Y∆CHT came to town, and VC got an interview

Once in about a thousand blue moons, a column of light emerges from the Corvallis sky and shines upon this humble agricultural town in the form of Oregon State University’s annual Flat Tail Festival, hosted by the university’s Memorial Union Programs Council. In past years the festival has been graced with “talent” the likes of Shwayze… but this year, thanks to the organizers, Corvallis came to life with the sounds of Portland’s very own Y∆CHT.

Y∆CHT is the brainchild of Jona Becholt and Claire Evans, who both assume the dual role of leader and founder for this collective. Mind you, Y∆CHT is not only a band, but also a belief system and an experience. Rounding out their musical clergy are Portland notables Bobby Birdman (Rob Kieswetter) and Jeffrey Jerusalem (Jeffrey Brodsky). Their music entrenches one into their world, working its way into the hearts, minds and hips of everyone who should choose to participate. It’s spastic music that manages to find that deep, sensual groove; and bring everyone into its ecstatic fold.
After their incredible set at the festival, Y∆CHT was gracious enough to grant VC the chance to ask them a few questions. First you’ll find a few questions with the lovely Claire Evans, and below I was able to ask Y∆CHT founder Jona Bechtolt the same few questions. Scope it after the jump.




Volcano City: What kind of equipment do you use?
Claire: Traditional and nontraditional equipment, which varies from show to show, but you can always count on between 2 and 4 living breathing people, one computer, several regular analog human being style three dimensional instruments, some invisible instruments that you can’t see, and some vibe. Usually video projections, and video; not for this one. Computer software and cheap instruments bought on craigslist… basically.

Who are your biggest influences?
C: That’s hard to say, I think probably our closest friends, people making music out of Portland, like White Rainbow, all the Marriage Records people, White Fang, Miracles Club, Operative, Flaspar, and then like a lot of early 80’s punk rock music, but we try and operate in a vacuum.

If you had an unlimited budget what kind of a show would you play?
C:If I had an unlimited budget I would buy a plot of land in the desert and build a compound.

What is your favorite song off of Daft Punk's album Discovery?
C: They’re all so great, I think asking bands that question is heartbreaking because it’s like asking someone which one of their children is preferred, I would never try and choose one Daft Punk song over another. It’s a full cohesive aesthetic experience… I’m gonna go sell merch.

Jonah et al-

What kind of equipment do you use?
J- We use, we sort of adhere to a Buckminster-Fuller idea of doing as much as we can with as little as possible, so most of our instruments we find on places like craigslist or eBay, we use traditional rock instruments, and then we use consumer grade electronics like iMacs and Macbooks. Nothing too wild or obscure.

Who would you say is your biggest influence?
It’s not a person it’s an experience, there’s a paranormal optical phenomena in the far west Texas desert called the Marfa mystery lights. And that’s what we named our record after and that’s what we do everything in homage to, so that is our main inspiration.

If you had an infinite amount of money what kind of a gig would you play?
Jona: This could be collaborative. Guys come here for a second… (Rob Kieswetter, Jeffrey Brodsky, and Claire jump in) …if we had an infinite amount of money what kind of a gig would we play? We would host it in Astoria, Oregon, my home town, we would fill the entire town with foam, like 3 and a half feet worth. In the 1980’s, it would be the foam party, maybe 1990’s. The entire town would be filled with foam, about waist level, a meter or so, nothing overwhelming. We would fly in Paul Oakenfold, Sasha and Digweed.
Rob: Pauley Shore.
J: We’d get Pauley Shore to do stand-up.
Claire: Whoever is the best person on lasers, lots of lasers. Like the people who did lasers for Pink Floyd. J: Pink Floyd’s laser team circa 1998. And then music wise, that part doesn’t matter anymore we have Oakenfold and Sasha; Digweed, and there’s this whole kart-core scene in Portland which we’d like to lift up over the foam.

What is your favorite song off of Daft Punk’s album Discovery?
Jona: I’m going to be honest I don’t know that album well enough to know the track titles.
Claire: I take back my thing from earlier, “Harder, Better Faster, Stronger”.
J: None of those songs really invoke an emotional response from me, don’t get me wrong, I love Daft Punk, but yeah.
C: You should ask, maybe, what’s your favorite song off of the first Daft Punk record (Homework), in which case I would say "Daftendirekt".
J: I would say “Da Funk”. Yeah, that I get an emotional response to. But it’s hard to pick just one.
Claire: That’s what I said earlier, it’s a complete aesthetic experience.

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Thanks to Y∆CHT and the Straight Gaze for the interview!  They're off to Europe now for the rest of summer, and will be back on the West Coast on 8/29 to play the Hollywood Bowl with the fuckin' Chemical Brothers. I know, right? HUGE!