Monday, April 30, 2012 at 3:55PM 
Check out the new solo instrumental album from Wounded Buffalo Theory's Jay Cowit here!
Available to buy for $5 on CDBABY.com and free streaming on Spotify and more!
Feauturing 9 new original electronic instrumental tracks, this is the first solo release for Cowit since 2007's Jay Cowit and the Enemys album. Something different! Enjoy:)
Saturday, March 17, 2012 at 7:49AM Cowit here...So in writing about the new album, I think one of the more interesting sequences, in an iconographic sense, and musically, is the Freak Circus/Fish in a Barrel combo that forms the middle of "side 2" of Golden Days. For starters, they're both very very very old songs. They're also favorites of the band, despite the fact they're two of the lesser played live songs we have. Part of that is how long it took to get both to a point of fruition.
Let's start with Freak Circus This was a Rob song from around 2006, where simultaneously we were producing Japan on the Moon, and also formulating songs for GREEN. We all knew we loved the melody and structure, but, and not uniquely with our mixed history of genre-switching, we had trouble finding a place for the track, on albums or live.
At shows, the track was more like a catch-your-breath moment, and also a chance to fuck around with edrums.
Back in the lab, as tended to be the case over those few years, the song took a spacier, pop-song structure.
After GREEN was released, the band started it's tumble through lineup changes and new ideas, and, as it's not the easiest track to pick up for new guitar players, Freak Circus kinda fell away in terms of rotation. Fast foward 6 (!) YEARS, and midway through recording Golden Days, and Rob thoughtfully offered this track as an intro section to Fish, as both were in C. Kurt picked up the changes very quick (it's right in his wheelhouse, if you ever get a chance to listen to his acoustic demos), and I'm pretty sure it was one of the easier tracks on the album to make.
FISH IN A BARREL is one of mine, but it had plenty of help. For starters, I'm positive I stole the chorus lyrics and title from some song John had left in his room, on a piece of lined white p
aper, tacked up on his wall, when we lived together on 4th ave in Brooklyn.
I wrote the song on keyboard, with the idea of it being a big nice opening song to start my solo career. I don't have any footage of that, but I'm pretty sure it sounded like this version:
Right after I wrote it (it's about a girl, by the way. There, I said it), WBT pretty much stopped playing, so that's when the Enemy's started up, which, of course, included all of WBT most of the time, plus some incredible work by John Dennison, Christan Blanton, Tara Lynne, Tami Johnson, Hannah Hens-Piazza...too many more to list. 
This song was sorta a lynchpin of that band's sets, as it translated perfectly to a soft-bluegrass feel. We also put it on our album.
So after that little fun era of drunken fake country, Buffalo started playing more and we kinda got into heavier rock and so Fish left rotation for a long long time. Sometime in 2011 (and this is where the other help comes in), Rob mentioned that Fish was his favorite song I ever wrote, and questioned (yelling, I might add:)) why we didn't play it a lot. And so with that renewed vigor, we dusted it off, added drums to the mix (which is why the new version is my favorite), and found ways of exploring the middle section that kinda gives this an Allman Brothers vibe now.
This picture isn't trying to be Allman Brothers. I just wanted to post it randomly somewhere. And here it is.
All in all, on an album that talks a LOT about acceptance, and finding the final pieces of puzzles, Fish was a song that really fit in the theme, lyrically, and as a musical bridge to the album's ending songs. Literally, we had found a way to complete a song that was again, 6-7 years old, and finally be at peace with the final product. Hope you enjoy(ed)! jc
Thursday, March 15, 2012 at 2:27PM As is so often the case with Wounded Buffalo Theory songs, "ZPA" took a while to come together. The main guitar riff had been kicking around my head for years, and I think I'd brought the idea to the band a few times during Lucas Shine's tenure with WBT, but it wasn't until we began working on Golden Days that it really came together as a finished piece. It was immediately apparent that this version fit nicely with the rest of the album, and I was happy to finally see this germ of an idea I'd had years earlier become a completely new piece of music.
Usually lyrics are the last thing that come together for me, and "ZPA" is no exception. Originally, the song had no lyrics at all - just a succession of nonsense words and vowel sounds - with a few vaguely sappy love song cliches thrown in for good measure. And, once again as usual, Jay forced me to push the lyrical content in a new direction. What if an army of zombies rose from the Gowanus canal to threaten all life as we know it? And what if the destruction of the known world by this flesh-eating radioactive post-humanity was, in fact, the greatest blessing the world had ever known? This concept of renewal through death - creative destruction - was such an apt metaphor for the whole process of writing, reworking, destroying, and recreating the song itself. In the end, I have to thank my bandmates, again, for saving me from the dangers of banality and forcing me out of my lyrical comfort zone. The end result, I think, fits well with the triumphantly epic tone (what's better than a big open E chord on an electric guitar?!) and soaring melodic vocals and solos that give ZPA its distinctive character as the rock anthem of Golden Days.
So lock all the windows, draw the shades, slap on your trustiest headphones - and prepare for the ZPA invasion!
Thursday, February 23, 2012 at 12:57AM Jingo, the only tune in a minor key on the new Wounded Buffalo Theory album Golden Days, evolved from a pair of riffs that I brought to rehearsal last winter. Rhythmically they suggested something between swing and reggae. I had also originally thought of them as interlocking harmonically, but Rob quickly wrote completely different changes under what became the chorus riff. Over the course of a few rehearsals, we suddenly had one of those promiscuous songs that implies a multitude of styles and refuses to settle.
At the outset, the combination of an almost dub rhythm from John and Rob with the strong hint of '70's R&B in Jay's drumming creates an infectious groove supporting Jay's lyrical reflection on the problem of ethnocentrism. Then, the song slowly evolves into psychedelia with the bridge melody giving a nod to dark psych and a solo spiraling into a wall of interwoven guitars hinting at something almost recognizable, but never establishing a concrete form. The bridge lept straight from our collective head like Athena, fully formed in a single rehearsal. The solo was a longer process.
When we originally debuted the tune at an acoustic show in April of 2011, I don't believe there was a solo. By the time we recorded the basic tracks for the album in June, we decided on an extended one. In the basic tracks, John and I just layed out a ton of space, eventually working up to a rhythmic peak at the end. Atop that I decided to conduct an experiment in controlled anarchy. I played 4 solos completely independently of each other & then blended all four of them into the existing rhythm tracks. This is why the whole solo is suggestive of something without taking a final form. It's meant to reflect our inability to understand life as a totality - any almost established form is always receding into the ether.
Anywho - I thoroughly enjoy the way the synergy within our collective ears can take a couple of simple riffs and transform them into grand stylistic experiments. We hope that you all love it as well. You can listen to Jingo here:
You can purchase all of the tunes on Wounded Buffalo Theory's Golden Days at Cd Baby, or other common destinations on the internet. Kurtis out...
Monday, February 20, 2012 at 11:23AM Wounded Buffalo Theory digs deep into the vault for a bit of history for your President's Day enjoyment with not one but TWO featured streaming tracks. Below the Fold is the third track off our new album Golden Days, but the song has been floating around the WBT universe for a few years now, taking on various forms and incarnations before settling into the Latin-Jazz-Country tune we set down on tape. One of the most fulfilling things about working with musicians who are so amenable to tinkering with, even totally reworking, whole songs is seeing what each individual brings to the table, and the ways those contributions take a piece of music that was initally a rather somber, brooding acoustic folk-ballad and transform it into something almost entirely different. Here's my original demo of Below the Fold from late 2007:
Flash forward four years and this skeleton of a song has evolved and matured tremendously. Jay's bossa nova drums, Rob's bouncy bassline, and Kurt's slinky, dreamlike slide guitar provide an arresting contrast with the still somber vocal line. The product of our collective experiences, musical and otherwise, WBT songs are always evolving and growing, as I'm sure Below the Fold will continue to do. But man am I happy we got this one on tape:
We hope you've enjoyed both versions. Got an opinion on which you like more? Want more archival tracks? Leave some comments and requests and stay tuned for more behind the scenes commentary on the making of Golden Days.
