Posted in Whathaveyou on December 23rd, 2021 by JJ Koczan
So give me a second while I try to get a handle on all of Stöner‘s upcoming tour dates. First is the holiday run with Clutch. Assuming that happens, it starts next week.
The following lists of shows though have all been announced at various points — the UK/Ireland tour first, then the Clutch dates, then EU plus various fests, now West Coast — so it’s been hard to keep it all straight. I’ve compiled the full list from various other news posts in order to get a more complete picture of what the band’s intentions for 2022 are going to be. My question amid all of this is whether or not Brant Bjork, Nick Oliveri and Ryan Güt will also as previously stated be releasing a second album sometime next year to follow-up on 2021’s Stoners Rule (review here). Would love to tell you, but I just don’t know.
What I do know, however, is that the poster for the portion of the newly-unveiled West Coast stint that involves Yawning Man — dubbed the ‘Interstellar Taco’ tour — is amazing and I’m glad it exists. That art is by Brian Walsby working off an idea from Yawning Man‘s Gary Arce and Mario Lalli. Fucking a.
Shows:
STÖNER with Clutch: Dec. 27 – Baltimore, MD – Rams Head Dec. 28 – Sayreville, NJ – Starland Ballroom Dec. 29 – Cleveland, OH – Agoura Theatre Dec. 30 – Detroit, MI – Filmore Theatre Dec. 31 – Cincinnati, OH – The Icon Jan. 2 – Washington DC – The 9:30 Club
STÖNER – WEST NORTH WEST TOUR 2022: 02.23 Costa Mesa CA The Wayfarer* 02.24 Santa Cruz CA Urbani’s Cellar* 02.25 Albany CA The Ivy Room* 02.26 Eugene OR The Big Dirty Live* 02.27 Portland OR Star Theater* 03.01 Seattle WA El Corazon* 03.02 Vancouver BC Rickshaw* 03.03 TBC BC* 03.04 Edmonton AB Starlite Room* 03.05 Calgary AB Palomino* 03.06 Missoula MT Badlander 03.08 Boise ID Neurolux 03.09 Salt Lake City UT Aces High 03.10 Las Vegas NV Soulbelly BBQ 03.11 Tempe AZ Pub Rock 03.12 Oceanside CA Pour House
STÖNER – APRIL & MAY 2022 UK & IRELAND TOUR : Fri 22 Apr : Monroes Live, Galway, Ire Sat 23 Apr : Dolan’s Warehouse, Limerick, Ire Sun 24 Apr : Cyprus Avenue, Cork, Ire Mon 25 Apr : Limelight 2, Belfast, UK Tue 26 Apr : Opium, Dublin, Ire Thu 28 Apr : The Garage, Glasgow, UK Fri 29 Apr : The Warehouse, Leeds, UK Mon 02 May : Academy 3, Manchester, UK Tue 03 May : The Mill, Birmingham, UK Wed 04 May : Thekla, Bristol, UK
STÖNER + support SLOMOSA Europe 2022 06.05.22 – TBA 07.05.22 – TBA 08.05.22 – Aachen / Musikbunker Aachen 09.05.22 – Hamburg / Knust Hamburg 10.05.22 – Luxemburg / Kulturfabrik Esch-sur-Alzette 11.05.22 – Belfort / La Poudrière – Belfort 12.05.22 – Paris / Nouveau Casino 13.05.22 – Toulouse / Connexion Live 14.05.22 – TBA 15.05.22 – Barcelona / Wolf Barcelona 17.05.22 – Duedingen / Bad Bonn 18.05.22 – Winterthur / Gaswerk 19.05.22 – Wien / ARENA WIEN 20.05.22 – Graz / p.p.c. 21.05.22 – Salzburg / Rockhouse Salzburg 22.05.22 – Aschaffenburg / Colos-Saal Aschaffenburg 23.05.22 – Munich / Feierwerk 24.05.22 – Erlangen / Kulturzentrum E-Werk 25.05.22 – Dortmund / Musiktheater Piano 26.05.22 – Marburg / Kulturzentrum KFZ Marburg 27.05.22 – Dresden / Beatpol 29.05.22 – Berlin / Desertfest Berlin
STÖNER is: Brant Bjork – Guitars/Vocals Nick Oliveri – Bass Ryan Güt – Drums
Posted in Whathaveyou on October 14th, 2021 by JJ Koczan
Those who keep an eye on such things will have noted a few canceled dates on the US tour that desert trio Stöner were doing until last week with Clutch and King Buffalo, owing to someone in Clutch‘s crew coming down with Covid-19. Obviously best wishes for recovery there. The three-piece of Brant Bjork, Nick Oliveri and Ryan Güt are slated to be back out with Clutch this winter on the Maryland stalwarts’ holiday tour — King Buffalo also taking part — and in answer to Stöner‘s having been confirmed for Desertfest Berlin 2022 next May (they’ll be in London as well) the band now have unveiled a full slate of European tour dates, bringing with them Norwegian upstarts Slomosa.
That pairing is significant. To my knowledge, it’s the most touring Slomosa have undertaken since the release last year of their self-titled debut (review here), and possibly overall as well. They signed with Sound of Liberation for booking at some point during this fucking pandemic, so their hitting the road this time most likely only prefaces more touring to come. If you haven’t checked them out yet, consider doing so, and consider their pairing with veteran players like those in Stöner a purposeful move to get them in front of a crowd looking to be won over.
I don’t know what the status of Stöner‘s intended second LP is yet, but Stoners Rule (review here) is still pretty new, so we’ll see. I know they were looking for a quick turnaround though.
Here’s dates from Sound of Liberation:
STÖNER – Europe 2022 with SLOMOSA
Friends,
are you ready for the most original desert tour to hit European roads in 2022?!
Brant Bjork and Nick Oliveri (THE Californian desert rock legends and founders of nothing less than KYUSS, MONDO GENERATOR, CHÉ, FU MANCHU, BLOODCOT and more between them), together with flow-master Ryan Gut, are ready to finally hit our European stages with their latest project Stöner! RAD!
Support comes from Norwegian’s hottest upcoming „tundra rock“ band Slomosa Without a doubt one of the brightest new stars in the stoner rock sky!
Sound of Liberation proudly presents: STÖNER + support SLOMOSA Europe 2022
06.05.22 – TBA 07.05.22 – TBA 08.05.22 – Aachen / Musikbunker Aachen 09.05.22 – Hamburg / Knust Hamburg 10.05.22 – Luxemburg / Kulturfabrik Esch-sur-Alzette 11.05.22 – Belfort / La Poudrière – Belfort 12.05.22 – Paris / Nouveau Casino 13.05.22 – Toulouse / Connexion Live 14.05.22 – TBA 15.05.22 – Barcelona / Wolf Barcelona 17.05.22 – Duedingen / Bad Bonn 18.05.22 – Winterthur / Gaswerk 19.05.22 – Wien / ARENA WIEN 20.05.22 – Graz / p.p.c. 21.05.22 – Salzburg / Rockhouse Salzburg 22.05.22 – Aschaffenburg / Colos-Saal Aschaffenburg 23.05.22 – Munich / Feierwerk 24.05.22 – Erlangen / Kulturzentrum E-Werk 25.05.22 – Dortmund / Musiktheater Piano 26.05.22 – Marburg / Kulturzentrum KFZ Marburg 27.05.22 – Dresden / Beatpol 29.05.22 – Berlin / Desertfest Berlin
We can’t wait for Spring 2022 to come. Get your tickets and let’s make this one hell of a party!!
STÖNER is: Brant Bjork – Guitars/Vocals Nick Oliveri – Bass Ryan Güt – Drums
The stated objective of Stöner and the recording of Stoners Rule (on Heavy Psych Sounds), as guitarist/vocalist Brant Bjorkexplained here, has been to strip excess toward essentials. That is to say, Bjork and bassist/mostly-backing vocalist Nick Oliveri — who are joined in the endeavor by drummer Ryan Güt — aren’t so much looking to build on the legacy they’ve created in desert/heavy rock so much as to plunge down to its roots in what Bjork long ago coined “low desert punk.” It is not a coincidence that the first lyrics in album-opener “Rad Stays Rad” are lifted from the Ramones, and “hey ho, let’s go,” set to a thick, mid-tempo rollout, is emblematic of the purpose on display throughout the record that follows.
Stöner, with an umlaut? That’s something you’d name a band in high school. And yeah, you might write even scribble Stoners Rule on the front of your notebook while note paying attention in whatever class it might be. But that’s the idea behind the band. Yes, their pedigree involves Kyuss/Vista Chino, Fu Manchu, Queens of the Stone Age, Mondo Generator, Ché, Ten East, The Dwarves, Desert Sessions, solo work from both, and on and on and on (we could do this all day). Stöner is an effort to distill all of that work they’ve done down to its simplest, most straightforward form.
Is that possible? Can you go back without actually going back? I don’t know, but Stoners Rule turns a willfully simple methodology into a strength throughout its seven tracks and 42 minutes. There is no question that some of what the trio are up to is a nostalgia trip for Bjork and Oliveri, and from the already-noted Ramones lyric in “Rad Stays Rad” and general perspective there to the Oliveri-fronted punk of “Evel Never Dies” — about daredevil Evel Knievel, which is about right in demographic terms — and in “The Older Kids,” to the these-are-lessons-we’ve-learned point of view in “Own Yer Blues,” “Nothin'” and “Stand Down,” even unto “Tribe/Fly Girl,” the 13-minute concluding jam that includes lines about finding their sound and finding their tribe, there’s a lot happening in past-tense throughout the songs. “Go ask the older kids” is something a parent says to a child.
“All your shit/It ain’t shit” in “Stand Down” comes across with the assurance of experience. “You take nothin’,” is both sound advice and testimony of ethic on the part of the lyrics. With the ever-fluid, laudably understated, not-doing-too-much-but-doing-it-right adaptable swing drumming of Güt, who also plays in Bjork‘s solo band, behind them, even at their most playful, Stöner are walking a delicate balance between looking back and embarking on something fresh, which is the project itself, while actively trying to remain unconcerned about any of it and just jam out and write songs and have a good time.
However simple they might seem and however straightforward the resultant material is — with “The Older Kids” nodding toward the ultra-seminal structures of riff that typified Kyuss as if to prove the theorem of “rad staying rad” before anyone could even have time to question it — these are not minor stylistic ambitions. And just because something is straightforward doesn’t mean it’s dumbed down or lazy, which the material on Stoners Rule isn’t. Rather, clever turns of phrase abound, even unto the idea of “taking things vs. taking nothing” in “Nothin'” — a song that’s two and a half minutes long and nonetheless serves as the centerpiece here.
Some compositions are easier to read more as Bjork‘s or Oliveri‘s at least in the main — “Evel Never Dies” has an inimitable mania that feels very Oliverian, and “Stand Down”‘s wah-soaked “Ain’t no funk if it don’t smell like a skunk” comes across as more Bjork, but the contributions of the one to the other aren’t to be understated. These are songwriters who’ve worked together on and off for over 30 years. Ultimately, a track like “Own Yer Blues” feels most like it emerged naturally out of a bluesy fuzz jam to become the slow-rolling hooky piece it is, and all three members of the band do well sharing space in the song. It’s by not pretending to be more than it is that Stoners Rule most flourishes.
It seems inevitable, though, that Stoners Rule would come up against high expectations, particularly given the personnel involved and the fanfare that surrounded the band’s debut as part of the ‘Live in the Mojave Desert’ streaming series. On a basic listening level, Stoners Rule doesn’t come across as that much different from the resultant live album from that stream, Live in the Mojave Desert Vol. 4 (review here), and it’s not supposed to. If anything, it’s to the band’s credit that it does, since the purpose behind what they’re doing is to make it sound like a live show might — the music in a raw, natural state, being itself raw and natural in its makeup — so while I’ve come across some ambivalence toward the record and it’s arguable the studio release has perhaps had some of its potential impact lessened by the live album showing up first, it seems likely that over time the balance will even out and Stöner‘s studio offering will stand on its own as the initial statement of intent that it is.
Part of its doing so, again over the longer haul, is what/if anything Stöner do to follow it up. Tour dates have been booked domestically and abroad, and it could well be that the band will continue forward and bring another collection of songs to bear after Stoners Rule, rather than Bjork and Güt going back to their band and Oliveri returning to any number of his several ongoing projects, and build on their accomplishments here. As it is, they do well by actively trying not to live up to the standard their pedigree would dictate, and that level of fuckall is all the more enjoyable as a listening experience because of the perspective of their songwriting and performances. I’m not sure what some listeners might’ve thought was coming, but it’s a band called Stöner. Maybe if they wanted it to be prog, they’d have called it that.
Posted in Whathaveyou on April 27th, 2021 by JJ Koczan
Stöner recently announced tour dates for UK and Ireland next Spring, and that honestly had me thinking their first album wouldn’t come out until around then, but hey, I’ll take it. The new trio with Brant Bjork, Nick Oliveri and Ryan Güt were a high point among high points in the ‘Live in the Mojave Desert’ stream series (review here), and the resultant live album, Live in the Mojave Desert Vol. 4 (review here), is out this Friday, also in part through Heavy Psych Sounds.
Accordingly, it’s not really a surprise that the three-piece would sign to the label for a debut studio outing as well — both Bjork and Oliveri are on the label too, it should be noted — and if you saw the interview with Brant Bjork back in March (video below), he said that indeed Heavy Psych Sounds would be on board for the record they made in the studio last Fall while also preparing for the performance that would become the stream. See how it all ties together? Isn’t that nice?
The grooves certainly are. Nice to know more are coming sooner than I thought.
Preorders start May 6 — next week already — and there will be a song out then too. Here’s the info with the short bio I wrote for the band:
Heavy Psych Sounds Records&Booking is really proud to present a NEW BAND signing: *** STÖNER ***
– brand new band feat. desert legends Brant Bjork and Nick Oliveri –
We’re incredibly stoked and honored to announce that the California super-band. STÖNER is now a new member of the HPS family!!
!! Heavy Psych Sounds will release the band’s debut album this summer !!
The release was recorded at The Rad Cabin, Joshua Tree, CA on October 12, 2020 by Yosef Sanborn.
DEBUT ALBUM PRESALE + FIRST TRACK PREMIERE START: MAY 6th
Rad stays rad. A few ideas are timeless. Stöner is Brant Bjork (guitar/vocals), Nick Oliveri (bass/vocals) and Ryan Güt (drums), and from flowing jams to all-out punker blasts, they know what they’re doing. It ain’t anybody’s first time at the dance, and you don’t call your band Stöner if you’ve never heard the word before. Stöner, however straight-ahead their moniker, encompass varied styles and the songwriting of Bjork and Oliveri – both founders of Kyuss, also Mondo Generator, Ché, Fu Manchu, Bloodcot, and more between them. Atop the classic-style swing and flow from Güt (also of Bjork’s solo band), Stöner keep it casual and wear the name as only those who helped create the sound could.
STÖNER – APRIL & MAY 2022 UK & IRELAND TOUR : Fri 22 Apr : Monroes Live, Galway, Ire Sat 23 Apr : Dolan’s Warehouse, Limerick, Ire Sun 24 Apr : Cyprus Avenue, Cork, Ire Mon 25 Apr : Limelight 2, Belfast, UK Tue 26 Apr : Opium, Dublin, Ire Thu 28 Apr : The Garage, Glasgow, UK Fri 29 Apr : The Warehouse, Leeds, UK Mon 02 May : Academy 3, Manchester, UK Tue 03 May : The Mill, Birmingham, UK Wed 04 May : Thekla, Bristol, UK
STÖNER is: Brant Bjork – Guitars/Vocals Nick Oliveri – Bass Ryan Güt – Drums
Posted in Whathaveyou on April 21st, 2021 by JJ Koczan
Stöner, the new band from Brant Bjork, Nick Oliveri and Ryan Gut, are just about a week out from making their debut with Live in the Mojave Desert Vol. 4 (review here) on Heavy Psych Sounds. If you watched the stream (review here) from whence the audio for that live record was taken, then you already know that’s a thing to be stoked about. Further stoke-age arrives via Sound of Liberation, the European booking concern/now-also record label, which has announced it will handle EU tour routing for the trio.
In conjunction with Route One Booking — which was founded by Orange Goblin frontman Ben Ward last year after his many years working in management, booking, etc. — tour dates have been announced for the UK and Ireland in Spring 2022, and there’s even a spot left open for them to hit up Desertfest London, though that announcement won’t officially come until that fest makes its own first lineup reveal on April 30.
And while we’re here, let’s just figure that by the time Stöner go abroad, they’ll have a studio album out as well, since Brant Bjork confirmed in his recent interview here that the band will be working with Heavy Psych Sounds on a studio release sometime soon.
Tickets for the UK/Ireland shows go on sale this Friday, links below:
STÖNER JOINS SOL ROSTER
Hey friends!
We’re happy to announce that we’ll take care of EU bookings for STÖNER! Brace yourself for finest original desert rock coming your way!
Stöner is the brand new band of desert rock legends Brant Bjork (Fu Manchu, Kyuss, Ché and solo), Nick Oliveri (Kyuss, Queens of The Stone Age, The Dwarves, Mondo Generator) and Ryan Gut (Brant Bjork solo).
While we are taking care of the EU mainland bookings, our friends at Route One Booking are ready to announce the UK & Ireland part of this tour.
STÖNER – APRIL & MAY 2022 UK & IRELAND TOUR : Fri 22 Apr : Monroes Live, Galway, Ire Sat 23 Apr : Dolan’s Warehouse, Limerick, Ire Sun 24 Apr : Cyprus Avenue, Cork, Ire Mon 25 Apr : Limelight 2, Belfast, UK Tue 26 Apr : Opium, Dublin, Ire Thu 28 Apr : The Garage, Glasgow, UK Fri 29 Apr : The Warehouse, Leeds, UK Mon 02 May : Academy 3, Manchester, UK Tue 03 May : The Mill, Birmingham, UK Wed 04 May : Thekla, Bristol, UK
Tickets on sale 9am Friday 23rd of April fromTicketmaster.ie
Posted in Reviews on April 13th, 2021 by JJ Koczan
Late in 2020, when the project was announced, Live in the Mojave Desert sounded immediately ambitious. A series of five exclusive streams, taking bands and putting them out in the Californian deserts, with civilization somewhat visible from the aerial drone shots, but definitely far enough away to have been left behind, to record live sets by Giant Rock (see also: Yawning Man, Live at Giant Rock, the video/LP something of a precursor) and be captured doing so by professional audio and video. The series was successfully pulled off, which was impressive in itself, and it set a standard for heavy acts in this era of streaming that few could hope to match. The intention was concert-film, and the results were likewise.
Heavy Psych Sounds and the newly-formed Giant Rock Records — helmed by series director Ryan Jones — have overseen physical pressings of the sets as live albums, taking the audio caught by Dan Joeright of Gatos Trail Studio in Joshua Tree with mixing by Matt Lynch at Mysterious Mammal and others. From this comes Live in the Mojave Desert Vol. 1-5, and from the moment Isaiah Mitchell starts echoing out the notes that signal the pickup in “Violence of the Red Sea” to the final wah-out, crashes and shout of Mountain Tamer‘s “Living in Vain,” it remains clear the series is something special — a grand monument built to an ugly time.
The crazy thing about this series — or one of the crazy things, anyhow — is that if it had been just Earthless, that probably would’ve been enough to be staggering. Admittedly, it is difficult to hear the audio from bassist Mike Eginton, drummer Mario Rubalcaba and the aforementioned Isaiah Mitchell and not think of the desert at night being lit up by the Mad Alchemy Liquid Light Show, drones flying overhead as trippy lights flash and shift with the music, but I’m not sure that’s a bad thing. Earthless played three songs — “Violence of the Red Sea,” “Sonic Prayer” and “Lost in the Cold Sun” — and that’s enough to make their release the only 2LP of the Live in the Mojave Desert set, topping out at about 77 minutes, with the entirety of sides C and D dedicated to “Lost in the Cold Sun”‘s 39-minute sprawl.
There’s a reason Earthless were the headliners for this thing, and it’s because there’s no one else who has the same instrumental dynamic they bring to the stage — or sand, as it were — and because if you’re going for “epic” as a standard, they’re the band you call. Will Live in the Mojave Desert Vol. 1 replace Live at Roadburn 2008 (discussed here) as the band’s supreme live-recorded statement? I don’t know, but it sure sounds incredible. “Sonic Prayer” comes through with due sense of worship and “Lost in the Cold Sun” fuzzy grace feels like the kind of thing a future generation might think of as classic rock. Watching, it was easy to get lost in the show, follow the head-spinning turns of guitar atop the ultra-sure foundation of bass and drums, and listening, it’s the same. With an exquisite mix and a vital performance, it’s every bit the best-case-scenario for what Live in the Mojave Desert could and should be.
With Live in the Mojave Desert Vol. 2, I consider Nebula‘s comeback complete. The band reformed in 2017, hit the road hard, and in 2019 offered up the return studio full-length, Holy Shit! (review here), and toured again for as long as that option was available. They have new material in the works too, and what’s most striking about the trio’s performance the 10-song/48-minute set here is how characteristic it sounds. Drummer Mike Amster (also Mondo Generator, etc.) and bassist Tom Davies strap the listener down while founding guitarist/vocalist Eddie Glass takes off to the center of the universe, and amid classics like that opener, Holy Shit! cuts like “Messiah,” “Let’s Get Lost,” “Man’s Best Friend” and the new song “Wall of Confusion” fit right in. There’s never a doubt, never a question of who you’re hearing. Even the sloppiest moments are pure Nebula.
That’s what they’ve always been — part punk, part heavy psych, part pure go — and Live in the Mojave Desert Vol. 2 brings that to bear without question. As a follow-up to Holy Shit! as well as the band’s second sanctioned live recording behind 2008’s Peel Session, it captures their inimitable sonic persona and the sense of chaos that their material always seems to carry, like it’s all about to come apart at any second and if it did, fuck it anyway, you’re the one with the problem. It never does come apart here, which I guess is to the band’s credit as well, but this set is nonetheless a full expression of who Nebula are as a group. Now get to work on that next record.
If one might think of including Spirit Mother in the series as a risk, the risk was mild at best, and as the first of two bands representing a next generation of California’s heavy underground, the Long Beach troupe more than acquitted themselves well in their relatively brief 10-song/33-minute showing. Live in the Mojave Desert Vol. 3 basks in the violin-conjured atmospheres of the four-piece’s debut album, Cadets (review here), and wants nothing for impact to complement that ethereal sensibility. Their songs are short, and that gives them a kind of proto-grunge edge, and the vocals of bassist Armand Lance, who shares those duties with violinist SJ, add drug-punkish urgency to the procession of one song into the next.
For a band coming off their first album, they are intricate in aesthetic in ways that might surprise new listeners, and that’s exactly why they feature behind Nebula in this series. Hearing them dig into “Black Sheep” and “Martyrs” and “Dead Cells” on Live in the Mojave Desert Vol. 3 is the best argument I can think of in favor of signing the band for their next studio release, and if Heavy Psych Sounds doesn’t, someone else surely will. Not trying to tell anyone their business, of course, but Spirit Mother are happening one way or another. That combination of air, earth, and fuzz is too good to leave out.
Aired fifth but billed almost inevitably as Vol. 4, the unveiling of Stöner, the new trio from Brant Bjork and Nick Oliveri with Ryan Gut (also of the former’s solo band) on drums was a bonus to the Live in the Mojave Desert. On-again-off-again collaborators across decades, Bjork and Oliveri nestled into mostly laid-back, stripped down grooves, their stated purpose in going back to the roots of the sound they helped create in the first place. The Kyuss-ness of the central riff of opener “Rad Stays Rad” is no less demonstration of their having done so than the driving punk of the Oliveri-fronted “Evel Never Dies.” The vibe is nostalgic in that song, as well as “Rad Stays Rad,” the gleefully funked “Stand Down,” and “The Older Kids,” but if Stöner is about looking back at this point, they’re doing so with fresh eyes.
To wit, “Own Yer Blues,” “Nothin’,” and the 13-minute mint-jam finale “Tribe/Fly Girl” are more endemic of who these players have become than who they were in the early ’90s or before, and that applies to “Stand Down” too. Bjork‘s vocals sound double-tracked on some of the parts (or at least close delay), but he and Oliveri work well together as one would expect, and as a reveal for what these guys had come up with in renewing their collaboration, Live in the Mojave Desert Vol. 4 offers seven memorable songs that would make anything more seem unnecessarily fancied up. If their calling card is that rad stays rad, they prove it. And I know he’s not the top bill in the trio with Bjork‘s flow and Oliveri‘s bass tone, but Gut‘s contributions here aren’t to be understated.
Second only to Stöner in curiosity factor, L.A. trio Mountain Tamer have always held a darker edge in their sound, and that comes through in the brash 36 minutes, shouts and screams echoing out over fuzzed garage metal in a fuckall that’s punk in attitude but angrier in its underlying core. Guitarist/vocalist AndrewHall, bassist Dave Teget and drummer Casey Garcia are the kind of band who open the show and sell the most merch when they’re done. The elements they’re working with are familiar and have been all along in their decade together and across their three LPs — the latest of them, 2020’s Psychosis Ritual (review here), was released by Heavy Psych Sounds — but more even than in their studio work, Live in the Mojave Desert Vol. 5 brought to light just how much their own their sound really is.
Whether languid as in “Chained” or “Black Noise” or furious as in “Warlock” and “Living in Vain,” Mountain Tamer give Nebula a run for their money in terms of chaos, and easily make for the most pissed off listen of the bunch in Live in the Mojave Desert. The relative roughness of their edge suits them, however, and the rampant echo on the guitar assures there’s still a spacious sound to act as counterbalance to all that thrashing and gnashing. If you can call it balance, I don’t know, but it works for them and they wield their sound as knife more than bludgeon when it comes to it.
Posted in Reviews on March 22nd, 2021 by JJ Koczan
And just like that, the ‘Live in the Mojave Desert’ stream series comes to its apparent conclusion, with the reveal of Stöner, a new project that brings together guitarist/vocalist Brant Bjork, bassist/vocalist Nick Oliveri and drummer Ryan Gut. There was no interview in the preceding ‘Couchlock and Rock’ segment, but clips of prior editions from Earthless (review here), Mountain Tamer (review here), Nebula (review here) and Spirit Mother (review here) came across with plugs for impending live-album vinyls and videos followed presumably out of the TubeVision archive of Brant Bjork and the Bros. from 2004 and Oliveri‘s long-running outfit Mondo Generator — which in the shown 2003 incarnation had Bjork on drums and Oliveri‘s fellow Queens of the Stone Age alum Dave Catching on guitar. Not too shabby.
However, the main event was, of course, the main event. Duly dramatic footage of Oliveri, Bjork and Gut walking up to the spot led in, and a quick glance at some lyrics in with the setlist on a clipboard offered a subtle reminder of just how new this outfit is. Over the next 40-plus minutes of playing, Stöner established a feel that was at once familiar and fresh. In our interview last week, Bjork spoke about how the central idea of the project was to strip away any sense of expectation or idea of what it should be, just to go back to the roots of where they started and have fun playing together. Fair enough.
Stöner set about delivering on that promise quickly. Their opener, “Rad Stays Rad” — with its hook of “Shit don’t change/Rad stays rad” — might as well be their mission statement, and if they don’t call their eventual studio LP The Birth of Rad, I’ll be a little bummed out. The first lines of the song are a Ramones reference and they’re set to a riff that wouldn’t at all have been out of place coming from Blues for the Red Sun era Kyuss. Locked in that they-made-it-look-simple but still urgent groove, and as much as the songs were new, the parts that made them up were about classic as desert rock gets. That “Rad Stays Rad” was presented in a kind of high-contrast sepia only enhanced that feel.
Room for jams? Oh, most certainly. “Rad Stays Rad” stretched out a bit with Bjork‘s solo section and thereby revealed a little more of Stöner‘s dynamic at this early stage. Oliveri and Bjork go way back, to before Kyuss was Kyuss. Let’s call it 35 years, give or take. And Gut is the drummer in Bjork‘s solo band, so they’re plenty familiar with each other from touring together as well. So the new creative relationship in the trio is between Oliveri and Gut, and there were moments in the set — not so much “Rad Stays Rad” or the similarly riffed and well-hooked “The Older Kids,” but later on — where both would watch Bjork for the lead. There wasn’t a stumble from what I could tell watching/listening, and they were as tight as they wanted to be, it was just something you could see a couple times that subtly tipping off the fact that this band hasn’t toured yet. Blah blah circumstances blah blah.
Oliveri took lead vocals for “Evel Never Dies,” a punkier shout with the delivery he’s settled into that’s not quite a scream but not quite sung either. Like “Rad Stays Rad” and “The Older Kids,” there was a sense of nostalgia to the theme, the title of course nodding both at “evil” never dying and daredevil Evel Knievel. Gut took the change in purpose and forward momentum in stride — he’s the secret weapon here; even a change in how hard he hits the snare does much to affect the vibe of a given song — and Stöner slid easily into the more propulsive cut, the sun setting around them casting shadows from the joshua trees.
They returned to the mid-tempo push with the shorter-seeming “Nothin'” and the sky turned duly purple for that and the subsequent “Own Yer Blues,” slower, more languid in the laid-back-heavy tradition of Bjork‘s solo work, but with a chorus worthy of being the first impression the band made (and it was; a video premiered for it ahead of the stream that you can see below). The chorus, “By afternoon you own yer blues,” took a similar perspective as “Rad Stays Rad” and “The Older Kids”; a mature voice speaking from a place of experience, sort of looking back but not in a way that’s trying to retro-fy or capture something lost. Some more guttural delivery from Bjork at the end of the track underscored the point, and though sometimes watching Oliveri play a mellower song is like waiting for a cannon to go off, he nailed it. Dude’s reputation precedes him — blah blah shotgun standoff blah blah Cocaine Rodeo — but he’s the guy for the job, no question.
“Stand Down” and “Tribe/Flygirl” followed. Nighttime. Drones buzzing around dark rocks, dark yellow light. Too cool. You got your dose of funk in “Stand Down” to pick up the tempo from “Own Yer Blues” and “Tribe/Flygirl” brought the Stöner jam in fashion that earned the umlaut. Call it mood, or vibe, or whatever you want, but you’d be lucky to get those three in order on side B to close out the record as they happened in the set — well, I guess they will on the live album. In any case, it was right there in those three later pieces that Bjork, Oliveri and Gut seemed most locked in. They’d got through the rock, through the punk and into the headier, stonier fare, and it showed how far out they’re ready to go, even as a brand new band. By the time they brought it down and Oliveri hit the last bass rumble to cap the performance, there was little else to say but “fucking right on.” Coming from anyone else, you would say Stöner just sounds like someone pretending they’re these guys. Coming from them, you can only call it honest.
This was ‘Vol. 4’ of ‘Live in the Mojave Desert,’ despite airing after ‘Vol. 5,’ which featured Mountain Tamer. With continued producing/directing by project-creator Ryan Jones, filming by Spearhead Media, audio by Dan Joeright at Gatos TrailRecording Studio in Joshua Tree and a mix/master by Matt Lynch (also of Snail) at Mysterious Mammal in L.A., it was a duly rousing finish. An ongoing business dispute between Jones and Bjork gave the viewing a bittersweet edge, but there was no denying that in this showcase as well as in the other ‘episodes,’ they found their Pompeii out in the desert. Whatever happens with the world outside, with tours being booked again and venues maybe surviving the ravages of the COVID-19 pandemic, we’d be lucky to get ‘Live in the Mojave Desert’ season two. Until then, we own our blues.
Stöner, “Own Yer Blues” from ‘Live in the Mojave Desert’
Tomorrow, Friday, is Brant Bjork‘s birthday. Happy birthday, Brant. On Saturday, his new trio with drummer Ryan Gut (pronounced like “good” in German), who also plays in Bjork‘s solo band, and bassist/vocalist Nick Oliveri, will be unveiled. The band is called Stoner, the event is the last of five in the ‘Live in the Mojave Desert’ series of streams which has brought an exceptional level of production to the medium of bands-can’t-play-shows-so-here’s-this, creating something truly special in an indisputably difficult time.
I’ve been fortunate enough to interview Bjork on several occasions, and there’s always a lot of ground to cover. As he says in the video, he and Oliveri go back to before Katzenjammer — pre-Kyuss — to playing Ramones covers in his mom’s living room as kids in Palm Desert. That Oliveri would go on to be desert rock’s most notorious figure through his work with Mondo Generator, the Dwarves, Queens of the Stone Age, etc., and Bjork an Ambassador of Groove with a pivotal catalog of albums under his own name has not stopped the two paths from converging periodically. Kyuss Lives!/Vista Chino was one such instance, at least for a while. This is another.
Stoner — also stylized with an umlaut: Stöner — are something of a mystery as of this post. How much to Bjork and Oliveri share vocal duties? How much is punk, how much is rock, how much do they jam? Where do they go from here? The mission, as Bjork describes, is “no-brainer”; to strip everything away, forget audiences (because there aren’t any right now, though tour plans are being made for 2022) and everything else and just have fun going back to the basics, back to that living-room mentality. To hear him talk about it, it sounds like a good time. They hit the studio last Fall and will likely release that session through Heavy Psych Sounds — to which both Bjork and Oliveri are signed — sometime in the coming months.
So ‘Live in the Mojave Desert’ is kind of a welcome party for the new band. For Bjork, it is not unalloyed, however, due to an ongoing business dispute with now-former manager and mastermind of the stream series Ryan Jones. It’s a pickle, and something playing out as we speak.
You’ll notice a hard cut in the clip, and trust me, the original video was considerably longer as Bjork went into some detail about what’s going on. Why isn’t that here? Well, there’s part of me that feels like a fucking coward because it isn’t, but the fact of the matter is this thing might wind up in court and I don’t want to have anything said here come back around. The cut is about 18 minutes in, and there’s about 18 minutes cut, so yeah, a significant part of the conversation is gone. I feel shitty about that. Fact is, I couldn’t run the video unedited without comment from the other side, and looking at the totality of the situation, I’m not sure I’d be helping anyone or doing anything but stirring drama. It would not make anything better.
Actually the edit’s pretty clean, but you might notice the mood of the conversation has somewhat shifted and that nixed part is why. Maybe you wouldn’t have seen it at all otherwise. Whatever. I’m gonna take a xanax and go read some Star Trek.
Oh, and if you’re a fan of Bjork‘s solo stuff — his 2020 self-titled (review here) was a highlight of a tumultuous Spring — he says he’ll continue that in addition to working with Stoner, even if the focus is on the new band for this year and the ensuing album cycle. Good to know.
Enjoy:
Stoner, Interview with Brant Bjork, March 16, 2021
Stoner‘s Live in the Mojave Desert live album is slated to release in April in the US through Live in the Mojave Desert and in Europe through Heavy Psych Sounds.
