Eniac to bring pure rock sound with current tour

By Kathleen Dunphy
Daily Bruin Contributor 

The camaraderie of the Texas based group Eniac is the clearest
thing that comes through the otherwise difficult to decipher voices
on the other end of Nathan McGehee’s speaker phone, even from
the parking lot of a Taco Time in Seattle, Wash.

The band, whose music was recently described by a fan in
Missoula, Mont. as “Southern fried sex music for
brainiacs,” does in fact spend much of their time together.
Eniac has toured on its own in the past, and is currently touring
as an opening act for the first time. The tour is traveling
throughout the West, headlined by a rebuilt Coalesce.

The usual moans and groans meet the request to describe
Eniac’s music and influences.

“I always see articles from bands saying the same damn
thing. It’s the most difficult to answer but also the most
important. No one cares to listen to your band before they know
what you sound like. You just don’t want to be
stereotyped,” 22-year-old McGehee explained.

Eniac throws a lot of terms out there when attempting to
categorize their sound, but the most consistent is pure rock.

“We’re not rock like White Stripes rock. We have
more of a stripped down sound. You hear more Emo-influenced bands
using instrumentation. We have no bells in the background, no
handclaps, no didgeridoo’s,” said drummer Mike
Fonseca. 

Twenty-year-old bassist Mark Sonnabaum elaborated on the term
“Emo.”

“I think we’re a little more rock, more listenable
than Emo. It’s not fair to throw around a word that’s
just happening now,” he said.

The band, then with their original drummer, included a sort of
tribute to Jawbreaker on the inside cover of their now out of print
first release, “Eniac EP,” released in April, 2000. Yet
their influences take form more in an inspiration to play music
itself rather than write music exactly copying those they
admire.

“I write. I can see how I’m influenced by bands that
I like. But a person probably wouldn’t hear how I ripped off
the bands I like,” said Jason Buntz 21-year-old
guitarist.

According to Sonnabaum, The Beatles along with Pink Floyd, Los
Lobos and Iron Maiden are the current CD’s being rotated for
tour music.

“It’s not a very “˜now’ mix of
music,” McGehee said.

He explained that other than arguing over what to listen to,
tour activities often include PlayStation 2, reading and taking
pictures of each other trying on thrift-store ensembles.

Eniac’s favorite places for such hi-jinks (as well as
playing their music) are outside their home area, namely Houston
and Koo’s Café in Orange County.

“No one likes us at home. We’ve pretty much given up
and bill ourselves as a touring band. We couldn’t even get a
show to kick off this tour,” McGehee said.

The band’s vocalists, McGehee, also on guitar, and
Sonnabaum, share a house in Denton, Texas that includes parenting
duties over Hank the Cowdog and Ginger (both felines).
They’re also both employed at Staples and enrolled at the
University of North Texas.

“We basically share the same life,” Sonnabaum
explained.

The University is a school known for the musicians it produces.
Its College of Music has the longest operating college jazz program
in the world. The band is on hiatus from school in order to
tour.

Fonseca graduated from the University with a degree in Jazz
Drums. In addition to touring he now teaches drums and assumes
other duties at Austin’s Mars Music. The job even provides
some interesting listening material for the band to take out on the
road.

“When people apply to teach at Mars they have to bring in
demos of themselves playing. Just imagine a Rush cover band,
someone doing Rush bad, really bad,” Fonseca said.

In addition to those amateur masterpieces, Eniac asked friends
and fans to mail them burned CD-R’s marked only with
“Tour Torture Music” so they could listen to one bad CD
a day.

“We only got about seven. We urge everyone to bring more
to the shows. So far we have Best of Pat Benatar and a bunch of
CD’s from local bands. We need full albums,” Sonnabaum
said.

Donate torture tunes this weekend as Eniac comes with Coalesce
Saturday to the Troubadour and Sunday to Chain Reaction.