Posted in Whathaveyou on June 12th, 2017 by JJ Koczan
This Friday in Denver marks the beginning of Electric Funeral Fest 2017. Kicking things off at 4:15PM will be West Coast boogie groovers Lords of Beacon House, followed immediately by High on the Mountain right across the street. I know these things because the festival has newly announced its full schedule for its two-day run, which features the likes of Slow Season, The Well, Sourvein, Goya, Oryx, headliners Acid King and Corky Laing’s Mountain, and many others. I’ve got kind of a whirlwind couple weeks coming up as it is, but if you were offering me a ticket and a flight, I’d have a hard time turning this one down. Looks like it’s going to be an incredible time for those fortunate enough to be there.
If that’s you, I hope you have a blast. Here’s the info:
SATURDAY JUNE 17th The Joint by Cannabis Stage at 3 Kings Tavern 4:15 – 4:50 Dizz Brew 5:15 – 5:50 Red Wizard 6:15 – 6:50 Feather Stone 7:15 – 7:50 Great Electric Quest 8:15 – 8:50 Barrows 9:15 – 9:55 The Heavy Eyes 10:15 – 11:00 Electric Citizen 11:40 – 12:40 ACID KING
Electric Funeral will once again be happening in the South Broadway district of Denver. Anyone that is familiar with Denver knows that S. Broadway is one of the greatest neighborhoods this city has to offer. In our second year of this event, we have added a second stage at Hi Dive. Hi Dive is across the street from 3 Kings Tavern and easily one of the greatest places to party in Denver.
There is also no shortage of other great bars and restaurants in the area for attendees to visit if they need a break from head-banging. Although both stages are indoors, this will feel like just as much of an outdoor event as people go back and forth between the two venues that will run simultaneously through both evenings. Hey hey, my my, rock n’ roll sure ain’t fuckin’ dying in Denver!
Posted in Whathaveyou on April 3rd, 2017 by JJ Koczan
Acid King and Mountain as headliners? Look, I was pretty much sold on the notion of Electric Funeral Fest 2017 anyway, but it’s not like adding Corky Laing and a bunch of other dudes playing Mountain classics hurts. The festival is set for this June in the Mile High city of Denver, Colorado, and in addition to those two it features a swath of righteous acts from the West Coast, the Midwest, the South and the East, pulling in various kind of heavy from doom to sludge to classic rock and roll in what’s an obviously well curated environment. If I could go, I’d be there in a heartbeat.
Some of the below was posted previously, but I want to reiterate to underscore the point. If you’re in this part of the world, you should fucking go to this. Events like this deserve your support and they deserve to continue to flourish and grow. Don’t suck. Go and have a good time. That’s my piece. I’ve said it.
Info follows:
“Honored to announce the headliner of Day 1 at Electric Funeral Fest is current iteration of iconic rock band, MOUNTAIN. Original drummer Corky Laing has teamed up with a band to play Mountain hits from the early ’70s. It is a true pleasure to host a legend from the era that started it all.
Electric Funeral will once again be happening in the South Broadway district of Denver. Anyone that is familiar with Denver knows that S. Broadway is one of the greatest neighborhoods this city has to offer. In our second year of this event, we have added a second stage at Hi Dive. Hi Dive is across the street from 3 Kings Tavern and easily one of the greatest places to party in Denver.
There is also no shortage of other great bars and restaurants in the area for attendees to visit if they need a break from head-banging. Although both stages are indoors, this will feel like just as much of an outdoor event as people go back and forth between the two venues that will run simultaneously through both evenings. Hey hey, my my, rock n’ roll sure ain’t fuckin’ dying in Denver!
Electric Funeral Fest 2017 – Friday June 16th & Saturday June 17th Location: Denver, CO @ Hi Dive & 3 Kings Tavern
LINEUP
Friday June 16 Headliner: Corky Laing’s Mountain Support: Sourvein, Slow Season, Goya, R.I.P., The Well, Glitter Wizard, Monarch, Muscle Beach, The Munsens, Communion, Lords of Beacon House, Greenbeard, Oryx, Smokey Mirror, High on the Mountain
Saturday June 17 Headliner: Acid King Support: Electric Citizen, The Heavy Eyes, Destroyer of Light, Crypt Trip, Cloud Catcher, Love Gang, Barrows, Great Electric Quest, Red Wizard, Banquet, Ocelot (performing as Feather Stone), Jagged Mouth, Pueblo Escobar, Urn
Flier art by Christina Hunt Flier layout by Keith Dreissen
Posted in Whathaveyou on February 23rd, 2017 by JJ Koczan
Today, Denver’s Electric Funeral Fest 2017 reveals Acid King will headline and the likes of Sourvein, Slow Season, Goya, Electric Citizen, Destroyer of Light, The Well, Cloud Catcher, Oryx and many more will appear. Limited early tickets — there seem to be 40 — are on sale as of right this second.
One headliner is still TBA, but even so, it’s a remarkably ambitious return for Electric Funeral Fest, which had its first showing in 2016. Put on by DUST Presents, it finds hometown representation through The Munsens, Love Gang, Oryx, and Cloud Catcher, likely among others, and reaches far and wide in filling out an impressive roster of acts. To be perfectly blunt about it, it looks fucking awesome.
The fest was kind enough to let me host this initial lineup announcement, and below, organizer Shaun Goodwin gives some background on the area where it will take place across two venues and the vibe they’re shooting for with Electric Funeral Fest 2017.
Dig it:
Electric Funeral Fest 2017 – Friday June 16th & Saturday June 17th
Location: Denver, CO @ Hi Dive & 3 Kings Tavern
Tickets:www.electricfuneralfest.eventbrite.com – There will be 40 early bird discounted 2-day passes available at $49 – After those are sold, presale 2-day passes are $59 – 1 day passes are $32
Electric Funeral will once again be happening in the South Broadway district of Denver. Anyone that is familiar with Denver knows that S. Broadway is one of the greatest neighborhoods this city has to offer. In our second year of this event, we have added a second stage at Hi Dive. Hi Dive is across the street from 3 Kings Tavern and easily one of the greatest places to party in Denver.
There is also no shortage of other great bars and restaurants in the area for attendees to visit if they need a break from head-banging. Although both stages are indoors, this will feel like just as much of an outdoor event as people go back and forth between the two venues that will run simultaneously through both evenings. Hey hey, my my, rock n’ roll sure ain’t fuckin’ dying in Denver!
LINEUP
Friday June 16 Headliner: TBA Support: Sourvein, Slow Season, Goya, R.I.P., The Well, Glitter Wizard, Monarch, Muscle Beach, The Munsens, Communion, Lords of Beacon House, Greenbeard, Oryx, Smokey Mirror, High on the Mountain
Saturday June 17 Headliner: Acid King Support: Electric Citizen, The Heavy Eyes, Destroyer of Light, Crypt Trip, Cloud Catcher, Love Gang, Barrows, Great Electric Quest, Red Wizard, Banquet, Ocelot (performing as Feather Stone), Jagged Mouth, Pueblo Escobar, Urn
Flier art by Christina Hunt Flier layout by Keith Dreissen
Posted in Bootleg Theater on September 5th, 2014 by JJ Koczan
Leaf Hound, Growers of Mushroom (1971)
Among those who care about the genre in more than a passing way, there’s an ongoing debate about when “stoner rock” actually began. The same question applies to metal, other subgenres, life and any number of other things, so maybe that’s not a huge surprise, but people like to argue about things and that’s one of them. I usually fall into the Blue Cheer camp when it comes to that issue, that band’s focus on volume and heft being a pivotal influence, but there’s no question Leaf Hound‘s 1971 debut outing, Growers of Mushroom, was stoned as all anything. The UK five-piece — featuring vocalist Peter French, who’d go on within two years’ time to sing in both Atomic Rooster and Cactus and who serves as the lone remaining classic-era member in the modern incarnation of Leaf Hound — formed in 1969 under the name Black Cat Bones, and have ties to Free and Foghat in addition to the other acts mentioned. They were split up by the time they released Growers of Mushroom, but it’s an album that endured first on the collector market and then flourished again in the last decade or so thanks to reissues, internet word of mouth and an apparently decades-strong supply of swing.
Reasonably so. I wouldn’t call it the first stoner rock document, but easily one of the best early examples of the twist on heavy blues, acid rock and psychedelia that I’ve heard, classic cuts like “Freelance Fiend,” “Sad Road to the Sea,” the jamming “Work My Body,” riff-nodding “Drowned My Life in Fear” and “Growers of Mushroom” making for a delightful heavy vibe one can hear traces of in everything from Graveyard to Cathedral. Leaf Hound have been active the last several years, playing fests mostly, but also releasing the Live in Japanlive record (review here) this year on Ripple Music, culling tracks from Growers of Mushroomand their earlier 2007 reunion album, Unleashed, for a surprisingly seamless blend that reinforced the timeless nature of heavy rock. As with the best of them, though, Growers of Mushroomstands alone both in their catalog and out of it, and as summer starts to wind down, it’s a last bit of warm weather to enjoy while we still can.
Hope you dig it.
—
I guess I wrote two reviews this week, the YOB and that Kind show, but I’m frustrated at not having done more. Need to find a way to balance my time more. So much news around here lately, and the scope of bands just keeps getting wider, but I’ve also got stacks of discs, folders clogging up my desktop, and at this point five or six vinyl records and a couple of tapes that need to get covered as well. I hate not being able to stay on top of it, how easy it is to get behind on that stuff when my brain gets burnt out. I’ve got two-weeks-plus of emails that need to get answered as well. Ugh.
Basically I’m frustrated that I didn’t get to review the new Earth record this week. Look for that on Monday or Tuesday.
Just applied for two editor-type jobs. Won’t get either, but screw it, at least I sent the resumé out, and somehow knowing that I’d be better at both those gigs than whoever’s brother-in-law is actually going to get hired for them is some measure of comfort. At this point it probably shouldn’t be, but it is.
On Monday, I’ll have that Old Testament track premiere, which is Jason Simon from Dead Meadow‘s new project. Might have a Larmon Clamor track by the week’s end too, but basically I want to get a couple reviews up, maybe that Godhunter/Secrets of the Sky tape and the new Steak in addition to that Earth. Pretty ambitious, I know. We’ll see how it goes.
Meantime, hope you have a great weekend, be safe, eat well, hydrate and whatnot. We’ll see you back here Monday.
Posted in Reviews on January 29th, 2014 by JJ Koczan
If you’re ever looking to win an award for understatement, call Peter French‘s resumé “enviable.” In 1971, the same year Leaf Hound put out their seminal Growers of Mushroom debut LP, French was fronting Atomic Rooster for the In Hearing Of…album, and 1972 found him taking over for Rusty Day in Cactus for ‘Ot ‘n’ Sweaty. It was a short period of time, but a few landmark contributions. Though Growers of Mushroomwas widely bootlegged and officially reissued along the way, Leaf Hound wouldn’t put out another record until 2007’s Unleashed. With French up front, guitarist Luke Rayner, bassist Ed Pearson and drummer Jimmy Rowland, they’d begun playing out again circa 2004, released a live single through Rise Above in 2006 as a precursor to the album, continuing to tour and do periodic shows. They appeared at Roadburn in 2006 and 2012 both — at the latter playing Growers of Mushroomin full — and at Desertfest in 2012, and in July of that year did two nights in Tokyo that are now presented through Ripple Music as the Live in Japan 2012 CD/DVD (or LP/DVD) package. It’s noteworthy for a few reasons, among them that although they switched out Pearson for Peter Herbert on bass, this incarnation of Leaf Hound had already been active more than five years, over twice as long as the band’s original run.
Of course, Leaf Hound continues in large part to be defined by Growers of Mushroom and the swagger of that era, something that French‘s voice is able to convey some 40 years later on Live inJapan, but on the CD, cuts from Unleashedfeature pretty heavily as well. And where the studio version of that album didn’t quite convey the same kind of spontaneous edge, on stage in Tokyo the newer material meshes well with the old, so that original cuts like “Freelance Fiend” — as signature a riff as the band has — “Work My Body” and “With a Minute to Go” fit easily alongside “Barricades,” “Stop, Look and Listen,” and “One Hundred and Five Degrees.” A vinyl-ready 38 minutes for the audio portion concludes with the Howlin’ Wolf cover “Evil,” which Cactus also covered prior to French joining. There are a few bold exclusions from the CD, including “Sad Road to the Sea” and “Growers of Mushroom,” but the former seems not to have been played at all and the latter appears on the DVD with an extended jam featuring a bass solo from Herbert and subsequent guitar spaceout from Rayner that presumably would’ve put the audio over a vinyl runtime. Add to that the jam in “Work My Body” and maybe Leaf Hound were concerned about upsetting the flow of the audio or repeating themselves too much. Still, as omissions go, those are noteworthy ones for fans of the band.
Posted in Whathaveyou on July 11th, 2013 by JJ Koczan
Powered by vocalist Pete French, the reformed Leaf Hound will issue Live in Japan 2012 on Ripple Music later in 2013. The band have been playing periodically since releasing their 2007 comeback album, Unleashed, with stints at Roadburn and last year’s Desertfest (review here) under their belt as well as 1971’s Growers of Mushroom, which remains among the most formative works of modern heavy and stoner rock. Yes, really.
Ripple sent over the following:
Legendary Rocker, Pete French, Teams With Ripple Music To Release New LEAF HOUND Album, Live In Japan
Late 60s/early 70s classic rock band LEAF HOUND is legendary.
And now the band’s equally legendary frontman, Pete French, and the rest of LEAF HOUND has joined forces with Ripple Music to release an LP, CD, DVD project of all newly recorded live material – Live in Japan.
Recorded live in July of 2012 in Tokyo, Live in Japan will see worldwide release later this year via Ripple Music. Look out world, LEAF HOUND has been unleashed once again!
Few bands from the proto-metal period command the undying respect and nods of approval as does Leaf Hound. Talk about a pedigree. Leaf Hound formed in 1969 under their original name, Black Cat Bones. Early incarnations of the Black Cat Bones featured guitarist Paul Kossoff and drummer Simon Kirke who both left to form Free. Black Cat Bones issued one album then replaced their vocalist with perfect-wailer Peter French, Guitarist Rod Price departed soon after to join Foghat and French added his cousin Mick Halls on guitar. With that change, Leaf Hound was born.
In 1970, Leaf Hound released the seminal album “Growers of Mushrooms” which has rightly been hailed as a bonafide classic of 70’s British underground rock scene. Classic Rock magazine has raved that “Growers of Mushrooms” is one of the most influential pieces of music on the stoner rock, and the album has gained a reputation as being one of the true lost gems of the early British hard rock scene. Original Decca vinyl copies on are one of the most rare collectable rock albums out there with prices soaring above £4,000!
After the band broke up, Peter French found himself in high demand. He has been the voice of Atomic Rooster, Cactus and Randy Pie as well as releasing an acclaimed solo album on Polydor, ‘Ducks In Flight’, which featured the likes of Micky Moody, Brian Robertson and Kenny Jones. But the legend of Leaf Hound wouldn’t die. Interest in the band took a seismic shift when the album was first re-released on CD in 1994, finally giving rock fans easy access to the buried treasure. It gained a second re-release in 2005. The music is a prime slice of classic 70’s hard rock – a heady mix of Cream, The Who, Free, Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin.
Following intense public demand, Pete French put a new version of Leaf Hound together in the Spring of 2004, and in 2007 Leaf Hound released their first new album in decades, ‘Unleashed’ on the R.A.R.E/Repertoire label to highly positive critical acclaim. The opening track, ‘105 Degrees’, was voted one of the top 100 rock tracks of 2007 by Classic Rock magazine. To launch the release of the album, they headlined the second night of the All Hallows Festival at London’s Camden Underworld.
Now, the next chapter in the myth that is Leaf Hound unfolds as the band has joined the stalwart heavy rocking label, Ripple Music to unleash an all new set of killer live Leaf Hound onto the unsuspecting public. Soon to be released on LP, CD and DVD formats, Ripple Music will bring to a whole new audience the legend that is Leaf Hound. With a roster of classic proto-metal rockers that includes Poobah, JPT Scare Band, and Iron Claw, Ripple Music has already proven its ability to bring classic rocking bands to a modern audience.
LEAF HOUND is: PETER FRENCH – VOCALS LUKE RAYNER – GUITAR PETER HERBERT – BASS JIMMY ROWLAND – DRUMS
Posted in Features on April 8th, 2012 by JJ Koczan
04/08/12 — 22.31 GMT — Sunday — Hotel
I’m gonna be perfectly honest with you. I have no idea from what part of the chicken that doner kebab I just ate was made, nor what constituted the white sauce that topped it, but man, it was delicious. A greasy jolt being oddly enough just what I needed at this point. I picked up a plus-sized bottle of Zywiec (and toasted Elvis Deluxe when I opened it, as is my habit — sorry to not see those dudes in Berlin) and some cheddar cheese and crackers, and I could ask nothing more from the end to the first London Desertfest than what I’ve gotten.
Right now, Viking Skull should be on the stage at The Purple Turtle, and C.O.C. will be shortly wrapping their set at The Underworld, and then the streets of Camden Town will once more flood with weirdos and leather/denim heathens, doubtless to the horror of what seems otherwise like a pretty straightforward section of the city, full of painted ladies and bar-going dudes. I’m glad I got to see it during mating season, or maybe that’s later. Ecosystem studies I don’t do.
Balls-out heavy rock and roll, on the other hand… Well, that has been done. It’s been an amazingly long weekend. I’ve met a lot of great people, seen a lot of awesome bands. I know it seems like every post is full of, “Wow, these dudes were excellent! Party time alright!” but no shit, that’s pretty much how it’s been — though I’ve limited my partying to be even on all four sides (read: “square”), and even the Zywiec I’m now enjoying was purchased as much because it’s something different than tap water than because I felt like having a beer. I used to drink all night. Now I do this.
And on that note, let’s get started. As you can see below, my intent of making today lower key than yesterday was at least partially successful, though still with a bit of back and forth near the end.
Once more into the fuzz:
Leeds instrumentalists Wiht looked like they hated each other. I don’t know if it was just a contemplative post-metal thing or if each member of the trio is convinced that the other two dudes are bastards, but they hardly looked at each other or at the crowd, and guitarist Chris Wayper made only a cursory mention of it being their last show. Musically, they were right on. They did “The Harrowing of the North” and nailed it part for part, and it was a lot of fun to follow along with that story in my mind as they went along (see the review for more info), but yeah, there wasn’t much question that when the set was over, they wouldn’t be a band anymore. Still, Wiht were a quality act and quality players, both in general and on stage opening up at The Underworld, and I hope they end up in other bands. Though if I could bring the kind of crowd they did being the first act on the bill at 14.00 after a raging Saturday night, I wouldn’t break up.
My plan was to stay put at The Underworld through Gentleman’s Pistols, and though I knew nothing of either Throne nor Crystal Head, who were the two acts between Wiht and Leaf Hound, I’d hit the point where I was willing to trust Desertfest enough to not throw in anything shitty. It had already been two days of nothing but solid heavy bands, I saw no reason to doubt the capacity of the DesertScene crew to come through in the end, and sure enough, they did precisely that. Throne reminded me a bit of a less psychedelic Naam. Their riffs were in several cases lifted directly from Sleep’s Holy Mountain, though reworked — not that I fucking care; play that Sleep riff note for note and I’ll groove out almost every time — and they had a laid back stonerly attitude that went well with the music. The London trio didn’t look like they gave a damn, but it worked for them.
Also native to the city that’s hosting the fest, Crystal Head apparently used to be known as Penny Black. The new name suits them better. Especially immediately following Throne, they had a professional edge to their presentation that only enhanced the music. Floor lights, fog machine, a Gretsch guitar thicker in body than the guy playing it — Crystal Head struck an immediate chord with me for what I perceived to be a Queens of the Stone Age influence coming out. There was some of that Josh Homme-style start-stop jerky riffing, and the vocals (which came from both the bassist and the guitarist) veered occasionally into some characteristic falsetto. Still, they were thicker tonally than QOTSA, and they took the elements from that band to someplace heavier musically. They were a pleasant surprise, though I’m sad to say I failed to buy a CD from them, even later on in the night asking some other dude with a shaved head who I thought was the bass player if he had any merch. Obviously, he did not.
Fucking Leaf Hound. I don’t know where they stood numerically on the list of bands I never thought I’d be able to catch live, but I’d probably give them an ‘X’ either way, just because the idea seemed so ridiculous I wouldn’t have even thought to include them on any such list (one does not exist, surprisingly). And yeah, I know it’s Peter French and a bunch of guys who weren’t in the band when they recorded their classic material — they even had a new bassist, whose name I sadly did not catch — but whatever. I got to see Peter French sing “Growers of Mushroom,” and the jam that the players behind him embarked on in the song’s middle gave me a whole new appreciation for the track. “Sad Road to the Sea” was one of the day’s best performances from any band, and though I wasn’t on board all the way with guitarist Luke Rayner‘s guitar-face and “I’m gonna stare at the ceiling like I’m having an orgasm because this solo is so good” stage moves, I can’t take away from the fact that they were fucking great.
Shortly before they went on, a guy in the crowd Tony Reed introduced me to the other day told me that Gentlemans Pistols were the best band in Britain. Britain’s got some righteous rock and roll on its curriculum vitae at this point — to wit, everything I’ve seen this weekend — so I was on my way to intrigued by the time the double-guitar foursome took the stage. That in itself was a cause for celebration, as the band includes axe-man Bill Steer of the always-be-boogieing Firebird, and indeed Gentlemans Pistols were even more upbeat than Firebird on stage, changing places and mics, hoisting guitars aloft for the crowd to see and, in the case of drummer Stuart Dobbins, playing in his skivvies which he made a point to show off before sitting behind his kit. I can understand the impulse, as it was pretty hot and only getting hotter in that room — 20 minutes before Gentlemans Pistols came on, The Underworld was packed out — and while I don’t know if I’d say they were the best band on these Isles, I understood the appeal enough to pick up their 2011 album, At Her Majesty’s Pleasure, and I look forward to getting to know it better. Maybe not “in its underwear” better, but better, anyway.
By the time Gentlemans Pistols were halfway through their set, I was ready for the day’s first bit of traveling and made my way down the block with a mind toward seeing Cultura Tres, winding up at The Purple Turtle in time to catch Widows beforehand. UK natives as well, they thanked the crowd present for not going to see Gentlemans Pistols and delivered a set of that peculiar brand of stoner-type rock that’s not actually so different from post-hardcore in that everyone who plays it looks like they were in a hardcore band seven years ago. Not really my thing sonically, but fun to watch and they clearly had the style down. I bought their albums — they were selling handmade copies of their apparently-soon-to-be-pressed new one, and I got one of those — and enjoyed them for what they were. The Purple Turtle being the “heaviest” of the three Desertfest stages throughout the weekend, Widows were a decent balance between the some of the more aggressive sounds and the more laid back approach that was still to come from Samsara Blues Experiment later.
Cultura Tres are, among other things, well managed. They came all the way from Venezuela to tour Europe and the UK and their promotional team (there were several guys the band brought with them, to roadie, sell merch, street-team, film their set, etc.) has been handing out free DVDs the entire weekend. I have at least three at this point. Clearly a case of a band making the proverbial effort to be noticed, and I can’t hold it against them. They have a viable product. Their style is not quite sludge in the American or even the British sense — thinking Eyehategod and Iron Monkey as respective examples — but more of a slowed-down, malevolent metal. Tonally, it’s pretty clean, and there’s an edge of drama to their presentation on stage that adds to whatever the vague threat their material is making might be. I didn’t know them too well, though I’d checked out the video that I think was also contained on those DVDs (I’ll have to look to confirm that) and thought it was cool enough to post. If nothing else, it was encouraging to see that Cultura Tres were able to stand themselves out atmospherically from the rest of the Desertscene fare. I didn’t see anyone else this weekend who sounded quite like they did.
Back at The Underworld, Zoroaster were just finishing up their signature noisy wash as I walked in and made my way up front for Black Cobra, who, at this point, are a sentimental favorite. Aside from the fact that they kick unholy ass and just released the album of their career so far in Invernal (review here), I remember them from their days around New York, and they were killer even then. This morning as I sat outside whichever cafe it was down the block from the venue, I saw guitarist/vocalist Jason Landrian and got to say hey and see how the tour with C.O.C. and Zoroaster was going, and as unassuming as he always is to talk to — real quiet, down to earth guy — is as monstrous has he’s become on stage. He and drummer Rafa Martinez make for one of the tightest live heavy bands on the planet. Reportedly, before they loaded in, the duo also went and had their picture taken in front of a statue of British explorer Ernest Shackleton, on whose writings Invernal is partially based. Perhaps some of Sir Ernest‘s brashness was absorbed into the band, although to say that might give the impression that Black Cobra aren’t always as devastating as they were tonight, so stow that. These dudes just rip. If thrash had become Black Cobra, I’d listen to thrash, and whether it was seeing them destroy this crowd or seeing them with Kyuss Lives! back in December in Jersey (review here), they deserve and they earn every single success they have.
I was worn out. I was down. I didn’t know if I had the hike back to The Purple Turtle in me. Certainly C.O.C. headlining at The Underworld was an enticing offer. But man, there was Samsara Blues Experiment, just waiting with their heavy psych grooves and jams that were just too perfect a close-out to this Desertfest experience. What was I supposed to do? True, Corrosion of Conformity were probably the first heavy band I listened to and one to which I’ve never really lost attachment (we’re talking since I was 10), but I saw them on New Year’s with Clutch, and they’re almost certain to come through NYC again before the Berlin-based Samsara Blues Experiment make it over. So it was back to The Purple Turtle I went. I’d watch Samsara Blues Experiment — who, much to my delight, were selling copies of their original demo — for as long as I could stand up without feeling like my legs were going to give out, and then I’d split. It wasn’t long. I stood right in front of guitarist/vocalist Christian Peters as he had some technical problem with his stage monitor that sent out a rather unpleasant crackle through the P.A. He seemed bummed about it, but once they got going, the band played really well. They are a strong voice in the post-Colour Haze wave of European heavy psych, but like with Sungrazer yesterday, one of the best parts of watching Samsara Blues Experiment was seeing how they’ve come more into their own even in the year’s time since I caught them at Roadburn. I felt like I made the right choice to be where I was, and I can’t think of a better way to cap Desertfest than that, since it’s how I’ve felt this whole time. Coming here was the right choice.
At some point tomorrow, though I don’t know when, really, I will have some concluding-type thoughts on the weekend, so I’ll save the thanks and all that stuff for then, but yeah, that’s definitely on the way. For now, I’ll just say I hope you’ve enjoyed these posts, if not as much as I’ve enjoyed seeing these bands (did I mention fucking Leaf Hound played today?), then enough to make it this far.
Checkout’s at 11.00 and I’ve got pics to sort, more of which you’ll find after the jump. Thanks for reading.
Impulse usually plays a very small part in my CD purchasing, and even less so for buying online. Whether it’s eBay, Amazon, All that is Heavy or what, the final click may be on a whim, but I’ve usually sat and sweated over the decision of whether or not I actually want to buy this thing for at least a day or two.
Not so for the copy of Church of Misery‘s Early Works Compilation that I recently stumbled upon and snagged off eBay. The auction had been set to end in an hour when I found it and it was only at something like eight bucks at the time, and I was bored, so I watched it until there was less than a minute, then put in my bid and got it for about $11 before the shipping. It’s the original Leaf Hound Records version, and even with four dollars shipping from Britain, that’s not a terrible deal, but the purchase was ultimately pointless.
Here’s why: Early Works Compilation was just reissued. Weeks ago — maybe even three — by Emetic Records out of Michigan. I know Leaf Hound is probably defunct, and that’s the kind of thing I usually get off on, but what the hell? I could have just gotten the reissue on the cheap and probably filled a shopping cart with other goodies and had a great time. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad I got the record, but it just feels a little silly. It’s like hunting down the Man’s Ruin version of Goatsnake‘s Flower of Disease when the one on Southern Lord is exactly the same (no, I did not do this; but I probably would if I didn’t already have the original of that album). Ridiculous.
I take solace in the fact that the dude I bought Early Works Compilation off of plays in The Heads. That’s kind of cool. Like when I bought the Orange Goblin/Electric Wizard split off Mike Scheidt from YOB, also on eBay. Maybe if I keep that in mind I’ll have an easier time accepting the outright dopeyness of the “grab it!” impulse and feel a little better about the whole thing. Maybe not. Whatever. At least I won something. There’s always that sense of accomplishment when eBay‘s form letters are so happy for you. Really makes you feel the achievement. I’m gonna try reveling in that for a while and see how it goes; maybe put on some Church of Misery to accompany.
Impulse usually plays a very small part in my CD purchasing, and even less so for buying online. Whether it’s eBay, Amazon, All that is Heavy or what, the final click may be on a whim, but I’ve usually sat and sweated over the decision of whether or not I actually want to buy this thing for at least a day or two.
