Talk to any of the members of Special K and you’ll get a clear picture of three guy whose lives are soundtracked by Guided by Voices and The Replacements. Singer/guitarist, Aldred Basiga, is as well-versed in the history and music of The Replacements as I am, and that’s saying a lot. The band’s appreciation for alternative rock icons is prominent in their music and the way they carry themselves, all being very reserved on most topics except music.
I first came across Special K when they, and my band at the time, played one of many house shows together. In all of my drunken blurs, they were a constant standout each time. In shows flooded with similar sounding punk and ska bands, their brand of erratic indie rock required your attention. They build a killer stage presence, and best of all, they actually knew how to play their instruments.
Over the span of a year, this trio, comprised of singer and guitarist, Aldred Basiga, bass player Jacob Lasky, and drummer Justin Ptak have been gaining momentum and attention. On the heels of their first release, I Can’t Hear You: Early Tracks and Remnants a stellar twenty track album, they answered a few of my questions for Punks in Vegas.
Special K got its start the way a lot Vegas bands have, playing desert shows. Since moving on to better shows, do you feel desert shows could still be a thing?
Aldred: They still can. I mean, it’s never late for anything at this point, you know. There’s minimal things going on, so you do whatever you can.
Jacob: The last one kinda sucked though. We weren’t there for more than like fifteen minutes, and Metro came in with helicopters at first with spotlights [pointing] at us. At first, I thought they wanted to check out what was going on and then leave. Then they kept getting closer and lower, then they started riding up one motorcycles. They were threatening to give everyone tickets.
Aldred: We’ll still do some every now and then. We did a couple during the summer.
It seems like you guys have been cutting back on shows.
Aldred: We haven’t been doing shows in general for the last three months. The last show we did was Photo Bang Bang, but before that was 11th Street. That was fun. They still have our recordings.
Any plans for those recordings?
Aldred: They’re still mixing them or something. It wasn’t even on purpose, we were opening for this one band, an out-of-town Arizona group, and they just happened to record us. It’s a bunch of newer songs too, that’s why we’re interested. Like, a lot of stuff that isn’t on the album.
How is I Can’t Hear You: Early Tracks and Remnants being released?
Jacob: We got the physical CD, and we’re gonna have a digital thing that we’re gonna release either that night or the next day, which is gonna be two dollars cheaper, because we’re selling the CD for $7. We’re not trying to make it super expensive, I feel it’s pretty reasonable for an album that has 20 songs on it.
That’s a big task for a first album to include 20 songs. Are those 20 full completed songs or are they a few rough tracks and demos in there?
Jacob: Basically, it’s a compilation of a lot of our other songs from our rougher EPs too. We have three EPs we recorded before that, which are more rough GarageBand type of recordings. We took a lot of those songs and made them more “hi-fi” as you’d say. Aldred handled most of this stuff, like the packaging. I think his friend did the front cover. The pictures [on the back of the CD] are from our first three EPs we recorded.
How many physicals copies are available?
Aldred: It’s a run of 50 at the moment, but if we sell all of them, we’re probably gonna do a run of a couple more. We’re playing it safe because we hear of local bands that buy like 200 copies of their album or a thousand, and they don’t sell. We’re playing it close to the chest, really.
Justin, did you play in bands before Special-K?
Justin: Oh yeah. I played my first show at like sixteen years old at Yayo Taco. The first one was a skate punk band called Rad. I filled in on this band called Permanent Failure, another punk band around that time. After that, there was another sort of punk band, a little different than the first two, called Lost Wages. That was when we were doing the whole U.F.F. thing. I don’t know if you’ve heard about that.
I have not, what was U.F.F?
Justin: Underground Face Fuck. It was playing shows in empty parking lots and abandoned warehouses.
Aldred: I think they successfully had like two or three shows [laughs].
Justin: This was Cromm from The Astaires. It was like two or three years ago. One thing we did do often was, Cromm was close to the guy who owned Fukuburger. Fukuburger would go to this huge empty parking lot, park there and make their food, and they can have bands play with them. So, if cops or anything show up, all Fukuburger has to do is say that we’re playing for them. Like we’re promoting their business. That’s how they got away with it.
You guys are doing your release show at The Womb Room, a place you’ve played a lot of shows at. What attracted you guys to that place?
Aldred: I like playing there because, you know, people actually wanna hear music there, not just drink and fuck around or something. That still happens like outside, there’s a time and place for it, but when you’re in there you’re listening to music. It’s not like a house show where you’re the soundtrack to someone’s fuckery. That’s what I really don’t like about house shows, or backyard shows, personally.
Jacob: I still think they’re fun though. I like the atmosphere.
Aldred: No, I’m not saying they’re not fun. Obviously me, I’m more about the actual music part of it. I don’t like parties. As far as house shows are concerned, it’s one out of three that doesn’t like you. We’re just not playing shows at the moment because we wanted to do this.
How long did the album take to record?
Justin: We did it in two eight hour shifts it seemed like.
Aldred: It was two days of recording, and mixing took a couple weeks. To get the actual CD out took a long time because we didn’t know what the fuck we were doing. It took awhile to plan but it finally came together. I’m still surprised that it’s still as good. It looks legitimate.
Justin: It looks good and it sounds good.
What are the band’s plans after this release? Have you thought about hitting the road?
*all simultaneously: Record more.
Aldred: We played like one show out in LA and they kinda asked us, you know, “do you have any releases and stuff?” We just had to give them our shitty recordings.
Justin: Yeah, we made like 20 copies of this shitty GarageBand recordings and we just handed them out to people.
Jacob: Someone actually got one of my regular CDs, it was like a mix CD, by accident. They’re gonna listen to that and be like, “woah, these guys sound pretty good!”
Aldred: [laughing] We took a road trip out there and we accidentally gave out our Guided by Voices mix. I guess that’s what kinda made me get serious and actually get like a decent recording out there. With this release we kinda wanna prove that normal ass people can get in a room, record music, and release an album. And after this hopefully keep doing it more and hopefully be more effective the next time around.
You can stream I Can’t Hear You: Early Tracks and Remnants here on PunksinVegas.com, and if you like what you hear, you can pick up the album in person this Friday, Nov. 20 at The Womb Room with an eclectic lineup also featuring Good Grief, Sometimes, and Bee Master.
-Alan Madrigal
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