Playing outside on a stage at the bottom of a muddy hill, Pushmonkey launched into "No Dumb Wrong". It was loud, their own self styled morning wake-up call to knock the sleep from everyone's eyes. Their vocals soared as they taunted the crowd with the chorus, "Stick out your tongue/ Stick out your tongue/ That's right". Pat's bass rumbled with authority while Howie and Will's guitars chopped and screamed. Nobody in the crowd could figure out how Darwin was playing drums standing up, while Tony was all over the stage-- hopping, channeling, his vocals soaring. The sleepyheads were engaged. By the end of the forty minute set, Pushmonkey had won them over. Knees had been bloodied, shirts had been mud-stained, and a line was forming sidestage of fans needing to get their body parts autographed before lunchtime.

Not only can the members of Pushmonkey wake up before noon, but they can also win converts with a style that has always been unique in its ability to speak to its audience, whomever that may be. You see, the impressive thing about their forty minute rock-a-thon in Detroit was not that they got the audience slamming into each other. Instead, it was impressive because that wasn't all Pushmonkey had; there was a seemingly endless supply of songs in the cupboard. Fans and radio stations all over the country have come to know this through their live shows and their first major label collection, a self-titled debut on Arista records produced by Mike Clink of Guns 'n Roses fame. After the OzzFest tour was over, they made their way to a spot on the bill at Woodstock '99. They got out before the fires started but not before they had the same success as before. After fifteen months on the road, the band retreated to Austin to work on new material. They broke away from the major label deal and decided to go it on their own, anxious for the freedom it would allow their material and their career. The result is the self-produced El Bitché, their most mature album to date.

"I really feel like, with these new songs, we've made a real effort to become purists with the songwriting," says lead singer Tony Park. "We put down all the electronic equipment we used to use and have been writing with just the acoustic guitar again. If it sounds good with my voice and the guitar then it will always translate, and I think we are writing better songs because of that."

It may sound a little strange to hear a veteran of OzzFest talk about the benefits of the acoustic guitar, but then again, Pushmonkey has always been about music that works on different levels. They can be the most devilish of rock bands, but a constant throughout their career has always been their layering of vocal harmonies, their ability to pull emotion out of guitar strings, and to take a listener to a different place through lyrics of life's everyday complexities. The first single off El Bitché, "Mine to Waste" relies on this combination. A sound with punch and glide, bouncing and running, setting the canvas for Tony to sing his lament. "It's kind of about you/ It's kind of about me/ It's kind of about all the things I wanted us to be," he sings to tell about a relationship long past it's demise. "I wasted my best song on you," he finishes. It's the kind of song that causes listeners to drift off while driving, hum its harmony while walking to work, or quote in an ill-fated attempt at breaking up with a girlfriend. The bottom line: it's good songwriting, from top to bottom. And there are ten more like it, on an album whose title was inspired, as drummer Darwin Keys tells it, by a "feeling of tenacity and toughness that we could still sell in K-Mart"

"Ever since we really started to sit down and make this record, we've been focused on the things that inspire," says Tony. "The things that move us and the music that really just comes jumping off the tape. It's been, in many ways a different way for us to make music. We've gone back and reassessed everything and this is the best stuff we've ever done."

Maize: 1994

Pushmonkey: 1998

El Bitche: 2001

Website: www.pushmonkey.com