Daze Ago Serves Up Tasty Sonic Smorgasbord on New LP ‘Pancakes at Midnight’

Daze Ago (Photo Provided)

The Buffalo psych-ska trio Daze Ago has always been a fascinating band. Mind you, we use that term — ‘psych-ska’ — as a point of reference. The truth is, Daze Ago is a difficult group to pin down exactly and such is the beauty of this band.

No where, in fact, is this more evident than on the band’s excellent new album, ‘Pancakes at Midnight,’ which drops tomorrow (Thursday, Aug. 14) on streaming platforms.

Engineered, mixed and mastered by the renowned Doug White of Watchmen Studios in Lockport, Daze Ago— which features T.J. Cutajar on guitar and vocals, Bryce Malluma-Kopp on bass and Ryan Ploetz on drums — shifts seamlessly between genres throughout the course of the new LP, not only from track-to-track but oftentimes during the songs themselves, resulting in a work that, from start to finish, keeps the listener on their toes. It’s ska, it’s punk, it’s acoustic, it’s funk; there’s heavy, forceful riffs, elements of grunge and metal and there’s also a Taylor Swift cover.

Yeah, that’s right.

“I am truly proud of this album,” said Cutajar. “We've been putting out EPs the last few years and talking about doing a full album for a while. It feels great to not only achieve a goal, but for it to turn out better than we could have imagined.”

Pancakes are not all that’s being served here. In dishing up the record’s 10 songs, Daze Ago offers a vast smorgasbord, chock full of power chords, contemplative lyrics, flowing raps, deeply grooved rhythms, and vocals that are often delivered with urgency.

The spectrum of sound on ‘Pancakes at Midnight’ includes songs such as ‘FWMM,’ which is soulful and driving; ‘Too High’ conjures the spirit of early Sublime; ‘Dark Day’ is beautifully reflective; and ‘Trust Me’ rips with raw unabashed power.

“Musically we've always been pretty eclectic.” said Cutajar. “I like a lot of music styles

and never wanted to stick to one. So, for this album we wanted to make sure we put a little bit of all that we do. It’s also a good mix of older songs and newer songs. One of the songs, ‘Hour Glass,’ had been sitting in our back pocket forever and we slightly revamped it. Now it’s a favorite of mine. I also wanted to get some people to do features on some tunes. Luckily, I have some extremely talented friends. Dave from the Pittsburgh ska band ‘Fubar’ did a verse on ‘9-5,’ and Christian from New Jersey reggae/ska band ‘Ill Rendition’ dropped one on ‘Too High.’ They both came out incredibly.”

Also featured on ‘Pancakes at Midnight’ is a cover by Daze Ago of Taylor Swift’s ‘Shake It Off,” a ska-infused version that is as ballsy as it is interesting.

“We have never been huge on playing covers,” said Cutajar. “They always had to be songs we enjoyed or could make our own. The last couple years we did some fun ones, and I suggested taking a pop song and making it ska-punkish. Well, the queen of pop is T-Swift, so we went to her Spotify and heard ‘Shake It Off.’ We tried that one and it came together pretty effortlessly, besides the break down we added. We played that part differently for about a year, and a few weeks before we went to the studio, we decided it needed something. I love how it turned out.”

The release of ‘Pancakes at Midnight’ coincides with a steady rise in the band’s profile, fueled by an unyielding worth ethic. Besides its intensive social media approach, the band in just the last week headlined the first night of the recent Cattoopalooza festival, played the American Harley-Davidson 40th anniversary party, and performed at Riptide Pool Bar in Ocean City, Md.

Daze Ago (Photo Provided)

“When we dropped the single ‘9-5’ it did really well on Spotify’s release radar. That felt great because we never saw numbers like that before, until our song ‘Lost,’” Cutajar said. “Our friend, Jake Wright, helped us film some content and it started doing really well on TikTok. That is probably a mix of us ‘rage-baiting’ people by saying we are related to John Lennon and Dolly Parton but also the song being, in my opinion, one of the best songs we've done so far. It’s our first true ska song. Jake Hettinger from Buffalo ska band Part-Time Genius came through the studio and absolutely crushed some trumpet lines on that song, truly elevating it.”

To celebrate the official drop of ‘Pancakes at Midnight,’ Daze Ago will hold an album release show at Central Park Grill on Thursday night, complete with someone cooking and serving pancakes during the band’s set.

“Getting this kind of response has been insane,” said Cutajar. “We ate shit for a long time, and we are gonna continue to eat shit to achieve our dreams. But some chocolate thrown in the mix every now and then is a great change of pace.”

There’s no shortage of tasty chocolate on ‘Pancakes at Midnight,’ which hits the streams Thursday — at midnight, of course.