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UID:4f02e4f8-ab44-4e32-aaf4-dca9f6d828eb@360exp.net
SEQUENCE:29843039
DTSTAMP:20260928T110415Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260928T075952Z
DTSTART:20261126T193000Z
DTEND:20261126T230000Z
SUMMARY:BODEGA
LOCATION:The Leeds Irish Centre
DESCRIPTION:“I never thought of us as a post-punk band\,” stresses Ben 
 Hozie\, singer and guitarist in the NYC-based band BODEGA. “I just thoug
 ht of us as a conceptual rock band.”\n\nThis might come as a surprise to
  those who’ve been following the band over the last several years. BODEG
 A’s previous albums — 2018’s Endless Scroll\, 2022’s Broken Equipm
 ent\, and 2024’s Our Brand Could Be Your Life — drew well-earned compa
 risons to post-punk icons like Talking Heads\, the B-52s\, Devo\, and Soni
 c Youth.\n\n“Post-punk is conceptual punk\, so that lent itself to our t
 hing early on\,” says Hozie\, “but at the end of the day\, it’s abou
 t our songwriting.”\n\nTruthfully\, the post-punk tag hasn’t been apt 
 for some time now. Our Brand Could Be Your Life\, a rerecording of a 2015 
 album by an earlier incarnation of the group called Bodega Bay\, was more 
 inspired by classic indie rock bands like Pavement and Guided By Voices. L
 ast year’s Rot in Helvetica\, by the group’s alter ego NODEGA\, saw th
 em go in the opposite direction\, delving into the sound of classic hardco
 re punk like Black Flag and 7 Seconds.\n\nBODEGA’s new album\, All Insid
 e Aquarium\, sees the band stray further than ever from these post-punk or
 igins. The group’s goal was\, “Let's go back to melodic tunes\, let's 
 be more of a proper rock band\,” Hozie explains. Sonically\, the band ai
 med for “this late ‘80s/early ‘90s Stone Roses-meets-Jane’s Addict
 ion thing\, with more riffing and guitar solos.”\n\nThe latter\, in part
 icular\, were a major influence (Jane’s Addiction have been Hozie’s fa
 vorite band since high school)\, and there is indeed a palpable “Lollapa
 looza ‘91 Main Stage” vibe to the proceedings. “We were aiming at so
 mething larger\, warmer\, watery\, and metaphysical\, inspired by the opti
 mistic alt rock of our half-remembered youth\,” he notes. The album’s 
 lush\, grungy production harkens back to Alternative Nation arena-isms of 
 Siamese Dream\, Definitely Maybe\, One Hot Minute\, even Achtung Baby\, wh
 ile the band’s commitment to Beatle-esque pop craft keeps everything roo
 ted in hook-y pop song structures\, with sing-along choruses and middle-ei
 ghts galore.\n\n“The way that we listen to music is so eclectic\, and th
 at’s how we approached this album too\,” says singer and percussionist
  Nikki Belfiglio. “You can have a hardcore song next to a folk song\, be
 cause there’s no punks on the corner waiting to beat you up.” To wit\,
  the album includes BODEGA’s radical reinvention of Bob Dylan’s “Slo
 w Train\,” the title track from his unfairly maligned 1979 album of the 
 same name\, which is about as far from post-punk as one can get. Hozie cit
 es the glammy\, Navarro-esque solo on that track as one of his favorite mo
 ments on the album.\n\nWhere BODEGA’s previous LPs were largely recorded
  piecemeal\, with the band members rarely in the same room\, signing to Ch
 rysalis Records (Pere Ubu\, Jethro Tull) gave them the ability to log seri
 ous studio time as a unit. The group spent a month and a half in the UK wo
 rking with producer Matt Peel (Yard Act\, Eagulls) at the Nave\, his studi
 o set up in a deconsecrated church in Leeds. They played live\, successful
 ly capturing the energy of their shows in a way that previous albums hadn
 ’t quite nailed. The album was then mixed in Brighton with Theo Verney (
 English Teacher\, Lime Garden).\n\nWhere the band’s earlier material too
 k a more explicitly sociopolitical bent\, Hozie and Belfiglio’s writing 
 on All Inside Aquarium is deliberately less didactic and more concerned wi
 th poetics.\n\nFor Hozie\, “If there's one thesis song\, it would be ‘
 Literary World.’ It’s kind of a playful tune\, but it's really about h
 ow what we're lacking is not political consciousness - because one of the 
 most amazing things post-2016 is that the whole world has developed a poli
 tical consciousness - but literary or poetic consciousness. A literary per
 spective is an empathetic one\, because if you're a novelist\, you have to
  understand the thinking of all of your characters\, even if they're the m
 ost egregious people.”\n\n“Pick Up the Check\,” the album’s first 
 single\, exemplifies this approach. “The lyrics are imagining you're at 
 a restaurant with somebody\, either on a romantic date or some kind of bus
 iness date with a music industry person\,” Hozie says\, “and you have 
 to learn how to say no\, stick up for yourself\, and pick up the check. Ev
 en if you can't afford it\, put it on credit and get out of there!” Stil
 l\, Hozie emphasizes that “I always think of our songwriting as sort of 
 Socratic. We're asking questions.”\n\nBelfiglio explains that her song 
 “Weather Me\,” is “about living in an information kaleidoscope full 
 of everyday grievances alongside very real problems. If you don’t know w
 ho or what to prioritize\, this kaleidoscope can fracture your everyday ex
 istence.”\n\nBODEGA’s newfound focus on poetics also resulted in some 
 of the most personal material to date. “I had this epiphany that on earl
 ier LP’s\, I thought of my rock tunes and my ballads as two separate cat
 egories. I realized that I mostly only delved into personal material on ba
 llads\,” Hozie says\, “So I was like\, ‘Why couldn't I write somethi
 ng emotionally direct and personal in a fast rock song?’”\n\nHozie’s
  “Astro Night Ride” “is about my mom\, who died in 2017. Five years 
 later\, when I was really trying to process what happened for the first ti
 me\, I started having all these dreams where she would show up\, and it wa
 s always at amusement parks. We’d be riding coasters together\, which is
  a childhood memory of one of the few times where the family was all toget
 her and happy and blissed out. I’d always wake up with tears in my eyes 
 and in such a good mood.”\n\nThe song’s construction was “self-consc
 iously almost a prog rock thing. I wanted the arrangement to map out a rol
 ler coaster ride\,” with sections that speed up and slow down\, building
  and releasing tension. “I was trying to create a song that is both deep
 ly personal\, but also kind of an anthem\, and one that's borderline naive
 \, from a kid's point of view.”\n\nSimilarly\, Belfiglio’s “Olivia\,
 ” about her cousin who tragically passed in 2010\, “is the most person
 al song that I've ever written.” Olivia Belfiglio was just seventeen whe
 n\, hiking a treacherous Catskills trail in sandals\, she slipped and fell
  100 feet to her death.\n\n“I was at her grave\, and I just started sing
 ing the song\, thinking of things. I got the whole melody and the first th
 ree verses right in one go. There's a lot of magical feelings around this 
 song for me.”\n\n“Pain\, after it subsides\, can bring you closer to a
  beatific perspective\,” Hozie says\, where “you remember all is conne
 cted and paradoxically emerge more yourself despite recognizing you are a 
 mere flake in the fish-tank of cosmic oneness.” He’s speaking here spe
 cifically about the meaning of the album’s anthemic\, aquatically-orient
 ed title track\, but it’s a perfect distillation of where BODEGA are at
 \, and something we’d all do well to remember. “Nobody can really mess
  with your head except yourself when you take responsibility for your real
 ity\,” he says.\n\nSonics aside\, such a perspective is truly post-punk.
  Because this is what it looks like to grow beyond the righteous rage of y
 outhful punk: An embrace of maturity\, a sense of personal and interperson
 al accountability\, creative ambition\, an open mind\, an open heart\, and
  the readiness to reinvent. That’s what All Inside Aquarium is all about
 .\n\nBoletos: https://dice.fm/event/pyneyw-bodega-26th-nov-the-leeds-irish
 -centre-leeds-tickets
URL;VALUE=URI:https://360exp.net/events/4f02e4f8-ab44-4e32-aaf4-dca9f6d828e
 b
STATUS:CONFIRMED
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