Any discussion of all-time essential heavy albums is incomplete without Kyuss‘ 1994 full-length, Welcome to Sky Valley.

Officially self-titled, the Palm Desert four-piece’s third album following 1992′s also pivotal Blues for the Red Sun and 1991′s Wretch debut is to this day the single blueprint on which the desert rock aesthetic is based. The album was recorded at Sound City by Chris Goss and included the  simple instructions to, “Listen without Distraction.” Rarely in heavy rock has such sound advice been given.

You could argue that Blues for the Red Sun deserves induction into the Canon of Heavy first — I’m not sure you’d be wrong. The difference, however, is that where Blues for the Red Sun established Kyuss as a band apart from the grunge movement that was then sweeping radio, print mags and the greater rock and roll consciousness, it was Welcome to Sky Valley that showcased specifically the alternative they presented, the weight of their grooves, the loosely jammed feel of driving, punk-derived rhythms, the sheer power of a riff like that of “Supa Scoopa and Mighty Scoop” to stomp itself into the brain of a listener — I still try to tap out the hits at the end and get it wrong more often than not — and ultimately set the stage for the massive and ongoing influence Kyuss has today on bands all around the world.

Then comprised of vocalist John Garcia, guitarist Josh Homme, bassist Scott Reeder and drummer Brant Bjork, Kyuss would become a standard for those to whom even the commodified strains of alt rock left cold, and the sheer something else-ness of Welcome to Sky Valley continues to resonate and make it one of the best heavy records of all time, the best and most formative desert rock release ever, and an utterly timeless listen.

If nothing else, let the fact that Welcome to Sky Valley is included second to Black Sabbath‘s Master of Reality in the Canon of Heavy be a testament to its standing among the classics. And yet how can we call Kyuss anything but underrated?

“The Desert Sound”

Among others, Kyuss cited local jammers Yawning Man as having an influence on their sound, and one can hear that in Homme‘s guitar work on “Space Cadet” and elsewhere, but in a way that’s both unpretentious and undeniable, Welcome to Sky Valley was representative of the Californian desert to its very core. Weird and a little hippie, there was nonetheless heat in the tonal fuzz of the guitars and an ecosystem at work in Reeder‘s basslines, and while Garcia mused with stoned, brazen abandon about who the hell knows what, Bjork solidified every move the band made with understated percussive brilliance. Whether it was the single-worthy psychedelia of “Demon Cleaner” or the landmark thrust of “Odyssey,” Kyuss was as much about the rhythm section as it was about riffs or melodies.

The closing duo of “N.O.” (a cover of Reeder‘s prior outfit, Across the River) and “Whitewater” emphasized that perfectly, but really, it can be heard throughout Welcome to Sky Valley, and the photos that comprise the album’s artwork, of cracked sands and a foldout of a windmill, only speak to the band’s connection to its geography and their intent in conveying that musically. Whatever it was that did it, Kyuss never quite fit sonically with either the hard rock or the metal of their day. A jammed-out instrumental like “Asteroid,” placed as the second track behind opener “Gardenia” in the first of the album’s three movements, is unlike anything radio would’ve touched at the time, and at the time, radio was how a band like Kyuss would’ve gotten big. So what we have is an act necessitating a new vocabulary that didn’t exist when they did — ahead of their time — an act forcing those who’d approach them to realize that heaviness didn’t necessarily have to come hand in hand with anger or some teenaged grunge moping.

How did all this come from the desert? Hell if I know. Thinking about a landscape like that, beaten by the sun, dry and cracked like in the liner note pictures, it looks heavy, making a subtle, nonchalant threat just by being there. You can get lost in the desert and you can get lost in this music. The two almost can’t help but go hand in hand.

The Movements

Let’s say you’re a rock band signed to a major label. You see that the audience is becoming less and less dependent on a full-album listening experience and to counteract this — because you’ve just gone to the trouble of writing a full-length’s worth of material and perhaps you believe in all of it and want it to be heard — you decide to block the 10 component tracks of your album into three movements, three in the first, three in the second and four in the third. Basically, you’re demanding that your audience engage the songs on the level you’ve chosen for them. They no longer have the power to skip to whichever track they want. The terms are yours.

First of all, you’d never get away with it. Today’s corporate label strata is so client friendly that so long as you’re willing to give even the slightest bit of money as opposed to just stealing an album by downloading it illegally, record companies will basically spoon-feed the music to your ears (that’s not to mention the homogenizing effect that the desperation to reach as broad an audience base as possible has had on commercial hard rock as a whole; it’s an issue for a different time), and if you want singles, singles you’ll have. Even Welcome to Sky Valley feels like the result of a compromise in this way. Kyuss could just as easily have presented the individual pieces as one 51-minute track. One wonders at the negotiation process that resulted in the three blocks of tracks that the final CD housed, a new meaning given to the proverbial numbers game of contract talks.

Promo copies of Welcome to Sky Valley went out to radio stations with the pieces split up individually, but for the general listening populace, Sky Valley more or less forced you to take it on as a whole and on that level flew in the face of its own potential for commercial success. In a climate that was having less and less time for a whole album, Kyuss decided they’d refuse to give anything less.

Its Influence

Unless you’ve done it, I’m not sure you can understand quite how difficult it is sometimes to review heavy rock records and not just be like, “Well, it kinda sounds like Kyuss on Welcome to Sky Valley.” At this point, approaching 19 years since its original release, the album continues to have an appeal past any expiration date one might’ve ever wanted to put on it, and from California to Moscow, bands have tried to make even the slightest bit of its magic their own. Most fall short, but the mere fact that their inspiration can be traced back to Kyuss and in particular to Welcome to Sky Valley makes the album a standout in its generation.

The basic fact is that when Kyuss released this album on Elektra, yeah, there was a market for creative hard rock — the Melvins put out Houdini on Atlantic late in ’93, and Monster Magnet‘s second album, Superjudge, founding them riding high on A&M — but the number of bands taking the approach Kyuss were taking to psychedelia, to rock-after-punk (that’s not to call them post-punk), on the level they were doing it, well, it was pretty much them and nobody. The desert from whence they hailed may have had a vibrant scene at the time, with bands like the aforementioned Yawning Man or Fatso Jetson, whose guitarist Mario Lalli guests on lead for “N.O.,” but Kyuss became the ambassadors for that scene to a wider public consciousness.

Really, it’s a title they continue to hold to this day, and with the boom in awareness of what they were doing that came with the rise of the internet as a musical conveyance, their reach went global just a few years after they’d broken up. Already by the mid-to-late ’90s, Man’s Ruin Records was having an impact on listening habits, but today, the sound that took root in Palm Desert can just as likely be heard in Poland or New Zealand.

So Why Weren’t They Huge?

How can that be true — how can Welcome to Sky Valley have had such an impact on heavy rock — and Kyuss still be an underground band? Well, the commercial success that Josh Homme eventually found with Queens of the Stone Age — and let’s not forget it took three albums and a collaboration with Dave Grohl to get there — eluded Kyuss for the entirety of their career. Singles like “Demon Cleaner” and “One Inch Man” from subsequent album …And the Circus Leaves Town (1996) brought some attention, and the band toured hard, but they never quite took the steps that Homme would later take to embrace their audience. Songs were loose and half-jammed, Garcia‘s vocals biting and guttural, and like several others of their musical generation, Kyuss inhabited a curious zone somewhere in between hard rock and heavy metal. The difference is now two decades’ worth of bands have lined up behind them in that position.

The way I look at it is like “Lick Doo” — the “secret” fourth track after the glorious finish of “Whitewater” that’s a minute-long faux doo-wop organ number with Garcia singing, “Oh honey, you know that you can and will lick my doo,” etc. Kyuss by this time were getting to be professionals at their sound, realizing that they had something unique to offer on a stylistic level and setting themselves to the work of capturing that on tape, but they were also a bunch of desert-dwelling stoners goofing around. You think if they were up to taking themselves too seriously they’d have put “Lick Doo” after “Whitewater?” No way. “Hey, here’s probably the best song we’ll ever write, let’s end the record with it and then put this stupid outtake on after it for absolutely no reason.” Sorry, but if you’re considering your position in rock history, that’s probably not the choice you’re gonna make.

And ultimately, maybe that’s part of what makes Welcome to Sky Valley so special — that Kyuss may have been reinventing a long forgotten classic rock wheel, but they were basically doing so just by being who they were. And maybe that’s why all the people who’ve come along since, including Kyuss themselves, have never quite managed to harness the same feeling in a recording as these guys did at that particular moment in time, in that studio, with those instruments, those songs.

A couple weeks ago, I asked the question above: “What are the 10 greatest stoner rock records?” It was kind of just something I was throwing out there to see what came back. Nothing scientific, pretty vague on what “stoner rock” actually meant as a genre designation. Basically just trying to get a spur-of-the-moment response, like an inkblot test for riffs. First thing that comes to mind.

The response was awesome, so before anything else, thank you to everyone who contributed a list to the original post. I was taken aback by the number of replies that came in — a total 73 comments — and the resultant breadth of records named reads like a wishlist of the damned. Some people were pretty orthodox in their definition of the genre, and some more open in the bands they included, but working from everyone’s lists, I tallied up the votes, and while I don’t necessarily agree with all the choices personally (I added my own list as a comment to the initial post, so I won’t bother reprinting it), it was a blast to see what emerged on top. The people have spoken.

I tried to be as fair as I could in the tallying. There were some comments left that were individual songs and not albums, and those I didn’t count, but everything else went in, even if it was only mentioned once, and when someone said, for example, “Melvins – all,” I actually added a tally to everything by the Melvins that everyone else had said. Again, it’s not really a scientific thing polling demographic data, but it was a lot of fun.

Okay, here’s the list:

The Top 10 Greatest Stoner Rock Records Poll Results:

1. Kyuss, Welcome to Sky Valley (41 votes)
2. Sleep, Sleep’s Holy Mountain (27 votes)
3. Black Sabbath, Master of Reality (19 votes)
4. Kyuss, Blues for the Red Sun (18 votes)
5. Monster Magnet, Spine of God (15 votes)
5. Sleep, Dopesmoker (15 votes)
7. Electric Wizard, Dopethrone (14 votes)
7. Fu Manchu, In Search Of… (14 votes)
9. Queens of the Stone Age, Queens of the Stone Age (12 votes)
10. Fu Manchu, The Action is Go (10 votes)

As you can see, some real classics in there, and Welcome to Sky Valley was far and away the winner, picked by 41 out of the 73 people (myself included), with Sleep and Black Sabbath behind. There were two ties at numbers five and seven, but beyond that, it’s a pretty clear picture of where people are at with their favorites.

What about everything else? Well, it was all counted. I broke all the entries down by number of votes and listed them by artist with albums in chronological order.

You’ll find the complete list after the jump.

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Earlier in the day, while waiting for a table at the Alexis Diner on Rt. 10 in Denville, I asked The Patient Mrs. to buy a ticket for the Powerball. I don’t usually play the lottery, but we’d been there for a bit waiting for the rest of my family to show up (lunch following my nephew’s Xmas pageant was one of the day’s several social obligations), and still tired from seeing Mighty High and Cortez the night before, I thought how great it would be to both win the Powerball and see Kyuss Lives! in the same day. My reasoning was that one was great enough, but imagine both!

It’s a wonder I’m not divorced.

The early part of that same evening found The Patient Mrs. and I (she was driving; I’d already had a few and I’d have a few more before the night was out) racing northbound on the Parkway to get to the Wellmont Theatre in scenic Montclair, NJ, in time to catch The Atomic Bitchwax open the show for Black Cobra, The Sword and Kyuss Lives!, who were on the last night of their tour and under whose banner the whole show took place. The Bitchwax being Jersey locals, the appeal was plain, and with the added interest of Dave Witte (Human Remains, Burnt by the Sun, Exit-13, Birds of Prey, Municipal Waste, etc.) filling in on drums, I didn’t want to miss it. You know that hurried feeling when you get all anxious that you’re not going to make it in time? It was like at, and as per usual, completely without reason. We arrived well in time for the start of their set.

Last time I saw The Atomic Bitchwax was at the Saint in Asbury Park with Karma to Burn, and it was high on the list of the best shows I’ve ever seen them play. With Witte‘s taking Bob Pantella‘s spot on drums while the latter is on a European run with Monster Magnet, intrigue was high. Sure enough, Witte more than held his own, but as you’d expect, the chemistry that’s developed between Pantella and bassist/vocalist Chris Kosnik and guitarist/vocalist Finn Ryan just wasn’t there. Still, they did Jersey proud, and I spent the whole time trying to figure out how Kosnik would know Witte (Human Remains was a Jersey band; that’s the best I could come up with), taking minor mental detours to enjoy “Destroyer,” “Gettin’ Old,” “So Come On,” “Shitkicker,” “Hope You Die,” the Core cover, “Kiss the Sun” and the curious instrumental choice of closer, “Force Field.”

Witte is a master drummer. The reason he’s involved in so many projects is he’s so adaptable, and in The Atomic Bitchwax, he nestled in well alongside the fast-winding riffs of Kosnik and Ryan, though there was part of him that looked ready to bust out a grindcore blastbeat at any moment, and his snare seemed to pop with that kind of expectation. By contrast, Rafa Martinez of Black Cobra did unleash a few blasts, most notably during “Obliteration” from the band’s most recent Invernal album, but hit with a different technique altogether. This was the first I’d seen Black Cobra since Invernal came out, and I was glad to find them focusing on the new material, since I think it’s their best yet.

That Martinez and guitarist/vocalist Jason Landrian were unbelievably tight should almost go without saying at this point, since that’s pretty much been the case with the duo since their inception as a touring act seven or eight years ago at this point. They opened with “Avalanche” from the new album, though, and it occurred to me how much they’ve grown in terms of stagecraft. Landrian, quiet and subdued off stage, is more confident than ever while on, and more apt to engage the audience as a frontman. He held his guitar over his head, headbanged, yelled off-mic at the crowd and generally worked to bring people into the show. It wasn’t yet crowded at the Wellmont, but the people who showed up early knew why they were there, and I think Landrian‘s efforts were appreciated.

“Avalanche” and “Obliteration” were highlights, but the irresistible riffing of “Corrosion Fields” made their set, and it would do so again the next night in Brooklyn. That kind of chugging groove is unmistakably righteous, and I didn’t in the least envy Austin, Texas, riffers The Sword for having to follow it. Still, they did, and as The Sword are more or less the commercial vanguard at this point for heavy rock, I felt in watching them like they were unavoidable. Bound to happen. I didn’t hear their last record, 2010′s Warp Riders, and I don’t remember the one before that, but I immediately recognized “Freya” from Age of Winters for its epic riffing and battle tales, and that was fine.

Look. At this point, The Sword aren’t going anywhere. They have a more than solid fanbase, have worked hard enough on the road to give their now-former drummer a nervous breakdown, and as guitarist/vocalist J.D. Cronise was out front watching The Atomic Bitchwax during their set, I’m inclined to think their hearts are in the right place, whatever the hype or promotional push around them might be. Hipster metal isn’t all The Sword‘s fault, and that’s coming from someone who doesn’t even like the band. They did their thing and the crowd responded well to it, and if I wasn’t into it, then at least I got a few minutes once I was done taking pictures to grab another beer and sit down before Kyuss came on, which I appreciated thoroughly.

And you’ll notice in that last sentence I dropped the “Lives!” from Kyuss Lives!, which seems only fair at this point. The looming prospect of a new album next year, plus the time the foursome of vocalist John Garcia, bassist Nick Oliveri, guitarist Bruno Fevery and drummer Brant Bjork have put in on the road playing those old tunes, they’ve earned it. It’s Kyuss. You know it, I know it. This was my second time seeing them, and yeah, Josh Homme wasn’t in the building, but seriously, bands have toured with fewer founding members, and I defy you to watch Brant Bjork during “Supa Scoopa and Mighty Scoop” and call it anything other than Kyuss.

It was pretty clear they were tired from being on the road, the show wasn’t exactly sold out even at its most crowded point, and the cavernous high ceiling of the Wellmont that so well suited Black Cobra didn’t do them any favors sound-wise, but how could I possibly think of a Kyuss set as anything other than a positive? What else would I have been doing that night that would’ve been better than drunkenly belting out the parts to “El Rodeo” along with Oliveri and Garcia, or watching the jam that developed out of “50 Million Year Trip (downside up)?” Nothing. Watching the current incarnation of Kyuss tear through their set with the level of poise and professionalism they did was a blast. Garcia didn’t talk much, but sounded killer singing, and Fevery seemed even more comfortable on the songs than he had in Philly, making “Hurricane,” “Freedom Run” and “One Inch Man” high points of a night mostly comprised of high points.

Whatever becomes of the Kyuss Lives! lineup, with Oliveri facing jail-time following a SWAT standoff earlier this year and Scott Reeder waiting in the wings to take up the bassist position as he did prior to the release of 1994′s genre-defining Welcome to Sky Valley, they’ve done well by themselves and most importantly, by the material on these American and European tours. After absolutely nailing “Demon Cleaner,” they came out to do a quickie encore that included “Green Machine” and (I think; someone please correct me if I’m wrong) “Odyssey,” and then were done. I’d expected “Thumb,” but the Wellmont house lights came back up and the audience was quickly escorted out the door and into the cold.

Jersey doesn’t get shit for heavy rock shows. Generally speaking, if it’s coming anywhere these days, it’s coming to Brooklyn or maybe Manhattan if it’s a big enough deal to get into one of the corporate venues, but something like seeing Kyuss on my home turf in North Jersey, I felt like it was a really special opportunity and one I think I made the most of. It was night two of three shows in a row for me, but definitely will standout as more than just the middle in a series. I got everything I could’ve asked for except cheaper beer, and as I woke up the next day sans hangover, I felt like even the $7 Shiner Bock was a favor directed in my way (well, maybe not). I didn’t win the Powerball, but I’d hardly call it a loss for that.

Extra pics after the jump.

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Last time, we took a look at some classic heavy ’70s artwork from Atomic Rooster and Buffalo, and that was fun, but let’s face it, there’s bigger fish to fry. For example, now that Californian desert legends Kyuss have been (mostly) resurrected in the form of the appropriately-exclamatory Kyuss Lives!, it becomes more necessary than ever to examine the legacy they left behind them in their first run. Kyuss: The gods of the ’90s desert!

The question in part comes down to lineup. For 1992′s Blues for the Red Sun, Kyuss consisted of drummer Brant Bjork, guitarist Josh Homme, bassist Nick Oliveri and vocalist John Garcia. Of those four, it was Bjork and Oliveri principally responsible for the songwriting. That remained true for 1994′s Kyuss, which would later adopt the unofficial title Welcome to Sky Valley (often shortened as just Sky Valley), but the swapping out of bassist Scott Reeder in place of Oliveri — a process which, it could be argued, is under way again now in Kyuss Lives! — had a huge impact on the band’s sound, accordingly with an increase in confidence, establishment of aesthetic, etc.

What’s not up for debate, however, is that these are two of the most classic and pivotal desert rock albums of all time. With landmark songs like “Thumb,” “Green Machine” and the truly post-punk “Allen’s Wrench,” Blues for the Red Sun helped set in motion the genre that would be centered around Palm Desert and the surrounding area, but the vision wasn’t completely realized until two years later, when Sky Valley was released. Broken into three larger movements, tracks like “Supa Scoopa and Mighty Scoop,” “100 Degrees,” the softer “Space Cadet” and the instrumental “Asteroid” solidified the sound that the prior album had proposed, arguing not just for its artistic relevance, but for the imperative blend of atmosphere and classic influence that has come to typify true desert rock.

But as much as that’s true, you couldn’t have had the one without the other. I know where my heart and listening habits place me, but what about you? Desert island scenario (or maybe just desert, if that’s more appropriate), you can only have one or the other. Which is more pivotal in terms of its influence, and which would you rather just hear for the rest of your life to the exclusion of the other? These seem like big questions — because both records are so great — but that’s why The Debate Rages.

Please cast your votes in the comments.

As I made my way into the Trocadero on Philadelphia‘s Arch Street (apparently right in Chinatown), I asked the mostly-disinterested girl working the ticket window if anyone had gone on yet. Her eyes lit up and she said, “Everyone but Kyuss!” It was a little before 8:45PM.

I didn’t remember having been at the Trocadero before until I saw the place, then flashes of Fireball Ministry, Clutch and Strapping Young Lad came to mind, though no recollection of how many shows that actually was. One or two, anyway. The place was decently crowded but not overly packed considering the headliner was about to go on, and I made my way up toward the front of the theater to wait for the set to start.

And wait I did. Kyuss Lives! — the remarkable three-quarters reunion of desert rock gods Kyuss that features vocalist John Garcia, bassist Nick Oliveri, drummer Brant Bjork and guitarist Bruno Fevery — wouldn’t go on for another half an hour at least. I wasn’t especially bummed at having missed MonstrO or The Sword, but the crowd spent an awful lot of time spent waiting for Garcia to come on stage and tell them they don’t seem to understand the deal. And just like when you’re so hungry at a restaurant and you’re waiting, and you think maybe your order is screwed up somehow, that you’re going to get the wrong food, or nothing at all, that the little slip with your meal written on it fell off the thing and is sitting on the dirty kitchen floor, I started to worry something was amiss, that Brant Bjork had slipped on a banana peel or something and pulled a calf muscle and couldn’t drum or something equally ridiculous and unlikely/likely as that.

Guess that means I fell for it. Granted, on the scale of the 15 years it’s been since Kyuss last toured, the wait for Kyuss Lives! to take the stage last night wasn’t all that bad, but the anticipation was excruciating. And not just for me. The whole audience — a mostly-dude mix of stoners, rockers, guys who were there the first time and younger-types who weren’t, peppered with the occasional patient girlfriend and/or female actually there to enjoy the music — seemed tense with it. Maybe that’s me projecting.

They opened with “Hurricane” from 1995′s …And the Circus Leaves Town and sounded right on from the start. They could’ve played anything and it both would have been perfect and not enough, but it was a solid set — more than an hour, not quite 90 minutes, if I timed it right — and though there was no “Demon Cleaner,” cuts like “El Rodeo” and the more expected “Gardenia,” “Thumb” and “100 Degrees” covered a lot of ground.

Oliveri took backing vocals on “El Rodeo” and several others, and though he was a little loud in the mix initially, his voice meshed well with Garcia‘s. His legal problems notwithstanding, he sounded good and looked good on stage and seemed glad to be there. He and Bjork were practically a band unto themselves in the rhythm section. I’m pretty sure I’ve said this before, but Brant Bjork is the Godfather of Desert Groove, and playing drums in Kyuss Lives!, he made it look almost effortless, like at any moment, he was about to kick his feet up and take a nap while also ripping through “Allen’s Wrench” in the encore. Solid doesn’t even begin to cover it. The dude is something special.

Presumably, Garcia knows that, and likewise for Oliveri and guitarist Bruno Fevery, otherwise he’d have gotten other people for the project. For his part, Fevery held down the songs well. His hair hanging in front of his face for most of the set, the Belgian six-stringer kept a low profile compared to the draw of the other three in the band, and while he seemed impatient in the several extended jams the band took, his sound fit well with the songs. No complaints, is what I’m trying to say. Invariably, he didn’t have the sense of freedom with the material as might the dude who helped write it initially, but it was a more than respectable showing, and I think he won over most of the crowd as the set wore on.

The high point, for me, anyway, might have been “Whitewater” from Welcome to Sky Valley, if only because I didn’t expect it. I mean, you pretty much know you’re going to get “Green Machine” — and we did, in the encore — but I didn’t see “Whitewater” coming, and the crowd singing along to Garcia‘s “Aah-ah-ah, I am home” chorus made it seem like that was all the more the case. It was beautiful, and a little lonely, and more beautiful for being a little lonely — much as I’ve always imagined the Californian desert to be. I missed my wife and wished I wasn’t there alone.

It would be pretty easy for me to slip into wax poetics and talk about the grandeur of getting the chance to see these guys play these songs, since I never thought it would happen, but I think it’s important to remember it’s a rock and roll show, even if one that obviously meant a tremendous amount to the crowd assembled to see it, myself included. I will say that a telling moment came about during the break before the encore. The audience was chanting “KY-USS! KY-USS!” and it went like that for a bit, but was gradually overtaken by the even louder “KY-USS LIVES! KY-USS LIVES!” I was glad to have seen it.

Oliveri introduced Fevery to the crowd during the encore saying something to the tune of, “This dude rules and he’s from Belgium.” They jammed out “Molten Universe” before Garcia came back out to close the night with “Allen’s Wrench.” I remembered being on the side of the stage at Roadburn and watching as Orange Goblin‘s Ben Ward joined Garcia Plays Kyuss for the song. This was a different experience, being in the audience in Philly, but more than a thrill, all the same. I was a little surprised when it was over, but the house lights came up at about 10:35 and the place cleared out.

I made my way back to the lot where I’d parked, shelled out a whopping $7.50 for what in Manhattan would’ve cost me $20 plus a tip and hit the road back north with the ball game on the radio. I was in the driveway before 1AM, which is rare to say for the return from Philadelphia, but even if it had been five in the morning, it would be worth the trip. Say what you want about hating reunions, the dudes just being in it for the money, or whatever. I saw John Garcia, Nick Oliveri and Brant Bjork do a set of Kyuss songs last night, and I don’t care what else was happening in the world, it’s not gonna beat that.

Extra pics after the jump.

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Their work in the genre of stoner/desert rock and doom is second in influence only to Black Sabbath, and Kyuss‘ four albums — Wretch, Blues for the Red Sun, Welcome to Sky Valley and …And the Circus Leaves Town — have become an essential blueprint for a subsequent generation of rockers. Songs like “Green Machine,” “Thumb” and “Gardenia” ring out like epic poetry: utterly timeless and complete in every way.

Taking youthful cues from Yawning Man, punk rock and other outfits from their home in the Californian desert, the four-piece of vocalist John Garcia, guitarist Josh Homme, bassist Nick Oliveri and drummer Brant Bjork set a spontaneous-sounding course, and the generator parties in the desert wilds have become the stuff of YouTube legend, capturing an unconcerned lack of self-awareness that’s straight out of classic rock. That is, in the true spirit of innovation, they didn’t purport to be changing anything at the time.

Inevitable lineup shifts saw the departure of Oliveri and eventually Bjork, with The Obsessed‘s Scott Reeder coming in on bass for Welcome to Sky Valley in 1994 and drummer Alfredo Hernandez (Yawning Man) replacing Bjork on …And the Circus Leaves Town the next year. Kyuss continued to tour and gain popularity, but ultimately came apart, releasing their last studio offering in the form of a 1997 Man’s Ruin Records split with Homme and Oliveri‘s new outfit, Queens of the Stone Age.

The poorly-titled compilation of rare tracks Muchas Gracias: The Best of Kyuss hit in 2000, and for a full decade, Kyuss‘ legacy was left to fester. Queens of the Stone Age hit big commercially, Brant Bjork amassed a catalog of incredibly underrated solo albums, and Garcia found outlets in the form of Slo Burn (whose EP, Amusing the Amazing, was stellar), the Rick Rubin-produced Unida (whose breakthrough album was unfortunately shelved and never saw official release), and Hermano (currently on hold after three records, including the boldly self-exploratory 2007 effort …Into the Exam Room), but eventually came to recognize family and his career in veterinary diagnostics as his main priorities.

The outfit Garcia Plays Kyuss was announced for the 2010 Roadburn Festival in The Netherlands, and the response was electric. Garcia surrounded himself with hand-selected European rockers — including guitarist Bruno Fevery — and used the fest to launch a well-received European run. Bringing Oliveri and Bjork on stage at that year’s Hellfest in Clisson, France, the vocalist discovered that Kyuss‘ energy had far from dissipated, and the exclamatory Kyuss Lives! was born.

On the eve of their first North American tour, Garcia reveals in the interview that follows that Kyuss Lives! has begun writing material for a new Kyuss album, and his excitement at working with Oliveri and Bjork, along with Fevery, is palpable. He also discusses going back to touring from family life, the expectation of animosity between Kyuss Lives! and Homme — not part of the reunion process — the status of his Garcia vs. Garcia solo project, that Roadburn appearance that kicked off this revival, and much more.

The complete 5,100-word Q&A is after the jump. We spoke over morning coffee on Sept. 8, 2011. Please enjoy.

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I’m fairly certain I got ripped off. It’s my own fault. Dicking around on eBay in the middle of the night — as I do — I came across a Ukranian seller with a two-disc bootleg of Kyuss at the Opera House in Toronto from 1994. What was I supposed to do? The cover didn’t look like it was from the inkjet that had run out of blue, and Kyuss boots don’t pop up that often. I thought maybe it was a Cold War black market leftover, maybe someone found it in a Soviet footlocker or something. Whatever. I wanted to make it mine.

The bidding got stupid. I waited, as I usually do, until the last minute, and in that time, it went up past $50. I set limits for myself — I have to — and that was beyond mine, so I let it go. I woke up the next day, still bummed, skulked around most of the afternoon, and then found an email from the seller in my inbox saying, “Oh hey, the guy who won backed out, do you still want it at your high bid?” My high bid was $47, which, with the $5 shipping would put it over $50. I said I’d take it.

Now, here’s my question: Was there really another bidder, or was it just this shady motherfucker on the other end of the email trying to drive up the price? It’s not a bad racket, right? “Oh, hey, that other dude flaked, I’ll give it to you at the ridiculous amount of money you were apparently willing to spend,” and meanwhile, he’s the one clicking “Increase bid” the whole time. In all my time on eBay, I’d never had something like this happen before, where the buyer split and the seller offered it to the second highest bidder. And I’ve been second highest plenty of times.

At the end of the day, it didn’t matter. I paid for The Opera House, Toronto, Canada 1994/10/30 and set about waiting for it to come, hoping that the insult to injury wouldn’t just be the discs never showing up. They came. It’s CDRs, which is meh but ultimately not that much of a concern for me, and well-printed inkjet covers, but when I put the discs on to listen in the office — because a CDR from the Ukraine is most certainly not working in my car player — they had the two-second pause in between the tracks, meaning that when this jerk or whichever jerk actually downloaded and burned these files to CD, they couldn’t even be bothered to click “Gapless.”

It’s happened to me before, too. The edition of Black Sabbath‘s godly Asbury Park 1975 show I have is inkjet/gapped CDR, and just like with that, I feel like a fucking idiot every time I listen to the Opera House 1994 Kyuss show. It’s an audience recording, not terrible, not great, but as each song ends and there’s that long hiccup of silence, it totally kills the experience. Bootleg sound has its charm, but having paid $50-plus for what will basically sit on my shelf and gather dust because just hearing it sucks has all the appeal of a pineapple prostate exam.

Never underestimate a human being’s capacity to fuck over another human being. I knew I should’ve stuck to the radio promos. Lesson (probably not) learned.

I know in the past it’s been “here’s so-and-so’s first bio,” but, well, there was this promo for And the Circus Leaves Town, and there was text on the back that I couldn’t read in the eBay listing shot, and so I had to make it mine. Reading it, you can really get the sense of how on the brink of mainstream success Elektra Records believed Kyuss was going into their last album, and in light of the just-announced Kyuss Lives! dates, I thought I’d post this for anyone else who might be interested. Click the image to enlarge it:

I think that Josh Homme quote at the end is my favorite part. You never really know if that’s the artist or the PR person saying that kind of thing in band bios, but it’s a cool and succinct summary of Kyuss‘ sound, with just a hint of arrogance for good measure, so I’d believe it. Also dig that “Thee Ol’ Boozerooney” is spelled wrong (or right) in the tracklisting. Nerdy fun.

Because I’ve already expelled as many words as my brain can handle today, I’ll be blunt: I cannot fucking wait for when Kyuss Lives! plays NYC. I don’t care it’s not a full reunion. I don’t care about whatever else, I want to see these dudes play these songs, and whatever to everything else.

Looks like even more people than we thought are going to get the chance to see them, too. Dig the new list of dates off the PR wire:

Kyuss Lives! — featuring original Kyuss members John Garcia, Nick Oliveri and Brant Bjork along with guitarist Bruno Fevery — will unleash their desert rock fury on North America for the first time in over 15 years this fall. The eagerly anticipated near total return of the California rock pioneers follows the blanket success of the group’s sold out spring European and Australian tours which have proven to be a feast of recognition for the legendary musicians. Now, due to unprecedented demand, Kyuss Lives! has announced that they will perform their classic songs in the following North American cities this September/October:

Kyuss Lives! North American live dates:
(** = support from The Sword, MonstrO)
(++ = MonstrO opens, remaining support TBA)
09/16 Toronto, ON The Sound Academy ++
09/17 Guelph, ON Guelph Concert Theatre ++
09/18 Montreal, QC Olympia de Montréal ++
09/20 Worcester, MA The Palladium **
09/21 Philadelphia, PA The Trocadero **
09/23 New York, NY Terminal 5**
09/24 Washington, DC 9:30 Club **
09/25 Asheville, NC The Orange Peel ++
09/26 Atlanta, GA The Masquerade ++
09/28 New Orleans, LA House of Blues ++
09/29 Houston, TX Warehouse Live **
10/01 Austin, TX Stubb’s **
10/02 Dallas, TX South Side Music Hall **
10/04 Denver, CO The Summit Music Hall ++
10/05 Santa Fe, NM Santa Fe Brewing Company **
10/06 Tempe, AZ Marquee Theatre **
10/07 Las Vegas, NV House of Blues **
10/08 Pomona, CA The Fox Theater **

Kyuss Lives! will also perform in Mexico, Chile, Argentina and Brazil in November, 2011. The just-announced dates are as follows:
11/09 Mexico City, Mexico El Circo Volador
11/11 Santiago, Chile Teatro Teleton
11/12 Buenos Aires, Argentina Teatro Colegiales
11/13 Sao Paulo, Brazil Caricoa Club

Moment of clarity: I am a fucking wreck of a human being. Even before I got drunk tonight and wasted the whole evening when I should have been reading stories for workshop on Monday (school, man, school), I was a total mess. Then I hit up a couple bottles of wine with The Patient Mrs., etc., and went outside and fell on the ice and fucked up my hand. It’s been a real shitter of a week. Posts later than I want, missing days of reviews. I’m having a hard time adjusting to the semester. Work, school, this. It’s a lot.

And when that shit piles up I go for comfort. Alfredo for dinner, Kyuss for des(s)ert. It was a long week, and I know next week is going to be a little better, and the one after that a little better, but that doesn’t make this one just finished any less of a pain in the ass. Ah hell, I’ve got it good.

Thanks to everyone for checking in, for scoping the Wino interview, for commenting on whatever you’ve got to talk about, for listening to the Hour of 13 record and so forth. It’s much appreciated. Next week I’ll be posting my Q&A with Dylan Carlson of Earth. We talked a couple weeks back for an hour-plus about the development of his band, the concepts behind their new album, and more. It was a really fascinating conversation, and I’m looking forward to bringing it to you.

So, enjoy the live Kyuss while I finish off the last bit of this wine, and while I’m not going to see The Giraffes tomorrow night for vocalist Aaron Lazar‘s last show with the band at Mercury Lounge because I’m stuck doing story revisions, I will be in front of the computer all weekend and I don’t doubt the forums will provide ample and much-appreciated distraction from responsibilities. Can you believe they expect me to write a masters thesis this semester? Ha!

Enjoy the weekend and be safe.

…This guy.

Okay, so maybe you don’t get the full effect of me pointing to myself with my thumbs while I say the punchline, but I think you get the point. It was eBay, it was seven dollars, and with that now-iconic image of the windmill on the front, there was no way I was going to let this promo single for Kyuss‘ “Demon Cleaner” from 1994′s Welcome to Sky Valley pass me by.

I’m more than willing to grant that buying a single song I already own several times over for seven dollars is just plain silly, but the artwork makes it. It was probably a radio single, because the back says it’s a promo — the “import” retail version was two separate discs; the height of major label B-side/ripoff chicanery was CD singles — and it wouldn’t make any sense for a full jewel case one-track single to have gone to press, even back in the economically roaring ’90s. The track, of course, is one of Kyuss‘ most recognized. In all honesty, there aren’t many situations in which I wouldn’t pay seven dollars to hear it.

And hey, at least it wasn’t the “Green Machine” single that went for $15 with nothing but a sticker with some Kyuss/Faith No More tour dates for a front cover. It’s by no means the least responsible CD-buying expenditure I’ve ever made, even as far as Kyuss goes, so I’m just glad to have the cover to stare at and another Kyuss jewel case to put on my shelf. It’s the little things.

What a question. Understand, I’m not talking about a grouping based on sound. I mean bands from the desert in California. It’s a limited bunch of musicians, centered around a few interconnected acts that have had a tremendous impact on stoner rock the world over. Although I think they’ve made some of the most important contributions to the genre, I’m including no outside bands here. It’s all about location.

Five bands  you need to know, and which album to get. Here goes:

1. Yawning Man: Most often credited as originators of the desert scene, an instrumental trio with Gary Arce, Mario Lalli (also Fatso Jetson) and Alfredo Hernandez (also Kyuss). Their new album, Nomadic Pursuits (review here), is fantastic and a great display of the influence they’ve had on those who’ve followed them, but recommendations for 2005′s Rock Formations are valid.

2. Kyuss: They’re the hallmark act of stoner rock, with import not just limited to the bands former members have launched (Queens of the Stone Age, Unida, Slo Burn, Brant Bjork, Mondo Generator, etc.). Welcome to Sky Valley is an all-time classic. As necessary as oxygen.

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Dear Mr. Homme,

I’d be remiss if I didn’t start off saying thanks for the many years of ass kickery. Having never spoken to you either in-person or via telephone (the closest I’ve yet come was being blown off in 2005), this feels an appropriate avenue to mention that, although there’ve been highs and lows, hard rock probably wouldn’t be the same in 2010 without your having been in it for about two decades now. So yeah, much appreciated.

On to the business at hand: By now I’m sure you’ve seen the video of your former Kyuss cohorts, Nick Oliveri, Brant Bjork and John Garcia playing together at Hellfest in France during a Garcia Plays Kyuss set. If you missed it, here it is:

Pretty badass, I know. Now, the thing of it is, I can’t imagine you haven’t watched that and thought to yourself, perhaps more than ever before, that maybe it’s time to get Kyuss back together. I’m not going to urge you not to do it. Rather, the purpose of this letter is to ask that, if you do decide it’s time for a Kyuss reunion, to do it the right way.

By that I mean no shows. Think of all the reunions going on; bands get back together and they’re all so excited to be playing again — or they’re just doing it for cash — that they book a tour, and yeah, it can be great, but it’s a nostalgic thing. If Kyuss‘ music has proved to be anything, it’s timeless, and to see a reunion come about that’s just based on, “Hey, let’s trot out ‘Allen’s Wrench’ for the folks who didn’t get to see it,” would be disappointing and lame. I think that’s also why it hasn’t happened yet.

That’s not a slag on Garcia Plays Kyuss. I saw them in April and it was great to hear him sing those songs. But if you’re going to revive a band like Kyuss, whose popularity came after their breakup, the way to do it is to put out an album first. I know the music is a lot different, but the best-handled reunion I’ve ever seen was that of Celtic Frost (until it fell apart, anyway). They announced they were back together, and immediately started writing. They took as long as it needed to take to write — in their case it was about five years — and they put out a killer album in Monotheist, and only then did they start booking tours. It was a triumphant return, the shows sold out, the record was great, and most importantly, fans had a context for who Celtic Frost was in the present, instead of who they were when they put out Into the Pandemonium or To Mega Therion.

What I’m saying is, it’s been 13 years since Kyuss ended, and a lot has happened in that time. If you decide to bring Kyuss back, don’t just do it to play the greatest hits, do it as a creative endeavor. That way no one on either side, fan or artist, goes into it thinking things will be just like they were on Blues for the Red Sun, which is a ridiculous expectation but a prevalent one nonetheless. Write first, get Chris Goss to produce, and put out a Kyuss album. Then tour. You’ll find that what Kyuss was is entirely preserved, and what Kyuss is today can honor that while at the same time offer a glimpse of how time has changed you guys as players. As a fan, I just think Kyuss deserves more than the usual “one more go” reunion, and felt compelled to share my thoughts. On the off-chance you see them, thanks for reading.

Sincerely,
Some Dude You’ve Never Heard Of
Heaping Pismire Taskmaster

Desert rock luminary Brant Bjork has been embroiled in a prolific solo career for over a decade now, and with his latest album, Gods and Goddesses (released through his own Low Desert Punk imprint; the reincarnated version of what was once Duna Records), the former Kyuss and Fu Manchu drummer and successful multi-instrumentalist has changed his approach somewhat, focusing on higher production value and a tighter range of execution. In short, he’s gone back to his straightforward rock roots and blended the aesthetics of early ’70s hard rock (Deep Purple, Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, etc.) vinyl releases with his trademark desert approach, incorporating elements of surf, funk, soul and jazz for good measure.

My review of the album is here, so I won’t go on about it, but as someone who’s followed Brant Bjork‘s progression over the course of his solo works, it’s hard not to be excited about the material and dynamics Gods and Goddesses presents. Joining Bjork on the album are bassist and longtime friend Billy Cordell (Yawning Man), guitarist Brandon Henderson and drummer Giampaolo Farnedi, and the unit sound both crisp and organic thanks to the production of Ethan Allen (The 88s, Luscious Jackson), with whom Bjork has, as he explains in the interview, been waiting to work with for years.

He and the band are currently embarked on a European tour that includes a stop at the Roadburn festival in Tilburg, The Netherlands, but before he left, Brant Bjork took some time to discuss over the phone the change in his approach to making records that preceded Gods and Goddesses, founding Low Desert Punk, his time spent living in Spain and much more. Q&A is after the jump. Please enjoy.

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If there’s one buzzword The Patient Mrs. can’t stand hearing me say, it’s “completist.” Now, whether that’s because she doesn’t think the term accomplishes anything that “collector” doesn’t or because she just doesn’t like being married to one, I don’t really know, but it drives her up the god damn wall.

On the other hand, I think “completist” describes a very specific mindset — particularly as it relates to music — that “collector” just doesn’t capture. It gets to a certain point where it’s not even about the music anymore, about the bands, their songs or any of that. It’s about the thing, about having that thing that you don’t have yet, getting it before someone else can, finishing the band’s catalog or just having one more record with that band’s name on it to sit on the shelf with the others.

Case in point: I recently purchased a Kyuss promo off eBay, titled Sky Valley Part III. After shipping and a five dollar donation to Haiti, I paid a whopping $17.98. It came in the mail yesterday, and it is, as I knew when I bought it, just the last four songs from the classic 1994 album, Welcome to Sky Valley. You get “Odyssey,” “Conan Troutman,” “N.O.” and “Whitewater” (still as one track, mind you), and that’s it.

I’m not sorry I bought it, but I don’t think there could possibly be an argument made on the side of my needing this CD. I already have two copies of Sky Valley itself (a standalone and one in the 3 for One box set), and with nothing more than the last four songs and separate artwork — an interesting journey back in time to when a label could afford something like putting a jewel case promo like this together — even I can’t say I had to own Sky Valley Part III.

Maybe it’s a status thing? Bragging rights? Like the douchebag banker and his Ferrari? I’m certainly not a better person for having paid for what someone initially got for free, but it was an impulse I couldn’t have fought if I’d wanted to, and even now, I don’t really have buyer’s remorse for having snatched it just before the auction ended. This is what I do. I’m a completist. If I’m going to be obsessive compulsive about something, at least I’m not hurting anyone other than myself, and that only fiscally.

But I think there’s a strong case to be made for the differences between collecting and completism. And if anyone needs me to make that case for them, I’d be more than happy to do so just as soon as I’m done seeing if I can get a copy of Masters of Reality‘s Reality Show cheap on any of the international Amazon.com sites.