Mario Lalli and the Rubber Snake Charmers to Tour Japan in Jan./Feb.
Uh, so Mario Lalli and Sean Wheeler are taking Mario Lalli and the Rubber Snake Charmers to Japan for a round of six shows from Jan. 28 through Feb. 2. They start in Okayama and finish in Tokyo.
Badass, right? Of course. Lalli doing a bit of desert ambassadorship is always good news, and Wheeler‘s beat-poet frontmanning makes a welcome complement in the Rubber Snake Charmers context. But check out the part in the blue text where it says they’re improvising, and that they’ll be collaborating with local musicians to round out the lineup of the band. I don’t know the whos and wheres on that, if it’s going to be the same lineup all the time or if they’ll just roll into Kanazawa the third night of the tour and hope a drummer shows up, but for a project that’s so much about exploration and improvising their way forward, a tour like this seems ideal. You’re basically guaranteed something different every night.
In addition to this, Mario Lalli and the Rubber Snake Charmers — in some incarnation — have also been confirmed for the first-ever Mojave Experience Festival in Joshua Tree, CA, in March, and Desertfest London 2026 in May, so safe to say the project will keep busy at least through the early going of the New Year. Their live-recorded 2024 album, Folklore From the Other Desert Cities (review here), will hopefully get a follow-up from all this traveling and activity, and if that happens on a night in Japan when Lalli and Wheeler are clicking with the cats from Blasting Rod with whom they’ve never shared a stage before and maybe it all just becomes a special, once-in-a-lifetime kind of thing, so much the better.
Saw the dates on socials and here they are:
Desert rock veterans Sean Wheeler & Mario Lalli are heading to Japan for a series of improvised performances, collaborating with musicians from Japan, including the psychedelic rock trio @blastingrod !
RUBBER SNAKE CHARMERS JAPAN 2026
Jan 28 Pepperland, Okayama
Jan 29 Sengoku Daitouryo, Osaka
Jan 30 Music Base Extreme, Kanazawa
Jan 31 Brazil Coffee, Nagoya
Feb 1 El Puente, Yokohama
Feb 2 Fever, Tokyo
https://www.instagram.com/rubbersnakecharmers/
https://www.facebook.com/RUBBERSNAKECHARMERS/
http://www.heavypsychsounds.com/
https://heavypsychsoundsrecords.bandcamp.com/
https://instagram.com/heavypsychsounds_records/
https://www.facebook.com/HEAVYPSYCHSOUNDS/
