Tora! Tora! Torrance!

Jesse Panzer - drums
Jon Tester - guitar
Nick Koenigs - vocals
Sam Johnson - guitar
Teddy Brockway - bass

Base of Operations: Minneapolis, MN

Bio:
Hailing from small towns outside the Twin Cities metro (the only place north of Chicago that feels like civilization), the members of !TTT! started playing in punk bands in high school. Coming together in Minneapolis, the group quickly established a signature sound based on spastic hard rock hooks and brash punk attitude. On stage, singer Nick Koenigs lurches about in a mad parody of Mic Jagger's chicken strut, a forest of jagged guitar hooks filling in the space behind him. His lyrics come out in terse spurts, and song structures emerge from a series of musical digressions. It's easy to hear a resemblance between Tora! Tora! Torrance!'s feisty and raw rock hooks and the current crop of New York post punk bands, but you get the feeling that these boys aren't pretending when it comes to rock attitude. They're in it more for the free beer than for the art school props. Tora! Tora! Torrance! aren't punk purists. Gnarly metal riffs, kick drum rolls and chunky, gothic organs parts all figure into their music. But neither do they tip into ironic parody. Their flare for writing clever, hard-rocking tunes is fully in evidence on the band's new full-length, A Cynic's Nightmare. Recorded at venerable Pachyderm studios, it bristles with the energy of the band's live show, but also gives them a chance to showcase the subtlety of their song craft. Ass shakers like "Yr all on our dance card" keep company with the slow burning menace of "A cynic's nightmare." Songs build and collapse into a wash of hypnotic guitars, then pick up again, ready to rage anew. It's been a few years now, and the band has gone through some lineup changes, but Tora! Tora! Torance! is still a bunch of hard-working guys who knew each other from back-when: back before moving to the city, back before they made records, back before they started touring the country. It shows in their tight performances, in their all-out punk energy, and their weird sense of humor-the kind that still thrives out where the power lines meet the prairie, where a bunch of guys looking for some fun might as well start a band.

Discography:
Get Into It CD (The Militia Group)
A Cynic's Nightmare CD/LP (The Militia Group)
split 7" w/Swing By Seven (Init Records)

Contact: theravenrepublic@hotmail.com

MySpace Page: www.myspace.com/toratoratorrance