A little bit more than halfway through the opening track on Pleasant Journey in Heavy Tunes is a kind of toss-off moment I’ve always found hilarious. The chorus of “Too Stoned,” which leads off the 2001 debut album from Copenhagen’s Gas Giant, is simple enough: “Too stoned/I’m too stoned/Too stoned again/Too stoned/Too stoned, baby/Too stoned again.” If nothing else, it gets the point across as vocalist Jesper Valentin delivers the lines atop a post-Monster Magnet space-psych-meets-heavy-rock swirl, honed by guitarist Stefan Krey and propelled by bassist Thomas Carstensen and drummer Pete Hell. But it also makes plain the ethic through which Gas Giant were working at the time. Though the definition of what the term meant was already expanding even then, it was stoner rock.

That expanding definition can be heard in Pleasant Journey in Heavy Tunes as well as concurrent offerings from further north in Europe like Dozer‘s In the Tail of a Comet, which came out the year before and arguably had an impact on the sound of “Super Sun Trigger” here — though of course the root influence is Kyuss either way — or Lowrider‘s Ode to Io, or even Colour Haze‘s Ewige Blumenkraft, the latter also from 2001, but it’s still there, and “Too Stoned” basically makes that inarguable at the record’s outset. From the rolling Acid–King-meets-slower-Atomic–Bitchwax nod of “Sit Down” and outright fuzz overload of “Down the Highway” early on to “Desert Call”‘s self-titled-era Queens of the Stone Age quirk and the odd reinvention of Rage Against the Machine‘s signature “Bulls on Parade” riff for the eight-minute album crescendo “Storm of My Enemies” ahead of one more bit of Wyndorfian good times in outer space on closer “Holy Walker,” Pleasant Journey in Heavy Tunes is a willfully bumpy ride, but it’s tied together through a spacious mix courtesy of the band and producer/engineer Ralph A. Rjeily (R.I.P. 2012), and the four-piece’s collective heart is never too far from the “rock” end of the equation. To say that it suits them throughout the nine-track/48-minute offering would be underselling it.

Whatever familiar elements went into the making of Pleasant Journey in Heavy Tunes — and there were plenty, as there were on a lot of records from the era when stoner rock was taking shape (1995-2002-ish) and as there are now more than a generation later — those shades of Nebula and Fu Manchu on “Down the Highway” and “All Creatures” came with more than just flashes of individualism that showed not just Gas Giant‘s real potential in moving forward from their roots, but also the foundation of songwriting that would let them do it. But though there are a lot of comparison-namedrops above, don’t take that to mean Gas Giant had nothing of their own to offer on their debut. In particular, the atmospheric flourish brought to the tracks via echoes and effects were pivotal in letting them establish an atmosphere beyond the sundry riffs and grooves on display, and though that’s something that would come more to fruition on 2003’s Mana, it’s there on Pleasant Journey in Heavy Tunes as well, and even 18 years later, its righteousness holds up. It’s there in the preach at the beginning of “All Creatures,” and in the low-end fuzz of “Desert Call” — the allure of those open spaces calling to northern Europe even long before Truckfighters would go cruising — and it’s there in the Stooges strum and strut of “Holy Walker” as the album rounds out. These sides come together to give Pleasant Journey in Heavy Tunes its personality, subtly varied as it is and almost deceptive in its complexity.

That is to say, in hindsight, it’s easy to stand back and pick out this or that genre element, because there’s been more than 15 years of genre built up since. At the time — not pre-internet, but well before the mobilization and full socialmediafication thereof — the context inherently would’ve been more modern, fresh and cutting edge. Think of all the “lost” records from the early part of the 1970s. Those heavy gems from ’71, ’72, of bands who put out one or two records and then disappeared, maybe with one person going off to do something else, maybe everybody just off to families, dayjobs or an eventual reunion. Gas Giant were similarly of their era and of the pastiche of sound that was happening at the time, but part of what stands them out even now is that they were doing it in Copenhagen.

Consider that Gas Giant‘s demo came out in 1999 after a 1998 EP released as Blind Man Buff and Pleasant Journey in Heavy Tunes came out in 2001. That’s the same year Baby Woodrose offered up their own first album, rising as they did from the proverbial ashes of On Trial. These were the roots of Copenhagen’s heavy scene, which continues to flourish today, and the almost tentative adventurousness shown in Pleasant Journey in Heavy Tunes and expanded on Mana continues to flourish in range of acts, whether it’s prog-fusion psychbringers Causa Sui, jammers like Papir or even a classic doom outfit like Demon Head. The point is that Denmark’s contributions to Europe’s greater heavy underground couldn’t have happened without bands like Gas Giant helping to pave the way. Whether you’re familiar with Pleasant Journey in Heavy Tunes or not — and they’re very much of that pre-Thee Facebooks lost era of heavy rock that I’ve spoken about on multiple occasions; swallowed into the vacuum that once was MySpace — I think that’s remarkable and worth highlighting.

Of course, I hope you agree.

Gas Giant had a split with WE also out in 2001, Mana in ’03 and a split with Colour Haze the year after that, but then that was it from them. The band went their separate ways and came back in 2015 to play Freak Valley Festival and more. They did those gigs and at some point last year made a page for Portals of Nothingness, a lost album from 1999, on Bandcamp that, as yet, has no audio on it, and not much has been heard from them since unless I’m missing something (always possible). One never knows what the future might hold, but Space Rock Productions reissued Pleasant Journey in Heavy Tunes in 2015 in three separate vinyl editions, so the record is out there for those who’d chase it down.

In any case, please enjoy it. Thanks for reading.

—

Let me tell you about the dinner I had last night.

We’re pretty deep into The Patient Mrs.’ semester at this point — just a couple weeks left before winter break — so I’m largely running point on dinners. I’m not much of a chef, so that kind of has come to involve cooking for the week, generally some variation on slow cooker chicken, vegetarian meat loaf, take out, etc. This week it’s been farm-raised chicken breast, thigh and wing meat that I cooked in the Crock Pot on Sunday. I seasoned it with paprika, garlic, onion powder, salt, pepper, chili powder, Italian-style this-and-that, and some Bell’s, because Bell’s. To go with it, I roasted three heads of cauliflower to a point of being well-done — not burnt, but not far off — and seasoned those similarly but with a little more chili powder to let them absorb a bit of depth. They came out nice.

All of this was tied together with a gigantic spaghetti squash — I mean huge; watermelon-sized — and a 20 oz. pack of Beyond Meat ground beef-style fake meat that I seasoned like hot Italian sausage, with fennel, garlic — always garlic — hot red pepper flakes, a cut whole chili, and so on, that I knew was going to be good because it took on a reddish tint when I was cooking it.

It all came together in our 12″ sauce pan with the high sides and was nearly overflowing when I added four containers of this pesto I drive half an hour to buy at the one fancy wine store down Rt. 24 that sells it. I buy in bulk. Mostly I also consume it in that fashion as well.

Top with fresh-grated parmesan. Dinner for the week.

Each evening I’d kind of add something different to it for myself — The Patient Mrs. is a little more orthodox, though I think if I’d shown up with ricotta or fresh mutz on any given night reheating, I’d only have been greeted as a liberator — and have it with a red bell pepper on the side. I’ve been obsessed with this garlic scape and hazelnut pesto that this one stand sells at the Denville Farmers Market on Sundays — what it lacks in being cheap it makes up for in owning my heart — so I’ve been adding that on top of everything else and very much enjoying it.

Last night was the final night of the run — Sunday to Thursday is pretty good; it was a very large spag squash — so I decided to go all out. I roasted three packs of pre-peeled garlic (maybe seven or eight cloves each?) in the oven and topped it with the pesto and had it with a pepper. It was decadent and marvelous. Everything was perfect. Maybe the best meal I’ve had in a year. And I recognize saying that about day-five leftovers is kind of wacky, but I tell you, this dinner was glorious. Most of the garlic simply melted but there was still some caramelized too, and the combination between that and the garlic scape and hazelnut pesto, the interaction there with that and the other pesto already in the root leftovers — holy shit. It was goddamned incredible.

I topped it off with a couple sugar-free Reese’s for dessert and went to bed fat and happy.

For all the issues I’ve had in my life and continue to have with food, every now and then it’s amazing to enjoy something like that.

Rough week, down week, another week full of days. Ended by getting dicked around on a track premiere. Low stakes bullshit. Doesn’t matter.

Next week, more days. Is one of them Thanksgiving? I think so. I’m doing a Scissorfight track premiere — for which I’ve been not at all dicked around — on Thanksgiving. Tune in to see if I can avoid saying I’m thankful they got back together.

Great and safe weekend. Have fun, eat a good meal, be kind. Make merry. Tomorrow we die.

FRM. Forum, Radio, Merch.

The Obelisk Forum

The Obelisk Radio

The Obelisk merch

 

 

 

 

One thing about Scott Heller (aka Dr. Space): The dude loves him some space. In his second “Altered States” column for The Obelisk, the Øresund Space Collective jammer takes a song-by-song look at the underrated Pleasant Journey in Heavy Tunes, released in 2000 by Danish outfit Gas Giant. Heller was intimately familiar with the band from their days as Blind Man Bluff, and one can almost feel the grooves of the songs themselves reading his review.

Hope you enjoy:

GAS GIANT- PLEASANT JOURNEY IN HEAVY TUNES (Burnt Hippie Records BHR-003/Loudsprecher LSD043)

While this Danish psychedelic stoner space rock band does not officially exist anymore (the three main guys still play together and make music), in 2000, they released this all time classic record. I met the guys back in 1998, when the band was still called Blind Man Buff. They started BMB in the mid-‘90s after disbanding the ZZ Top cover band, Tube Snake Boogie. These guys were really hard working and from 1995-2001, were meeting three days a week to jam and make songs and listen to Fu Manchu, Monster Magnet, Kyuss, Black Sabbath, etc… They would occasionally come out and play live as well but not that often.

In 1999, I started hanging out with the band and recording a number of their rehearsals and all their live shows. In January, they entered the studio with local soundman and producer, Ralph Rjeily, (who recently passed away and I wrote a tribute piece to here on this site), where they recorded at the local Black Tornado Studios. These were some intense days as they jammed and laid down the basic tracks for this classic record. The big muff sound on the bass and guitar, with Stefan’s vintage Sound City head and late ‘60s Marshall cabinet was a mean, dirty, fucking heavy sound and pretty well captured on these raw recordings.

One of the things that made the record so intense was the really raw and in your face sound of the guitar and bass, which was mixed really up front, leaving the drummer Pete Hell, in the back but still audible.

The CD starts off with what is now a stoner rock classic, “Too Stoned” (it was the first song on the High times Magazine compilation, High Volume: The Stoner Rock Collection [2004]). The band had previously recorded this song on the Blind Man Buff EP two years before but were not totally satisfied with it. It starts off with the sound of a water pipe as the main guitar riff enters before the killer bassline kicks in. The delays on Jesper’s voice also give it a really psychedelic feel. The main chorus arrives with a powerful Kyuss-like riff and Jesper ramps up the intensity in his vocal delivery as well. The midsection is very spacey and then the tune just takes off with a heavy groove and an uptempo ending.

“Sit Down” starts with the heavy bass before the monster guitar riff kicks in. The lyrics are always very interesting and strange and Jesper delivers a very powerful performance on every song with a catchy chorus that you can sing along to. This one is very raw, a bit looser, grooving but focused on being heavy. Stefan starts to let loose some guitar solos but just teasing you to start. Down the Highway has one of the most nasty guitar and heavy bass from this time period to start this track in this slow grooving track. The mid section slows almost to a stop and there are some spacey sounds before Pete kicks in with the drums again and Thomas leads the groove with the heavy bass line. “All Creatures” starts off with a very psychedelic effected vocal part before the killer groove just takes off again with that really fuzzed out, raw nasty sound. The mid section is really spacey with a lot more effects, delay vocals, cool guitar and heavy bass and then they just rock out like a mother fucker! ”The celebration is about to begin, may I have this dance…”

“Super Sun Trigger” is a very short, catchy and powerful song built on the killer flange guitar riff and sing-along chorus that just gets you hooked. Jesper sings in a bit more laid back fashion until the chorus, “Rescue me/The super sun trigger is coming to you.” “Desert Call” is actually quite an old song of the band’s dating back to 1996. It slows things down a lot but has a real basic easygoing feel and you eventually get hooked. Thomas’s bass line is so intense in the mix, really in your face. “Freak Sensation” is another fuzzed out number with a catchy groove. Jesper has an added effect on the vocal and like “Down the Highway,” the band space out in the middle (live this was often really far out and cool), with Thomas playing some wah bass and Stefan some nasty soloing (what a sound!) before they kick it into high gear and take off again.

The regular CD ends with one of my favourite Gas Giant songs, “Storm of My Enemies,” which used to develop into monster jams live, sometimes over 20 minutes! It is a slow, psychedelic track and when the main guitar riff kicks in complimented by the bass, it is very powerful. Thomas even plays the didgeridoo on this one in the sections before the main riff takes hold. Heavy, intense, psychedelic. The CD features an unlisted track called “Holy Walker,” which was completely conceived in the studio. It is a sort of an electric ballad that came up very spontaneously and features some great guitar and passionate vocals.

Unfortunately for those who never got to see this band live, they were a real mean machine and the songs here were never played like they are on the record and Stefan always did a lot more guitar soloing live and jamming. Lucky for you guys, I recorded nearly ever live concert they played from 1999 until 2005. You can find them at www.archive.org under the Live concert archive. Check out the concert from Leipzeig 2002 for a real blast. The band who made the Mana record (Elektrohasch, 2003) have reunited for a couple of special shows here in Denmark in 2012 but it is unlikely to lead to a full reunion as the guys are busy with other music projects and family obligations.