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Days of Rona: Mark Kitchens and William “Dub” Irvin of Stone Machine Electric

Posted in Features on April 7th, 2020 by JJ Koczan

The statistics of COVID-19 change with every news cycle, and with growing numbers, stay-at-home isolation and a near-universal disruption to society on a global scale, it is ever more important to consider the human aspect of this coronavirus. Amid the sad surrealism of living through social distancing, quarantines and bans on gatherings of groups of any size, creative professionals — artists, musicians, promoters, club owners, techs, producers, and more — are seeing an effect like nothing witnessed in the last century, and as humanity as a whole deals with this calamity, some perspective on who, what, where, when and how we’re all getting through is a needed reminder of why we’re doing so in the first place.

Thus, Days of Rona, in some attempt to help document the state of things as they are now, both so help can be asked for and given where needed, and so that when this is over it can be remembered.

Thanks to all who participate. To read all the Days of Rona coverage, click here. — JJ Koczan

stone machine electric mark kitchens

Days of Rona: Mark Kitchens & William “Dub” Irvin of Stone Machine Electric (Hurst, Texas)

How are you dealing with this crisis as a band? Have you had to rework plans at all? How is everyone’s health so far?

Fortunately, neither of us have been exposed to Covid-19. Our last show was on March 13, which was when things started getting shut down, and more tours were getting cancelled. Dallas/Fort Worth is a spot bands hit going to/from SXSW, so the following week would have had a very busy week and a time to see and make new band friends.

For us, we have not rehearsed or anything since the 13th. Should I mention that was a Friday the 13th? We were planning to relearn a few tunes for upcoming shows. We still will, but may be a while before we sit face-to-face and run through them.

Our 7” released on March 27th, but it felt weird to push really hard to further promote it. We make just enough from merch and shows just to cover the costs of the band, so we’re not living off of it like the few that do.

Dub has used the “opportunity” to learn how to work on and repair his own amps, and they needed it. Hopefully he doesn’t burn down his house. Kitchens has been recording some stuff for his Slow Draw project and taking care of his Mrs. who had a surgery just as this started going down — so he’s extra-concerned about getting or bringing Covid-19 home.

What are the quarantine/isolation rules where you are?

We are under “stay at home” orders but can go out and get groceries and food. Kitchens is fortunate enough to be able to work from home. He’s an architect that does 99 percent healthcare work, but currently isn’t allowed to go on site for anything. Dub is considered “essential” since he works in construction but has no work since projects have been put on hold.

How have you seen the virus affecting the community around you and in music?

Locally, and we imagine in a lot of other areas, people who rely on music for income or who supplement it working at bars have been doing live streams with virtual tip jars. We’ve also seen a few venues live stream bands playing to an empty venue.

What is the one thing you want people to know about your situation, either as a band, or personally, or anything?

Do what you can virtually if possible. Stay home and help everyone get through this. If you have the funds, help out those bands that tour for a living by ordering their merch. Throw something in their virtual tip jar if you see them live streaming. Support local small businesses because they’ll be the ones to suffer financially more than most. But for the most part, love one another and don’t blow this off and think it’s no big deal.

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Stone Machine Electric Revisit Origins on New 7″ Single out March 27

Posted in Whathaveyou on February 13th, 2020 by JJ Koczan

It’ll be a decade later this year since Stone Machine Electric first came to my attention with their debut demo, Awash in Feedback (review here), and going back to that release now, it seems oddly prescient toward the band they’d become. I don’t just mean in the two-piece’s penchant for playing weirdo jammy nuance and heavy crunch off each other in fluid-until-it’s-meant-to-be-jarring fashion as the demo did and they’re still wont to do, but in establishing the sonic bond between William “Dub” Irvin on guitar and Mark Kitchens on drums. With vocals from both or neither, periodic keys from Irvin and an ongoing creative development that’s taken place over the course of four full-lengths — the latest of them, Darkness Dimensions Disillusion (review here), came out last year on Sludgelord Records — the duo have built a dynamic that is entirely their own even among the jammier sphere of heavy rock and psychedelia and even among their many Texan cohorts.

They would bring in players off and on to handle bass alongside the guitar and drums, but none stuck, and I think eventually the band decided that they didn’t need a third. Time has only proven them correct on the issue.

Dub and Kitchens mark 10 years since the first time they played live as Stone Machine Electric by revisiting two of the cuts that originally appeared on Awash in Feedback. With “Walking Among the Blind” and “Mushroom Cloud,” the band take an opportunity to show how far they’ve come even as they recast some of their earliest work. But the most important factor to remember about Stone Machine Electric is that they’re never really at rest. Not just in the sense of working on new material or doing shows or whatever, but creatively and developmentally speaking. One hopes that, perhaps in another decade, they might reinterpret these tracks again, if only to make the point again of the ongoing journey they’ve undertaken together.

No audio yet — it’s two songs and more than a month away; hold your horses — but you can and should stream the most recent album under the release info below.

To the PR wire:

Stone Machine Electric Stone Machine Electric

Stone Machine Electric – Stone Machine Electric – 27 March 2020

It’s no secret that Texas does a good line in the psychedelic stoner trend, and one of the state’s finest exports are Stone Machine Electric. Coming off the back of their Sludgelord Records-backed fourth full-length in April 2019, the duo have wasted no time in plying their self-styled “doom jazz” both within and across state borders, with luminaries such as fellow Texans Wo Fat, Jucifer and Mothership, and a whole host of festivals.

In commemoration of the band’s first ever performance ten whole years ago, Mark Kitchens and Dub Irvin have selected two of the first tracks they ever wrote – take from their original demo Awash in Feedback – to be collated into a 7”, allowing vinyl enthusiasts to experience (or wax lyrical over) the crunch n’ thump of Stone Machine Electric’s wheels.

When the dark and woozy riffs slide in, there’s nowhere else they could be from than the Lone Star State. “Mushroom Cloud” has an instantly infectious rhythm going for it, aided by Kitchens smooth vocals and a swirl of freak-out jamming effects that give a perfect mental picture of their scorching live shows. “Walking Among the Blind”, meanwhile, is a more somber, grittier affair with a wailing blues-inspired solo over the dirty grooves.

Tracklisting:
1. Walking Among the Blind
2: Mushroom Cloud

Stone Machine Electric are:
Dub – Guitar/Vocals
Kitchens – Drums/Vocals/Keyboard

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Stone Machine Electric, Stone Machine Electric: Either Way, You Bleed

Posted in Reviews on January 1st, 2013 by JJ Koczan

Their prior 2010 live demo, Awash in Feedback, served notice of their arrival, and with a thickly-fuzzed 39-minute full-length, Arlington, Texas, duo Stone Machine Electric make their self-titled debut. Immediately notable is the production job of Wo Fat guitarist/vocalist Kent Stump, who brings to these songs a similar sense of warmth captured on his band’s 2011 outing, The Black Code, though Stone Machine Electric are somewhat rawer in their approach, and much like Awash in Feedback (review here) was very much a demo, Stone Machine Electric is very much a first album. In fact, opener “Mushroom Cloud” and closer “Nameless” appeared as highlights on the demo, so there’s even more of a link between the releases – as if being put out by the same band wasn’t enough, I guess? – but the leap in development is not to be understated. That was a live demo. This is an album. Its five component tracks all top six minutes – the longest, second cut “Hypocrite Christ” jams its way past 10 – and there’s a firm sense that both WilliamDub” Irvin, guitar/vocals and all bass save for the aforementioned longest track, and Kitchens, drums/vocals, have a grip on what they want Stone Machine Electric to sound like. They are of their genre and of their region, and while Texas has one of the most densely populated scenes in the union – as much as anything can be densely populated in such wide open spaces – Stone Machine Electric shows enough potential in the band to begin to stand them out in a manner no less striking that the CD’s manic, Terry Gilliam-esque cover. It is the beginning, but one listen to the thickness with which Dub’s guitar and Kitchens’ toms are presented in the rolling grooves of “Mushroom Cloud,” and especially hearing how big a role the bass plays for a band that, at the time of the recording, didn’t have a bassist (Mark Cook has reportedly since come aboard in that slot), and there’s a palpable potential in what they do. Also helps that, when he needs to, Dub can tear ass through a psychedelic solo, as he does on “Mushroom Cloud,” and though the vocals are understated pretty much front to back, that works well in the mix to play up the thickness of the guitars, bass and drums.

And yes, I do mean thick drums. Kitchens’ toms are high in parts, as on “Hypocrite Christ,” but on most stereos, it shouldn’t be an issue, and the fullness in their sound is fitting complement to Dub’s wall of fuzz. “Hypocrite Christ” has a laid back, jammy haze, and a rougher, more forward vocal, but the riffing is choice and the feel is that much more relatable to a live sense of the band with guest bassist Daryl Bell, who’s given no small task in providing a foundational rhythm to the jam in the song’s second half, topped by Kitchen’s toms and a sliding, echoing solo from Dub. The lyrics are a touch juvenile, but the hook of “Bleed for me/I won’t bleed for you” is drawn out and strong enough to stand on its own despite any over-familiarity of theme, and in any case, it’s an older song, written in 2005 by Dub’s prior band, Dead Rustic Dog, in which Bell also played bass. Centerpiece “Carve” nestles itself into a niche close to the rhythmic bounce of the first two Suplecs records, and follows a vocal cadence accordingly, beginning with a heavy-footed lumber in the opening jam before Dub’s guitar chug leads into the verse while Kitchens adds flourish with quick punctuating fills between each line. A more hectic chorus emerges, but the hook is less prevalent than that of “Hypocrite Christ,” and the most memorable aspect of the song winds up being its classically stoner central riff, which wouldn’t have been out of place on the first Sasquatch album, or indeed on either of Wo Fat’s last two records. Such is the sonic company that Stone Machine Electric seem most intent on keeping, but though some of the self-titled’s most effective moments come when engrossed in fuzzy lurch, the near-shuffle that consumes the middle-third jam on “Carve” winds up being what most justifies it as the album’s centerpiece, Dub and Kitchens working a trio dynamic into a two-piece, sounding their most assured of anywhere on the recording. The groove is plotted and the transition back to the verse easy, and they cap the 9:19 track with a bass interlude leading to a big rock finish of leads and crash.

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