This coming Tuesday, December 19, Deerhoof will be releasing the +81 EP through digital outlets including iTunes, eMusic, Napster and Insound. Besides "+81," the first single off Friend Opportunity, the EP will include four Reveille-era tracks; that being the last time the band was a trio. Here's the tracklist:
+81:
"+81"
"Sealed With A Kiss"
"Surprise Symphony"
"United He-Ho Brothers"
"Aho Bomb"
After the jump, Deerhoof drummer Greg Saunier talks about the significance of each of the b-sides. For Friend Opportunity Deerhoof has gone back to being just Satomi, John and me. The last time it was just us three was in 2002 when we put out Reveille, so we thought it would be fun to present a few of the songs from that time that didn't end up on the album:
"Sealed With A Kiss" might sound familiar if you know our album Apple O', where we made a different version of it using only samples made from songs about apples. Or you might even know THIS version if you bought "Azadi", the benefit comp for the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, where the song was called "Bring Down The Nutritious Pigs".
"Surprise Symphony" was meant to be a Deerhoof cover of the opening of the famous Haydn symphony, but to me it sounds more like a ripoff of "Strawberry Letter #22" by The Brothers Johnson.
I'm pretty sure "United He-Ho Brothers" was the very first thing the three of us wrote when John joined the band in 1999. In the lyrics Satomi gives a shout out to "Sean Na Na" who was our labelmate at the time, and has since transformed into Har Mar Superstar.
"Aho Bomb", though it never came out on any album, was in our live repertoire for a while, and once we played it in LA at The Smell, opening for Scarnella. I'm proud to say that this was Nels Cline's favorite Deerhoof song, and talking to him later we figured out that several years later he wrote his song "Suspended Head" (from his album "The Giant Pin") by trying to remember what "Aho Bomb" sounded like from that show.