Playtime with Partyshank …begins in their Surrey village, in a field with a lot of kids’ toys. Combining aspects of 8-bit, electro, drum and bass and circuit bending, they’ve been making waves in east London and have toured the UK with their own brand of youthful madness. Partyshank like to use a kids’ toy or two, or thirty. Who better to mark our first day of school? Howard and Christian talk noise and toys.
The beginning is a good start, so how did it all kick off?
Howard: I started circuit bending about four years ago, which is taking apart electronic kids toys and sort of re-wiring them to get different sounds. Christian started playing drum and bass, making drum-funk and things like that, which is funny because they’re two quite pretentious little scenes. Circuit bending is all noise and drum-funk is really technical, beard-stroking drum and bass. When we met up we made the sort of music we’ve made just to have as much fun as possible and to get away from the pretentious thing.
And you both met?
Howard: At school, through drum and bass music. There were only a few people that used to DJ drum and bass, and we met through that really.
What do people think of your music out where you’re from?
Christian: Err [laughs] the neighbours don’t really agree with it but saying that, we have walked around this little village before and people have come up and said ‘oh my God, it’s Partyshank over there.’ We’re like, what the fuck, you know what I mean? The indie-electro scene isn’t really happening around here, people are well caught-up with pop music and they don’t really branch out. It’s really strange when little kids come up to us and follow us around town.
Being played on toys, do your sets always involve improvisation?
Howard: We’ve always got the basis of the track on the computer and we can fiddle
with that to a certain extent.
Christian: We want to keep the live element; otherwise we might as well DJ.
We have the option of playing the bass line or drum and then changing the toys,
giving a good live show rather than it being stale. We always make sure that
when we play live we go a bit mental, probably because we enjoy it! We’ve
played to crowds in the past who haven’t really been feeling it but we still give it
a hundred percent because we care.
Howard: You can’t help but enjoy yourself when you’re playing a kids toy!
Why Party Shank?
Howard: My name was Party Sausage and his was I’ll Shank You For A Penny, which
is why we came up with the name Partyshank.
Do you have a solid fan base that comes to all your gigs now?
Howard: We’re just starting to. Before, it was fingers crossed, praying there were
going to be enough people at the venue but there are people cropping up now
that we’ve seen again and again, we’ve got a lot of love for that.
Christian: Bare love for that, seeing as we started off just doing it for ourselves
and having a laugh.
Inspiration?
Howard: We listen to the most weird-ass, diverse mix of music I’ve ever heard in my
life! Our iPod selection is ridiculous; artists jump from Venetian Snares to Minor
Threat, then drum and bass like the old Reinforced stuff to Introspective and
even grime.
One track is called Penis vs.Vagina. Can you say that with a straight face?
Howard: [laughs] It’s still a bit strange but you sort of get used to it after a while!
Christian: One of our tracks is called My Heart Bleeds For You But More
Importantly My Shin is Fractured. It’s taking the piss out of emo bands and people like Panic At The Disco. If you look at their song titles they’re just that long it’s a joke but they’re serious with it!
Howard: Every time we think that we’re taking it too seriously we just take a step back.
We’re still serious in terms of engineering, getting a mix and all the EQ levels right and obviously getting a good master, because there’s no point in it being funny but sounding shit.
Is it strictly Fisher-Price toys?
Howard: We use lots of toys, VTech are the boys that are smashing it at the minute; they’re amazing. There are all sorts of things in the realm of circuit bending; it’s not just toys.
Christian: Howard just bought a carbon microphone in the shape of a beer can.
James Benenson
