A little bit more than halfway through the opening track on Pleasant Journey in Heavy Tunes is a kind of toss-off moment I’ve always found hilarious. The chorus of “Too Stoned,” which leads off the 2001 debut album from Copenhagen’s Gas Giant, is simple enough: “Too stoned/I’m too stoned/Too stoned again/Too stoned/Too stoned, baby/Too stoned again.” If nothing else, it gets the point across as vocalist Jesper Valentin delivers the lines atop a post-Monster Magnet space-psych-meets-heavy-rock swirl, honed by guitarist Stefan Krey and propelled by bassist Thomas Carstensen and drummer Pete Hell. But it also makes plain the ethic through which Gas Giant were working at the time. Though the definition of what the term meant was already expanding even then, it was stoner rock.

That expanding definition can be heard in Pleasant Journey in Heavy Tunes as well as concurrent offerings from further north in Europe like Dozer‘s In the Tail of a Comet, which came out the year before and arguably had an impact on the sound of “Super Sun Trigger” here — though of course the root influence is Kyuss either way — or Lowrider‘s Ode to Io, or even Colour Haze‘s Ewige Blumenkraft, the latter also from 2001, but it’s still there, and “Too Stoned” basically makes that inarguable at the record’s outset. From the rolling Acid–King-meets-slower-Atomic–Bitchwax nod of “Sit Down” and outright fuzz overload of “Down the Highway” early on to “Desert Call”‘s self-titled-era Queens of the Stone Age quirk and the odd reinvention of Rage Against the Machine‘s signature “Bulls on Parade” riff for the eight-minute album crescendo “Storm of My Enemies” ahead of one more bit of Wyndorfian good times in outer space on closer “Holy Walker,” Pleasant Journey in Heavy Tunes is a willfully bumpy ride, but it’s tied together through a spacious mix courtesy of the band and producer/engineer Ralph A. Rjeily (R.I.P. 2012), and the four-piece’s collective heart is never too far from the “rock” end of the equation. To say that it suits them throughout the nine-track/48-minute offering would be underselling it.

Whatever familiar elements went into the making of Pleasant Journey in Heavy Tunes — and there were plenty, as there were on a lot of records from the era when stoner rock was taking shape (1995-2002-ish) and as there are now more than a generation later — those shades of Nebula and Fu Manchu on “Down the Highway” and “All Creatures” came with more than just flashes of individualism that showed not just Gas Giant‘s real potential in moving forward from their roots, but also the foundation of songwriting that would let them do it. But though there are a lot of comparison-namedrops above, don’t take that to mean Gas Giant had nothing of their own to offer on their debut. In particular, the atmospheric flourish brought to the tracks via echoes and effects were pivotal in letting them establish an atmosphere beyond the sundry riffs and grooves on display, and though that’s something that would come more to fruition on 2003’s Mana, it’s there on Pleasant Journey in Heavy Tunes as well, and even 18 years later, its righteousness holds up. It’s there in the preach at the beginning of “All Creatures,” and in the low-end fuzz of “Desert Call” — the allure of those open spaces calling to northern Europe even long before Truckfighters would go cruising — and it’s there in the Stooges strum and strut of “Holy Walker” as the album rounds out. These sides come together to give Pleasant Journey in Heavy Tunes its personality, subtly varied as it is and almost deceptive in its complexity.

That is to say, in hindsight, it’s easy to stand back and pick out this or that genre element, because there’s been more than 15 years of genre built up since. At the time — not pre-internet, but well before the mobilization and full socialmediafication thereof — the context inherently would’ve been more modern, fresh and cutting edge. Think of all the “lost” records from the early part of the 1970s. Those heavy gems from ’71, ’72, of bands who put out one or two records and then disappeared, maybe with one person going off to do something else, maybe everybody just off to families, dayjobs or an eventual reunion. Gas Giant were similarly of their era and of the pastiche of sound that was happening at the time, but part of what stands them out even now is that they were doing it in Copenhagen.

Consider that Gas Giant‘s demo came out in 1999 after a 1998 EP released as Blind Man Buff and Pleasant Journey in Heavy Tunes came out in 2001. That’s the same year Baby Woodrose offered up their own first album, rising as they did from the proverbial ashes of On Trial. These were the roots of Copenhagen’s heavy scene, which continues to flourish today, and the almost tentative adventurousness shown in Pleasant Journey in Heavy Tunes and expanded on Mana continues to flourish in range of acts, whether it’s prog-fusion psychbringers Causa Sui, jammers like Papir or even a classic doom outfit like Demon Head. The point is that Denmark’s contributions to Europe’s greater heavy underground couldn’t have happened without bands like Gas Giant helping to pave the way. Whether you’re familiar with Pleasant Journey in Heavy Tunes or not — and they’re very much of that pre-Thee Facebooks lost era of heavy rock that I’ve spoken about on multiple occasions; swallowed into the vacuum that once was MySpace — I think that’s remarkable and worth highlighting.

Of course, I hope you agree.

Gas Giant had a split with WE also out in 2001, Mana in ’03 and a split with Colour Haze the year after that, but then that was it from them. The band went their separate ways and came back in 2015 to play Freak Valley Festival and more. They did those gigs and at some point last year made a page for Portals of Nothingness, a lost album from 1999, on Bandcamp that, as yet, has no audio on it, and not much has been heard from them since unless I’m missing something (always possible). One never knows what the future might hold, but Space Rock Productions reissued Pleasant Journey in Heavy Tunes in 2015 in three separate vinyl editions, so the record is out there for those who’d chase it down.

In any case, please enjoy it. Thanks for reading.

—

Let me tell you about the dinner I had last night.

We’re pretty deep into The Patient Mrs.’ semester at this point — just a couple weeks left before winter break — so I’m largely running point on dinners. I’m not much of a chef, so that kind of has come to involve cooking for the week, generally some variation on slow cooker chicken, vegetarian meat loaf, take out, etc. This week it’s been farm-raised chicken breast, thigh and wing meat that I cooked in the Crock Pot on Sunday. I seasoned it with paprika, garlic, onion powder, salt, pepper, chili powder, Italian-style this-and-that, and some Bell’s, because Bell’s. To go with it, I roasted three heads of cauliflower to a point of being well-done — not burnt, but not far off — and seasoned those similarly but with a little more chili powder to let them absorb a bit of depth. They came out nice.

All of this was tied together with a gigantic spaghetti squash — I mean huge; watermelon-sized — and a 20 oz. pack of Beyond Meat ground beef-style fake meat that I seasoned like hot Italian sausage, with fennel, garlic — always garlic — hot red pepper flakes, a cut whole chili, and so on, that I knew was going to be good because it took on a reddish tint when I was cooking it.

It all came together in our 12″ sauce pan with the high sides and was nearly overflowing when I added four containers of this pesto I drive half an hour to buy at the one fancy wine store down Rt. 24 that sells it. I buy in bulk. Mostly I also consume it in that fashion as well.

Top with fresh-grated parmesan. Dinner for the week.

Each evening I’d kind of add something different to it for myself — The Patient Mrs. is a little more orthodox, though I think if I’d shown up with ricotta or fresh mutz on any given night reheating, I’d only have been greeted as a liberator — and have it with a red bell pepper on the side. I’ve been obsessed with this garlic scape and hazelnut pesto that this one stand sells at the Denville Farmers Market on Sundays — what it lacks in being cheap it makes up for in owning my heart — so I’ve been adding that on top of everything else and very much enjoying it.

Last night was the final night of the run — Sunday to Thursday is pretty good; it was a very large spag squash — so I decided to go all out. I roasted three packs of pre-peeled garlic (maybe seven or eight cloves each?) in the oven and topped it with the pesto and had it with a pepper. It was decadent and marvelous. Everything was perfect. Maybe the best meal I’ve had in a year. And I recognize saying that about day-five leftovers is kind of wacky, but I tell you, this dinner was glorious. Most of the garlic simply melted but there was still some caramelized too, and the combination between that and the garlic scape and hazelnut pesto, the interaction there with that and the other pesto already in the root leftovers — holy shit. It was goddamned incredible.

I topped it off with a couple sugar-free Reese’s for dessert and went to bed fat and happy.

For all the issues I’ve had in my life and continue to have with food, every now and then it’s amazing to enjoy something like that.

Rough week, down week, another week full of days. Ended by getting dicked around on a track premiere. Low stakes bullshit. Doesn’t matter.

Next week, more days. Is one of them Thanksgiving? I think so. I’m doing a Scissorfight track premiere — for which I’ve been not at all dicked around — on Thanksgiving. Tune in to see if I can avoid saying I’m thankful they got back together.

Great and safe weekend. Have fun, eat a good meal, be kind. Make merry. Tomorrow we die.

FRM. Forum, Radio, Merch.

The Obelisk Forum

The Obelisk Radio

The Obelisk merch

 

 

 

 

Danish heavy psych rockers Gas Giant haven’t been heard from much in the last decade. In 2004, their participation in the High Volume compilation put together by Bobby Black of High Times magazine introduced them to a wider American audience, but by then, the band was already winding down. With two records under their collective belt — 2000’s Pleasant Journey in Heavy Tunes and 2003’s Mana — plus the unfinished Portals of Nothingness from 1999, they faded out just as heavy rock was beginning a resurgence, and had they come along either four years earlier or four years later, I’ve no doubt they would’ve garnered more attention around the world. Better late than never.

The axiom applies because the Copenhagen-based four-piece have reactivated. They’ll play a weekender in Germany this week, and in June, return for the Freak Valley festival. Pleasant Journey in Heavy Tunes is set for reissue via Space Rock Productions, and other releases might follow as well if the response warrants.

Below, Scott “Dr. Space” Heller offers the story of Gas Giant and a video of their new lineup rehearsing the song “Never Leave this Way” from their 2001 split with WE from Norway:

GAS GIANT is back!

Gas Giant formed in 1996 under the name Blind Man Buff with Pete Hell on Drums, Thomas Carstensen on bass, Stefan Krey on guitars and Jesper Valentin on vocals. In April 1997, the Blind Man Buff EP was recorded and released the next year. In 1999, they changed the name to Gas Giant and recorded a record called Portals of Nothingness which showed a more melodic and spacey direction but this was not released as the band was not really happy with the sound production, despite the amazing songs, several of which the band would rerecord on later albums. We sold this on CD-R at the shows between 2001-2004 so about 50 copies exist on CD-R.

In late 1999 and early 2000, their now classic record, Pleasant Journey in Heavy Tunes (Burnt Hippie Recordings) was recorded. This was released in 2000 and the band rerecorded their track, Too Stoned, in a slower version than what appeared on the Blind Man Buff EP, which was a real hit on the stoner rock underground and even the lead track on a High Times Magazine compilation CD that came out in 2004.

I first met the guys in November 1998 and started hanging out with them a lot and recording their shows and rehearsals and running a primitive web site (before Kim took over), and managing the band. In 2000, Pete Hell left the band and they had Kjeld on drums for about a year before he split in April 2001. I started playing with the band in November 2001, when they recorded the tracks for the split LP with the Norwegian band WE. I played on the track Firetripper. Tommy replaced Kjeld in August 2001. From Nov 2001 to 2004 I played at most of the bands live concerts and recorded every show, which you can hear at the link below for the archive.org web site. There are 45 shows that have been downloaded 65,000 times! In 2002, the band recorded and released the Mana record on the Elektrohasch label on CD and the Nasoni record label on vinyl in an abbreviated version. The band played quite a few shows in support of the record in Finland, Denmark, Holland, Belgium and Germany.

The band was really amazing live and changed the set every night and did amazing jamming at each show, which I hope they will continue to do with the new lineup. The underground German press called them the Grateful Dead of stoner rock and we did a lot of amazing improvisation and jamming on tracks like Never leave this Way, Back on the Headless Track, Ride the Red Horse and Storm of my Enemies. These were the real jam tracks that were very different every night. The live show reviews were always great. If the band had really had the time to play more shows at this time, I really think they would have been as big or bigger than bands like Nebula, Fu Manchu, Monster Magnet, at least in Germany, but they were all having children and it was harder and harder to live this life and tour. In 2004, they decided to take a different turn in the music and lose the synthesizers (and me) and try with a more mainstream sound. The next two years they struggled and eventually the band broke up with Jesper leaving. Although the band would play the occasional party or reunion show for special events like Ralph Rjeily’s Tribute show, they did not really exist as a band.

Come 2015 and Gas Giant is back! The band has a new energy with the addition of a new bass player, Kasper (Bleeder Group, Dyreforsøg, Megafon, Gyserfilm, and Marte) and drummer, Martin (Psyched up Janis, The Univerzals, Fri Galaxe, The Saints) replacing original member Thomas (bass) and Tommy (who drummed with the band since 2001). Here is a short video of the band rehearsing from march 21st, 2015. Just sneak preview of the new line up!

The band is out on the road in 2015 with the following confirmed dates:

Thu, Mar 26 Schaubude, Kiel, Germany
Fri, Mar 27 Cafe Tiko, Erfurt, Germany
Sat Mar 28th Zukunft :: Ranch am Ostkreuz, Berlin, DE
Thurs April 30th HDDT, Loppen, Christiania, DK
Thurs June 4th Freak Valley Festival, DE

In June this year, the Pleasant Journey in Heavy Tunes will be released as a single vinyl lp on the Space Rock Productions label with additional sales and distribution via Kozmik Artifactz in Germany. If this does well, other old Gas Giant material may be released as well on vinyl.

https://archive.org/details/GasGiant
http://thegasgiant.bandcamp.com
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Gas-Giant/587716488024613

Gas Giant, “Never Leave this Way” March 2015 Rehearsal

One thing about Scott Heller (aka Dr. Space): The dude loves him some space. In his second “Altered States” column for The Obelisk, the Øresund Space Collective jammer takes a song-by-song look at the underrated Pleasant Journey in Heavy Tunes, released in 2000 by Danish outfit Gas Giant. Heller was intimately familiar with the band from their days as Blind Man Bluff, and one can almost feel the grooves of the songs themselves reading his review.

Hope you enjoy:

GAS GIANT- PLEASANT JOURNEY IN HEAVY TUNES (Burnt Hippie Records BHR-003/Loudsprecher LSD043)

While this Danish psychedelic stoner space rock band does not officially exist anymore (the three main guys still play together and make music), in 2000, they released this all time classic record. I met the guys back in 1998, when the band was still called Blind Man Buff. They started BMB in the mid-‘90s after disbanding the ZZ Top cover band, Tube Snake Boogie. These guys were really hard working and from 1995-2001, were meeting three days a week to jam and make songs and listen to Fu Manchu, Monster Magnet, Kyuss, Black Sabbath, etc… They would occasionally come out and play live as well but not that often.

In 1999, I started hanging out with the band and recording a number of their rehearsals and all their live shows. In January, they entered the studio with local soundman and producer, Ralph Rjeily, (who recently passed away and I wrote a tribute piece to here on this site), where they recorded at the local Black Tornado Studios. These were some intense days as they jammed and laid down the basic tracks for this classic record. The big muff sound on the bass and guitar, with Stefan’s vintage Sound City head and late ‘60s Marshall cabinet was a mean, dirty, fucking heavy sound and pretty well captured on these raw recordings.

One of the things that made the record so intense was the really raw and in your face sound of the guitar and bass, which was mixed really up front, leaving the drummer Pete Hell, in the back but still audible.

The CD starts off with what is now a stoner rock classic, “Too Stoned” (it was the first song on the High times Magazine compilation, High Volume: The Stoner Rock Collection [2004]). The band had previously recorded this song on the Blind Man Buff EP two years before but were not totally satisfied with it. It starts off with the sound of a water pipe as the main guitar riff enters before the killer bassline kicks in. The delays on Jesper’s voice also give it a really psychedelic feel. The main chorus arrives with a powerful Kyuss-like riff and Jesper ramps up the intensity in his vocal delivery as well. The midsection is very spacey and then the tune just takes off with a heavy groove and an uptempo ending.

“Sit Down” starts with the heavy bass before the monster guitar riff kicks in. The lyrics are always very interesting and strange and Jesper delivers a very powerful performance on every song with a catchy chorus that you can sing along to. This one is very raw, a bit looser, grooving but focused on being heavy. Stefan starts to let loose some guitar solos but just teasing you to start. Down the Highway has one of the most nasty guitar and heavy bass from this time period to start this track in this slow grooving track. The mid section slows almost to a stop and there are some spacey sounds before Pete kicks in with the drums again and Thomas leads the groove with the heavy bass line. “All Creatures” starts off with a very psychedelic effected vocal part before the killer groove just takes off again with that really fuzzed out, raw nasty sound. The mid section is really spacey with a lot more effects, delay vocals, cool guitar and heavy bass and then they just rock out like a mother fucker! ”The celebration is about to begin, may I have this dance…”

“Super Sun Trigger” is a very short, catchy and powerful song built on the killer flange guitar riff and sing-along chorus that just gets you hooked. Jesper sings in a bit more laid back fashion until the chorus, “Rescue me/The super sun trigger is coming to you.” “Desert Call” is actually quite an old song of the band’s dating back to 1996. It slows things down a lot but has a real basic easygoing feel and you eventually get hooked. Thomas’s bass line is so intense in the mix, really in your face. “Freak Sensation” is another fuzzed out number with a catchy groove. Jesper has an added effect on the vocal and like “Down the Highway,” the band space out in the middle (live this was often really far out and cool), with Thomas playing some wah bass and Stefan some nasty soloing (what a sound!) before they kick it into high gear and take off again.

The regular CD ends with one of my favourite Gas Giant songs, “Storm of My Enemies,” which used to develop into monster jams live, sometimes over 20 minutes! It is a slow, psychedelic track and when the main guitar riff kicks in complimented by the bass, it is very powerful. Thomas even plays the didgeridoo on this one in the sections before the main riff takes hold. Heavy, intense, psychedelic. The CD features an unlisted track called “Holy Walker,” which was completely conceived in the studio. It is a sort of an electric ballad that came up very spontaneously and features some great guitar and passionate vocals.

Unfortunately for those who never got to see this band live, they were a real mean machine and the songs here were never played like they are on the record and Stefan always did a lot more guitar soloing live and jamming. Lucky for you guys, I recorded nearly ever live concert they played from 1999 until 2005. You can find them at www.archive.org under the Live concert archive. Check out the concert from Leipzeig 2002 for a real blast. The band who made the Mana record (Elektrohasch, 2003) have reunited for a couple of special shows here in Denmark in 2012 but it is unlikely to lead to a full reunion as the guys are busy with other music projects and family obligations.

Word came down last week of the passing of Ralph A. Rjeily, a respected audio engineer and contributor to the formative years of modern European heavy psychedelic, particularly in Copenhagen. Scott “Dr. Space” Heller of Øresund Space Collective, whose Altered States column premiered a couple weeks back, sent the following remembrance. The Obelisk sends condolences to Rjeily‘s family and friends.

Ralph A. Rjeily Jan. 22, 1971 – Aug. 9, 2012

Ralph A. Rjeily died of testicular cancer on August 9, 2012. He was a good friend and a prominent person in the Copenhagen underground music scene. Ralph was a father to two children and a husband, who had a very understanding and cool wife, who supported his true dedication to the Danish music scene. Ralph was a concert promoter with 3rd Tsunami and managed and did live sound with On Trial when I first met him in the late ‘90s. In 1999, together with Hobbiten (On Trial), Ralph and Lars Lundholm (Runs the Black Tornado studio where On Trial, Gas Giant, Øresund Space Collective, Baby Woodrose, Dragontears and many other bands have recorded) formed Burnt Hippie Recordings, where we released On Trial, Dark Sun, Gas Giant, WE, Korai Öröm and a compilation CD for a space rock festival that never happened. This is when I really got to know Ralph. Below I will recall a few great times we had.

I still remember well when I travelled down with Spids Nøgenhat to the really fun Swamp Room Happening in Hannover in 2000. It was a great lineup, with the Bevis Frond, Mandragora Lightshow Society, Spids Nøgenhat (the only concert they ever played outside of Denmark), Lucky Bishops, Noetics and a few other cool bands. After Ralph had done his job of doing sound he could have a good time like the rest of us. We all had a great time and someone gave Ralph some mushrooms and he and some others disappeared. We ended up having to go back to the place to crash and when we came back the next morning Ralph was nicely sleeping on the lawn in front of the club. Nick Hasselby took a picture of us all standing around him before we woke him up. Ralph was always a great guy to hang out with and have a good time.

Ralph produced the Gas Giant Pleasant Journey in Heavy Tunes (will be reviewed in detail soon on this blog for the Altered States column) session in 2000. I was working with the band at this time but not yet playing with them, while Ralph was setting up their gigs, doing their live sound and working in the studio with them so I spent a lot of time with Ralph.  Some of my best memories of Ralph and Gas Giant were when we all went on tour in October 2002 with Gas Giant and Colour Haze for 5 gigs in 7 days. We started off at the Sojo in Leuven, Belgium and off to the Bern-kastel Kues for a great two days including an amazing party with Mama Cool. It was a mix of good and bad times though as Ralph came along agreeing to be paid based on how many people showed up and the turnout was pretty poor for most of these gigs so for several he got no money at all. Things really hit the fan when we got to Nurnburg and after the soundcheck, people were a bit tired and hungry, and Stefan (guitarist in Gas Giant) accidently knocked the entire container with our pasta dinner in it on the floor. Ralph was so pissed off and stormed out of the venue. Most of us had got our food. We went to a bar and had a beer and then went looking for Ralph. He was sitting in McDonalds not looking happy and we were all looking in through the side window at him and he did not see us. Later he came back did the great sound and saw an amazing Gas Giant show with some killer long jams and later a jam with Colour Haze as well. These were fantastic concerts and great times with both bands just really having a great time and jamming a lot. It showed another side of Ralph but he was truly dedicated to the tour, despite coming home with little money.

 

 

Ralph eventually left 3rd Tsumani and for a while was an independent booker before joining Anders and Gearbox Agency the last many years. He also was part of the Route66 vinyl-only store in Copenhagen after the original owner sold the place. For many years he was the only person bringing stoner and psychedelic rock to Copenhagen from the late ‘90s up until the present. He was truly dedicated and really got so many cool bands here that would probably never have played in Denmark. He managed to get Nebula, Atomic Bitchwax, and all of these bands on their first tours of Europe. When he was on tour with On Trial or Baby Woodrose, he would always try to record the shows and give me the mini-discs so that I could do the transfers of the shows to CD. I was able to archive a lot of great shows this way.

Later, Ralph would begin working a lot more in the studio and less on the live sound scene and he did live sound for nearly every On Trial, Baby Woodrose, Dragontears, Aron and related band concert up until the last few years when he became ill. In the last six months I had four or five 45 min or longer talks with Ralph about what he was going through and he was always so positive even though it was a difficult struggle and he really suffered during these chemotherapy sessions. Ralph, earlier this year he told me that if this last one did not work, he would not do anymore but try to enjoy the rest of his time with his family.

Ralph was a dedicated person and someone I really respected. Please put on one of the many records that he mixed, engineered and worked on. This list at Discogs is nowhere near complete though as Ralph worked with many artists in Denmark, Sweden and the USA.  Please celebrate what he gave us all… Peace Ralph… you were a good friend.