Band: The Ride
Tickets now on sale!
THE ROLLERCOASTER FROM DOMESTICITY TO OPERA HOUSE STAGE IS WILD
Almost a decade ago, we played an ill-advised corporate gig at a once-legendary venue on the Sunset Strip. In its glory years, the venue had been a private club for the young Hollywood elite; these days, it’s mostly a pay-to-play venue milking its name recognition. When we arrived, it was immediately clear that the staff was trained to fluff the egos of wannabe LA rockers. The bartender showed up in our green room with unasked-for liquor shots and insisted on doing them together; the stage manager, seemingly reading from a script, repeatedly asked if we were “ready to rock!”
The whole thing was like a trapped-in-amber distillation of ‘90s rock nostalgia, an experience so simulated and utterly on rails that it reminded us, above all, of the Aerosmith ride at Disneyworld. We called it Band: The Ride.
Over the years, Band: The Ride became a lasting metaphor for us. It went from being a description of one weird show to a catchall term referring to the reality-warping bubbles you enter into as a band—the way other people project their expectations of what a band should be onto you, and how you’re expected to roll with those expectations, lest you disappoint someone.
These days, Band feels more like a Ride than ever. Partly because we’re emerging from COVID retirement, so our sense of ourselves, in the absence of the constant stimulus of being with strangers, has changed: we feel like domestic animals at the zoo. Partly because the cultural form of Band feels like it’s generally on the decline—we live in a hyper-atomized world of individuals, not scrappy collectives. And partly because Band can be, like a rollercoaster, totally terrifying and actually really fun.
In April, we performed onstage for the first time since COVID, at the world premiere of our documentary film The Computer Accent, in Copenhagen. It was a short set—we played the entirety of Chain Tripping, which clocks in around 37 minutes—and it felt even shorter. At the beginning of this month, we brought the film to Mexico City, where it opened the Ambulante Film Festival to a packed house at Teatro de la Ciudad; we performed the album immediately after the screening, and then played our first full club show since 2020 a few days later, at Mexico City’s Foro Indie Rocks. PICS! 👀
It all felt very surreal, but the experience transcended Band: The Ride. It was more like Band: The Gift. We’ve been doing this for 20 years, and to be honest, sometimes it feels like the world is allergic to the kind of convoluted shit that we make. But then time passes and we find ourselves performing our weird songs to a sold-out crowd in a 100-year old opera house in Mexico. It’s deeply reassuring to remember that everything made with love and care will have its moment. Every flop can flip! We’re so grateful.
NEW FILM SCREENING, SHOW, AND TWOFER DATES ADDED!
The Computer Accent is a movie about our experience making music with AI tools in 2016-2018. It’s also a deep dive into the wilderness of art and technology, featuring interviews with algorithmic music pioneers, curators, programmers, writers, and artists. We’re really jazzed to bring the film to theaters across the US, in a run of hybrid screening-panel-performances designed to invite conversation with you.
Our next screening is at Gray Area in San Francisco in less than two weeks. It will be the first public screening of the film in the US! Grab tickets and you’ll automatically get discounted entry to our full live show at Gray Area the following night.
And here are some text links to buy tickets and learn more:
09-29 San Francisco, CA - Gray Area *
09-29 San Francisco, CA - Gray Area ^
10-21 New York, NY - Metrograph *
10-22 New York, NY - Metrograph *
10-23 New York, NY - Metrograph *
10-23 Brooklyn, NY - Public Records ^
10-25 Portland, OR - Portland Art Museum **
10-28 Bellingham, WA - Pickford Film Center *
* Film Screening + In-Person Q&A with YACHT
^ Full YACHT Show
** Film Screening + Performance of Chain Tripping
A very exciting run of Los Angeles screenings and performances will be announced soon!
FESTIVUS FOR THE REST OF US
In addition to the events we’ll be attending, The Computer Accent is also playing festivals around the world, from Sensoria Film & Music Festival in Sheffield, UK to the New Hampshire Film Festival in Portsmouth—stopping in Amsterdam, Taipei, Barcelona, Austin, and Minneapolis in between.
DEPLATFORM THE PLANET. PLANT LINKS.
Finally, in our ongoing efforts to divest from internet garbage, we’ve built our own link page—it’s in the style of “what if Susan Kare designed for Dr. Bronners?” We’ll be constantly and obsessively updating it with the latest links to tickets, screenings, music, videos, new merchandise, and whatever else us cake-eaters come up with. Check it out:
How sick of a URL is this: com.y-a-c-h-t.com !!!??? Also, feel free to email us at this equally sick email address: com@y-a-c-h-t.com