Prom Body

Directed by Ryan Glenn produced by Studio In The Sun.

There's a lot to love about this video by Tucson outfit Prom Body.

PROM BODY. Can we all just take that in for a second. That is a great band name.

Anyway "My Paradise" is the second track lifted from the band's forthcoming record, a band which started off as the bedroom project of Mike Fay, who is the sole star of this video. He's great because he looks like he should be shouting out angry man music about that time a girl crushed his heart by saying, "I'm fond of you," instead of, "I love you so much I'm going to carve your name in my calf with a protractor." But when Mike opens his mouth, out pours this super skippy melody set to the sound of seagulls, a fuzzy-wuzzy lo-fi guitar lick, and a drum sound last heard on The Strokes' "Hard to Explain." Looks can be deceiving.

Here are some other things you might notice in this video:

Mike has Tupac tattooed on his ankle.

Mike's chest does not like to be covered up.

Mike knows that palm trees demand white attire. #TropicalCasual #DressToYourEnvironment

Also... this:

Prom Body Tour Dates:

July 29th - Tucson - Album Release & Tour Kick-off w/ Katterwaul & Kid Puto @ TOPAZ
July 30th - Phoenix - w/ Numb Bats, Man Hands, & Drainbow @ The Crescent Ballroom
July 31st - San Diego - w/ Heavy Hawaii & Heaven @ The Hideout
August 1st - Los Angeles - w/ TBA @ Lolipop Records
August 2nd - Los Angeles - w/ Heaven & Heavy Hawaii @ The Smell
August 3rd - Oakland - w/ Meat Market & Numb Bats @ The Nerd Castle
August 4th - San Francisco - w/ Union Pacific @ Brick & Mortar Music Hall
August 5th - Stockton - w/ MLTD & TBA @ The Bus Stop
August 6th - Portland - w/ Feel Young & TBA @ The Know
August 7th - Olympia - w/ The San Onofre Lizards & Clayface @ Hot Tub House
August 8th - Seattle - w/ Dude York & Pony Time @ CAIRO
August 9th - Vancouver, BC - w/ WEED @ Red Gate
August 10th - Missoula - w/ TBA @ Ole Beck VFW Post 209
August 11th - Boise - w/ Toy Zoo & TBA @ the Crux
August 13th - Flagstaff - w/ TBA @ Cottage House

Prom Body's album Naughty by Natural is out on 7.29 via Topaz Records.

Kim is now happily obsessed with Prom Body and she's on Twitter - @theKTB - NOISEY (VICE)

Prom Body hail from Tucson, Arizona, and sport the kind of sound that usually emerges, coughing and waving its arms, from a suburban smoke-filled garage. But for every ounce of snot-nosed Wavves-y stoner punk in this quartet's music, there's another of No Age's lo-fi-for-art's-sake, and maybe another still of Jay Reatard's early and weird fist-pumping aggression. Main brain Mike Fay and the gang are plotting their second album in 10 months — Naughty by Natural, out this summer on Topaz — and there's a fine specimen therefrom to be found below. "Pretty Flower" is sweet and noisy, and we think you'll like it quite a bit. - SPIN

Let's get one thing straight: There is simply not enough room in a pithy album review to fully grasp even half a dimension of Prom Body's astonishing debut, Creep the Strange, so consider this a series of pointers before you, dear listener, take the inevitable plunge.

Michael Fay, drummer for instrumental post-rockers Sleep Like Trees, recorded this album on a cassette recorder at home by himself. At first, all that's apparent is the jarring noise and off-kilter instrument placement in the mix. After that, it's the mystery of what in holy hell is making those sounds? Is it a drum machine, a vacuum cleaner, or some psycho in his room who just dreamed it all up? Finally, you realize it's all that and more, because the noise is so exquisite, and the sound so alien, that you failed to notice that the songs are basically perfect.

Creep the Strange is possibly the greatest document yet to sum up the disparate cliques of underground rock music circa 2013. Prom Body takes alternative-rock, or indie, as it's now referred to, starting with R.E.M., on this side of the Atlantic, and the Jesus and Mary Chain on the other, and shoves it into a trash compactor until the sources are unrecognizable.

The most startling aspect of Creep the Strange is its all-encompassing breadth. Strike that: It's Prom Body's reinvention of the wheel. - Tucson Weekly

Tucson outfit PROM BODY have this DIY-pastiche, pastel-tinged fresh new clip to keep summer in our hearts and their track ‘My Paradise’ repeating in our minds.

Leading man Mike Fay - in his tattooed and often open shirted glory – takes centre stage as a lone person band playing at various locations that would allude to ‘paradise’ for most, with multiple outfit changes that’d be a fair opponent to a woman before a night out.

Taken from their forthcoming sophomore release Naughty By Natural, ’My Paradise’ is a subtlely cheeky, lo-fi, fuzz-rock track that you could imagine with hand claps alongside its chanty melodies. If the vibrant images don’t throw you back to sunny days, then keep an ear out for the airy sounds of a beachside along with the cawing of seagulls. - Purple Sneakers

On their upcoming Naughty By Natural, Tucson combo Prom Body practices an exceptional and exceptionally poppy strain of lo-fi garage rock — a buzzing conglomeration of the Buzzcocks, Jay Reatard, Wavves, the Strokes, Ty Segall, and a million obscure guitar bands that release limited edition 7-inches and perform at your local punk-rock dive bar and/or DIY basement venue. “Vibrant” is an aptly named example of what Mike Fay and company do, a power-pop joyride overflowing with snaking guitar lines, cooed vocal melodies, and scuzzy power chords. Listen below.

(SOUNDCLOUD)

Naughty By Natural is out 7/29 on TOPAZ. That same day, Prom Body head out on tour:

7/29 Tucson, AZ @ TOPAZ w/ Katterwaul & Kid Puto (Album Release & Tour Kick-off)
7/30 Phoenix, AZ @ The Crescent Ballroom w/ Numb Bats, Man Hands, & Drainbow
7/31 San Diego, CA @ The Hideout w/ Heavy Hawaii & Heaven
8/1 Los Angeles, CA @ Lolipop Records w/ Numb Bats
8/1 Fullerton, CA @ Dude’s House w/ White Night & Pine Hill Haints
8/2 Los Angeles, CA @ Pehrspace Day Fest
8/2 Los Angeles, CA @ The Smell w/ Heaven, Heavy Hawaii, & Susan
8/3 Oakland, CA @ @ The Nerd Castle w/ Meat Market & Numb Bats
8/4 San Francisco, CA @ Brick & Mortar Music Hall w/ Union Pacific, Numb Bats, & Banshee Boardwalk
8/5 Stockton, CA @ The Bus Stop w/ MLTD & Digital Ketchup
8/6 Portland, OR @ The Know w/ Feel Young
8/7 Olympia, WA @ Hot Tub House w/ The San Onofre Lizards & Clayface
8/8 Seattle, WA @ CAIRO w/ Dude York & Pony Time
8/9 Vancouver, BC @ Horses Records w/ WEED
8/10 Missoula, MT @ Ole Beck VFW Post 209 w/ Muff Dive
8/11 Boise, ID @ The Crux w/ Toy Zoo & Numb Bats
8/12 Salt Lake City, UT @ The Barrel Room w/ Season of the Witch & Numb Bats
8/13 Flagstaff, AZ @ Cottage House w/ Human Weather
9/3 Tucson, AZ @ Club Congress w/ Ty Segall & Wand - Stereogum

all songs tv
Prom Body: 'Guttuggering'
June 27, 2014 by BOB BOILEN
Prom Body makes noise in Tucson, Arizona. Watch frontman Michael Fay experience a remarkable physical transformation in this jarringly beautiful video by artist Nika Kaiser. - NPR

Tucson, AZ's Prom Body just recently (7/29) put out their new record, Naughty by Natural, on Topaz Records, and it's the same kind of snotty and very catchy garage punk as Wavves. You can stream the whole thing below, and we've got the premiere of the video for the song "Do What You Do" (dir. Patrick Foley). You can watch that below too.
The band is currently on tour of the west coast, though they're planning to come east in October, when they'll play CMJ in NYC. Stay tuned for more details on that. All currently announced dates are listed, with the new video and LP stream, below...
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Prom Body -- 2014 Tour Dates
8/6 Portland, OR @ The Know w/ Feel Young (Reunion), Sad Horse, & DJ DNA
8/7 Olympia, WA @ Hot Tub House w/ The San Onofre Lizards & Clayface
8/8 Seattle, WA @ CAIRO w/ Dude York & Pony Time
8/9 Vancouver, BC @ Horses Records w/ WEED
8/10 Missoula, MT @ Ole Beck VFW Post 209 w/ Muff Dive
8/11 Boise, ID @ The Crux w/ Toy Zoo & Numb Bats
8/12 Salt Lake City, UT @ House Show w/ Numb Bats
8/13 Flagstaff, AZ @ Cottage House w/ Human Weather
9/3 Tucson, AZ @ Club Congress w/ Ty Segall & Wand
10/21-25 NYC @ CMJ - BrooklynVegan

Welcome to the weekend! If you’ve hit that mid-summer moment of ol’ friend overkill and want some new crew to hang with for an evening, try this Tuscon, AZ, band on for size. Prom Body started as a bedroom project (don’t they all these days?) from one Mike Fay about two years ago, and has since smelted into a four-piece to flesh out the sounds live. This debut, not unlike PUJOL’s propulsive propensities, has that digital lo-fi, futon-sprung skizzieness, but the songs and hooks are strong enough that they ought to survive the jump to physical fury. This is some juicy garage skizz that can bubble up via kid-arching vocals, looping melodies, drums that may or may not be human-derived, and an ever present guitar crackle to keeps things dishonest.

Give a listen to our premiere of the full album below, which will be ready on LP and cassette for your physical mitts on July 29, via Topaz Records, and scope out the tour dates while you’re at it.

(SOUNDCLOUD)


Tour Dates For Prom Body:
07/29 – Tucson, AZ – Topaz (Album Release & Tour Kick-off w/ Katterwaul & Kid Puto)
07/30 – Phoenix, AZ – The Crescent Ballroom
07/31 – San Diego, CA – The Hideout
08/01 – Los Angeles, CA – Lolipop Records
08/01 – Fullerton, CA – Dude’s House
08/02 – Los Angeles, CA – Pehrspace
08/02 – Los Angeles, CA – The Smell
08/03 – Oakland, CA – The Nerd Castle
08/04 – San Francisco, CA – Brick & Mortar Music Hall
08/05 – Stockton, CA – The Bus Stop
08/06 – Portland, OR – The Know
08/07 – Olympia, WA – Hot Tub House
08/08 – Seattle, WA – CAIRO
08/09 – Vancouver, BC – Horses Records
08/10 – Missoula, MT – Ole Beck VFW Post 209
08/11 – Boise, ID – the Crux
08/12 – Salt Lake City, UT – the Barrel Room
08/13 – Flagstaff, AZ – Cottage House
09/03 – Tucson, AZ – Club Congress - CMJ

Prom Body keeps it cool by keeping it real
By Joshua Levine

The last few months have proven to be a whirlwind for Tucson's latest contenders for mainstream success. Prom Body has appeared on the blogs of Spin, NPR, Noisey (Vice's music arm), and Stereogum, each complete with a video premiere—a marketing strategy more in line with major label rollouts than a hometown rock band with one album released during an entire existence of just one year. On the eve of the release of Prom Body's second record, Naughty By Natural, singer/songwriter Mike Fay seems to be feeling a bit of pressure. Guitarists Gilbert Flores and Ryan Chavira are supportive of Fay and somewhat amused by their situation, while drummer Matt Baquet is unfazed but determined.

This begins to make sense when Prom Body is looked at as an operation where each individual member and outside contributors (visual artists Yu Yu Shiratori, Patrick Foley; Joel Leshefka, whose Topaz Records releases Prom Body albums) perform a distinct role, that by all accounts, is solely designed to put Fay's brainchild on the national radar.

Fay, 30, writes and records all of Prom Body's music alone in an extremely modest home studio, consisting of just some instruments, a couple of microphones, and some outdated recording equipment. When he uploaded Prom Body's debut Creep the Strange on bandcamp.com just over a year ago, it was just another side project from the local post-rock band Sleep Like Trees drummer. Now, the side project is a fulltime band garnering the kind of semi-mainstream attention for a local act not seen since Calexico.

Michael Fay was born in 1984 in Kansas City, "on the border of Missouri and Kansas," he says. The second of four children in a working-class home, his childhood was generally ordinary, but defined by the same sort of plot twists that mirror Prom Body's rapid ascension.

"My mom had bought me a snare drum in Kansas City," he remembers. "She knew I wanted to play drums but she couldn't afford to buy me a whole set so she bought a snare drum from a little music store. We weren't poor; we weren't wanting. But my parents couldn't just be, like, 'OK, I'll buy you a drum set for Christmas.' So, she buys me this snare drum, and I lit this candle or stick of incense on this antique table—I don't know if I was the last one to leave the house or what but I left it burning on the table. It fell over somehow ... the firemen said the fire started in my room. Basically, I burned the entire upstairs of the house down. Everything was gone. My family had to go stay at a two bedroom apartment, all six of us over that Christmas. But the insurance money from that fire bought me my first drum set. So I burned my house down and it bought me my first drum set."

When he was "11 or 12" the Fay family relocated to Tucson, where Mike's mother is from. Playing Green Day songs with his bassist father and learning the beats to Smashing Pumpkins on a drum set made of pillows because "they were just different surfaces I could hit without getting yelled at," Fay proved to be a naturally gifted musician.

At the urging of his parents, Fay attended church youth groups starting at 16, where he met his future Sleep Like Trees bandmate (and original Prom Body guitarist) Ben Kohlhepp. Throughout the following decade, he played in a multitude of bands including Sleep Like Trees, the experimental electronic act Bark Bark Bark (with Jacob Cooper, whose computer-based approach informed Prom Body's recording aesthetic) and pop-punkers Lifers, which Fay says had an enormous influence on him.

"Lifers was really new for me. It was, like, a power pop lo fi kind of thing. It was really something brand new for me. At the time I was still playing in Sleep Like Trees and trying to make music that was geared toward experimenting with time signatures and ambient stuff, and just trying to push myself as a drummer, that for me to switch gears and just play punk music was just amazing. ... Just learning about bands like The Descendants and The Buzzcocks just changed the way I viewed writing music entirely.

"What really shifted was that music (didn't have) to be about crazy, technical skill and doing things that had never been done before, or topping myself as a drummer. I had been trying to do things that would move people in a really, sort of melancholy way and I'd see people at these Lifers shows and they were just having such a good time, having so much fun. I started trying to reach new territory and simplify things, minimalizing the way I looked at music."

By 2010, he and longtime girlfriend Shiratori were back in Kansas City. It was during this time that Fay began writing and recording tracks that eventually became the first Prom Body songs. "I first started the Prom Body stuff just stuck in Kansas City," Fay remembers. "I struck out with some bands I was trying to play with, I was locked in the house—there was a foot and a half of snow outside. So I just worked on stuff alone. I was in an apartment so I really couldn't play drums. I'd set things up like a suitcase to hit my bass drum pedal with or use a drum machine with headphones. It was just like this recording as necessity process. I was just so tired of being stuck in a place where I couldn't make shit happen and I just had my four track. My computer had crashed and deleted an entire album that I had just finished. Everything had been mixed and just got wiped out. So I just said 'Fuck this, I'm moving on to something different.' I just decided to switch gears and try to write these pop songs.

"I wrote half of Creep the Strange in Kansas City in the winter, 2011-2012. My girlfriend Yu Yu and I were just tired of being where we didn't want to be in Kansas City and we missed all our friends so we came back. But getting out of Tucson and not having anyone to play music with and no resources was a huge eye opener in retrospect, because when I came back, I came back hungry."

Fay rejoined Sleep Like Trees when he returned to Tucson, and the twosome released the excellent LP You're Alright in spring of 2013. Simultaneously, Fay was finishing Prom Body's first album.

He says that "Creep the Strange was never approached as anything else than something I was gonna play for friends and put online. It was just a fun project. It was just fun to experiment with something new. I have to do that or I get bored and music becomes routine or a chore. I like albums where every song sounds different but you can tell it was made by the same person. There's only so many times you can listen to the same song.

"A lot of '70s and '80s pop was hugely influential—like, horrible stuff, like Roxette. There's parts in some of these songs that just have these brilliant, hooky melodies in them that I can't get over. But I approached every song as its own unique sound without having any preconceived notions about anything. It just had to be uptempo, fun, and like a pop song. The (lo-fi) sound quality is more due to my inexperience with (the recording process)."

The ensuing events were as surprising to Fay as his music was startling. Before the album was even released, it was met with critical praise from the Weekly, where this writer called it "astonishing." Around the same time, Fay says, "Once I released it, Joel Lefeshka, who runs Topaz, was like, 'I don't think you know what you've put out. It's really good and I want to officially release it.' That was the push for me to take it more seriously than I was taking it. He said he wanted to do a release show and did I have anybody in mind. Reworking the songs live was something I was interested in and I talked to Matt, who was still in Dream Sick at the time. I've known Gilbert for a decade and he was down. He's so prolific and driven; he's in three or four bands at any given moment. I knew if I got really driven people I wouldn't have to worry about them being committed if this started moving forward. I wanted Ben in the band and I didn't want Sleep Like Trees to fall on the backburner, but that ended up happening."

Matt Baquet, 23, was playing drums in the rock band Dream Sick, had just started a new job booking events at Club Congress when he first heard Creep the Strange. He recalls being startled by its freshness and coherence—but also, its accessibility. "As soon as I started listening to Prom Body I just was immediately struck by how palatable and marketable it was, but it was still interesting to people who like underground music or whatever you want to call it," he says. "I just thought the music was great and it was something I could do, promoting and booking for.

"The managerial stuff—I actually find joy in doing that. I booked shows in high school. I remember my mom dropping me off at the shows I was booking at 15. I've just always been into that side of it. I learned a ton with Dream Sick. I was pushing so hard for three years with that. I realized ... why wouldn't all the artists in the community work together? When Dream Sick started there wasn't a ton of places to play, mostly just the Red Room. I was trying to curate things here and there. My thing was just bringing everyone together. I'd share everybody's show on my Facebook page. It had to be consistent, so you could come to one place to find out about everything. Then I started my website (Jalph.net) and got the job at Congress. Things just kind of took off from there."

Prom Body's first show took place at HoCo Fest at Congress on Aug. 31, 2013. Fay, for his part, "was terrified. We practiced for a month before and it was great to watch this music I had made become a completely different beast. It was perfect chemistry. But I had never been on stage and sang in front of people. It was totally awkward—how do I banter with people? I'm more of a hermit. When my friends are out drinking at night, I'd rather just be at home recording. It's not very natural to me to engage with people so it's really hard for me to pretend that I don't care when I'm onstage in front of people."

Perhaps in a subconscious response to Fay's discomfort, the band's shows immediately became more theatric and elaborate, with band members wearing garish makeup and costumes and often employing props. "It started to become something where our shows were more than us just coming up and playing a solid set. The visual aspect has become really integral to what we do—every time we play a show I want new costumes and all kinds of stuff. It's important to just put in a little extra other than just playing in jeans and T-shirts, even if it's ridiculous. I've always loved when bands have a visual aspect. It just makes it a little more exciting," he explains.

Prom Body immediately became one of Tucson's most popular local rock groups, even opening up for the Cult at the Rialto Theater last winter, which Baquet notes "was our first non-headlining show."

Personal tensions between Kohlhepp and Fay—presumably over Prom Body's eclipse of Sleep Like Trees in priority and popularity—came to a head soon after and Chavira, 29 and a childhood friend of Fay's, became the band's new guitarist.

At this point, Fay had already started working on Prom Body's second album, Naughty By Natural. "I started working on Naughty By Natural in November. I write and record at the same time. I'd go in and just hook up different pedals and drum sets and try to get fresh, new sounds. I definitely approached this album from a standpoint of playability, know that each song would have two guitars, bass, drums, and vocals. I didn't want to make a rule of that, but just have a guideline that we could do it live."

The record, which refines the pop-oriented songwriting of Creep the Strange into something resembling traditional rock music, and furthers its hooks and accessibility while still incorporating the experimental textures and vocal-less interludes—but the pop song to experiment ratio is now far less balanced, with Naughty favoring the punk-inspired sounds (sometimes compared to Wavves, the Strokes, and No Age) that were once Fay's experiments.

After an enjoyable but stopgap live cassette split with Vancouver's Weed (whom Flores has toured with as a drummer), the public relations campaign for Naughty By Natural began in earnest, with Baquet and Leshefka (and some help from Drunken Piano PR) rolling out a series of four music videos—"Pretty Flowers," "My Paradise," "Guttuggering," and "Vibrant"—which premiered on Noisey, Spin, NPR, and Stereogum, respectively. There's a two-week West Coast tour that kicks off with the album's release on July 29. This is not standard operating procedure for Tucson bands, even though it could, as acknowledged by most of the band, amount to nothing.

Baquet says, "Maybe because of my job, I've been seeing all these bigger bands coming through and I realize these guys are just like us. That's what really makes me think there's no reason Tucson can't be out there with every other city." Chavira quietly says he's excited but doesn't take it too seriously.

"It's fun," Flores, 24, adds. "And it's my best friends. That's enough for me. As far as promotion goes and everything, I think it's great because Mike has made some music that needs to be heard and it's awesome to be able to help him do that.

"I think the coolest coverage we got so far was on NPR and it'll probably be the coolest coverage we'll get. ... I don't think it goes to any of our heads. It's easy to get excited about the future but at the same time I think we're smart enough to not get fooled by the illusion of what success could bring, except relish in what's happening. Our lives haven't changed. We just like going to practice."

Baquet maintains that "I want to go further than this. This is just the beginning in my mind. We're off to a great start and I know our tour's gonna be great. We have extra support now: We're working with PR people out of New York. ... I'm the kind of person who doesn't take no for an answer and I manifest my own destiny. That's where I'm at with Prom Body. Now we got a foot in the door so let's fucking bust it open."

The drummer seems to sincerely believe that what's good for Prom Body is good for Tucson. And that might very well be true, but Fay has no stars in his eyes: "I try not to think about it. If I don't stay calm I'll get nervous about it. I get nervous about change and having to get up in front of a lot of people or think about what it really means that thousands of people are now listening to what we're putting out. I don't know—I feel vulnerable putting myself out there to complete strangers. I'm aware that I'll be in situations where people aren't gonna like what I'm doing. I just deal with it by playing it down and not forcing anything. I just try to stay mellow and grateful about it. But I am nervous about it. I'm afraid to fail. It's hard to say because I never would have thought that this little thing I did in my bedroom would have premiered on these blogs that we all read. I have no idea where this is going. The more I try to control things, the more they seem to backfire. So we'll just take it as it comes." - Tucson Weekly

Written by Patrick McNamara

Tucson's Prom Body is a catchy fuzzy lo-fi goddamn punk delight. Let's read on!

This started as a one-man band. That man’s name is Mike Fay. But now he’s got three other buds to shred this shit live. (I don't know their names as that would require one more level of research which would spread this alt DIY music blob a little too thin.) And shred this does. Prom Body is a sweaty fun good time. And you'll probably come out of their shows a happier person for it.

I know you love playing the Band Comparison Game. Oh, yes you do. You want to know what other emerging alt bands Prom Body sounds like. You couldn't leave "catchy fuzzy lo-fi goddamn punk delight" alone. You need names. And you needed names yesterday. Fine. You want your precious names? OK. Here I go. Watch me spin the wheel on the Band Comparison Game. PETER CETERA MEETS FRANK STALLONE MEETS SUFJAN STEVENS MEETS SLASH MEETS HOAGY CARMICHAEL. There. There are your goddamn names.

Prom Body just released their debut album “Naughty by Natural” (in July of 20-nOughty-14) on Topaz Records. You should listen to it. And I should mind my own business. Also. The band is also playing CMJ 2014 (year added for all future Rockness band profile readers since I’ve never gone back and updated one in ten years). So if you're around you should see them then. And I should.............stop blobbing.

In summation. Below is a jam from that album mentioned in the very paragraph right above this one. The song is called “My Paradise” and it really gets to the heart of the matter.

Prom Body For President of the Catchy Fuzzy Lo-Fi Goddamn Punk Delight Department!

(clearly the funnest office in the whole company)

(VIDEO) - Oh My Rockness