Pataphysics
Gig Seeker Pro

Pataphysics

| SELF

| SELF
Band Rock Pop

Calendar

This band has not uploaded any videos
This band has not uploaded any videos

Music

Press


"Saw 'Em in Autumn 11/09/07"

Pat Healy, a former Zom Zom, is an excellent frontman, already adept at spazzing and twisting and doing the "shoulder dance." As Pataphysics, he initially played solo as a sort of hyperactive Gary Wilson, but he's now backed by Dirk Michener on bass, Chef Pittman on drums, Erich Ragsdale on synth, and Matt La Comette (also of electro project Aunt's Analog) on lead guitar. A typical show involves hearty audience participation, a great cover of Red Krayola's "Hurricane Fighter Plane," the channeling of early Devo, and possibly a chance to see Healy convulse like Richard Simmons after a Sizzler buffet binge. – Audra Schroeder - Austin Chronicle


"review of take a look out your window on 6/10/08"

I just picked up the Pataphysics full length vinyl Take a Look Out Your Window, which comes brilliantly packaged with a cd-r so you can pump the weirdo jamz in the car as well as on the home stereo. The songs are pogoed up and synthed out. Bouncy bass lines, postmodern da-da lyrics and an overall tongue in check avant-gardeness make this release a must-own for fans of Devo or Onigo Boingo to see how the genre has shifted and the direction it is being pushed. Austin has had a penchant for being on the forefront of advancing oddball new wave revival for years now with the Zom Zoms and the Oblong Boys so it makes perfect sense that members of both these acts now make up the Pataphysics DNA.

Pick up Take a Look Out Your Window online HERE or at a fine Austin independent record retailer near you. Act fast – there are only 350 pressed! See the amazing (and sometimes anti-comedy fueled) Pataphysics live show at Hole in the Wall on June 13th or at a free in-store performance at End of an Ear on June 14th.


http://www.partyends.com/peblog-mt/mt-tb.fcgi/686 - partyends.com


"Austin Sound Review of LP on 7/3/08"

Pataphysics - Take a Look Out Your Window (Business Deal)
By Zoe Nicol • Jul 3rd, 2008 • Category: Featured Story, Sound Reviews •

Essentially a one-man album, Take a Look Out Your Window leaves you feeling giddy, giggly, and silly. The band is Pataphysics but it’s Patrick Healy bathing under the heat lamps, dancing, clutching the microphone to his heart, crowned by a fuzzy wolf hat and sacrificing the profane. “I’m a children’s music performer. [K]ids love making fun of everything that is sacred - no exception.” Assuming most of us have the good sense to still be childlike, the 350 copies of Pataphysics’ album will likely be gobbled up like Oreos spirited from grandma’s cookie jar. So do yourself a favor and look for it.

Lest you think that the band name promises an exercise in “the science of imaginary solutions, which symbolically attributes the properties of objects, described by their virtuality, to their lineaments” and feel a bit cowed by Pataphysics, fret not. Choosing the name of the project was merely a convenient and cute pun, not a statement of intent. Not to be restrained, however, Healy wrote me saying, “We’re just an eccentric rock group I guess - we might get weirder and work in theories of ‘Pataphysics’ when we mature musically. Who knows.”

Among other unknowns is how the influence of the other four musicians receiving credit on the album1 will alter future recordings. Eight of the 16 tracks are plain Pat (spazzy and bouncy and sometimes slothy); only six of the others include current band members - although it’s done so well that I had to double check with the band. Yet ultimately the sound of Take a Look Out Your Window is the sonancy of Healy, reverberating polka dots of synth, squiggles of bass, and ricochets of guitar.

The longstanding solo nature of the project certainly doesn’t harm the oddity or energy of the album. Instead the songs have a magnetism - as though sound particles are condensed and held, revolving around the mass of gravity that Healy has harnessed. He moves each track over hills and dales with aspects of his should-have-been-a-superhero changes in voice, tons of synth, guitar, and bass. True to the irreverent thesis, “Magic Bullet” leisurely wraps itself around JFK’s assassination, delivering up not just punning amusements like “now approaching the point of interest …it was a magic bullet” but also rifling in dramatic vocals. “Stake” creeps and dips into the midnight lullabies of Minuteman nannies. “Listen up and I’ll only say it once, there’s a Mexican that threatens your existence / … / do be fast or alas you will not last for the Mexican sleeps with one eye open/ … / you must kill him now, your life is at stake.” Even “Mecca”, a short, wobbly instrumental march musters memorable with bass, synth, and a little helping of tambourine.

“Ladyfriend” steps on the notion that more than two lines are necessary for a good song. Craftily repeating, “I lost my ladyfriend while howling at the moon,” you feel as though there’s an entire story being subliminally conveyed. “Miniskirts and Bikinis” is another savory bit, fun and just a little nutty. Knowing that it was penned for a self-help radio show on KOOP, the lines “you don’t have to be rich to wear a miniskirt in the mall / you don’t have to look nice to wear a bikini at all” shine just a little brighter. Besides, who could deny the joyous vision of squirrels in miniskirts? “Shopping Mall”, benefiting from LaComette’s solo guitar, is a chronicle of two kids working together in a mall, dropping acid, her getting pregnant, him losing his job—all revealed as through a resigned beach party atmosphere.

Because Healy, Dirk Mitchner, and Chef Pittman started playing together in May 2007 but recording started almost a year earlier, their accessory presence on the album (Mitchner appears only vocally on “You Make Me Feel Like a Weirdo”, although he’s sure to add his psychedelic charm to future recordings) isn’t entirely shocking. LaComette and Erich Ragsdale are peppered liberally throughout the album on guitar, synth, and drums but never take a leading role. The remaining tracks, quirky to the last note, host an assorted cast of members from local bands Yellow Fever, Count Dracula’s Weed Smuggling Jam Engine, and Belaire.2

But basically, we’re talking about an album by a guy who performed for a Chicago children’s show, getting kids to shimmy, flail their little arms around, and sing “Jesus was a homewrecker / …Jesus grow a handlebar mustache for me.”3 If you’re not terribly interested in what he’s saying, you won’t have as much fun. Don’t get me wrong, unless someone is squirting lemon juice in your eye, you’ll smile. But perhaps the best summary of the album is found in something else Healy wrote, “Gut reactions will manifest themselves shortly, and I will have time to reflect.”4 But until such a time as you can schedule deep and abiding consideration, just enjoy.

1Patrick Healy (primary vocalist & guitarist), Matthew “Lockemup” LaComette (lead guitarist), Dirk Mitchener (bass guitar), Erich “Mr. E” Ragsdale (synth player), and Chef Pittman (drummer)

2Adam Jones on “Underwater”; Preston Dukes on “Underwater” and “American Mannequin (AM)”; Tim Bond on “AM”; Cari Palazzolo on “AM”; Jennifer Moore & Isabel Martin on “Weirdo”

3www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0e6U1ZWpNU

4“My Blood Has Been to the Moon” - austinsound.net


"Austin Chronicle 4/11/08 Reviews New Pataphysics LP"

Pataphysics
Take a Look Out Your Window (Business Deal)

Zom Zoms expat Pat Healy helms the vocals as Pataphysics, initially a local solo project that's grown to include a full band. Good thing, too, because Healy is an unmanned fire hose live. The guitar/bass/drum/synth setup extends attention spans on the quintet's debut LP (on vinyl with a CD included), 16 marathon songs about asking Jesus to grow a mustache, tapping kegs, and Kennedy's assassination. On "American Mannequin," Healy yelps like Danny Elfman, and Oingo Boingo-ness continues on the pogo-worthy "Miniskirts and Bikinis." Not that Pataphysics is aping OB; Take a Look grabs the weirdo-pop formula and rolls downhill. Their cover of Red Krayola's "Hurricane Fighter Plane" takes on an otherworldly buzz, anchored by Dirk Michener's beefy bassline; the standout title track is pure synth syncopation that borders on 1960s bomp; "Stake" is a slower-paced burn that shows the group can pull off more than sugar high. Focused, fun, physical. (CD release: Friday, April 11, Hole in the Wall.)

*** - Austin Chronicle


"OCTOBER 30, 2009/ Texas Platters: deEP end"

...Continuing on the efficiency tip, ATX quintet Pataphysics' 3-inch Pam EP drops four on the floor, the sweet trot of "She Took a Whole Lot of Acid" and harmonies of "Don't Die" more pensive and focused than the off-the-rails pop-punk of 2008 LP Take a Look Out Your Window... - Austin Chronicle


"January 9, 2009/Free Week In Review: The Best Things in Life Are Free"

....Pataphysics' bastardized glitch pop may be an acquired taste, but frontman Pat Healy had the crowd eating out of his hand, like an infomercial pitchman with Lucas Candy... - Austin Chronicle


Discography

"Take a Look Out Your Window" LP on Business Deal Records released 4/11/08. Played regularly on local radio stations. Our record has been played on WFMU New York, KAOS Olympia, KUOI Moscow, KVRX Austin, and on the mutant sounds blog among other places.

Split 7" with Mixel Pixel, Yip-yip, Show is the Rainbow, Salon Cops, and Machine Drum. To be released.

Photos

Bio

The band started when Pat had written enough material. The line up was Pat, Chef, Dustin Kilgore, and Dirk. Matt and Sam later joined when Dustin moved to Chicago. We played our first show at Threadgill's on Cinco de Mayo of '07 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZzMjL6SgV8) and then Pat went and did a solo performance on Chic-a-Go-Go in the following July (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0e6UlZWpNU). We played an official showcase at SxSW '08 and released our first album, "Take a Look Out Your Window," on a vinyl record in April of '08. We opened for Ariel Pink's Haunted Grafitti on their summer tour of '08, and we played Emo's free week in Jan. '09. Currently, they are booking a tour for late May of '09