Friday Full-Length: Yawning Man & Fatso Jetson, Split LP
Posted in Bootleg Theater on December 13th, 2024 by JJ KoczanYawning Man and Fatso Jetson‘s split LP was released on April 26, 2013. That put it roughly concurrent to a performance at Desertfest London 2013 that, in succession at The Underworld in Camden Town, saw Yawning Sons, Yawning Man and Fatso Jetson take the stage. I was fortunate enough to be there to see it, and what I didn’t appreciate 11 years ago was that, for most of those in the room, it was a generational event, a kind of reemergence of the Californian desert underground of the 1990s, being greeted by a crowd by and large too young to have had the experience the first time around. It was easy to appreciate the succession, with UK progressive then-instrumentalists Sons of Alpha Centauri collaborating with Yawning Man‘s Gary Arce in Yawning Sons, Yawning Man finding Arce pulling immediate double-duty, this time next to bassist Mario Lalli, who’d move to guitar for Fatso Jetson‘s banger of a set. And it was a hell of a thing to witness. This split would seem to be what everybody grabbed at the merch table afterward.
In my defense, it was my first time seeing any of those bands too, so I’ll ask you to forgive me for not having at the time an insight so easily come by with 11 years’ hindsight. What kind of outfit is this? You call that perspective? Last time I read this filth. And so on.
I know, huge surprise I’d be too busy living in my own head to see what was going on around me — I get that you’re shocked; me too — and I’m sure that Spring all kinds of people in all kinds of places had their own experiences with Yawning Man and Fatso Jetson on the stage, picking up the split in the meantime, and that’s all valid. Standing there in The Underworld, watching Yawning Sons — to-date, a once-in-a-lifetime experience for me — unfurl surreal desert interpretations into Yawning Man having their songs recognized immediately by the crowd waiting for them, into the blues-boogie-blowout offered by Fatso Jetson; it was a thing to behold. I got a copy later, but at the time, didn’t even have a turntable and was bummed out they didn’t make a CD. That happened a lot around then. I got over a turntable and got — maybe just a smidgen — over myself and moved on with my life.
As anyone who left the merch table either at Desertfest or wherever, whenever knew long before I would eventually found out, this split is 21 minutes of pure where-it’s-at. Each side offers two songs, and instead of splitting up A and B sides by band, it’s set as A B B A with Yawning Man as A and Fatso Jetson as B, the LP starts strong with Yawning Man‘s 
“Dark Meet” and Fatso Jetson‘s “Mono Decay,” then keeps the flow going with Fatso Jetson‘s “Trans World Sleep” and Yawning Man‘s “Underwater Noise.”
Should it be any great surprise that they’re complementary sounds? Mario Lalli has been in Yawning Man intermittently for the last 40-ish years, and was at this time, so there’s shared personnel, but even more than that, both bands emerged out of the California desert of the early and mid-’90s and helped set the pattern that would become ‘desert rock’ as it’s known today — a movement of sound not nearly as tied to landscape as some might posit, however born of it it might be. “Dark Meet” has some prescient proggy edge in its guitar, but the way it rounds out by coming apart gives Fatso Jetson‘s “Mono Decay” — which, like much of their 2010 album, Archaic Volumes (discussed here, review here), features sax from Vince Meghrouni alongside Lalli‘s guitar and vocals, Larry Lalli‘s bass, Dino von Lalli‘s guitar and Tony Tornay‘s drums — a blank slate from which to solidify its intro.
“Mono Decay” is probably the most ‘active’ of the cuts on the split in terms of rhythmic movement, the sax bouncing along with the snare, the solo later on adding a noisy affect to the whole before, seemingly, swallowing it, and letting go to the New Wave strum that begins “Trans World Sleep.” They don’t do it all the time, but Fatso Jetson are well suited to both psychedelic and space rocks, and at 6:51, the longest track of the four here puts emphasis on that; a build that doesn’t lack impact but works well both times they let the tension go. The last one, a howl brought to a quick mute, lets Alfredo Hernandez start “Underwater Noise” on drums before the guitar kicks in to ultimately carry the song.
A mellow bassline from Lalli coincides with Arce‘s signature float, wisping out along a lead line that is melodic in character but works too with the heavier riffing that emerges with a push before the song hits the 90-second mark. The twists give way to an effects-laced middle, but return on the other side and resume the build, which when they hit into the dreamy part again, is where they leave it, riding that sun-coated drift to a longer fade. Like Fatso Jetson‘s inclusions, “Underwater Noise” — and “Dark Meet” for that matter — isn’t not so vastly removed from what Yawning Man were doing a couple years earlier on 2010’s Nomadic Pursuits (discussed here, review here), but for both of these bands, it was an important era. Having more of it beyond the LPs anchoring is a boon. I never gave this split enough credit.
And that stretch of, what, two hours, maybe?, at Desertfest London didn’t just confirm desert legends for the crowd around me — it did for me, too, however much of a convert I may already have been at the time. With enough years after the fact, it’s easy to see that night, this split, as a landmark, with two bands almost educating their listenership about who they are and what they do. If you were hearing either band for the first time, if you caught some Yawning Man in passing and don’t know where to start with Fatso Jetson, and anyway, you heard their stuff could get pretty weird sometimes (true, which is a strength!) — I can’t imagine starting with their 2013 split and going wrong. It’s been doing the job for a generation.
Thanks for reading. As always, I hope you enjoy.
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Noon! What. the. hell. I like a Friday that ends, if it has to start at all, by 10AM. I also prefer not to wake up with my back so stiff I feel like I can’t move, but, well, one is in one’s 40s.
I actually re-set my alarm twice this morning, at least part in the hope of finding myself in a more favorable position one then two half-hours later, and slept late. The Patient Mrs.’ semester ended this week, and her being home also kind of means that whatever entirely reasonable errand needs to be done that day — in this case it was filing more paperwork for a legal name change for The Pecan with the court in Morristown, which has become something of a rush, alongside a passport change; we have a hearing with a judge in a couple weeks; everything has more forms when you’re doing it on behalf of a minor, and yeah, duh — isn’t get backburnered so I can get back here and bang out a post about somebody’s video. A question of stakes, then.
Hopefully you found something good in the Quarterly Review, perhaps that you hadn’t heard before. I ended up putting at least one thing from every day in the notes for my year-end list, which told me how padded-out it was with stuff I knew I’d dig, more than anything else. Whatever. My Quarterly Review. I’m not obligated to slate anything I don’t want to. Usually. Ha.
This weekend I’ll start actually putting together the year-end coverage. Oof, it’s gonna be a lot. I might not actually get started writing until Monday — we’ve got plans on Sunday with friends — but I’ll do my best to bang through it efficiently. I was hoping to review The Whims of the Great Magnet’s new one before I got there, but it might need to wait after.
Figure Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday — at least — will just be writing the big year-end to-do. I ask your patience if you don’t see anything else around here until then.
And as always, I wish you a great and safe weekend. Have fun, watch your head, take some Advil if you need it. I’m back Monday with maybe nothing. We’ll see how it goes.
FRM.
