The Avi Buffalo Band, which has become more or less decimated to just Avigdor Zahner-Isenberg over the last few months, has officially called it quits after a relatively short four years in the limelight.
After two years and only two records, the second of which came out last year, Avi Buffalo is officially done. Citing the fact that “touring sucks and isn’t worth it,” Zahner-Isenberg confirmed the dissolution of Avi Buffalo on the group’s Facebook page. Whatever he means by touring being “not worth it,” the more specific reason that Zahner-Isenberg gave seems to give a more concrete understanding as to why the band is being dissolved. Avigdor Zahner-Isenberg began Avi Buffalo during his mid-teens, and now that he’s in his mid-twenties, he feels as though he can no longer relate to the group anymore. While it’s understandable that the wear and tear of touring can wear away at anybody, the creative circumstances surrounding Avi Buffalo are in more dire straits than what some may have initially expected.
The Avi Buffalo band is over; done with my 2-record-contract with SubPop and available to be anyone’s guitarist/songwriter/producer/engineer/whatever works, gonna keep makin’ music left and right. I have very much appreciated touching good people with this music, having a cool avenue through the world to perform it, getting to meet you whether it was in the USA, Canada or Europe, and working with some awesome musicians. I started it when I was a wee-15 year-old and it went WAY farther than I thought it could. In fact, the Avi Buffalo project went too far, and I don’t think this project was meant for even the minute exposure on a “professional” scale that it got, as it ended up causing a lot more pain and drained my creative energy. It makes me wake up sick, confused, depressed, out of touch with myself and irrelevant to current music’s existence. I know ya’ll wouldn’t want me to stay like that! Other more exciting and meaningful creative endeavors are what I have sought after instead, and as I am a spritely, young 24 year old, I’ve gotta lot of work to do and no time to be devoted to a sluggish incarnation of my teenaged self. Another long story short: touring sucks and isn’t worth it, even though I love having been able to play shows to people I live far away from who have heard my music(thank you for coming, glad you caught us and sorry I will NOT be returning), it completely detracts from what I have always wanted to do as a musician since I started at age 12 which is: play with a lot of different people all the time instead of concentrating on one band, work and write in the studio with people and also to experience things like romantic relationships and live in one place at a time such as Los Angeles or New York or anywhere else with a large and exciting concentration of beautiful artists to work with and learn from every day. I have a few projects now brewing including the debut Litronix album(Kevin Litrow of Dance Disaster Movement and 60 Watt Kid, one of my heroes since I was a teenager) I’ve been producing with J.P. Bendzinski and playing on for months(!) and we are wrapping it up, it sounds magnificent and I am so proud of all of us involved. It is a rich and beautiful album of Kevin Litrow’s music, stocked, packed and decorated with some of the areas most interesting and talented musicians. It will be released on Porch Party Records, a local Long Beach label that has graciously funded the studio time to record it…Other guitar playing+more with different folks happening all over town and exponentially into the future. There are in fact too many to count! I am trying to stack the learning opportunities on top of each other in hopes that they will lead me to something good. Currently looking for: Great teachers and true, evolved inspiration. Perhaps also after a while of working on other people’s stuff I could come up with something else of my own again, put it out on a label, tour, etc. It’s just gotta feel free if that happens. I will probably honestly be 40 or 50 when that happens and extremely fat.”
While Avi Buffalo is no more, Zahner-Isenberg did reveal that he has other projects in the works. Still, it seems as though Avi Buffalo were gone before we knew them. Just a few short months after performing at SXSW, Zahner-Isenberg would be confirming the end.
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