HO-AG

It's been a year and half since the release of the Ho-Ag's last full-length, The Word from Pluto, won critical acclaim and pushed them along through three U.S. Tours and sold-out appearances at CMJ. Growing in renown while sharing bills with the likes of Melt-Banana, Melvins, The Octopus Project, Enon, Deerhoof, Dan Deacon, Neptune and the Ex-Models, Ho-Ag has carved its own special musical niche where gloomy horror film tangents go hand-in-hand with basement no-wave revivals and Game Boy battles.

Ohio ex-pats Parish (vox, guitar) and Tyler Derryberry (vox, synths) and longtime drummer Eric Meyer (who serves double duty in Hallelujah the Hills) have found new partners in crime with guitarist Kristina Johnson (of Roh Delikat and Certainly, Sir) and bassist Ryan Brown (from the state of Alaska). How to fit Brown's pile of mismatched pedals and frazzled computer noise compositions into the mix? How to accommodate Johnson's glacial tangents on spider-webbing guitars? Doctor Cowboy is the band's first educated guess.

2008 marks beginning of the band's sixth year in existence, a run that's included a formidable run of recordings, shows and tours with a lineup that's changed from year to year. The group began as a four-piece noise-metal group in a dingy Boston basement, playing their first show in Jamaica Plain with The Usaisamonster and sounding a lot like the Melvins' hyperactive nephews. The nucleus of the band was Parish, his hometown friend Patrick Kim, and bassist Dave Dines. In '04, Meyer and Derryberry joined up and things edged toward the more garage-cinematic area they find themselves in now. Dines left for art school in 2005 (replaced during the Pluto era by Nkls Ward) and Kim headed to California for video game design school in '07. Kim handed off the torch to Johnson before he had even left and Brown was touring with the band last spring within two months of moving to Boston from Alaska. None to simply act as replacements, the two took part in an immediate overhaul of Ho-Ag material following their trial-by-fire tour. Within a few months, the band had abandoned older songs in favor of the new working material – the songs that make up Doctor Cowboy.