Dirty Sexy Karma

tolmie terrapin press

2011-09-24T12:28:00.000-07:00

tolmie terrapin press is a label based in Cleveland, Ohio, USA, which releases cassette and digital albums by the greatest bands you never heard of, YET. After locating a Band Camp page for The Dictaphone, I saw that the label was ttp, and their other releases were listed conveniently on the page, leading me to explore the artists sharing the ttp label. What an experience this has turned out to be! I would love to take this opportunity to share with you all the links to tolmie terrapin press artists now, because all underground music fans need to hear this music. Some of the wickedly dark and delicious gems available here alongside The Dictaphone's album past.future.void are minthill's mintville EP, blood lake's I Sincerely Want to Move the Mountains, mole people's mind-blowing self-titled album and split with Dr. Quinn, and rubella's album junkyard. There are more, so GO, check them all out and see which ones you like best, buy the cassette if you have a player (some insanely great artwork on the cassettes), or buy the digital, they've made everything available to those of us without tape players!

tolmie terrapin press Band Camp main page

tolmie terrapin press blogspot page

The Leafs new single

2011-09-21T16:06:00.000-07:00

Any of you who read my older post reviewing The Leafs from Melbourne, VIC, Australia, know how amazing that EP of theirs is, and the duo from down undah, Gus and Michael, have not been idle music-wise since releasing that killer EP, Space Elevator. Michael calls it their 'manifesto', and an intro to the forthcoming EP Come, Take My Hand, and I call it just plain EXCELLENT. Here is your invitation to listen to the new single I Wanna Be A Machine, in all its post-punk angst and glory. Complete with angular guitar, sharp drum beats, and Michael's awesome vocals and lyrics, the song rocks as only The Leafs can. Enjoy it folks, and watch for the video for this song, and the new EP, later this year.

Peanut Butter Lovesicle

2011-09-11T14:56:00.000-07:00

Originally formed in Ocean City, New Jersey, but now based in the heart of the New York City independent music scene, Brooklyn, Peanut Butter Lovesicle is making some of the most down and dirty, gritty, blues-inspired rock and roll, and folks, these songs will have you quivering in your boots, and loving every second of it. This is harder-edged rock music, with a sexy set of vocals and some seriously dirty guitar, all deep and growling, absolutely mesmerizing.
The band have released an EP called Heavy Daze Wildcat Craze, a live EP called The Raucous Kitten, and a recent single, a real mind-blower, called Black Eyed Blues. These songs are all romp and stomp and sexy creep, heavy on the big, low, bluesy guitar licks. This is just the kind of music I wanna hear while slugging back my beer in a dark, hot and sweaty, basement dive. Such a perfect soundtrack to late-night thoughts of, well, you know.......
Peanut Butter Lovesicle is a three-piece, of family members no less: Jake and Mike D'Arc, brothers on guitar and bass, respectively, both sharing those wildly sexy vocal duties, and drums and more vocals are provided by their cousin Timmy Miller. The band has already paid a visit across the pond to London and played some gigs there, but are now back in Brooklyn, so those of us who are in the NYC area, let's hope for some upcoming gigs, soon! This is just the style of music that true rock and roll fans can easily love, full of attitude and swagger, and rightly so. Give me the grime and grit of Peanut Butter Lovesicle's blues rock, and keep it coming, boys, it's WAY too good....

Woollen Kits

2011-08-25T16:12:00.000-07:00

From Melbourne, VIC, AU, comes Woollen Kits. I don't know all that much about them, YET, but I do believe they are a 3-piece band, and I do KNOW they make some terribly fun and addictive garage rock, as is evidenced by their EP they've made available for free download on Band Camp, Teenage Love EP. It's a quick listen, four songs clocking in at eight and a half minutes only, but hey, true garage rock tunes are usually three things: fun, catchy, and succinct, which is indeed how I would describe the Teenage Love EP songs. The vocals deliver the light-hearted lyrics in a low and easy style, absolutely perfect atop the jangly guitars and snappy drums. I adore this EP, go check it out now, and also check out this video for Woollen Kits' single Maths:

Kris Thompson Interview

2011-08-25T14:50:00.000-07:00

High time here on DSK blog for a profile, and a most awesome interview, with someone who practically defines the underground psychedelic music scene, now, and seemingly, for always! In the recent past, I discovered the music of a now-defunct band called The Prefab Messiahs, and had the utmost pleasure of getting to know one of the men behind that band, and behind many other musical projects over the years, Mr. Kris Thompson. Those of you reading this who already know Kris, aren't you the lucky ones! I have checked out at least most of his projects over the past few months, and everything I have heard that he's worked on, has been some truly amazing work. To dedicate your life to making such music, music with substance and style, means you are bound to find listeners who are going to appreciate your art and your love with you, follow you and your work, and show you some *love* back. For myself, I only this year discovered Kris Thompson's immense and amazing body of work, but better late than never, and to catch up with him, and to make sure readers here who don't know him yet find out about him, I asked him some questions that he went above and beyond to kindly answer for me, and here they are, so enjoy the trip with Kris!

How did you first get involved with music, at what age & what was your first instrument?

I wasn't really drawn much to music until high school. There was a summer camp I went to on an island off of New Hampshire, and there was a lot of singing (folk/pop/rock) and we got to crank up rock albums on the stereo in the rec hall. So I caught the music bug there, and at home afterward I got a cheap acoustic guitar and started fiddling about on it. When some friends wanted to start jamming on electric instruments, though, I was the least experienced in guitar and so was "relegated" to the bass, haha.

You've worked with so many people and been in so many bands/projects over the years, but all of them were of a psychedelic nature, true?

Psychedelia can be a hard essence to pin down, but sure, you could say that there's at least a thread of it running through most of the bands and projects. The Prefab Messiahs (1981-83) were a Dada-influenced post-punk/garage/psych-pop unit. The Lost Demension (1983-85) was an experimental space/noise bedroom project. Jasmine Love Bomb (1986-89) was a loud-ish psych-rock affair. Nisi Period (1989-95) was a dark spacey post-punk band with 2-3 drummers. Cloud Furnace (1996-97) was a gloomy/spacey synth-punk project that did some unreleased recordings produced by Roger Miller (Mission of Burma). Abunai! (1996-2002) was a psych-rock/spacerock band with a hint of 60s UK folk-rock. The Lothars (1996-2009) were an experimental space/drone group with 2-4 theremins plus other instruments. Concord Ballet Orchestra Players (2005-present) are a Krautrock-ish avant-psych collective. Sometimes I play theremin in "avant-chill kosmische" sets with ambient guitarist Rob Byrd, and experimental cellist Wisteriax (Karen Langlie) joins in on that occasionally. Rob and I recently released a CD under the name Byrd/Thompson.

There have been lots of live and studio collaborations too, which keeps things really fun. It's cool to be able to spin out sounds with a wide variety of folks. The list looks crazy when I start pulling it together: Prince Rama, Bobb Trimble, Gary War, Damo Suzuki, Tanakh/Kawabata Makoto, Brother JT, Sore Eros, Nick Salomon (The Bevis Frond), Windy & Carl, High Llamas, Alastair Galbraith, The Spacious Mind, Quilt, Awesome Color, 28 Degrees Taurus, Many Mansions, Lauri des Marais, Crank Sturgeon, Mind Yeti...

Bobb Trimble made some incredible (and now very collectible) solo dreamy psych LPs in the early 80s; I made some low-key contributions to the 2nd one (Harvest of Dreams) and helped start his latest band (Bobb Trimble's Flying Spiders) in 2008. I helped him get those first two albums reissued in 2007, and his "lost 3rd album" from 1984 just came out earlier this summer on Yoga Records.

Were you always based in Boston? Is that your hometown for a long time now? From what I know, there is a thriving independent music scene there, but maybe you can give me your thoughts on that?

I grew up in Georgetown, a small town about 30 miles north of Boston. I did some music while at college in Worcester MA and Lowell MA, and then moved to the Boston area in 1991. Yeah, there's a lot of cool independent activity here. It tends to be pretty spread out and segmented, though, but I'm not sure if it's that much more so than most places.

Can you name some of your most fave songs you have made with your bands? Name some fave performances?

Fave songs...that's tough, but here are a couple each from some of the bands:
Abunai! - "Dreaming of Light", "Rolling of the Stones"
Concord Ballet Orchestra Players - "May 29, 1913 (reprise)","I Roamed Under It As a Tired Nude Maori"
Jasmine Love Bomb - "Empire Sun", "That River"
The Lothars - "Banjolin", "The Trot"
Nisi Period - "Echo of Suggestion", "Unless"
The Prefab Messiahs - "Beyond All That", "The 16th Track"

As far as performances, I'll never forget playing theremin with Damo Suzuki in early 2003 (you can hear me, but not see me in this vid). That was a Knitting Factory show in NYC. Damo had put out the word that he was looking for "sound carriers" (live collaborators) in each city that he visited. On my night, the carriers also included Gary Lucas (from Beefheart's Magic Band) and several guys from Parts and Labor.

It was also really cool playing with The Spacious Mind (Swedish space rock band) at Terrastock 6 (2006), and a couple of times with Windy & Carl -- once at Terrastock 4 in '00, and at a bookstore near Boston on '01.

Bobb Trimble's first-ever NYC show in June '09 was a great time. It was sponsored by Rotter & Friends, Viva-Radio, and Mexican Summer -- and they all went out of their way to make it a special thing for us. We did a live WFMU session during that visit too. Bobb had just gotten out of the hospital with pneumonia, so we were flying pretty seat-of-the-pants there -- but it all went pretty well.

What are you working on with your current band and also with Bobb Trimble?

Concord Ballet Orchestra Players had a double-cassette out earlier this year on L'Animaux Tryst. They'll be issuing an LP from us this coming winter too. Rob Byrd and Wisteriax and I have started recording a series of live shows, and at some point we'll use those as a basis for a full release.

With Bobb Trimble('s Flying Spiders) we've been doing some shows in support of his album The Crippled Dog Band. We've also started learning some vintage songs of his that never got released, and we'll be recording some of those. The New York show we played in 2009 was recorded multitrack and came out quite well, so we might mix that and do something with it too.

Future plans?

Well, mainly to keep finding myself in interesting situations, and to document and share them when it makes sense to. That's all I can really ask for. I'll probably do some recording-for-fun with Gary War this fall -- and new live/studio collaboration situations are always popping up.

Speaking of Gary, his label (with Taylor Richardson) Fixed Identity is going to be putting out an 8-song 45rpm 12" of archival stuff from The Prefab Messiahs this fall. It'll be called Peace Love & Alienation, which was a little catch-phrase of ours back then. It's going to be a really nice thing, with a screen-printed "zine" insert with posters, art, writings, etc.

Kris, thank you so much for taking the time to do this amazing interview. The body of work you lay claim to, is absolutely mind-blowing. There is so much to be awed by here, and so much to be proud of. For those of us who explore your music, our lives are all the more richer and wonderful for taking the trips with you.

Further links to explore with Kris Thompson:
YouTube
MySpace
AllRovi (formerly AMG AllMusic) discography
Trip Inside This House 10 Questions feature with Kris

Kent State Walk Through Walls EP

2011-08-19T17:06:00.000-07:00

Kent State, from Baltimore, Maryland, has released a second EP titled Walk Through Walls, and like their first EP Spahn Ranch (reviewed on this blog HERE), and their single Challenger, they are giving it away as a free download to us all. Nick Vance, the voice and guitar behind Kent State, is full-time guitarist for awesome punk outfit Deep Sleep, and has been moonlighting with a few buddies as Kent State for a while now, putting his efforts into something different from the raucous, rowdy, most excellent punk rock of Deep Sleep. The sounds of Kent State songs are layered into distorted clouds of guitars and vocals that create a dark intrigue, but also retain a sense of light within the layers. Smashing cymbals and tambourines drive the songs of Walk Though Walls EP, and as they crash you into the walls of guitars, you realize it's a fantastic ride. Every song here is a highlight, but you might especially enjoy Hundred Years' War with its minute-long swagger psychedelic swagger that jumps right into Secrets For Sale, which has the signature hollow reverb of Kent State puffing wrecked smoke clouds all around the room. Low, wide-open guitar pairs with the airier vocals to continue the interplay that makes Kent State's music so intriguing.

So, Nicholas Vance invites you all to check out Kent State's music, no need to do anything more than download his own links:

Walk Through Walls EP

Spahn Ranch EP

Challenger single

Enjoy it all, friends!

Black Market Karma new EP release

2011-08-19T16:59:00.000-07:00

Well kids, they have finally released a new EP, titled All That I've Made, and the four fantastic songs are available right HERE to listen to, and purchase as downloads. This deliciously psychedelic EP complete with BMK's signature huge expanse of guitars, serves as a prelude to their upcoming full length, still, TBA, folks, I know, been a long time a'comin' but it's on its way, we promise!

WU LYF at Knitting Factory, Brooklyn, July 23, 2011

2011-07-25T17:06:00.000-07:00

World Unite Lucifer Youth Foundation, or WU LYF for short, spent a sweltering summer weekend in New York City, playing shows both in Manhattan and in Brooklyn. I have to say, this was a performance I was quite excited for, and these young Brits did not disappoint. In fact, they were so fantastic onstage playing songs from their debut album Go Tell Fire To The Mountain, that I was pretty blown away. WU LYF seem to have their own language, it's English, yes, but not the regular old English we speak in on a daily basis. They've done something to the words to make them their own, used them in unexpected combinations and in colorful and imaginative ways, which is evident even by their album title. I was really surprised to see how many people at the Brooklyn show knew every single word to all of WU LYF's songs. WU LYF sing in sort of a gospel style, with their music embracing not only gospel, but world beat, R&B, soul, even ska and straight up rock & roll. They have hit upon something so original, so absorbing and uplifting, that they definitely deserve to have real music fans listening. Adding a tribal and primitive element to their songs with huge, pounding drums, the howling, gospel-like vocals and Fender Telecaster Custom guitar work combine with that tribal beat to create music that strikes something deep inside the human spirit. Something strong and beautiful is stirring here beyond what is on the surface, and if you give it the chance, I believe you will come to love the feeling this music gives you.

I've posted some of my own photos, although they are a bit dark! I do shout a huge THANK YOU to WU LYF for playing for us that night at Knitting Factory, Brooklyn definitely loves you!

Bass Drum of Death at Knitting Factory Brooklyn, July 23, 2011

2011-07-24T13:40:00.000-07:00

Again Bass Drum of Death pay New York City a visit during their 2011 tour to support their album GB City and again they absolutely ROCK. This time around, John, Colin, and Print were playing with the likes of Young Buffalo (from the same hometown as Bass Drum of Death, Oxford, Mississippi), and all the way from Manchester, England, WU LYF. I have seen the band play quite a few times this year, and each time, they get better and better. I was thinking, are they getting tired being at the end of this tour and playing the rowdy rock & roll tunes off GB City over and over? My answer to that was, well, no, at least it doesn't SEEM that way, as Bass Drum of Death just continues to blow my mind with their bad-ass music even more now, than at the beginning of this tour months ago. Keep rocking, boys. Thanks for the great music and the great live shows. I've posted some photos from The Knit, as I was able to get some better shots this time.

The Guru

2011-07-06T16:39:00.000-07:00

The Guru, from Watertown, Connecticut, USA, are absolute charmers. Play their album Native Sun and from the second it begins, you will know exactly what I mean. Arizona kicks off the album with the best upbeat dance rock stylings, and you are already out of your seat. Reel It In keeps the pace pumping, the funky twang of Fender guitars filling the song. My personal favorite, Barracuda Hands, is insanely catchy and jumpy, with the perfect guitar riffs all jammed in there, and following song Pirate's Cove is yet another bouncy, spastic treasure. The Guru have even done their own sweet take on a disco dancing tune, Disco Daughter. All eight songs on The Guru's Native Sun album are so filled with bounce and charm, it's quite addictive.

The band consists of Kyle McEvoy, 17 yrs old, on guitar, Eddie Golden III on drums and awesome vocals, Colin Sullivan on guitar, and Dan George on bass, all 18 yrs old. The Guru may be young, but they have already got life all figured out, and that is something some of us older folks can't even say! Quote from their fantastic Tumblr: 'There's a certain way to live life, only a few know it. Trusting in other humans, trusting in yourself to make the best out of a situation, and knowing that you're only in it for so long.' This just blows my mind something crazy! I love this quote, this philosophy, of getting out there and doing something good and having a great time with cool people. Keep yourself surrounded with good things and feel the good vibes, and enjoy it while you can!

These four young guys have known each other for a long time, and have been playing music as a four-piece band for two years now, just getting together with their gear one day & as Kyle puts it: '...we all decided to jam together and we never looked back!' Colin and Eddie had already been playing as a two-piece with the name The Guru, and Kyle and Dan were in another band, but that day, it all came together for them. As for the scene around where they live in Connecticut, they pretty much made it what it is, setting up gigs, getting folks together for a good time, with great music. Impressive, this all is, they pretty much have me hooked with their story and their music, and I hope you all check out The Guru and get jumping with them and their tunes!

Soon to be released if all goes well, is Native Sun on vinyl, and a split EP with The Guru's buddies High Pop.

Bass Drum of Death, Glasslands Gallery, June 25, 2011

2011-06-27T17:34:00.000-07:00

One of my big new loves of the year is Bass Drum of Death, from Oxford, Mississippi, USA. These southern boys can serve up the bad-ass garage rock & roll like no other band. Their album GB City was made for one simple reason: to play it loud and rock out like crazy. Bass Drum of Death started out as just John Barrett playing and recording everything himself, but has grown to first include Colin on drums for live gigs, and now, Print on bass. If you love rowdy rock & roll, you owe it to yourself to check out GB City and support the band. New York indeed loves Bass Drum of Death, as the packed Glasslands proved again on Saturday night. As you can see from my photos, the guys are all a blur onstage, and I think I need a faster, better camera for the next time I see them play, later this summer! They play almost all the songs off GB City and they are all amped up & absolutely crazy, so much fun to let loose to. Definitely catch these guys when they hit up your city on their tour this summer and fall. Check their BLOG for dates and news.

Heavenly Blows, Glasslands Gallery, June 25, 2011

2011-06-27T16:08:00.000-07:00

Heavenly Blows is from New York City, Brooklyn to be exact, one of my favorite places in the world, and one of the best places to find excellent bands. DSK blog presents to you bands and musicians from all over the world, but Brooklyn bands hold a special place in my heart. Anyway, I went to see Bass Drum of Death and Hanni El Khatib play at Glasslands Gallery on Saturday night, June 25, 2011, and the band opening for them was Heavenly Blows, and their music is stunning. The guitar is lush, hollow-body, open, and big. The vocals are male-female duet sung gorgeously by Stephen and Alix. The tone of the music of Heavenly Blows is dark, yet melodic, and full of intrigue and imagery.
I bought the 3-song EP the band was selling at the gig, and it's just not enough. I would love to hear more recordings from Heavenly Blows. The 3 songs, White Horses, I Will Always Be Here Tomorrow, and Sanctuary, can by heard HERE on the band's Sound Cloud page. If you are in New York and get the chance to see Heavenly Blows live (see their Facebook page for gig updates), you will not be disappointed: the sound is even bigger and more expansive live, with the addition of a Korg keyboard. Stephen's guitar work is top-notch, really great work with plenty of reverb to sweeten the songs dark edges. There is a perfect balance of rough and smooth within each song. Cheers to the band and I hope to hear much more from Heavenly Blows in the near future, the gig was quite a treat and the perfect compliment to the harder garage rock of the following bands of the night. My best to them!

Summer Solstice 2011

2011-06-21T12:55:00.000-07:00

ALL of you who read this blog best be VERY familiar with Trip Inside This House blog and radio show. Please do not even say TRIP WHAT?! Just head on over to the annual Summer Solstice gift from Valis and contributors (music and artwork) and get your download now. HAPPY SUMMER EVERYONE!!! Take a TRIP, have some fun, I wish everyone a great summer season, and again, THANK YOU VALIS!!!!

Honeycomb Bones

2011-06-05T16:04:00.000-07:00

Honeycomb Bones is a duo out of Hull, England. Craig plays bass, Michael sings and plays guitar, and they use a drum machine for beats. I have been listening to two EPs by Honeycomb Bones for a few weeks now, and honestly, I never feel quite satisfied. That is not a slight to the band, rather, it's a huge compliment, as I can't listen just once to these songs. This music is........everything you could want when you feel lustful, down, and dirty, crazy dirty and sexy. Their Evil Age EP is indeed quite evil, but the good type of evil, the evil that oozes an incredibly sexy vibe of lust and longing. These songs, especially Artificial Sweetener, with its slinky stomp and rough growl, are the soundtrack to, well, you figure it out.
We All Agree With You is an older EP released by the band before Evil Age, and the songs are rough and a bit messy in all the right places. The music has a dark edge, husky vocals over dirty guitars and more bang and stomp and attitude than I have ever heard packed into four songs only 2-3 minutes long each. Basically, Honeycomb Bones makes music that is everything this blog loves: dirty, sexy, raunchy rock & roll. Check it out, friends, and put this music on when you're in the mood.
Honeycomb Bones is currently working on some new songs for a future EP release, and also possibly releasing the phenomenal Evil Age EP on vinyl. All I can think of is......yum, thanks, boys. Keep it coming, please.

The Hussy

2011-05-28T14:38:00.000-07:00

Ever felt like screaming a big FUCK YOU to the world & it's bull shit? That's what terrifically terrible twosome The Hussy have been doing with their music, so if you need a soundtrack to your FUCK OFF session, look no further. In a world full of over-produced, over-thought, over-played crap, the music made by Bobby and Heather of The Hussy, from Madison, Wisconsin, USA, is the antithesis of all that. The mission of The Hussy: to get you off your ass & get you to have a good time. Short and simple songs that never stop rocking out hard have made me fall in complete love with every single song I've heard from The Hussy. Alternating between sweet and screwed up, this is trashed-out, super catchy and fun garage rock you will love.
Five EPs/7"s came before the new album Cement Tomb Mind Control, and you can listen to everything they've released on The Hussy's Band Camp page and Last.fm page. HAVE FUN WITH THIS MUSIC. It's meant to rock out to and have a blast instead of taking everything so seriously. I'm pretty sure before things got so crazy deep and complicated, rock & roll was meant to be as loud, simple, and fun as The Hussy. I am in love with their spirit; it's my soundtrack to a great time. Go see for yourselves what The Hussy is all about.
See the list on the right side of The Hussy's Band Camp page for a gig near you, soon.

Kent State

2011-05-22T10:15:00.000-07:00

Kent State is the side project of Baltimore, Maryland, USA punk rock guitarist Nicholas Vance. Nicholas plays with Deep Sleep most of his time, but has recently begun recording songs of a less-punk nature with some friends under the band name Kent State. Spahn Ranch is the first four-song EP he's made available to us, and it's a killer of a debut EP. Though the songs may not be the punk rock Nicholas plays with Deep Sleep, they are nonetheless as edgy as hell, played with loud snarls of guitars, lots of reverb & noise, and dark lyrics that are a bit distorted to add to the mysterious vibe of the music. So you have mystery, energy, and some great, dark, noisy guitars played in four short songs that beg repeating. Nicholas's own description for the style of music is 'psychedelic death pop'. I bet you're intrigued by that, huh? I have to admit, I could not have put it better myself, as all those descriptive elements are definitely in these four songs. But there is also more, down deep, dark & hidden, which makes this music even more intriguing. These songs have an immediate catch, the hooks and riffs that you get, right at first listen, but later, there is the itch that you like it, but you're missing something, so you keep listening, and it gets better and better. The blog Paranoid Futures is where Nicholas Vance is posting any and all of his work and updates, so check it out and get the Spahn Ranch EP from his link there. Yes you can listen to the songs first on the player, but trust me, you will want them for yourselves. And also, there is more to come from Kent State, very very soon, excellent news.

The Dirty Lungs new single release

2011-05-22T09:49:00.000-07:00

My favorite band from Alabama, The Dirty Lungs, previously reviewed HERE, have just recently released a new single and b-side, Don't Fucking Remind Me b/w Serial Suicide. It seems like these guys are constantly reinventing their sound: these are two more songs from The Dirty Lungs that sound nothing like anything else they recorded before. Don't Fucking Remind Me, all easy, dreamy sweeps of California-style sounds and lyrics about lost love (yeah, it did not take me long to know the words to that song, guys) backed with the evil yells and pounding drums of Serial Suicide, are just two more reasons to know and love The Dirty Lungs. You never know what to expect from them, but you are never disappointed.

Antenna relase new single

2011-05-20T17:22:00.000-07:00

Strange Fusion backed with Headlights, the new single from San Francisco rockers Antenna, is up on their excellent website, go listen NOW. Ville and Jaakko have now found their permanent third member, Mina, and have solidified their sound into a deep rock groove. The two songs of the single are some excellent works of pure and perfect rock and roll. Antenna were profiled a while back for DSK blog, you can check that out HERE if you missed that original post. The band's site is kept up to date, so BOOKMARK IT for future gig dates and releases from Antenna, San Francisco's finest.

The Leafs

2011-05-20T16:47:00.000-07:00

The information I have on these guys is this: The Leafs is two guys, Michael and Gus, from Melbourne, AU, who were in other bands, but decided the styles were not for them, and subsequently chose to collaborate on an eight song EP called Space Elevator, in the style favored by Sic Alps: sometimes noisy, sometimes quiet, decidedly lo-fi. This style suits The Leafs to a TEE. The tracks of Space Elevator EP are brilliant. Perfectly executed in the garage rock tradition of simplicity with a sharp edge, any fan of lo-fi rock and roll owes it to himself to check out this music, and The Leafs are kindly giving it to us for FREE on their Band Camp page. The title track rocks out teetering on the edge of punk, but then, following tracks on the EP slow down the pace & creep along, elegantly. Fields and Fences rocks back into the groove again, closing song Waves the Size of Mountains is a poem set to acoustic guitar, again, simply elegant. Actually, I found out from the band, each song has a story behind it, all of them pretty damn cool. You can tell these guys are not new to making music, but I suppose with the style of The Leafs' sound, they have found their perfect niche, and I am thankful for the wise Aussie who turned me onto this. The songs are short, though, and the Space Elevator EP leaves me wanting more, much much more.

Watch the video made for the song Space Elevator (video made by Gus and thanks to the band for sharing this!):

The Leafs - Space Elevator from Gus Kemp on Vimeo.

Shapes Have Fangs

2011-05-19T16:18:00.000-07:00

Shapes Have Fangs, out of Austin, Texas, USA, not only boast one of the coolest names ever for a band, they make some of the coolest garage/psych rock you could ever hear. The songs of their debut album Dinner In The Dark, and the SXSW EP and singles they have released over the past few years, sound straight outta '69. Band members Dustin, Skyler, Josh and Evan were actually working with psych legend Sky Saxon shortly before his death in 2009. Check out Shapes Have Fangs music on their MySpace page, then go for the downloads of their SXSW EP and SXSW singles. Just trust me on this one, anyone who loves psych rock done up old school, will adore Shapes Have Fangs music. If you love that SXSW music of theirs, and I know you will, try checking out their full-length album Dinner In The Dark HERE (if you are a FaceBook account holder you can stream the album).

Austin Psych Fest's website has a page with links to purchase the album, and again, this is a band whom you do NOT want to miss, so DO check out the album, friends.

If Sky Saxon loved these guys, do you really think you won't??!!

Black Market Karma new video

2011-05-19T04:26:00.001-07:00

This video is brand new and is for the soon-to-be-released single Pulling Shapes off their long-awaited debut full-length. Not sure of the release date YET for that full-length, but let's hope it's SOON.

Heavy Ghost

2011-05-18T17:31:00.000-07:00

Heavy Ghost, out of Cary, Illinois, is a five-piece making some of the most fantastically hazy and catchy shoegaze music I have heard in a long time. Actually, I can't name one other band I've heard in recent years making music that sounds quite like this. Definitely taking influence from the original crop of shoegazers from the early 90s, the vocals are hushed and part of the overall delightfully woozy feel of the songs. Synths are used brilliantly in all four songs of this EP, to give the songs their hazy vibes, and the surprise of a tambourine here and there, well that just puts a little bit of psychedelia into the mix, perfectly. Heavy Ghost has given us an amazing little debut EP, go listen on their Band Camp page, and get it for yourself.

Bloody Knives new EP Disappear

2011-05-13T18:11:00.000-07:00

Another band loved so much by DSK blog, Bloody Knives, has released a new EP titled Disappear and it KILLS it, folks.......that signature Bloody Knives sound of darkwave synths and driving percussion is all there, five new songs to crush you, nicely. Absolutely love this release. Go listen now on Bloody Knives' Band Camp page, and check out the VERY limited physical copy you can get your hands on IF you act very fast, as I did. No way am I missing out on their mind-blowing artwork. Love it, boys, LOVE IT. Thank you.

Audiodeluxe: New EP Release

2011-05-13T17:58:00.000-07:00

Previously featured in DSK when they released their first EP, as some fantastic new psych-tinged trip hop out of Glasgow, Scotland, Audiodeluxe is now releasing their second EP, which you can listen to and purchase at their Band Camp page HERE. If you loved what you heard on EP1, go now and check out EP2, more gorgeous, trippy electronica done right by Audiodeluxe. We at DSK love it, Dez and Sammy, thank you!

Lead Stones

2011-05-13T16:47:00.000-07:00

The Brooklyn, New York band Lead Stones takes this blog back to its roots: psychedelic rock. We originated here as a blog dedicated to UK psych rockers Black Market Karma, but have since branched out to different styles of music so long as the music was made and shared with independent spirit and creativity. Also in dedication to BMK, to get their music more heard among like-minded music fans all over the world, we focused on less-known and/or newer artists in the hopes that more folks will hear & appreciate the music. Well folks, Lead Stones' music needs to be heard by more people, and I have never been more serious. Brought to my attention by band member Andy, Lead Stones is a three-piece band from one of my favorite places in the world, Brooklyn, New York, and who are friends and gig partners with a beloved band of this blog, Sky Picnic. Andy comes from experimental psych rock duo Andy & Zeus; he plays keys for both projects. The work he is doing with Lead Stones is magical: the songs of the album Set + Setting are spell-binding. The album is made and meant to be listened to from beginning to end, hence Andy's favor of releasing music on cassette tape to just let it all flow (he runs a small label that does cassette tape releases called Electrick Gypsy). Have a listen and I think you'll agree the songs run perfectly together, all full of swirls and highs and lows and male/female vocals that simply rain down from the clouds over the music. Something visceral is stirred by music like Lead Stones album Set + Setting. This is music felt deeply, and it can bring your mind to another plane when you concentrate and let it flow. A collection of eight highly original, warm, beautiful songs, this album is truly psychedelic, and simply amazing.

Listen and LOVE Lead Stones

Catholic Radio

2011-04-16T17:50:00.000-07:00

San Francisco continues to be a fertile ground, indeed, for some of the absolute best music being made today. Recently brought to my attention, Catholic Radio is my latest discovery out of San Fran, California, USA. A four-piece, and a true rock band, Catholic Radio have a sound that is smooth and cool, with an air of mystery. Going back and forth between an edgier style of rock, and a dreamy, groggy, lighter side, Catholic Radio's recently released self-titled album is eleven songs of intricate, gorgeous guitar work that reminds me of the legendary Australian band The Church's sound, a beautiful style of playing guitar.
Led by Parker Moore on guitar and vocals, Catholic Radio is also comprised of Tyler on drums, Rob on bass, and Connor on keys but also playing guitar sometimes. Most of the songs on the debut album are just Parker playing guitar, but upon only your first listen, you'd be forgiven thinking there are multiple guitar parts within these songs. I have listened many times to the album, and when I asked Parker, much to my surprise and his credit, nope, for the most part, these songs are him on guitar and Connor on keys:
Terri: What kind of guitars do you use? You are 2 guitarists, right?
Parker: Just one guitarist (myself) on the album. My brother Connor is an amazing guitarist but has played keys w/ us up to this point, though is going to be playing a 2nd guitar in parts of songs for our new slate of shows & tunes. I mainly play an Eastwood GP, but used a strat and tele for a couple of parts on the album.....
Dreamy key sequences, and atmospheric guitar work make El Buen Sabor the big highlight here. I feel Catholic Radio have purposely made an album that follows through from one song to the next, with a flow to the vibe, but El Buen Sabor is a repeater, indeed.
I asked Parker about the music scene he and his band mates are a part of in their home city of San Francisco:
"The SF scene, it's in an interesting place right now, there's some really good music & bands happening in SF. We're tight and have gigged w/ The Actors, The Better Maker, Boy in the Bubble, Spiro Agnew, and are buds but haven't gigged yet w/ bands like Tokyo Raid, Sentinel, Cash Pony, etc. As with a lot of other major areas, the new folk/punk folk, garage/noise or electro-wave bands are pretty hot w/ the bookers. We like a lot of that sound, but it's not our style, so does pose a slight extra hurdle getting into some venues we'd like to play. End of the day, I think everyone in SF appreciates good music w/ a defined style, regardless of what's hot now, so we're just going to keep refining, writing, doing our thing – and see that momentum takes us."
I totally respect that point of view: there is so much room out there for different styles, and we want to hear it all! Catholic Radio's debut album is most definitely something different from what a lot of SF musicians are doing right now, and that is a great thing. It is a work with elements of psych, experimental, and post-rock, incorporating and embracing all of these styles of guitar rock, and keeping a smooth vibe throughout, from start to end. Check out the album, friends, and if you are in San Fan, go see them play! Too bad I'm in New York!

Listen to the album in full on Band Camp.

Boy Party

2011-03-30T16:16:00.000-07:00

DSK loves the DIY spirit of young, creative musicians who are saying F the system, let's make music because we can do it ourselves, have a lot of fun, and give some cool people some great tunes. I recently briefed you on Alligator Indian, a band from North Carolina, USA, working on some great garage/punk tunes. Well they have some buddies who are also involved in the DIY music scene of North Carolina, a Greensboro band by the name of Boy Party (I do believe there is a little story behind the name, 'borrowed' perhaps from another buddy's blog name?!). Boy Party have recorded their first EP called On Yr Lips in Nathan's garage earlier this year, and this EP is lo-fi garage rock lover's heaven: 5 songs of sweet, sometimes tongue-in-cheek, lyrics sung over perfectly jangled (or perfectly fuzzy, in the case of I Saw You and the title track) guitars: odes to kissing, the beach, and lazy summer days spent wishing for things you don't have.
So, Boy Party is Nathan, Zack, and Logan currently seniors in high school, getting ready for arts & film-making studies in college next year, but for now, they are having some great fun in the garage, literally, with their music. Nathan, don't worry: people will most definitely hear your songs! Folks ready for some fun tunes should go right HERE for a free download of the EP. I can certainly see this EP on lots of peoples' summer play lists, fits right along with anything Real Estate and Beach Fossils: pure summer bliss.

The Dirty Lungs

2011-03-26T11:50:00.000-07:00

Like many Yankees, I have a bit of a fascination with the part of our good ol' US of A that lays below the Mason Dixon Line. Southern-made music is something I am always going to check out, and probably dig lots, as is the case with Birmingham, Alabama rockers The Dirty Lungs. The Dirty Lungs have released 2 EPs and a full album, and not one of the songs on any of those 3 releases disappoints in any way. Not one of the songs sounds like any of the others, and all are full of southern charm, flair, and some seriously amazing guitar reverb and interplay, which makes for a kick in the head upon first listen, and some very obsessive repeat plays. Want It?, the highlight of The Robins EP, has enough swagger and sexy attitude to put Elvis to bed, and I mean that, so seriously. DD Reg Reg, the highlight of the Deregulate Your Heart EP, is pure rock & roll FUN. Many of The Dirty Lungs' songs, like Sit Tight (from the album), are big & rowdy, loud & raucous, down & dirty, but some of the songs on these 3 releases are actually slower of tempo, and even a bit experimental in nature. Somehow, through masterful song writing and skilled playing, the southern charm of this band is always there, no matter what the tempo, pulling at your shirttails (in MY case, crawling up my arm and biting my neck, mmmmmm!), demanding your attention & enjoyment, and certainly demanding play after play, louder and louder. The 9 tracks of the album Somebody Here's Going Crazy can be found HERE, with stand-out songs Live Legit and 1000 Suns right in the middle of the album. Oh, and Lost In Space/Talkhouse from The Robins EP, with its mysterious vibe, and almost tribal drums and hushed vocals, that one deserves a WOW. Well, there are a lot of WOW's here listening to The Dirty Lungs music, go see for yourselves!

Alligator Indian

2011-03-26T11:16:00.000-07:00

Time to turn the volume up again and get a little wild. From Ashville, North Carolina, USA, comes Alligator Indian, with one of the best, most promising EPs of demos I have heard in a while. For those of us digging the wave of garage/punk rockers making riotously good tunes today, Alligator Indian's music is bound to find a place in lots of our collections. It's early in their recording career just yet, but the Demonstrations EP and the New Weird Xmas EP (yes, done at Christmas time last year) Alligator Indian have up on their Band Camp page, are a big hint at some great talent for catchy, loud, cool-as-shit garage-punk songs. The band are currently working on polishing the demos and releasing a proper EP, but for now, the songs they've got up as demos are devastatingly good already, cannot wait for more from Alligator Indian!

R. Stevie Moore and Chris Oliver

2011-03-26T10:54:00.000-07:00

Time Share is a song born out of the collaboration of legend R. Stevie Moore and long-time fan of his, and talented musician, Chris Oliver of The Solar System (recently profiled for DSK blog). It's really an exceptional song, quite unexpectedly funky and fun. Have a few listens HERE at the Sound Cloud page and enjoy!

The Solar System

2011-03-09T16:26:00.000-08:00

Now to take the tempo down a bit, less frisky, more moody & trippy, I would like to introduce you to The Solar System. Basically the one-man project of Chris Oliver, originally from Detroit, Michigan, now in Warren, Chris was literally born into a musical family. His direction straight into music was pretty much laid out for him, you could certainly say. Learning drums at a very early age and playing drums in various bands kept him busy for years, then later he took up guitar, which he plays left-handed on his lap. Quite amazing already, it gets better: after delving into numerous styles of music, Chris began making his own signature sound of down-tempo, ambient tunes, which he has put into albums and EPs for us all to listen to, experience, and enjoy, all available on his Solar System Band Camp page.
The Solar System's music is all played by, recorded, and produced by Chris himself. The soundscapes are from dreams, light and airy, quiet and comtemplative. Many songs on the album Drawing A Blank are without lyrics, but a few do have words, like the gorgeous Surveillance Cam, which actually has a bit of folk to it. 1a3b4c5d has lyrics quietly sung over a trip-hop beat, always a favorite around DSK. Slightly darker Broken Silence is another highlight, with low keys topping a trippy undertow. Late Night Music, track 9, actually has some psychedelic influence with its Brian Jonestown Massacre-style guitars, then track 10, A Question, slips back into contemplative mode, quite and moody.
Listening to such varied artists as R. Stevie Moore, Tame Impala, Dumbo Gets Mad, Mr. Syd Barrett, Miss P.J. Harvey, and Neil Young, Chris keeps his influences always at hand, even though his music is quite original and nothing like any of the above-named artists. Striving for something atmospheric, he has succeeded with Drawing A Blank. Play it while you are relaxing late at night, needing only some ambient music to help along your escape from the day.

It's been quite a while since we've done a profile here at DSK, so I want to thank Chris Oliver for letting me into his Solar System, and letting me share it with you all, and for telling me what was happening in his music-loving life. Music lovers like we are, we have to stick together & spread the word. Check out The Solar System on Band Camp, Drawing A Blank is the album reviewed here, the rest of Chris's EPs are all there, too. Amazing cover art, by the way. Check it all out.

Dumbo Gets Mad

2011-02-05T12:58:00.000-08:00

Easy-going, meandering, free-floating through space, rising and falling with the waves, Dumbo Gets Mad's album, Elephants At The Door, is an utterly psychedelic, hugely enjoyable trip through 40 minutes of space-time. The singles that have been circulating as teasers to the album, Plumy Tale and Eclectic Prawn, have made for a fantastic introduction to an album that most certainly does NOT disappoint, in fact, Elephants At The Door more than lives up to the promise of being high-in-the-clouds psychedelic, super-catchy, and insanely infectious. The album features male/female vocals in the style of psychedelic pop favored by contemporaries Minks and ZaZa. It's a lovely way to top music that is lush with layers of snappy drums, swinging guitars, loads of keyboards throughout. Self-esteem might just put you in the middle of Studio 54's dance floor. Raymond Play and You Make Me Feel are songs that would make Grizzly Bear jealous. The songs of Dumbo Get's Mad's debut album Elephant At The Door are so full surprises and fun, it's a repeater, for sure. With no more comparisons, I'll say this album is a huge winner in its own right, a fantastic debut from some talented Italians, and I thank them for this album!

Check the album out for yourself HERE.

A big THANK YOU from me to Bad Panda Records!

The Vandelles news

2011-02-03T04:57:00.001-08:00

The Vandelles are gearing up for a wave of action this year, ready to bring their fuzzed-out signature garage surf rock this month to New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, and later, to SXSW, all in anticipation to their next release, their Summer Fling EP. Excited? I am: I have been in love with this band ever since they made New York City their home base a few years back. I've been fortunate to see The Vandelles play around town many times, and have written about them in past years for this blog. Now it's time to get excited again and check out their first single Get Around and go see them play if you are in one of these places:
Sat Feb 5 - New York @ Piano’s
Fri Feb 25 - Philladelphia @ The Tritone w/ Invisible Days and Lux Perpetua
Sat Feb 26 - Baltimore @ The Granfalloon w/ Bad Liquor Pond and Invisible Days
and the SXSW event is March 16.
Make sure you revisit The Vandelles' previous releases, the self-titled EP, and the Del Black Aloha LP, available through iTunes and by following the links on their own blog: The Vandelles.
It's never to cold to catch the wave of surf with The Vandelles, so go get it!!

Disappears live at Cake Shop, NYC, 20 January, 2011

2011-01-21T15:01:00.000-08:00

First off let me apologize for my lousy photos, as I was having trouble making my camera work on this night, but I still like to post a few of my own photos when I review a band's live performance for this blog! So apologies, now on with the review:

A good friend and huge fan of great music turned me on to Disappears music early last year, when their first album Lux came out. Lux quickly became one of my most-played albums, one that I always go back to, no matter what else I have been into at the moment. Lux has a quality that transcends your average guitar rock album. Disappears songs are most definitely of the post-punk style, an angular, tense, less-is-more style of music where the lyrics are more 'sharply-said' than sung. Brian Case and his extremely talented band mates have crafted songs that use strong, complex bass-lines and drums to carry hollow-body guitar reverb and sharp, quickly-delivered lead guitar and vocals, up to some serious heights of post-punk greatness. Disappears songs are full of swagger and attitude, and much of their music is down-right sexy. Disappears second studio-recorded release (they released Live Over the Rainbo shortly after Lux last year), called Guider, is a 6-song EP clocking in at 31 minutes, with half of those minutes being the final song Revisiting. Guider carries on what Lux began: Disappears exploration of guitars used as instruments to measure both space and time, with the bass and drums used to build the track that will run you into the WALL. It's quite a ride indeed.

The chance to see Disappears play live at tiny basement venue Cake Shop on Manhattan's Lower East Side, was not something I wanted to miss. To say they exceeded my expectations is an understatement. The qualities I hear and feel when listening to their recordings were amped to the maximum: the swagger, the attitude, the tension, as these guys are so at the top of their game, it's gotta be heard in person to be believed. I felt like they were all four (Brian, Jonathon, Damon, and new drummer Steve) playing off the same brain, like they were all coming from exactly the same pinpoint in space and flowing out in all different directions, yet the sound is still tight as can be. It's really hard to explain, except to say that it sounds like they have always been playing these songs (most of the songs off Guider, 3 songs off Lux, and 2 songs that are as-of-yet-unreleased), forever. And it's not like they are using new tricks, it's that they each have their separate parts that they meld together so seamlessly and effortlessly, so each song is its own perfect post-punk creation. Disappears live is not to be missed, so check their 2011 tour dates for a place near you, both in the US and Europe. Disappears: they love what they do, and it shows.

Girlfriends

2010-12-24T14:20:00.000-08:00

From Boston, Mass, comes Girlfriends, playing some of the absolute BEST garage rock I've heard all year. I can't seem to find much information about these guys (and girl?), except that they are a relatively new (past few years), unsigned band from Boston, MA, still playing only locally. I checked out their single called Gov't Seizure (backed with Creep Stuff) and it basically blew my mind, so I had to share. A raunchy romp & stomp of a single, sung with a fantastically drunken slur, this is a must-hear for garage rock fans. While at their Band Camp site, check out Girlfriends' EP, self-titled, and their other single, Good To Be True. While not as in-your-face-excellent as Gov't Seizure/Creep Stuff, those other releases are still great and show enough promise that just put this band on my permanent radar. They've got a lot of their songs up on their MySpace, too. I hope to hear a lot more from Girlfriends in 2011!

Audiodeluxe EP Release

2010-12-04T14:50:00.000-08:00

Nice to hear from new favorite around here, Audiodeluxe, that their perfect-for-winter-time, warm, trippy, psychedelic tunes are now available on an EP. Self-titled, with five fantastic songs, their debut EP is right HERE on their Band Camp page. Go get it before the snow starts falling, it's PERFECT music for right now.........

The Flower Machine on Lavender Lane

2010-11-15T13:47:00.000-08:00

There is a new album out from our beloved sunny psych music-makers, The Flower Machine. It's called Lavender Lane, and it's just perfect. Lavender Lane is not completely new: it contains six new tracks mixed in among eight well-known and adored, remastered quintessential Flower Machine songs. Seven are from previous Flower Machine releases and the eighth remaster is from Trip Inside This House's Summer of 2008 gift compilation album, a little song called Traveling By Trampoline, one of my personal big favorites by The Flower Machine. If you know the music of The Flower Machine, then you know how Peter Quinnell's smooth vocal style, his whimsical lyrics, and mellotron-tinged melodies can enchant you in such a way as no other can. The pure charm & whimsy of the songs, their delicate, sunny vibes, can put a smile on my face when even the worst mood is upon me. How can you not love that? If you have not yet heard The Flower Machine, what the hell are you waiting for?! Go get Lavender Lane, set your tea, toss in a little sugar and spice, have a sip and listen to The Flower Machine. Relax, things just cannot be that bad, even for just a little while........

Now it's my pleasure and honor to give you one of the best reads you will have all year: to go along with the release of Lavender Lane, a little q&a with Peter Quinnell himself:

So, Mr. Quinnell, do you actually own a trampoline?

I don’t own one, as the building regulations are rather strict where I live. It’s a converted convent across the street from a park near Sunset Blvd in Silverlake, and a lot of the flats seem to be occupied by nuns still. I ran into the property manager at 2 a.m. the other night coming back from band rehearsal, and he clued me in to some of the things going on around here…deeply shocking. The pool area is apparently being used for love-cult rituals, and a bi-weekly swap meet where heavily tattooed people exchange incense and Hendrix bootlegs. That’s Los Angeles for you…

Describe for me your perfect day, include the season, and what makes a day special for you.

A perfect day would be waking up in a top-floor flat on the Rembrandts Plein in Amsterdam with $9,000 in travelers checks, walking up the Utrechtsestraat to Concerto and buying some impossibly rare vinyl picture discs from Luxembourg, then going out for drinks and reggae spliffs, and meeting some hippie girls who decide that I simply must come back with them for tea at their home, which would look exactly like David Hemmings’ pad in Antonioni’s 1966 movie “Blow Up” and have an analog 16-track studio that I could use indefinitely for free. Season? Preferably Autumn, but I’m flexible on that…

If you were to pick a bouquet of flowers for me from one of those 'pick your own bunch' fields, which would you choose?

21 purple Zinnias with one pink rose in the middle.

Let's go out for brunch, where shall we go & what shall we have?

The perfect brunch would have to take place by a lake in Central Park. It would be nice if there were swans too. The restaurant would have to have lots of tapestries and sitar music. Apple martinis to start, followed by tangerines suspended in mid-air and tiny squares of alpine milk chocolate arranged in a mosaic pattern on top of orange ice cream.

What music have you been listening to lately?

This is the part where musicians typically start droning on about how they only listen to pre-war blues or Bulgarian choral music to appear sophisticated – sod that, I say. I’ve been on a T. Rex jag lately – I put on my Italian red vinyl copy of The Slider, and it stayed on the turntable for 2 weeks straight. That’s probably one of the best records in the history of time. I’ve also been listening to demo recordings of Steve Peregrine Took …the Missing Link cd with Seventh Sign, Days, Syd’s Wine and Lucky Charm…incredible music with unintelligible lyrics recorded in a basement – the polar opposite of what his ex-bandmate Bolan was doing, but equally compelling, in a way.

The idea behind Lavender Lane was to take some older songs & remaster them, and mix them up with some new songs, right? I assume this was because The Flower Machine joined the roster at Rainbow Quartz? Who are some of your fellow label-mates now?

Something like that, although the chronology is rather more bizarre. We’d been on Microindie, a small label in Grand Rapids, for years and years. Toward the end of 2009, following some sessions in Ohio with my friend Todd Tobias, we for some reason simultaneously veered off into making a weird record that was sort of like a prog-rock science fiction opera that took place in 1951 called The Velvet Curtain. Brian Webster (keyboardist/engineer/co-producer) and I put the thing together at my house and dubbed all sorts of weird stuff on…one track was a 16-minute mellotron epic…just utter madness from a commercial point of view. We sent it to Microindie, and he was very nice about it and came out to LA for a couple of dinners, but I imagine he thought I’d gone a bit bonkers, and nothing concrete came of it. So I went shopping for a new label over the summer and sent out some discs. I was talking to an A&R person at Subpop for a few weeks, but then Rainbow Quartz’s president Jim McGarry rang me up from New York and wanted to do a 14-song album and rush-release it in November. That was incredibly flattering, and as it happens, RQ is the only label that has bands that I’m actually a fan of, such as Rockfour, the High Dials, The June…people we could relate to, in other words, so that was an easy decision. Jim then asked me to send over everything we’d ever done, so I sent him hours of material, and he spent most of a weekend plowing through all that and came back with some really sharp insights on what we were doing and how to present it…I was floored that he took the time to do that. I couldn’t be happier about how that all fell together.

Do you still have problems with neighbors swiping Netflix, or any other incomings to your postal box?

Not lately, but I finally gave up on using Netflix, because no matter which dvd I ordered, they’d only send over old Pippi Longstockings films. As you can imagine, after only a few months that becomes quite boring. I signed up with a new service that delivers the dvd to your door within 30 minutes. The selection is limited though…they only have episodes of Gilligan’s Island, hardcore porn from New Zealand, and the first season of Welcome Back Kotter.

What have you been reading lately? Anything old & obscure & wildly interesting?

I’m reading the new Syd Barrett biography “A Very Irregular Head” after Syd Barrett’s nephew Ian recommended it to me recently. I’ve read the others, which in my view are rather one-dimensional, but Ian says this book nails it, and he’s absolutely right. Definitely the best thing written about Syd thus far, and unique in that the author spent a lot of time with Syd’s sister Rosemary, the only person close to him in the post-London years, so there’s quite a lot of new information and insight into Syd’s decision to withdraw from public life, and his perspective about being relentlessly hounded by journalists and door-steppers, which carried on till the day he died.

Have you met anyone worth mentioning lately?

A resounding “no” on this question. I recently went through a horrendous break-up with my ex-girlfriend, and wound up going on a few ill-advised dates, one of which involved being propositioned on a Hollywood rooftop at 1 o’clock in the morning by a girl who was literally falling-down drunk. I’m thinking of moving to Kansas to meet a nice farm girl, but there’s a train strike at the moment.

I wish I was in LA to see your upcoming performance at Spaceland. Who else is playing with you & are you excited for this event, record release party?

Quite looking forward to it, yes…Saturday, November 27th is just around the corner. I don’t know much about the other bands we’re playing with, but it’ll be our first show with our new drummer Mitch Ross. Mitch’s playing is like a cross between Ringo and Bill Bruford…fantastic player. Plus he’s only been in the band for two months, so he’s not all jaded already or hooked on heroin or anything…

What is next for you & The Flower Machine?

I’m writing a novel based on the 1918 Treaty of Versailles, which I hope to turn into a lawsuit. I’m also scribbling away for our next LP, which will probably be a concept album about a little-known event in the life of Suzi Quatro, involving a prominent minister in the Church of England and a pair of purple Perspex water wings.

Any tarts left? Shall I have some over-nighted to you from NY?? Do they have to be pineapple?

A few of the nuns dropped by to vacuum and dust the other day, and they ate all the pineapple tarts…very naughty. So, any tarts you’d like to send would be lovely. Pineapple, tangerine, candy cane, cinnamon, menthol…we’re not fussy.

Peter, thanks so much for answering my questions!

My pleasure – it’s nice to chat with someone one-on-one, as opposed to relaying things through trial lawyers…

I know, attorneys, I'm not into them either, too serious, everything is so complicated.......I prefer things simple & charming & fun, like Peter and his music. Thank you once again, Peter Quinnell, my best to you and The Flower Machine!

6NOIR

2010-11-07T15:24:00.000-08:00

6Noir, from Paris, France, recently released their debut EP, a self-titled, 4-song, mind-blowing debut of an EP. The band have a signature sound: the dark, dusty, sultry sound of the old American West, which they have woven brilliantly into the fabric of their songs. I am not talking spaghetti-western, which psych fans may know as the type of western-style music favored by Spindrift, Federale, and Los Sundowners. I adore the spaghetti western of all those named bands, of course, but 6Noir has gone for something different with the western flair, something bigger and more epic, and immediately they come on to the scene with music that captivates with stories sung over twangy western-style guitar, and stomps of heavy drums and bass lines. Deep, rich sounds of growling guitar compliment Prisoners; False Sun gallops along a driving beat with tambourines, as strums of guitar fill the song. Salvation, a slow-burner with lovely lyrics, builds to a crescendo, lets down to a descrescendo, on and on, with the big guitar ride missing in so much of today's rock music. The West is just, well.....The West echoes with the twang & stomp so perfectly played by 6Noir, such a swagger, indeed. You can practically hear the spurs *click* on that one, a true highlight of this debut EP.

6Noir is a three-piece: Raphael sings, Louis plays guitar, Roscoe drums. For a three-piece, their sound is huge. Sometimes I think I am listening to a five-piece. The guys are relatively new to the music scene, starting out as a band in May, 2009, in Paris, and now that they've finished and released this brilliant debut EP, they are working on their second EP (to be released in January 2011), and for the more distant (hopefully not TOO distant) future, a full length album.

The band is in the process of packing up their gear and a few belongings, and moving from France, down to that mecca of all things psychedelic, Sydney, Australia. They are quite excited about this move, as they don't really find France as the place for them and their music, and feel the scene in Sydney will be more receptive to them as serious musicians. Sydney seems to 6Noir to be the place for them to really open up as a band, get involved in music seriously, and find like-minded people to spend their time with and play their music for. Raphael says "(Where we are now) we don't feel as a part of it, and as matter of fact, I wouldn't say there is an actual scene, call it whatever you like to, but we see many bands, and we know them but we feel most of the bands are just trying to be the new Rolling Stones (!) , the new Strokes, the new Black Keys....the thing is, Paris doesn't care about the essence of music. Some see music as an opportunity to make some dough and organize "rock n roll nights", but it's all fake and full of trends. People come, they might enjoy the night, they get drunk, and those who organize stab the artists in the back really..." 6Noir feel the opposite is true of Sydney, and I am inclined to agree, knowing what I know of the Sydney scene......ALL of Australia, really. That country has given us psych fans an ungodly amount of fantastic music in recent years. We certainly are lucky that musicians from down under make their music and send it all over the world to the rest of us. Good to know 6Noir will be finding such a great new home to continue doing what they're doing, surrounded by people who appreciate it for more than just a drunk night out! I, for one, cannot wait for their next release.

Check 6Noir's own website for more music and info.

Bloody Knives

2010-10-02T12:24:00.000-07:00

From Austin, Texas, Bloody Knives is a duo, Preston and Jake, who have released an album, called Burn It All Down. Burn It All Down is absolutely certain to be on my personal list of BEST OF 2010. Citing influences such as practically all the deadly sins, and many more descriptive terms from the dark and evil things in the world, Bloody Knives has created a vibe with their music, made from guitar, synth, and driving percussion, that feels so damn fantastic to get lost in......the entire album from start to finish, is like one long wave to ride; it's exciting music, makes you feel like you're underground riding a fast, dark train. The evil imagery might be there, yes, but the music is not grating, or harsh, in any way. Instead, I can honestly say there is an actual 'lightness' about this music, which has nothing to do with anything pretty or mundane, and everything to do with Preston's vocals, which are not buried within the music, but stand out as they are sung over and above the driving, pulling beats of drums and the smooth sweeps of synths. The guitars are what bring the darkness and depth, so constantly there is this interplay between light and dark in these songs. Bloody Knives music most definitely pulls elements from a multitude of different musical styles, from shoegaze, to post-punk, to electro, to psychedelic. These guys masterfully meld all of this together to create a most mind-blowing piece of work.

See the band's Band Camp page HERE, listen to Burn It All Down in full. That is a full-service Band Camp page where downloads and CDs to purchase are available. Also listen to their self-titled debut EP, on the right side of the page (equally mind-blowing as the album). Take advantage, friends, the CDs are limited edition. ***Mine is on its way.

***After being the owner of Bloody Knives' complete catalogue of recordings for a few weeks now, I have to say, this is more than just incredible music. When you order the CDs from the band themselves, what they send you is not JUST a CD. All CDs and accompanying artwork are made by hand, and they are exquisite. Splashed with dark paints, lyrics, and disturbed old photos that are devilishly captivating, the entire package a collector's item. Follow the links from the band's Band Camp page, given above, to get your copies of the album and EP.

Audiodeluxe

2010-09-18T13:55:00.000-07:00

In true independent, DIY spirit, so beloved by this writer and music blog, Audiodeluxe is making some of the most intoxicatingly trippy electro/guitar music to come out of Scotland, or anywhere, today. Audiodeluxe is husband/wife duo Dez Bone and Sammy McHugh, who are combining their love of heavy guitars with electronic music to make their own music, reminiscent of late 80s/early 90s electro, but with a fresh, modern sound which most surely nods to the trip hop genre, a style I consider to be the height of great electro music. Also, feeling the vibe of legendary Depeche Mode, and being big fans of that pioneering electro/guitar band, Audiodeluxe are writing and recording, all themselves, songs that melt the mind, and make you sway, easing back into your seat, with a drink, a smoke, and a smile......

A bit of insight into the band's inspirations and what they are up to in their neck of the woods, from Dez himself:

Who are the members (is it just you & Sammy)and who plays what?
Sammy: vocalist, lyricist.
Dez: guitars, and any other sounds that that aren’t vocals.
A Husband and Wife team which I personally think is the perfect music making partnership...the wife might disagree.

Where exactly are you based & what is the music scene like where you are? How do you feel you fit in it, do you like it, is there a creativity felt & seen throughout where you are? Is there an inspiration for you there?
We’re based in the village of Moodiesburn just outside Glasgow; there is a thriving music scene in Glasgow however, I’m not sure we fit in that well with it. It’s geared more toward guitar lead bands or the occasional full on electro outfit because they are the in thing at the moment, and we sort of stand on our own doing what we do.

Where do you find your main inspirations from (other musicians, artists, nature, anything at all that inspires you)?
Well the band that has had the most influence on us is Depeche Mode: we’re both massive DM fans. Radiohead, Rage Against the Machine, The Smiths, and the artist formally known as Prince (we don’t listen to him but we appreciate the fact he does what he does), are also in there somewhere. Month Python: the films and sketches (not the music) you can’t beat a bit of python style nonsense. Closer to home Sammy’s family are very musical and have had a big influence on my guitar playing; Sammy’s brother and I took up the guitar around the same time and had many a good night annoying the neighbours while learning play; and her sister is probably a better guitarist than us both. Also our bizarre circle of friends, the village we all grew up in and the various reprobates that populated it also had and still have a massive influence.

Are you recording for an EP album?
We sort of record songs as the ideas come to us: it’s a never ending process.

Do you perform a lot at local venues?
We play the occasional gig here and there not as often as Sammy would like as I’m more interested in working in studio and she’s a bit of a show off.

I think there a lot of people who would LOVE your style of music, which I think is trippy, ambient psychedelic style, trip-hop, if you will. Where should I direct people who are feeling the vibe of this style of music?
Our Myspace page should be the first port of call for anyone wanting to listen to our music or get in contact with us.

What are your plans for the band & what should we look for from you in the near future?
We’ve got a few new songs on the go, and hopefully a few gigs to showcase the new songs.

Trip hop and guitar/electro music fans, rejoice, and check out what Audiodeluxe are doing to perhaps help you relax, get lost a bit, ease off the stress, forget the mess, end the day easy........you get the idea. I think you know what I mean. It's what music is all about to people like us. Dez, thanks for introducing me to your music and doing our little interview, cheers & love!!

Check the band's YouTube channel for more trippy visuals and tunes.

The Silents

2010-08-22T07:44:00.000-07:00

The Silents are a young four-piece band from Perth, Western Australia, formed around 2003, making music heavily influenced by The Beatles' psychedelic sound. Using a lot of jangly guitar riffs and garage rock-style choppy drums & rhythms, they released an album and two EPs with this style of retro, 60s-inspired sound. But their recent release, from earlier this year, called Sun A Buzz, sees The Silents taking quite an exploratory journey far above and beyond anything jangly and Beatles-inspired. This album is not only VERY psychedelic, it's highly creative and original, and completely engrossing (I can't stop listening). Many of the songs have a captivating swirl of sexy, evil vocals and guitars, and almost tribal drums. You can feel the concept at work here, a thread that weaves through the songs from start to finish, and this keeps your attention, as you get excited to hear where the song is going next. You can listen to four of the songs from Sun A Buzz on The Silents' MySpace player, and I suggest you do so NOW. Gone are the traits of their earlier recordings, which are fantastic in their own right, but left behind by the band to explore this fuller, richer, expansive psychedelic world of simply exquisite compositions. Please have a listen to The Silents, and enjoy it, my friends. I know you will.

An earlier song by The Silents, Nightcrawl:

The Snail, from Sun A Buzz:

Helicon's Take The Ride EP for FREE

2010-08-20T04:55:00.000-07:00

Psychedelia fans, grab this one while you can. Get the download HERE as soon as you can, for it is only FREE for one WEEK (date of this post is 20 August) Helicon, New York loves you and thank you for this!!

Black Market Karma, more from France

2010-08-06T17:25:00.000-07:00

All That I've Made live in the Chateau, July, 2010:

The Radiation Line

2010-07-24T13:40:00.000-07:00

The music of The Radiation Line, from Stirling, central Scotland, is highly experimental, and quite psychedelic indeed. If psychedelic music is intended to extend one's mind into sonic spheres of ever-expanding, new and exciting states of expression and experience, The Radiation Line may lay claim to be the kings of this domain. Out of the six very limited edition EPs the group has recorded, four are sold out, but I was able to obtain copies of EP3 and EP4, thanks to James.
The Radiation Line's music is not for the faint of heart, rather, it is for those who love the sound of drone and how it can take you through to another level of consciousness. Many of the tracks on EP3 and EP4 use drone to pull the listener through the sounds. From EP3, Kommissar is sparse and spooky, yet the whispered vocals and light twang of guitar lend it an irresistible air of sexiness. The Mask Is Made of Flesh is thirteen minutes of ambling drones, dark and deep. Tourist (Part 2) changes the pace to rapid-fire prose which darts through a semi-electronic race of a song. Bella Victoria is a quiet end, with hints of the darkness which is the intriguing vibe of EP3.
EP4, here are the track titles: Lift Off, Now The Clouds Have Meaning, To Rot In Orbit, In Reflection of the Great Mirror We Knelt and Wept, As Heaven Was Revealed, Spiral. Get an idea of the ride you are in for? Scratchy, spaceship-style sounds and drones, long trips through wobbly space where your head wanders into the heights of the drono-sphere, are what make up EP4. James and Euan blur the line between inner and outer space brilliantly, as you can practically see the warping of everything real around you.
For those of us who love to experience experimental psychedelic sounds, The Radiation Line are creating some of the most incredible music we could possibly hope to hear. Minimalist, yes. Drone-driven music, yes. Fascinating new ways of twisting sounds into psychedelic trips for the music-loving mind, oh yes. Indeed.

Click here for a fantastic interview with The Radiation Line.

Photo courtesy of the band's MySpace.

Black Market Karma live in France

2010-07-21T04:37:00.000-07:00

Edrone, a song from their upcoming album, performed in Touchay, France:

Wolf People

2010-07-10T10:44:00.000-07:00

A wise friend of mine, a true lover of all music psychedelic, turned me on to Wolf People not too long ago. Tidings, the first real, accessible release from Wolf People, quickly became an obsession of mine, and it's easy to hear why, after just a sample, which, if you have not heard them yet, you can find here at their MySpace page player.
Tidings is an album made up of 7 songs, with many smaller interludes and fragments filling in spaces between songs. Sounding like it was made four decades ago, and making use of elemental natural imagery such as fire, water, earth, and air, Tidings' songs evoke much more than I could ever hope to explain, and that is what I am stressing here: if there is one album you need to experience this year, this is it. With songs that can sound catchy and jaunty, but at the same time, lyrically be a bit dark, about soldiers, knights, and burning displays of fire, Tidings is nothing short of a brilliant, psychedelic masterpiece. There is so much to uncover with repeated listens, beyond the initial charms of the upbeat tunes with the snazzy, jazzy guitars and accents of unexpected little surprises like the ting-ting of tiny piano keys.
Wolf People is a four-piece with Jack Sharp fronting the band (guitar and vocals), Tom Watt on drums, Joe Hollick on guitar, and Dan Davies on bass, all late 20s/early 30s of age. Though most of Tidings was written, performed, and recorded by Jack as home demos, now the band is hard at work, together creating the songs that will make up their next album, and they have a few performances on their gig calendar, if you are in the UK and can catch them live. Jack took some time out of his very busy schedule of recording, to do an interview for me which I am quite pleased to present to you now. This gives some great insight into an amazing band's work:

Terri: What is your musical background and how did you guys get together to form Wolf People?

Jack: Me and Tom grew up in the same village and have been in bands and made music together for about 15 years, we made hip hop instrumentals for a while which got us into record collecting, which then opened up a world of psych, folk, Jazz, prog etc and we eventually started getting into playing instruments again.

I made most of Tidings on my own then formed the band to play the songs live. At first we didn’t know what we were doing but the band has grown up out of that, writing more material and trying to improvise more. The next record has more input from the band, more like we are live.

Where are you based?

We try to cover as much of England as possible. I am in the dead centre of the Country in Bedfordshire, Joe lives in North Yorkshire and Tom and Dan live in London.
We play all over England and rehearse in London and Bedfordshire so you could just say we’re based in England.

Whose idea was it to abandon the standard album structure of 9-12 songs of similar length & use the interesting structure of songs broken up by fragments?

When we joined Jagjaguwar they were really keen to re-release songs we had put out before on singles and EPs but I wanted to make it slightly more interesting for those people who had already bought those singles.
I love the first few Mothers of Invention albums because of the oddball edits and fragmented songs so I was aiming for that free sounding cluster of odd sounds and samples. I wanted it not to flow too smoothly and sound like what it was: a sketchbook of home recordings.

Who or what do you think inspires you as artists?

I found it a lot easier to make music when I moved out of London. Having access to the country and having time and space to think opened me up to writing a lot more.

We share a lot of music between the band. Tom always seems to be finding some amazing record that informs my listening habits for the next few weeks. Most recently Mikel Ramel and Flasket Brinner.

What are you listening to these days?

Mikel Ramel and Flasket Brinner ;). Going through another Beefheart phase. Mighty Baby - Jug of Love. Dark - Darkside. Nic Jones - From the Devil to a Stranger.

What gear do you use? Anything out of the ordinary? What guitar are you playing to get that identifiable sound?

On the Tidings recordings I used anything I could find, usually adding other instruments to guitars for lead melodies. I think I used a glockenspiel, a thumb piano, sitar, piano. I couldn’t afford to buy any effects or instruments so I just used what I could find or borrow. I would usually sample all the notes and play them back with the MPC, that’s what I did with the piano.
The guitar tone for the majority of that record is a 90’s Epiphone SG through a tiny harmony amp recorded onto a cheap domestic mono tape recorder. Sounds cheap but it's got heart, I think. I didn’t have a bass either so I just down-tuned the guitar for the bass parts.
Tidings is basically home demos but I knew I’d never better the feel of them because for the most part the performances are the first and only time I played them. I would run over the parts only until I had something I liked, record it, and move on. It’s a fun way to make records and one I’d like to return to.

Have you been touring around the city, country, anywhere else? Any place you'd like to end up? Been to NY yet? If so, want to come back?!

We play around the UK quite a bit. Basically playing anywhere that will have us. We’re looking forward to playing in Europe and we can’t wait to get to the US. We are trying to be patient, waiting for the right time for us to come over, most likely when the next record comes out.

For those of us already in complete love with Wolf People's Tidings, their next record, Steeple, has just been finished and will be due out this coming October. A big thank you to Jack Sharp for doing this interview: fans from all over the globe wish you the best and thank you for your music!

Tidings is available on iTunes, and through Jagjaguwar Records.

Sophomore. Peacock

2010-07-05T13:21:00.000-07:00

Fans of psychedelia: Chris Bruno, of Sophomore. Peacock, brings you a trip for the visual and aural senses, right here:

The music is made by Chris and company, the video is Mindscape by Jacques Drouin, 1976. Enjoy. Hit replay. Enjoy. Hit replay.

Helicon Review and Interview

2010-06-28T16:55:00.000-07:00

I love a lot of bands. There is so much creativity and talent in independent music today, and I feel lucky to be a part of it all, seeking out exciting artists who make music that DOES SOMETHING FOR ME, something TO me, presents to me a different world for a little while, a world only psychedelic music can let you enter. So the love is there, for many of today's artists who are giving this to me; however, once in a while, some very special band finds its way to me. In the past I have profiled some of these bright stars in our psychedelic musical cosmos: Sisters of Your Sunshine Vapor, Sky Picnic, Lucifer Sun, Pilot Cloud, and of course, the namesake and inspiration for this blog, Black Market Karma, have all graced the columns of DSK as artists who have something special to offer us and who want to say something to us. I love getting into the heads of musicians I admire and respect. It just makes their music mean all that more to me. John-Paul Hughes from Helicon, a band from Scotland, featured on Trip Inside This House's Summer Solstice 2010 psychedelic compilation (out now, go get it if you have not!), is my bright star to present to you today, a true Sirius in sky of our love, psychedelic music!
Helicon make music that will leave you feeling in awe of your experience, and will have you scrambling for the repeat button. Take The Ride EP is drone-heavy and dramatic, a big sound made from layers upon layers of guitar effects, all swirls and conflicts of light and dark, absorbing and deeply engaging, endlessly intriguing. Requiem for a Dreamer EP contains destined-to-be-psychedelic-classics, a mind-blowing cover of Neu!'s Hallogallo, and their contribution to Summer Solstice III, Panic, Everything is OK, and a song that give me the shivers every time, Requiem. Listen to these songs on Helicon's MySpace page.

Here is what John-Paul Hughes, singer and guitarist for Helicon, shared with me about some things that are important to us music fans:

Terri: The first time I heard of Helicon, was as part of Trip Inside This House's BEST OF 2009 feature, and you were rightly chosen for THAT honor! Now, the members listed on MySpace are all the current members? You are a 5 piece?
John-Paul:Yeah we’re a 5 piece and all current members who’ve been here from the start. Gary and I are brothers. Laura is now Gary’s wife so has gone from an O’Brien to a Hughes and Steven and Martin are good friends of ours. Gary Sharp is the old “6th member” and looks after us for promotions, gig bookings etc etc as well as contributing to musical ideas and, being a drummer himself, has chipped in with some little bits of percussion on our EP’s.

You have been active as a band for about 2 years now? You sound as though you've been playing together forever. There is a vibe there, something the initiated person can zone in on immediately and feel. That is incredibly important for a music fan such as myself. I'm sure you understand what I mean, and think that connects you to your songs and their listeners.
Thanks for that. Yeah we’ve only been together 2 years and in all honesty have played what is comparatively, by other bands standards, only a handful of gigs. It genuinely means a lot from a lover of the same type of music as us to hear you say that as I don’t think it’s something that can be faked or played with and used as some sort of fad. We mean what we do. If you really want to make psychedelic music it has to come from a very real source and experience. If you’re jumping on the latest fashionable band wagon then those who understand the music will suss it out in no time at all. What we do is not pop music and should never try to be. It’s for people like you who get it and have already been indoctrinated in the ways of psychedelia and all it stands for so you pick up on the vibe of it straight away. You need to have an unflinching belief and love for it to be able to go out and play and suffer the confused looks and “constructive criticisms” of audiences who think that music begins and ends with X Factor contestants and corporate pop concerts disguising themselves as music festivals.

I'm not very familiar with Scotland & its scene. Can you tell me a little bit about it, what the music scene is like, what the city scene is like, how do you feel about it and how does it affect your music? Do you feel close to anyone else in music there, maybe a close-knit community who all support each other? I'm interested in what it's like where you are based.
On the whole, the music scene in East Kilbride doesn’t exist, which is something we’re hoping to help change. Glasgow is a very frustrating place. Very insular, parochial and predictable in their tastes. The amount of utter shite indie-pop garbage that is spouted is ridiculous. It’s hardly surprising though as high street stores and major record labels have hijacked what was once considered an attempt for Glasgow to subvert normality. When every second person on the street, at gigs or in pubs looks like a Franz Ferdinand reject with straightening irons and an eating disorder who’s been kicked through a Top-Man store, it’s hardly surprising this mass brain-washing has diluted the live music being heard. It appears the current buzz word around the scene these days is “Psychedelic”, which is anything but what most of the bands we come across actually are. I’m not intentionally having a go at any other band in particular, they’re just doing their thing but jumping on the band wagon of whatever seems to be the latest trend is fucking obscene. There are a few bands out there trying to do it the right way and really mean what they do and we’ve been fortunate enough to play with a couple of them but we definitely seem to be understood and appreciated a lot more in places like the US and Australia
I’d say geography has definitely had an effect on our music but The Jesus & Mary Chain, Mogwai and The Twilight Sad are really the only Scottish bands we’d draw influence from. There is definitely something inherently Scottish, especially Glaswegian, about our lyrics in the sense of their sneering sarcasm and cynicism and relation to the darker side of love and life. You cannot fail to be influenced in some way by religion, drink and drugs in this part of the world such is their effect on our society... for good and bad.

You have released 2 EPs, one with 3 songs, one with 4. From what I can see, you've quite a great reception to these. Are you playing a lot of gigs around town?
We’re really happy with them. Our manager Gary Sharp has been working hard on this for us. Our primary focus for these self-releases was to simply get the music heard and gain exposure. So we’ve basically tapped in to individuals, media and communities who, as fans, we were already aware of and whose work and musical appreciations we already respected. We’ve had amazing support from local ‘independent’ media, and it is very inspiring that these guys are working to incredibly high standards, typically for no profit, in their spare time to help promote what they, and we, perceive to be good music. Especially as it would be very easy for them to commercialize their venture’s to raise their own profiles by featuring more popular, but shit, bands… which thankfully they’ve chosen not to do. The nature of our style possibly makes us harder to find than most bands, but we know that the people who do manage to find us are the people we want on board… the type of person who actually takes the time to listen to music, form their own opinions and attend gigs. The internet is a great tool and gives us exposure to great bands, radio stations and magazines all around the World. The people who were playing and reviewing the music we love when we started are now giving us incredible feedback and exposure, which is amazing and gives us more self belief to continue in the way we’ve begun.. To hear our songs on radio shows we love, or to be conversed or written about alongside some of the bands we love is a great buzz, whether that’s featuring in a track listing alongside the Black Ryder, Helicon being praised as a band, being compared to the Warlocks, or having your EP in a list of ‘must listen to’s’ beside the Brian Jonestown Massacre’s Smoking Acid EP. It’s all fucking great in our opinion.
We do have digital distribution for our EP, but we opted to knock back the offers of ‘we can get you in every online store in the World’ as it’s pointless to us at this moment in time. We instead decided to go with one independent distributor (although we’re in the process of adding ourselves to an Australian stores roster) and people can be directed to that if they choose to purchase our music. Typically we give our music away for free as we’re happy that people are keen to listen at such an early stage and word of mouth has been incredibly important for us. We have been receiving a lot of interest from independent labels, labels we have massive respect for, and ideally we want someone to help us finance recordings and help us take things to the next level. We are aware that there is a massive uprising going on with regards to what we do and who we like, and we want as many of these people as possible to hear what we have to say musically.
We probably don’t play as many gigs as we should or could but it’s what we really love. On the odd occasion we can get a sound engineer who understands what we’re about, someone who doesn’t think all bands should sound like the fucking Kaiser Chiefs and isn’t afraid to push the boundaries a little, it really can be something worth going out of your way to see. We’re in the process of adding a light show and maybe some visuals to this along the lines of those early freak out 13th Floor Elevators gigs, which should add a new dimension to our shows. We’re still relatively new to the live thing so we’ve never played outside of Scotland but we’d love to. Been a long time since any of us were teenagers so still have to deal with the harsh realities of earning a living so it’s been difficult..... until some bastard decides to start paying us for this that is! Ha ha

You are working on a full length album now, right?
Well, we’re just about to record it with a top bloke called Marshall, at The Old Mill Studios just outside Glasgow. He did our first 2 EPs and understands us perfectly. I also want to see his beard again, it’s incredible (Terri laughs! Excellent!)... We are also contributing towards a couple of psychedelic compilations and vinyl collections. I know you’re aware of our track on Summer Soltice Vol III by Valis from the immense US radio show, ‘Trip Inside This House’ and our psyched–up cover of Neu’s “Hallogallo” is with ‘Fruits de Mer Records’ and might be going out as a double A side. We’re really excited about these. Getting amazing feedback from guys like yourself, Valis, Drone, and some of the stations in Australia and the US, has really put the wind in our sails in terms of our writing, so we’re certain we’ll have lots for you guys to enjoy in the coming months.

John-Paul Hughes, thank you for contributing so much to us here, both your music and your thoughts. It means a lot to us. You are welcome back any time!

Tame Impala at Glasslands, Brooklyn, New York, June 25, 2010

2010-06-26T09:14:00.000-07:00

Tame Impala may only be touring for their first full length album, but the young Australians have already made their way across the entire US, from California to New York, both supporting MGMT (out west and through the midwest), and playing small venues with local bands of a few East Coast cities. I had the immense pleasure of catching their Brooklyn, New York show last night at the wonderful little Glasslands Gallery, in the heart of the independent music scene of the city, Williamsburg, just a stone's throw from the famous Willamsburg Bridge and scenic waterfront and piers. Williamsburg is bursting with artists, musicians, cool small venues, and a creative vibe that is second to none. Tame Impala, playing at the art gallery/music stage Glasslands, brought with them their easy-going, signature fuzzed-out guitar rock, which they played to a sold-out crowd (and plenty of folks standing outside the open door!). Tame Impala's music is already loved by many, as it is a brilliant blend of psychedelic-style fuzz and guitar effects (I don't think I ever saw as many pedals as I did on Kevin's and Dom's floor-array boards!), mind-blowing drumming and bass-lines, and light vocals that sort of float above it all, almost in the clouds.
Tame Impala's live set for their Brooklyn gig was almost an hour of spaced-out jams after a very cool instrumental intro, a nice touch indeed.

Set list:
Intro (an instrumental expansion of It Is Not Meant To Be)
Desire Be, Desire Go
Make Up Your Mind
Alter Ego
Lucidity
Jeremy's Storm
Sundown Syndrome
Solitude is Bliss/Skeleton Tiger/Half Full Glass of Wine

Tame Impala, New York loves you. Thanks for visiting us and come again soon!

Watch Solitude Is Bliss and Half Full Glass of Wine from the show (thanks to Brian and ProAudioStar!):

The Brian Jonestown Massacre at Webster Hall, June 6, 2010

2010-06-07T07:25:00.000-07:00

Legends, so I am just posting a few photos and commenting that the 8-piece Brian Jonestown Massacre jammed it into oblivion last night. Thank you for the fantastic show, and all the amazing guitars, guys.

The Young Sinclairs open for The Brian Jonestown Massacre

2010-06-07T07:18:00.000-07:00

Webster Hall, June 6, 2010. When you open for The Brian Jonestown Massacre, you know you are something special. Cheers to The Young Sinclairs for having that honor and living up to the challenge! The 5-piece from Virginia brought their signature jangly, retro, psych rock to New York City's Webster Hall for a rocking-great set of many new, and a few old, songs that are nothing short of psychedelic brilliance. It's that combo they have perfected of 12-string Rickenbacker and Moog keys, gets me every time, full of energy and extremely infectious. This blog loves The Young Sinclairs. I wish them the best, and can't wait for the new release, out later this summer.

The Church, Long Island, NY, April 23, 2010

2010-04-24T12:49:00.001-07:00

Normally I save the efforts of this music blog to give less-well-known artists some exposure, but last night I had the once-in-a-lifetime chance to be a part of The Church's 30th anniversary tour of the USA. Not only did they come to New York, but they came quite close to my home on Long Island, NY, to a small performing arts center in Bay Shore, a lovely little town on the south shore of the island. Steve, Pete, Tim, and Marty gave a spellbinding performance of a song each from every one of their main albums over the past 30 years, plus 3 songs in an encore that we, the small but adoring crowd, cheered and hollered for, earnestly. I'm sure The Church felt the love. Each band member changed up instruments many times throughout, and one was no less perfect and commanding than another, at any time. It was also more than just their music: they talked to each other and to the audience, and entertained us in so many charming ways. The music of The Church, be it ever-changing over the years, is always complex, superbly-composed, dreamy, far-reaching, beautifully atmospheric and captivating. I was ecstatic, and honored, to be a part of this very special event.

The set list from that performance:
Pangaea
Space Needle
Reptile (jazzy)
Ionian Blues
The Unguarded Moment
Appalatia
Invisible
Louisiana
Come Down
My Little Problem
Mistress
Metropolis (Spanish-style)
Under The Milky Way
Already Yesterday
10,000 Miles
Fly
Almost With You
Tear It All Away
encore:
Disarm (Smashing Pumpkins cover)
Space Saviour
Grind

Praise The Twilight Sparrow

2010-04-17T15:42:00.000-07:00

Praise The Twilight Sparrow caught my ear some time ago, when I discovered the self-titled EP, consisting of four of the most hauntingly beautiful acoustic songs I ever heard. This EP was released in 2007, and now, three years later, Praise The Twilight Sparrow has released a full-length album, Color Map of the Southern Sky: 13 songs, all stunning in their stark, soft, style of woodlands folk. Mostly acoustic, accented with banjo and harmonica, and all sung by Pascal Hallibert in his gorgeous signature vocal style (it's as if the wind is delivering the words through the trees in the dark), these songs are quietly comforting with their uncomplicated beauty. A few of Color Map of the Southern Sky's songs retain the mildly dark and haunting sound of the earlier EP, like the song H.Wood. And one song straddles both releases, the song South of No North. Songs like Mist on the River, Tales From the Dark Seas, Lady of the Snow, and the album's closer, Enter the Cold, conjure up images of a long, deep chill, foggy twilight, and an overall hushed landscape. Although I listen to this music any time of year, it definitely does lend itself to certain times (autumn and winter), certain places (misty lake houses, a forest of ancient trees reaching to the gray sky), certain feelings (lost love, found faith). Praise The Twilight Sparrow's music is quite certainly mood music, but when you are in the mood for dark, yet beautifully dreamy folk songs, there are none better to lead your way, than these lovely compositions.

Sky Picnic at Lit Lounge, April 9, 2010

2010-04-10T09:56:00.000-07:00

Sky Picnic live, a wonderfully psychedelic experience........this band has it all: the looks, the style, the vibe......the music is out of this world, pulled in from the atmosphere, warped all around you, such a phenomenal live experience. The songs translate fantastically to the stage. Although I must say, the stage at Lit is a bit TOO SMALL for the huge sound that is Sky Picnic's, a credit to this band's amazing talent.
Set list:
Tea Break
Lost and Found (new song debuted)
Going Mad In Cambridge
Farther In This Fairy Tale
Hide and Seek
Unknown Regions (new song debuted)
Astronomy Dominé (Pink Floyd cover)
Universal Mind Decoder

photos by me.

Silver Phial

2010-03-24T17:00:00.000-07:00

Psychedelic soul......folk-a-delic......just plain fantastic, people. Silver Phial, from Los Angeles, California, USA: check them out now HERE. Smooth and lovely, full of spirit, full of soul. Review to come soon, but for now, enjoy the tunes on MySpace and on Last.fm. They are beautiful, and so is their music. What a vibe......life can be so good, can't it??

I have had the pleasure of owning and listening to Silver Phial's debut EP, Aeronautique, now, for a few weeks. Each time I listen, I find myself singing along. For those of you who enjoy a good dose of modern bands like The Quarter After, Thousand Dozen Gloves, The Stevenson Ranch Davidians, or classic bands like The International Submarine Band, or Mountain Bus, you will adore the country style folk-a-delic tunes of Silver Phial. Aeronautique consists of four original songs composed and produced by the band, and a cover of a tune by the wonderful Emmit Rhodes, Better Side of Life. Harpsichord-tinged Mountain Boy is a sweet tale from the countryside, where from hardships, dreams emerge and take a soul away from it all. Ohio is my sing-along-song: grab your tambourine, join in! The title track is a catchy, upbeat pondering of what could be, on the freedom of wings. The Emmit Rhodes cover, Better Side of Life, better than the original? Could very well be, it's a must-hear. The EP's closing song, Seasons of Love, a warm, sexy tune: bit of jazz, bit of sway, wraps it up perfectly.

Photo credit: Sarah Morrison, courtesy of the band's MySpace.

Kid's Garden

2010-02-26T14:18:00.000-08:00

There is an album, called Further, by Kid's Garden. This album was released in 2007. Myself, I've been slipping into the psychedelic dream world of Further since some time last year. It's now 2010, and I am realizing how few people know the sheer joy of this album. It's time to change that!

If there is such a style of music as ambient psychedelic, Further will define that, perfectly. Songs are awash in echoes; reverberation fills the air. Some songs on Further are quietly introspective and lovely (1995, Winter's Song, Cold Water); some songs go for a big, expansive, swirl of sound (Ourselves, Can't See How, Show Me, Come Down); still others go for the unexpected and present you with music that is so original and creative, it's hard to believe this was made mostly by one person while still in high school. Higher, one of my most favorite songs from Further, uses an emenee chord organ, to create the almost-harmonica-like sound that breezes through the song, literally. The deceptively simple Higher, is actually a song that has probably the most creative use of a distorted acoustic guitar and bass I have ever heard.

Further is a musical journey that must be experienced from beginning to end, with no distractions. Repeated listens to the songs reveal their depth, complexity, and charms, and they will pull you along, tugging gently at the strings of your mind. Someone's heart and soul went into creating this music; this is clearly made with passion, and the originality and individuality of the music on Further is second to none. George Clanton, now 22 years old, is the creative mind behind the music of Kid's Garden. Feeling the urge to begin composing some songs on his own as a teen, George now has a full time drummer working with Kid's Garden, and did enlist some help from good friends who just happen to be in another band this blog adores, The Young Sinclairs. But much of Further was done by George with mellotron samples of flute and choir, synthesizer, distorted guitar and bass, and some of the sweetest sounding vocals (sometimes strong and right up front, carrying the song through, like in Show Me, sometimes light and airy and barely there, as in Higher) ever.

Deepest Skies I and II, and Further (On and On), carry on the dreamy ambiance way up into the atmosphere. With each song, Kid's Garden's album Further sweeps you up and away, wraps you into a warm cocoon, and loves you a little bit more as the moments pass by. You will not want this album to end. Buy the album straight from the artist himself, link is on MySpace. And YES, Kid's Garden is working on a second album and I will let you all know about that when it happens.

Through the generosity of the artist himself, you can listen in full, at your leisure, to the bliss that is Further by Kid's Garden, by downloading the album in MP3 format from HERE.

Thank you, George, for that link to download.

Watch a video for Show Me here:

Dead Leaf Echo's new single

2010-02-26T13:16:00.000-08:00

To paraphrase a very famous saying, Truth, the 6-song CD release from New York's Dead Leaf Echo, is most certainly beauty, and love, wrapped up in a swirl of shoegaze-style dream-guitar........the theme of the 6 songs is easy to understand: Truth, do you seek it? Is it even there for you to find? The more you want it to exist, and the harder you look, the more obscure truth becomes until it vanishes all together......
Awash in dreamy layers of sound, Dead Leaf Echo's songs do not follow an old tenet of shoegaze-style artists: let the words blend in with the music, as another instrument might do. Instead, LG's lyrics are understood to be as integral a part of Dead Leaf Echo's music as any guitar riff might be. Act of Truth, the first single off the EP in 2009, was the perfect song to represent the entire set of six: at once conveying longing, caring, strength, and the ongoing search for what gets lost between us but remains infinitely important to us.
Though released last year, as a limited-edition EP, with a hand-numbered, original artwork design, the Truth EP now has a new single available through Custom Made Records, the song Half-Truth. The opening song on the EP, Half-Truth is a perfect example of why Dead Leaf Echo's music is so exquisite: huge swirls of dream-scape guitars, and lyrics that ponder what really lays beneath what we say, and what lays just beyond our grasps.

Dead Leaf Echo on MySpace

Get music by Dead Leaf Echo from Custom Made Music.

The High Dials

2010-02-21T14:41:00.000-08:00

The High Dials, from Montreal, QC, are like..........nothing I have heard ever before. I recently bought their album Moon Country. This is a 2 CD album, 14 songs long, full of charmingly sung, lovingly composed, bright, beautiful psych pop songs that can be filed under 'needs no mood to enjoy, just play all day and love it'. The High Dials' history and back catalogue is something I am still learning about, and thanks to the kindness of the band themselves, I plan on bringing you a full profile soon enough, but for now, I wanted to link the band's lovely website here, so fans of psych music can do a little exploring of their own. If you already know The High Dials, excellent for you, but make sure you buy Moon Country, it's a must-have in any psych lover's collection, trust me. If you don't yet know about this band, watch the video for Killer of Dragons here then go to their site and stream some music. More to come soon on The High Dials, but for now, watch Killer of Dragons here:

Black Market Karma 2010 News

2010-02-14T13:57:00.000-08:00

Black Market Karma have been hard at work in recent months. The band has been playing gigs around England and France, and has been in the studio, recording and mixing the songs that will become their debut full length album. Fans who own Black Market Karma's debut EP, Psychedelic Circus, An Introduction, and who watch them gig all over town, are eagerly awaiting the announcement that the band's album is finished and ready to buy. Rest assured, I will be making that announcement here, as I know I will be one of the first to know when the album is ready.

For now, here is a lovely little update on Black Market Karma's recent whereabouts, from Stan, the band's frontman, singer, and guitarist:

We've pretty much spent the last 2 month recording and mixing non-stop. We had all the songs down before Christmas but we didn't wanna just take the easy way out and just get them sounding "nice" We've been spending most of our time trying to degrade the sound quality, if that makes sense? We really want the album to have that oh-so-hard-to-get "vibe", and that's basically what we've been doing every week. When we started mixing we actually worked on the last track first. It seems a bit of an arse-about-face way to do it, but we really knew where we wanted to take that track sound wise. The song's called Edrone and it's an eleven minute, psychedelic goodbye for the album. We spent a lot of time fucking up the drums and really trying to get that almost orchestral sound on the guitars, but we got there in the end. Now we've just gotta get all the other mixes on the same level. The record's really starting to shape up though and it won't be too long before it's pressed and out!

The other real highlight since Christmas was playing in France. We've made three trips there now and each time more and more folks are turning up to gigs. Our name seems to be spreading around Paris pretty quick and it's always a good feeling to see and meet a bunch of new people that have come out to watch you play. We've got a decent amount of gigs lined up over the next few months which will pretty much take us up to festival time. We're looking to play a few more dates in France around that time too. In the meantime, we're gonna be working on getting the album out there!

Last year, Black Market Karma became a five-piece band, when Sam joined them, and their sound became even more layered and complex than when they were a four-piece. To say I am waiting for this album with baited breath is an understatement! Watch this video of them performing their song A and G and join me in the anticipation!

Daylight Frequencies

2010-02-07T15:49:00.000-08:00

Time for me to take this blog back to its roots: to a young band from the UK, who just happen to be a slice of the same psychedelic heaven that Black Market Karma come from, AND they happen to be friends and gig partners with BMK. Daylight Frequencies is this band, and you HAVE to hear them, if you consider yourself even a small fan of today's psychedelic music. I, of course, am a BIG fan of this music, so I jumped at the chance to experience Daylight Frequencies' soon-to-come EP. From the beginning, from the opening swirls of Lions Den, which explodes into a psychedelic supernova that The Black Angels would be envious of, this five-song EP, the band's debut, is relentless. As Lions Den flutters to a close, Six In The Chamber pops one of those caps in you, with guitars that sound like an army. Rustic Bones, a just-evil-enough trip through the guitar walls with some heavy organ accents, slides you into The Day Thief, which growls and swirls full of the dirtiest guitar and heaviest pounding drums ever, and ends with you in a hypnotic trance. Where The Light Flows ends the EP with a slow and sensual groove that turns into an immense flood of, you guessed it, my favorite style of guitar: oh so dirty, and oh so psychedelic. Pretty much a perfect EP, from start to finish.

The demos of Daylight Frequencies were recorded mostly with three members, although the band does consider itself a four-piece, just looking for the perfect fourth, a permanent drummer. Luke kindly answered some questions for us, here is a little q & a:

You are friends/gig partners with Black Market Karma?
Oh yeah! They're a great band, we put them on in Leicester sometime last year for a psych night we did. We're hoping to get together to play some shows in France together soon. I know they've been over a few times and say the crowds are cool over there.

How long have you been together & working on this music as Daylight Frequenies?
We've been going about a year and a half on off, trying to get the line up right.
We were going strong until last summer our drummer left. We decided to wipe the slate clean, write and record all new material and start promoting that as much as we can.

What influences your music, from bands to anything else out there in the world?
A lot of bands, but i think also writers such as Hunter S. Thompson, Jack Kerouac, Aldous Huxley. These are all great writers. But a lot of our material comes out of jams at rehearsal, then we'll put our heads together and pick out the best pieces, listening back over a game of darts or something.

What would you want listeners to take as the 'experience' of your sound?
One review described us as "Strung out, heavy Psychedelia" which i think has a nice ring to it. We go for a big wall of sound, try and take the listener to a bigger place. We encourage them to close their eyes and just let it take them where it will.
Also, is there anything you would want readers to know about you & your band?
We'll be finishing the new E.P in March 2010, we're trying to get it released. But it will be available for download by the end of the month. Keep checking our Myspace for upcoming dates (if you are in the Leicester area, which I wish I was).

Daylight Frequencies has got that edge, that deep, heavy sound, that gets into your head and makes you a little mental. Their music will get into you. Check it out.

Thank you Luke, for your help with this. My best to you and the band.

Sisters Of Your Sunshine Vapor: album review and interview

2010-02-02T16:41:00.000-08:00

Sisters of Your Sunshine Vapor: this Detroit band's self-titled album is seriously deserving of more than just a listen or two. It is one of those albums where, the more you listen, the more you hear, and the more you are absorbed, and the more you are amazed. The first influences I hear are the grittiness of The Black Angels, and the song structure similar in complexity to B.R.M.C.-era Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. But these songs the Sisters have created.....each one slams right into the next one, the momentum pushing right through you like a tornado....
Lord Is My Gun is a gritty homage to the tough streets. Victims of Momentum warns you with the title, get the hell outta the way. Slow Suicide, haunting, engaging on so many different levels: the vocals, the superb drumming, the guitar work....this song grips you tightly. All You Lovers, one of my personal favorites, how can I not love this song: sexy swagger, shameless, dirty guitar.....what's the name of this blog again? Yeah, DIRTY SEXY KARMA. Yeah. Spaceman Blues, that song is a trip I do NOT wanna get off. Another huge highlight of this album, Spaceman Blues is just one immense swirl of a song, a total trip to the outer limits that folds back in on itself to swallow you whole. My third favorite song, Two Thousand Nine, more blow-your-mind sexy psychedelic swagger: meet you in the back room? Um, YES. But this song ends too soon. At The Gates utilizes some phenomenal drumming behind a guitar part that is pure psychedelia.
Sean sings and plays guitar, Eric plays bass and does backing vocals, and Rick plays drums for Sisters of Your Sunshine Vapor. Time to get to know them a bit better by hearing it from the band themselves:

How did you three hook up and form a band? You had a former name and sound, correct?
Rick: Nobody in the band knew each other before we started playing music together. Eric and Sean met through email and social networking. They hooked up with their original drummer Scotty through the same method. However, things didn't work out with Scotty and they were without a drummer for a few months until they met me at a dance party in Ann Arbor called The Bang!. They asked me if I played drums and if I wanted to try out for the band and the rest is history.
We were originally called SikSik Nation the music was fuzzed out garage rock with some psych elements. We released one full length and an EP under that name after switching to a much more psychedelic sound we decided a name change was appropriate.

Are you doing this all yourselves, the producing and recording of your music?
Rick: We built and maintain our own studio. We did the recording and production ourselves; we even screen print our own record sleeves and t-shirts.

How is the scene in Detroit? I am not too familiar with it, so maybe you can tell me a bit about what it's like being serious musicians there?
Sean: Well Detroit seems to be heavily submerged in the pop scene as of now- we've poked through the water a bit as a psych band and turned a few heads, but as a whole the poppy-er outfits seems to get the most attention.

Where do you get your ideas from to make your music? I hear some seriousness in a lot of your songs, but I also hear some raunchiness here and there, which adds to the sheer enjoyment of your sound.
Sean: Society? or lack there of- music is one of the few things I actually take seriously in life- the raunchiness just come from humanity.

What artists do you feel influence you?
Rick: We have a lot of influences that vary from member to member. Some of the bands we share in common are Joy Division, Spaceman 3, The Doors, and The Velvet Underground. We also like plenty of modern acts like Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, The Brian Jonestown Massacre and The Black Angels (ha ha).

What gear do you use? Ever blow out an amp??
Rick: Ah, some secrets are meant to be kept- but orange amps, lots of delay, theremins, bows, teisco spectrum guitars, Vox guitars, burns guitars, Ludwig vistalite drums- and a mass amount of other unconventional things. No way: amps are way too expensive to blow out!

Do you have a second album in you, as Sisters? More ideas for great songs?
Rick: We are a very prolific act; we will continue to make albums until it is no longer enjoyable. As of right now we have a handful of songs in production and hope to have another release this year.

Since I missed you in NY recently, I have been watching videos, as you guys are posting fantastic video diaries and films of your performances. Do you like the touring aspect of being in a band?
Rick: As a band we are making the transition from being a “local” act and moving around the country a little more. You feel like you get more accomplished when you play out of state and the experience is much more enriching. We hope to play at least 50 shows across the country this year. We have been experimenting with keeping video journals of our exploits, and so far it has been a pretty entertaining exercise.

When asked what he would like from music fans, Rick says:(We would like people to) download our record and tell us what you think. Some people think that bands only offer their albums for free because they are not confident in their product. That is complete bullshit. This record sounds way fucking better than anything we have ever paid for and we are giving it for free because we don’t care about money. We want people to hear what we have created and hopefully enjoy the outcome. Nothing in this band has been outsourced; everything from the recording to the merchandise has been done by the band. You will not be disappointed in our DIY efforts. If you are, then you have spent $0, so who cares?

The attention to detail in the songs that Sisters of Your Sunshine Vapor play is apparent upon first listen, but to REALLY hear these songs, keep listening. They become an alternate reality. Their vibe sinks into you completely. This band has got the talent and the confidence to shake things up. They've got ME shaken up, that's for certain. These guys are doing it for all the right reasons. We love that mind-set around here.

Thanks to the band, for taking time to do this interview for me. I love them dearly for it.

Sky Picnic

2010-01-30T14:47:00.000-08:00

Could Sky Picnic possibly be the most deliciously psychedelic band in New York City today? The answer to that question is a HUGE YES. Indeed, Sky Picnic are creating the most gorgeous, heavenly, tripped-out psychedelic songs I have heard in quite some time. I have read the term 'mind expanding music' used to describe Sky Picnic's music. I totally agree. As I write this, I am immersed in the swirls of atmospherics and the dueting, chill-inducing vocals of singers Chris Sherman and Leah Cinnamon. White Plane is playing through my headphones and I'm lost......completely tripped out for a while, letting the mellow vibe and the poetic lyrics wash over me. This is psychedelia at its BEST. Farther In This Fairy Tale, if you can tell from its title, is not only poetic and beautifully atmospheric, it's an album to listen to from beginning to end, to escape from what corners you in this world, and to make you think beyond the bounds of the typical. It is a lovely experience, a necessary one for people of our mind-set. I asked Chris Sherman about the album:
Farther In This Fairy Tale was intended to be more conceptual than an ordinary album, listened to from start to finish in order, without the outside world interruptions? Exactly. It's art. We're not just making music...anyone can make music. We're trying to give you an experience and to take you deeper into an alternate world and give you something to think about. The concept of the LP is the end of innocence and a journey to find yourself, although I hope people can draw their own meanings from there.

Universal Mind Decoder, I will say is one of the best songs I have ever heard: twelve minutes, at times big and lush, at other times hushed and calm.....a trip for the mind and the soul. Chris and Leah actually began their musical project using that song title as their name:
How did you all come together in NY & start making music?
Leah and I started as Universal Mind Decoder in mid 2005. We had a slightly poppy-er mid-60's rock type sound. That dissolved at the end of 2006. From there, we started Sky Picnic in 2007, brought in a drummer and started developing our sound closer to where it is today. It wasn't until Pete joined in Oct 2008 that we really got it together and became a cohesive unit.

When I listen to music such as Sky Picnic's, I always think of what influences these musicians, what drives them to create this art that makes me feel so good to have surrounding me. Dreamy sleep, flickering lights, mellotrons, sitars, and rainbow colors of a symphony (as a true synesthete would say, "I see the colors of the sounds.") are just a few of the things that influence Sky Picnic's music. What Chris says about their creative process:
I love the influences you list on MySpace. Can you tell me a little more about how you create your compositions?The songs usually start with an idea coming out of nowhere. I'll usually get a nice blueprint for it and THINK I know how it should go. I'll make a quick demo, send it off to the band, and we'll develop it in practice. Once it's in their hands, the song always surpasses the original vision. It's a pretty efficient process, although I really want us to get into more group writing.
I know there are alot of definitions of psychedelic music, but it seems that label gets thrown around rather loosely these days. A band who happens to use phased vocals over an acoustic guitar is automatically "the next Syd Barrett" and "very trippy" according to all the hipster blogs and mainstream media out there. And that's fine if that what they want to call it. (That just makes us more left of center.) But we are trying to give the audience a psychedelic experience. Improvisation is abound on stage, and, to an extent, on the record. Themes of astronomy, mythology, dystopian societies and life and death are the basis of our catalog. Clearly, we're not trying to become rock stars, and have no ambition to do so. We're making music we love about subjects we love, in the matter in which we want to. Hopefully that spirit alone draws people to our band.

Sky Picnic has also released a beauty of an EP, titled Synesthesia, five songs equally as gorgeous as any song off Farther In This Fairy Tale. Using sitar swirls and lyrics that make me think of Alice In Wonderland's world, this EP breathtaking. Sequence IV is a musical journey of epic proportions. The band's full discography, all available to you, is:
Synesthesia EP- 2008
Hide & Seek (single)- 2009
Farther In This Fairy Tale- 2010
The CD of EP and LP are available at all shows and via IndepenDisc. MP3's are via Amazon.

A heartfelt thank you to Chris. Photo credits are from the band's MySpace. My best to the band, hope to see you in February!

Stellarium

2010-01-30T13:23:00.000-08:00

From Singapore, Stellarium has released their debut album, Self Titled. This album is a wicked thrill ride through fuzzed-out tunnels of distorted sounds, with mind-bending effects around every turn. Stellarium's songs keep the vocals on the down-low, hushed and haunted, and let the guitar effects take center stage. Taking their cues from the lusciously warped dimension that keeps artists such as A Place To Bury Strangers, The December Sound, and Screen Vinyl Image in its realm, Stellarium bring us songs meant to be played so loudly that you feel the rumbling through your body and the ripping of your eardrums. Harbinger is a song that incorporates driving guitars and drums with deep, hollow vocals, yet also has the twang of surf guitar to highlight the dark, in just the perfect spots. Signature song Fader, screams and howls with layer upon layer of lush and distorted soundscapes, yet the twang of the surf-style guitar and the drum-and-bass-style beat seem nowhere out of place within the song; in fact, this composition is so wickedly thrilling that it requires repeated plays, trust me. You WILL repeat Fader. If you break out of the Fader trance, Dead Nebula will trance you again, with its drums that vary from almost tribal, to a huge industrial expanse of beats. Summer Bloodbath, a minute and a half of quiet, a kick-ass drum-and-bass beat, echoed vocals over fuzz: I have never heard anything like this song before. What a way to end an album. Watch the video for Fader:

Order the album here.

Antenna

2010-01-29T13:11:00.000-08:00

Based in San Fransisco, California, Antenna is a band with some strong roots in the music that has shaped and is still shaping their home city. This is music that we love. Music that is made independently, with the passion and attention to detail we addicts crave. Antenna is comprised of musicians who bring to this new project of theirs, talent and experience, from a multitude of fantastic bands we already know and love. Brothers from Finland, based in San Fransisco, California, are hard at work fusing a strong garage rock base with elements of jazz, blues, and soul. Ville and Jaakko Vilpponen are quite experienced and accomplished at what they do (guitar and bass, and drums, respectively): they have been playing since their early teens. Practically lifetime-musicians, these guys now work with the amazing Mr. Leigh Gregory, after working with the very well-known and well-loved band Dora Flood. Antenna is their own project, a completely different sound than what they have been doing. The brothers are looking for a third permanent member, but do have their demos on their MySpace page, so we can check them out now.

A nice little interview with Ville, who so kindly gave me some insight into what he and Jaakko are up to with Antenna:

How long have you been involved in San Fran's music scene? How long have you and your brother been musicians?
I started playing in bands around San Francisco in 2003. Joined Dora Flood very late 2004 I believe. I’ve been playing electric bass since I was 10, guitar from the age of 14. Early bands in Finland were in various genres of heavy metal. Jaakko has played drums since an early age as well… He was in Dora Flood from 2007 until the end. And as you know, we both are in Memory’s Mystic Band these days

How many albums did you make with Dora Flood?
Two: 2007’s We Live Now and 2008’s Dream out Your Window.

From the 3 projects I know of that you have worked with (Dora Flood, Memory's Mystic Band, Antenna), all have completely different styles of music. I love this, as diversity is key in keeping your edge, and showing your talent. What direction do you want to take with Antenna?
Nothing too polished. We want to mix driving beats and/or psychedelic atmosphere with the grittiness of 60s garage rock and UK rhythm and blues. Noisy or quiet but with a certain sense of threat if pulled out right!

While listening through headphones to Antenna's demos, it's clear to me that you know how to compose a catchy garage rock groove that needs no mood to enjoy. These 'demos' sound like finished songs!
Thanks Terri! They are recorded in our studio in Berkeley , CA . I went to a recording school in Los Angeles and even though it never became a career I’ve been very interested in all aspects of recording music since.

What is important to you, and where do you find your inspiration to make music?
More than anything I think it’s important to keep going. Sometimes it feels that I just started writing songs yesterday and since I just want to get better, it doesn’t make sense to stop. You can never really master an instrument or songwriting- there’s always more to learn and enjoy. Subject-wise, one can find inspiration in most banal things like the decline of mainstream culture into one big reality TV-show and the pursuit of empty celebrity, which I find fascinating. A lot of Antenna’s songs draw from that. Still, even though they may seem cynical, there’s a good deal of humor in the lyrics. I’d like to think that it comes through.

What kind of music do you yourself enjoy listening to these days? What artists do you find inspirational to you?
Obviously it depends as there are Saturday night-records and Sunday morning-records. It’s a cliché but there’s really too much good music to mention. I love both PiL’s Second Edition and The Byrds’ Sweetheart of the Rodeo but not necessarily back to back. When it comes to this particular project I’d like to think that we’ll find our sound somewhere between post-Syd Barrett, pre-Dark Side of the Moon Pink Floyd and The Stooges with Ron Asheton on guitar. Spice it up with some Can-esque krautrock grooves and a dash of Velvet Underground maybe? Would be great!

Spoken like true independent, serious musicians. Ville also says they have so many great ideas for songs, they'll just keep on making them as Antenna and getting them out there for us to enjoy in the years to come. Check them out, and stay tuned.

Cotton Club

2010-01-26T04:03:00.000-08:00

Cotton Club is a five-member band based in Lille, France. I am only beginning to get myself familiar with these guys, but it's never too early for me to recommend such a brilliant find. Go to Cotton Club's Band Camp page and listen to their EP Between Drones and Daisies. Six songs, which you just have to hear to believe: My Technicolor Dream begins the experience......all washed in reverb and tinny, scratchy vocals. The Right Moment soars to huge, dreamy heights. Two In Hell slows it down a bit, still within the dreamy, hazy realm. Trapped Inside, the huge winner among these amazingly psychedelic songs, is just a masterpiece: this song kicks you hard, and you will love it. The guitar interplay on Trapped Inside, and all six songs on Between Drones and Daisies, is intricate and hypnotic. The Breath of Drones is more sweet-sounding hazy reverb, and Standing Man With a Gun ends the EP with the before-mentioned and all-important guitar interplay that makes this music sound so big and full. Cotton Club have created music that is somewhere out there.......between drones and daisies. Enjoy it, friends. And look for more to come from Cotton Club, as they are working on a full length album. My best to them, they deserve it.

Cotton Club live at Reservoir from Videoliv on Vimeo.

Interview with Leigh Gregory part II

2010-01-22T17:56:00.000-08:00

Though it's safe to say Leigh Gregory is not a new or less-known artist,as this blog usually profiles, it's also safe to say there can never be enough great press about him and his lifetime musical endeavors, as they are one of the great joys in my life, and so many other music fans' lives out there. Over the years, Leigh has made music of all different styles. Today, he concentrates on a lot of acoustic, or semi-acoustic music, by himself or with his project Memory's Mystic Band, in his home city of San Fransisco, California. If you have had the pleasure to read part I of my interview with him, last year, then you are familiar with his current work, and good for you! Let me now have the pleasure of bringing you the second part of my interview with the amazing Leigh Gregory.

Your EP you released as Memory's Mystic Band is a stunning piece of modern folk rock. Are you still working with MMB? Doing live performances? Anything else to be recorded soon?
Oh, yeah, Memory’s Mystic Band is my main project now. That project started several years ago after I had major surgery done on my spine. Mellow Drunk had kinda imploded at the time and I didn’t want to do another electric project (wasn’t very steady on my feet either!!!) so I started playing acoustic – just sitting in a chair -- at the Plough and the Stars Pub here in SF. Soon friends started joining in so suddenly there was a fluctuating band. The recordings that have surfaced are actually a couple of years old as we’ve settled into a four-piece now that is much more electric-oriented with me on guitar and vocals, Stephen Cavoretto on keys and vocals, Ville Vilpponen on bass and his brother Jaakko drums.

I was listening to Mellow Drunk the other day (every few days, a different MD album gets popped into my stereo) and wondering, would you ever do any more recordings/shows with MD as the artist name? Do you keep in touch with everyone involved with that past project?
Cool that you’re still into Mellow Drunk!!! Yeah, I’m in contact with everyone from the band. Ricky (Mellow Drunk guitar) has really gotten out there since the band broke up and I’m always amazed by how much he gets done and how many major projects he’s a part of. I can’t even list everything he’s done since the Mellow Drunk days but he joined the Triffids for their re-union shows/tours, did a record with Steve Kilbey, and plays with Liverpool’s Wild Swans (and I know I’m just scratching the surface), in addition to holding down one of the guitar spots with The Brian Jonestown Massacre. Daniel played bass on my “1973” recording, and both Patrick (drums on “One Thousand Lights”) and Sean (drums on “Never Sleep at Night”) played drums. Of course, Stephen (Mellow Drunk keys) and I are in MMB together. Sean and Daniel have also played in Memory’s Mystic Band.
As far as shows with Mellow Drunk go we’ve done a couple of short acoustic sets with me and Steven and Ricky (when he’s in town) at the Plough and the Stars but no plans for any future electric shows. (Sorry!!!!)

What direction do you want to take your music in, in 2010? I wonder about the upcoming decade and what kind of music my favorite artists will bring to me. What kind of ideas are you toying with?
Well, we’re just finishing up a new batch of songs with Memory’s Mystic Band that I’m quite happy with and I’m just striving to make music that will stand the test of time and stay relevant no matter how many years go by. With MMB I’m always trying to draw on influences from folk, blues and beyond, then trying them out to see what works in our format of guitar, keys, bass and drums.

What is your favorite song to play electric? And your favorite acoustic song to play? Have you gotten anymore guitars for your collection? New gear?
I enjoy playing other people’s stuff if I’m sitting around with my acoustic (unless it’s a new song I’ve just written that I’m still trying to work it out) and I think it’s kind of a lost art to hear a song that really affects you, then have a go at it, work it out and play it by yourself (it’s also a great way to learn how other songwriters work).
So… if I’ve got the acoustic out I might play a couple of songs by Jackson C. Frank or Townes Van Zandt. I was meaning to play Ralph McTell’s “Streets of London” or “Zimmerman Blues” for a recent Christmas show but never got to play either of them (didn’t want to muck them up ya know??). I love to play “ Clifton in the Rain,” which is an old, old Al Stewart tune and I’ll sometimes play an old Jimmy Campbell song called “Lovely Eliza Cope is Dead.” I’ll play traditional stuff such as “Angie” or “Lord Franklin.” I’ll play Grant McLennan‘s “Black Mule” a lot and do that one live. Of course, MMB’s first single on the label Edition 59 features a nice cover version of Nikki Sudden’s “Ambulance Station” (we do that one live as well), and we’re just mixing a cover of the Edgar Broughton Band’s great song “Hotel Room.”
As far as electric goes I’ve been playing to lots of Television and Hank Marvin/Shadows tunes over the past year. Over Christmas I was playing along with John Perry’s solos (the Only Ones). He’s a great, way under-rated player!!!! I think after 30 years I might have about 80% of his solo down on “Planet”!!!!!!
Sorry no new gear to report. Actually had to sell a couple of things last year to get by but that’s OK. Unfortunately my long-time guitar tech passed away last year so no mods to any guitars either.

Have you discovered any new bands lately that thrill you? Are you awaiting anyone's upcoming releases this new year?
I listen to a pretty good cross-section of musical genres. Have lots of recordings by contemporary bands (I’m lucky friends turn me on to so much stuff), but I also love to go back and listen to old folk, blues and jazz records. The one thing with being a songwriter and a guitar player is that a lot of time I’m either writing a new song or working something out on the guitar and cuts into the listening time. That said I’ve over the holidays and into the New Year I’ve been listening to an eclectic blend of recordings by the likes of Tame Impala, Charlie Parker, Wizz Jones, Jimi Hendrix, Calexico, Grant Green, Howlin’ Wolf, The Arctic Monkeys and The Walkmen.

Do you have any resolutions for 2010?
Love to get out and tour in 2010. Also want to release a really solid Memory’s Mystic Band CD out. We’ve been going though songs like crazy, recording lots and then kicking songs out trying to get a really solid set of songs together. I think at this point I’d like to lay down about five so six more songs (which would bring the recorded total up to about 20 songs) and then start picking the best tunes for an album.

Why is music so important to us? Getting a little philosophical, but we can get that way at this time of year!
You know, that is a really good question and a hard one to answer. In my case music really appealed to me when I was very young and it’s continued to be very important to me, whether I want it to be or not, throughout the rest of my life. Certain songs tend to mark certain periods of one’s life. When I hear certain songs they bring back certain memories and feelings: the places you’ve lived, the people you knew.
I think once you move from being a listener to being a songwriter it’s a difficult proposition because once you get into the flow of song writing it’s pretty much impossible to stop. I keep a $30.00 cassette player with a tape in it at all times as I know if I don’t capture an idea when it happens (and inevitably song ideas happen at the oddest times) it will probably slip away forever.
Have you read the John Lennon quote about songwriting? I think it’d be a good note to end on so here it ‘tis:

Songwriting… is like being possessed. You try to go to
sleep, but the song won't let you. So you have
to get up and make it into something… It's always in the
middle of the night, or you're half-awake or
tired, when your critical faculties are switched
off… Every time you try to put your finger on it, it
slips away.

Mr. Leigh Gregory, thank you so much, for giving me the pleasure of another interview. I am really happy to be able to present this to my like-minded music fans who appreciate music the way you and I do. We wish you the best, always.

Sisters Of Your Sunshine Vapor

2010-01-12T18:32:00.000-08:00

What an amazing name for a band. And yes, they make the music to fit the name, quite perfectly. What is said about this 3-piece band from Detroit, Michigan:
"(Sisters Of Your Sunshine Vapor are a) neo-psychedelic, glam-rock band, which has recently self-recorded, produced, and mixed an 8-song LP for free download. This 8-song LP "Sisters of Your Sunshine Vapor" incorporates spacey fuzz rock, cavernous reverb, haunting vocals, and a strong drum and bass backbone to lock it all together. The band draws on such influences as Spacemen 3, BRMC, T-Rex, and Joy Division."
Thank you Eric, for sending that to me and giving me the heads up on your band and its huge psychedelic sound, which is now drawing me into its world, happily. I do agree with that description, and I also add in that the vocals are reminiscent of The Black Angels, the guitars are huge, swarming, enveloping, and the songs are composed brilliantly. I will profile the band soon, but for now, get their free download HERE and if you are in New York City this coming weekend, GO SEE THEM AT LIT LOUNGE ON SATURDAY THE 16th OF JANUARY!

Sisters Of Your Sunshine Vapor on MySpace

Tokyo Raid ROCKS

2010-01-05T11:16:00.000-08:00

Tokyo Raid is a three-piece band from San Fransisco, California. Ben Utah sings and plays bass, Tim Kearney sings and plays guitar, and Mike Thompson plays drums. I came across the music of Tokyo Raid last summer, when I was following leads to good bands by finding out what ex-BJM members are doing (Dean Taylor was playing with Tokyo Raid predecessor The Mandarins a while back) when they leave The Brian Jonestown Massacre. Seeing Dean Taylor's name in The Mandarins, I listened to their songs, and they were some brilliant, catchy little rock songs, something I wanted more of, so I chased up the artist a bit more, finding that Mandarins main man Ben Utah had a band called Tokyo Raid. The songs playing on their MySpace player were from their EP Cleopatra. I wanted it, pronto. Did not find it, but did find their self-titled EP on iTunes. Indulgence and Source Inside, totally addictive songs with their fast, sharp drums and angular, punk-ish guitars. Dark Eyes, Battle of Seattle, and the biggest winner of that EP, Sunday Morning, a long, smooth charmer of a tune, make up Tokyo Raid's self-titled EP. Also now available from the band are a second EP titled When The Devil Calls, Tell Him To Take A Number, and 2 singles titled Let's Pretend We're Friends and 31, all worth getting, my friends. Great garage-style guitar rock, smart, energetic, and edgy.

I asked my favorite edgy guitar rockers a few questions, to see what Tokyo Raid have been up to:

How long have you been making music, and what different projects have you been involved with over the years? Other bands and solo stuff?

MIKE: Been playing music for 20 years this year. Had few bands in high school then formed The Big Nasty before college, played with them for 8 years, 4 of which were spent in Austin,TX. Then moved here and freelanced, then joined Midnight Strangers which led to my current stint in Tokyo Raid.

TIM: I started playing in bands in Washington, DC. The most notable were called Red Right Return and LBJ. I've also recorded some soundtrack work for some short indie films.

BEN: I’ve been in bands since I was 17. I was in a bunch of Seattle and San Francisco bands and I have done solo stuff.

Has Tokyo Raid become your main project now? Are you playing gigs around your home city of San Francisco?

TIM: TR is now my main project. Most SF clubs look down on bands that play too often within the City so we try to space out our local shows to every 4-6 weeks. We're now also playing more shows up and down the west coast.

MIKE: Yup.

BEN: TR has been my main project since 2004. We are looking forward to playing in other cities in 2010. When we were still called the Mandarins, we had an aborted Europe tour and I would love to correct that and start playing beyond the West Coast.

What is happening around your home city? Does it feel energized as far as music goes? Do you fit into a scene there?

TIM: There are a lot of scenes in SF but there seems to be decent cross-pollination between them. Tokyo Raid probably hovers somewhere between the SF garage rock crowd and the Oakland rock/punk crowd. Although it's common to find some gypsies, metal heads, and drum and bass fans at our shows.

BEN: I have never comfortably felt like I belong to one scene or another. I think there are a ton of things happening right now, but it’s so marginalized or splintered it is sometimes hard to see if anything is happening at all, until it does happen.

What kind of guitars/amps/gear do you use? (I love learning what my fave musicians use & enjoy playing on, and I think others enjoy this too)

MIKE: Ludwig drums, Paiste cymbals

TIM: I play a Gibson hollowbody electric guitar through a 1980's Marshall head that powers an Orange cabinet.

BEN: Since switching to bass, I am playing an Epiphone Jack Casady Bass through a bass big muff and into an Ampeg SVT-3 and out a Peavey Black Widow cabinet. It’s a hollowbody as well so it gets great growl and feedback.

What artists do you yourself enjoy?

MIKE: The Who, The Clash, Motorhead, Dropkick Murphys, whatever rocks...

TIM: Some regional bands I like are The DoDos, Bellavista and The Entrance Band.

BEN: I’ve been listening to a ton of Suicide, Joy Division and She Wants Revenge lately. I am digging everything from the Black Angels right now.

What is Tokyo Raid working on right now? Are there albums available to us yet, or will there be in the near future? What does 2010 hold for you and your projects?

TIM: We're about to release five or six songs we worked on over the Fall of 2009. The recording process took longer than expected so we've had time to write some new material while recording older songs. We'd like to crank out future songs faster using a more live recording style.

BEN: Tim’s right, we labored over most of 2009 on songs we were recording, it ended up taking more time than we expected. We should have two releases shortly…the new one plus back catalog stuff off of Cleopatra will be available online soon. Once that is available, all the EP’s will be up and online.

Is there a trip to NYC in your future?!

TIM: My last band played a show in Brooklyn a few years back. I've had the itch to visit NYC lately so it's ALWAYS an option!

BEN: I would love to get out to NYC.

Where can we find your music and more about the band?

BEN: You can find our music on iTunes and Amazon. We are on Facebook, Myspace, Reverbnation and our site tokyoraidband.com. Look for us there,

Much thanks to Ben, Mike, and Tim for taking the time to do this interview! You guys ROCK.

Man On The Moon

2010-01-03T13:10:00.000-08:00

Psychedelic folk music. Let's just say I absolutely adore this style of music. When a new artist making music that can be tagged as 'psychedelic folk' comes into my life, I need to share it, shout about it, and praise its creator(s) for bringing it to me. In the near future, I will write more about UK artist Man On The Moon, but for right now, go check out his MySpace page and have a listen to some songs, then go to his Last.fm page and download his album Without Dreams We Have Nothing. Minimal and smooth, the songs go down so easy, you might find yourself repeating, repeating, repeating........A truly enjoyable experience in psychedelic folk, friends.

Chatham Rise

2009-12-22T10:53:00.000-08:00

On the quiet side, introspective and lovely, Chatham Rise are working on music to make you love long winter nights. Based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where the winter nights are indeed cold and long, Chatham Rise are making songs with names like Here, Gone, and Air. Do you get a feeling instantly, just from hearing the song titles? The band's name, their song titles, and their artwork do convey a feeling before you even hear a note.
Chatham Rise's debut EP opens with Gone, a wistfully gorgeous piece of sound, which begins with strummed guitar and slightly sad vocals, then thunders into big guitar and drums. Autopilot uses tribal, pulsing beats to pull along the drone, and the chanting, ghostly vocals. Border Crossing is shoegaze at its finest: a calming, sweetly sad melody with barely-there vocals, just enough to warm you a bit. Fans of Chapterhouse and Slowdive will love Border Crossing. Here closes the EP with a sparse guitar, and almost no percussion, light vocals, and a feeling of hope and high, above the melancholy. This self-titled debut EP is self-produced by the band, and I am honored to have special copy of it in my collection. Sad yet uplifting, quiet yet inspirational, Chatham Rise indeed make you feel. Check them out on MySpace, friends.

Lucifer Sun

2009-12-18T12:23:00.000-08:00

UK artist Lucifer Sun makes music that can be seen as a study of opposing forces: light and dark, high and low, invigorating and calming, truth and secrecy. I find all of these elements in the songs of Lucifer Sun, and how they have been woven into the fabric of the sounds is something to be amazed by and appreciated. Long songs, sometimes VERY long, meander through a druggy haze, like a moment in time that seemingly lasts for hours and hours, are what comprise Lucifer Sun's debut recordings. The songs appear minimalist upon first listen, but command more listens with deeper inspection. I asked Chris and Tom, the members of Lucifer Sun, some questions to find out what lies behind the compositions they create, and what drives them to make their art.

You have so many diverse things that you cite as influences for your music and art, from wood to entheogens to road trips to William Burroughs. Can you tell me a bit more about how you see the world and how this drives you to create art?
Tom - Without sounding too negative we’re not really impressed with the way the world is today, and has been for a long time. The topics and values the majority of people have, seem to be pretty worthless to me, for the most part. The world is full of distractions to keep people happy while the bullshit is allowed to go on all around them.
It’s not all bad but I do wish more of the world would be switched on to more important issues, and would generally relax. The world feels like a very uptight place. Our world and the art we creative is in some way a release for us. A way to vent frustrations and tensions but also to glorify everything good and free-thinking. We’re constantly told that we live in a free world, but if you don’t fit into the boxes that the masses and society would like, then you do tend to feel it’s not quite as free as we’re all led to believe.
Chris - We get angry at how things are shown to us, drug laws, our 'rights' as human beings, the supposed 'freedom' we have in the west. The whole issue on how the media feeds us a particular line on a story, the story we are 'sold' about global warming, economics, etc. I think it's easy to get totally down about it all, but hidden among all this, there are great, beautiful things. I'm a strong believer that the use of entheogens and other substances can make you a better person. You know they open your mind, to how things really are on a far greater level than we could ever understand. The idea that we are insignificant and part of an ever-powerful, continual cycle of life. I think that's important. There are ancient cave paintings of mushrooms, man has been ingesting this stuff for thousands of years; we worshiped the sun, the idea that religions are essentially stories passed down over generations. Man worshiped the sun for a reason: without it we will die, it brings food, warmth etc. So it's kind of from those ideas how we approach our music, trying to create something that has a positive impact in some way on people.

I love how you write your blog entries. You come across as many things: educated and erudite, edgy and energetic, open-minded and ambitious, and of course, talented. What have you been working on lately? What types of medium are you using?
Chris - The blog is just stuff that I come across, stuff we've done. It makes much more sense to get it out in a public domain than have it sitting around, even if someone reads it, listens to the music, and doesn't like it. The Poppy Tea Demos are all hand made, stenciled using guitar body paint, and we are working with friends who are photographers, our drummer's at Art College, etc...
Tom - At the moment we’re trying to not tie ourselves down to simply writing songs in a bog standard conventional way. Right now we’re working quite well without having too many premeditated thoughts about what we’re about to play/write. We’re using visuals and ideas provided from other people and friends to create a really different feel about our music. Definitely working with other people is something we’re really interested to explore a lot more seeing as it expands the spectrum of the final piece.

The music you are making is definitely NOT for the masses, and that is a huge compliment. Your songs are long, and best appreciated loud and through headphones. The type of music fan who is going to appreciate what you are making, we are definitely a niche. That must be a great feeling! What are your thoughts on whom you want to reach with your music?
Tom - Who ever gets it really. We’re fully aware it’s not for everyone. Not everyone gets the concept of a song that last more than 3 or 4 minutes and has one or two chords throughout the entire piece. The music we make sounds the way it sounds and lasts as long as it lasts depending on how we’re all feeling when we’re playing it or recording it. It feels and sounds good to us and knowing other people enjoy hearing it is great. Previous bands we’ve played in have had a very rigid, certain number of bars, segmented sections…etc. With this band we wanted to be far more open and relaxed about just letting the songs play themselves in a way.
Chris - Yeah, You know I don't think I've ever really thought who I want to reach. Anybody and everyone. I don't want our music to be restricted. I want it to be enjoyed or hated by everyone.

Are you jamming when you record, or is everything planned out & executed precisely?
Tom - Right now a lot of the recorded stuff is very spontaneous and on the spot kind of thing. We don’t tend to write a whole song and then bring it to the rest of the band and say here this is how it goes. It’s either a rough idea, chord sequence or whatever, or we’ll just have a drum beat going that we dig and pretty much make it up as we go along and if we like the sound of it then it’ll make it to a song we keep.
Having said that, we are still in the early stages of this band and recording ourselves with what equipment we either own, or can get our hands on, so it’s pretty stripped down in both the recording equipment and our actual sound.
Chris - Recording our jams etc...is great cause we can use them as a springboard to work off...you know: that section is great, that part needs work...what the hell was going on in the last bar, that's shit, How can we improve on this, etc.

Amplifier Mantra is 16 minutes long. I absolutely love this. It’s so long, yet never bores, actually quite the opposite. It constantly intrigues me, right up until the end. It’s not complicated and intricate, but it has a vibe that I ride the entire time it’s playing. And Dopamine Blues (So Low), the clue in the name: SO LOW. I also love this. The sound for the first 4 ½ minutes is so low, is it even a sound? Then when the almost-blues-y guitar kicks in…….another amazing ride. What went into composing these songs?
Tom - Amplifier Mantra was another song written in another improvised situation. We usually setup some microphones and record our entire practice sessions just in case we come across anything we really like but might forget by the next practice. We actually didn’t manage to record the first time we played it due to some technical hitch which we were a bit pissed about, but we did our best to do it justice with the second attempted recording we do have. Aside from Come On, a lot of the recordings and songs are still in their very early stages and we’ve since written more lyrics and have various other ideas, adding more layers to songs and focusing on certain parts of the recording. It’s quite an interesting way to work because even when we’re really happy with a recording and we hear good things from other people who have listened, we know there is still more we can do with those songs as they evolve over time.
Dopamine was a really relaxed recording. Earlier in the day we’d recorded a couple of nice takes of The Year Of Our Death and Amp Mantra, and felt pretty good playing Dopamine, which has been around a little longer so it was a fairly confident take.
Chris - I've always been interested in drones and repetition in music, and creating a vibe on record or at a gig, etc...taking the listener on a journey. It's meditation, self healing. The fact that a lot of what we do is all improvised and comes from an initial chord or riff, interests me. You know, it's like on a higher level of understanding. Your role as an instrument within a band...when to come in, when to let the song move on. We've still got a lot to learn. It's interesting what you mention about Dopamine blues and the 'SO LOW' cause I've never noticed that myself: if you turn the volume up during that part, you can hear us playing. (Ed. note: YES, at very high volume, you hear music playing within the first four minutes, and it is sublime).
I like how the dynamics on that track are so wide, because I'm so fucking fed up of the massively compressed shit that we are forced to hear. It's all record company/radio driven and it's got to do with the "loudness wars". You know when you open up a track in some audio software and it just looks like a brick, where are the dynamics in music? The reason everyone goes on about how older recordings sound so great, is because there is dynamics in there:there's a vibe, they experimented with sound, they were concentrating on the performance, they let quirky things in, they had to make final decisions about the recording throughout the process. Now it's left to be fixed in the mix. The Poppy Tea Demos were recorded with two dynamic microphones capturing our sound in the room. The reflections off the walls. It's documentarist, archival. Your capturing a moment in time. How many mistakes do you hear in released recordings anymore? None at at large commercial level, that's for sure. It's like everyone's forgotten that it's OK for recordings to have a quirk to them. That's what makes music and recording so beautiful.

Also, I was just listening to Come On! Extended Mix, and it's at once soothing, and exhilarating. Like a hot shower while on Ecstacy. This song provides a feeling to get hooked on. What are your thoughts on that song?
Tom - I find it hard to put into words my thoughts and feelings about some of our songs. I know for me personally it’s more of a vibe and feeling that I get when we’re in the studio playing around with the song. I guess the song sounds the way it does depending on our emotions and the general vibe at the time of writing and recording. One thing I would say is that the sound of our songs definitely reflects the way we feel as people these days.
Chris - Definitely, it's almost a stream of consciousness way of working. The extended mix works with the idea that within every song lies a thousand new songs. It's all about the vibe, Meditation music.

You're in your early 20s? I assume you have been into music and art for much of your life? What artists do you listen to, and what authors do you enjoy reading?
Chris - Yeah, me and Tom are both 22 and our drummers 16. When I was 12 I started to get into guitar and I'd record stuff I've done on this huge black tape player, using an old headphone set as a microphone that I would gaffer tape to my amp or to the wall. I remember when I first watched A Clockwork Orange, Blade Runner. Those days are great because for the first time you're shown this whole world outside of anyone's control. You're not getting any edited or moderated versions from parents etc: you're free to explore all these paths. Tom spent years playing guitar, listening to old records, staying up all night just improvising, it's things like that, which later pay off. At the moment I'm listening to the Dead Skeletons, lots of stuff off Type Recordings, Singapore Sling. Reading William Burroughs - Naked Gun, Hells Angels by Thompson. Tom's got Velvet Underground's early demos on vinyl, I think it's just Reed and Cale, it's great. You can hear the sound of the apartment loft they were recording in.

What are you currently working on? Are you collaborating with anyone?
Tom - Just trying to get our thing together. We’re quietly confident and pleased with the material we’re coming out with so far, but we know there’s a lot, lot more to come as we hopefully expand the number of people we work with and play with. Having more musicians to add to the core group of Lucifer Sun is something we’re looking at doing when ever we come across the right people.

What projects lay ahead for Lucifer Sun in 2010?
Tom - Something we’re very much looking forward to doing is writing the music for a short film one of our good friends is making. This kind of thing really interests us. There is a huge difference between writing music for the purpose of itself and writing music to accompany another form of art.
We also plan to release a lot more stuff this year. Rather than taking too much time writing and recording we want to get as much material out there and heard as possible. The concept of an almost continuous flow of projects, art and music is what we’re looking to do. We’re making up the artwork for the new demo ourselves which we hope people will enjoy having as much as the music itself.
Another thing we’re looking to do is move into a work space unit where we can live and work on Lucifer Sun from and we think a lot more stuff will start happening once we sort that.
Chris - We're playing the Buffalo Bar on January 27th for Goo Nite. Otherwise, booking more gigs throughout the year. Like Tom said, working with our friend Wade on his film, he's very much an extra member of the band. I'd also like to do a series of recordings working with another friend of ours Per, Spoken Croatian vocals, with drones by us. It's exciting.

Exciting? Yes, I would definitely say what Lucifer Sun is doing is quite exciting indeed. They are true artists, and they are everything this little blog stands for. They are what is important and meaningful in music today. When you step away from the big-corporate-run machines, you find treasures like Lucifer Sun. I hope you all enjoyed this profile on the band as much as I enjoyed presenting it to you. Go listen to and experience Lucifer Sun, they are giving you their music to check out, you can NOT miss this opportunity to experience them:

Nibbana
Raw Meat Demo
Poppy Tea Demo

Watch and Listen on Youtube

Strangers Family Band

2009-10-15T08:23:00.000-07:00

The intriguingly dark & groovy sounds of Strangers Family Band have drawn me in. I have been playing their EP, Beware The Autumn People, a lot, found from reading the amazing all-psych-all-the-time blog Trip Inside This House. I mention these words 'dark & groovy', but there is soooo much more here, so much more. The seven songs that comprise this psychedelic gem of an EP have been crafted by five young men who have been musicians practically their entire lives, and came together two years ago as a complete band with the talent and desire to create songs that are as compelling as they are catchy.
The title track, Beware The Autumn People, kicks in with carnival-like keys, which slide into a stomp of drums and guitar reverb, and lazy vocals, slurred over the stomp. Strange Transmission, with its unmistakable Doors-vibe, is just brilliant: from the deep, slightly ominous, Morrison-style vocals, to the organ keys in the background, to the imagery of a spiral staircase leading you to a midnight splendor. This song meanders its way through image to image, hypnotically. Tangerine is two precious minutes of space cadets and sweet dreams, set to a lovely little organ melody. Wooden Hands is.....a mysteriously dark, unique, quite catchy....love song?? Not your ordinary love song, I assure you! Enochian is a spooky little minute of whispery effects over possibly a sermon. Girl I've Been Taken, with its sly-sounding vocals and little organ jam at the end is probably the grooviest slice of psychedelica I have ever heard. No One Sees Her comes on as a happy little jaunt, with horns over plucky guitars and light, bouncy drums, but still......something dark lurks in the background......
The members of Strangers Family Band seem to have been born to make music. Scott (bass) and Rick (guitar) are brothers who have been playing music as long as they can remember. Rick and Juan (who plays drums) played music together in high school, and Scott and Ates (vocals) became song-writing partners in college. Kevin, their bloody brilliant keyboardist, was the last addition to the Family, and completes it oh so well. The band name, well, that just seemed to fit perfectly as they are truly either blood or close enough to it, and strange indeed, intriguingly so.
Currently on heavy rotation in the Strangers' house is music that comes from some of the most creative minds of the 60s and 70s, albums that take you on theme-park rides through their concepts, albums by The Kinks, The Pretty Things, The Beatles, early Donovan, 13th Floor Elevators, and Syd-era-Floyd, to name just a few. Conceptually, Strangers Family Band is planning on taking us on their own musical-mind-trip beyond the Beware The Autumn People EP, with the full-length they are currently working on. Scott cites some interesting influences that go beyond even obscure psychedelica or concept albums: Balkan folk music and Carnatic music. This is one band who is so left-of-center, I have to admire and love it!
Somehow, Strangers Family Band take their talent and their love of so many different styles of creative, interesting music, and make their own quirky, hypnotic, darkly enthralling music. Besides the requisite drums, guitar, and bass, Strangers Family Band utilizes Hammond organ, sitar, electric sitar, ukulele, upright bass, quattro, and tablas. On the upcoming album, a multitude of local musician friends of the Family play guest. For now, go to their site and download Beware The Autumn People. What are you waiting for?! Go check out Strangers Family Band!
A big, warm thank you, to Scott from Strangers Family Band, for enlightening me about the band, and big thanks to the whole band for making this amazing psychedelic music and sharing it with us!

Pilot Cloud Plays Brooklyn

2009-10-10T15:44:00.000-07:00

Much to this fan's delight, Pilot Cloud made their way from Philly to Brooklyn on Friday night, October 9, to play a set at Bar Matchless. The set was forty minutes of the most blissful, heartbreakingly gorgeous shoegaze that you could possibly ever hear. I have been playing their album In Transition at home on my stereo for weeks now, and it did not even prepare me for how these songs translate to the stage. Equal parts blooming, soaring soundscapes, and subtle, quiet flutters, Pilot Cloud's songs both explode with force, and then calm the storm. Songs played were Dead Satellite, Leaf, Map, Star Redoubt (complete with the bird songs at the end, like on the album!), In Transition, Diaspora (not on the album, but available to listen to on their MySpace player), and the closer of the album closes their set: Ex Astris Scientia. Pilot Cloud is most certainly a band who have the talent to take their stunning recorded arrangements to the stage and make them better. That is quite a feat, and if you have been lucky enough to acquire the album In Transition and then see them live, I am sure you would agree.

The Flower Machine

2009-09-30T10:13:00.000-07:00

They dig balloons. And trampolines. And candy canes.
Take some time today and visit the musical world of The Flower Machine.
This is music for a sunny day. Or any day, for that matter.
I have been listening to their album pictured above, called Marmoset Meadow, and I keep thinking they are from England, but no, they hail from Los Angeles, possibly from another time, another dimension, here now to offer us some of the most acid-drenched psychedelic tunes I have heard thus far. Syd would be so proud.
Check out the tunes, and follow the links from their MySpace to further explore the psychedelic heaven that is Trip Inside This House's music blog. The Flower Machine have donated their sublimely sweet and infectious tune called Traveling By Trampoline to a not-to-be-missed compilation album you can download for free. The album's songs were compiled and made available to us by the creator of Trip Inside This House. I give him many thanks, as the songs from his Summer Solstice II compilation (there is also a Summer Solstice I, yes, from 2008) have been playing in my house and brightening up my days, for the better part of this week now. I hope you all find the time to grab your tambourine & enjoy the magical little cloud-world of The Flower Machine!

Pilot Cloud Takes Off

2009-09-14T10:37:00.000-07:00

Pilot Cloud is a duo from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Forgoing the typical four-piece band set-up, Nick Biscardi and Justin Lerner are doing it all themselves. On top of that, they are giving away the songs of their first album, In Transition (the lovely cover art is seen above). This is one give-away you cannot miss. I am a little late in finding out about this, as In Transition was completed in 2008, but thanks to some snooping around MySpace and following leads, I did find it, and I am in love with In Transition's lush, sweeping soundscapes and airy, sparse vocals.
With their musical beginnings sown in the form of the band Hans The Double, Justin and Nick paired off after that band split up in early 2008. What is important here, is that they felt the need to create their own original and exciting music, and now they are sharing it with us.

I asked the band a few questions, to get to know them a bit better:

So you are doing it! Making and producing and distributing your own music. I read that you guys did not actually plan this out, but rather it just came together, song after song till you had enough for In Transition to be a full album. I have brought your music to quite a few peoples’ attention, people from all over the world, and they all absolutely love it. Do you feel now, like you are gaining a bit of a fan base, a year after In Transition’s release?

When we had the album finished and ready to distribute, our only real M.O. was to submit to as many blogs as possible and see if anyone would run something on us. Things started to pop up here and there after that. A bunch of places just listed us as a band to check out, didn’t really say anything about us. As more people listened, the features started getting bigger.
With the internet, we’ve been able to pop up anywhere and everywhere. An Italian blog wrote a real nice review of the record. People on Last.fm started tuning in from places like Norway, Estonia, and all over the world.
Regarding an actual fan base, it’s been easier to connect to people playing shows. When we play, we have everything in front of us to let people get to know us. However, it’s been great to use the internet as a way to get a foot in the door. We just played in Columbus, OH where we’d only talked to one of the accompanying acts via email before the show, but by the end of the night we’d made at least ten new friends.

Have you guys always lived in Philly? How is the music scene of your hometown? Would you say there is a ‘scene’ there that Pilot Cloud fits into?

We’ve been scattered throughout the tri-state area. I, Nick, have spent my whole life living in different suburbs of Philadelphia and now live in Bryn Mawr, PA. Justin grew up in New Brunswick, NJ, went to school in Delaware, and now lives in Philadelphia.
There’s not a tight-knit scene that Pilot Cloud is in with, but there’s definitely some interesting psychedelic, ambient, and shoegaze bands in and around the area like Arc in Round, Cloud Minder, Streaks of Light, and Ports of Call. If there’s any organization amongst bands, we certainly haven’t been privy to it. We spent most of 2008 immersed in basements writing “In Transition”, so we’ve adapted to the hermit lifestyle, but we would definitely love to be able to be a part of a handful of bands that have themselves together to essentially create a scene of our own
.
What kind of guitars/amps/other instruments do you guys use? What is the key to bringing an expansive sound such a Pilot Cloud’s to the stage with just 2 people?

We wouldn’t really say there’s much of a trick to us having such a big sound. Justin plays an Epiphone Les Paul guitar through a Vox AC15 amp. I play Gretsch drums and Zildjian cymbals. Nothing major there. The real key is that we play alongside the bass tracks and supplementary guitar layers onstage. We’re not playing more, it just sounds like we are. The guitar layers are likely what do the trick.

Have you always been involved in music? What are your inspirations?

We’ve each been playing our respective instruments since the late 90s. With the difference in age between us (Justin is 28, I am 21), it has taken up more of my life than Justin’s. I took up drums at age 9 after a failed stint at trumpet, while Justin took up guitar likely to impress girls when we went off to college.
Both of us stay motivated and inspired by the music we like. Pilot Cloud started out of wanting to make music we would want to hear. We knew why we liked the bands we did, and we thought we could put our own hat in the ring to stand alongside music we already listened to.

You are coming to New York City in October, where you most definitely fit into a scene! The shoegaze, psychedelic, and noise-rock scene is vibrant, and alive with young artists who are getting out there with their bands and making amazing music. Is this your first time in New York and are you excited? Do you follow any New York City bands, or are you friendly with anyone here?

We’ve played New York before in previous bands, and it’s definitely still exciting to come up to Brooklyn. We’re friends with Brooklyn-band The Party Faithful (Justin went to college with their bassist), and they actually helped us pin down this show in October. Through prior bands, we’ve come across some real cool acts like The Press, Gold Streets, and Moving Mountains (from Purchase, NY).

When you are done touring to support In Transition and have given away all your copies of it (I still think it’s worth a TON of money!), what is next for Pilot Cloud?

We surpassed a lot of our own expectations since we released “In Transition”. We toured behind it, made some cool new friends, got some kind reviews, and even had some money tossed our way. Unfortunately, the physical copies of the record are disappearing before we can order more pressings. We’ve gone through close to 300 free copies since last Christmas.
But all that being said, we have really missed the writing process over the last year, so we’re going to get working on a follow-up EP to “In Transition”. We’ve written one new song (which has been assimilated into the live set) called “Diaspora”. Beyond that, we’ll just have to wait and see what happens.

Thanks to Nick for the interview! And thanks to Pilot Cloud (check their MySpace and listen to some tunes from In Transition) for the amazing music. Pilot Cloud's songs are songs that reveal more and more with each subsequent listen. Upon first listen, Leaf, Map, Sounds of an Era, and the title track all sound like the perfect mid-to-up-tempo shoegaze-style compositions, but keep listening. The real charms of the songs are to come, and that is the mark of some quality song-writing and talented arranging.

More to come in the very-near future about Pilot Cloud, after they come visit New York City for their gig with their friends The Party Faithful, next month!

Black Market Karma Interview and News

2009-08-11T16:38:00.000-07:00

About a year ago, I heard a song called Pulling Shapes by a new band from England, called Black Market Karma. That song, and the companion song they had set to play, called It's Gone, were like nothing I had ever heard before. And even though I still love those songs like no others, Black Market Karma has come a long, long way since then.
I wanted to know what Black Market Karma have been up to this past year, and Stan, their singer and guitarist, was kind enough to let me know. Here are his answers to my latest ten questions:

You have a new member in the band now? Who is he and how did this come about?
Yeah, Sam’s just joined and we’re a 5 piece now. We’d been looking to get a new member for a while. We like to get a lot of textures and sounds into our recordings, but we couldn’t quite pull off all the parts live without another player. We needed things like extra percussion, keys and also a 3rd guitar on some tunes. Sam’s been a good friend of the band for a while now and he’s a good musician. I was jamming with him one day and it just clicked in my head; “Why don’t we get him I the band?” We broke him in with 4 gigs in 3 days and that was it. He fit in with us instantly, it’s been pretty cool.
I have seen all of the videos you post on YouTube. Are all of these songs recorded for your upcoming album?

Yeah, pretty much all those tunes are recorded / half way done or “to be recorded.”

How is the summer festival tour going? Which festivals have you played? Which was your favourite?
Summer’s been ace. So far this year we’ ve played Create festival, T-fest and Lounge on the Farm. We had a great time at lounge, proper good fun. We turned up on the Friday and camped till Monday morning, playing Sunday evening and just generally digging the festival lifestyle in-between. We were buzzing all weekend and the gig itself was top drawer, got a real good turn out. We’re looking forward to being on the bill for that again next year. As for this year we’ve got one more festival this weekend which is a Woodstock 69 tribute just outside Paris and we’re all pretty psyched about it. There’s a truckload of 60’sesque bands heading down so it should be awesome.
Whom have you been gigging with?
We’ve been all over the shop with gigs, and to be honest I forget most of the bands we play with. One group that stood out for me were Daylight Frequencies, the Horrors' new tunes were good too when they played at LOTF. The Pale Blue Eyes are another good band too.
How is the song-writing, the recording, and the production of your music going? Is the debut full-length nearly ready to be released?
It’s going swimmingly. We’ve got around 2 and a half tunes left to record so it’s on track! Once we’ve got the artwork sorted we can send it off to be pressed and we can start getting it out there.
It seems you have had a pretty exciting year! How has this past year shaped your music?

I’d say doing so many gigs has changed the music a bit. When you’re playing the same tunes every night you start to improvise to keep it fresh and some really good stuff has come from that. All the sound-checks have given us time to jam together too and a few new song ideas have come out that way.

Dami is quite a dancer. Did he train professionally?! Who else in the band can dance like that?!
To be honest, I think he just looks at himself in the mirror doing dance moves and that’s where that came from. I can’t dance for shit. The only other guy that could have the potential to dance is Sam, cos he’s half Spanish. It’d be cool if he could Flamenco Dance, but I ain’t seen evidence of it yet.
What guitars have you added to your collection lately?
We recently trekked it to Manchester and picked up an Epiphone Elite Riviera 12 string guitar (I think that’s the full name). It sounds mega and we’ve already used it live a few times and on the new recordings. It’s a beast.
What bands would you faint if they asked you to be their touring partners for the next 3 months?

I’m not sure I’d faint over anyone really, not my style! I’d love to play with the BJM or Black Rebel though. I reckon we’ d go down pretty well with the Warlocks or the Black Angels, too? If the Velvet Underground were still about, that’d be awesome, ha!

What do you have planned for the rest of 2009, and looking even more forward, for early 2010?
The initial plan is to get the album finished and out there. After that we’re just gonna plug it everywhere and get it heard as much as possible. We’ll see what happens!

Thanks for taking the time to update us, Stan. Keep on, you've got a lot of fans waiting for that album!

Oblisk: Album and Gig Review

2009-08-07T12:13:00.000-07:00

Oblisk, a band from Detroit, Michigan, has released their second album, titled Weather Patterns, and are in the midst of touring to support this amazing piece of work. I got the chance to see the band perform in Brooklyn at one of the best small places to see live music, Public Assembly. I also got my copy of Weather Patterns, which is now on heavy rotation.
Oblisk's debut album, 2008's Tune In/Tune Out, was a ride through back streets, late at night, not knowing what lay around the dark corners, feeling a bit nervous to find out. The songs had a jittery quality paired with vocals that were a bit moody and hollow, just enough to make you wonder what the ghosts were, and this made for an engrossing debut album. Now with Weather Patterns, Oblisk keeps some elements that are signature: the deep, ghostly vocals and the themes of situations unknown and a bit dangerous and disturbing, but the instrumentation has grown to include layers of guitars that create waves of sound that swell to intense highs. The drumming is tighter, less skittish now, and the bass lines, though also retaining a signature Oblisk sound, are deep enough to be the undertow you must watch out for within those waves. On Radar uses some shoegaze-style-guitar feedback perfectly. Epicenter picks up the pace to a frenzy of post-punk style guitar, reminiscent of Wire. Silent Passenger utilizes the undertow of bass to carry the song, which tells of a chance, and of course, possibly dangerous, encounter with a stranger. The psychedelic reverb of the guitar on Overcast is perfectly paired with a choppy drum that stomps its way through the song.
Oblisk live is something you should see if you live near the cities along the Eastern half of the U.S. where they are currently touring. On Radar, Tunnel of Phoenix, and Overcast are phenomenal live. Nick Baran's an ace guitarist, really something to watch. Check out Oblisk on MySpace to see if they are coming to a city near you, and buy Weather Patterns. If you liked Tune In/Tune Out, you will really love Weather Patterns. The production is tops (album was produced by Isaac Betesh from House Of Fire), the songs are guitar-heavy trips to nowhere and back, and the CD artwork is simple, yet perfectly represents what this album is all about (very nice work, Dave).

SOREN WELL: EP and gig review

2009-07-02T06:43:00.000-07:00

Well I have in my hands, and in my stereo, the 'advance limited copy' of Soren Well's first EP, and this is a real thrill. The music Soren Well has been honing during the recent months, has taken on life, and formed an expansive, explosive sound that already impressed me when all I had was the songs they posted on their MySpace player. I found their MySpace page while searching out New York City bands who play gigs with other bands that I know and love. Since I was really enjoying those songs, I made it over to see Soren Well play a gig that was almost a one-night shoegaze/noise-rock fest at Public Assembly in Brooklyn (on June 27, 2009): six bands playing from 7 pm till 1 am, all big-guitar-effects bands who can blow your mind with their intensity and creativity.

Soren Well play music that definitely can be described as shoegaze, but I also like to add to that sort of generic tag, that Soren Well have what bands like The December Sound and A Place To Bury Strangers have: a way that they layer their guitars and vocals that gives their music a slightly darker, shivery feel. There is a haze of gauzy guitar in the background, with the lead guitar topping the songs with the defining highs. Throw in some excellent, powerful drumming, and some vocals, that not unlike Zack Sarzana's from The December Sound, sit just atop the highs of the lead guitar, and you have a set of songs that are sometimes hypnotic, sometimes a bit evil, always intriguing.

The six songs on Soren Well's self-recorded, self-produced, and self-distributed debut EP are pure bliss, a necessary fix for a shoegaze addict like myself. After begins the set of songs and gets slammed by the rumbling rhythms and wild guitars of Starry Eyes Gone Blank Tonight (quite a poetic song title), and Soren Well use that perfect pair of songs live, too, as their set closers. Two songs played live but not on the EP are Ghostbear and The Devil Is Always Winning, both fantastic. And don't let Soren Well fool you into thinking their music is of the sedative style, as you might think by reading their MySpace (influences: Ambien and Nyquil); rather, their music soars to some serious heights. Well, maybe Plaster will sedate you, just a little bit, but Black Transmissions will wake you right back up again, before Glass throws you straight into the wall. You'll love every second of Soren Well, I promise you that.

Interview with Leigh Gregory

2009-06-17T07:27:00.000-07:00

I am quite pleased to be able to post this very special entry, an interview with the one and only Leigh Gregory. You might know him as the main creative force behind Mellow Drunk, but he is also quite an accomplished solo artist, focusing on performing and recording acoustic folk rock songs. Beyond that, he still finds the time to collaborate with other musicians, both onstage and on record. For those fans in the San Fransisco area, Leigh is out and about a lot, so bookmark this page, check on it often, and go see him!
Mellow Drunk makes music that I hold near and dear to my heart. I am never not in the mood for Mellow Drunk songs, and each song is its own lovely little individual gem, no song sounding like another, each song layered with lots of guitars, catchy melodies, and Leigh's distinctly breathy vocals. It's Leigh's style of singing that makes his songs so easily identifiable: at the same time cool and understated, and yet energetic enough to add the final strengthening tie to wrap each song up, the perfect little musical gift, from Leigh to us.
As a gifted songwriter and sought-after collaborator, Leigh Gregory is obviously quite busy, always, so it was a thrill for me when he graciously agreed to answer some questions. He's been interviewed many times before, so I tried to probe him with a few different questions, after I asked about his current projects and work, of course! Here they are:

You are currently finishing a solo project (which I am quite excited to hear), an album called 1973. How will this be different from other projects you have created over the years, such as Mellow Drunk albums or your two previous solo albums?

Well, the people that have heard 1973 have mentioned it has more of an Always Be Drunk vibe to it, I suppose ‘cos I played lots of the instruments on it. However, just about everyone from Mellow Drunk and the solo recordings contributed to 1973 so it’s kind of nice to have just about everyone I’ve worked with on one CD. 1973 is a full-on story CD about a boy growing up in the year 1973 so the songs are arranged for a whole band. Both Patrick Harte and Sean DeGaetano (who both played with Mellow Drunk) are playing drums on the songs, then Daniel Dietrick from Mellow Drunk is playing bass so you’ve got two of Mellow Drunk’s rhythm sections (one from Never Sleep at Night and one from One Thousand Lights) on all the tunes.

I've spoken to some musicians who tell me most of their songs just seem to write themselves. How do you go about crafting your songs?

That ‘tis true. Lots of times songs do just write themselves and that’s magical. However, that’s not always the case. Sometimes I’ll just think up titles for songs and maybe a rough lyric, then let the music reflect whatever the title suggests. 1973 was sketched out in a bar while I was having a drink before heading off to a non-alcohol vegan restaurant in San Francisco. I wrote down about twenty-five titles and then started writing songs around those titles. To advance the story along I figured the recording should ultimately have twelve songs to reflect the twelve months of the year and that the main character who is growing up in the year 1973 would go though a change into maturity by the end of the CD.
As far as the folk stuff goes the challenge for me is presenting a song in a very minimal setting (vox and guitar) that can reflect either an emotion state (melancholy to euphoria), a time of day, or maybe a season or month of the year. I remember I was lying on the couch last September, warm late afternoon sun coming in though the blinds, light reflecting off our green carpet, sounds of the outside world coming in and I just felt like I wanted to try and capture that somehow in a song. Well, I actually wrote a poem instead but that’s what I’m after in the folk recordings, if that’s possible.

Do you have a most favorite Mellow Drunk song? A most favorite Leigh Gregory song?

Well… tough one there. From a fan stand point Angela and Where the Time Goes are probably the most well-known and requested Mellow Drunk songs. Steven Cavoretto and I were doing a late night set at the Plough & the Star Pub here in SF last Wednesday and sure enough someone requested Angela right off. I haven’t played Where the Time Goes live over the past year because as a stripped back song it gets a little bit long. I guess they are also my two favorites from Always Be Drunk, though I’ve always liked Long Drawn Sunday Night (the cover of the Orchids song) and I still play that just about every time during the acoustic set. I reckon my fav song from Never Sleep at Night is Shone on Everyone. Maybe my fav song from One Thousand Lights is Everything & Nothing.
My favorite Leigh Gregory song is Rainy Season Never Ends.

What types of guitars do you play? Which one is your favorite to play?

I’m somewhere just below a guitar geek so this question could take a long time to answer!!! Briefly, live for the acoustic stuff I usually play a cutaway acoustic made by a guy named Yuris Zeltins. I bought it from my guitar teacher in 1976 and have had it ever since. It’s pretty worn in at this point so I don’t have to worry about it getting beat up. I also have a beautiful pre-war Santa Cruz OM acoustic that I record with. That guitar has become too valuable to take out live very often though, but it plays really nicely. I used my 60 Re-issue Les Paul (how else are you going to go for the Mick Ronson thing??) for most of 1973, but I always pretty much play my Telecaster for the more recent band stuff. I think a Telecaster is my fav guitar. Love them because they are so simple and if one is a singer it’s so easy to control the volume with your little finger to turn up for solos and down when one is singing. Oh, yeah, I didn’t mention that I’ve been working with a new band!!! Post-Memory’s Mystic Band… can’t say I haven’t been busy!!!

When you began making music for Mellow Drunk, did you have any goals in mind about what you wanted to achieve? Have you achieved those goals?

You know, I didn’t really have any specific goals. I’d recorded god knows how many songs on my four-track between, say 1996 and 1998, and it dawned on me that I could do a full-on CD, so I got an ADAT from my friend Rick Wilson (who was a recording engineer at Black Eyed Pig Studios) and started working up the four-track songs to eight tracks then to CD. I think it was around that time that I did a Steve Kilbey cover (Pretty Ugly, Pretty Sad) for what was suppose to be a Church covers CD and from there I really decided to do Always Be Drunk. At that point I just did a bunch of tracking at home on the ADAT, then I’d go into the studio to do the drums. My friend Jeff Crandall had moved to Minneapolis and we’d get together several times during the course of the year back then so we did the drums, cello and his backing vocals at a studio there, then I’d run the tapes to Rick Wilson and we’d combine my home tracks with the tracks we’d recorded in Minneapolis to put together the record. I’m still making music so I suppose I’ve achieved something but I’m still very much unfulfilled and would like to do much more as far as recording and touring goes.

What are some of the bands YOU listen to and enjoy today? Are there any new artists you really love, and is there anyone you feel a kinship with, music-wise?

Well, I kinda go back and forth across the musical spectrum as I feel like I’m a folk as well as alt-rock guy. Currently I’ve been trying to write a lot for the new as yet unnamed project so I haven’t been listening to as much music as I was about a month ago. That said, on the acoustic side of things I’ve been on a Wizz Jones, Mississippi John Hurt, Towns Van Zandt kick over the past few months. On the rock side I’ve been listening lots to Untitled #23, esp. since the Church are touring and we’re going to catch them a couple of times, then, probably because I’ve seen them live of late, been listening to the new Neko Case CD and the new Doves CD. Also recently saw the Walkmen and they completely blew me away. Their new CD You & Me pretty much to me achieves the nearly impossible: as a contemporary band they actually have their own unique sound. I was also diggin’ the new Peter Doherty CD but I fear I’ve mis-placed it!!!!
I really don’t know with whom I share a kinship with music-wise at this point in my life. Seriously I’ve no idea. One artist who probably isn’t that well known in the United States who really impresses me is Ned Collette, a young man from Melbourne, OZ. I’ve esp. had his CD Jokes & Trials in pretty heavy rotation for over a year now.

I know you are working on yet another project, other than Mellow Drunk or your solo music. Can you give a sneak-peak of what we can look forward to when you are ready to release that?

I did a series of concerts last year with a project called Memory’s Mystic Band, which was essentially a revolving group of friends taking some of the acoustic songs to a more electric setting. Of late I’ve been working with a four piece electric band (guitar, bass, drums and keys) and if that can get off the ground I hope to be playing out again by late August. In that band I’m much more concerned with being an electric guitarist again and trying out some more unpredictable stuff. Don’t know… maybe somewhere between Television and the early Triffids??? Leonard Cohen meets Love??

Do you have any plans for any kind of tour to support some of this new music you're creating? I'm hoping you'll come back to New York, hint hint!

O… I’d love to come back to NYC anytime to perform. I had Sean and Steve, along with Ville Vilpponen, with me last spring playing in New York and Ville (who’s playing bass in the new project along with his brother Jaakko on drums) and I were just taking the other day about what a blast it was to play NYC. I hope to be back soon – promise!!!!

And lastly, what female singer do you think you might sound great singing with?

You know thinking that one over I’d love to do a duet with Natasha Khan. Whatcha think??? Don’t know the new CD very well but saw Bat for Lashes a couple of times on their first US tour and she’s great!!!!

Leigh, I would definitely agree on that last answer! I love Natasha's voice and her creativity with her music, and I am a big fan of her second album, the new one, Two Suns. You are spot on with that thought: the two of you would make mind-blowing music.

A million thanks to Leigh Gregory for doing this interview. Time for me to go play some Mellow Drunk CDs. Never 'not in the mood' for that.

Spirit Vine

2009-06-05T06:52:00.000-07:00

A new band out of Los Angeles, Spirit Vine, has captured the essence of the peace and love movement of the late 60s. From the moment I heard their contribution to the Psyilocybin Sounds compilation Open Your Mind, a song titled 1122, I felt an overwhelming feeling of joy, relaxation, and a general sense of well-being envelope me. As the song went on, so did the lovely feelings it evokes. So the song 1122 went on repeat.

Now as I listen to all of the songs Spirit Vine has put to play on their MySpace, I want to share them with my fellow psycho-nauts. Jacquelinne has the voice: soulful and introspective. Gabriel sometimes sings with her, creating the male-female vocal stylings that give shivers. I could listen to this all day. Spirit Vine has their own blog which does say the magic words I love to hear: they are working on recording a full-length album. Soon, the magical, mystical songs of the Spirit Vine will be available for purchase on a CD. Check them out now; begin the journey. Leave the worries of the world outside for a moment. Find your psychedelic soul within these songs.

The Lucid Dream

2009-06-04T08:26:00.000-07:00

Another band that appears to be rather new & unknown, The Lucid Dream, from the UK, has caught my attention. One of their songs, called Love In My Veins, is a highlight from the compilation album Open Your Mind (Psyilocybin Sounds). Actually, I should say, Love In My Veins is a highlight amongst an entire album full of highlights, a true psychedelic shining star! You can hear that song along with some other sweet psychedelic tunes on The Lucid Dream's MySpace song player. And while you are there, pay close attention to Hits Me Like I'm Stoned. That song may turn out to be something future fans of the band seek out as a special and rare find. I am quite happy to say I have it my collection of "songs by new, but already loved, psych bands".

Since I don't live in the UK, I can't have the pleasure of seeing The Lucid Dream perform, but I am enjoying listening to the songs they have recorded already and I hope to hear soon, that they are working on an album. I consider The Lucid Dream one of the crop of new artists who are taking one of the best styles of music (fuzzed-out psychedelic drone) and expanding upon it in exciting ways. I have read some write-ups comparing The Lucid Dream's music to that of Spacemen 3, Verve, and The Jesus and Mary Chain. Personally, I hear a bit of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and my good friend hears a bit of Spiritualized tucked in there. These are all comparisons to be proud of. If you live in the UK and are a fan of festivals, check the details of The Lucid Dream's summer festival dates on their MySpace page, and go see them perform! I wish I could!

photo credit: Lucy Johnson

Rocking Horse People

2009-05-28T06:34:00.000-07:00

Rocking Horse People is a band from Los Angeles. From what I can see, they are very much under-the-radar, but completely up my alley. I seek out bands who are active today but sound like yesterday. I love bands who are all about that sunny psychedelic vibe. Rocking Horse People is one of those bands. The few songs I have found by them are all fantasticly jangly, bright psych/garage rock. I think it's safe to assume they do not have an album out yet, and only play gigs around their homebase of LA, but I will be the first in line if they do put together an album. Rocking Horse People have contributed a song called Lost In The Haze to the amazing compilation All In The Mind; a song called Already Dead to the follow-up compilation in that Psyilocybin Sounds series, Turn On Your Mind; and a song called Cirlce Gets The Square to the third in the series, Open Your Mind. They currently have two brilliant little gems on their MySpace player, called Piano Song, and On and On. I have managed to find a few more songs by Rocking Horse People, and needless to say, I was excited, as those songs are just as lovely as the songs on their player and on the compilations. I hope to hear more about this band, and more FROM this band, soon. Keep rocking, Rocking Horse People, and know that you have already have a big fan in New York!

Black Market Karma's Untitled Masterpiece

2009-05-09T16:18:00.000-07:00

The video for the as-of-yet-untitled song which will be on their forth-coming album:

The Young Sinclairs at Pianos, NYC

2009-05-05T07:29:00.000-07:00

A more-than-perfect opener for The Lovetones, The Young Sinclairs not only impressed me, but won me over almost instantly as a new fan. This extremely talented young band plays a kind of retro-style rock and roll that seems to be making a resurgence with some artists I follow and admire lately. The Young Sinclairs have a name that brings to mind a decade past, and they have the songs to back that name up. With the familiar & enticing twang of a Rickenbacker filling the room at Pianos, The Young Sinclairs began their set with a song called Keep Them Paul, which like all of their songs, is a short one, and a bloody brilliant one. Since their songs are all around three minutes long, they got to play 12 songs for us and I fell in love over and over again with each song they played.
The Young Sinclairs are a five-piece band from Roanoke, VA, and are also members of a music-and-art collective called The Magic Twig Community. I mention this because John, the band member I spoke with after their set, told me that the guys I just saw perform that jangly, twangy, early 60s-style guitar rock and roll were all part of different projects back in their home base of Roanoke. This particular grouping from the collective, The Young Sinclairs, features John, Sam, Jonathan, Sean, and Daniel. By only reading the song titles, you might get the idea that these guys are a bit combative: titles like Push Down On You, I'll Get Even, and Tough Face may seem out of place for the actual sound of the band. But these songs are short and sweet, melodically strummed, and lovingly sung (much of the time in harmony). Songs are also accented with keys from a Moog.
Since their set was so much fun, I bought 4 of the whimsically-decorated albums The Young Sinclairs were selling (for a newer band, they certainly have recorded a lot of albums): Feel Bad, Tough Face, Indian Winter, and O Bummer. They will be for sale on The Young Sinclair's MySpace page very soon. And if you live near NYC, catch them at Death By Audio on June 20, or Cake Shop on July 22.

The Lovetones play Pianos, NYC

2009-05-04T06:33:00.000-07:00

I adore The Lovetones. To have the chance to see them perform in front of me at Pianos, in New York City, was an enormous joy, and I should admit,

quite an honor.

The music of The Lovetones has reached the far corners of the world, and the four albums they have recorded and released since 2002 have made quite an impact. Matt Tow has a knack for crafting songs that may have identifiable influences (like say, The Beatles, or The Byrds, or Oasis), but retain their precious individuality. No Lovetones song sounds like another. Each is its own little four-minute-gem. When The Lovetones took the stage at Pianos and began playing Mantra, from their album Meditations, I felt a bit weak in the knees; it was just thrilling to see one of my favorite songs performed so perfectly right in front of me. When they played Wintertime In Hollywood, I got a bit choked-up: this song is simple in thought, yet absolutely stunningly composed. Wintertime In Hollywood is someone saying 'I'm far away from you now, but only in miles, my love.' Rob Campanella played the slide guitar on Wintertime, and seeing him up there playing guitar and keys for The Lovetones was almost unreal. These guys are amazing musicians, just a joy to watch.

The Lovetones' full setlist for the night was 14 songs long, and included most of my favorites from their catalogue; however, due to time constraints, they had to cut it down to about 9 songs. Matt Tow and the band did get to extend a few of the songs; the jam on Navigator gave me chills. Love and Redemption, Inside A Dream, Everybody Hides Away, Journeyman, all played to perfection by Mr. Matt Tow (on a rare and obviously-cherished Vox Ultrasonic), Mr. Rob Campanella (on 3 different guitars, including ANOTHER Vox, and also keys), Mr. Matt Sigley (on a Fender bass & also on keys & vocals), and a phenomenal guest-drummer (I unfortunately did not catch his name).

I will go on record as saying The Lovetones were the BEST band I ever saw perform. I wish them the best for the rest of their tour, and once again I tell them: You are loved in New York, and thank you for coming here!

The Lovetones in New York

2009-04-29T12:40:00.000-07:00

On May 1, 2009, Mr. Matt Tow and his band, The Lovetones, are playing a lovely little Manhattan venue called Pianos. This promises to be a very special show for anyone from the New York City area who loves The Lovetones like I do. I don't think the Australian band makes it to New York very often. For the recent release of their album Dimensions, they have planned a month-long tour for U.S. fans. The short tour does include 2 New York City shows, though, and I plan on going to one of them and posting a review and some photos here.

The Lovetones are just one of Matt Tow's musical endeavors. Over the years, he has created and produced music for his varied projects, from the experimental and stunning sounds of Colorsound, to The Lovetones' jangly, Lennon-esque, rock and roll. Most Lovetones fans will know that Mr. Tow spent some quality time with The Brian Jonestown Massacre, who themselves just took a tour of the U.S. In certain enlightened circles, The Lovetones are respected and loved, as they deserve to be. I feel especially lucky to be able to see their first gig of this tour.

If you only know The Lovetones in name or maybe just a few songs, check their lovely website for more information and their discography.

Truth = Beauty, and Beauty = Truth

2009-04-20T11:15:00.000-07:00

To paraphrase a very famous saying, Truth, the brand-new 6 song CD release from New York's Dead Leaf Echo, is most certainly beauty, and love, wrapped up in a swirl of shoegaze-style dream-guitar........the theme of the 6 songs is easy to understand: Truth, do you seek it? Is it even there for you to find? The more you want it to exist, and the harder you look, the more obscure truth becomes until it vanishes all together......
Awash in dreamy layers of sound, Dead Leaf Echo's songs do not follow an old tenet of shoegaze-style artists: let the words blend in with the music, as another instrument might do. Instead, LG's lyrics are understood to be as integral a part of Dead Leaf Echo's music as any guitar riff might be. Act of Truth, released ahead of the album, is the perfect song to represent the entire set of six: at once conveying longing, caring, strength, and the ongoing search for what gets lost between us but remains infinitely important to us.

Dead Leaf Echo on MySpace

Black Veil Take On New York City

2009-04-01T06:19:00.000-07:00

Black Veil on MySpace

Garage rock & rollers Black Veil are in the process of getting their act together in my beloved city of New York. The roots of this band lay in Hastings, in a flat rented by Jack and Luke, where the two honed their skills learning Stones songs on the guitar. After mastering their idols' music from the 60s, and feeling confident and ready to take on the London music scene, they moved there to begin the hard work that comes with the territory of starting your own band. Lousy day jobs, lots of different band members, some different band names, all the usual dealings of an up-and-coming, do-it-yourself-and-keep-it-real band, were the early experiences of the boys in December's Children, the name they adopted so they could gig properly.
After, shall we say, many ups and downs, starts and stops, and more lousy flats were under their belts, the boys split up, Luke staying in London and Jack making a daring move to New York City. The young Englishman in New York is currently getting his musical act together with Black Veil, his new band. Worthy of the buzz in the garage-rocker's circle, Black Veil are currently recording an EP to showcase their roots-y, Brian-Jones-Stones-era-tinged rock and roll for us. I highly recommend you check out their MySpace songs, where you can hear Black Veil's simple and charming demos, some with lyrics, some intrumentals. I'll be updating in the future on Black Veil's whereabouts, doings, CD releases, and gigs I may get to see.

Brilliant new video from Black Market Karma

2009-03-28T20:20:00.000-07:00

It's Gone, from Black Market Karma's debut EP, Psychedelic Circus, an Introduction. Amazing song & a video that should make professional film-makers hate themselves for not making it:

Got 7 Minutes?

2009-03-01T19:31:00.000-08:00

BEST 7 minutes you will spend today................