The Taxpayers started in the basement of The Slime House in St John’s, where Rob was living at the time. The Slime House was a pretty gnarly place; it was a former methhouse, infested with all sorts of creepy-crawlies and overall structurally unsound. After a couple weeks of practice (and beers and adorable dogs) we decided to throw a St John’s Food Not Bombs benefit show at The Slime House. We played some songs, fucked up a few, broke a ton of guitar strings, and probably gave a lack-luster performance. Through all our jack-assery, we somehow managed to make friends with two very important people to us: Zach and Michael Love. Zach started Useless State and Michael recorded our first two albums. We had a few more shows at The Slime House, cranked out some songs, and started playing around town. Then the eviction note came, boo. The landlord was selling the house; you’d have to be a fool to buy it.
Rob, Mark, Ginny and Sasha (the doggie dog) moved out of The Slime House and into a new house, which they dubbed The Sea Shanty (in Kenton). The Sea Shanty became the new home of The Taxpayers. We threw a bunch of awesome shows, dealt with the cops a lot, and recorded Exhilarating News in the garage. It was an endless summer.
Around the same time, we got an e-mail inviting us to play a punk rock 7/7/07 BBQ at space called Brainstains. Sounded cool. We responded with a corny e-mail suggesting they should call the show “7/7/7 Sign of The Feast”. And they totally did. Way cool. The BBQ was a ton of fun and we met another two very important people to us: Damian and John Brainstains. Damian is like a punk rawk hero, he runs this amazing showguide called PC-PDX.com and booked a ton of shows for touring bands coming through PDX. John Brainstains ran Brainstains, an incredible all-ages community/show space. We started to play a bunch of shows at Brainstains (some of the best we’ve ever had) and setup a bunch of shows at The Sea Shanty for bands coming through PDX. John later that year moved to New Orleans. Brainstains became The Coop, and was lived in and operated by Damian, Danielle, Alicia, Zach, Hannah, Shelby, Violet, and quite a few others. In it’s existence, the Coop threw hundreds of shows, most of them the best that Portland had ever seen, until…well, you guessed it, the eviction note came. The landlord was selling the house. Once again, you’d have to be a damn fool to buy it.
Around this time, we started getting that travel itch. Well, it was some sort of itch, at least, and it meant that we had to get out of the damn city. Time for tour!
Our friends in Fixed Gears Are For Jerks and Lesbians (MPLS) played The Sea Shanty along with a bunch of bands en route to Queerruption in BC and we had a blast. One of the best shows at the Shanty. We exchanged numbers and cds and off they went. After the show they lost their CD-booklet or their ipod busted and they only had our CD to listen to on the way back to MPLS. Pretty funny. Eric (from FGAFJAL) really dug on the album and invited us out to MPLS to play a couple shows. We looked at the map, 2000 miles. Why not? So we planned an exhausting 7,000 mile tour in 2 1/2 weeks, booking around the MPLS shows. The day before we were to leave, our newly purchased van (Raleigh Fingers) took a shit and no longer worked. Crap. We scrambled for options and managed to wrangle a rental mini-van for $300! Deal of a lifetime. We crammed the 7 of us (we did a tri-tour with Atomic Butter Babes & Joe Destroy) and all of our equipment into the minivan then set off. The tour ruled. We had a ton of fun and we broke even. Success.
What next huh? Record another album, I guess. So we did. The album took a long time to create, much unlike Exhilarating News which was done in a day or so. Halfway through recording the album, Rob got into a bike accident and broke his wrist. We had to wait 2 months before we could finish recording. We decided to release A Rhythm in The Cages ourselves and learned a lot about doing this shit yourself. Its friggin tough.
More recently, we acquired a couple of new bass players. Phil Gobstopper was asked to be the hometown hero and play bass for local shows during an outing on the Useless State pleasure cruiser (we found an abandoned boat a few summers back in an undisclosed location – there’s a picture of it under the Contact/Order section), and Eric Frame (Of Fixed Gears are for Jerks and Lesbians fame) was asked to be the touring bass player. After practically being a part of the band for years, Danielle also joined us on accordion and keyboards. The Taxpayers heart grew three sizes larger that day.
Since then, Rob’s been teaching preschool, Noah’s been making movies (check out Los Moustachios), Phil’s been doing physics experiments, Eric has been recording sweet bands, Danielle has been traveling whilst becoming a whiz screen printer, and Nate Taxpayer became a scientist father! The Taxpayers are currently gearing up to record a new album in March and tour the East Coast and south throughout the summer. We’ll have high fives, pies, and sloppy kisses waiting for you.
The Taxpayers = Scientist rock.
Myspace:
[The Taxpayers] CD's - Merch:
[QuoteUnquote Records] (Donation based record label)
[Useless-State Records] (Collectively run label in Portland, Oregon)
Releases and Recent Information The Taxpayers feature two full length releases.
Exhilarating News (2007), and
A Rhythm in the Cages (2009). Both physical CD's are available to purchase, or free through donation-based digital distribution.
The Taxpayers range from a 3-piece to 6-piece live, and even more recording, current members include:
--Rob Taxpayer (Guitar / Vocals)
--Noah Taxpayer (Drums)
--Eric Frame (Touring Bass)
--Phil Gobstopper (Local Bass, Science)
--Danielle Steal (Accordion)
--Noah Hornplayer (Trombone)
--Alex Saxplayer (Sax)
--and other friends! (Kazoo, Piano, Chrous, Etc...)
Reviews and Remarks "I truly believe these guys are reaching out beyond themselves to live a life of freedom and punk rock" -Saffron, PC-PDX.com | Portland Show Guide "Portland trio the Taxpayers has a group of friends/fans that sings along to nearly every word of every song in the band's repertoire, and it's not hard to see why...It'll take hearts and guitars to spark a revolution in this country—lord knows the other side has the cynicism and guns markets pretty much cornered. So I'm voting Taxpayers in '08"- Casey Jarman, Willammette Week "All around, an equation that equals awesome."- Bryan Static, Razorcake "The Taxpayers deliver hit after hit after hit, and at no point touch upon the same ground as the last song."- Chris Mattern, Jersey Beat review of A Rhythm in the Cagse "TaxPayers have lost there edge: I remember going and seeing hte TaxPayers when they were a fun quirky band that played good music that was worth dancing too. But these days it feels like the only way they can get attention is for the Singer to get half naked and do shitty covers of Jimmy buffet. There musical talent has dwindled and, to me atleast, they have to have there gimmicks to pull of a decent show..."- An anonymous message board posting