Fartbarf to blast Long Beach: Masked, alien, synth-punk cavemen nutballs Fartbarf perform at Long Beach's magnificent punk haven, on a bill with Asi Fui, Chapis, Slice, and DJ Chris Baker.

Early on, we were playing somewhere around 130, 140 shows [a year], said Josh McLeod, when we spoke to him in 2019. Just to let people know that a band called Fartbarf could take themselves seriously and try to make a name for themselves. More recently, we've been trying to take a step back and write some new material, which we're long overdue for. We're now roughly averaging one or two shows a month. Our last album was released in 2014, so we're working on a 7-inch right now that's going to be going into production pretty soon as a single.

A major inspiration, he said, was Devo.

We thought it would be fun to mesh future and primitive, he says. We're these space neanderthals playing futuristic instruments, even though they're kinda dated at this point. We came upon these masks from the '40s at an old costume shop in Arizona that was closing, and I bought a lot of them. We wore them for hundreds and hundreds of shows until they started rotting off of our faces. Our current masks that we've had for a few years now, they've been custom-made by a Hollywood exec. We have a couple of spares, so hopefully we won't lose them. It's always on the back of our mind, though.

Fartbarf to blast Long Beach: The event takes places at 8 p.m. on Saturday, April 16 at Alex's Bar.