Barf Music
Sanna Pospicil
Sometimes, I get really worried that kids are not doing anything creative or interesting anymore. I get worried that they're all just playing Candy Crush on their iPhones while they blast pro-ana cries out into the Tumblrverse. Then, every once in a while, I'll come across a young person doing something interesting and I heave a giant sigh of relief. This month, I found Barf Troop. They made me stop and breathe.
Noisey: Who is all in the Barf Troop?
Babeo: All of our stage names have the word Babe in them. So, there is me Babeo Baggins (a play off of Frodo Baggins from Lord of the Rings), Babenstein, Baberella Fox, Babe Field, and Justin Baber.
Justin Baber. [Laughs]
Yeah, Justin Baber has a huge Justin Bieber obsession, so it's only right. She's out of Richmond, VA. Babenstein likes to keep her age unknown because she's constantly pretending she's a 40-year-old mom with a pool boy who drinks vodka nonstop. Babe Field is 19 years old from Chicago. She's seriously the deepest and most soulful person I know. Baberella Fox is 21 years old and she is in Atlanta and is in school for photography, and she is sassiest thing with the tiniest voice and the biggest talent. Oh, and then there is me, Babeo Baggins, and I'm 20 running on 11, and I'm from the part of VA that no one knows about because about 12 people live there. I'm currently staying in DC.
What musicians do you guys all look up to?
Katie Got Bandz, Lil Kim, Trina, Travis Porter, MF DOOM, Sasha Go Hard, et cetera. Female rappers are life to us and we love them all. But we're all over the place musically, so we get inspiration from everywhere. For me, King Krule is a huge musical hero of mine, along with a ton of bluegrass artists, and Babenstien is a huge hardcore fan and math rock, as well. Babe Field and Justin Baber are huge old school soulful jam-type fans, and Justin Baber is the pop princess. We really pull from everything that we love.
What's the DIY rap scene like where you are?
There are tons of artistic people in DC, but it's pretty underground. Around here, I think it's super important to let the word of mouth do its work because it really is so hush-hush around here.
Totally. If you could tour with anyone, who would it be and what would you put on your rider?
I think it would be super fun to tour with Sasha Go Hard and Katie Got Bandz. That would be the most hype show in the world. I'd be on stage and in the crowd at the same damn time. Or King Krule, just because I have a huge obsession with him. Or Trina! Man, there are so many rad people that I'd love to put a show on with.
I agree. Say it to my face, motherfucker. Come to one of my shows when I'm on tour and say it to my face. They wouldn't dare. How do you feel about that kind of shit? Do you get angry or upset or just ignore it?
Obviously, it upsets us, but we can only do so much. If we show people that it gets the best of us, then they'll only continue to do it. Never show weakness I say.
The fundamental precept that guides our work here at Band Name Bureau Laboratories holds that time tames all names, no matter how outrageous. Yes, even Fartbarf, a name so objectively idiotic that it makes Diarrhea Planet sound intellectual. As McLeod says in that 2019 LA Weekly story:
First, the long road of the Year in Band Names could\u2019ve ended in 2012, when Fartbarf made the list (and the headline!). Why continue? The simple, visceral stupidity of Fartbarf is a two-syllable endgame.
I imagine playing a high-stakes game of chess at a ritzy casino in Monte Carlo. (Why are they playing chess in a casino? I don\u2019t know. I\u2019ve never been to Monte Carlo.) On one side of the board, I sit, wearing a white tux, calmly swishing a brown liquor in a tumbler with a single ice cube. On the other side: three dudes in grotesque neanderthal masks and astronaut jumpsuits. With effortless grace, one of them moves a piece to my king. \u201CCheckmate, Mr. Ryan,\u201D he says in a robotic voice. The dozens of onlookers gasp. \u201CWell done,\u201D I say, \u201Cwell done.\u201D I down the rest of the liquor in one gulp, calmly set down my tumbler, and exit into the night, humiliated.
Second, Fartbarf is brazenly, barfingly self-limiting. No matter how good the music\u2014and Fartbarf\u2019s music is surprising and good\u2014plenty of people won\u2019t give it a chance because of the name. With the overwhelming variety of music we have at our fingertips, people want a reason to skip something. And Fartbarf practically begs them to do it.
Naturally, the LA-area trio is asked about their name in every interview, or at least in all of the ones they did during their first, like, five years of existence. This is to be expected, and members Josh McLeod, Dan Burley, and Brian Brunac understand what they\u2019ve brought upon themselves.
\u201CIt\u2019s pretty much the worst name in the world,\u201D McLeod told LA Weekly in 2012, before adding that the name preceded the band. A couple other interviews have versions of this story, which McLeod told the LA Record in 2014:
We have no story! Why are we called Fartbarf? We don\u2019t know! We needed a name quick. I took a road trip to Delano, California, and that town smells like absolute crap. Not to say the people aren\u2019t nice, but I think they must have a factory there that reclaims manure. I stopped at McDonald\u2019s to take a leak and there was a little sticker that came off a dot-matrix printer that just said FARTBARF. And I was dying laughing. And it stuck in my head. Not as a name, just for fun. We got fartbarf.com just to make email addresses for our friends. And when we needed a name, that was it.
Basically, we kind of chose that name to keep us sort of grounded. \u2026Why is this always so hard to answer? There\u2019s never an excuse good enough for this. [Laughs] Our music and the time we have when we play shows, the name itself represents that, where it\u2019s kind of fun and painful at the same time.
That interview describes their music as \u201Canalog electronic thrash music.\u201D In a 2019 LA Weekly interview, McLeod said, \u201CI think we consider ourselves a live, aggressive dance band. If I sum it up in a sentence, it\u2019s if Hot Chip met Devo met Slayer.\u201D
To get specific, Fartbarf is a trio of a drummer and two guys playing analog synthesizers, with heavily processed, robotic vocals. It\u2019s a far cry from the sloppy punk rock made by 10-year-old boys implied by the name, and that\u2019s the only way the name is helpful:
\u201CPeople have very low expectations,\u201D McLeod says in Noisey. \u201CWhen we deliver something beyond that, for some reason, their minds are kind of blown a little bit more than they normally would be. [Laughs] I think a lot of people come to Fartbarf and they think it\u2019s gonna be a really grindy, terrible punk band that doesn\u2019t know how to write songs.\u201D He adds later, \u201CSometimes I feel like if people are willing to give a band a chance and look past that, maybe they\u2019ll just be able to enjoy the music for what it is.\u201D
\u201CThe name to us is so commonplace now that we don\u2019t laugh or blink at it. After 10 years, we\u2019ve finally become numb to the absurd quality of it. But I think at the end of the day, it\u2019s served a purpose, which has gone beyond what we anticipated. It\u2019s really good for Google searches, obviously. There\u2019s only one group of people in the world that would want to call themselves this, and work hard as a band. Make it happen. A lot of times early on, venues didn\u2019t want to put our name anywhere, let alone on the marquee at the front of their establishment. It was refreshing the first time we saw our name on the side of a building\u2014we\u2019re actually accepted now.\u201D
I was worried because Fartbarf hasn\u2019t updated its Twitter or Facebook pages in years, but their Instagram is active, and they\u2019re playing shows. To rephrase Sam Elliott at the end of The Big Lebowski: I don\u2019t know about you, but I take comfort in that. It\u2019s good knowin\u2019 they\u2019re out there\u2014Fartbarf, takin\u2019 \u2019er easy for all us sinners.
Which part of your name do you think more encapsulates what you're all about, the fart part or the barf part?
I would say the barf part. We\u2019ve all done more than our fair share. We do a lot of drinking before shows.
Why the neanderthal masks? McLeod explains in that 2019 interview: \u201CWe thought it would be fun to mesh future and primitive. We\u2019re these space neanderthals playing futuristic instruments, even though they\u2019re kinda dated at this point. We came upon these masks from the \u201940s at an old costume shop in Arizona that was closing, and I bought a lot of them. We wore them for hundreds and hundreds of shows until they started rotting off of our faces. Our current masks that we\u2019ve had for a few years now, they\u2019ve been custom-made by a Hollywood exec. We have a couple of spares, so hopefully we won\u2019t lose them. It\u2019s always on the back of our mind, though.\u201D
What started as something just for themselves quickly turned into a local record label that would become known for its eclectic roster of artists with an overarching punk theme, across styles like garage rock, post-punk and emo.
One of the bands that played the show, Jockey, has a show on March 15 at Rubber Gloves Rehearsal Studio in Denton to celebrate the release of their 8-song release and Spring Tour kickoff, which will route through the East Coast and Midwest.
BARF WAVE made a significant impact on the Dallas music scene and beyond. With its unique sound and commitment to supporting independent music, the group has been a testament to the power of DIY culture.
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