Totimoshi Announce First Live Show in 12 Years Playing Caterwaul Fest in Minneapolis
So is it a reunion? Los Angeles heavy noise-plus rockers Totimoshi released their last album, Avenger (review here), in 2011, and they haven’t played a show since then. Guitarist/vocalist Antonio Aguilar and bassist/vocalist Meg Castellanos have spent the intervening 12 years in a couple different projects, perhaps most notably All Souls with Tony Tornay of Fatso Jetson and, more recently, Alice Austin of Black Sabbitch — the band’s third album, Ghosts Among Us (review here), came out last year, and that band generally has kind of been the outlet for that side of Aguilar and Castellanos‘ craft, growing the melody that was increasingly present in Totimoshi‘s work across their six records issued between 1999 and the arrival of Avenger.
I was a sucker for Totimoshi (and I’m a sucker for All Souls, too), but from where I sit they went out on their best record and left more to say. I don’t know if Castellanos and Aguilar rejoining forces with Chris Fuggitt for one gig in Minneapolis is the beginning of a longer-term reunion of the band, if they’re going to do anything else let alone tour or write new songs or whatnot, but as they announce their upcoming appearance at Caterwaul in Minneapolis on May 28, it’s a welcome return whether it leads to anything else or not. You might recall Totimoshi last year unearthed the lost recording “Reasons Why” (posted here), and, you know, if they had six or seven other previously unreleased tracks laying around and wanted to dub some tapes or something, shit, I’d buy one if I managed to scrounge the Paypal together before they were gone.
What I like most about this, though, is that there’s no wrong answer. If Totimoshi are going to be a thing again, great. If their playing out might happen every now and again when All Souls can’t do something that Totimoshi can, great. If it happens once and Aguilar and Castellanos are back to All Souls after, great. Both? Certainly great, and it would be fascinating to see how one became distinguished from the other over time. But for now, it’s one show, so let’s start with that:
The return of Totimoshi!
Our first show in 12 years! See you in Minneapolis May 28th.
Totimoshi started in 1999 in the SF Bay Area, released several albums and videos, and toured like crazy. 2 US tours a year plus 3 European tours opening for Mastodon, Helmet, and Eyehategod. We went through too many drummers – it was not an easy lifestyle to hop in a van for 4-6 weeks at a time with 2 big dogs, as we were known to do… but it was a great run filled with many insane road stories and accomplishments.
All Souls was asked to play the Caterwaul Fest on Memorial Day Weekend in Minneapolis but Tony Tornay and Alice Austin were not available. Both will be in Europe with their other bands at that time. So instead of wasting an opportunity, we asked Chris Fugitt, our last drummer if he would be interested in resurrecting Totimoshi for this festival. Chris lives in Kansas City now and is still playing music. He was up for it and we are all excited to revisit this music that meant so much to us.
On our recent trip to Mexico City, we noticed that we had fans there that were excited to talk about our old band. Some fans and promoters on recent tours have been asking for a Totimoshi reunion. We hadn’t really considered it until now.
Totimoshi:
Antonio Aguilar – guitar/vocals
Meg Castellanos – bass/vocals
Chris Fuggitt – drums
https://www.facebook.com/totimoshi
https://totimoshi.bandcamp.com/
https://totimoshi.bigcartel.com/
I just listened to Meg and Tony on Jon Wisnewski’s podcast and thought it was a great listen. Obviously, they have dealt with some SHIT over the years, but some real storytellers.