See Eureka the Butcher & Sadah Luna live if you are in the Los Angeles or Austin areas:

2/19 @ Hemingways Lounge - Hollywood, CA w/ Gregory Rogove *
2/20 @ Harvellle’s - Long Beach, CA w/ The Vespertines *
2/22 Low End Theory @ The Airliner in Los Angeles
2/24 @ Hotel Vegas in Austin, TX 

*with Big Sir 

and listen/watch him broadcast live on:
2/21 Live Stream on Ham on Everything Radio

and follow him @eurekabutcher

Eureka The Butcher aka Marcel Rodriguez Lopez of Zechs Marquise and The Mars Volta has unleashed 4 new tracks of his solo electronic production project.

Check them out below:

Stay tuned for soon to be announced Los Angeles area dates in February!

The Mars Volta sibling band Zechs Marquise’s new video for “Everlasting Beacon of Light” off their recently released sophomore album Getting Paid is like one of those epic dreams you wake up from hoping it means something — something super awesome.

Deep down you know it means you shouldn’t eat cheesecake and an entire Frito pie right before you go to sleep. But it leaves you with the pleasant feeling that there might be some magic afoot in the world after all.

In the clip, surprise stars Teri Gender Bender of Le Butcherettes and Rx Bandits’ Matthew Embree play out an illogical cloak and dagger scheme involving an everlasting beacon of light, animal-men in tailored suits, and some intense gangsters, set against a Southwestern desert backdrop.  It doesn’t make any sense at all, and yet somehow it helps the loping psych-disco-prog track, which unfolds over six-plus minutes, to make more sense.

If it means anything, it most likely means that you should pick up these young prog rockers’s latest LP so you can unravel its many contradictions at your leisure. Just don’t do it right before bed.

Oh, and there is a reason the video seems like a nocturnal ramble. Watch until the end:

With Omar Rodriguez-Lopez suddenly reforming At The Drive-In, his Mars Volta bandmate/brother Marcel has time to spend with his other project, Zechs Marquise. Based in El Paso, the latter Rodriguez-Lopez plays drums in the instrumental progressive rock band with his other brothers Marfred and Rikardo on bass and keyboards, respectively. Their sophomore album, Getting Paid, dropped late last year from Rodriguez-Lopez Productions (it’s a family thing), and they’ve just delivered a new video for one of the tracks.

We first brought you their single “Everlasting Beacon Of Light” back in August. The track leans towards trip-hop before erupting into typical Rodriguez Brothers insanity, but the video pretty much starts and ends in the insane. In the clip, the name of the song appears to be the name of a smokeable drug. Inhalation of said drug leads to animal-headed people, dusty graveyards, latino gangs, and secret Zechs Marquise shows. Talk about gateway drugs. Check out the exclusive video, directed by The 90s, below.

Nice cameos from Teri of Le Butcherettes and Matthew Embree of RX Bandits

“Getting Paid was a learning process, just like everything else we’ve gone through. We basically recorded it twice to make it better.”

This issue, The Mars Volta’s Marcel Rodriguez-Lopez, drummer in El Paso instrumental outfit Zechs Marquise, fills us in on his band and their latest, sophomore album, Getting Paid.

“We wrote and recorded the songs, and then learned to play them live,” he tells us. “We started touring and used the opportunity to road-test the songs. We kept what we liked, scrapped or changed what we didn’t, and re-recorded the album. In the end, it came out exactly how we wanted it: our version of an early jazz fusion record, a blaxploitation record, a progressive rock record, a hip hop record, a salsa record, an electronic record.”

And he’s not exaggerating either. Getting Paid is all these things, and more – an eclectic set that comes across like a soundtrack to an unreleased ‘70s blaxploitation flick, while landing them in some very different territories to their 2009 debut.

Check out the full interview with Marcel in issue 35, in stores now or available to order HERE

Or you can download the digital edition of the latest issue right now! Visit Pocketmags.co.uk

Here at Grisl we wanted to provide our own version of year end list for your/our enjoyment. They are not all cut from the same mold. Some are music based, some travel based and some whatever was on the writer’s mind. 2011 was an amazing year on multiple levels. So, explore some of the music you may have missed, read some of the cool stories, reminisce on some amazing shows, get pissed you missed some amazing shows and enjoy the lists below. Most of all, lets hope 2012 exceeds 2011! That would make for an exciting year to come.

Zechs Marquise: Getting Paid (Sargent House /Rodriguez Lopez Productions, 9/27/11)

El Paso-based psych-prog five-piece Zechs Marquise is three-fifths Rodriguez Lopez, a surname that gained music-industry notoriety from Omar, the prolific Mars Volta guitarist.

Though its official debut album, the 2009 effort Our Delicate Stranded Nightmare, was a much more experimental and atmospheric work, Getting Paid fully focuses on the groove. Each of the album’s nine tracks moves at its own pace, venturing into an alternate sonic universe at a moment’s notice. Abrupt tempo shifts, an inexhaustible junk drawer of textures, and a healthy obsession with ’70s prog fusion culminate in a truly shape-shifting record, albeit one that consistently rocks. Zechs Marquise knows when to give into its sweaty, twisted vision-quest dalliances and when to let a groove ride.

Click HERE to see Full List

07. Zechs Marquise 
Getting Paid
(Sargent House/Rodriguez Lopez)

Out of all the instrumental bands that released albums this year, Zechs Marquise is our favorite. We watched them tear strippers a new hole at a gentleman’s club in L.A. months back, and have had Getting Paid blaring through our gramophone ever since. Simply put, Zechs Marquise is “Crushin’ It!.” 

 SEE FULL LIST

Zechs Marquise live clip of Mega Slap from the album Getting Paid.

“Speaking of artists this very column might have hipped you to, Zechs Marquise is mainly known for their connection with the weird and wonderful world of Omar Rodriguez-Lopez, of The Mars Volta fame. ZM is chiefly occupied by Omar’s brothers, and Getting Paid‘s punchy, powerful mix of jazz fusion, progressive rock, ’70s funk and Hendrix-influenced psychedelia will certainly not scare away any Mars Volta fans, but Zechs Marquise has its own distinct identity as well.”  Click to See Full List

Our original Best Songs of 2011 list was over twice as long and we wish to include them all, but twenty-five is the number, folks, and not all are suited for the Best of 2011 title. These below were the ones that were set on repeat in our heads, we bonded to, we celebrated and got piss drunk, made us laugh, made us cry and made us fall in love.

# 25 “Everlasting Beacon of Light”
by Zechs Marquise
Album: Getting Paid
[USA/Puerto Rico]

If I was from the past and somehow through time travel, woke up in 2011, the epic 7 and 1/2 minute long “Everlasting Beacon of Light” would blow my mind…Oh wait, I am from this time and it STILL blows an everlasting beacon of light into my skull. Probably the most artistic, prog rock-y song on this list, and still probably the best song to get a lapdance to. If this doesn’t make you want to get naked I don’t know what will. Words can’t even describe how brilliant this song is. Listen for yourself. -Stephen Christopher

Full list (which also includes label mates Le Butcherettes!) can be seen here.

In the Rodriguez-Lopez family, musical talent is a strong and vibrant trait. Zechs Marquise’s Malfred and Marcel Rodriquez-Lopez are the younger brothers of The Mars Volta guitarist Omar Rodriguez-Lopez. It appears that the influence of their older brother’s work with Cedric Bixler-Zavala and The Mars Volta have had a large affect on their own musical aspirations and style, especially considering the 12 tracks contained in the group’s latest album Getting Paid.

As someone who’s witnessed a live show featuring Zechs Marquise, I can fully attest to the fact that this album is an honest representation of what you will hear if you see them live in concert. The mix of funky baselines and progressive guitar work that fills the opening track “Getting Paid” really sets the stage for an album that will likely please those who dig intricate instrumentation and electronically manipulated sounds. Getting Paid is mainly an instrumental album, as the first vocals appear nearly 15 minutes into the album, during the third track “Static Lovers.” In an almost haunting performance, guest vocalist Sonny Baker lender her vocals to the track “The Heat, The Drought, The Thirst, and Insanity,” and RX Bandits vocalist Matt Embree lends his vocals to the song “Everlasting Beacon of Light.”

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Getting Paid (released September 27) is a work best enjoyed dressed in a velvet suit whilst sucking down whippets on a round sofa as monkey butlers peel grapes and mix cocktails. At least that’s the sort of strange scenes from the gold mine that shake loose inside one’s mind while the second album from Zechs Marquise spins. This beatifically bug-fuck album dips into early 70s Miles Davis and the darker corners of King Crimson, largely instrumental music with serious shading and palpable menace, funk-touched mad jazz rockin’ with sprinklings of contemporary blip culture. Think Magical Mystery Tour stripped of (most) vocals and then shot in the ass with Superfly sauce and you’re moving into Zechs Marquise’s neighborhood.

The group currently boasts three siblings of The Mars Volta mastermind Omar Rodriguez-Lopez, which has garnered Zechs Marquise some attention. But in musical terms, this band bears little resemblance to what Omar is laying down. Zechs Marquise is more graciously melodic, eager to seduce even as they tickle strange synapses and skip around bumptious rough terrain just off the smooth highways that zigzag through their music. In only two albums, they’ve begun to establish a distinct identity in the hard-to-stand-out-in field of instrumental rock. A couple cuts on Getting Paid dabble in vocals, effectively adding an element many instrumental peers fail miserably at and pointing at new directions they might explore, but mainly they get across a unique voice without having to speak a word, developing rapidly and offering folks already into say Lotus or STS9 a chewy new Scooby Snack to chop on, as well as an energizing flavor for more traditional prog and fusion fans.

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Zechs Marquise performed at Antone’s in Austin, Texas on Friday, Nov 9th, 2011. Opening up for the prog-rock outfit were locals Parking and Equals…

…Zechs Marquise is like the Japanese anime character they are named after: unpredictable and unrelenting in their lightning-fast transitions between funked-out interludes and psychedelic rock passages. Rodriguez-Lopez brothers Marcel, Marfred and Rikardo provide otherworldly drums, bass and synths, while guitarists Marcos Smith and Matthew Wilkson (who RX Bandits guitarist Steve Choi is temporarily filling in for) provide luscious, Santana-laced riffs, creating a concoction that would be the result of a one-night stand between late hip hop producer J. Dilla and prog-rock Godfathers Pink Floyd.

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Dos cosas que hay que superar al escuchar inicialmente sobre Zechs Marquise: la pronunciación de su nombre (digamos que “sex markís” se aproxima lo suficiente; nombre compartido con un popular personaje de la serie de animé Mobile Suit Gundam Wing) y el parentesco con una figura muy influyente y respetada dentro del rock alternativo e independiente.

¿Listos?

El quinteto de El Paso reúne a varios miembros de la familia Rodríguez-López – Marcel en la batería, Marfred en el bajo y Rikardo en los teclados – junto a los guitarristas Marcos Smith y Matthew Wilkinson. Juntos han desarrollado en Getting Paid, su segundo LP, un rock progresivo, experimental y mayormente instrumental, con fuertes influencias del hip-hop y la sicodelia. El esfuerzo le ha ganado nueva fanaticada a Zechs Marquise a través del Internet, generando reseñas positivas de sitios como Absolute Punk, Remezcla y Behind The Hype.

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