Lo-Fi Hero, I Hate You When You’re Pregnant, Faces The Twilight of Youth

By Dean “DJ Geezer Beats” Bonzani

5.20.05

Some people can’t get past the name. But those people are stupid.

Time Magazine once pronounced Lucinda Williams “America’s best songwriter.” I’m here to set the record straight— the title of “America’s Best Songwriter” actually goes to two individuals, Todd Lewis of The Toadies (now defunct) and Phil Buckman of I Hate You When You’re Pregnant (soon to be defunct.) Take that home.

Williams is superb, don’t get me wrong, but she’ll never pen a classic like “This Mothafucker Runs On Longhorn Cheese,” “OMG, I Never Learned How To Read,” or “The Furr’s Is Gone,” or dig deep into the human soul and pull out a shining diamond like “Don’t Get Wet…Cause That’s Gross!” She could muster all of her powers of songcraft, and still fall short of the majesty of “Peter Frampton Must Die!” And if she lives to be 110, and cheats by enlisting the help of a roomful of monkeys sitting at typewriters, she can never dreeeeam of producing a masterpiece like “Hey, Hot Bitches!” with its timeless line “Hey, hot bitches…gimme some pussy!” Ain’t gonna happen.

I keep an informal list in my noggin of the Best Songs Ever. I have reverently placed the IHYWYP song “Sleeveless” in this category, right next to tunes like The Replacements’ “Answering Machine,” Marilyn Manson’s “Lunchbox,” and the theme song from The Wallace and Ladmo Show. I go to bed at night with “Sleeveless” pounding in my head:

You got a Metro? That’s fine by me

You got techno? You’re the cream in my coffee

And I’m the cream of the crop!

Cuz I’m sleeveless! I’m fucking RAW!

I fuckin’ look just like a fuckin’ GOD!

I’m sleeveless! And I’m number one!

What would Jesus do if he could see these guns?

I Hate You When You’re Pregnant is three drum machines and Phil Buckman, a native of the Flagstaff area since the age of four. Phil cut his teeth on the local punk scene after spending his preteen years at the Army depot in Bellemont listening to tapes of M őtley Crűe and ‘90’s hair bands. A worker in the health care industry by day, Phil’s association with local legends and American heroes, Stab City Slit Wrists, led to his current incarnation as techno powerhouse, IHYWYP. Here’s the encapsulated history of IHYWYP…

Phil was roady-ing for Stab City on their 2002 tour, and while attending a “white trash” party, Stab City singer, Betsy, suggested that he form a supporting act— something brief, but offensive. An incident at the party provided the name, and Phil opted to use his roommate’s drum machine to write and play his songs on. He would perform in between other acts, squeezing in with his drum machine and guitar cord, singing songs that he’d vomited up in a spasm of creativity. Despite, or perhaps because of, the spontaneity of the project, I’P has enjoyed tremendous popularity, in no small part due to the internet and two nationwide tours. Performing in garages, living rooms, all-ages clubs, and epic secret woods parties, Phil has garnered a sizable following, winning over audiences with his poignant lyrics, Bing Crosby-like vocal delivery, epileptic dance moves and collection of stage costumes heavy on women’s lingerie and swimwear. He generously gives free copies of his seven demos away to fans, and posts free mp3’s on his website: www.ihywyp.com.

Recently, he shared stories with me over fine wine and Tasha Zarathustra’s Deadly Chocolate Raspberry Truffle Cake.

“It was four songs that I took on that first tour,” Phil recalls. “It was a 10-15 minute set. I wrote them all in about 10-15 minutes. I just went right on that drum machine— I wanted to come up with the crappiest sounding techno possible.”

Following Betsy’s edict to “write the most offensive songs he could,” Phil constructed his first, and most endearing, hit, “Hey, Hot Bitches!”

“That was the very first song that I wrote. There could never, ever be a song that I could write that would be more ‘bar, get drunk, sing along’ than that song. But I’ve learned to use it less sometimes, just to be tasteful. There’s times when I’ll decide I’m going to wear a skimpier bikini and I’m going to roll around in mud even more, and that I’m going to be a complete ass. Then there are times when I’m going to be a little more classy about it, and I’ll leave that one out.”

I noted that IHYWYP might well be the world’s most efficient musical act, considering that Phil stuffs his entire act— three identical tiny ZOOM drum machines, an AC adapter, and a wad of man-reeking bikinis and teddies— into a small, orange back pack.

“I’ve had a bunch of emails that are always saying ‘Love you guys!’ Or, ‘You guys sent me a CD. How many guys are in your band?’ And I say, ‘Oh, there’s four, but only one of them’s human.’ I like it that way. It’s very relieving to be one person. It’s very portable. Touring with (JETOMI bandmates and godfathers of the local punk scene) the Casebeers is the biggest oxymoron in the world for me, because this (holding up his famous orange back pack) is all I usually have on tour with me, and I can fit all three drum machines in there. And then, I’ve got to haul around all of their equipment all the time.”

Phil’s is a niche market, and he may be unique in his specialization, relying on a device that’s the size of a hardback novel.

“ I do sometimes revel in the fact that I could possibly be the world’s greatest RhythmTrak 234 player. Because that drum machine is not used, in any circumstances, by a lot of people. They’ve got some really ridiculous sounds, like this really crappy sounding slap bass sound that I’ve used in three or four songs now. It’s a really easy machine to figure out, too—which was great for me. It works out really well. ‘Sofa Gabe’ was the first one that I got— they’re all the same, you just stack ‘em up on each other— I used that one all the way through the third demo. Then, the fourth demo, I bought a second one, and I called that one ‘Naked Meg Schreiber,’ who’s one of my friends. It was based on a gag band that we were going to have, me and my friend, Meg. The third one that I got, which was used for the fifth demo is ‘Raw Aubrey,’ which is another female friend of mine. She’s not necessarily ‘raw’ by any means. It just sounded good.”

Though identical, Phil has a special fondness for his original machine.

“Sofa Gabe, that’s the first one. If it came down to it— if I had just one drum machine— if they all busted, but I had one left, I’d have to use that one. That one’s got the most material on it. On that one, I accidentally did erase all of my songs once, and I had to go back in there and reprogram them. It wasn’t that bad of a thing, just because, unlike organic instruments, it’s kind of nice to be able to change it up a little bit, because every show that I do, that instrument is always going to sound the same, no matter what. That gives you a lot of room to fool around with vocals, which is nice. It gets a little repetitive sometimes— it’s so predictable. It doesn’t have the spontaneity of organic instruments. Some kid came up to me about a year ago, he said he wanted to start up a punk band, but he couldn’t find a drummer. He was asking me about drum machines, and I said, ‘Hey, wait a minute! You can’t start a punk band with a drum machine, man.’ You’ll never have the feeling of a live drummer with something like that.”

Phil’s day job pays well enough that he doesn’t have to profit from IHYWYP. If anything, he’s the Anti-Lars Ulrich of Flagstaff.

“The CD’s are always free,” he explains, graciously giving me four of his demos. “On tour, I’ll probably try to charge a little bit. You’ll notice this one’s got a ’50 ¢’ sticker on it, this one’s ‘25 ¢.’ I’ll go through them all and draw on them, or if it’s a nice color scheme or isn’t one of these crappy Maxell CD-R’s, I’ll do like a buck twenty-five or something. If there’s a guest artist, that’s the best. Then I can charge an arm and a leg, like $2. or $2.50. That’s only on tour, though. It makes it so that, if I screw up, it doesn’t matter.”

With the expert technical assistance of engineer/inventor/black light poster fan Greg Casebeer, Phil gets IHYWYP’s music straight out to the masses.

“The recording process is so easy. The first demo that I did was done in two or three hours, mix and everything. We were trying to get it done for a barbecue later on that day. That’s how the first demo came out. We just wanted to listen to it at the barbecue. We didn’t mix it any more after that. I was able to burn it right from there. Online, on message boards, I’ll take requests and send them out postage paid. The mp3’s is the biggest thing for me. It’s so easy. Once everything’s mixed— once Greg makes a master CD of it— I just put it right online. That’s the first thing that I do, and that’s my favorite part of recording, is going on message boards and on my website and saying, ‘Hey, I’ve got five or six new songs. Check ‘em out,’ and hearing the responses from people. You know, the first couple of demos I had, there were as many as five or six different message boards that I was just fooling around on at any given time— just basically talking crap. When that happened, you could put links on there to mp3’s, and people would sometimes listen to them, sometimes people would ignore them, but at least you have feedback, which is really, really important. It’s just about the most amazing tool that any artist can really have, whether it be music or you paint— the internet is a great, great tool to use.”

A veteran of two Stab City tours, Phil is preparing for his final tour as I Hate You When You’re Pregnant, this time with American heroes, JETOMI.

“We’re starting in Albuquerque on the 8 th of June, and then we’re making a straight shot with a few zigzags until we get to Brooklyn. It’ll be me and JETOMI for five days, until we get to Brooklyn, where we’ll pick up Japanther. Then a little bit of the east coast, then across the north, back down the west coast a little bit, up across the north again, then back down the west coast. There are places that I’m really excited to see, like Athens.”

JETOMI guitarist, Captain Ray Walker, says that the band has learned how NOT to tour from reading about the exploits of Black Flag, and that they’ll be “touring smart, not touring hard.”

“It’s a paid vacation in a lot of ways.,” Phil concures. “The first couple of times I toured with them, I actually had paid vacation, working in the health care industry the last five years. A lot of people lower their standards to tour a lot or do a lot of shows. Not JETOMI. I’m going to get a sushi credit card. That’s what they told me. They said, ‘Phil, you need to pick up a sushi credit card and rack up some debt!’

Phil owes his enviable, Herculean physique to more than sushi.

“There was a tour log from the 2003 tour that I went on, that I wrote up afterwards. The first one that I went on with them, in 2002, we didn’t have a tour diary, but I took a tally of every single drink that we had. Out of seven of us. It was pretty ridiculous. We had a ‘top of the list’ with whiskey and Cokes— 190 of them—and beers. It was a long, long list. Two and a half weeks’ worth of seven people who were drinking six or seven hours a day. Which is a lot of fun. The most exotic thing on the list— it was a one night experience— it was one of our friends from Bellingham, Washington— some friends of our who are in a band called ‘Federation X.’ We had met up with them in Eureka, and they had brought banana wine, which they had made themselves, which wasn’t very good tasting. We drank an entire jug of it.”

“In the second one that I went out on with them in 2003, I went on a candy bar tour. I actually gained like twelve pounds on that second tour, just sitting around. Everywhere we stopped, I was eating beef jerky. Sheets of meat. Truck stop food. If there was a candy bar that I’d never had before, I would get it. Sometimes I’d have three candy bars I’d never tried. I’d just eat candy bars all day in the van. My favorite was Chunky. I was a big fan of Chunky.”

Fans of IHYWYP will be saddened to learn that this tour will be Phil’s swan song.

“When I get back from this tour, I’m going to have one last show in Flagstaff. The homecoming show. It’s a farewell show thing. I’m not going to play anymore after that. I’m just going to record one last one (album) that’s twice as long and going to have organic instruments. Spend all my money just doing that album, then call it quits. Movin’ on. I just feel like if I put my mind to it, I could really do some good things at work. My girlfriend’s going to be doing grad school, and I also want to come up with different avenues to do things as well, too. I wouldn’t want to completely shove music out of my life— I could never do that. But I want to try to take different approaches to it, like being able to collaborate with people.”

“When I first did a few shows, and then I had a solid set list, and I was able to play shows in Phoenix here and there, at that point I remember thinking, ‘This is all I want to do. I don’t want to work a job.’ Then I realized it’s not all that it’s cracked up to be. I had a flash in my mind of maybe being able to do something else— some sort of other artistic outlet. This is something that I don’t want to see mature too much. It would kill it. It would just beat it into the ground, basically. Rock and roll is a very young game. You feel invincible when you’re young. It’s like a young, inebriated game. Once you put any kind of maturity or taste into it, you completely lose it. I could see myself in seven years not being able to get through an entire show. Like, fall down on my knees and not be able to get back up.”

As his project enters its twilight, Phil looks forward to new forms of expression, and has gained enormous experience from IHYWYP.

“If there’s one thing that I’ve learned, it’s not to sell yourself short. If there’s something you can do— that’s how I felt with the demos, and that’s how I felt with interviews and everything. Before, I was like, ‘I’ll just go and have a good time.’ And it was just a complete gag at first— it still is in a lot of ways— but you have to dedicate yourself. Part of my reason for bowing out of doing the live shows is, before it does get serious. I would hate to dress up like that, and act like that, in front of a buncha buncha people.”

See the final performances of I Hate You When You’re Pregnant, Tues., May 31 st, at The Boardwalk with The Sneezes, Bad Waste, Dirty Dirty, and Shitstorm, Thurs., June 2 nd (Farewell Show) at Mogollon Brewery with JETOMI, and Sat., July 2 nd at Mogollon Brwery, again with JETOMI.

©2005 by Dean Bonzani. All Rights Reserved.

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