Posted in Whathaveyou on April 8th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
This is one of the best lineups I’ve seen for a US-based heavy fest in the 15-plus years I’ve been running this site. I don’t know what else to say about it, honestly. For the fact that Ripplefest Texas is bringing Dozer over alone, let alone any of the other Euro acts involved who have, say, been to North America in the last 20-plus years, it’s astonishing. And not just bigger bands like Dozer and Truckfighters or Mars Red Sky and Belzebong, but Domkraft and Kal-El, bands you know if you’re into this thing but that haven’t been around as long and aren’t as ‘huge’ in the whatever sense that applies in underground music.
And it’s not like they’re skimping on within-US geography either. Of course the desert is well represented, and Texas has a significant presence as it invariably would, but with Gozu and Leather Lung headed out from Boston, Borracho traveling from D.C., Temple of the Fuzz Witch from Michigan, Robots of the Ancient World from Portland, Oregon, and so on, they’ve got all the corners and between pretty well covered. La Chinga coming from Canada. Demons My Friends giving Mexico a nod. It is extensive.
And quality. I don’t know that I’ll be there to see it, but I’d imagine that for most who get to be, it’ll be the stuff of legend. Congrats to Ryan Garney and Lick of My Spoon for bringing it into the world, and safe travels to all involved:
Here it is! The lineup for RippleFest Texas and the amazing art by Simon Berndt @1horsetown 🤘🔥❤️
We still have a few surprises left but this roster is stacked! Don’t miss your chance to see the world’s best heavy music at the largest family reunion of the year. Plus this is the ONLY premier festival that has absolutely ZERO OVERLAPPING so you can see every second of every band! Get your tickets now and we will see you in September!
Tier 2 tickets are almost sold out and the price increases on Monday so get your tickets now:
DOZER TRUCKFIGHTERS BONGZILLA MARS RED SKY BELZEBONG DOMKRAFT LEGIONS OF DOOM FATSO JETSON GOZU HOWLING GIANT THE HEAVY EYES HIGH DESERT QUEEN KAL-EL 20 WATT TOMBSTONE THE OTOLITH TEMPLE OF THE FUZZ WITCH LEATHER LUNG THUNDER HORSE HASHTRONAUT BONE CHURCH BORRACHO SUN CROW CRYSTAL SPIDERS TIA CARRERA ROBOTS OF THE ANCIENT WORLD MR. PLOW LA CHINGA FOSTERMOTHER BLUE HERON TEMPTRESS FORMULA 400 DEMONS MY FRIENDS VERMILION WHISKEY VIOLET RISING HUDU AKIL BUZZ ELECTRO SHADOW OF JUPITER
GRAND FINALE w/ MARIO LALLI & THE RUBBER SNAKE CHARMERS “Desert Jam Session”
Plus the best light show in the business by @themadalchemistliquidliteshow
Mario Lalli and the Rubber Snake Charmers hit Australia in the company of Stöner in Fall 2022, and their debut full-length, Folklore From the Other Desert Cities, was recorded on Sunday, Nov. 5 at Mo’s Desert Clubhouse. The show was featured on a streaming series called ‘Desert TV’ the audio issued on notably-limited cassette through Northern Haze before the band — spearheaded of course by namesake Mario Lalli, of Fatso Jetson, Yawning Man, etc. — signed on to release it March 29 through Heavy Psych Sounds. There are differences from the set video/live tape to the four-song/38-minute Folklore — some editing to let it flow as an album and shape songs, the mix/master from Mathias Schneeberger, etc. — and the result is an engrossing, sometimes lush, sometimes spacious, exploration of desert psychedelics. Lalli himself holds down bass in place of Nick Oliveri, who’d have been on the tour as part of Stöner but for visa issues as frontman/lead-poet Sean Wheeler informs at one point while introducing the band, and Brant Bjork and Ryan Güt, both also of Stöner, rounded out the lineup on guitar and drums, respectively.
I was lucky enough to see the semi-conjoined outfits together in Sept. 2022 (review here) before they headed Down Under, and the setup was much the same. That night, it was Lalli, Wheeler and all three members of Stöner on stage to jam, hypnotize, reach into the ether and give Wheeler‘s desert-punk bohème proclamations the textural setting they deserve. The Rubber Snake Charmers took the stage first and Stöner closed out. Super-casual. And the who-knows-where-we-might-end-up-but-let’s-go approach of the project that was so vivid that night in Jersey resonates in the loose sway and swing throughout Folklore From the Other Desert Cities, which transitions mid-jam between “Creosote Breeze” and “Swamp Cooler Reality” (note the video for the latter premiering below), mid-lyric between “Other Desert Cities” and “The Devil Waits for Me,” and puts its side flip between two standalone spoken lines from Wheeler. Clearly the intention is that the album should be taken as a whole — said the dude premiering a single track; I take what I can get — and it has more than enough fluidity between its two sides to support that experience. You can get lost in it, and I’m not about to tell you that you shouldn’t.
Some crowd noise at the outset of “Creosote Breeze” places you in the room, but a humming e-bow guitar and underlying drone silence most of the conversation. Güt gives a quick cymbal wash and they shift to a meditative riff laid out by Lalli as their true launch point. What unfurls from there does so with a chemistry that shouldn’t shock anyone familiar with the players involved — Bjork and Lalli‘s storied history in the Californian desert scene, Güt‘s near-decade drumming with Bjork between Stöner and Bjork‘s solo band, and Wheeler‘s long involvement with the Palm Springs weirdo underground in fronting Throw Rag, and so on — but they’re not so much riding pedigree here as they are pushing themselves outward, and that’s the whole point. This record, this amorphous band, wouldn’t exist without the creative passion that so clearly fuels it. The chance to tap something not yet known and see what you can make. That first riff in “Creosote Breeze” is almost surprising with a kind of brooding vibe, but they open it up cosmic and are funky long before the eight-plus minutes allotted to the track are done.
Schneeberger is credited with keys, and as the band settles into a roll before the guitar steps back circa 6:40 to let Wheeler start his next spoken recitation — he weaves back and forth between singing and spoken word, and it’s not always perfect and that’s why it works — they seem indeed to be dubbed in as part of the molten wash, but that feels fair enough for Folklore From the Other Desert Cities being based on a live set and presented as the band’s debut album. It’s not supposed to be easy to categorize outside of itself. You might say that’s how ‘desert rock’ happened in the first place; it wasn’t already another thing. “Creosote Breeze” entrances and “Swamp Cooler Reality,” mid-groove at its outset, finds its own way to build on that movement. Standout lines from Wheeler give impressionistic visions in rhythm as Bjork clicks on the wah and the drive gets accordingly funkier. They’ll mellow out a few minutes later, as one would expect, but that’s fleshed out with synth or other effects and some self-gathering-style meander comes together around the bass and drums to an open but satisfying finish of its own, “Other Desert Cities” kicking in either immediately or after the platter flip, depending how you’re listening.
But the vibe is set and the this-night incarnation of Mario Lalli and the Rubber Snake Charmers carry it through to the finish of “The Devil Waits for Me,” Wheeler steering them into a desert-themed take on the blues classic “In the Pines” that allows for no sleep whatsoever. The longer-form trip they’re on in terms of the whole set has plenty of space for that kind of thing, but it’s not like they’re doing a cover or something — it’s the immediate pursuit of inspiration and the moment captured in the recording. A thing that happened that day. A short while later, in “The Devil Waits for Me,” they seem to purposefully submerge in volume, fuzz and the underlying earthy groove, but not before the whole Gold Coast crowd gets invited back to L.A. for what one assumes would be a party worth the requisite travel.
If you didn’t see them on the tour that produced Folklore From the Other Desert Cities, the recording represents well the untethered spirit that seems to be at heart in Mario Lalli and the Rubber Snake Charmers and expands on it in how the material is delivered structurally and sonically. At the same time it’s their debut, it’s also right in its moment, and by it’s very nature, whatever Lalli and not-necessarily-the-same-company do next will likewise stand on its own. What one wonders is if how much Mario Lalli and the Rubber Snake Charmers appreciate that they themselves are part of the folklore they’re portraying, even in this new form and modus, just by getting together and weirding out. Hasn’t that always been the idea?
Enjoy the video for “Swamp Cooler Reality” below, followed by more info from the PR wire:
Mario Lalli and the Rubber Snake Charmers, “Swamp Cooler Reality” premiere
The first release from this band of pioneering Desert rock musicians captures the band and its purest form exercising the desert born ethic and approach of rock improvisation, psychedelic and flowing, heavy and explorative.
Tracklisting: 1. Creosote Breeze 2. Swamp Cooler Reality 3. Other Desert Cities 4. The Devil Waits For Me
Recorded live at Mo’s Desert Clubhouse, Gold Coast Australia by Guy Cooper and mixed and mastered by Mathias Schneeberger at Donner & Blitzen Studios, California. The band’s first release features BRANT BJORK, SEAN WHEELER, RYAN GUT and MARIO LALLI, capturing the band in a engaging special performance in Gold Coast Australia.
The album will be issued on March 29th on vinyl, CD and digital via Heavy Psych Sounds. Enjoy!
MARIO LALLI & THE RUBBER SNAKE CHARMERS is: Mario Lalli – bass and vocal Sean Wheeler – vocals and poetry Brant Bjork – Guitar Ryan Güt – Drums Mathias Schneeberger – keys
Mario Lalli and the Rubber Snake Charmers, Folklore From the Other Desert Cities (2024)
Posted in Whathaveyou on December 26th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Announced last week as signing to Heavy Psych Sounds with intention toward a debut album, Mario Lalli and the Rubber Snake Charmers, will release Folklore From the Other Desert Cities on March 19 as their recorded debut. The four-jam outing was recorded in Gold Coast, Australia, as part of a video stream for Desert.TV that you can see below, and was originally pressed to a limited-to-50-copies cassette called Forgetting Out Loud by Northern Haze Records.
I’m pretty sure ‘Other Desert Cities’ is what it says on some highway sign or other — the 101? the 10? — but the bottom line here that you’re getting a couple of Californian desert rock’s most primo ambassadors caught in the act pursuing their integral diplomatic function. And if you’d be like, ‘well how come they’re releasing a thing under a different name when it was already out and why would I buy it when I can stream it and and and…,” relax. They’re releasing a thing under a different name because it’s worth releasing and they wanted to give it what they felt would be a representative package for CD/LP distribution in more than 50 copies — that’s not a rag on Northern Haze at all; those tapes are beautiful and I could spend hundreds of Canadian dollars on that site if only I had them — and you should buy it even though you can stream it because that’s how everybody keeps getting to do what they do. You gotta put the coin in the hat.
Here’s the info and the video, which, duh, is groovin’. Have fun:
Heavy Psych Sounds to announce MARIO LALLI & THE RUBBER SNAKE CHARMERS – ‘Folklore From The Other Desert Cities’ !!!
New super-band featuring desert rock legends Mario Lalli, Brant Bjork, Sean Wheeler and Ryan Güt !!!
The first release from this band of pioneering Desert rock musicians captures the band and its purest form exercising the desert born ethic and approach of rock improvisation, psychedelic and flowing, heavy and explorative.
The foundation of Mario Lalli’s grooving heavy bass lines and meditative themes with a intuitive guitar work with Brant Bjork and percussion of Ryan Güt set the scene for Sean Wheeler’s poems and songs capturing the dark and beautiful stories and images of life in the Mojave desert of Southern California.
Tracklisting:
1. Creosote Breeze 2. Swamp Cooler Reality 3. Other Desert Cities 4. The Devil Waits For Me
Recorded live at Mo’s Desert Clubhouse, Gold Coast Australia by Guy Cooper and mixed and mastered by Mathias Schneeberger at Donner & Blitzen Studios, California. The band’s first release features BRANT BJORK, SEAN WHEELER, RYAN GUT and MARIO LALLI, capturing the band in a engaging special performance in Gold Coast Australia.
MARIO LALLI & THE RUBBER SNAKE CHARMERS is: Mario Lalli – bass and vocal Sean Wheeler – vocals and poetry Brant Bjork – Guitar Ryan Güt – Drums Mathias Schneeberger – keys
Posted in Whathaveyou on May 18th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
I don’t feel the need to even really say anything here. The lineup speaks for itself. And those who go to this year’s RippleFest Texas will also speak of it, for years, probably in a similar way people now talk about having been at this or that Emissions From the Monolith when that was going on in Ohio. The stuff of legend, in other words. Yeah, you can put on a fest and try to make it cool and fun, or you can do something like this and make it the highlight of everybody who attends’ year.
Kudos to Lick of My Spoon Productions and Ripple Music on a job well done. This will be something special. Bands have been leaked out one at a time at intermittent daily intervals, but the final lineup is out as of today, and it’s stunning. A blend of generations, a reach from on end of the country to the other, and a swath of the heavy underground all rallied in one place for a few days, pre- and after-parties included. Fucking a. If you’re attending, count yourself lucky.
As seen on socials:
Here it is! The full lineup for RippleFest Texas #3! This will be one for the ages with a stacked lineup and lots of special treats in between. Get your tickets now!
Amazing art by @1horsetown
* playing the Pre-Party + playing the Afterparty
King Buffalo, Acid King, Brant Bjork Trio, Sasquatch, Wo-Fat, Fatso Jetson, Mondo Generator, Unida, The Well+, The Atomic Bitchwax, Telekinetic Yeti*, Duel, Forming the Void, Hippie Death Cult, High Desert Queen*, Avon, War Cloud, Rubber Snake Charmers, Spirit Mother+, Kind, Nick Oliveri, Thunder Horse, Royal Sons+, Restless Spirit*, (Big) Pig, Fostermother, Dead Feathers+, Rainbows Are Free, Warlung*, Sun Voyager, Red Mesa, Dunes, Tia Carrera+, Mr. Plow, The Heroine*, Michael Rudolph Cummings, The Absurd+, GoodEye*, Red Beard Wall, God Damn Good Time Band+
Plus a “Legends of the Desert and Friends” jam session to close out Saturday night!
And as always, the visuals by The Mad Alchemist Liquid Light Show
All-Access passes are SOLD OUT! All we have left are 2 Day Passes and Pre/Afterparty tickets available. Many more bands to be announced! Get your tickets now before the full lineup is revealed and the ticket price goes up!
Posted in Reviews on September 8th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
Pardon me if I bask in the convenience of this for a second. My entire adult life, and before that, even, I’ve traveled for shows. To New York, mostly, but also central and southern New Jersey, to Boston, to Connecticut, Wisconsin, California, Texas, to foreign countries, etc. I’ve never rolled out of the house and had a venue down the road.
Factory Records, which through a miracle of association was hosting Stöner and Mario Lalli and the Rubber Snake Charmers for an intimate, limited-to-50-tickets show — even more incredibly, one that started at 8PM — is 17 minutes from my house by car. I can’t think of anything I’ve ever been to that’s been closer than that. Certainly not a show I was as interested in as this one. Even when I saw Brant Bjork almost exactly three years ago in Jersey (review here), that was further away.
And for context and my own future reference, this show was one night after watching Germany’s Rammstein alight Metlife Stadium in a spectacle largely incomparable in scale to other concerts. Surely, hopefully, there would be less fireworks in the Factory Records lounge.
It was my first time seeing Stöner, with the aforementioned Bjork on guitar and vocals, Nick Oliveri on bass/vocals and Ryan Güt on drums, which felt a little late, even considering. They’d been through with Clutch, toured into New York, etc., but I hadn’t made it. And realistically, I might’ve missed this one too were it not comparatively on my doorstep. In any case, after Stöner‘s two studio albums, 2021’s Stoners Rule (review here), earlier 2022’s Totally… (review here), and the 2021 livestream/live record, ‘Live in the Mojave Desert’ (review here) and Live in the Mojave Desert Vol. 4 (review here), that served as their introduction to audiences, I felt pretty secure in my expectation for what was coming, not the least because I’d also checked out a stream of the Chicago show on this tour.
That stream was my first exposure to Mario Lalli and the Rubber Snake Charmers, who have been doing honors as the support act since this tour began in Brooklyn on Aug. 25. And even after watching that stream, somehow the potentiality for righteousness of having Mario Lalli — as legit as “desert rock legends” get, truly — on one flank of the stage and Brant Bjork — see previous aside — on the other had eluded me. But hot damn those were some jams. A quick iPad-as-keyboard intro, and off. I don’t know that it would work on a studio album, but with Sean Wheeler out front reminding the room that if you can’t hang with weirdo druggie poets you should get your ass out of the desert immediately, reading, semi-singing, gradually removing clothes, regularly crossing in front of the monitors that delineated where the crowd ended and the band began, it was a show for sure. Güt on drums like don’t even worry about it, Oliveri — who I last saw leaving blisters with Mondo Generator at Freak Valley Festival (review here) — doing some vocals but mostly just hanging out as a part of the thing, it was a jam vibe even if they clearly knew at least in part where they were headed, Lalli calling out the occasional change.
And moreover, it was suited to the room. Some hanging lights, pieces of fabric adorned the ceiling, oriental rugs on the floor — nobody fell that I saw — and records decorative on the wall to reinforce the notion of many more outside the lounge room waiting to be purchased, couches lining the walls and merch in back, the vibe fit. This show? It was BYOB. I felt like I could genuinely hang out in that room. Like, for an evening. At a show. I felt welcome and comfortable. I consider that a premium these days.
The power blew at one point during the Rubber Snake Charmers set, but it was a quick recovery and Wheeler held it down in the meantime. They played for about 40 minutes and amorphous groove, and were nothing less than a pleasure to behold. And one assumes that having all three members of Stöner on stage playing as part of the opener made the changeover that much easier as well. There was still a bit of a break, which seemed fair enough, but Oliveri introduced them quick — a formality; everyone there knew who they were — and they hit into “Rad Stays Rad” before unfurling all of Stoners Rule, not necessarily in order, but in full nonetheless. “The Older Kids,” “Own Yer Blues,” “Evel Never Dies,” “Stand Down,” “Nothin’,” and even “Tribe/Fly Girl” for a mellow comedown late in the set.
From Totally… there was “Party March,” “Strawberry Creek (Dirty Feet),” and “A Million Beers,” the last of which was made all the more driving thanks to Güt‘s work on drums, ghost notes on the snare, loose-looking swing, holding the bottom of the sticks and able to roll or punker-blast, whatever the song calls for. I’ve been lucky enough now to see Güt play a few times between Brant Bjork‘s solo band and now Stöner, and he’s one of those drummers you could watch all day. In the mellow rollout of “Tribe/Fly Girl” or in the Ramones cover “R.A.M.O.N.E.S.” — which I didn’t see coming but probably should have — it was the drums holding it all together and as locked in as one might expect Bjork and Oliveri to be for having been in bands together over the course of the last 30-plus years, Stöner wouldn’t be Stöner without Güt behind the kit anymore than they would without Oliveri‘s shouts or Bjork‘s ultra-Phil Lynott-style vocal patterning.
There was a new song — I didn’t catch the name and didn’t remember to ask Bjork after the show; it was called “No Brainer,” apparently (thanks Ian from The Heavy Co.) — or maybe two, and in addition to the Ramones, the three-piece took on two Kyuss tracks to close out, starting with “Gardenia,” Oliveri‘s bass fills there worth the price of admission for the entire night and whatever you wanted to spend on merch after, and ending with “Green Machine,” which hell fucking yes I was singing along to. See also “Rad Stays Rad,” “The Older Kids,” “A Million Beers,” and so on.
Because that’s kind of the point of Stöner as I understand it: to find that place where rock and punk are the same and to capture that moment when the songs seem to really become a part of you. They’re right in that it’s the provenance of teenagers — they’re not a full-on nostalgia trip, but their sound is stripped far enough down to be considered a return to roots — but eventually you keep going and someone’s gonna tell you to go ask the older kids. Maybe even the older kids themselves. They’re right up there on stage, swapping vocal lines in an almost conversational style, killing it as they’ve done for the last three decades.
For real, what a show. Even the dude in the Rammstein shirt — not me; mine went in the wash — seemed to be enjoying himself. My big takeaways, aside from the holy-shit-it’s-right-here nature of the night, were that Mario Lalli and the Rubber Snake Charmers were awesome, that I’m glad Stöner are already moving forward with new material, and golly I hope Factory Records keeps doing shows. Even with that blink in the power, the place was very, very cool. I’ve already started thinking of bands I’d want to see play there. Could be good living. Legal weed in Jersey. Spot on the touring circuit between New York and Philadelphia.
Plus you could do like Güt and go snag some Blue Öyster Cult vinyl between sets. Intimate show, laid back crowd but clearly into it, and better sound than you’re probably thinking there was because it’s a record store. Charge more at the door, but hell, think of BYOB as the return on your investment if the concert itself isn’t. It was killer, and that spot, if they play it right, could really, really work as a destination for bands. Here’s hoping.
And I’m glad I waited to see Stöner, because this felt like a special gig in no small part because of the venue, but now that I’ve got the first one out of the way, next chance, I won’t hesitate.
