https://www.high-endrolex.com/18

FreakTulsa 2016 Posts Updated Lineup

Posted in Whathaveyou on June 8th, 2016 by JJ Koczan

I’d be interested to witness the gathering of weirdos that FreakTulsa 2016 brings out. The festival — based in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and of no relation to the German Freak Valley fest that I know of — culls bands from around the Midwest and well beyond, groups like King Buffalo and Destroyer of Light sharing the stage with Merlin and Red Wizard, among many others. It’s a three-day affair, June 17 through June 19, and while I won’t make it out for it, I’ll look forward to finding out how it goes. Seems like an event in the middle of the country could be a good regional pull, a haven of sorts, for followers of riff.

Bottom line, it looks like a good time. Hope it goes well.

Updated lineup, info and ticket links follow:

freaktulsa 2016 poster

Get it together folks, for the most fuzzed out, brain-jarring, facemeltingest fest to trample Tulsa, June 17th-19th at the Downtown Lounge. We’ve got an incredible and diverse lineup, from the deep and fuzzed out valleys to the peaks of devestating alpine thrash glory. Get your tickets now.

Freaktulsa 2016 is a 3 day psychedelic rock festival celebrating all that is hard, doomy and heavy. Join us and our diverse lineup at the Downtown Lounge in Tulsa Oklahoma June 17 – 19th. This is a show presented by and for enthusiasts of dark rock of all types. The Mid West Heshfest exists for the love of music above all else, driving our focus to be on providing the best possible musical experience for you.

FreakTulsa 2016 lineup:
Friday 6.17
Silver Screen Monsters, Violent Wednesday, Cobra Jab, Psychotic Reaction, Brother Gruesom, Senior Fellows, Burn Thee Insects, Merlin, Contagion 237, Dr. Rock Doctor, Oberon

Saturday 6.18
Smoke Offering, Idre, P.R.I., Sun Vow, King Buffalo, Grind, Destroyer of Light, Constant Peril, Rifflord, Book of Wyrms

Sunday 6.19
Skeleton Farm, Blunt Splinter, Lucid Awakening, Youngblood Supercult, The Great Electric Quest, Forever in Disgust, Red Wizard, Chainmail

https://www.facebook.com/FreakTulsa/
https://www.facebook.com/events/985580904860408/
https://www.picatic.com/FreakTulsa

Rifflord at FreakTulsa 2016 teaser

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Live Review: Grel, Oberon, Titanis and Bion in Boston, 11.06.13

Posted in Reviews on November 7th, 2013 by JJ Koczan

According to the Google, that arbiter of all things directional, it’s about 26 hours by car from Lawton, Oklahoma, to Boston, Massachusetts. Twenty-seven if you take I-81. OK residents Grel and Oberon had been touring their way to the East Coast, playing in Lawton, in Kansas City, Chicago, Columbus and even another show in Western MA, and their run — dubbed the “Star Stuff” tour — would continue to Philadelphia and on to Richmond, Virginia where both play Stoner Hands of Doom XIII, their slots on that fest being the impetus behind the string of shows in the first place. Since I wasn’t going to be able to see them in Richmond, and since I dug Grel‘s 2012 EP, The Red Sun God (review here), what with their having come all that way, it seemed the least I could do to show up. So I did.

Local support at Midway Cafe in Jamaica Plain — cool room, decently lit when they had the lights on, divided, bar in the middle, decent beer selection and a pug that showed up halfway through and was awesome to see until someone served it a Guinness; sorry, that shit’s not funny — came from Bion and Titanis, who opened and closed the gig respectively. It was a night of young acts. Not a full stack to be found. For a while there, I was the oldest person in the room not working at the bar, which is always a dubious distinction, and while each band showed they had growth in progress and still to undertake, it also wound up being a varied and enjoyable bill. Four single-word monikered bands with vastly different influences, starting with Bion.

It was easy enough to hear prog and extreme metal influences in Bion‘s set, guitarist/vocalist Charlie occasionally locked into a section of blackened squibblies en route to his next impressive solo. Both he and bassist Phil handled vocal duties, while drummer Jesse busted out shots of double-kick that served to presage some of what Oberon would shortly have on offer. Their lone EP to date, Hive Mind, is somewhat similarly minded in its will toward progressive heaviness, and I take it as an encouraging sign that the vocals sounded better live than they do on the studio recording. Bodes well for ambition to coincide with their stylistic intricacy. At one point, Phil said they only played one of the songs “for exercise.” They hardly seemed to break a sweat.

With the keyboard of vocalist Seth prominently displayed front and center on the stage, the five-piece Grel made an immediately different impression. A double-guitar outfit, they nonetheless rested heavily on the swing of their rhythm section, bassist Brandon and drummer Dustin, to convey the weight of their material, while six-stringers Ryan and Bentley seemed to come most to the fore with the Red Fang cover, “Prehistoric Dog.” Not unexpectedly. Elsewhere in their set, the Southern rocking EP opener, “Lady,” an engaging 12-bar blues that let Seth show off some surprising Midwestern classic rocker soul and “Astro Cannibalism” showcased a band who even as I was watching them were refining their approach. I’ve yet to tire of watching young bands do this, particularly those with enough belief in what they do to take it on the road. Grel were refreshing both in the reality of what they were playing and in the whole concept behind it. They’ll come off this tour a better band they they went on it, and I imagine they’ll be a riot by the time they hit Virginia on Saturday.

One might say the same for Oberon, but the application is somewhat different. Focused more on the instrumental side of their sound, with the catchiest song being “Phobos” from their thematically constructed Through Space We Ride EP, Oberon came across as more technical and progressive, and more metal in their influences certainly than Grel, but still far less tonally metallic than they presented on those recorded tracks. I got shades of Pelican in the early going, and though guitarist/vocalist DJ Bryant — joined in the band by guitarist Jeremy Wingard, bassist Adam Smith (not to be confused with the Adam Smith who plays in Ohio space rockers EYE) and drummer Logan Wood — had some technical trouble with his guitar and that derailed a bit of their momentum, they still found room to push through a reworking of Survivor‘s “Eye of the Tiger” that proved effective and managed to skirt the irony one might expect to encounter with such fare. A post-rock verse in the theme from Rocky III? Some Wednesday nights take you to unexpected places.

Oberon recovered from their technical troubles to finish strong, but unfortunately, Titanis wouldn’t be so lucky. The four-piece had made a mid-week weekender of playing in Northampton with Grel and Oberon the night before, but when guitarist Niko Galanis broke not one, but two strings within the first two songs and the band tried to keep moving with a Melvins cover with Galanis just on vocals alongside guitarist Brett Miller, bassist David Willoughby and drummer Pat O’Neill. That was going well enough until as he ran off stage to get a replacement guitar, Galanis caught on Willoughby‘s bass cable and tore it right out, breaking it off. Show over.

It was plenty late by then, after one in the morning. The word in my head for the circumstance of the night’s ending was “unceremonious,” but “unfortunate” works just as well. Titanis barely got to leave an impression. Like Oberon, they played mostly in the dark — for some reason, the first two bands had lights on and the last two didn’t — and before they could really get any momentum going, it was over. Maybe next time. My understanding was that the night before in Northampton had also been rough going. Hopefully not enough so to discourage Titanis from what seem to otherwise be worthy pursuits in their craft.

I ducked out on the quick. If you’d have told me that it would be 50 degrees at night in November in Boston, I probably would’ve told you to fuck off or at very least made some obnoxious Game of Thrones reference about southerners and how “winter is coming,” but the walk down the block to my car was barely brisk. I got in at about quarter to two and did my best to crash out right away, only to fail spectacularly. So it goes. A drag-ass Thursday well earned.

Extra pics after the jump. Thanks for reading.

Read more »

Tags: , , , , , ,

10 Days of SHoD XIII, Pt. 7: Oberon and Grel “Star Stuff” Tour Starts Tonight

Posted in Features on November 1st, 2013 by JJ Koczan

For most who will play and/or attend Stoner Hands of Doom XIII next week (Nov. 7-10) at Strange Matter in Richmond, Virginia, the trip is something that starts next week, but for Oklahoma natives Oberon and Grel, it’s SHoD season already. The two groups have teamed up for what they’ve dubbed the “Star Stuff” tour — they even had laminates made of the Adam Burke poster art — and they’ll begin tonight at the Railhead Saloon in their native state, gradually making their way to Virginia over the course of the next week to play on Saturday, Nov. 9, with Beelzefuzz, Backwoods Payback, Valkyrie, Admiral Browning and many more.

Rivaled only by Kin of Ettins, who are coming from Dallas, Oberon and Grel will be making the longest trek to get to Strange Matter. I posted the dates here when they were first announced, and Grel were written up earlier this year for their 2012 Red Sun God EP following their name change from Deadweight, but considering the extra mile(s) the two bands are going to in order to play SHoD, it only seemed fitting to highlight their material again for anyone who may not have encountered them yet.

Oberon

“Progressive stoner” is a hard one to pull off. While heavy rock has its technical side, that mostly comes in drum fills and solos, and those who’d push structural bounds usually come face to face with a defiance of the traditional adherence to classic methods that rests at the genre’s core. That concern seems to hold little sway for the double-guitar foursome Oberon, who released their debut EP, Through Space, We Ride, last year on Crew Dawg Records. And rather than fall in with the post-Mastodon multitudes, they harness a more metallic end of prog on centerpiece “Phobos,” with guitarist/vocalist DJ Bryant establishing a distinct singing approach as the song plays out.

Oberon, “Phobos”

Grel

With keyboards adding melody to their two-guitar approach, Grel come across as basking in many of the heavy rock classicisms that Oberon seem to be purposefully avoiding on their Red Sun God EP. Rife with bluesy groove, strong rhythms and flourishes of psychedelia, the Lawton five-piece stay grounded and don’t lose themselves either in earthy punch or cosmic indulgence, but find a balance between the two that takes a garage-rock Deep Purple and gives a modern edge. They’re reportedly got new material in the works, so I wouldn’t be surprised if they threw a more recent song or two in the set with “Stone Frog” and “Lady” from Red Sun God.

Grel, Red Sun God EP (2012)

Oberon and Grel on tour:
11/1 Lawton, OK @ Railhead Saloon w/ Juju Beans
11/2 Kansas City, MO @ Daveys Uptown w/ Hossferatu & Merlin
11/3 Chicago, IL @ Livewire Lounge w/ Marmora
11/4 Colombus, OH @ The Trees Bar
11/5 Northampton, MA @ The Elevens w/ Titanis & Scimitar
11/6 Boston, MA @ PA’s Lounge
11/7 Philadelphia, PA @ JR’s Bar
11/9 Richmond, VA Stoner Hands of Doom XIII

Grel: https://www.facebook.com/grelrocks
Oberon: https://www.facebook.com/OberonOK

Tags: , , , ,

Grel and Oberon Touring Their Way to SHoD 2013

Posted in Whathaveyou on September 25th, 2013 by JJ Koczan

Engagingly naturalist heavy rockers Grel have partnered with fellow Oklahoman outfit Oberon for a tour that will take them through the Midwest and down the East Coast en route to Stoner Hands of Doom 2013 in Richmond, Virginia. Grel, who changed their name from Deadweight after the release of 2012’s The Red Sun God EP (discussed here), are reportedly trying out and tightening up new songs on the road for the eight-day run, and they’ve hooked up with some cool acts on the way to the fest.

Details came joined by the Adam Burke poster for the tour down the PR wire:

Grel Announce Star Stuff Tour

Grel and Oberon will be embarking on tour this November. The route will take them through New England on their way to Stoner Hands of Doom.

The tour, named the Star Stuff Tour, will be the first national tour for both bands. Grel will be truly introducing itself to the world, following their name change from Deadweight. The two bands will be road-testing new material in preparation for new releases in the future as well as supporting their previous releases on the road (Grel’s “Red Sun God EP” and Oberon’s “Through Space, We Ride”). The tour will feature local support in each city, such as The Scimitar, Hössferatu, and Titanis.

When asked about the tour, three members of Grel simply said “what?” and another put sun screen on. Bentley Smith, had this to say, “yeah, it’ll be a fun time, especially with these Oberon guys, they all smell great.”

11/1 Lawton, OK @ Railhead Saloon w/ Juju Beans
11/2 Kansas City, MO @ Daveys Uptown w/ Hossferatu & Merlin
11/3 Chicago, IL @ Livewire Lounge w/ Marmora
11/4 Colombus, OH @ The Trees Bar
11/5 Northampton, MA @ The Elevens w/ Titanis & Scimitar
11/6 Boston, MA @ TBA
11/7 Philadelphia, PA @ JR’s Bar
11/9 Richmond, VA Stoner Hands of Doom

Grel: https://www.facebook.com/grelrocks
Oberon: https://www.facebook.com/OberonOK

Grel, The Red Sun God EP (2012)

Tags: , , , , ,