Jane's Addiction - Been Caught Stealing

 #Jane's Addiction #Perry Farrell #Dave Navarro #alternative rock #hard rock #heavy metal #alternative metal #funk metal #neo-psychedelia #psychedelic rock #1990s #music video

A Deep Dive Into Jane’s Addiction’s Video For Been Caught Stealing

Heroin is a hell of a drug, and Jane’s Addiction really, really liked heroin. Not all of them – the drummer stayed off it – but three out of four of them really got heavily into heroin. Miraculously, considering how many of their contemporaries in the early '90s alternative music world ended up dead, they all made it, but the band didn’t. At their peak, in 1991, they split up – drugs, madness, egos and partying took their toll and they called it a day. If they hadn’t, the '90s rock world could have looked very different – so many bands were influenced by Jane’s Addiction that it’s hard to wonder what might have happened if they’d stuck around. That’s all in the future though. Right now it’s 1990 and an LA supermarket doesn’t know what’s about to hit it… Let’s dive on in.

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Dave Navarro has looked extremely different over the course of his career. These days he’s the impeccably-groomed host of a tattoo show, with millimetre-perfect facial hair and flawless eyeliner, but in the early Jane’s Addiction days it was all scruffy dreadlocks and loads of drugs.

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A shot of the band sat unenthusiastically on these rides was on the front of the single.


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Here’s the star of the video, whose identity has sadly been lost to time (or would take more research than we have been able to do).

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That barking is Farrell’s dog Annie. "I'd got her from a dog shelter and she was quite needy, so I brought her down to the studio that day rather than leave her at home,” Farrell later recalled. “I'm singing in the booth with the headphones on and Annie gets all excited and starts going, 'Ruff! Ruff! Ruff!' The fact that she ended up on the track was just pure coincidence."  

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Perry Farrell with a bank robber-esque stocking on his head, there. Farrell has also had a lot of looks over his career – this is the pre-neckerchief days, the pre-three-piece-suit days, the pre-looking-a-bit-like-Dot-Cotton-off-EastEnders days.

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This was filmed on location in Royal Market, a supermarket on Washington Boulevard in LA. Not long after this video came out, it was demolished and replaced by a 99-cent store.

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Security cameras were still fairly newly common in 1990 – the price of them had dropped dramatically in the late ‘80s – which must have been a real buzzkill for shoplifters. Farrell claims the song is autobiographical, and that stealing is just one of the many vices he enjoys.

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That’s drummer Stephen Perkins on the rob. The only member of the original line-up to evade hard drug addiction, Perkins has played with everyone from Infectious Grooves to Rage Against The Machine to Nine Inch Nails, as well as on Perry Farrell’s solo project and side-band Porno For Pyros.

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Eric Avery doing some half-inching. The bassist was the only member of the original lineup not to rejoin Jane’s Addiction when they reformed, with a drunken incident involving one of Farrell’s ex-girlfriends thought to be part of why.

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The pineapple-up-the-dress moment is what this video is all about really, so let’s talk about the director. This video was directed by Casey Niccoli, an extremely important figure in the Jane’s Addiction story. Born in Bakersfield, California and named after Yankee skipper Casey Stengel, she was the girlfriend and muse of Perry Farrell for a while, and appears in sculpted form on the cover of Nothing’s Shocking (as an on-fire pair of nude Siamese twins) and Ritual De La Habitual (as part of a threesome also involving Farrell). Niccoli has also been credited with nailing the band’s early onstage visual aesthetic and use of Santerian and Catholic imagery. She also appears in the documentary Soul Kiss and the video for Classic Girl (a song inspired by Farrell’s nickname for her), in footage from the docudrama Gift that Niccoli and Farrell co-directed.

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It’s all making sense now. The dude has a fake pregnant tummy and uses it to shoplift. Fun!

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Even at their peak, Jane’s Addiction were a polarizing band. Rolling Stone put it this way: “The band is great and full of shit - often at the same time.”

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We can’t find this performer’s name anywhere online. Jane’s Addiction continue to feature pole dancers in their live shows though.

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Textbook “shocked bystanders” there. Excellent. Niccoli all but vanished from the music industry when her relationship with Farrell dissolved. According to a YouTube comment thread – so it might be complete nonsense – she is now living happily in the Mojave desert, drug-free and raising a family. Her daughter Poppy Jean Crawford is a musician.

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No idea who this is either. People in the '90s just didn’t put enough material online, you know? The blame lies somewhere between the rudimentary nature of early internet technology and the fact everyone was out of their nuts on smack.  

2.31
In these joyous-sounding moments, it’s odd to think that when Jane’s Addiction were recording this album, they pretty much hated one another. Only on one song were the whole band in the studio at the same time: Three Days, a sprawling track about the 72-hour heroin sex binge Farrell and Niccoli had with an ex of Farrell’s, Xiola Blue. This was immortalized in the cover art after Blue died of a heroin overdose shortly afterwards.

2.48
The band hanging out shirtless, something they were all reasonably keen on – three of the four of them have at least one bare-torsoed image on their Wikipedia pages. Farrell and Navarro in particular seemed to go for decades at a time between shirts.

2.56
During these bits of band choreography, it’s fun to think how many goes it probably took. Remember how much heroin was going around? If there’s one thing heroin fucks with, it’s the ability to perform choreographed routines.

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Farrell does a great job of mustering his ridiculous rock star charisma even through a stocking. His voice is reverbed to hell on the album, something they replicated live as well.

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What a joyous ending, a big celebration of disguising yourself as a pregnant woman in order to shoplift. Massive laugh. When this won the MTV Video Music Award for Best Alternative Video, unimpressed awards presenter Billy Idol announced it as “Been Caught Wanking”, pretending the spaceman statue was his penis for a while. Only Niccoli and Navarro were there – Farrell was smoking crack – and both were extremely un-sober, and during Niccoli’s speech, Navarro tried clumsily to kiss her. Three months after receiving the VMA, the band split up. Their farewell tour was Lollapalooza, founded by Farrell and still going as an annual event.  So, madly, are the band – they reformed first from 2001-4, and again in 2008, after which, despite a few problems and line-up changes they’ve never definitively split up. Nearly thirty years after pratting about in a supermarket.

From: https://www.kerrang.com/a-deep-dive-into-janes-addictions-video-for-been-caught-stealing

Black Moth Super Rainbow - Windshield Smasher

 #Black Moth Super Rainbow #Tom Fec #psychedelic rock #electronic #indie/alternative rock #experimental #folktronica #synthpop #music video

Tom Fec is quietly building a tiny, twisted religion. Like the KISS Army and Misfits Fiend Club before him, the mastermind behind the psychedelic synth projects Black Moth Super Rainbow [often shortened to “BMSR”] and Tobacco has started his own “Rad Cult.” This past summer, Fec used a Kickstarter campaign to raise money for the release and distribution of his latest album, Cobra Juicy. He named the hypothetical record label that would carry it “Rad Cult.” The money pledged by fans also funded the ancillary packaging and artwork Fec wanted to produce. Most notable among the BMSR accoutrement was a specially designed full-head latex mask of a terrifyingly mutated orange face. The Kickstarter was a roaring success, so there’s now a small army of BMSR-devotees running around with identical orange head masks. Ominously, the first music video from the album, “Windshield Smasher,” depicts a group of similarly orange-masked hoodlums accosting a young couple with baseball bats, ultimately forcing frosting-covered cake down their mouths and chopping off their hair while pinning them to the hood of a car. Beneath all this scruffy bravado, however, there’s an artist who truly believes giving his unvarnished id free reign is the best way to satisfy his fans. Before BMSR head out on a nationwide tour this spring, Fec talked with us about the making of Cobra Juicy and where his brand of lovably leering weirdness comes from.

I’d like to talk about the “Windshield Smasher” video. It’s such a fun but weirdly disturbing clip. Where did all that come from?

It started off being a bigger-budget idea, and we kind of had to compromise to it being what it is. It’s the first video from the new album, so I wanted to come out baseball bats swinging [laughs]. I thought it was the perfect visual idea for that.

For me, this video typifies the vibe you’ve got in a lot of your work wherein there’s this sinister or leering feeling. There’s the offbeat violence of this video, song titles like, “I think I’m Evil,” etc.

I think mainly what I’m going for is, I don’t like music that’s all one thing, because I think it’s corny no matter what you’re doing. Like a dark metal band: “Everything is evil.” To me that comes off as corny, and a lot of other music that’s just happy, whether it’s indie stuff or pop music or just happy or whatever, it just comes off as corny. It just needs to be more complicated than that. We’re not that simple, especially now in 2013, and we shouldn’t be listening to stuff that’s so straightforward and simple.

It’s interesting you say that because I noticed Cobra Juicy has some of the most structured and pleasant pop songs you’ve ever written, but the “Windshield Smasher” video is probably the most directly threatening and unsettling visual piece you’ve put out.

I always like having fun with what I do and what I put out there because, from the second people started listening, like when Dandelion Gum came out, they had expectations for what the video should be. Everyone figured it would be this sunny valley trip with people in fields with weird colors. That shit is so predictable and so stupid and it’s been done so many time. I remember when the “Sun Lips” video came out, so many people were so upset, like, “This isn’t what we expected! This isn’t what we wanted!” But that’s just how it is, that’s what entertains me, and that’s why I make this stuff. “Windshield Smasher” was violent, but it wasn’t too mean. I still think it was kinda good spirited, but it was a lot of things at the end of the day.

From: https://www.tinymixtapes.com/features/tom-fec-black-moth-super-rainbow-tobacco

The Honey Pot - Light Splinters

 #The Honey Pot #psychedelic rock #classic rock #neo-psychedelia #psychedelic folk rock #retro-1960s

The Honey Pot are a psychedelic/pop 5-piece band, steeped in a musical fantasy time-warp where they groove among their most revered bands, Jefferson Airplane, The Doors and The Small Faces to name a few, but totally modern in every other way. Had they been around back then, they would be riding high with the rest. They are happy, though, to be playing to the crowd who 'were there' and those who groove anew whenever they can.
What is the connection between talented Theremin player and founder member of the Buggles Bruce Woolley and psychedelic pop band The Honey Pot? Well, in the autumn of 2008 Bruce kindly listened to Icarus Peel's newly-completed album "Tea At My Gaffe" and suggested that he should stay on the psychedelic journey. Soon after, Icarus met DJ Marrs Benfire of Bay FM, who featured the album on one of his "Smart Set" shows. The challenge from Marrs was for Icarus to write a "Revolver" style album with shorter songs, and thus "To The Edge" was composed and produced with Wayne Fraquet on drums and Jacqueline Bourne and Iain Crawford on vocals. The album was so well received that a performing band needed to be formed to play the songs live, at which point Tom Brown was welcomed in to play bass. Their first gig was a local festival in 2013. Since then they've played at many groovy festivals and venues with different line-ups, and are looking forward to many more live performances in the future.  From: https://www.thehoneypotcollective.com/newpage


 

 

The Flaming Lips & Erykah Badu/Amanda Palmer – The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face

 

 #The Flaming Lips #Erykah Badu #Amanda Palmer #psychedelic rock #alternative/indie rock #neo-psychedelia #experimental rock #noise rock #music video

The Flaming Lips and Amanda Palmer invite you to experience Heady Fwends track “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” again — for the, uh, first time. Erykah Badu, you might recall, sang on the original version of the song, an out-of-this-world highlight from the Lips’ recent collaborative album. She then appeared nude, along with her sister Nayrok, in an NSFW video — a video which Badu immediately slammed and Lips leader Wayne Coyne later removed (though not without suggesting the dustup was part of Badu’s plan all along).
Dresden Dolls singer Palmer ably fills in on vocals for the song’s latest, still-NSFW video. Once again in slow-motion, once again running about five minutes, and once again centering around a nude woman in a bathtub, the new clip blessedly ditches the shots of female body parts covered in questionable foreign substances and is, on the whole, a more toned-down affair. Palmer, who previously made a video in support of pubic hair freedom, certainly seems less likely to turn around and repudiate this one. That’s particularly true considering that Coyne is directing the forthcoming visuals for Palmer’s “Do It With a Rock Star,” which, tweets suggest, will be both literal and, one more time, NSFW. If there was anyone who thought the Flaming Lips might start acting a little less zany now that a multiple Tony Award winner is about to debut the long-awaited Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots musical, well — was there anyone who really thought that?  From: https://www.spin.com/2012/08/naked-amanda-palmer-replaces-nude-erykah-badu-in-flaming-lips-video/

Last week, The Flaming Lips released a video for their collaboration with Erykah Badu, “The First Time I Ever Saw Your Face”. Directed by George Salisbury, the rather explicit clip featured Badu’s sister, Nayrok, naked and covered in various strange substances. As it turns out, however, Erykah did not approve of the video’s release and has since penned an open letter to the Lips’ Wayne Coyne. In it, she claims, among other things, that Coyne misled her from the start, promising a “concept of beautiful tasteful imagery” that would “take my shots (in clear water/ fully covered parts - seemed harmless enough) and Nayrok’s part (which I was not present for but saw the photos and a sample scene of cornstarch dripping) and edit them together along with cosmic, green screen images (which no one saw) then would show me the edit.” Instead, Erykah says Coyne “disrespected me by releasing pics and rough vid on the internet without my approval. That is equivalent to putting out a security camera’s images of me changing in the fitting room. I never would have approved that tasteless, meaningless, shock motivated video.”  From: https://consequence.net/2012/06/erykah-badu-doesnt-like-the-flaming-lips-video-for-the-first-time-i-ever-saw-your-face/

One of the more continually fascinating musicians out there (and by out there, we also mean “out there”) is Wayne Coyne, frontman for The Flaming Lips. Recently, Co.Create spoke to him about his latest creative endeavor, involving a whole mess of artists in a massive caravan through Mississippi, part of an attempt to break the Guinness World Record for Most Live Concerts In 24 Hours (Multiple Cities). The title is currently held by Jay-Z. It’s part of the O Music Awards. More on all of that here shortly. In the meantime, we got to the bottom of a more recent Flaming Lips flare-up - the Twitter war that erupted between Coyne and Erykah Badu after the video for her cover with the Lips of “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” appeared online (Video in link is NSFW). If you followed her Twitter feed, you know Badu claimed to be blindsided by the butt nekkid nature of the piece, in which Badu (or, maybe her sister as her body double) can be seen writhing bare-skinned in gold glitter, fake blood, and something that looks like … let’s say - heavy whipping cream. Reached for this story, a Badu rep said only that she had provided all she wanted to say on her Twitter feed @fatbellybella and added, “Wayne knows exactly what happened and why this became a problem. The video was unfinished and unapproved.” On that Twitter feed, Badu told Coyne to “KISS MY glittery ASS” and worse.
Coyne has apologized publicly to Badu for any confusion and partially explained his version. But the whole thing got worse before it got better, with both sides accusing the other of seeking publicity with the now-notorious video. With a little more time to mull it all over, Coyne offered Co.Create even more perspective on what it’s like to find himself a player in such a modern drama involving personal brands, guerrilla PR, and technology that fanned the whole flame war.
“I think part of it, this Twitter war, a lot of it I thought was just entertaining, but part of it, I think, plays into Erykah has a side to her audience that isn’t aware at all of who the Flaming Lips are and what we’re about, and I can say almost certainly that just about everybody in the Flaming Lips audience knows who Erykah Badu is. It gets to be a little bit of Erykah playing into this very conservative portion of her audience and sort of defending herself against what they thought about the video, which I thought was kind of funny and kind of absurd after a while. But I didn’t want to and I would never tell people what really happened. There’s a little bit of a sacred obligation to working with people. I knew going into working with Erykah Badu that she’s a freak - that’s why I wanted to work with her. You know. Usually it’s a freak in a good way, but it can be a bad way, and I accept that. I would say she’s inherently interesting, she’s unpredictable. A lot of it to me is funny. But I know to a lot of her audience, that she is important; what she thinks about something like this, it’s important to them that she say something about it. So I kind of let that go, and I would just chime in on the things I thought were entertaining and funny and not really try to stop the things that were mean and vicious and racist or whatever. That’s just the nature of Twitter, and I think that’s what’s cool about Twitter. There’s no referee and there’s no restrictions. As far as the video, I can’t imagine anybody who knows how videos are made, if we really do believe that Erykah Badu is her own woman and she is a presence and she’s in control and she’s powerful and she’s important, that she could really allow her, or her sister, and her manager, and her lawyer to be in a room for two days straight with us and not know what kind of a video we were making. It’s absurd. I could show you exactly the footage of us all laughing and laughing and laughing and going, “This is crazy, this is funny.” Of course, I mean, how am I going to get her and her sister to do a video like that if they didn’t want to do it? I’m just a dude making a video; I think it would be great. So if we really think about what’s happening, it would seem like ‘Really? You didn’t know we were making this video?’ So, I mean part of it to me is I just play along with whatever Erykah says is the story. I play along and say I’m sorry if that’s the way it’s perceived. I mean, I’m not going to tell everybody exactly the blow-by-blow truth of it. But I mean, it’s a Flaming Lips video: I made it, we paid for it, we arranged it, we did all the editing, everything about it. Erykah and her sister literally showed up to do the thing and said ‘Good luck, see ya later, sounds like fun.’ That’s the way that we approached everything that we’ve done. And I thought, yeah, Erykah might make it into something. She gave me a little bit of a warning like ‘Get ready this thing’s gonna blow up.’ And I was like, ‘What do you mean?’ And then ‘All right, here we go.’ So I’m a little bit at the mercy of her machine like everybody else is. I’m playing shows in Europe and she’s doing all this stuff. I try to just laugh at the things I think are funny and try to ignore the things that I think are mean and stuff like that. But that’s my take on it.”  From: https://www.fastcompany.com/1680966/anatomy-of-a-twitter-war-flaming-lips-wayne-coyne-speaks-on-feud-with-erykah-badu

 

 

Spooky Tooth - Musikladen 1973

 Part 1

Part 2

#Spooky Tooth #Gary Wright #Mike Harrison #Mick Jones #hard rock #blues rock #psychedelic rock #progressive rock #classic rock #British R&B #1960s #1970s #live music video

Spooky Tooth were an incredibly proficient gaggle of musicians whose individual talents were often greater than the sum of the band — when they were good, they were brilliant, but when they were okay, well they were just okay. The original line-up included two powerful keyboard-playing lead singers Gary Wright and Mike Harrison, a brilliant guitarist in Luther Grosvenor (who became equally famous as Ariel Bender with Mott the Hoople), bassist Greg Ridley (who was a founding member of Humble Pie with The Small Faces’ Steve Marriott) and drummer Mike Kellie (a future member of The Only Ones). Later, the line-up included Mick Jones who (of course) went onto world domination with Foreigner — yeah, I know, but somebody had to do it. 
Originally tinged with psychedelia and early prog rock, Spooky Tooth’s musical focus was shaped by the songwriting talent of Gary Wright over the first two albums — It’s All About (1968) and Spooky Two (1969). But this nascent potential was literally destroyed by the strange collaboration with electronic wizard Pierre Henry for their third album Ceremony (1969), which Wright claims ended the band’s career: “Then we did a project that wasn’t our album. It was with this French electronic music composer named Pierre Henry. We just told the label, “You know this is his album, not our album. We’ll play on it just like musicians.” And then when the album was finished, they said, ‘Oh no no — it’s great. We’re gonna release this as your next album.’ We said, ‘You can’t do that. It doesn’t have anything to do with the direction of Spooky Two and it will ruin our career.’ And that’s exactly what happened.” Devastated, Wright temporarily quit, and Spooky Tooth’s next album The Last Puff (1970) - billed as Spooky Tooth featuring Mike Harrison - was a rather mixed bag of covers, though it did contain the greatest ever Beatles cover “I Am The Walrus.” 
Then Grosvenor and Kellie quit, Jones joined and Wright returned to the fold penning nearly all of the songs for their bizarrely titled fifth album You Broke My Heart So…I Busted Your Jaw (1973).  Next came Witness, which was Harrison’s last album with the band, before the arrival of the more poppy The Mirror (1974), which was generally well received.  The band split — Jones went onto greater success, while Wright released his million-selling solo album Dream Weaver. Spooky Tooth deserve attention not just because of the quality of their disparate players, but also because of the quality of their early and late music — which can partly be seen in these “lost broadcasts” where Spooky Tooth perform “The Weight” on Beat Club in 1968, followed by “Old As I Was Born,” two versions of “Cotton Growing Man,” “Waiting For The Wind” and two versions of “Moriah” for Musikladen in 1973.  From: https://dangerousminds.net/comments/spooky_tooth_the_lost_broadcasts

Diane Coffee - Soon To Be, Won't To Be

 

#Diane Coffee #Shaun Fleming #ex-Foxygen #retro-1960s #retro-1970s #art rock #pop rock #psychedelic rock #glam rock #animated music video

A ’60s-ish rock-and-roll experience that recalls Phil Spector and doo-wop and leisure suits and even a slew of one-hit-wonder bands from back in the day are somehow updated and given present-day indie-rock treatment in this band that is named after a fictional character. No, I don’t think that Diane Coffee is front man Shaun Fleming’s alter ego, even though he crowds the issue a bit by wearing eye shadow and presenting in a distinctly feminine voice. Adding confusion to the issue is the band’s Wiki page — it states that “Diane Coffee is Shaun Fleming...,” and later, NPR likened Mr. Fleming to both David Bowie and Mick Jagger. Yes, Fleming’s a true Motown-glam show-stopper in that respect.
Diane Coffee’s leader and chief songwriter got his start in showbiz as a child actor by voicing characters in Disney cartoons. Later, he got busy with the drums and joined the band Foxygen, a group that started during high school in the L.A. suburb Fleming grew up in. The Diane Coffee thing came about after he moved to New York. There, he hunkered down with a guitar and wrote songs that would see the light of day via a DIY recording and subsequent release titled My Friend Fish. The pop-music critics at the internet music magazine Pitchfork resonated with the new music Fleming made; they, too, made subtle jokes about the band name, but they posted releases of Coffee’s singles and later gave Diane Coffee a performance slot in their own music festival.
Fleming got tired of New York, lives in Indiana now. He claims the band name is a hybridization combining the singer Diana Ross with a song titled “Mr. Coffee.” He once told a reporter to pick any name — just make good music. Which, at least on its face, appears to be what Fleming is doing.  From: https://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2016/feb/24/of-note-man-called-diane-coffee/

 

Magick Brother & Mystic Sister - Echoes from the Clouds

 

#Magick Brother & Mystic Sister #psychedelic rock #space rock #psychedelic folk rock #progressive rock #retro-1960s #retro-1970s #Spanish

What’s the concept behind the formation of Magic Brother & Mystic Sister?

Xavier Sandoval: I feel we make music for a utopian lifestyle, perhaps the one we would like to have and although we try, reality and present is what it is. For this album we gathered four musicians with no other purpose than to improvise and play as freely as possible. Personally, I think music must contain something magical and evoke images, sensations, emotions. Trying to capture the atmospheres we imagine as best as possible and to tune in with that inspiration, is to use themes related to magic, or the world of dreams.

How would you describe your sound?

It’s a peculiar sound due to the type of formation we have; bass, keyboard, flute and drums, only with guitars recorded later. Our sound is based mostly on the use of the mellotron and flute, but also the patterns of bass and drums and the dreamy voices. Perhaps this combination creates our sonority? In some themes, the synthesizer, piano or guitar arrangements have shaped each song providing a more cosmic sound in some songs, and more jazz or folk in others.

Would you like to talk a bit about your background?

When I was a child my parents listened to flamenco, and on long car trips they always listened to cassettes of Elvis Presley, Eddie Cochran, Chuck Berry et cetera. I knew them by heart and I loved them. I’m self-taught. I started playing in high school, where I liked Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath and so I started playing bass with a band of pupils older than me, experimenting with psychedelic rock, playing cover-versions of Hendrix, Cream, Steppenwolf et cetera. Then like everyone else we went through various groups, whether they were garage, pop, rock or psychedelia, until the era of techno and electronic music arrived, and I dedicated myself to studying and experimenting with ambient, cosmic music, krautrock, et cetera. I then spent a long spell collaborating in a music project for yoga and meditation playing the sitar. In the end, we make music whenever possible for each moment in life has its soundtrack. Sometimes it depends on the circumstances and your environment, and in our case it’s always from the underground and against the current.

Are any of you involved in any other bands or do you have any active side-projects going on at this point?

Nowadays there are a lot of musicians who have several projects at the same time and perhaps it’s quite common, but in my case, I do not believe too much in that. Life goes very fast; I have little time and I must make it compatible with my work. For me right now, it is difficult to indulge in multiple projects, and I believe in this one, so Eva and I are focused on it. I really admire other groups that make very interesting music and it would be great to collaborate with them, but it is difficult, who knows maybe in the future. Although I believe that MB & MS could be an “open project” for musicians who want to collaborate, it is a matter of connecting, creativity and energy. The doors will always be open.

Can you share some further details how your latest album was recorded?

The album was conceived by taking music from suggestive images, like an imaginary soundtrack we wanted to convey a cinematic and mysterious atmosphere. Although it’s a long story, each song has its moment, its place and represents something. It was a long process and some songs were left off the record. The album was recorded in our home studio, Cosmik Lodge, but some aspects were recorded in Sol de Sants Studio where Marc was working – utilising a mix of new and vintage gear. Normally we record bass, drums and keyboards at the same time, then we add flute, more keyboards, guitars, percussions etc. The first song we recorded was ‘Les Vampires’ where I made a script from which we recorded the different parts. Some songs were recorded on an inspirational night, and in others there were false-starts and took months to complete. We had several bases on which we had worked for a while, and then we would compose the rest. I think the cover by Bruno Penabranca (which we love) conveys that idea of how other sensory perceptions appear from a main image that arise in a creative feminine way.

How do you usually approach music making?

It depends on the song or the epoch. For this album, some songs have been created from the bass lines that we have tested in rehearsals, finding ideas that appear. Luckily some were recorded and in other sessions they were lost in the smoke of experimentation and the ambience. In our case, improvisation has been very important not only to let ourselves go, but also to get to know each other musically and to see which territories were most favourable for the individual – which patterns did we feel comfortable to investigate, deepen, study etc. Some songs are 7/4, 11/4 beats in which we have become used to building melodies. We have been testing different scales. Although in many of the songs the improvisation or the “magic of the moment” has been the starting point, in others many of the important details are calculated and measured and we try to convey that all the sounds, every note has a reason to be there whilst maintaining a criterion and respecting some patterns, be it folk, progressive rock or the style we were approaching.

How pleased were you with the sound of the album?

I think we have achieved a good sound considering the means we have used, and for my part I would continue to change things and improve to infinity, but in the end, we have to say “enough”. The sensation of the listener matters and there comes a time when the musician himself stops being objective in terms of sound. From this aspect the views of many listeners have helped a lot - the comments have been positive in this regard.

What are some future plans?

The current situation has conditioned so much, since we have not been able to present the album as we would have liked, the situation with the live show, of the venues et cetera. So in some way the impulse of social networks has replaced the accepted style of promoting, and we greatly appreciate all the comments that have come to us from many parts of the world. The album sold very quickly, in the midst of this pandemic, so thanks again to those who have supported us and the positive reception that this album has had at such a difficult time. This month [December] the second edition of the album will be available. As it continues to be difficult to think about concerts, we have focused on continuing to compose, so during confinement Eva and I took up an old project that revolves around Tarot cards where we explore other dimensions – shorter songs but with our same psychedelic vision, to put it simply.

Let’s end this interview with some of your favourite albums. Have you found something new lately you would like to recommend to our readers?

Obviously, this is the most difficult question of the interview, haha. There would be countless bands and albums that I would list. I will say that obviously, we have a weakness for the music of the late 60s, Electronic music of the early 70’s, British Psychedelia, Canterbury sound groups, Soundtracks, Folk, Hard Rock, classical music, jazz… In each era I have had many transcendent albums that have marked the moment that I was living and among some that I can cite a group that really opened my mind many moons ago would be especially Popol Vuh, ‘Aguirre’ to choose one of their albums. Another album that marked me was ‘Zodiac’ by Mort Garson. Also Gong’s ‘Angel’s Egg’ and Ananda Shankar’s 1970 release. ‘S.F. Sorrow’ by The Pretty Things, as an initiatory album.

From: https://www.psychedelicbabymag.com/2021/02/magic-brother-mystic-sister-interview.html

Moby Grape - Hoochie

 

#Moby Grape #psychedelic rock #acid rock #folk rock #country rock #blues rock #West coast sound #1960s

In the wake of Skip Spence's mental and physical breakdown, 1969's "'69" was recorded as a quartet featuring singer/rhythm guitarist Peter Lewis, singer/lead guitarist Jerry Miller, drummer Don Stevenson and bassist Bob Mosley. Produced by David Rubinson, the album doesn't get much credit from critics or Grape fans, but to my ears it's quite good. It's even more impressive when you consider the turmoil surviving members found themselves surrounded by. Part of the criticism is understandable in that the set isn't particular cohesive, leaving you with the impression it was cobbled together from earlier sessions and catalog odds and ends. Others aren't going to agree, but I've always found the album's diversity is actually one of the characteristics that makes it so enjoyable. With all four members contributing material, the set bounces between different genres, including country & western, folk-rock, pop and conventional rock. It's done with a sense of professionalism and a laid back charm. There are plenty of highlights with Mosley acquitting himself with particular distinction - check out what may be his prettiest song 'It's a Beautiful Day Today' and the boogie rocker 'Hootchie'. Other standout tunes include 'Ain't That a Shame', the rocking ''Going Nowhere' and the typically bizarre (and disturbing) Spence leftover - 'Seeing'. In fact, the latter selection may be enough for some psych fans to buy this set. If I had to find something to criticize then it would probably have to do with Lewis' growing interest in country, but I have to admit I liked 'Ain't That a Shame' and 'I Am ot Willing'. On tracks like 'If You Can't Learn from My Mistakes' the band reminded me of something out of Mike Nesmith's solo career.  Was it the best Moby Grape studio album? Nah, it doesn't come close to the debut, but I'm proud to own a copy, having done my part to boost its sales to #113 n the Billboard album charts. And as you'd expected by a band seemingly cursed with bad luck, things turned even uglier for the band when Mosley unexpectedly quit the band in order to enlist in the Marines Corps. He last nine months before be given a dishonorable discharge for hitting an officer (not a career enhancing decision).  From: https://rateyourmusic.com/release/album/moby-grape/moby-grape-69/

New Candys - Sun is Gone

 #New Candys #psychedelic rock #alternative rock #neo-psychedelia #post-punk #Italian #music video

I find this record simply enthralling. Stars Reach The Abyss. New Candys. Doped, sedated, highly pop-psychedelic and buzzing in keeping a low profile. Foot and root into The Jesus and Mary Chain, The Black Angels, The Velvet Underground, The Warlocks. And in whateverelse these bands I cited keep their feet and roots in. A long walk through the desert under the burning Sun.
A lysergic record, actually: You fall in a trap while chasing unicorns in Half-Heart and get high eating the sand with Dry Air Everywhere; then you can only stay down on the ground, moving your hand in the air trying to catch the little fairies flying up your nose with Sun Is Gone ('Till Day Returns): highly lyrical, with sitar sounds and percussions. Give a look to their stage set up, I love it. Then it is again time for more black magic and visions chanted by the slow pace and saturation of Meltdown Corp. There are two singles here, Black Beat and Blue Magic Hat. Then you can count the endless black and white rounds of a rotating hypnosis spiral with Welcome To The Void Temple. Again: lay down on bed and listen to Nibiru. Then it's a romance with Butterfly Net. From Treviso (northern Italy), an excellence for a debut record such it goes mesmeric along every track: it is like  Foolica records had stolen this band from ATP's roster.  From: https://www.inkoma.com/k/4012/

Country Joe & The Fish - She's A Bird

 #Country Joe & The Fish #psychedelic rock #folk rock #psychedelic folk rock #psychedelic blues rock #acid rock #singer-songwriter #1960s

Although Country Joe and the Fish were together only four short years, the band’s political stance and eclectic rock left an important legacy. “Largely forgotten as one of the giants of psychedelic rock,” wrote Joel Selvin of MusicHound Rock, “Country Joe and the Fish towered over their contemporaries….” The band’s 1967 debut, Electric Music for the Mind and Body, remains one of the definitive psychedelic albums of the era, while “I Feel Like I’m Fixin’ to Die Rag” inspired thousands to protest the Vietnam War. The band received equal billing with San Francisco groups like the Grateful Dead, Moby Grape, and Jefferson Airplane in the late 1960s, headlining at the Avalon Ballroom and Fillmore Auditorium. Country Joe and the Fish received their greatest attention and are most remembered for their pivotal performance at Woodstock in 1969 and inclusion in the film, Woodstock. With songs that included references to politics and drugs, the band represented a perfect marriage between the radicals of Berkley and the hippies of San Francisco.
Joe McDonald’s parents were Communist workers who named their son after Russian Communist dictator Joseph Stalin. Born in 1942 in Washington, D.C., he grew up in the Los Angeles suburb of El Monte, California. McDonald learned to play the guitar and joined local folk groups, but later ran away from home and joined the Navy for three years. After his discharge, he moved to Berkley where he played guitar and harmonica in the Berkeley String Quartet and Instant Action Jug Band. “Country Joe and the Fish,” noted Bill Belmont on the Well website, “came about as part political device, part necessity, and part entertainment.”
At the end of 1965 McDonald gathered Barry Melton, Richard Saunders, and Carl Shrager from the Instant Action Jug Band, then added Bob Steele to form the first version of Country Joe and the Fish. This acoustic lineup cut two tracks, “I Feel Like I’m Fixin’ to Die Rag,” an anti-Vietnam song, and “Superbird,” a political satire. McDonald and Melton then played for a short time as a folk duo before putting together a second, electric version of the band with Paul Armstrong, Bruce Barthol, David Cohen, and John Francis Gunning. “Bass Strings,” from their “white EP,” received radio play, and the group’s manager, Ed Denson, secured a record deal with Vanguard at the end of 1966.
When Country Joe and the Fish released Electric Music for the Mind and Body in 1967, it quickly became one of the definitive psychedelic rock albums of the era. “The record documented perfectly their unique conglomeration of folk, blues, country and rock,” wrote Marianne Ebertowski in the Marshall Cavendish History of Popular Music. “It also gave evidence of their involvement with the San Francisco drug and hippie scene on the one hand and the radical political movement on the other.” “Bass Strings” and “Flying High” contained overt references to drug use, while the aforementioned “Superbird” included a barbed attack on President Lyndon Johnson. “I Feel Like I’m Fixin’ to Die Rag” was left off the album at the request of Vanguard’s Maynard Solomon. “An unusual move,” wrote Bill Belmont, “by the company that staged the Weavers’ reunion concert at Carnegie Hall during the height of the anti-left sentiment in the United States.”
Country Joe and the Fish played at the Avalon Ballroom and the Fillmore Auditorium throughout 1967. They performed at “The Human Be-In” at Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, made an appearance at the Monterey Pop International Festival, and even visited the United Kingdom where they played at the Roundhouse in Camden Town. They released their second album, I Feel Like I’m Fixin’ to Die, seven months after their debut. Many critics viewed the album as overindulgent, or as Richie Unterberger described it in All Music Guide, “the kind of San Francisco psychedelia that Frank Zappa skewered on his classic We’re Only in It for the Money.” Nonetheless, the title track was a keeper, noted Unterberger, “a classic antiwar satire that became one of the decade’s most famous protest songs, and the group’s most famous track.” While 1968’s Together received a warmer critical response, it would be the last album by the group’s classic lineup.  From: https://www.encyclopedia.com/education/news-wires-white-papers-and-books/country-joe-and-fish

Dengue Fever - Uku

 #Dengue Fever #Chhom Nimol #psychedelic rock #Cambodian rock #alternative/indie rock #world music #garage rock #surf rock #retro-1960s 

Even when you consider the cultural cross-pollination that goes on in large metropolitan areas, L.A.'s Dengue Fever had perhaps the strangest genesis of any band in recent memory. It's odd enough for a group of white musicians to cover psychedelic rock oldies from Cambodia, but finding a bona fide Cambodian pop star to front the band -- and sing in Khmer, no less -- is the kind of providence that could only touch a select few places on Earth. Formed in L.A.'s hipster-friendly Silver Lake area in 2001, Dengue Fever traced their roots to organist Ethan Holtzman's 1997 trip to Cambodia with a friend. That friend contracted the tropical disease (transmitted via mosquito) that later gave the band its name, and it also introduced Holtzman to the sound of '60s-era Cambodian rock, which still dominated radios and jukeboxes around the country. The standard sound bore a strong resemblance to Nuggets-style garage rock and psychedelia, heavy on the organ and fuzztone guitar, and with the danceable beat of classic rock & roll. It also bore the unmistakable stamp of Bollywood film musicals, and often employed the heavily reverbed guitar lines of surf and spy-soundtrack music. Yet the eerie Khmer-language vocals and Eastern melodies easily distinguished it from its overseas counterpart.
When Holtzman returned to the States, he introduced his brother Zac -- a core member of alt-country eccentrics Dieselhed -- to the cheap cassettes he'd brought back. They started hunting for as much Cambodian rock as they could find, and eventually decided to form a band to spotlight their favorite material, much of which was included on a compilation from Parallel World, Cambodian Rocks. In addition to Ethan Holtzman on Farfisa and Optigan, and Zac on vocals and guitar, the charter membership of Dengue Fever included bassist Senon Williams (also of slowcore outfit the Radar Brothers), drummer Paul Smith, and saxophonist David Ralicke (Beck, Ozomatli, Brazzaville). Ralicke shared Zac Holtzman's interest in Ethiopian jazz, further broadening the group's global mindset. Thus constituted, the band went combing the clubs in the Little Phnom Penh area of Long Beach, searching for a female singer who could replicate the style and language of the recordings they had.
After striking out a few times, the Holtzmans discovered Chhom Nimol, a onetime pop star in Cambodia who came from a highly successful musical family (analogous to the Jacksons). According to the band, Nimol had performed several times for the Cambodian royal family before immigrating to Los Angeles. Initially not understanding the band's motives, she was suspicious at first, but after several rehearsals, everything clicked. Dengue Fever made their live debut in 2002, with the charismatic Nimol in full traditional Cambodian garb, and soon won a following among Hollywood hipsters, not to mention L.A. Weekly's Best New Band award that year. Purely a cover band at first, they started working on original material after putting out a four-song EP locally. The Holtzmans wrote English lyrics and music, then sent the lyrics to a Khmer translator in the state of Washington, after which Nimol would adjust the melody and words to her liking.
Dengue Fever counted among their fans actor Matt Dillon, who included their Khmer-language cover of Joni Mitchell's "Both Sides Now" on the soundtrack of his 2003 directorial debut, City of Ghosts. However, disaster nearly struck when Nimol was arrested in San Diego in accordance with the stringent, post-9/11 INS policy: she'd arrived in the U.S. on a two-week visitor's visa and simply stayed on. She was thrown in jail for three weeks, and it took nearly a year for the band's lawyer to secure her a two-year visa (his fees were paid through benefit concerts). In the meantime, Dengue Fever released their self-titled debut album on Web of Mimicry, a label run by Mr. Bungle guitarist Trey Spruance. Most of the repertoire consisted of Cambodian covers, many originally done by pre-Pol Pot star Ros Sereysothea, but there were several originals and an Ethiopian jazz tune as well.
With Nimol's limited English improving, the band members considered putting some English-language material on their follow-up, but intended to stick with Khmer for the most part, in keeping with the music that inspired them. In 2007, Dengue Fever not only released Escape from Dragon House, but also starred in the documentary Sleeping Through the Mekong, which saw them performing their music in Cambodia for the first time. Venus on Earth debuted on the M80 label the following year; it was eventually picked up by Real World for worldwide distribution. In 2009 they released a CD/DVD entitled Sleepwalking Through the Mekong, which included the documentary and a compilation album.  From: https://www.allmusic.com/artist/dengue-fever-mn0000237528/biography

Haight-Ashbury - She's So Groovy '86

 #Haight-Ashbury #psychedelic rock #psychedelic folk #folk rock #acid folk #neo-psychedelia #flower power #retro-San Francisco sound #sunshine pop #Scottish #music video

Choosing such a loaded name is willful. Scottish trio Haight-Ashbury are going to be identified with psychedelic-era San Francisco whatever they do. Should they wish to extend their musical wings, diversions into drum and bass or metal aren’t going to be easily accommodated. It's just as well then that Haight-Ashbury are top-drawer practitioners of a terrifically attractive dark psychedelia. Their second album (released under the name Haight-Ashbury 2, but they still trade as Haight-Ashbury too) opens with hand percussion, a jangling sitar and a keening, modal vocal line. Rhythm is Mo Tucker simple and repetition hypnotises. The raw production emphasises Haight-Ashbury’s edginess. As does a leaning towards the moodiness of Mazzy Star and their obvious familiarity with The Jesus & Mary Chain and The Incredible String Band. This version of the psychedelic dream will make flowers wilt. Second track “Sophomore” describes giving the kiss of life. Haight-Ashbury are singing of those around them being close to death. Quoting Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” on the jangling and tuneful “Everything is Possible” brings some levity. There’s some hope for peace and love. This extraordinary album hasn't quite come from the blue. Theartsdesk saw Haight-Ashbury at the end of last year at France’s Trans Musicales festival and summed them up as “folk harmonies with a raga guitar and shoegazing dissonance”. The Ashburys does nothing to alter that, but it does confirm that Haight-Ashbury are very special.  From: https://theartsdesk.com/node/35096/view

Of course Haight-Ashbury aren’t actually from San Francisco, but it’d be more than reasonable to assume that their second album opener, ‘Maastricht - A Treaty’, was recorded live amongst the longhairs in Golden Gate Park. Lifting the patchouli oil-drenched essence of far-out musical Hair, the song unfolds as a somewhat directionless exposition of tremulous sitar while, just in the corner of your vision, a kaftan-clad Dennis Hopper does the Watusi with George Harrison. If this whole album were similarly stoned and meandering, we might take umbrage; but mercifully it’s a one-off. In fact, as a lesson in vivid scene setting, it works a treat.
Coming from Scotland rather than California, Haight-Ashbury are Kirsty Reid, Jennifer Thompson and Kirsty’s brother Scott on drums. Haight-Ashbury 2: The Ashburys follows the trio’s 2010 debut, and though it might be heavily indebted to counter-cultural, tie-dyed grooves, this isn’t just a spun-out, swinging 60s tribute from some half-baked merry pranksters. ‘Sophomore’ brings to mind those other harmonising hippies of the moment, Haim; but like those So-Cal sisters, it adds a healthy, brusque dose of a gutsy power-pop into the bargain. Tough like Pat Benatar but heartfelt and absorbed with female experience like Stevie Nicks, its heavy guitars and heavenly vocals also recall graceful grunge virtuosos The Breeders and Veruca Salt. It is, quite frankly, a blinder of a song. These Glaswegians don’t spend the whole record stateside stargazing though. They skip the same, lavender-studded path as Smoke Fairies on the eerie 2nd Hand Rose, looking to British folk of the 1970s, of Fairport Convention, with ring-a-roses, Wicker Man vocals and a stomping glam-goth breakdown.  From: https://www.bbc.co.uk/music/reviews/25pn/

The Tea Party - Live Intimate & Interactive 1998

 Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

 #The Tea Party #hard rock #progressive rock #experimental rock #middle eastern music #blues rock #psychedelic rock #1990s #Canadian

Hugely successful in their native Canada, The Tea Party is a rock band with a truly eclectic sound, fusing elements of blues, progressive rock, Indian, and Middle Eastern into what has jokingly been dubbed 'Moroccan roll'. ‘Live Intimate and Interactive’ includes two live performances at MuchMusic--Canada's answer to MTV. The first was recorded in 1998, when the band performed 'Army Ants', 'Fire In The Head', 'Release', 'Transmission', 'Save Me', 'Sister Awake', 'Temptation', and 'Psychopomp'. Then in 2000, the band returned to MuchMusic studios to perform 'Temptation', 'The Messenger', and 'Sister Awake'.  From: https://imusic.dk/movies/0803057901029/the-tea-party-1998-live-intimate-and-interactive-dvd

It was the end of November 1995. The Tea Party had just completed a U.S. tour and were excited about the next album. The Edges of Twilight was closing in on double-platinum sales domestically, wrapping up a year that earned the band three Juno nominations and a MuchMusic People’s Choice Favorite Music Video award. All seemed to be well, but the success of The Edges Of Twilight couldn’t hide the fact that Jeff Martin was in a personal crisis at the time and that the band was in troubled waters – a change of management at that time being just one sign. In retrospect, Jeff Burrows was reminded of that time: “The songs of Transmission were all written at a time when we were going through - not only Jeff going through personal hardship - but the band was going through bad managerial things and a bad American record company. At that point, we didn't know whether the band would even continue at some points. It was a bad vibe, but it was healthy for writing.”
The mid ‘90s were also the time when bands like Massive Attack, Aphex Twin and The Prodigy celebrated great success with their mix of rock and industrial, electronic soundscapes. But the most important soundtrack for Martin’s dark mood was provided by a band whose album Martin got handed over by a friend and was supposed to build the foundation for Transmission: it was a copy of Nine Inch Nails’ album “The Downward Spiral”. Martin was so fascinated by what he heard there that the vision of enriching his own music with electronic elements and mixing it with oriental timbres also grew in him. The idea of combining rock music with electronic sounds was not new, but for The Tea Party this sound cosmos was untouched, new territory – something that was about to change abruptly with Transmission.
Transmission began as an experiment of sorts in Martin’s loft studio in old Montreal, where he had previously “demoed” The Edges of Twilight. The difference, this time, was that Transmission was pieced together entirely and comfortably at Martin’s home. “There was no clock,” explains Martin, who produced the whole album and mixed it at Morin Heights, Quebec, with the exception of three tracks which were co-mixed with Adam Kasper (Soundgarden) at NRG Studios in Los Angeles. The organic and mechanic foils on Transmission began when Martin’s friend, English folk musician Roy Harper, gave him an old ‘80s Emulator II and Martin began messing around with it, starting with a loop sampled from a piece of Lebanese funeral music.
Over the next month, he assembled another five songs at his house and emerged with the skeletons (loops, electronic treatments and guitars) of “Psychopomp”, “Army Ants”, “Gyroscope”, “Pulse” and “Temptation”. Sound landscapes were created, and while they were at first only meant to be fiddling around, it forged a new direction for the sound of the band. After Martin had created the framework for the songs, Burrows and Stuart Chatwood travelled to Montreal and added their instruments parts to the to the musical skeletons Martin sketched out. Both expanded their instrument repertoire once again — Chatwood learned keyboards, which play an important role on Transmission, while Burrows experimented with an electronic drum kit. The band dared to enter new territory and take the risk of alienating old fans with the new direction. Embracing synthesizers, sampling and digital-recording techniques the trio was abandoning its previous musical prejudices, and revitalizing its evocative and intensely emotional sound with a modern approach.
It was February 1996 when Burrows recorded his drum parts in the loft below Martin’s house in Montreal – a space filled with discarded restaurant equipment. Burrows knocked off his bed tracks in two days, giving the band a power on which to build further (later he would add darabouka, dumbek, pod shakers and the lead pipe to select tracks). “Lucky enough, my landlord agreed to clear out the second floor beneath my loft, and there became the drum room and the drum sound that we all know as the backbone of Transmission,” recalls Martin. Chatwood, who plays keyboards more than bass on Transmission, had owned a sampler for four years and began adding his own “shadings” to the songs.
Martin remembers those days: “We’re just working with sounds, making our own sounds, experimenting with rhythms as well, breaks and things like that, to see how we play. We thought that these were going to be demos, when in fact, they turned out to be the record.” By the end of April 1996, after his bandmates left Montreal, half of the new album was completed without any vocals. Martin, still in his dark mood, had been documenting his existence in a “diary of madness” and set about turning it into lyrics.
On no album before and after have the lyrics been as dark as on Transmission. It began with the poem “Transmission”, which pits the glories of modern progress against the depravity parading within, not just poverty, Martin explained, but the “condition of the soul”. Musically, Transmission melds the rock, middle eastern and electronic elements. It made for the perfect album title. The album title was also a reference to Joy Division’s song of the same name. The idea of dropping the band name The Tea Party and renaming themselves Transmission was even briefly considered, in order to gain a better foothold on the American market, but in the end, they decided to keep their original name.
In addition to his personal crisis, Martin also dealt with social questions on the album, which were influenced by the writings of Christopher Dewdney, Canadian poet, essayist and futurist, and also a friend of Martin´s. One of his works, “The Secular Grail” inspired the song “Gyroscope” and his ideas on the nature of consciousness and psychic equilibrium infuse many of the songs on this album. “It’s basically a collection of aphorisms on the human condition and having to deal with the juxtaposition of the new deity being technology and the old ones, the organic ones. And, also in this book, he equates a human being’s psychic equilibrium to something like a gyroscope and how the rate of spin in each particular individual is equal to their psychic energy. And like a spinning top, if outside forces affect it, it will incur a wobble and go off course. With human beings, forces like flattery or conversely, criticism, affect you in such a degree that you start to go off course and you start to shift,” says Martin.
Meanwhile, other songs on the album are also based on books Martin read at the time. For example, “Army Ants” or “Psychopomp”, which goes back to a term used by psychologist C.G. Jung. With so many literary models, a German music magazine titled an article about Transmission with the headline “Books Instead of Drugs”. Martin admits however, that alcohol and drugs played an important role in his life before and after Transmission. After the first songs were completed, the other five songs took shape, including two songs which took the band in a different direction. “Release” and “Aftermath” both had a beauty and ambience to them which belied their ominous lyrics. The final track of the album, “Babylon”, was recorded in in one day during the mixing phase at Morin Heights. The Tea Party’s exciting evolution from blues-rock to eastern-rock to its current hybrid of industrial-acoustic-soul was sealed.
At the end of 1996, the whole album was written and it was time to complete the final recording of the songs. These recording sessions started in January 1997 and were finished in February 1997 with the recording of the vocals. With the recordings in their luggage, the band travelled to Los Angeles for three weeks in March 1997, where a large part of the album was mixed at NRG Studios. The mix was completed at Morin Heights, north of Montreal. The mastering was done by Bob Ludwig, who put the finishing touches to the album in April 1997. With this album the band created a dark colossus, a mixture of rock and electronics, of dark and apocalyptic structures and lyrics, always standing before the abyss and seldom seeing a glimmer of hope. In short, The Tea Party had created a monster with Transmission, which was now ready to present to the public. The first single “Temptation”, which swore the fans to what was to come with the dark video, was the precursor.
The album was first released in Canada on June 17, 1997, followed by releases in Australia, Germany and the USA. The latter was released for the first time on the Atlantic Records label, with the goal of starting fresh and the potential for wider recognition in the USA. The release was accompanied by concerts that could be followed live on the Internet. In 1997 this was still quite uncharted territory! The bands also played at major Canadian festivals such as Edgefest. The Tea Party was also asked to open for two shows of the “Bridges To Babylon” tour of the Rolling Stones, but unfortunately this didn’t happen because Mick Jagger fell ill and the shows in Toronto and Montreal were cancelled.
The band themselves described a performance at Intimate and Interactive at the Canadian music channel MuchMusic as one of their highlights at that time. In this show the official band video for “Psychopomp” was created. The band also recorded two concerts in Sydney, Australia, to release them on a live CD, but that content has not been released to date. And even though The Edges of Twilight is right on par with Transmission, and Heaving Coming Down was their first No. 1 hit, the album is seen by many as the creative highlight of the band.  From: https://transmission.teaparty-online.com/inside/#

White Denim - Pretty Green

 #White Denim #garage rock #indie rock #psychedelic rock #progressive punk #blues rock #experimental #music video 

The Austin, Texas, rock band White Denim flavors its basic rock 'n' roll with a potpourri of other styles, but that's kind of logical, since their origins came out of a virtual collision of bands. White Denim, whose sound has included tinges of punk-funk, psychedelic, country, heavy metal, and Latin jazz, became a band in a sort of ad hoc, almost accidental, manner back in 2005. The band Parque Torch, with singer/guitarist James Petralli and drummer Josh Block, was playing on a bill with another band, Peach Train, which included bassist Steve Terebecki. By the end of that night, Terebecki had joined Block and Petralli and the threesome evolved into another band. White Denim was releasing its own EPs by 2007, and combined a couple of those EPs for "Workout Holiday," their debut album, which, oddly enough, was only released in the United Kingdom. It was late 2008 before the band re-worked some of those tunes and added some more for "Exposion," which became their U.S. album debut. Their latest record is the group's seventh, and their music has always been noted for the different directions it takes, often record-by-record, or even cut-by-cut.
"Well, Parque Torch was James' original trio, which was cool and had no bass," explained Terebecki, from his Austin home, when we caught up with him last week, before the current tour started. "That band was a real in-you-face, riffy punk rock band, sort of like early Replacements. But of course Josh was a drummer with a real jazz background, so they played some really interesting music. Peach Train was the band I was in, sort of the band Makeup, a power trio with a lot of wah-wah used on the guitar, but basically noisy rock 'n' roll." "I was really excited to get a chance to play with Josh," Terebecki added. "I come from Virginia originally, and I had moved to Austin fairly recently then. I had played with some really accomplished drummers in Virginia, but Josh was the first really good drummer I had heard here in Texas. We began trying to build a sound of our own, and all this time later, we're still refining it."
No matter what stylistic permutations White Denim might take over the years, it seems that a basic rock 'n' roll feel, a 1950-60s garage band sound, ends up being their foundation. "I think basic rock 'n' roll is definitely at the root of it all, because it's all born from what we like to play onstage," said Terebecki. "Our live shows tend to be louder and more upbeat than our records anyway. We've all never been fans of performers who get up there and play all laid-back on stage. We have done a lot of experimenting with different things with our recordings, but live, in concert, we are always louder and nastier. We like to do what feels good in the moment."  From: https://www.patriotledger.com/story/entertainment/local/2018/10/04/expect-mix-musical-styles-from/9706010007/

Stonefield - In The Eve

 #Stonefield #psychedelic rock #stoner rock #hard rock #heavy psych #melodic metal #Australian #music video

The Findlay sisters Amy, Hannah, Sarah and Holly are the quadruple dose of stoner rock we’ve come to know as Stonefield. Laced with mind-bending, psychedelic riffs, the Aussie band’s tunes will fling you back in time – not surprising, considering they grew up on the likes of Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix and Frank Zappa. The siblings have come a long way since commandeering their parents’ farm shed in Victoria’s Macedon Ranges for rehearsals. As teenagers, they won a contest held by radio station Triple J for unsigned artists, shining a national spotlight on their music. Then, after a gig in Perth, Stonefield were approached by a scout for Glastonbury Festival, leading to their sensational performance at the 2011 show which culminated in an incendiary cover of Led Zep’s Whole Lotta Love. Between then and now, the band have released an EP, three studio albums, and are on the cusp of another full-length. Titled Bent, the upcoming project will be released via King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard’s independent label, Flightless, just like 2018’s Far From Earth. If the new album’s lead single Sleep is any indication, it looks like we’re in for another glorious sludgefest.

What was your musical upbringing like?

We all have quite similar tastes in music and grew up listening to the music that our parents had brought us up on, which was a lot of Frank Zappa, Zeppelin and Hendrix. During our high school years, we all got into slightly different stuff but we’ve always had a common love of rock music.

You all grew up in a small town. Did that make music an escape for you?

I don’t think it was necessarily an escape but it definitely gave us something to do, which I guess is probably part of the reason we stuck with it. There were fewer distractions and not much else to do.

What’s the songwriting process like for Stonefield? You seem to put out albums at a fast pace – As Above, So Below in 2017 and Far From Earth in 2018.

We have a habit of writing a whole heap of songs and ditching them before getting to a point where we’re happy to put them on an album. We generally jam on a little riff or idea that someone has and the song is created from there. Once we’ve written and ditched a few songs, we all eventually get an idea of the album we want to create and it becomes a lot easier from there.

Bent was recorded by Joey Walker and Stu Mackenzie of King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard. What was it like for you to work with two guitarists on the album?

Recording with Stu and Joe was a completely different experience to anything we’d done before. They stood back completely and let us make the decisions without influencing us too much. It was refreshing working with people who had faith in what we do and enabled us to achieve exactly what we wanted to without second-guessing ourselves.

We read that the album was recorded in between tours over five days. How did that affect the process and the atmosphere of the sessions?

It helped us to achieve a much more “live-sounding” album that wasn’t over-produced or overly thought about. All the songs still felt fresh and exciting to play which made it a very enjoyable process.

Amy has said that Sleep is about the experience of floating in the “in between”, but many fans see that song title and think of the band, Sleep. Is it an homage, and was it intentional?

It wasn’t intentional at all, however, we are fans of Sleep so we don’t mind the association! It came purely from the storyline of the song.

This is going to be Stonefield’s fourth album. Has what you wanted out of a music career changed since you embarked on this about a decade ago?

I don’t think what we wanted out of a career has changed but I think the way we wanted to achieve it and how we go about it has changed. We have learnt so much and have so much more belief in our knowledge and decisions that we are able to navigate things much better these days.

In terms of guitar tone, did you know what you wanted for this album?

Nope! Generally when recording an album, whoever we’re working with tends to get deep into experimenting with different amps and sounds, but a lot of the time we end up going with something very similar to my live setup. For Bent, I went in knowing what works and how we wanted the album to represent our live sound, so I didn’t spend too much time messing around.

Last April you guys were in Los Angeles for what you called a “residency”. How long were you there for, and what was it like?

We were there for a month. It was quite a different experience being in the one spot for so long as we’re generally in a different city every night, but it was a lot of fun. We had amazing bands play with us each week so it was cool discovering so much new music.

From: https://guitar.com/features/interviews/stonefield-from-farm-shed-to-glastonbury/

Electric Würms - Heart of the Sunrise

 #Electric Würms #Flaming Lips #psychedelic rock #progressive rock #neo-psychedelia #experimental #Yes cover

Flaming Lips fandom in the 21st-century requires agreeing to the terms of this transaction: in exchange for receiving a non-stop stream of new, consistently adventurous music from your favorite band, you have to put up with Wayne Coyne’s Instagram skeeziness, and all the #freaks hashtags, exclamation-point abuse, and Miley Cyrus tongue-wagging selfies that go with it. Seems like a fair enough trade-off, but even those fans who are most tolerant of Wayne’s social-media madcappery had to be thinking “really, dude?” last spring when some especially ill-advised photos led to accusations of racism, and the extremely acrimonious ousting of long-time Lips drummer Kliph Scurlock (the fallout from which continues to spread).
In light of this, the debut of the Lips’ prog-inspired alter-ego act the Electric Würms couldn’t have come at a better time. By promoting redoubtable multi-instrumentalist Steven Drozd to bandleader and reducing Coyne to background noisemaker (with Nashville psych-rock outfit Linear Downfall playing the role of an absent Michael Ivins), the new project effectively doubles as a form of damage control, redirecting our attention back to the ongoing evolution of what has been a remarkably productive and intriguingly unpredictable phase for the band. Even that Teutonic album title—which apparently translates as “music that’s hard to twerk to”—offers the guarantee of a Miley-free zone. Given that Drozd has long been the de facto musical director of the Flaming Lips, the Würms unsurprisingly stick to the post-Embryonic playbook, to the point where the new band name is practically immaterial, and Musik, die Schwer zu Twerk could just as easily be the (slightly) sunnier follow-up to the blood-red-skied electro-psych of 2013’s The Terror. And when you consider how much Coyne’s voice was fused into the textural mist on that album, Drozd’s soft, childlike coo doesn’t have much opportunity to distinguish itself amid the shock-treatment synths, radio-static guitar fuzz, and stellar-drift drums. Oddly, for an album that cheekily presents itself as a long-lost ’70s prog cut-out bin artifact, Musik, die Schwer zu Twerk’s most notable characteristic may be its 29-minute brevity, offering a tasting-menu sampler of the various modes the Lips have been exploring for the past five years. It’s almost as if the Lips have formed a cover-band-medley version of themselves.
So in lieu of prog’s multi-sectional intricacy, each of the six tracks here lock into discrete themes, from the mirage-like space-age bachelor-pad smear of “Futuristic Hallucination” to the Live-Evil-era Miles (by way of Yoko Ono’s Fly) psych-funk shriek of “Transform!!!” However, these four-minute spurts are too free-ranging to establish a melodic logic, yet too steady in execution to achieve maximal freak-out potential; with its creeping rhythm, quavering vocal, and steampiped-synth exhaust, “The Bat” is very much sonically of a piece with The Terror, but feels insubstantial outside a similarly elaborate context. Ironically, focus arrives in the form of a cover of Yes’ hyrda-headed dinosaur-rock colossus “Heart of the Sunrise,” which simply lops off Vincent Gallo’s favorite build-up and the arpeggiated closing act and condenses it into a pure and simple four-minute star-gazing ballad, with Drozd doing an eerily spot-on Jon Anderson. (That said, the attempt at writing a modern-day Yes song—“I Could Only See Clouds”—is less satisfying, with a placid central melody that never fully adheres to the intrusive Howe/Squire-worthy contorto-riff.) But it’s not surprising that the Würms find their greatest success the further they venture from the Lips mothership and the longer they stay the course. With the Neu! hypno-rock pulse of “Living,” the band turn in both their headiest jam and most dramatic song, with Drozd’s ghostly voice sounding like a final transmission to mission control before he and Coyne thrust themselves into the coldest, darkest reaches of outer space—or, at the very least, somewhere with no smartphone reception.  From: https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/19598-electric-wurms-musik-die-schwer-zu-twerk/