Posted in Whathaveyou on November 24th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
As one inevitably might, you get a solid mix of styles across the 30 tracks included on Dali’s Llama‘s new anniversary compilation, Star Resistant – Thirty Songs for Thirty Years. True to the title’s dropped hint, it runs the gamut from the band’s 1993 debut, Pre Post Now and the swinging grunge-informed rock of Creative Space (1994) and Being (1995), while reaffirming their root in raw-recorded noise ahead of the digging into heavier rock and the influence of their native Californian desert for records like 2007’s Sweet Sludge and 2008’s Full on Dunes (review here), which was where I got on board.
That was plenty enough time to catch their 20th anniversary comp, Twenty Years Underground (review here), which came out on vinyl in late 2013. I don’t know if there are physical editions planned for Star Resistance, but from a band who’ve only ever worn their collective heart on their sleeve — founding members Zach Huskey and Erica Huskey making an essential core duo — clearly they continue to live by that ethic. They also continue to be wildly undervalued.
Accordingly, if you don’t know the band, think of this one as a no-charge opportunity to explore their work and get a sampling of their growth over the last three decades and a whole lot of material that, by rights, you should probably be paying for. You know I like getting away with something. Here’s what came down the PR wire:
DALI’S LLAMA – Star Resistant – Thirty Songs for Thirty Years
Some of these are kind of rare and some are more well known. This is going to be a Bandcamp download-only release and it will be free (or pay what you can) from December 2 – December 31 (for the last 30 days of the year). We hope you dig it!
There are no songs off of the “Legends of the Desert Vol. 3” split we just did with Fatso Jetson because those songs were released on Desert Records. However, that split and two of our other past albums “Dying In The Sun” and “Full On Dunes” are now available on limited edition cassette through Northern Haze in Canada.
Also, there are no songs on this release that were on our vinyl anthology released ten years ago, “Twenty Years Underground”.
Anyway, this release at 2 hours and 21 minutes is a lotta Llama!
Dali’s Llama Star Resistant – Thirty Songs For Thirty Years 1. Pre Post Now (Pre Post Now) 2. Creative Space (Creative Space) 3. On It (Creative Space) 4. Sleeping (Creative Space) 5. Longevity (Being) 6. Aboriginal Man Contemplating the Universe Under the Night Sky (The Color of Apples) 7. Beauty Contest (Chordata) 8. Earth Mother Spin (Sweet Sludge) 9. Orca (Sweet Sludge) 10. Love Is Mammoth (Sweet Sludge) 11. Can’t Catch Me (Full On Dunes) 12. Cheap and Portable (Full On Dunes) 13. Floating (Full On Dunes) 14. Theocracy (Raw Is Real) 15. Syphilization (Raw Is Real) 16. Always (Raw Is Real) 17. Flustrated (Howl Do You Do?) 18. I’m The Trouble (Howl Do You Do?) 19. Howl Do You Do? (Howl Do You Do?) 20. Plaid Rainbow (Howl Do You Do?) 21. Nostalgia (Autumn Woods) 22. O.K. Freak Out (Autumn Woods) 23. Claustrophobic Blues (Dying In The Sun) 24. Hocus Pocus (Dying In The Sun) 25. V.O.E ‘73 (Dying In The Sun) 26. Dying In The Sun (Dying In The Sun) 27. Longtime Woman (The Blossom E.P.)) 28. Weary (Mercury Sea) 29. Choking On The Same (Mercury Sea) 30. Merricat Blackwood (Dune Lung E.P.)
Posted in Questionnaire on January 7th, 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: Zach Huskey of Dali’s Llama
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How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?
Well, I’m basically a songwriter first. I’m also a guitarist and singer (vocalist). I started playing guitar when I was around 11 years old. About two years later I was playing in bands. The music scene that I grew up in was all about punk rock or at least the punk ethic of writing and playing original music. This was around the (early ’80s) in the Palm Springs / Palm Desert area. Early on I noticed that there were a ton of guitar players but not a lot of guitarists who could sing and write songs, so that’s what I worked on getting better at.
Describe your first musical memory.
As a little kid I remember listening to Elvis Presley and Hank Williams records. As a teenager there were a few things that blew my mind. First, I listened to The Who’s Live at Leeds album (AMAZING). The second thing was watching that old show on TV called Night Flight and they played the Neil Young with Crazy Horse concert film Rust Never Sleeps. I thought the guitar on “Hey Hey My My” was the heaviest thing I’d ever heard. Finally, my first concert I went to when I was about 14 or 15 was The Plasmatics at Perkins Palace in L.A. The energy and the sex, man that was it for me. I was hooked!
Describe your best musical memory to date.
Opening for White Zombie or Robin Trower. Also, the tour we did a couple years ago of the Southwest was a blast! Maybe it’s just when I write a song, show it to the band and then playing it live and people come up and say they dig it. Maybe that’s the best of all.
When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?
Like most people I have trouble processing acts of senseless cruelty and violence.
Where do you feel artistic progression leads?
Art should make us feel, and feeling anything at all means we’re alive, and that alone should make us happy. It’s better than the alternative.
How do you define success?
Finding something positive you really enjoy and then doing it to the best of your ability.
What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?
Sammy Hagar.
Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.
I’d like to write a soundtrack for a film and I would like to “create” a Dali’s Llama tour in Europe.
What do you believe is the most essential function of art?
To create some kind of emotion in the listener, reader, viewer, etc.
Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?
Retiring from the library and eventually getting a house in the woods, next to a lake. My wife and I have lived in the desert for most of our lives.
Posted in Reviews on March 29th, 2021 by JJ Koczan
The Spring 2021 Quarterly Review begins here, and as our long winter of plague-addled discontent is made glorious spring by this son of York Beach, I can hardly wait to dig in. You know the drill. 50 records between now and Friday, 10 per day. It’s a lot. It’s always a lot. That’s the point.
Words on the page. If I have a writing philosophy, that’s it. Head down, keep working. And that’s the challenge here. Can you get over your own crap and say what you need to say about 10 records every day for five days straight out? I’ll be exhausted by the end of the week for sure. I’ll let you know when we get there if it feels any different. Till then, let’s roll.
Quarterly Review #1-10:
Wolvennest, Temple
The second full-length offering — and I mean that: ‘offering’ — from Belgium’s Wolvennest is an expansive and immersive follow-up to their 2018 debut, Void, as the Brussels six-piece offers next-stage extreme cult rock. Across 77 willfully-unmanageable and mind-altering minutes, the troupe caroms between (actual) psychedelic black metal and sheer sonic ritualism, and the intent is made plain from 12:26 opener/longest track (immediate points) “Mantra” onward. Wolvennest are enacting a ceremony and it’s up to the listener to be willing to engage with the material on that level. Their command is unwavering as the the heft and wash of “Alecto” and the ethereal swirl and dual vocal arrangement of “All that Black” show, but while King Dude himself shows up on “Succubus,” and that’s fun, especially followed by the penultimate downward march of “Disappear,” the greatest consumption is saved for “Souffle de Mort” (“breath of death,” in English; it’s not about eggs). In that 10-minute finale, marked out by the French-language declarations of Shazzula Vultura, Wolvennest not only make it plain just how far they’ve brought you, but that they intend to leave you there as well.
A 15-minute playful jaunt into the funk-grooving max-fuzzed whatever-works garage headtrip if Toronto’s Lammping is right on the money. The four-piece start channel-spanning and mellow with “Jaws of Life” — which is a righteous preach, even though I don’t know the lyrics — and follow with the complementary vibe of “The Funkiest,” which would seem to be titled in honor of its bassline and conjures out-there’est Masters of Reality in its face-painted BlueBoy lysergics over roughly traditional songwriting. Is “Neverbeen” weirder? You know it. Dreamily so, and it’s followed by the genuinely-experimental 40 seconds of “Big Time the Big Boss” and the closer “Other Shoe,” which if it doesn’t make you look forward to the next Lammping album, I’m sorry to say it, but you might be dead. Sorry for your loss. Of you. This shit is killer and deserves all the ears it can get with its early ’90s weirdness that’s somehow also from the late ’60s and still the future too because what is time anyway and screw it we’re all lost let’s ride.
Tales to Be Told is the late-2020 third long-player from Swedish classicists Lykantropi, following 2019’s Spirituosa (review here) with a warmth of tone that’s derived from ’70s folk rock and vaguely retro in its tones and drum sounds, but remains modern in its hookmaking and it’s not exactly like they’re trying to hide where they’re coming from when they break out the flute sounds. Harmonies in “Mother of Envy” make that song a passionate highlight, while the respective side-endings in “Kom Ta Mig Ut” and “Världen Går Vidare” add to the exploratory and roots-proggy listening experience, the album’s finale dropping its drums before the three-minute mark to allow for a drifting midsection en route to a class finish that answers the choruses of “Spell of Me” and “Axis of Margaret” earlier with due spaciousness. Clean and clear and wanting nothing aesthetically or emotionally, Tales to Be Told is very much a third album in how realized it feels.
Japanese trio Mainliner — comprised of guitarist Kawabata Makoto (Acid Mothers Temple), bassist/vocalist Kawabe Taigen (Bo Ningen) and drummer Koji Shimura (Acid Mothers Temple) — are gentle at the outset of Dual Myths but don’t wait all that long before unveiling their true freak-psych intention in the obliterating 20 minutes of “Blasphemy Hunter,” the opener/longest track (immediate points) that’s followed by the likewise side-consuming left-the-air-lock-behind-and-found-antimatter-was-made-of-feedback “Hibernator’s Dream” (18:38), the noisier, harsher fuckall spread of “Silver Guck” (19:28) and the gut-riffed/duly scorched jazz shredder “Dunamist Zero” (20:08), which culminates the 2LP beast about as well as anything could, earning the gatefold with sheer force of intent to be and to harness the far-out into some loosely tangible thing. Stare into the face of the void and the void doesn’t so much stare back as turn your lungs into party balloons.
On a certain level, what you see is what you get with the Orion slavegirl warriors, alien mushrooms and caithan beast that adorn DayGlo Mourning‘s debut album, the six-song/35-minute Dead Star, in that they’re suitably nestled into the sonic paraphernalia of stoner-doom as well as the visual. With bassist Jerimy McNeil and guitarist Joseph Mills sharing vocal duties over Ray Miner‘s drums, variety of melody and throatier shouts are added to the deep-toned largesse of riff, and the Atlanta trio most assuredly have their heads on when it comes to knowing what they want to do sound-wise. The hard-hit hi-hat of “Faithful Demise” comes with some open spaces after the fuzzy lumber that caps “Bloodghast,” and as “Ashwhore” and “Witch’s Ladder” remind a bit of the misogyny inherent in witchy folklore — at the end of the day it was all about killing pretty girls — the grooves remain fervent and the forward potential on the part of the band likewise. It’s a sound big enough that there isn’t really any room left for bullshit.
Issued in the waning hours of Dec. 2020, Chamán‘s 70-minute, six-song debut album, Maleza, is a psicodelico cornucopia of organic-toned delights, from the more forward-fuzz of “Poliforme” — which is a mere six and a half minutes long but squeezes in a drum solo — to the 13-plus-minute out-there salvo that is “Malezo,” “Concreto” and “Temazcal,” gorgeously trippy and drifting and building on what the Mendozza, Argentina, three-piece conjure early in the proceedings with “Despierta” and “Ganesh,” each over 10 minutes as well. Even in Maleza‘s most lucid moments, the spirit of improv and live recording remains vibrant, and however these songs were built out to their current form, I’m just glad they were. Whether you put it on headphones and bliss out for 70 minutes or you end up using it as a backdrop for whatever your day might bring, Chamán‘s sprawling and melted soundscapes are ready to embrace and enfold you.
Italian duo Sonic Demon bring a lethal dose of post-Electric Wizard grit fuzz and druggy echoed snarl to their debut full-length, Vendetta, hitting a particularly nasty low end vibe early on “Black Smoke” and proving willing to ride that out for the duration with bouts of spacier fare in “Fire Meteorite” and side A capper “Cosmic Eyes” before the second half of the 40-minute outing renews the buzz with “FreakTrip.” Deep-mixed drums make the guitar and bass sound even bigger, and such is the morass Sonic Demon make that even their faster material seems slow; that means “Hxxxn” must be extra crawling to feel as nodded-out as it does. Closing duo “Blood and Fire” and “Serpent Witch” don’t have much to say that hasn’t already been said, style-wise, but they feel no less purposeful in sealing the hypnosis cast by the songs before them. If you can’t hang with repetition, you can’t hang, and the filth in the speedier-ish last section of “Serpent Witch” isn’t enough to stop it from being catchy.
Sow Discord is the solo industrial doom/experimentalist project of David Coen, also known for his work in Whitehorse, and the bleak feel that pervades his debut full-length under the moniker, Quiet Earth, is resonant and affecting. Channeling blowout beats and speaker-throbbing crush on “Ruler,” Coen elsewhere welcomes Many Blessings (aka Ethan Lee McCarthy, also of Primitive Man) and The Body as guests for purposefully disturbing conjurations. Cuts like “Desalination” and “Functionally Extinct” churn with an atmosphere that feels born of a modern real-world apocalypse, and it’s hard to tell ultimately whether closer “The World Looks on with Pity and Scorn” is offering condolence or condemnation, but either way you go, the bitter harshness that carries over is the thread that weaves all this punishment together, and as industrial music pushes toward new extremes, even “Everything Has Been Exhausted” manages to feel fresh in its pummel.
Formed by members of Lord Humungus, Frank Sabbath and Carpet Burns, Cerbère offer three tracks of buried-alive extreme sludge on their self-titled debut EP, recorded live in the band’s native Paris during a pandemic summer when it was illegal to leave the house. Someone left the house, anyhow, and the resultant three cuts are absolutely unabashed in their grating approach, enough so to warrant in-league status with masters of misanthropy like Grief or Khanate, even if Cerbère move more throughout the 15-minute closing title-track, and dare to add some trippy guitar later on. The two prior cuts, “Julia” — the sample at the beginning feels especially relevant in light of the ongoing Notre Dame rebuild — and “Aliéné” are no less brutal if perhaps more compact. I can’t be sure, because I just can’t, but it’s entirely possible “Aliéné” is the only word in the song that bears its name. That wouldn’t work in every context. Here it feels earned, along with the doomier lead that follows.
They’ve cooled down a bit from the tear they were on for a few years there, but Dali’s Llama‘s new Dune Lung EP is no less welcome for that. The desert-dwelling four-piece founded by guitarist/vocalist Zach and bassist Erica Huskey bring a laid back roll to the nonetheless palpably heavy “Nothing Special,” backing the opener with the fuzzy sneer of “Complete Animal,” the broader-soundscape soloing of “Merricat Blackwood,” and the more severe groove of “STD (Suits),” all of which hit with a fullness of sound that feels natural while giving the band their due as a studio unit. Dali’s Llama have been and continue to be significantly undervalued when it comes to desert rock, and Dune Lung is another example of why that is and how characteristic they are in sound and execution. Good band, and they’re edging ever closer to the 30-year mark. Seems like as good a time as any to be appreciated for the work they’ve done and do.
Its cover art might be purple, but the heart of the new Dali’s Llama EP, The Blossom, is all blue. As in, the blues, and the having of them. It’s virtually impossible for me to listen to the band or even see their name without the word “underappreciated” coming to mind, so let’s get that out of the way first — they’re underappreciated — and having said that, they here offer three songs and 18 minutes of new material through their own Dali’s Llama Records and push even further into DIY with guitarist/vocalist Zach Huskey sharing in the recording duties as well.
That’s a departure in itself from last year’s grimly-titled Dying in the Sun (review here), which like the bulk of Dali’s Llama‘s prolific string of releases was helmed by Scott Reeder (Kyuss, The Obsessed, Fireball Ministry). Reeder plays a role on The Blossomas well, sharing a recording credit with Huskey for closer “Bacteria,” while Huskey and Mike Jacobson recorded opener “Longtime Woman” (video here) and middle track “Like I Do,” which is probably as close to a general mission statement as Dali’s Llama have ever come. To wit, the lines, “Don’t wanna hear about your trips around the world/I don’t have your money, fame, or dozens of girls/But that don’t mean I lose/I just wanna live like I do,” sum up the general attitude with which the band would seem to approach the world around them; a fervent individuality very much indicative of their home in the Californian desert. Dali’s Llama, in other words, know who they are, and they know why.
Granted, with The Blossom as their 13th release, that should be the case. They’re nothing if not experienced when it comes to songwriting and being in the studio, but it says something about the creative will of Huskey — joined in the band by bassist/vocalist Erica Huskey, guitarist Joe Wangler and drummer Craig Brown — that they continue to try new things as well, like stepping into the recording process. While 2007-2012 found them releasing a new album about every year, Dying in the Sun followed four years after 2012’s Autumn Woods (review here), and with a quick turnaround, it leads one to speculate if The Blossomsignals a boost in productivity to come.
Either way, it’s a relatively quick listen that, in addition to being bluesy, emphasizes the low-key vibe that has persistently worked so well in Dali’s Llama‘s material. Zach retains some light punker root in his vocals, but the groove is all laid back in “Longtime Woman” and “Like I Do,” which feel very much of a pair, with the former rolling out a groove not unlike some that pervaded the band’s Halloween-party-esque 2010 outing, Howl Do You Do? (review here), while the latter steps forth its un-aggro righteousness in a riff-led, barroom-ready shuffle early before giving into solo-topped lumbering for the bulk of its second half. Each of the first two songs has a hook to offer and finds Dali’s Llama locked into a jammy spirit, hitting on either side of the seven-minute mark — “Longtime Woman” in addition to opening is the longest track at 7:06 (immediate points), while “Like I Do” checks in at 6:43 — and working fluidly one into the next to set up the turn of approach that arrives with “Bacteria” (4:44) rounding out.
While “Bacteria” is by no means Dali’s Llama‘s first acoustic-centered track — Autumn Woods finished with the mostly-unplugged desert grunge of “Resolved” as well — the mood is particularly intimate, with the lyrics, “I’m getting older/No one wants to look at me anymore/Bacteria/They just go and wash their hands of me,” cloaking perhaps a bit of introspection in some clever wordplay. The shift from “Longtime Woman” and “Like I Do” is immediate, with the downward-sloping bounce of the centerpiece giving way to plucked notes that make it easy to imagine Huskey and Reeder working alone in dim lighting at the latter’s The Sanctuary studio. Some reverb on Huskey‘s vocals adds presence, but the underlying impression is still one of rawer emotionalism, and where “Resolved” incorporated a late electrified solo, it’s worth noting that “Bacteria” stays quiet for its duration, some backing percussion deep in the mix as it moves toward ending on its title line, capping The Blossom on a resonant and somewhat surprising note.
A band 13 releases in and offering the unexpected? One more reason I can’t say their name without the immediate word-association of “underappreciated” springing to mind. Dali’s Llama may remain the desert’s best kept secret when it comes to songwriting, but like they do, they’ll keep moving forward anyway, and while parts of “Longtime Woman” and “Like I Do” feel like they’re playing to the band’s strengths, the jammier feel also shows the chemistry the four-piece have developed over their time with this lineup around Zach and Erica, and while that may or may not be a path they’ll continue to walk — they’ve been known every now and again to veer into experimental outings like the aforementioned Howl do You Do? — it makes for an engaging short release that, like the many offerings surrounding it in Dali’s Llama‘s catalog, is a treasure waiting to be discovered.
Prolific and perennially underappreciated desert rockers Dali’s Llama will have a new EP out on April 29. Dubbed The Blossom, it follows behind last year’s Dying in the Sun (review here) and a long string of offerings that, at this point, goes back nearly a quarter-century around the work of guitarist/vocalist Zach Huskey and bassist Erica Huskey. The band have been ones for pretense, and their sound, while varied from release to release, seems to be resting on its core of warm-sunned heavy blues rock in the track “Longtime Woman,” for which you can see the video premiering below. Perhaps unsurprisingly, they went out to the desert to make it.
For my money — and mind you, it’s not like Dali’s Llama are charging per view on “Longtime Woman” or anything — the most telling moment of the entire clip is at the very end. The dreadlocked desert hippie lady has disappeared, and the band has stopped playing. No more shenanigans. The song is over. The final shot of the clip is Zach and Erica, taking a nap on a blanket laying on the ground. That, my friends, would seem to be what it’s all about — in terms of this song, the band as a whole and, you know, life. Who could ask for anything more than that out of existence?
I’m going to look forward to hearing the rest of The Blossom as I always do to hearing from Dali’s Llama. If you haven’t seen it, make sure you check out Joerg Steineck‘s Lo Sound Desert documentary (review here), in which they feature considerably. I’ve said in the past that they deserve to have their own doc telling their story, and maybe they’ll get there, but in the meantime, Lo Sound Desert gives a good overview. For sure it’s worth digging into when you’re done with the premiere of “Longtime Woman” below.
One more time, Dali’s Llama release The Blossom on April 29.
Enjoy:
Dali’s Llama, “Longtime Woman” official video
Video for “Longtime Woman”, a new song off of our forthcoming release “The Blossom EP”. Filmed out in a remote part of our desert. Twenty-four years and still DIY. Hope you dig it!
Posted in On Wax on December 20th, 2013 by JJ Koczan
How do you effectively summarize a prolific 20-year career on one two-sided LP? The correct answer is you don’t, and Palm Springs, California, desert rockers Dali’s Llama obviously get that idea. The band’s new collection, Twenty Years Underground — released as ever by their own Dali’s Llama Records in limited numbers — doesn’t quite aim to cull everything since their beginnings, and instead provides a sampling of their wares since 2007’s Sweet Sludge. Hardly sounds like the same kind of scope until you realize that Dali’s Llama have issued five albums in that time, and that in just eight songs, Twenty Years Underground does manage to cover Sweet Sludge and the Zach and Erica Huskey-led outfit’s subsequent outings, 2008’s Full on Dunes(review here), 2009’s Raw is Real(review here), 2010’s Howl Do You Do?(review here) and late-2012’s Autumn Woods(review here), the latter two of which purposefully looked beyond desert rock and into other areas of exploration, be it horror punk on the former or darker, more brooding sounds on the latter.
Early Dali’s Llama material from their first five albums remains somewhat obscure, and as Zach explains in the liner notes, to include any of that stuff would’ve involved remastering from the original analog tapes — doubtless an expense on time and money that a band looking to celebrate didn’t need to take on — but since it’s all self-released, it’s all also still in print, and whether it’s 1993’s Pre Post Nowor 2006’s Chordata, which marked a return from a long hiatus, CDs are accessible through their own Dali’s Llama Records. As Dali’s Llama have proven over the years to be unflinching when it comes to doing things on their own terms, that that would continue with Twenty Years Undergroundis no big surprise, and while it would be interesting to have them go back and revisit some of the earlier stuff, maybe for Twenty Years Underground Vol. 2, it seems more fitting to approach this LP collection — their first vinyl — in a “what you see is what you get” mindset. That’s been my experience with the band since I first heard them, and it’s a standard to which their songwriting lives up.
Side A is particularly interesting here for the fact that it’s Dali’s Llama at their most desert rock. I’ve said on multiple occasions and I’ll reiterate that the simple fact of Dali’s Llama‘s relative obscurity in the heavy rock underground and their persistence in a DIY ethic only makes them more admirable — they do what they do regardless of who’s listening, in other words — and with cuts from Sweet Sludgeand Full on Dunes, they are clearly in their element. “Desert Dogs” boasts a guest appearance from an immediately-recognizable Mario Lalli of Fatso Jetson, and Throw Rag singer Sean Wheeler contributes to the ultra-memorable “King Platypus” to close out the first half, so the band’s place in the lineage of the desert from which they come is established one way or another. For what it’s worth, the seven-plus-minute opener “Creosote” from Sweet Sludgegives an unrepentantly riffy opening to Twenty Years Undergroundchock full of their signature grit and even-more-signature lack of pretense, so that lineage wasn’t lacking for establishment in the first place. But it’s always better to be sure.
There’s no new material on Twenty Years Underground, which as prolific as the band has been since 2007 is something of a surprise, but again, space is a factor. The title-track to Autumn Woods tops nine minutes with its low rumble and moody sensibility, so their most recent work is well represented and “Creosote” is answered in kind, “Autumn Woods” closing out side B in fine company with the faster “Bad Dreams” from the same album and the motor-riffing of “Raw is Real.” “She’s My Halloween” is something of a departure on Twenty Years Undergroundas Howl Do You Do?was for the band in general, ultimately a playful collection nodding at goth rock in the name of a good time, but the Huskeys chose the right song to represent that offering, with its organ scratch and memorable guitar progression bordering on classic psychedelic rock, and if you’re encountering Twenty Years Underground in the first place, chances are it’s not going to be your first exposure to Dali’s Llama — or if it is, that you’ll be open so such things in the context of a compilation, which sets a different expectation for flow and songs feeding into each other than a regular LP might.
Players joining Zach (guitar/vocals) and Erica (bass/backing vocals) vary, and over the course of Twenty Years Underground, Dali’s Llama trades out drummers twice and adds and then replaces a second guitarist, but the vibe is consistent across the board. If you know Dali’s Llama, then you know you’re getting straight-ahead songwriting with few frills, but between the guest spots, lineup variations and “She’s My Halloween,” you could hardly say the collection suffers from redundancy. The story of Dali’s Llama to this point has been one of a group — really a couple, but a couple bringing others with them for the ride — sticking to their passion in the face of whatever might befall them, and truly pursuing music for the sheer sake of loving it. In addition to liner notes from Zach and info about who plays on what, the sleeve that houses the 12″ platter features a collage that — if it doesn’t go back the full 20 years — certainly goes back a healthy portion of it, and the thread of the band’s drive is made even more plain. Regardless of trend, regardless of who’s come up and made it big, regardless of who’s sold what to what tv show, Dali’s Llama simply are and will continue to be. Zach says it himself, “It’s not over yet man!” Right on.
Dali’s Llama continue to inspire. If you want a lesson in what underground rock is all about, look no further.
Dali’s Llama, “Samurai Eyes” Live at Cobraside Distribution, Dec. 14, 2013
12:31AM – Their budget is by no means the highest, and at one point, the video seems to just cut to a shot of a dude rubbing his sword in the woods — why does everything sound like euphemism to me lately? — but frankly, it’s precisely acts like Dali’s Llama who I find most inspiring. The Palm Springs outfit led by Zach (guitar/vocals) and Erica (bass) Huskey have been at it for 20 years, have shown no sign of slowing down, and continue on with what drives them regardless of trend, promotion or anything else. They play out in the desert, but don’t really tour, and they release albums on the regular of quality tracks put to tape on their own terms and released through their own label. We should all be so independently motivated.
And by we, I mean me. Because you’re independently motivated, out there, making things happen. Me, well — to me, my laptop — like Silver Surfer and his board, long ago, Galactus decreed that I’d be tethered to this thing and that’s kind of how it’s worked out ever since. I doubt Joe Satriani will write a record about it, but having occasion to run into an act like Dali’s Llama every now and again, who so much epitomize the ideal of creating and following your own path, it makes me want to follow my own. I’m not just blowing smoke up the band’s ass either — no reason to, really — I think that in the whole time I’ve been running this site they’re one of the most admirable acts I’ve been fortunate enough to come across. Further, their last record, Autumn Woods (review here), was the most realized yet of the ones I’ve heard in their 11-strong discography.
It’s short, but the track “Bad Dreams” comes from that record, and you’ll find the video for it below. Enjoy:
Posted in Reviews on December 11th, 2012 by JJ Koczan
Undervalued stalwarts Dali’s Llama are the kind of band that 15 years from now someone’s going to make a documentary about. And rightly so. The largely-unpromoted desert rocking Palm Springs, California, foursome will celebrate two full decades of existence in 2013, and they hit that anniversary behind the release of their beefy 10th (or possibly 11th) album, Autumn Woods. As always, they’ve issued the disc via their own Dali’s Llama Records, and where their prior outing, 2010’s Howl Do You Do? (review here), saw them step outside of their long-since established desert blues rock aesthetic, and frontman Zach Huskey (vocals/guitar) veered even further away from Dali’s Llama in 2011 with the heavy rocking side-project Ogressa’s Warts and All debut (review here), Autumn Woods makes for an excellent homecoming while still providing a twist on the more trademark desert-isms of records like 2009’s Raw is Real (review here) or the prior Full on Dunes (review here). As one might be able to glean from looking at bassist Erica Huskey in the photo on the album’s cover – clad in a cape and peeking out from behind a tree to look at the sky while drummer Craig Brown, her guitarist/vocalist/husband Zach, and guitarist Joe Wangler stand out front – not to mention the title itself, Autumn Woods is less about desert sands than it is darker atmospheres derived from classic metal. Dali’s Llama aren’t about to start writing about castles, steeds or epic battles, but filtering thicker distortion and more metallic atmospheres through their inherent desertitude (*copyright The Obelisk 2012), the Huskeys, Wangler and Brown both return to their musical roots and stem from them in a new and exciting way. A production job from none other than Scott Reeder presents Dali’s Llama with suitable tonal thickness on cuts like “The Gods” or the 9:36 centerpiece title-track, but still leaves the band room to move in terms of tempo, as they do on the punkier opener “Bad Dreams” or later “P.O.A.,” which starts off with a near-thrash intensity before cutting the pace for a more grooving second half… of its total 1:26.
That’s one thing that’s always been true of Dali’s Llama since I first encountered them: they are remarkably efficient. Like Howl Do You Do? was with its focus on classic horror punk and alternate reality early ‘60s surf, Autumn Woods sounds like an album approached with a specific sonic concept in mind, i.e. someone in the band saying, “Let’s make a record that sounds like this.” And they do. Top to bottom, Autumn Woods retains Dali’s Llama’s characteristic lack of pretense even as it’s based entirely on one – namely, that they’re a metal band. Of course, they’re not a metal band, and through Zach lets out a scream before the apex of penultimate track “O.K. Freak Out,” at their core, they’re still playing heavy desert rock and they retain the penchant for wah, for rolling groove and for classic rock structures led by riffs. No complaints at that. Catchy highlights “Goatface,” “Nostalgia” – on which cleaner vocals top a more open verse before the chorus takes flight – and the later Sabbathian “The Gods” provide landmarks around the title-track, and each song presents a personality of its own despite sharing the elements of chugging guitar, straightforward vibes and variations on Zach’s punker-bluesman’s snarl. The lead lines in “Blowholes and Fur” seem to nod at Deep Purple’s “Woman from Tokyo,” but even this Dali’s Llama work quickly to make their own, and while it’s a strong and distinguishable instrumental hook, the context they give it makes all the difference, accompanying a meaty chug made even thicker by Erica’s concurrent low end work. Even on “Autumn Woods,” I wouldn’t call them showy, but the extended cut (the next closest is “O.K. Freak Out” at 5:22, though “The Gods,” which follows, also hits 5:19) does give them room to range as far as they’d like, which structurally is something of a departure, despite Zach’s croon tying the early verses to the rest of the album and indeed to Dali’s Llama’s already formidable discography. The chief difference seems to be a sense of patience that a lot of the songs – derived from grown-up punk as so much heavy rock is; ask Fatso Jetson if you don’t believe me – eschew. Very subtly, the four-piece move into a darker soft of jam from the initial verses, letting a slower jam take hold amid Danzig-style atmospherics and a gradual push.
