. We also got to hang out with Union 13's manager and talk about the ska scene in Mexico and South America. Then Efram from Death By Stereo stopped by for a chat. Overall, a great day. We should be adding some video blogs from the event soon.

No time to catch our breath, however, because Thursday we hit the road for more shows as we celebrate the release of "Sustain" with several CD release events in Hollywood, San Francisco, San Jose, and of course San Diego. The San Diego show will be special because legendary band fluf will be playing with us. I don't think they have played together in quite some time.

We look forward to seeing people at the CD release shows. Remember, at the Hollywood, San Francisco and San Diego shows, everyone who buys a ticket also gets a free copy of "Sustain." So even if you've already grabbed it via BitTorrent, you should still get a real copy, if for nothing more than the fact that our guitar player Jonas did all the artwork!

Come out and buy us Jaeger shots! Latez for now...

Recording Update

by Craig Yarnold

A couple of weeks ago we recorded lead and backing vocals for most of the songs we've tracked so far.

It's really great to add layers to the songs and see them come together. It's amazing how a song comes to life as you add all the pieces together in the recording studio.

Jon did a great job busting out lead vocals in record time, especially considering the environment in which we're recording. You see, we're doing this at our rehearsal room, which is located in a big cement-box-of-a-building, way out in east county San Diego (El Cajon to be precise). So it's hot and dry, and we're surrounded by loud metal bands. Sometimes a band can be playing down the hall, but somehow the extreme noise of ceiling-high stacks of Crate amplifiers just pours through the walls like the devil's own blood.

This means we frequently have to put recording on hold while we try to figure out when neighboring bands will be finished rehearsing. Otherwise, we end up with lots of low-end background noise getting recorded on horn and vocal tracks. In a way, this kinds gives the recording some character. You can't hear the noise when you listen to the whole song at once - just when you isolate tracks.

Just as with the horn-lines, recording the backup vocals gave us the opportunity to fine-tune these parts and see what needs to be changed, improved, or given the boot. It's also given us new motivation to pay more attention to backup vocals during the song-writing process and for our live performances.

Other than that, we're now up to 11 songs written, with a few more to come. We may even put together an interesting cover-tune - modified, of course, to suit the Buck-O-Nine style.

We've got several shows coming up, including gigs in San Diego and Hawaii, so visit buckonine.com and scroll down on the homepage to see our calendar.

Summer 2006 Update

by Craig Yarnold

We're currently playing lots of shows throughout the summer and fall! So far they've all been really fun, and we're stoked at the response we're getting from audiences - especially when we've played a couple of new songs!

Also, we've been recording demo tracks of new material. So far we've got 9 songs in the works, and we'll be putting together a few more to round out what we think will be a killer album!

We've been recording with our trumpet player, Tony. Tony's got a high-end PC with a great mixing board and microphones. He's done some other recordings for local bands such as my other band, Secret Samurai. Our goal here is to get some really solid demo tracks recorded so that we can see where we stand with the material - what needs to be tightened up, what needs to be changed or added - before we go into an actual recording studio to lay down final tracks.

The exciting thing about this process is that we're able to draw on our previous recording experiences - working with different engineers and producers - and take that all into the demo process, so that we can record something that is near-album quality. We've decided on beats-per-minute for each track, used a metronome to get the tempo started right, and even used an electronic drum kit so we can experiment with different drum sounds (plus, at Tony's home studio, where we recorded some tracks, electronic drums help keep the noise down so the neighbors don't call the cops).

While tracking horns, we've already identified some weak spots and tightened them up - you really have to start looking at things like tuning, harmonies, notes, and phrasing here - and we've even completely re-written one horn line to make it more "musical".

Next up is vocals and backing vocals...stay tuned.

Buck-O-Nine Interview Tonight!

Tune into DJ Rossstar's Punk Rock Show Wednesday, September 21st 2005 7-8pm PST to hear a live in studio interview with Jon from Buck-O-Nine. To listen live go to www.idobi.com/radio/ and send questions during the show through IM to IdobiRstar.