First Interrogation by Shane J. Fullstep

The name, The Plot to Blow up the Eiffel Tower, conjures up many images, none so heartening as ideal tourist retribution to a country whose inhabitants put the ass in hole. Unfortunately it's not as cut and dried as it sounds.
According to Brandon Tower, “the name comes from a group in France which predates the situationists, they were called the letterists. Two people who were a part of that organization lived in an apartment near the Eiffel tower. They were arrested on the way to the Eiffel Tower and the police found plans and bomb making materials. When they were questioned about why they were going to blow it up, it wasn’t any sort of political reason, it was because they were kept up by the light at night.”

Chuck Rowell (Guitar) and Brandon Welchez (Saxophone/Vocals) started TPTBUTET after their old band broke up. Chuck says, “Around that time both of us started getting into jazz, I started writing different riffs and Brandon would play sax and we started to expand on the idea that we could incorporate jazz into our music.”

Brandon and Chuck found their drummer Brian Hill through a mutual friend and former bassist, the circle was almost complete. The three decided to do a demo at Rafter Roberts studio, Singing Serpent, in downtown San Diego, after they met the fourth member of TPTBUTET, Dan Maier, bassist and engineer.

 

“I moved here from Evergreen State College in Olympia Washington and interned at Rafter Roberts studio. We all sort of met at the Che Cafe. I started talking to Chuck about music and he told me he and Brandon were looking for a bassist and I had some jazz theory training, plus I was going to record their demo and it just sort of worked.”

An important aspect of the band is its politics. With a name like that, one would assume they have something to say, raise some eyebrows, kick in some doors. The dialectical approach of their music and lyrics take form in their live performances. Individualism,

collectivism, animal rights, human rights, Brandon’s Brechtian stage performance, i.e., plowing through the crowd and getting them involved by smashing into them, Dan and Chuck and Brian beating their instruments with a fury of intense purpose and good old fashioned rock and roll.

To expound upon the lyrics of the band one would turn to their new release on No Humans Involved Records, a seven-inch split with Washington’s, Necktie Party. The first song, "For Aileen", is about, “a woman by the name of Aileen Wournos who is dubbed, 'America’s first Female serial killer.' (She) is on death row for murdering four men. She was a prostitute who had a horrendous home life and childhood, and turned to prostitution to support her. All of the men she killed had raped her, beaten her, and abused her in some way. All of the press she has received has been poor, for every one website that supports her there are several others that discount her as a liar and a pitiless whore. For her part in life (prostitution) somehow made her less human so they say she made it all up just so she could kill men. It’s fucking tragic.” Brandon said.

With that said, one could imagine what their full length is going to be like. The seven-inch split with Necktie Party is Dan Maier’s debut as an engineer and he brings about the thick warm tones reminiscent of early Fugazi, The Rolling Stones and the MC5 recordings. The collaboration on the writing process of the new songs on the seven-inch is apparent, with complex bass tones, rhythm signatures and progressive percussion by that genius drummer. Brandon’s brother Joshua Welchez adds brass talent, and Brandon’s girlfriend Kelly Kotner adds her vocals to the Aileen track. According to Dan, “we tracked drums and guitar first, we used a system similar to Pro Tools called Vegas, and then I ended up overdubbing my bass. It was a big learning experience for us. In the studio, I found that it’s a lot better for me to have another engineer in the studio tracking with us. I think it will be a lot better for the full length we are going to do in the fall for Happy Couples.”

“By the time we had recorded the seven inch we had pretty much got the idea of what we wanted to sound like down. On our recordings we wanted to incorporate jazz, but not as a shtick. But when we started doing it we wanted to keep it from being some meandering jazz theme and keep it as something that was a metamorphosis of our sound.” Adds Chuck.

The Plot to Blow up the Eiffel Tower is one of San Diego’s punk bands to keep an eye out for. Their live show is a must see, even if you don’t like the music, its entertaining as hell watching those musicians toss themselves around. Visit TPTBUTET online at http://www.gloom.org/~chuck. And check out their label: Happy Couples Never Last

photos by Jason Andrade

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