Posted in Questionnaire on August 17th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
The Obelisk Questionnaire is a series of open questions intended to give the answerer an opportunity to explore these ideas and stories from their life as deeply as they choose. Answers can be short or long, and that reveals something in itself, but the most important factor is honesty.
Based on the Proust Questionnaire, the goal over time is to show a diverse range of perspectives as those who take part bring their own points of view to answering the same questions. To see all The Obelisk Questionnaire posts, click here.
Thank you for reading and thanks to all who participate.
The Obelisk Questionnaire: Eric “Ike” Beastlein of Lost Breed & Ike’s Wasted World
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How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?
We became obsessed with rock and roll in junior high school, started a band in high school and 40 years later we are still at it.
Describe your first musical memory.
I remember loving Bill Withers’ “Lean on Me.”
Describe your best musical memory to date.
There are so many great shows and recordings, but I cried when I wrote “Mountains on Mars.”
When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?
Trying to stay true to yourself when your parents just want you to get a haircut and a real job.
Where do you feel artistic progression leads?
Hopefully to personal satisfaction. We sure as hell don’t do it for the money.
How do you define success?
Living another day to rock.
What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?
Nothing. I have been lucky. Living in L.A. from 1987 to 2002 was hardcore but I would not change a thing. No remorse.
Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.
The next song.
What do you believe is the most essential function of art?
Entertainment for the listener or viewer.Personal satisfaction for the creator
Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?
Once upon a time, ages ago, before the digital media three-month promotional cycle took hold as the standard form for how albums came to public light, every now and then you’d get a genuine early listen. Maybe a song would be on the radio, or maybe a cassingle would show up to tease something coming later on, whatever it might be. As L.A. heavy garage-fuzzer duo Lord Loud present the announcement that their second album, Timid Beast (cover art on left below), will be released on Sept. 4 through King Volume and Kozmik Artifactz, think of their unveiling the title-track (artwork on right below) as an early listen that portends good things for later this year.
It’s a heads up, ready to catch your ear so that maybe you’ll take the meantime to reintroduce yourself to 2017’s cucumber-cool debut, Passé Paranoia (review here), and in its sun-caked tone and rampant sense of melody and jangle it represents the album well. You can see from the tracklisting below that “Timid Beast” at 3:22 is one of the longer songs on the album that shares its name — though two cuts do reach the four-minute mark — but it still keeps with the two-piece’s garage traditionalism and straight-ahead riffy right-on-itude.
We’re half a year out — two days notwithstanding — from the release, so I’m going to leave it there for now and give the standard “more to come.” Preorders? Yeah, probably at some point. Most importantly though, you can hear the song at the bottom of the post.
Enjoy the early listen and worry about the rest later:
Lord Loud – Timid Beast
The album is called “Timid Beast”, and it drops Sept. 4th (available on digital and custom-color vinyl) out through King Volume Records/Kozmik Artifactz in Europe. This is our second LP, following up “Passé Paranoia”, with the same lineup (Mike Feld on drums/perc, Chris Allison on vox/guitars/other instruments). We recorded/mixed everything ourselves, and are juiced to get these slabs out into the world.
Chris Allison on “Timid Beast”:
“Timid Beast” was recorded almost a year ago. The song’s roots lied in a growing separation that I felt. Social, political, economic, technological. A lot of people have felt it, and have been fighting back or lashing out a bit to try to give themselves some agency in the path we’re on. In that struggle, I caught myself changing in ways I didn’t like. Things like cynicism were let to creep in amongst some of the other changes I was trying to make. As time passes, the rooted sentiment seems to be amplifying. This song will hopefully be one I can look back to constantly question myself: am I fighting the beast or am I becoming the beast.
Tracklisting: 1. Dirty Seeds 03:25 2. Without You 03:12 3. Lady Sunday 02:18 4. Timid Beast 03:22 5. Imaginary 04:16 6. The River 03:07 7. Wherewithal 02:49 8. Glances 03:12 9. Labyrinth 02:55 10. Labyrinth Coda 01:12 11. Turbulence 04:04
Lord Loud are: Chris Allison – vocals, guitar, etc. Mike Feld – drums, percussion
[Click play above to stream ‘Moths to Light’ from Lord Loud’s debut album, Passé Paranoia, out April 18 on King Volume Records.]
It doesn’t necessarily present this way superficially, but among the most striking aspects of Passé Paranoiais the balance it strikes between its influences and the varying sides of its sound that is emerging from them. That is, one can listen to the King Volume Records-delivered debut full-length from Van Nuys duo Lord Loud and take it as a mostly-uptempo fuzz rocker, or one can dig deeper into what guitarist/vocalist Chris Allison and drummer/vocalist Michael Feld are doing across its garage-inflected nine tracks/33 minutes.
Either pays dividends, frankly. Following up their 2015 In EP (discussed here), Lord Loud have the hooks and groove to catch attention on a quick runthrough. But if one is willing to really listen to the turns in songs like “They are Coming” or the earlier “The Givers,” there’s more to be found there in atmosphere and execution than might elicit a, “hey, cool rock brah,” if you were at the show. Where some cuts offer jangle — opener “Dream Weaver,” “The Givers,” “The Hand” — and others righteous fuzz — “Eyes Have Hands,” “The Wolf,” the penultimate “Moths to Light” — and still others moments of pure psychedelic drift — the rolling “Star Bright Eyes,” the minimal “They are Coming” and the payoff of closer “Swirling” — it’s the ways in which these songs interact with each other and within themselves that really make Lord Loud‘s work stand out. In other words, the balance.
No doubt inspiration is culled from modern garage rock on both the indie and heavy sides of that coin, but there’s a classic sensibility at work as well that comes through particularly in the sans-frills structures of pieces like “Eyes Have Hands,” “The Wolf” and even “Moths to Light” — which, at 4:18, is among the longer inclusions, where the other two are shorter. And while Allison and Feld would in no way be the first modern garage-psych-fuzz band to nod in the direction of 13th Floor Elevators and others of that ilk, to listen to the Dead Meadow roll of “Eyes Have Hands” pick up from “Dream Weaver” at the outset of Passé Paranoia, it becomes even more apparent the two-piece are working in a somewhat broader context.
Tempos shift easily throughout the album, the production is raw enough to bury the vocals and rough-up Feld‘s drum sound, but not so raw that the changes in guitar tone don’t carry across between “Eyes Have Hands,” “The Givers” and “The Wolf” en route to the slowdown of “Star Bright Eyes” that, presumably, serves to close out side A following a considerable build of momentum through the first four tracks. It and “Swirling” at the end of side B are the only songs to top five minutes on Passé Paranoia, so that mirroring would make sense, at least, and as the centerpiece of the tracklisting, “Star Bright Eyes” is meant to feature either way; a position earned through a combination of fluidity, breadth and impact. When Lord Loud want to, they’re able to spread their sound wide — as they do by layering lead lines over deep-toned low-end fuzz late in “Star Bright Eyes” — but they’re also keen at times to rein that in quickly and pursue something leaner, which the 2:22 “The Hand” would seem to signify as it revitalizes the push of Passé Paranoia at the start of the album’s second half.
But even with “The Hand,” when one hears it in relation to “Star Bright Eyes” prior, the context changes. It has its own late solo, ended cold, and while taken on its own that might not mean much, in light of Passé Paranoia as a whole, it’s an example of Lord Loud putting elements to use in a variety of ways. The same idea used to make a different song. Especially with this as their debut full-length, that’s an important aspect of what they’re doing, because it demonstrates that while they might come across as loose and swinging and all blown-out swagger and proto-punk whatnot, there’s conceptual effort put into both the songwriting and the actual construction of the record, which takes another turn with the minimalist early going of “They are Coming,” Feld not even kicking in on drums until two of the track’s three minutes have passed.
I wouldn’t go as far as to call it progressive, and neither do I think it’s trying to be (yet), but it shows Lord Loud are at least thinking about what they’re doing. They follow “They are Coming” with “Moths to Light,” one of Passé Paranoia‘s strongest hooks and most blasted-out riffs; a blend that serves well to represent a decent swath of the record’s style, including the psych vibes in its wah-soaked finishing solo. This gives way to the relative stomp of “Swirling,” which delivers the title line en route to the aforementioned final push and boasts a melodic depth in its vocals and dream-toned fuzz guitar that is among the most welcome elements yet from Lord Loud.
Could it be the band showing off late that they’re willing to toy with pop as they move into Beatlesian piano and la-la-la bounce along with their fuzz and true-to-the-title swirl? Possible. Given the consciousness on display elsewhere, I’d believe it, but either way, their work in defiant expansion of the two-piece form is just one more manner in which Passé Paranoia conveys the sense of freedom it feels not to be bound by either how many instruments one person can hold at a time — though with samplers and laptops, Feld and Allison aren’t doing anything here that couldn’t be recreated on stage — nor by genre convention. That makes Passé Paranoia feel even bolder as a debut, and though its ultimate presentation is the band making what they do sound and look easy, like something they just belted out in an afternoon (granted they did build their own studio and record themselves), the results yield a much richer and more resonant first impression.
Pretty god damn clever to record in front of a green screen so you can go back and put different backgrounds in afterwards and make a video of it. Kudos to Van Nuys, California, doomers Lost Breed, who have been working on new material the last several months after overseeing Shadow Kingdom Records reissues in the past couple years of their two albums, 1993’s The Evil in You and Me and 1995’s Save Yourself, both originally put out by Hellhound Records, as well as one on At War with False Noise of their 1989 Wino Daze demo. That demo was recorded with Scott “Wino” Weinrich on vocals as his time in Saint Vitus was winding down — they’d put out V, their last (pre-reunion) album with Wino as frontman, in 1990 — and prior to his reigniting The Obsessed with their self-titled full-length, also in 1990. Initially released in 2007 by Helltown Records, it’s had a sort of cult presence all along thanks in no small part to Wino‘s involvement, so as Lost Breed put together new songs, it’s not surprising that Pat Lydon and Jamie Silver might call Weinrich up to come play some guitar and vocals.
Lydon handles bass on the unnamed track, and Silver drums, and what was recorded at SPL Studios in Van Nuys and credited songwriting to Wino is simply called “Wino Jam” according to the post. Aptly enough titled. The cut has a laid back groove, smooth in the weaving of bass and lead and rhythm guitar, and an easy flow that’s less trad doom than quiet contemplation. I’m not sure whether or not it will surface on whatever it is Lost Breed are culling, be it a new full-length, EP, or whathaveyou, but it’s new music, anyway, and a “Wino Jam” isn’t something I’m going to complain about. Wino‘s time in Lost Breed was pretty short, but their material both with and without him has managed to endure — a “lost album” called World of Power from 1989 is due out in June on Blood and Iron Records, who also issued a collection of recordings that would’ve been a third Lost Breed full-length last year with the title Bow Down — so I don’t see any reason why a new album doesn’t hold promise. The video for “Wino Jam” is hardly the highest-production -value clip you’ll ever see, but the song itself is studio clear and has a classic, distinctly Wino touch.
