Friday Full-Length: Dead Meadow, Dead Meadow
As clarions go, the opening riff of “Sleepy Silver Door” is as much a call to the converted as it is a call to convert. The lead track of Dead Meadow‘s 2000 self-titled debut, released by Joe Lally of Fugazi‘s Tolotta Records, has become a staple of the then-Washington D.C./now-L.A. outfit’s live work, and it was apparently enough in their heads that it received a reprise on their fourth album, Feathers, in 2005. It is a landmark riff, languid in rhythm, fuzzed to the nines and in a matter of seconds, it tells you much of what you need to know about the band.
As the microgenre of stoner rock was beginning to shape itself in the wake of Sleep and Kyuss‘ demise, the advent of Queens of the Stone Age and rise of Nebula and Fu Manchu out west (let alone what was happening in Europe or South America at the time), Dead Meadow managed to outdo the vast majority of their West Coast counterparts in terms of crafting a sound that was both mellow and heavy, and with Jason Simon‘s floating voice over the proceedings, they were as much shoegaze as psychedelic rock, as much indie as stoner. They made Dead Meadow in their practice space, and for the sounds they were making, anywhere else wouldn’t have worked the same.
There are few who can roll a groove as they do, and “Sleepy Silver Door” demonstrates that in its first minute as it moves into that willfully repetitive note of the verse. There are twists and turns to be had, but that root is always there, and with Steve Kille‘s bass and Mark Laughlin‘s popping snare and dirty hi-hat, the jammy feel is resonant but still so righteously heavy as the track takes off into its solo — long, jammed, eventually falling apart because who cares anyway man. “Indian Bones” picks up at a more immediate run and answers some of the opener’s repetition, but is more active and freak-crashes in its second half for a minute before getting its head back together, a formative janga-janga riff that’s still mellow with the push behind it.
The beginning pair make up about 14 minutes of the album’s total 44-minute runtime, so a not insignificant portion — “Sleepy Silver Door” is 7:31, and the only longer track is side B’s “Beyond the Fields We Know,” at 9:31 — but the dreamy, drifting vibe of “Dragonfly” that follows is a pointed chill kept together by the drums, like the sunshiniest of grunge but distinct in its purpose from what the ’90s had on offer a few years before, even at its most psychedelic. The bass, the drums. It’s a heavy tune, and fades out on a march to “Lady,” which rounds out the record’s first half like the reason wah pedals were invented. 
Seriously, it’s dizzying. Eventually the track evens out, such as it is, and shuffles a bit in its second half, but the earlier stretch still comes across like the bastard son “Electric Funeral” never knew it had. In comparison, “GreenSky GreenLake” is positively clear-eyed, opening with a stretch of quiet guitar before unveiling its Hendrix-at-wrong-(or-right?)-RPM central figure, pausing before the bass and drums enter, keeping an exploratory feel as it plays out in linear, instrumentalist fashion. I don’t know if we’re ending up underwater or out in space there — what planet that lake is on, etc. — but I remain ready to submit a resume to work for their tourism board.
On the sundry vinyl editions that have shown up over the years — Planaria Records in 2001, the band’s own Xemu Records in 2013 and 2015, and so on — “GreenSky GreenLake” opens the second side, and on whatever format, it’s all the more notable for leading into the utter hypnosis that is “Beyond the Fields We Know,” which even 21 years later feels like someone did to time what Mad Alchemy does to lightshows. Loose enough to make “Sleepy Silver Door” sound like punk rock. And they, they get it going with the tambourine and the push and all that, but by the time they’re five minutes in and you’re hanging out there with Kille‘s bassline for company before Simon‘s guitar comes back and you’re wondering like what the hell happened I thought we were cool, it’s Dead Meadow‘s go-wherever jam getting one over again, because where they’re headed is back to the verse — a masterful turn that contradicts earlier departures from structure and reinforces the craft underlying all of the album’s songwriting elements. Maybe there has been a plan all along.
Like the shorter pairing of “Dragonfly” and “Lady,” on side A, Dead Meadow rounds out with “At the Edge of the Wood” and “Rocky Mountain High,” the former three and a half minutes of unashamed acid folk, acoustic strum and voice put to tape with a spirit that, if it wasn’t done live, is as much of an approximation of same as one could ask it to be, and the latter just over four minutes of tambourine-laced wah victory lapping, pushing vocals below weightier fuzz and pitting roll against boogie until the wash of melodic tonality takes us all into the wormhole off to who knows where. Find me a more fitting end to this record, I dare you.
In the context of when it came out — now some 21 years ago — Dead Meadow‘s Dead Meadow offered something different from much of the heavy rock of its time, and it, as well as 2001’s Howls From the Hills and 2003’s Shivering King and Others are essential documents of stand-apart turn of the century heavy. The band of course continue to deliver. They’ve got a new release coming out through PostWax, and their latest album was 2018’s The Nothing They Need (review here), a win to be sure, even as Simon has split time with solo work and other projects like Old Mexico. With steady reissues along the way — CD and tape in addition the vinyl already noted — Dead Meadow remains that relevant clarion it started as being, and maybe it ultimately feels so timeless because it is.
As always, I hope you enjoy. Thanks for reading.
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Rough week with the kid home from school and still healing in the leg culminated yesterday with me getting pissed off and throwing a Lightning McQueen toy. The Pecan was adamant that I didn’t put his shorts on — yet he won’t go nap without them — and mommy do it mommy do it and I’d said I was doing it and so I was on the hook and when I put them on him he scratched and hit and kicked and even bit me which he hadn’t done in a while and then when he ran over to The Patient Mrs. after and pulled his shorts back off, I just lost it. Threw the toy, scared the kid, got his shorts back on and sent him upstairs to nap where he was consoled by his mother for 40 minutes before being left to go to sleep under his blanket. The dynamic in this house sucks right now and I think we all know it.
He and The Patient Mrs. are going to Connecticut for tonight and maybe part of tomorrow. I think I’m staying home to try and catch my head. Honestly, I’m hoping for a carbon monoxide leak or something like that so I can maybe just kind of pass out on the couch and not wake up and everyone can move forward for the better. Probably with a new couch.
I’m doing my best and it’s just not good enough. Ever. For anyone. Oh, and then DYFS or whatever they’re called now came back to the house to close out the case they opened because it was his second fracture in so short a time and I had to cancel the Monster Magnet interview I’d slated because I didn’t know when the case worker was coming. She showed up later anyhow. What a fucking trench of an existence this is.
He’s home next week too then starts camp. I took a xanax this morning and hope to spend as much of today as possible in bed. Make myself a protein shake and try to chill the fuck out. He has a follow-up x-ray at 9:15 on the leg. Still limps a bit, but is out of the boot. We see the orthopedist on Monday. I don’t know anything.
Fuck it. He’s up so I’m out. New Gimme show today at 5. You’re not gonna listen. It’s okay, I get it. Don’t feel bad. The world is not short on internet radio. But I feel obliged to give a plug because the Gimme crew is very tolerant of me.
And thanks if you’ve bought merch. More coming.
Great and safe weekend. Drink water. Wear a helmet. All that shit. Next week, more.
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Tags: Dead Meadow, Dead Meadow Self-titled, self-titled, Tolotta Records, Washington D.C.
My opinion on Dead Meadow has swung this way and that over the years, at times they are a little too soft and vague for me. Two experiences confirmed in my mind that they are a fantastic band – seeing them live a couple of years back in Bristol, and hearing their unmistakeable drift carried on waves of smoke in the Sardinian sun.
Hey JJ, I went to check out the gimme show, but turns out to be a ‘live only’ thing so far as I can see! That’s a shame, as this sort of Neurosis retrospective is a task I have set myself a couple of times, and an interesting endeavour.