Photos by Rachelyn Remz
Last Call is an interview series where I, Brittany Marino, ask talented folk all about their lasts: last time they did something, last time they felt something, etc. This week I hopped on Zoom again to chat with the Tchotchke girls, Anastasia Sanchez, Eva Chambers, and Emily Tooraen just a few days after coming off the high of playing the annual Halloween Haunted Hop in Ridgewood.
It’s been nearly 3 years since we last heard something new from NYC girl powerhouse Tchotchke. But that doesn’t mean that the musical trio doesn’t have something brewing for us come 2025. The band recently returned from a Euro & UK summer tour supporting The Lemon Twigs and are gearing up for the release of their second full length album dropping sometime next year. And if it didn’t sound like they had enough on their plate, you can also catch the band on their upcoming west coast tour starting TOMORROW in support of Kate Bollinger. Looks like Christmas has come early this year. Check out their tour dates below and read my interview where we dive into being a teenage girl entrepreneur, the cosmos and their sophomore album.
Brittany: Who is the last person you texted and about what?
Anastasia: Them.
Eva: The girls.
Emily: Eachother, yeah.
Anastasia: We are always texting.
Brittany: Do you have a group chat? What’s the name of it?
Anastasia: Tchotchke, but it’s spelt different, cause you know, our band name is weird to spell.
Brittany: Do you see a lot of different spellings of your band name?
Anastasia: Yeah, people are very creative with it.
Eva: Yeah. The last one we got was THOT-chke. Following our Halloween show.
Brittany: I feel like that that could have been intentional.
Eva: Definitely sounds like a Brooklyn band.
Brittany: Yeah, they would open for like, cumgirl8 or something like that.
(everyone laughs)
Anastasia: Exactly.
Emily: Totally.
Anastasia: The words right out of her mouth.
Brittany: What is the last song you wrote? Either individually or together as band.
Emily: Oh, well, like yesterday or 2 days ago, we were writing a song called ‘The Game.’ So that was very recent. We’re working on that.
Brittany: Are you still working on it?
Eva: We finished all the lyrics pretty much, the structure. We finished it pretty quick. It was like one of the 1st songs we were working on for the album that we’ve been trying to finish for the last 4 years. Now we’re kind of wrapping it up, so we kind of revisited it, and just changed all the lyrics like in one sitting, which was nice.
Brittany: Do you all write lyrics together?
Anastasia: Sometimes.
Eva: Separate both, you know, but it’s more fun together, I think. Easier.
Brittany: What’s the last movie you watched? Doesn’t have to be together.
Anastasia: I think it was together, though.
Emily: The last time we went was…
Anastasia: Oh The Substance.
Brittany: I’ve yet to see that one. I’ve heard honestly pretty good things.
Anastasia: It’s fun!
Eva: Enjoyed it.
Brittany: Okay, cool. Yeah, I’m gonna try to catch it in the theater.
Anastasia: It’s camp.
Brittany: What is the last time you cried?
Emily: Fried?! Or…
Brittany: Cried.
Emily: I thought you said fried, like fried some shrimp.
Brittany: I mean, you can answer both questions if you want.
Anastasia: Last time I fried was actually… some chicken and waffles in Eva’s air fryer.
Eva: Yum! Oh, my God! I remember the last time I cried… It was a few days ago watching Love Is Blind.
Brittany: Sad cry? Happy cry?
Eva: It was a sad cry, but then I felt stupid for crying. Cause the guy ended up… It was all bullshit, you know. He was talking to this girl’s dad and the dad had MS. I was like, oh my God, this is so sad. And then the guy like 2 days later was like, yeah I don’t like you. Bye.
Brittany: And they weren’t actually meant to be together in the end??
Eva: No, and he is telling the dad… and the mom also has MS. He’s like, ‘I want to be in this family like, I want to blah blah.’ And you’re just like, oh my God, wow! This is so sweet! And the dad’s crying and it’s really hard for him to speak… It was so sad. And then… it was all bullshit.
Brittany: Damn! Is this the latest season of Love Is Blind?
Eva: Newest one. I’ve never watched it before, but I was like, maybe I will watch this one. I I like it.
Brittany: There’s one season where a guy puts eye drops into his eye so that it looks like he’s crying for the cameras. And he just assumed they would cut that out… but they didn’t. So they kept it in. And then he’s just like, ‘Yeah, it’s just like… really emotional for me.’
(everyone laughs)
Eva: Hilarious.
Anastasia: Genius.
Emily: That’s very funny. Oh, my gosh.
Brittany: Last time you cried or fried Emily.
Emily: Me? God! I’m trying to remember. I feel like I read something recently that made me tear up… I’m trying to read this kind of scientific book. It’s right here (shows book).. I haven’t read something academic in a long time.
Anastasia: Wow!
Emily: I think I read something in here, and I just like realized how small I am.
Anastasia: The existential crisis.
Emily: Yeah, I think it’s a little bit of an existential… Oh, my God! It’s such a big place that we’re floating in.
Brittany: What was the book?
Emily: It’s called Cosmos by Carl Sagan.
Brittany: Oh, yeah, he’s got things to say.
Emily: He knows some things.
Brittany: He knows so much.
Emily: But yeah, it’s gonna take me so long to finish that book. It’s so dense.
Brittany: What is the last thing you splurged on.?
Anastasia: I just bought a dress on Depop for $75.
Brittany: Do you want to describe the dress.
Anastasia: Actually, it was a fucking score. It’s a Betsy Johnson alley cat knit dress.
Eva: Cute!
Anastasia: People on eBay sell them for like.. a thousand dollars, because people are insane. Found it on Depop!
Brittany: Depop is frustrating. I think I saw this on Twitter but… where someone found something on depop. And they bought it… and then the seller was like, ‘Oh, sorry! I didn’t realize it was gonna go for that that fast and that cheap.’ So they canceled the sale, relisted it for more money.
Anastasia: Someone did that to me!
Brittany: Then they did it again! They were like, ‘Oh, sorry! It’s sold too fast. I think I can make more money.’
Eva: Oh, God!
Anastasia: Yes, that’s happened to me!
Emily: That’s so… ugh
Brittany: Those Depop sellers…
Eva: Well yea, it’s cause its mainly 15 year old girls… with the power to be a business owner.
(everyone laughs)
Eva: It’s too much power.
Brittany: Honestly, that’s a really good point. We cannot wield that much power. A teenage girl…
Eva: No, it’s dangerous.
Anastasia: I know those are like the most powerful people on the earth.
Emily: They really are.
Brittany: And that’s in your book? Carl does get there and tell you that?
Emily: Oh yeah. They rule the cosmos and no one… no one can defeat them.
Brittany: Eva, Emily, last thing you splurged on?
Emily: I actually did a Depop splurge this week! I’ve been wanting an old Coach brown purse. A bigger one because I have a small Coach bag that I’ve had a long time. I found one that I really like and I it’s been in my mind for a while so I just went ahead and got it. It wasn’t too bad. I think it’s like $65, $70.
Brittany: Yeah, that’s not bad at all.
Emily: Yeah, for coach. Not so bad.
(Anastasia later followed up with me that both her and Emily’s Depop splurges were scams)
Eva: I think the last splurge… when we didn’t have to splurge, was. We just ordered stickers.
Anastasia: Oh, yeah.
Eva: I clicked the button. I knew we didn’t need that many, but it was also like, ‘oh, it will last us a long time.’
Brittany: What do the stickers look like?
Eva: A little cartoon of us.
Brittany: Oh, cute! love that.
Anastasia: I’ll give you one.
Brittany: What is the last concert you went to?
Anastasia: Oh, we just did the Halloween Haunted Hop.
Brittany: Oh, yeah, of course.
Anastasia: So we just played that. And in between we saw The Gories and The Mummies.
Brittany: Did you guys dress up? I I know you were The Shangri-Las, right? But since Halloween is Halloweek, did you do any other costumes?
Anastasia: Nope.
Emily: I did one more. I I visited my boyfriend in Nashville and he had a caterpillar costume. He had the idea I should dress up like a butterfly. So we did that, and I helped him hand out shirts at the theater he works at.
Eva: I want to see a photo.
Anastasia: Basically… you did a couples costume… but he was like underage (as a caterpillar), and you’re like an adult (as a butterfly). So actually that’s… fucked up.
Emily: Oh, God!
Brittany: I will not be scratching this from the record.
Emily: Please don’t tell people.
Brittany: That’s gonna be the headline.
Eva: Did you dress up?
Brittany: Yeah, I was a mailbox.
Anastasia: I love that.
Emily: Cool.
Brittany: Yeah. And I had like a letters….
Eva: Oh!
Brittany: Little envelopes that I put cigarettes in, candy, scratch off lottos…
Eva: Oh, my God! Charitable costume.
Brittany: Last note written in your notes app?
Anastasia: Oh!
Eva: My last note is a copy and paste email that I’m gonna send to all the venues for the tour we’re about to go on. It’s not that interesting.
Anastasia: Yeah, mine is not interesting at all. It’s literally like me counting cash at the end of the night.
Emily: My last note is just my babysitting hours that I have to keep track of.
Brittany: You girls are all business people.
Anastasia: So business.
Brittany: It all stems from being a teenage girl.
Emily: Yeah!
Anastasia: No stopping us.
Brittany: What’s the last thing you obsessed over?
Emily: Hmm.
Anastasia: Interesting. Okay…
Eva: I don’t know. I’m currently obsessing over finishing the album. Meeting our deadlines, it’s all I think about. But it’s a good obsession.
Brittany: Yea, you said its been nearly 4 years now?
Eva: Well, you know, I think a lot of people experience the really long rider’s block after covid. So it was really really slow. And then the past year, it’s been really fast. But we’re definitely feeling proud of it.
Anastasia: I think we’re all such perfectionists that were like… we can’t fuck this up.
Eva: Exactly and also because it’s been so long. It’s like, oh we haven’t released anything in 2 years, and by the time it comes out it’ll be 3 years… so it’s gotta be good.
Anastasia: Also we don’t have a label or anything. So we are doing everything ourselves. Eva’s doing a lot of the design work and artwork. We are all doing songwriting.
Emily: Mhmm!
Anastasia: It’s all premeditated.
Brittany: Emily, would you say that is your latest obsession as well?
Emily: Definitely. I feel like I wake up and that’s at the forefront of my mind. I want it to be great. We’ve been working on it for so long. I care a lot about it so I would agree.
Brittany: What’s the last thing that you created that you’re proud of?
Anastasia: I guess some of these songs that we’re writing I feel really proud of and excited for! It’s all pretty much music based!
Brittany: That’s normal I am interviewing bands and musicians.
Emily: I’m feeling proud of the songs. There’s some guitar solos in our songs and I’m happy to to feel like I’ve made progress with writing solos and getting more comfortable with that. That’s been exciting to have the space to do that and it’s really fun. The songs in general… I feel very proud of Anastasia and Eva and our collective effort.
Eva: I definitely agree. Anastasia and I were talking about it recently and we were like, ‘why does like this album specifically feel so exciting?’ And you know, looking back, we’ve been playing together for over 10 years… at the end of the day like this is the first thing we’re gonna release that we are 100% fully proud of confident in. We love it. So it’s super exciting.