News

Tijuana Panthers x Halfway To Eighty

Tijuana Panthers release their new album, Halfway To Eighty, on June 24th, 2022.

Read more about it on Northern Transmissions.

In one form or another, Tijuana Panthers have existed most of its members’ lives. Daniel Michicoff (bass/vocals), Chad Wachtel (guitar/vocals), and Phil Shaheen (drums/vocals) became friends when they were teenagers in Long Beach, California, and started playing music together soon after, eventually becoming one of the shining stars of the twenty-first century garage-rock revival scene—a (relatively) chill surf-rock-inspired complement to the ruckus of acts like Ty Segall and Thee Oh Sees. But while many of their initial contemporaries have gone through lineup changes or thrown in the towel, the Panthers are hanging tough—and, in a sense, just hitting their stride.

“I feel like this was our most relaxed process yet,” says Michicoff of the band’s sixth LP, Halfway to Eighty, an album whose title serves as a sly embrace of getting older, with a little bit of the Panthers’ trademark sense of humor sprinkled in there for good measure. (On the cover, they gather around their imaginary midlife-crisis Delorean.) It’s a brotherhood that’s only gotten more instinctual over time, and lately that second-nature approach has found each member taking on a more forward role in crafting their own individual songs, which the trio then works out together before hitting the studio.

On Halfway to Eighty, riff-heavy anthems like “Helping Hand” are courtesy of Wachtel, while art-rock thrashers like “Slacker” are Shaheen’s handiwork, and smirking punk numbers like “False Equivalent” are Michicoff’s. (“What good can it bring now? / We’re barely evolved” sings Michicoff on that last song, a squall of guitars swirling around his trembling tenor.) When you keep an ear out for them, you can hear each distinct personality in the songs, but taken as a whole, it’s yet another primo Panthers set of post-Cramps, post-DEVO outsider rock and roll.

That’s partially through the help of regular Panthers collaborator Jonny Bell (Crystal Antlers, Chicano Batman, The Gun Club [reissue]), Hanni El Khatib, Lovely Bad Things, Rudy De Anda), who produced the set at his Jazzcats Studio in Long Beach. Bell has proved to have something of a sixth sense in working with the band, so there was no one better to capture the sound they were going after this time, either. For much of the record, the band was working with the mindset of channeling some of the production sound and attitude of local punk legends like Black Flag and Circle Jerks. “What I told Jonny when he was mixing ‘Slacker,’” remembers Shaheen, “was, like, ‘Just keep it South Bay,’ and he already knew what I was saying.”

But as much as the band has matured over the years, they still know how to put together an album efficiently, without messing around. They’re professionals, after all—and there’s bills to pay, too. “We don’t have the luxury to go in the studio for days on end,” laughs Shaheen. “I don’t know how other bands do it.”

Taken at full, Halfway to Eighty is an embrace of much more than just a band. It’s a statement of dedication to the calling of music—to sticking with making art as long as you want to, age be damned. “You know what would make me just go, ‘Oh, let’s just quit,’” says Wachtel, recalling a recent raucous show in Los Angeles, “is if we didn’t have that reception anymore. The fans keep me going.”

“Not to get all spiritual about it,” adds Michicoff, “but when we were younger, we played really hard for nobody, and now the fans do all the work for us. They have the fun and we just kind of rock out, and it’s nice. It’s cool to sit back and play the songs and watch. They’re putting on a show for us.”

Tijuana Panthers x Slacker

"Their latest single still feels full of the creative youthful abandon they’ve maintained since the late-’00s, with “Slacker” leaning into the influence of their native SoCal’s early punk scene." - - FLOOD

In advance of Tijuana Panthers' new album Halfway to Eighty - a set of post-Cramps, post-DEVO outsider rock and roll that channels the production sound and attitude of SoCal punk legends Black Flag and Circle Jerks - the band share a video for third album single "Slacker" which is "An ode to all the slackers out there trying to get it together. Keep on the straight and narrow, there is light at the end of the tunnel."

Tijuana Panthers x False Equivalent

Tijuana Panthers' share second album single "False Equivalent," which the band explains, "Having tough discussions and debates with people close to you can feel more like a game that’s meant to be won rather than a compassionate effort to understand. We are barely evolved. I just took your Queen in chess, you say I didn’t, and we are in fact playing checkers. False equivalents show we’re not even having the same conversation.”

The veteran LBC rock band release new punk single "False Equivalent" off forthcoming new album Halfway to Eighty out June 24.

Tijuana Panthers x Helping Hand
In one form or another, Tijuana Panthers have existed most of its members’ lives. Daniel Michicoff (bass/vocals), Chad Wachtel (guitar/vocals), and Phil Shaheen (drums/vocals) became friends when they were teenagers in Long Beach, California, and started playing music together soon after, eventually becoming one of the shining stars of the twenty-first century garage-rock revival scene—a (relatively) chill surf-rock-inspired complement to the ruckus of acts like Ty Segall and Thee Oh Sees. But while many of their initial contemporaries have gone through lineup changes or thrown in the towel, the Panthers are hanging tough—and, in a sense, just hitting their stride.
“I feel like this was our most relaxed process yet,” says Michicoff of the band’s sixth LP, Halfway to Eighty, an album whose title serves as a sly embrace of getting older, with a little bit of the Panthers’ trademark sense of humor sprinkled in there for good measure. (On the cover, they gather around their imaginary midlife-crisis Delorean.) It’s a brotherhood that’s only gotten more instinctual over time, and lately that second-nature approach has found each member taking on a more forward role in crafting their own individual songs, which the trio then works out together before hitting the studio. 
On Halfway to Eighty, riff-heavy anthems like “Helping Hand” are courtesy of Wachtel, while art-rock thrashers like “Slacker” are Shaheen’s handiwork, and smirking punk numbers like “False Equivalent” are Michicoff’s. (“What good can it bring now? / We’re barely evolved” sings Michicoff on that last song, a squall of guitars swirling around his trembling tenor.) When you keep an ear out for them, you can hear each distinct personality in the songs, but taken as a whole, it’s yet another primo Panthers set of post-Cramps, post-DEVO outsider rock and roll. 
That’s partially through the help of regular Panthers collaborator Jonny Bell (Crystal Antlers, Chicano Batman, The Gun Club [reissue]), Hanni El Khatib, Lovely Bad Things, Rudy De Anda), who produced the set at his Jazzcats Studio in Long Beach. Bell has proved to have something of a sixth sense in working with the band, so there was no one better to capture the sound they were going after this time, either. For much of the record, the band was working with the mindset of channeling some of the production sound and attitude of local punk legends like Black Flag and Circle Jerks. “What I told Jonny when he was mixing ‘Slacker,’” remembers Shaheen, “was, like, ‘Just keep it South Bay,’ and he already knew what I was saying.”
But as much as the band has matured over the years, they still know how to put together an album efficiently, without messing around. They’re professionals, after all—and there’s bills to pay, too. “We don’t have the luxury to go in the studio for days on end,” laughs Shaheen. “I don’t know how other bands do it.”
Taken at full, Halfway to Eighty is an embrace of much more than just a band. It’s a statement of dedication to the calling of music—to sticking with making art as long as you want to, age be damned. “You know what would make me just go, ‘Oh, let’s just quit,’” says Wachtel, recalling a recent raucous show in Los Angeles, “is if we didn’t have that reception anymore. The fans keep me going.”
“Not to get all spiritual about it,” adds Michicoff, “but when we were younger, we played really hard for nobody, and now the fans do all the work for us. They have the fun and we just kind of rock out, and it’s nice. It’s cool to sit back and play the songs and watch. They’re putting on a show for us.”
Tijuana Panthers x Socks La Vida (Live)

Tijuana Panthers perform "Socks La Vida" from their 2020 EP Pull The Chute...socially distanced for now.