Posted in Whathaveyou on February 19th, 2019 by JJ Koczan
There wasn’t really any doubt, but it’s nice to have confirmation that the lineup for Stoned and Dusted is awesome. So there you have Melvins, Fu Manchu, Brant Bjork, King Buffalo, Yawning Man, Acid King, Black Mountain, Lo-Pan, REZN, BigPig, Del-Toros, Sgt. Papers and, oh yeah, Radio Moscow for a bit of the ultra-boogie. I was having a conversation not so long ago with an artist who played last year and was talking about how the sound guy was indeed spaced way the hell out, so when you look at the poster and see “Sound Guy on Acid” listed above the Mad Alchemy Liquid Light Show, you should know they may be speaking literally. No doubt that will only add to the one-of-a-kind experience of the desert’s own heavy party.
The lineup speaks for itself, so I’ll spare you the get-there-if-you-can-get-there rant and just drop the ticket link here for your purchasing and travel planning. There’s also a Spotify playlist below that, while I imagine you’re well familiar with the bulk of these acts, is no less welcome for that, as far as I’m concerned.
Dig:
Stoned and Dusted 2019
The California Desert Wizards Association will hold its second annual members’ gathering on May 25 & 26th, 2019 in the Southern California Mojave Desert, USA.
Total radness on Memorial Day weekend!
On Saturday May 25th we are doing it up at Pappy & Harriet’s, our favorite desert roadhouse and one of the world’s coolest music venues. Get ready for an outside show under the desert skies with Melvins, Fu Manchu, Brant Bjork, REZN, (Big) Pig, and lights by the Mad Alchemy Liquid Light Show.
Our desert party is back and it’s going down on May 26th at a secret location near Joshua Tree, CA with Black Mountain, Acid King, Radio Moscow, Yawning Man (Official), King Buffalo, Lo-Pan, Sgt. Papers, Del-Toros, and the Mad Alchemy Liquid Light Show. Limited tickets available, get yours now!
Posted in Bootleg Theater on November 9th, 2017 by JJ Koczan
Centered around the core duo of Dave Catching and Kevin Bingo Richey, Joshua Tree’s Mojave Lords made their debut in 2014 with the Unfuckwithable LP (discussed here) and in so doing basked in a revelry of desert rock and punk that was at once familiar and decidedly their own in its presentation. The follow-up single, Gloria in Absentia, arrives officially via Left Front Door Records later this month — it’s streaming now, like, at the bottom of this post — and takes a more melancholic approach. Its two songs, “Gloria in Absentia” and “Rodeo Drive,” are presented each in English and French, and taken either way, they bring a moody sensibility from Richey and Catching that plays more to nighttime desert than the sun-baked chug of, say, “Dancefloor Slammer” or the driving “Microwave Me Baby” from Unfuckwithable, which were rawer in style and spoke to Catching‘s pedigree in contributing to outfits like Eagles of Death Metal and Queens of the Stone Age.
Gloria in Absentia hits in a more subdued way. Engagingly melodic, its chorus is memorable and unfolds atop a running line of cinematic keyboards, dreamy guitar to deliver the title line before receding once more into the verse. In English or French, “Gloria in Absentia” is a work of efficient songcraft, classy and atmospheric, but over in a crisp three and a half minutes and onto “Rodeo Drive,” which is led by a start-stop guitar riff with echoing vocals over top somewhere between Bowie and Mark Lanegan (if you gotta stake out territory, that’s good territory to stake out) toward a bounce-laden hook and subtly dynamic rhythmic turn, peppered with extra layers of guitar that set up the late arrival of a fuzzy line marking a welcome if somewhat understated apex that, like “Rodeo Drive” as a whole and “Gloria in Absentia” before it, hits as being overdone in no way but serves to stand Mojave Lords out in the storied pantheon of Californian desert vibes.
Nov. 24 is the release date for Gloria in Absentia, but again, you can stream the quick offering in its bilingual entirety now. I’m thrilled today to be able to host the video premiere for the title-track, which you’ll find below, followed by more info from the PR wire.
Please enjoy:
Mojave Lords, “Gloria in Absentia” official video premiere
GLORIA IN ABSENTIA, the new single from MOJAVE LORDS, was made at Rancho de La Luna in Joshua Tree, California. The song is dedicated to the memory of all victims lost during the Bataclan terrorist attack in Paris in November 2015. The label releasing our vinyl is LEFT FRONT DOOR RECORDS. Based in Paris, LFDR was started by Arthur Dénouveaux. Arthur is a survivor of the attack and LFDR is his way of giving something back to the life-affirming force of Rock & Roll. There are two versions of Gloria In Absentia: One in French and one in English.
RODEO DRIVE, the B-side of Gloria In Absentia, is a more personal offering of a love song to a lost lover. There are also two versions of Rodeo Drive available: One in French and one in English.
Mojave Lords are from Joshua Tree, California. In 2014, Bingo Richey and David Catching (QOTSA, Eagles of Death Metal, earthlings?) decided to put a band together. Along with help from Barrett Martin (Screaming Trees, Tuatara, Walking Papers), Brian O’Connor (EoDM), Chris Goss (Masters of Reality), and Gene Trautmann (QOTSA,EoDM) they birthed a new wave of Desert Stoner Rock. This is the Rancho de La Luna home team doing what they do best, originating and creating new rock music.
Posted in Reviews on November 8th, 2017 by JJ Koczan
Given the formidable title of Stoned Gold, the latest full-length from Joshua Tree-based heavy psychedelic rockers 3rd Ear Experience is nothing less than an attempt to present the very foundations of the band’s writing process. Or, perhaps more appropriately, it’s a presentation of those roots entirely. The story goes that bandleader Robbi Robb was pulling the group together to work on their next full-length — either their fifth or sixth, depending on what you count — for Space Rock Productions, which also stood behind 2016’s studio outing, Stones of a Feather.
Robb, who leads a rotating cast of players in the amorphous group that may or may not at any given point include Amritakripa, Alan Dude Swanson, Richard Stuverud, Dino Archon, Dug Pinnick, Eric Ryan, Joey Vera, Butch Reynolds, and/or Jorge Bassman, had toured Europe for the last record, had signed a booking deal to go back, and so one imagines the creative juices were flowing and spirits were high. The band would start or end each day of the session with an improvised jam. Something to get the blood moving. A warm-up or a cool-down, and maybe the basis for a song to come together. Not at all unheard of. Well, when it came time to dig through the days’ worth of recordings and piece together the next 3rd Ear Experience long-player, Robb found that it was these jams that best represented the band as a whole and their musical intentions.
Accordingly, Stoned Gold arrives via Space Rock Productions — the label, one is compelled to note, owned by Scott “Dr. Space” Heller of Øresund Space Collective — as a collection of these jams, led by Robb‘s own scorching guitar work, with six tracks and just under 70 minutes of righteous desert freakouts, presented one into the next with a variety of personality and presentation to them that feels emblematic of the creative process behind their making.
Structures are way, way open. Vibes are way, way open. The spirit behind Stoned Gold is less like an album and more like an audio documentary — the idea being to bring to listener as close as possible to 3rd Ear Experience in the making. They’re not the only band to take this approach, and one would be remiss to not mention the progressive explorations of Øresund Space Collective here as forerunners of the improv-based heavy psych style, but it’s exceedingly rare for an American outfit to do so and to do so with such abandon as 3rd Ear Experience bring to pieces like the eight-minute title-track or more extended “I am Not Robot (Warm up Jam Day 3),” which follows opener and longest cut (immediate points) “Infinite Unmanifest (Warm up Jam Day 1)” and the subsequent “Iceberg Dream (Last Jam Day 4)” as one of three pieces named in part for when it took place in the session.
It’s telling of the mission behind Stoned Gold that the album would launch with a warm-up jam from the first day, since that effectively places the audience at the same starting point — equal footing — as the group itself as they begin to unfold what becomes the immersive, molten flow of the release as a whole. Whether or not “Iceberg Dream (Last Jam Day 4)” marks the end of the recording session as a whole, I don’t know, but it would make sense, and taking the two back-to-back is to hear 3rd Ear Experience shift deftly between classic space rock propulsion, exploratory melodic wash and an ultimate drive into cosmic swirl.
Those two songs alone comprise nearly half an hour of listening, but with as shuffling start of “Stoned Gold” signals before the band starts to weave its way through a couple harrowing turns toward a Sabbathian riff peppered with a couple lines of obscure, effects-laden vocals, it’s abundantly clear that they by no means make up the complete picture of the album’s scope, and indeed that turns out to be the case as “I am Not Robot (Warm up Jam Day 3)” digs into its 13 minutes of post-Hendrix shimmer and dazzle, more of a straight-ahead flow than a build, but underscored by highlight fuzzy bass tone in its midsection and honest enough to keep going even after it starts to fall apart.
It is surprisingly hypnotic in that, and that makes the transition into “No Walls, No Wars” somewhat more jarring. The penultimate cut is probably as close as 3rd Ear Experience come to traditional songcraft on the record, starting out with African-style percussion before cutting out to a solo-vocal verse and resuming its rhythmic charge. Swirls come and go around this central tribalist figure, and where so much of the album is instrumental, “No Walls, No Wars” is full of words, syllables, lines and obscure shouts, met head-on by an ongoing guitar lead, as well as drums, keys and synth, all of which seem to find further emphasis than in any of the previous jams. At 5:20, just about everything except a line of effects drops out and there’s one last verse to bring everything to a head, and the band presses forth once more into the groove at its foundation, fading slowly to let the toms of closer “The Drone” take hold.
Airy, peaceful guitar arrives with a kind of post-rock feel soon into the 12-minute finale, and once again there are vocals early in a kind of meditative spirit, but just after four minutes in, they’re swallowed by a surge of lead guitar and volume, beginning a back and forth of open spaces and consuming solos that continues until the latter finally seems to win out just after a drum pause near the six-minute mark. Less improvised-sounding — and loosely Zeppelin-esque, somehow — that “The Drone” nonetheless caps with a foray into the sonically unknown (some last lines sneak in there as well; don’t tell anybody) could not be more fitting a way to end Stoned Gold, which in its results lives up to the promised vibrancy of atmosphere in the manner it came together.
3rd Ear Experience have essentially issued their listeners an invitation to join them on this journey, which could hardly resonate more in its endgame if it were happening in real-time on a stage or in a studio, and that invitation is well worth accepting for both its realization of concept and the raw experience of the travel itself. Whether you engage consciously or turn off your mind, relax and float down-sand, 3rd Ear Experience‘s Stoned Gold shines bright.
Posted in Whathaveyou on August 29th, 2017 by JJ Koczan
Set for release Nov. 1, the new outing from Joshua Tree, California-based heavy psych jammers 3rd Ear Experience comes with the formidable backing of Space Rock Productions, the imprint helmed by Scott ‘Dr. Space’ Heller, who, let’s face it, knows a thing or two when it comes to all things heavy and jammy. He’s pretty much a doctor of it. Also actual science, but that’s besides the current point, which is that 3rd Ear Experience will issue their latest opus, the improv-minded Stoned Gold this Fall, and they’re teasing it now with a minute-long clip of scorching guitar that you can see below, set appropriately as it is to sped-up highway footage, presumably of some CA interstate. Maybe the 101? The 10? Hell, I don’t know. Whatever it is, it works.
Gonna hope to have more to come on this one before we get to the release date, but here’s the basic info as per the PR wire and the band’s EPK:
3rd Ear Experience – Stoned Gold
We are well pleased to announce our latest album, Stoned Gold!
3rd Ear Experience are pleased to announce the release of a new album; STONED GOLD. Special thanks to Scott Heller and Sabine Pottien of SPACE ROCK PRODUCTIONS who will be pressing and distributing special limited editions of Vinyl and Cd’s. These limited editions will include in the package a Musical Primer called THE ART OF THE JAM BAND based on a letter written by Robbi to his band mates and friends. STONED GOLD is scheduled for release November 1st.
Right from the first warm up jam something broke loose, like a wild horse or like a bottle of whiskey that topples over, pours out onto the floor, someone strikes a match, the barn explodes…don’t know what or how to explain. In a few days we came away with six finished pieces of music – an unexpected surprise. STONED GOLD has a great energy, like that sand-less dust devil rushing across the desert, you cannot see it; but you can feel it and you can hear it.
We are extremely excited to announce that we will be working with Benjamin Schuster from NOISOLUTIONS BOOKING. We look forward to a long and prosperous relationship with this fine company. So, if all goes well in the world, we will be jamming out for you in the new year! – and as our good friend and touring partner Malko assures us : “you are in good hands then”
Hell yea! – we like the sound of that!
Upon the release of STONED GOLD we will also be unveiling our Bandcamp site.
Posted in Whathaveyou on November 9th, 2016 by JJ Koczan
Half a decade in the making, the self-titled debut from Joshua Tree’s Of the Horizon will see release through Kozmik Artifactz on Nov. 18. The band has a decent portion of the material streaming now, though whether those are the final versions or if something’s changed in the last five years is anyone’s guess, but either way, their blend of heavy desert psych and crunching, Sleep-style riffing on “3 Feet,” which you can hear below, should give you some general idea what they’re getting up to. Or what they got up to circa 2011, anyhow. I suppose they could pretty much be doing anything at this point, including not being a band since last I heard, bassist Kayt Vigil was in Italy and playing in Sonic Wolves.
So yeah, maybe not too sure on the status of Of the Horizon, but at least the record is coming out. If you’re the gotta-preorder-it type, Kozmik Artifactz has it up for sale now, and they posted the following announcement with the Kyle Stratton cover art:
Of The Horizon – s/t full length now on pre-sale!
More than 4 years after the final recording of Los Angeles/Joshua Tree, CA’s …Of The Horizon, the long awaited self-titled full length album is on the way – on wax!
The three piece brings the listener crushing low end, heavily fuzzed out guitar, precise and intense drumming and melodically droning vocals. The album transports you straight into the soul-warming freeness of the California high desert while taking you on a sonic journey through the soundscape of open valleys and high mountains – complete with fuzzed-out grooves, massive and sonorous riffs finely detailed with swells of volume and feeling …and all with a trance-inducing psychedelic edge!
Recorded in November of 2011 in Joshua Tree, CA by Tony Mason. Cover art by Caveman Kyle Stratton of the amazing band, Atala. Mixed and Mastered by Brian Zee and drummer Shig and later on by Lorenzo Stecconi (Ufomammut’s “sound lord”).
VINYL FACTZ – Plated & pressed on high performance 180g vinyl by PALLAS in Germany – 100x orange black marbled (Exclusive mailorder edition, handnumbered) – 200x black – matt laquered 300gsm gatefold Cover – special vinyl mastering
TRACKS A1. 3 Feet A2. Caravan A3. Unknown B1. Gladhander B2. Hall of the Drunken King
Of the Horizon is: Mike Hanne – Guitars/Vocals Shig – Drums/Cymbals/Gong Kayt Vigil – Bass
Posted in Whathaveyou on October 6th, 2016 by JJ Koczan
Desert psych explorers 3rd Ear Experience are gearing up to release their fourth full-length, Stones of a Feather, on CD and LP. The former is out Nov. 21 and the latter sometime in early 2017 via Space Rock Productions, which is the label helmed by none other than Scott “Dr. Space” Heller of Øresund Space Collective — his support is no minor endorsement for anything tripped out to receive — and the band is reportedly going to make a return trip to Europe presumably to coincide with that release. Not sure if the CD has the same imprint putting it out as the vinyl, but 3rd Ear Experience like to leave a lot of things open to interpretation, so it seems only fitting they would here as well. Expect jams. Plenty of them.
More info via the PR wire:
3rd Ear Experience announces the release of their new album STONES OF A FEATHER
The CD will be available through 15,000 record stores worldwide and on Itunes, Amazon and CDBaby.
The vinyl will be released throughout Europe and the UK through Space Rock Productions early 2017.
On their new album STONES OF A FEATHER 3rd Ear Experience have taken full advantage of the musical possibilities unique to space rock. It is clear that their environment, the Mojave desert, with its wide open spaces, big skies and rugged landscapes, have helped them to blossom a modern desert music, rich in the complex overtones of 60’s psychedelic rock.
STONES OF A FEATHER, 3rd Ear Experiences 4th album, is a curious mixture of the old and the new; reaching back into the reckless abandonment of Cream live circa: 1967 to Ornette Coleman’s free jazz, diving down into the deep well of Krautrock to soaring on fuzzy Sabbath like riffs of contemporary stoner rock. Yet no generalization is ultimately true of 3rd Ear Experience.
The music was derived from spontaneous ideas that came up during live jams on their 2015 tour of Europe and from free form jamming at the FurstWurld Gallery of Music and Performing Arts where the band records.
The album guests 18 local desert musicians considered by many to be the cream of the desert crop! Dug Pinnick of Kings X fame, returns once again to add his heavy bottom growl to the brew. Please browse the blog for interesting stories on each of these musicians and how they came to be part of this album. Blog: http://www.robbirobb.com/blog/?p=181
Produced by Robbi Robb Mastered by Mark Fuller Cover pic by Andy Woods Sound of Liberation have begun booking dates for a 3rd Ear Experience tour for 2017.
Posted in Whathaveyou on December 21st, 2015 by JJ Koczan
Would seem that earthlings? have added a “the” since their last time out, but considering their last full-length Human Beans, was released in 2000, they’ve had plenty of time to do so. Their new long-player is titled Mudda Fudda and will be pressed in an edition of 500 copies by Last Hurrah Records, which specializes in things of limited and vinyl nature, and somehow if you play your cards right you can get a copy that glows in the dark. That’s what I’m talking about.
If you’re unfamiliar with the desert-weirdness of the earthlings?, no time like the present to get introduced. LP preorder info follows:
Mudda Fudda is the earthlings? new limited edition, full-length vinyl LP on Last Hurrah Records. The earthlings?’s third studio album, Mudda Fudda combines desert rock sensibilities, outer space adventure and modern psychedelics to create a hybrid wave-length that pulsates with excitement. For this intercosmic endeavor, The earthlings? are co-piloted by musical luminaries David Catching (Eagles of Death Metal, Mojave Lords) and Pete Stahl (Goatsnake, Scream) under the star-filled sky over Rancho De La Luna in Joshua Tree, California. Other passengers onboard include drummer Adam Maples, the band’s trusty timekeeper, along with a slew of high plains cohorts including Fred Drake, Matthias Schneeberger, Molly McGuire, Brant Bjork, Gene Trautman, Barrett Martin, Franz Stahl and Josh Homme.
The Mudda Fudda jacket features artwork by Dirk Bonsma and a highlighted UV Gloss layer. The record itself comes in two outer space vinyl configurations: Nova and Nebula colors. The run is limited to 500 copies (250 of each color).
Ordering 2 records ensures that you will receive one record of each color.
The “Glow-In-The-Dark Set” includes both Nebula and Nova colored vinyl records plus a 3rd Glow-In-The-Dark record! There are 100 of these sets. There is a special button below for ordering the “Glow-In-The-Dark Set”. All domestic orders are sent media mail with delivery confirmation while International orders are sent airmail.
The Mudda Fudda jacket has UV spot gloss highlights while the record itself comes in two outer space vinyl configurations: Nova and Nebula, both a blend of opaque and translucent colors in addition to haze and splatter mixtures for out-of-this-world visual effects, limited to 500 copies (250 of each color).
Mudda Side 1. Intro (There is Hope) 2. Waterhead 3. Forgotten Memories 4. Individual Sky Cruiser Theory 5. Disconnected 6. Accordingly
Fudda Side 1. Punk Ass Fuck 2. Standby Exciter 3. Mardi Gras 4. Stoner Rock Rules 5. Zazoom 6. Gentle Grace
Posted in Whathaveyou on December 17th, 2015 by JJ Koczan
There have been rumblings from the west for the better part of this year about 3rd Ear Experience. The Joshua Tree psych-jammers had a pond=jumper of an autumn, making their way to Europe alongside Fatso Jetson and Fever Dog, playing Desertfest Belgium in Antwerp, the Keep it Low Festival in Munich, and others. The latter performance was among those recorded for an impending live release — maybe with video in some form or another — and in addition, 3rd Ear Experience will follow up their late-2014 outing, Incredible Good Fortune, with a new studio LP titled The Love Album, as well as a collaboration with Paul Pott of Germany’s Space Invaders and Zone Six.
This and more in the busy multi-dimensional existence of a psychedelic band. Details follow, as sent down the PR wire:
The last word o’ 2015
Huge gratitude goes out to Matte and Kat of Sound of Liberation and especially to Mario Lalli of Fatso Jetson for organizing such a smooth flowing European tour which included 3rd Ear Experience, Fatso Jetson and Fever Dog. 3rd Ear Experience, more than blowing audiences away with ‘desert space rock’ also blew the minds of many local promoters. This is not that easy, we were told, as promoters see many great bands year in and year out. Apart from the fact that all cd’s and vinyl were sold out within the first few days, it was a very successful tour and a great adventure. Thanks everyone – hope to do it again sometime!
Special thanks go out to the members of Glowsun who welcomed 3rd Ear Experience onto the last 10 days of their tour. These guys are real gentlemen, extremely professional and always very encouraging. We hope to bring them and My Sleeping Karma out to the desert someday.
Just want to put a word in for Malko’s tour services – his tour vans are super comfortable – after 24 gigs with hardly no rest the band was still in good condition, because of these cool tour vans. Thanks Malko and to our driver – Fred! – keep on trucking!
Works in Progress:
We are happy to announce that we have 2 European shows recorded in full quality 24 tracks and about five shows filmed with 8 Hd cameras which includes the epic performance at the Keep it Low festival. Hope to start mixing and editing early 2016 –
The Love Album is now in the final stages of mixing – release date set for 14th February. Check out the Making Love Blog : http://www.robbirobb.com/blog/?p=9
The collaboration with Paul Pott of the Space Invaders is moving along nicely. 2 songs have been sent off for mixing.
Robbi has finished writing a book on The Art of the Jam Band. To be released early 2016
Live news: 13th February 2016 – Joshua Tree Saloon – 3rd Ear Experience and special Guests – always a fun event. 15th May – We are honored and excited to be invited to play the Joshua Tree Music Festival. Internationally renowned for being one of the coolest festivals! hope you can make it out!
