Rice University live music

by CHRISTINA VILLARREAL on FEBRUARY 1, 2010

Please note, this interview contains some profanity.

If you didn’t catch Achachay last Thursday at Pub, you really missed out. This musical talent, native of Austin, blasted the audience with their upbeat, head bopping, dance inducing beats. They played many originals and a few covers that captured their range of skill, creativity and ability to have fun. The Lead singer, Jordan Myska Allen, a Sid Richardson College Alum, shares a few of Achachay’s ins and outs with The Rice Standard.

How does it feel, as a Rice alumnus, to have a show at Pub?

I absolutely love Pub. It is one of my favorite places on Earth, so it feels like coming home and spending quality time with an old friend. There is no other bar or community center like it anywhere else. It brings all the colleges together in a neutral ground, it provides entertainment for drinkers and non-drinkers alike, can be a place to study and hold group meetings, and fills the void of late night food options. It’s safe, and keeps Rice kids on campus, under the care of their peers, and off the roads when they’re intoxicated. There are even salsa classes at Pub!

Seriously I rave about the place all the time. I still get the emails and FB messages for events there. I undoubtedly learned more at Pub than any classroom at Rice. Man I’m pumped about the show now.
(Note: in addition to socializing, I worked and managed there for three years.)

Achachay is an interesting name. How did the band get this title?

Here’s the scene: It’s four months after Rice graduation and I’m in Ecuador, soliciting clubs in Austin for shows even though I had no band.
Jordan: “Dear Momo’s, I’d like to book a show with my new (currently imaginary) band. Two of my old bands used to play there. What dates do you have open?”
Momo’s: “What are you called?”
Jordan: “uhhh…..”

So I started brainstorming. I produced a list of maybe thirty names, and they were all awful. I kept trying to reference The Sword of Truth fantasy novel series that I’ve loved since I was a young tyke, with names like Gratch and The Seekers. My sister, who happens to be a social networking-marketing-branding specialist, nixed every single one of them. In desperation I said, “Well how about Achachay?” The word is a Quechua onomatopoeia that means “it’s cold,” just like “burr.” She approved it, I set up a Myspace page, and the rest is history.

Ironically, Momo’s never responded to that email.

As a band, you recognize the ever-changing music scene. In what ways has the band’s music grown and changed over the years?

At first we were dead set on having a keyboardist. We had a couple of guys play with us for a while but nothing ever seemed to stick for very long. I was disappointed, on the lookout for a new player, but then one fateful day I watched these two opening indie bands for Broken Social Scene. They both had these keyboardists playing these boring neo-80’s pop synth eighth note lines and it disgusted me. I texted Ryan (Greenblatt), “I’m glad we don’t have keys; it’s too fucking hip.”

We eschewed the keys, and added some horns. We’ve played a couple of shows with a trumpet and it is awesome. We’re looking to add a whole section. I’ve been hearing the parts in my head since the beginning so it’s a joy to actually have them live. Unfortunately our trumpeter can’t tour though, so he only plays with us around Texas. It’s sweet though that every show our fans hear something different – different players, different instruments, different songs; variety keeps people interested.

Another big change is that our new bassist, Hooch, is a great singer. We now have background vocals on almost all of the songs and it’s a vast improvement. He’s got a much higher range so we can cover more songs. I now write songs with harmonies in mind, instead of adding them as an afterthought. Plus, Ryan started singing more, so we’re doing a lot more vocally than we have in the past.

When it comes to writing songs, who does most of the writing and how do the lyrics incorporate the band’s values?

When we started I did almost all of the writing, but as we’ve developed everyone’s gotten involved. I’ll come up with a part and then bring it to the band to jam, and the result will be entirely new and better. Then we’ll all take home recordings of the jam and think of melodies, lyrics, and more parts. After weeks, sometimes even months and live performances of the songs, we’ll reach a point where we think they’re more or less finished. Yet they often change even after that – even after we’ve recorded a song.

As for lyrics, we have a shared philosophy in the band that to get the most out of life we’ve got to embrace the edges. We’ve got to live a life of paradox: deep, existential pondering and silly frivolousness. Most people live life in a safe middle ground – they don’t interact with people at a profound level, and yet don’t open up and enjoy the small things in life. Our lyrics are an attempt to embrace both attitudes- not taking little things too seriously while simultaneously putting really serious things in the forefront of our consciousness. In a show we’ll go straight from a song about shining a light onto your unconscious projections (Tour Song) to a song about imaginary rock people (Rock People).

At Rice I think many people get caught up in the monotonous middle ground. “What job/grant/fellowship am I going to get? OMG if I don’t get this problem set done . . . ” Meanwhile they’re missing out on Inner Tube Water Polo and Orc Raids (silly), and never asking themselves if they really even want the job, or the fellowship. What really will happen if they don’t do the problem set perfectly? What makes us happy? What makes us human? What do we really want out of life? Out of Rice?

Songs like Get Funky, utilize Spanish and English song lyrics. Are the varying languages used to relay a message or are they just to add extra groove?

Yes.

Boasting funkalicious beats, Achachay really delivers. Was the band always meant to be funk-rock?

Thanks. We didn’t set out to make music in a certain genre, but we love inspiring people move their bodies so it had to groove. We want people to be able to experience the music for themselves in their physical bodies. Funk rock was absolutely inevitable given our tastes. At the same time we’re not tied down to that. Whatever the muses bring we’ll bring to the masses.

What’s the story behind the Ho Bus? Where did you guys land a school bus named Ho?

Ahhh the glorious, beautiful, legendary Ho Bus. We found it on Craigslist, of course! Apparently for the sake of school children everywhere you can’t have an old school bus say “School” on it. Weird, right? So naturally the two women who drove it down from Washington State painted over the letters “sc” and “ol.” It was supposedly converted to run on veggie oil, which has been a dream of mine for a few years, but we ended up having to redo everything. I’ve learned so much and love that bus ’till the end of it’s days.

It has been such a trip. You know every single time we take it to New Orleans something bad happens to it – such as the transmission dying, or the alternator going out, or us running out of fuel and having to get towed almost 200 miles (turns out diesel engines are much harder to get going again if you run out of fuel). Then there’s the infamous time we played Willy Week last year and had a tire blowout halfway to Houston.

The Ho Bus is always an adventure and we love it for that. It’s a part of our band personality and development. Sadly, though, we’re selling it. I just had a couple come check it out today and they’re in. It’s just time for us to upgrade- not too fancy, just something with A/C and heat. We’re still looking for a diesel so we can convert it to run on vegetable oil.

Find out more about Achachay on their website.

February 12, 2010 by admin

Playing at Pub tonight!

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Tonight, Thursday January 28th, we have the great fortune of playing my favorite bar in the entire world – Willy’s Pub at Rice University. Sure, I’m a bit biased considering that I worked there for three years and managed the place. But most everyone that has ever spent more than a few hours at Pub will concur that it is a magical place. We’re so excited to play there. The last time we were there was over a year ago, and I’ve sure missed the place.

We were asked to do an interview for the Rice Standard, which will come out the day after the show. Hopefully they won’t mind I’m going to give you a sneak preview right here on the site, because I talk about Pub and how much I love it.

P.S. give RPC and Meredith Buchberg some mad props for working us into their Spring Concert Series schedule.

Rice Standard: How does it feel, as a Rice alumnus, to have a show at Pub?

Me: I absolutely love Pub. It is one of my favorite places on Earth, so it feels like coming home and spending quality time with an old friend. There is no other bar or community center like it anywhere else. It brings all the colleges together in a neutral ground, it provides entertainment for drinkers and non-drinkers alike, can be a place to study and hold group meetings, and fills the void of late night food options. It’s safe, and keeps Rice kids on campus, under the care of their peers, and off the roads when they’re intoxicated. There are even salsa classes at Pub!