I feel like Duna Jam, the semi-official festival at which the above Yawning Man clip was shot this very year, represents the ultimate rock and roll pipe dream. Here are a few truly special, truly great bands — 2011’s incarnation featured the desert rock progenitors among some of their more celebrated offspring in Colour Haze, Sungrazer and Highway Child, among many others — getting together in an environment that’s completely intimate, but still totally open and probably among the most beautiful spots on the planet. Looking at the video from this year and the photos and clips that have emerged from years past, it’s not just a matter of being jealous of those fortunate enough to attend and wishing I was there, but of wishing I was there and was one of those people, was someone worthy of witnessing that, which I know completely that no matter what I do, I will never be.

Back here in reality, this week caps off with the start of what’s sure to be a beery kind of weekend owing to sundry unrelated social obligations throughout the course. Whatever. If all I was using those brain cells for was wishing I was at Duna Jam, they weren’t doing me any good anyway. Nonetheless, provided survival, next week we’ll do the numbers for July (I haven’t looked, so I can’t give some clue as to how they are), as well as reviews of Blut, Sleestak and, hopefully, Freedom Hawk.

I’ll also have an email interview I conducted with the dudes in Borracho, in which they provided some insight into how the band came together from the remnants of Adam West and Assrockers, as well as hopefully some new audio from a certain British heavy rock band getting ready to land an impressive self-titled debut full-length on an increasingly well-reputed label. Apologies for the vagueness, but I don’t want to leave myself on the hook for something and not deliver, as I did last week when I promised a review of The Re-Stoned without remembering I’d already written up the album. Boy, is my face… dumb?

But enough of this ultra-self-aware, semi-intoxicated me-bashing. It’s well after two in the a period m periods, and I’m late for sleeping. I hope wherever you are or whatever you’re up to, you have a safe and air conditioned weekend, and I hope to catch you on the forum and back here Monday for more zany fun. Dig yourself, Lazarus.

Tags: California, Duna Jam, Yawning Man

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 30th, 2011 at 1:25 am and is filed under Bootleg Theater. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.