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Boris and Weedeater Added to Desertfest London 2014

As you can see in the banner above, the lineup for Desertfest 2014 in London wasn’t exactly hurting as it was, but to have Weedeater get added yesterday and top off the week today with announcing that Boris had signed on to headline alongside Spirit Caravan and Kvelertak, and well, I guess we can call 2014 the year Desertfest “went for it.” Goodness gracious, that’s a solid bill. Makes me want to take out a loan to get there to see it.

While my broke, overworked and underpaid ass hangs its head in an all-too-familiar shame, here are the announcements, snagged off the Desertfest website, with compliments to Tom Geddes, who wrote them:

TOKYO EXPERIMENTALISTS BORIS TO HEADLINE DESERTFEST 2014!

And so we announce our final headliner for DesertFest 2014 – Japanese experimental legends Boris!

How on Earth can you capture Boris’ sound in words? It’s beyond impossible; from drone, to sludge, to doom, to psyche, to ambient, to noise rock, to pop, here is a band that you can’t pigeonhole. But it’s in that unpredictable, ever-marching progression that the excitement lies.

Boris formed in 1992 on the extreme fringes of the Japanese hardcore punk scene before flying in every musical direction you can think of. Spending most of their life as a multi-instrumentalist three piece – consisting of Atsuo on drums, Wata on guitar and keyboards and Takeshi on bass, with all three sharing vocal duties – Boris have released just shy of a couple of dozen full lengths in their time on this mortal plane, with no two sounding too alike. Notable influences on Boris are Sleep and The Melvins – which might explain their high yield of records – as well as Nick Cave and even Venom.

The best starting points for a Boris exploration are 2005’s ‘Pink’ –which is perhaps one of their more accessible albums for the casual listener, yet still full of their signature leaps and bounds – and both 2002’s ‘Heavy Rocks’ and 2011’s ‘Heavy Rocks II’ which sit on a more laid back, straight-up stoner rock scale. If you’re more into drone, why not start with the first few releases; or even better, ‘Alter’, a phenomenal collaborative double album with SunnO))). Or you may want to try something completely different, in which case enter the batshit crazy world of 2010’s ‘New Album’ – a blend of J-Pop, shoegaze, psyche and industrial metal. The point is, these guys can do anything, and do it bloody well!

So if you want your mind blown by a band who don’t only surprise you with what’s around the corner, but change the shape of the corner itself, then you must get yourself down to the Electric Ballroom on Sunday night and stand both slack-jawed and in awe. Oh, and if you’re still not convinced, they also incorporate a massive gong into their shows, which is reason enough to be there.

Kana: Tom Geddes

Weedeater Chomping at the Herbal Bit for DesertFest 2014

DesertFest is beyond pleased to announce Saturday night’s sub-headliners, North Carolina’s southern metal bad asses, Weedeater!

An uncompromising power-trio full of sludge, groove and straight-up metal, Weedeater’s aggressive, bone-crunching madness is quite a sight to behold on stage. Fronted by the manic, growling bassist, “Dixie” Dave Collins (also of Buzzov*en and Bongzilla fame), alongside fret-master Dave “Shep” Shepherd and former sticksman Keith “Keko” Kirkum, Weedeater introduced themselves to the world at large with 2001’s ‘…And Justice for Y’all’. What we got in that record was down-tuned, crashing ferocity; and boy did it feel good. The energy that pulsed through that LP was a jolt to the heart and a kick to the face and it’s a trend that followed right through 2002’s ‘Sixteen Tons’ and 2007’s ‘God Luck and Good Speed’ – the latter of which could find itself easily on many an album of the decade list.

Right around the time of the recording of the fourth LP, Weedeater shot themselves in the foot a little bit in the form of Dixie actually shooting himself in the foot. Gladly, a few months down the line – armed with one hell of an anecdote they gave us ‘Jason…The Dragon’, a slightly more experimental take on Weedeater. The brief appearance of banjo and organ appeared without the loss of any of their earthquaking noise to which we had become accustomed.

As clichéd as it might sound, whilst sublime on record, you just can’t capture the feel of Weedeater until you’ve seen them live; only when you’ve stared into Dixie’s “I’ve seen things” crazy eyes and been showered in the splintered remnants of drumsticks can you really get a grip on them. Must see is an understatement.

Sacred Rites: Tom Geddes

http://www.thedesertfest.com/london/
https://www.facebook.com/borisheavyrocks
https://www.facebook.com/weedmetal

Boris, Heavy Rocks (2002 & 2011)

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One Response to “Boris and Weedeater Added to Desertfest London 2014”

  1. don s says:

    Just seen a Baltimore date for Spirit Caravan. 3/7 hell yeah!

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