“When music is folded back on itself in quick, frictive turns, a big erotic mirror starts flashing and the whole field of sound appears behind you like a pond where everything is connected physically and touching one bit of algae gives you a tingly tingle that implies another tingly tingler miles away. The muchness rockets geometrically into extra muchness, leading you to believe that this is how music is to be heard, always: in a big sticky, ecstatic cloud.”

“Scratchy screams fight across the stereo panning, drums play catch-up with the guitar line that taunted it in the first place, and a steady bassline does its best to hold things together down low– until it just can’t take it anymore, and must join the guitar for a unison breakdown.”

“Here’s a new dis: one of my biggest problems with The Mae Shi is that I can imagine being in their band.”

“Carson must have been hired on a dare, ’cause that dude has negative charisma. Gideon isn’t much more appealing, but at least it seems like he took a course or two in broadcasting. I have to say Carson, for the cringe factor.”

“Angel Alanis may be the greatest American house DJ/producer. His live set is tweaky and swirly (like this remix), while his techno production shouldn’t go overlooked. Long live the Chicago sound!”

“And then there’s the troubling title track, which fills out the EP with 52 minutes, every one less necessary than the last, of sputtering sine-wave skree . . . “

“Is this music? Sounds like a computer getting raped by aliens. “

Four boys of Los Angeles, also rather nerd in the sembianza (I must say), record in one held Spanish the 33 second most canonical traces dictates me of the rock therefore as we know it: a bottom, one battery, one voice, one keyboard and naturally one guitar. To made things they are closed in study and post-they are produced, king-mixano, re-inventano with the aid of nient’ other that two laptop. . .

“Terrorbird may be the result of what happens when people can’t sing or write verses and choruses, but the eagerness for experimenting offsets the Los Angeles band’s screaming and yelling (one track, ironically, takes on harmonies).”

“The young lads of The Mae Shi sing nothing like Don Van Vliet, aka Captain Beefheart. Their shout-sing averages an octave or so above his baritone-to-bass growl and wail. But their music itself is as close in spirit, if not always technique, to the Magic Band’s as anyone is likely to get.”

“Greater than the sum of it’s parts, Terrorbird bubbles over with ideas, screaming anger, squeaking joy, bird chanting, snippets of hip post-punk, electronic flourishes and, mostly, speed.”

“All around us is confusion: one boy hands over his snare to an audience member, who starts pummeling a tribal beat. A girl finds a guitar lifted over her shoulder. She looks at it warily, like it might suddenly burst into flame. The microphone has long since disappeared. Party calls are thrown into the crowd and onto the ground. Shrill whoopee noises add to the mayhem. Streamers drape heads and glasses . . . People are yelling. Feedback shreds amplifiers. Chairs fall to the ground.”

“It’s been a long time since we’ve had a band that is so genuinely concerned about having a good time with its fans. If 5RC were a religion, then the Mae Shi show would be its backwoods tent revival.”

“Yes, this is music that all the cool people will like. The people with the dyed black hair and the tight T-shirts and the body odor. The Mae Shi plays noisy, spastic, psycho-dance music that, at high volumes, threatens to induce seizure.”

“But to the very devil, say I, with the tyranny of the individual, and a twenty devil way with anybody who doesn’t like the Mae Shi.”

“Still, who could’ve predicted the totality of that situation? That the pocket-protector crew would become the alpha males of harder-and-faster fuck-your-ears über-rock? That heavy and spastic head-shaking rock would be saved and dominated by kids like The Mae Shi, a bunch of obvious swirly fodder from SoCal with not just Attention Deficit, but Attention Rejection Disorder? That some of the most fist-shaking cool-guy rock of the new millennia would appear on records with titles like To Hit Armor Class Zero?.”

“Terrorbird twitches with truer Tourette’s-stricken spasms. Songs like the wordplayful “Virgin’s Diet, The Hand of Wolves” and “Hieronymus Bosch is a Dead Man” rev into racing, wild life – buoyed by buried bass lines as antic as anything Nation of Ulysses ever conceived – but then die on a dime, no deceleration, just a sudden stop and some mangled mainframe bleeps. It’s incredibly inexplicable, and inexplicably incredible.”

“Wonked-out spazzmodicism hasn’t been this au courant since 1992, when the Thinking Fellers Union Local 282/Sun City Girls tour ripped ears new assholes. Los Angeles quartet the Mae Shi follows this well-paved road, offering its own brand of wiggy excess, only doing more with less.”

“Veering from careering Minutemannish agit-pop to enervated electro-tinkering to brain-battering Beefheartian brickbats, Terrorbird’s 33 tracks in 42 minutes are a wild ride.”

“This is as close to a one-paragraph description one could give The Mae Shi’s latest record Terrorbird. It’s frantic, catchy, never boring and constantly changing. It’s very much what most modern music is lacking. The thing that makes this record so hard to review is not only the diversity of influences and musical styles that the band has obviously ventured into, but also the fact that there is not really any song on the album that could be classified as a single. It’s all just a little bit too weird.”

“But there’s no slavish or idle idol worship here, not even for our collective aggro-spaz heroes. No, what the Mae Shi do is [SECRET!], it’s throwing mason jars at your hoary preconceptions just to watch both shatter; it’s taking the spirit of bands like the Minutemen, Big Boys, DNA, and Boredoms (and OK, some of the fall-down-the-stairs clatter of the latter too) and running down the truth for ears new and old.”

l disco procede così, alternando linearità e destrutturazione,
rapido come un proiettile, in una sequenza di ‘esercizi di stile’, dai
titoli più o meno improbabili (’Hieronymus Bosh is a dead man’,
‘Vampire Zoo’, e la lista potrebbe continuare).

Most drivers avoid potholes in the road. Well, The Mae Shi, they try to hit each and every single one. And it’s more than just trying, too. The act of seeking out these irregularities in a once smooth and solid fixture is what comprehensively defines the band.

Two brothers (no they aren’t tigers) and four best friends smash, scream and harmonize these 33 tracks in 41 minutes and 33 seconds. The Mae Shi is handmade and home recorded like nothing you’ve heard before. Bottom line? Cut and paste art punk for fans of Devo, Whirlwind Heat and the Boredoms.

“Los Angeles panic-rockers the Mae Shi have joined this year’s growing list of artists (Jadakiss, Ghostface, Diplo, Ratatat) who are getting more acclaim for their promo street discs than for their official albums. Carrying the post-2ManyDJs phenomenon to its ultimate absurdist conclusion, Mae Shi 2004 Mix CD crams three-second snippets of 200 songs (Abba to Jay Z, Patsy Cline to Melt Banana, Steely Dan to Hüsker Dü, even an Andrew W.K. megamix) into a 70-minute free-associative history of everything.”

“I don’t think we made a hip-hop record. Tim thinks we made a hip-hop record.”

“And over the course of 41 minutes, they manage to kick, pound, program, grind, bleep and scream through just about every type of noise you can imagine, all the while dangling faint hints of melodic structure right in front of your nose.”

“it’s one of the few records i can listen to at work without getting all uppity and shit.”

“Terrorbird features multiple songs with the titles “Revelation,” “Chop,” “Bite,” and “Body,” and it ends with five consecutive tracks called “Repetition,” each of which contains the same stunted riff and refrain, played as dance-punk, skronk, and piano balladry. Imagination and ambition pop up all over Terrorbird.”

“The Mae Shi skips happily across the line between experimental and annoying.”

“Post-Mae Shi, even three-minute pop songs begin to sound long. Do we ever need to hear more than one verse by 50 Cent? In a world of movie jump cuts and Internet surfing, it’s a wonder that the three-minute pop song has remained intact. The Mae Shi are more than capable of writing three-minute hits, but let’s hope they never take Ritalin. As the human attention span dwindles, the Mae Shi’s one-minute anthems may well become the pop hits of tomorrow.”

“I think our records are basically pop records . . . we’re not hard to get or anything — I mean, you can bob your head to us, right?”

“It’s music that’ll sound new to some listeners but at its core it’s essentially pop music, or at least pieces of it cobbled together into frantic, energetic songs.”

“It’s music that’ll sound new to some listeners but at its core it’s essentially pop music, or at least pieces of it cobbled together into frantic, energetic songs.”

“It’s music that’ll sound new to some listeners but at its core it’s essentially pop music, or at least pieces of it cobbled together into frantic, energetic songs.”

“Like an ADD child raised on Sesame Street tapes on fast forward, you get the feeling that nothing holds the Mae Shi’s attention for very long. The LA band likes to make short, frantic, yelping, bleating songs. Last year’s Terrorbird was a spastic call to arms for freak-punkists everywhere, blasting through 31 songs in about 40 minutes. But the truly amazing thing was the breadth of sounds they were able to capture in those 40 short minutes. As makers of mix-tapes and sound collages, the band seemed equally adept at furiously channeling post-punk gods, creating lilting hip-hop beats, evangelical bird-screeching, grooving to funk then easing into a lucious glitch-pop ballad. Rather than a collection of short songs, the album was a bloody, bleating whole, borrowing ideas from one song to the next, revisting riffs in a thematically tight whole. “

“Based in Los Angeles, the Mae Shi is a quirky bunch. The members — Ezra Buchla, Brad Breeck, and Tim and Jeff Byron — pride themselves in recording their own material (and they are learning as they go), but they also like to make their own instruments. Their live show, which is unpredictable but always loud and fun, never goes longer than fifteen minutes.”

“God bless the good folks at 5 Rue Christine and their stalwart appreciation for the seemingly inappreciable.”

“The Mae Shi may be the perfect band for a generation weaned on audio clips. Want to hear this song? You just did! If only rock criticism could be so succinct.”

“The Mae Shi are a punk band in the truest sense of the term: they blitz their way through their music with no regard for traditional songwriting, production or recording techniques. They build their own instruments the same way they build their songs, soldering together whatever pieces are at their disposal. It’s a maddening and exhilarating experience.”

“What starts out as a sound check instantly morphs into a syncopated agglomeration of stomping broomball shoes bass, straight punk drums, three note riff rock, and half grisly spoken, half screamed vocals . . . “

“The Mae Shi plays rock and roll for the ADHD masses. They play tightly packed songs that sound as though they have been conceived in a pressure cooker. Everything sounds as though the wheels are on the very edge of falling off. Some out of control bus careening down a hill with the break lines cut just for some added excitement.”

“Man, I love the Mae Shi. Each release is better than the next. They just released Heartbeeps on Tuesday and it’s absolutely unreal. This quickly worked its way into my top 5 of the year so far, with a bullet. The riff is pure fire, and once the drums kick in there’s no turning back. It’s just this ridiculous, driving song. I don’t even want to use stupid critical descriptions. They don’t do the song justice and just sound tired anyway.”

“The 15-year-old version of me loves The Mae Shi. The songs on their second release for Kill Rock Stars imprint 5RC carry all the hallmarks of what my inner child holds near and dear: fucked up guitars, anarchic rhythms, singers barely in control of their vocal chords.”

“In my review of the Mae Shi’s first LP, last year’s Terrorbird, I wrote that a big problem I had with the band is that I felt that they were having more fun than a listening audience possibly could. “

“i seriously know nothing about this band but this song off their record heartbeeps is full of great ideas all stapled to each other. if i saw them play this live, i would flip the fuck out, right? it leaves that rock tunnel into spidery synth oscillations + drum machine jitters and then ROPES THAT BULL RIGHT THE FUCK BACK.”

“If “Terrorbird” was a splatterfest, an idea-stuffed rant from excitable youngsters, “Heartbeeps” shows as much maturation as you could or should expect from musicians so plainly devoted to ‘80s spazcore. Which is to say: it’s great. They’re still running with the Urinals-ish punch-and-lurch technique, but the bass springs to life, and enlivens more songs, on this EP than on their previous work. “Crimes of Infancy” coalesces from a bumping rant into a churning punk lecture into, finally, a Whovian power finale. “

“Ca chatouille sous les bras, ça glisse dans le slip, une vraie anguille, c’est Mae Shi.”

The Mae-Shi is a Los Angeles quartet where everyone sings, sometimes loudly and all at once; this befits much of the musical careening and inane sloganeering it indulges in.”

the story also goes that they were signed to their record label via instant messager. . . .Allegedly recorded on a budget of only $120, their debut album, Terrorbird, jumps around in a manic state of energy and you can almost see the four members of the band running around and tearing up walls in the process of recording.

” ???????????????? ????????????!”

Old Testament tales sung by a banned sect of utopians. They know poet is merely another translation of the word prophet.

So far, the press have made this Los Angeles quartet out to be a bunch of radical noise merchants eager to be as unlistenable as possible. The band seem to play up this perception too, but listeners might be mistaking their spirit for abrasion. The Mae Shi translate a kind of all-encompassing irreverence into sound, but they don’t, as some have said, knock the audience out of the way in the process.

I’m pretty much of the mind that stop-start dance punk bands are boring as shit, so it surprises me that I like this record at all. The Mae Shi – Ezra, Brad, Jeff and Tim, respectively — are the ADD afflicted poster children for Los Angeles’ experimental hardcore/no-wave scene. Up until now, I’ve never considered them really savvy enough (ala Deerhoof) to produce particularly credible material, or subversive enough (see: Erase Errata) for me to give a fuck either way.

In a way, the whole of Terrorbird operates as one long track, more so than with most albums. It can be difficult to tell where one song ends and the next begins if you’re not looking at the display. Maybe that’s why it’s one of the few rock records I can listen to at work without getting all uppity and shit.

“Ma con qualche melodia in più e, sparsi qui e là, accenni di riff hard rock (Revelation three e Takoma the dolphin is awl ). E ancora, demenza disco (Vampire beats). Devo. DNA. Maldestro pop elettronico (Body 2). Electro da ospedale psichiatrico (Terror bird). I Brainiac in acido (Vampire zoo). I Gang Of Four in preda a spasmi (Repetition).”

I think I’ll be giving this to a friend who likes to dance to weirdo music.

Just under a year after the release of the Mae Shi’s debut album, Terrorbird, comes the Heartbeeps EP, which delivers a concentrated blast of the band’s hyperkinetic but still strangely accessible noise rock. It’s almost as if the Mae Shi got bored with being so restless and needed to bring a little more order to their chaos to keep things interesting. Unlike Terrorbird’s sprawling, free-for-all vibe, Heartbeeps is slightly more organized and unified — the “Heartbeeps” interludes that run through the EP give it more structure, even as they recall the “Repetition” suite that closed Terrorbird. Heartbeeps’ tracks also feel a little more structured, with recognizable (though not necessarily traditional) song forms; on “Crimes of Infancy,” singer Ezra Buchla’s gasping attempts to keep up with the rest of the band’s frantic time shifts become hooks in their own right. Meanwhile, “The Meat of the Inquiry” and “Eat the Prize”’s rapid-fire bursts of noisy melody (or melodic noise) recall Deerhoof and the Curtains, though the Mae Shi aren’t quite as effortlessly, cheerfully daft as either of those bands yet. The second half of Heartbeeps delves into messy, strangely bittersweet synth pop like “Spoils of Injury” and “Spoils of Victory,” though this feels more like an elaboration on the EP’s musical themes than a tangent. “The Universal Polymath” is as close as the Mae Shi get to Terrorbird’s frenetic, angular dance-punk, but it still feels more connected to the rest of Heartbeeps than many of their previous album’s tracks did. Though this EP is nowhere near as ambitious as Terrorbird was, that ends up working in the Mae Shi’s favor

Do you feel a lot of the negative reaction has been a result of misunderstandings then?
Brad: Yeah. Actually there haven’t been that many negative comments, to be honest. Not to sound cocky, (laughs) but most people are way into it. I don’t feel like there’s been too much of a backlash from old fans.
Bill: I think most people get it. It’s not really that hard to get. We’re not the first band to do it and we probably won’t be the last.
Jeff: Well, people often read way too much into meanings too. Or they often do. The song “Young Marks” on the album sounds incredibly religious—and it might be to someone in this band—but the person who wrote that song was basing it off a movie that he saw.
Jacob: Yeah some people thing it’s an anti-war anthem, when in fact its just based off of a movie.
Brad: And that’s another thing that’s awesome about writing that kind of stuff, there’s so many different readings of it. There’s a lot of fertile territory. Anyone can put whatever they want to into the meaning of the song and take something different out of it.
Bill: It’s really fun to interpret it and talk about people’s different interpretations including our own. It’s one of my favorite parts of this band.
Was there any time when you sat down and thought to yourselves that this was the type of album you wanted to make?
Jeff: We’ve never asked ourselves that, but there was a certain point when we realized we had to finish it.
John: There was a certain point when there was a theme sticking out. We started kind of running with that.
So songs first and then a theme eventually came through…
John: Probably about two-thirds of the songs were written and then the theme kind of poked its head out. And then the last one-third of the songs were finished up. And then we pooped it all out and started all over again with all the same songs. Finally the album came.
Lyrically do you guys all contribute?
Brad: Usually it’s like one or two people per song. One person takes a song as their project and finishes it. Sometimes the lyrics come in first. Our old bassist Tim was way into lyrics. John is, too.
Jeff: The only thing I added to the lyric process was if I said I didn’t want to sing something. Because I can’t really write lyrics.
In terms of the finished product, how long did that take you to record?
Jeff: At least a year.
Jacob: Some of the songs are like, two years old, and some are just a couple months old. Some were written years ago with other members of the band, and then rejuvenated.
Brad: It’s like a continuous process. There was no going to the studio process. It’s like, alright we recorded some guitars and we recorded some drums. We did a lot of condensed work in the studio. But it was all just continuous work. We don’t even know how to go into the studio and record an album. It would sound horrible.
Jeff: We really don’t. It’s something we want to try and do because it would be funny.
Brad: We think we’re going to be forced to do it on our next record (laughs).
You guys will be touring a lot in support of the new album. What has it been like playing the songs off of this record?
Jeff: Since our song writing process doesn’t necessarily start with us all together in one room, sometimes we have to learn how to play our songs live and how we’re going to present them.
Brad: That’s one of the cool things about the new live lineup [Breek doesn't tour with the band]. When you get new people in they have certain interest in songs we never learned how to play before, so those songs start to come to life in a live setting. There are songs that they’re playing now that we never played right before, and they’re awesome. It didn’t even seem like those songs could be awesome before.
So after this album, what’s next for the Mae Shi?
John: Touring and regurgitating old songs.
Brad: Trying to work on a new record, but it’s going really slow. Maybe when they’re done touring.
John: We’re hoping for another theme to poke it’s head out so that we can have another reason to finish a record (laughs).

The Mae Shi are usually not the first band that comes to mind, when one thinks of downtown Los Angeles’ Smell scene. It’s a shame too, considering that they might be one of the most exciting and unique of the loose collective. But hopefully their latest album, HLLLYH, will change that.
The LP is a frantic ride through different perspectives of a theoretical apocalypse, told in noisy, shambling, and—maybe above all else—jubilant strokes. It’s the kind of music kids dream of. Well, only if they are fun-loving, a little screwed up, and into the dark and twisted aspects of the Bible.
Anthem recently got a chance to sit down in a circle with the Mae Shi’s Brad Breek, Jeff Byron, Jacob Cooper, Jonathan Gray, and Bill Gray, before setting off on a national tour in support of the album.
What has the fan reception for your HLLLYH, been like so far?
John: They hate it.
Bill: Eh.
Jacob: They’re awfully confused.
Brad: I don’t think that they’re that confused at all. I’ve seen MySpace comments saying, “Your new singer’s voice is annoying.” And then there’s people who are like, “I love it!” Most people seem to like it better.
Well, for those who have had negative reactions, what’s been the reason?
Bill: Too many choruses.
Jacob: Americans are adverse to change.
Bill: I think most people seem to have liked it, but maybe the people who hate it don’t talk to us anymore.
Jacob: I think it’s mainly content related because a lot of people don’t really get what it’s about. I don’t know—there are a lot of assumptions made before they really look into it?
What is the album about?
Jacob: The end of the world.
Jeff: It’s about life through religious/philosophical/our eyes.
Bill: It’s a religious and anti-religious album—at the same time!
Brad: A lot of it is about taking religious ideas and trying to look at them through a non-religious lense. Like the song “Pwnd” is supposed to be about the Book of Revelations, but if it was written by a science fiction writer. Kind of reinventing some of the stories, stuff like that. But there’s not a specific narrative that runs through the whole record. The central thing is about God and the apocalypse, but there’s no specific story. It’s taking those ideas and using them as inspiration.
Bill: It’s not a concept record but there’s a theme.
Jacob: I think there are just a lot of people that know what the bible is and what you can take from it. But there are also a lot of people who don’t know what it’s about.
Jeff: There are a lot of crazy stories in the Bible and it seems like everyone’s got opinions about it.
Brad: They’re fun topics and they resonate with everyone, even if you’re not a Christian.
Bill: Especially if you’re not a Christian.
Brad: There have been several comments that are like, “Why are you guys so preachy all of a sudden and shit?” But they’re misunderstanding what we’re preaching about.
Jeff: It’s funny because our previous albums sound preachier. To me they do.

The Mae Shi
In 2005, they released an EP (titled Heartbeeps for the U.S. version released by 5RC and Go Zbra by Swedish label Deleted Art), and a split LP with Rapider Than Horsepower called Do Not Ignore the Potential on Narshardaa in Europe (released in January 2006 on Strictly Amateur Films in the U.S).[1] They embarked on a five-week tour of Europe in May 2005 with the band Rapider Then Horsepower. Upon returning to the US in June 2005, they were named “best punk/hardcore band” in the LA Weekly’s 2005 Music Awards[5].In October 2005, they embarked on another US tour. Corey Fogel, who joined the band in the middle of their European tour as a mid-tour replacement for Brad Breeck when he suffered a family emergency, joined the band full-time as drummer. Breeck now plays guitar, keyboards and drums. To help fund the tour, they released two limited edition CD-Rs, I and II.Their debut DVD, Lock The Skull, Load The Gun, was released in April 2006 on 5RC[6]. It combined 32 music videos made by friends and fans with an hour-long tour documentary chronicling their Celebration Tour[7]. In July 2006, it was announced that Buchla had left the band approximately two months before. Fogel has also since left the band. Both departing members are now members of Gowns. Breeck has returned to playing the drums. It was announced in September/October 2006 that Jonathan Gray had joined the band as singer/guitarist.Although the band decided to not play outside of their LA home after their Fall 2005 tour, they participated in a small two week East Coast tour in August 2007 with Yea Big + Kid Static. On the tour, the band offered two limited edition CD-Rs, “III” (which was mostly HLLLYH outtakes) and IIII, along with a limited release of HLLLYH on cassette.On December 2, 2007 the band debuted Bill Gray and Marcus Savino in their live line up to replace bassist Tim Byron and drummer Brad Breeck, who will continue on with the The Mae Shi, but not tour with them. With their new line up, they embarked on a 4 day tour with The Germs in late December 2007, followed by a two week tour in the UK during January/February 2008 promoting their new album. Marcus soon left the Mae Shi, and Jacob Cooper (of Bark Bark Bark) quickly joined the grew as they prepared to tour more. They ambitiously played 18 shows at SXSW (South by South-West Festival) in March 2008.Their third release, HLLLYH, was released on the labels Moshi Moshi (UK) and Team Shi (America) on February 11, 2008[8]. They are already working on a new EP featuring all six current members of The Mae Shi. The Mae Shi has currently been chosen as one of the “Best New Bands” of California by Boston Phoenix Annual 50 Best Bands in America.Before the band’s 2009 European tour, Bill Gray, Jon Gray, and Jacob Cooper informed Jeff Byron of their intention to leave the band after the tour. Byron suffered increasingly with substance abuse problems as the tour went on and flew back to the US part way through the tour, with the other three touring members continuing with the rest of the dates. Byron wished to cancel the Mae Shi’s performance at the Pitchfork Music Festival in July 2009, but the others went ahead with it, causing a rift with Byron. Byron has stated that he will continue with the Mae Shi name along with his brother Tim, while the Grays and Cooper are now working under the name Signals.[9][10]

Simply put, the Mae Shi is a great example of what’s possible when the conventional rock song becomes tired and boring. Terrorbird may be the result of what happens when people can’t sing or write verses and choruses, but the eagerness for experimenting offsets the Los Angeles band’s screaming and yelling (one track, ironically, takes on harmonies). With 33 tracks in 42 minutes (each averages around one minute), the four-piece is anarchic and weird, yet — best of all — still strangely maintains a certain charm. Track 28, the tamest few minutes here, features lots of computerized beats, blips, and bleeps while they attempt to sing something about “Jesus” and “jubilation.” Track 13 is as close to a “song” as they get, as their noisy attack of guitar, bass, and drums relaxes long enough to recharge their batteries.

The Mae Shi
The band was formed by Tim Byron and Ezra Buchla, who had known each other for years, having spent time growing up in the Los Angeles suburb of Claremont together — Jeff Byron and Buchla were classmates at Claremont High School and close friends.[2] Originally, Tim played guitar, Buchla played a collection of 30-year-old Buchla modules and sang, and varying drummers accompanied them. When Jeff graduated from college, he joined the band on guitar and Tim moved to bass. After a few months of practicing together, the three met Brad Breeck, who was studying at the California Institute of Arts with Buchla and had performed versions of John Zorn’s “strategy game piece” Cobra in an ensemble led by Buchla. (The ensemble also featured future Mae Shi drummer Corey Fogel).The band began performing live in 2003. They were a part of the local scene centered around The Smell. More shows throughout Los Angeles followed, and the band gained a reputation for its high-energy performances. Soon after, they released their first EP, To Hit Armor Class Zero, on the label Byron runs, Join Or Die. They embarked on a tour in the summer of 2003, playing shows on the West coast. In Olympia, WA, they met Kill Rock Stars/5RC founder Slim Moon, with whom they kept in touch after the show.[2]Through the fall of 2003 and winter of 2004, they worked on their debut LP, recording songs in their living rooms and bedrooms using borrowed gear. They sent a CD-R of the record to Moon in April 2004, and one week later in an Instant Messenger conversation, he offered to release it on Kill Rock Stars’ sister label 5 Rue Christine[3]. Terrorbird was released in July 2004, and the band embarked on a 31-day, 32-show tour to promote it, without using a booking agent. The band offered to play any birthday party, wedding, or bar mitzvah for $100.[citation needed] The band played with bands such as Fat Day and Rapider Than Horsepower. To promote their first LP to say thanks to their mostly-Los Angeles-based fanbase, they released The Mae Shi 2004 Mixtape. The 70-minute tape collects their favorite parts from their favorite 2000 songs.[4]

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