Posted in Whathaveyou on February 15th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Not much you can really debate about Freak Valley Festival 2023 in either concept or execution. The headliners — Clutch, the Melvins and Orange Goblin playing Time Travelling Blues in its entirety — are long-established bill-toppers, and backed by the likes of Earthless, King Buffalo and Stoned Jesus even before you get to Slift and The Obsessed and Astroqueen and Hypnos69 and Gaupa and on and on and on and fucking Seedy Jeezus is gonna be there — you’ve got Seedy Jeezus and Stoned Jesus in the same place on the same weekend! — it’s all the more apparent just how called-for making this trip actually is. So I’m going.
As with last year, I’ll be doing my best to cover as much of Freak Valley 2023 as possible with photos and writeups, and whether it’s bands I’ve seen or bands I’ve never seen, I know enough now to know that it’s not just about watching bands, but about watching them there, in that place between those hills, the joy that radiates through the hopefully cooperative weather and everybody in attendance. It’s gonna be a blast, and I’ll at last get to see Slift in a setting that I feel like is worthy of the occasion. Mark it a win even before I get on the plane. Speaking of, better book that flight.
Here’s the final lineup, newly announced:
Hails Freaks!
Time for the final lineup announcement. We hope your 2023 is off to a great start. Either way, it’s about to get better.
Please welcome:
EARTHLESS – SLIFT – HÄLLAS – ALEX HENRY FOSTER – STONED JESUS – TABERNACLE – EL PERRO – STEAK – GAUPA – REVEREND BEAT-MAN – THE MAD HATTER
Full Line-up:
CLUTCH MELVINS ORANGE GOBLIN “Time Travelling Freak Valley Blues Show” EARTHLESS “Night Parade of 1000 Demons” in full! KING BUFFALO STONED JESUS SLIFT HÄLLAS THE OBSESSED PONTIAK ALEX HENRY FOSTER SEEDY JEEZUS HYPNOS69 EL PERRO STEAK KAMCHATKA EARTH SHIP ASTROQUEEN TUSKAR TABERNACLE KOMODOR BESVÄRJELSEN GAUPA RITUAL KING PSYENCE REVEREND BEAT-MAN THE MAD HATTER
We’re done – hope you love the lineup as much as we do!
FREAK VALLEY FESTIVAL 2023 IS SOLD OUT.
Thank all of you so much for your support, this year and every year.
Freak Valley Festival // No Fillers – Just Killers June 8-10, 2023
Posted in Whathaveyou on January 25th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
To be sure, this is information that would’ve been handy to have yesterday, when I posted Stoned Jesus‘ new single “Thoughts and Prayers”, but, well, I was already days late on that news and so this coming in on what seems like such a quick turnaround isn’t actually that quick a turnaround at all. I’m just trying not to be behind, which I’ve been already since last week (or like four years ago?) and so posting this now rather than letting it sit. If you could see the Google Doc that I use to keep my notes in where I organize my days, weeks, months, it would make probably only a little more sense, but still a little more.
Check out Stoned Jesus though, keeping good company with Elephant Tree, Psychlona, Samavayo, and fellow Ukrainians and Season of Mist labelmates Somali Yacht Club, as they head out on the beginning of their tour cycle supporting the upcoming album, Father Light, which, as noted yesterday, is out March 3. They’ll do Heavy Psych Sounds Fest in Italy — Torino and Bologna — and hit Sonic Whip in the Netherlands, which I hope is recorded this year as well as it was last year, resulting in live releases from Elephant Tree, among others.
These won’t be the last shows Stoned Jesus announce supporting Father Light, but this’ll be their first tour following the album’s arrival, so here are the dates as seen on the social medias. You’ll find the three album singles streaming at the bottom of this post:
Behold the first cities of #FatherLightTour – with more dates and territories to be added along the way! Looking forward to share the stage with Somali Yacht Club, Elephant Tree and Samavayo and to play the new and the old songs for y’all :)
28.04.23 (AT) Innsbruck, pmk (w/Elephant Tree) 29.04.23 (IT) Bologne, Heavy Psych Sounds Fest 2023 30.04.23 (IT) Turin, Heavy Psych Sounds Fest 2023 01.05.23 (CH) Aarau, KIFF (w/Elephant Tree) 02.05.23 -TBA- 03.05.23 (DE) Stuttgart, Goldmark’s 04.05.23 (DE) Fulda, Kulturkeller (w/Samavayo) 05.05.23 (DE) Cologne, Club Volta (w/Somali Yacht Club & Psychlona) 06.05.23 (NL) Nijmegen, Sonic Whip 07.05.23 (DE) Hannover, Faust (w/Samavayo) 08.05.23 (DE) Dresden, Beatpol (w/Samavayo) 09.05.23 (CZ) Brno, Kabinet MUZ
Recording line-up Igor Sydorenko (Arlekin, Voida, Krobak, Snakerider) – lead and backing vocals, electric and acoustic guitars, organ on track 3 Dmytro Zinchenko (Doomed City, Orkectr Che, Sekunda Kota, Smeyushiysa Tigr, Small Depo) – drums and percussion, backing vocals Sergii Sliusar – bass, backing vocals
Posted in Whathaveyou on January 24th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
There’s a fair amount of important info included in the blue PR wire text below. I mean, important if you’re looking forward to the new Stoned Jesus album, Father Light, anyhow. If not, I might ask why you’re reading this, or maybe you just kind of stumbled on this site out of the blue researching ancient phallic monuments? If so, hi. This site isn’t so much about monuments as heavy rock and roll, and Stoned Jesus are a band from Kyiv, Ukraine, about to put out their fifth album, called Father Light, through Season of Mist, which is a long-running and well-respected underground record label specializing mostly but not exclusively in metal, on March 3. I think you’re pretty much caught up.
Anyway, among the prudent details — that release date, the preorder links, recording info and so on, is the fact that the new single “Thoughts and Prayers” was written in 2019. That means before the plague, and more specifically to Stoned Jesus‘ situation, before Vladimir Putin’s Feb. 2022 invasion of Ukraine. With a pointedly Graveyardian sway — Graveyard are a band from Sweden who play a very blues-informed kind of heavy rock specifically derived from bands of the early ’70s — “Thoughts and Prayers” examines our experience of the tragedies of others, the numbing effect of social media and life behind a screen. The lyrics of the chorus, “In gardens of stone/We die alone/Waiting for someone to guide us back home/But nobody’s there/And nobody cares/Our only answer is still thoughts and prayers,” should tell you a lot about where they’re coming from.
That the song has become more relevant since the time it was written is testament to its relevance in the first place. It is one of six tracks on Father Light and the third single to be released ahead of the album’s arrival behind “CON” and “Porcelain,” both of the videos for which are also streaming below. If you listen through those and think to yourself, “Hey, each of these songs sounds kind of like it’s doing something different,” that’s on purpose and the disparity is no less a running theme throughout Father Light than the band’s engagement with their proggier tendencies and the straight-up heavy riffing on which they made their rather weighty name. Wait until you spend 11 minutes with “Season of the Witch.”
From the PR wire:
STONED JESUS Premieres Music Video for New Song, Reveals New Album Details
Ukrainian psychedelic rock trio STONED JESUS will release its new album, ‘Father Light,’ on March 3, 2023 via Season of Mist, making it the band’s debut to the label! The band is now sharing a music video for its brand new song, “Thoughts and Prayers.” The song and video can be found at THIS LOCATION while album art and other details can be found below!
Lead vocalist and guitarist Igor Sydorenko comments: “I wrote these songs mostly in 2019, we worked on them through 2020, recorded them in 2021 and were ready to release them in 2022…and finally the first batch of them is coming out as ‘Father Light’ in 2023! So this is neither our ‘pandemic’ nor our ‘war’ record, this is something I was really obsessed about many months ago – climate change, media numbness, corporations’ impact, social divisions…
“But revisiting these issues years later shows that they’re still important and this is still something that resonates with us – and hopefully will resonate with many other people, too. Musically, I think this is our most diverse and mature record to date, but there’s a good dose of old school Stoned Jesus there too!
“Anyway, enjoy this one and fingers crossed for 2024’s release of ‘Mother Dark’ – the moodier, more personal, more experimental sister album to ‘Father Light.'”
Recording studio – Spivaki Records, Ukraine Producer / sound engineer – Artem Altunin and Dmytro Zinchenko Mastering: Metropolis Studio, London, UK – Andy “Hippy” Baldwin
Shot at the club Hydrozagadka (Warsaw, PL) hours before actual Stoned Jesus concert there. Camera work by true fans and filmmakers from Poland Aleksander Kwapień and Stasiek Nietrzebka. “Thoughts and Prayers” video edited by Sergii Sliusar (who also happens to play bass for Stoned Jesus since late 2010). “Thoughts and Prayers” track recorded and mixed in 2021 by Dmytro Zinchenko (who actually plays drums in Stoned Jesus since mid-2017). “Thoughts and Prayers” song written in 2019 by Igor Sydorenko (who sings and plays guitar for Stoned Jesus, which he started back in 2009 as a solo bedroom project).
Tracklist “Father Light” 1. Father Light 03:35 2. Season of the Witch 11:34 3. Thought and Prayers 06:22 4. Porcelain 08:09 5. CON 04:10 6. Get What You Deserve 09:08
Total: 43:00
STONED JESUS recently announced their appearance on the mighty Hellfest of 2023! More information on tours/festival for 2023 will be announced on a later stage.
Recording line-up Igor Sydorenko (Arlekin, Voida, Krobak, Snakerider) – lead and backing vocals, electric and acoustic guitars, organ on track 3 Dmytro Zinchenko (Doomed City, Orkectr Che, Sekunda Kota, Smeyushiysa Tigr, Small Depo) – drums and percussion, backing vocals Sergii Sliusar – bass, backing vocals
Posted in Whathaveyou on December 14th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
Do not expect this to be the last Heavy Psych Sounds Fest announcement. The Italian label/booking empire gas over the last several years turned its various festivals into celebrations that each even beyond its own significant associated roster, and in this first reveal for Bologna and Torino fests, we see that happening exactly. Look for tours to emerge around this and other HPS fests to come in Europe (maybe US too), as end-of-April/beginning-of-May is kind of the culmination of the Spring festival season over there.
As someone born, raised and living in the US, I can only marvel at such a thing. I came up in the days of Lollapalooza roaming around bringing bands from town to town in a big traveling festival, but imagine multiple separate tours converging and separating across state lines in one spot, then roving around for club shows until the next one. What an amazing course of live performance and art and craft that is. I know we’re talking about rock shows and that’s generally considered lowbrow fare, but god damn, isn’t that how culture happens? These two dates encapsulate some of that same idea, and Heavy Psych Sounds did similar in California earlier in 2022, so maybe someday they’ll get there. I don’t know, but they make it easy to dig in the meantime.
Lineups follow:
HEAVY PSYCH SOUNDS FEST ITALY 2023
BOLOGNA & TORINO
Heavy Psych Sounds Records & Booking is proud to announce *** HEAVY PSYCH SOUNDS FEST ITALY 2023 – BOLOGNA & TORINO ***
first bands announcement
Heavy Psych Sounds Records & Booking will smash Bologna and Torino with their highly acclaimed mini festival-series, the HEAVY PSYCH SOUNDS FEST!
In cooperation with Freakout Club, Mkno, Blah Blah and Last One To Die, today Heavy Psych Sounds has revealed the first bands for the upcoming HEAVY PSYCH SOUNDS FEST ITALY !!!
The HPS Fest Italy will be taking place 29th and 30th of April 2023 at the TPO Club in Bologna and Last One To Die in Caramagna Piemonte (Torino) !!!
Posted in Whathaveyou on September 26th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
A few different tours coming together here, right? Stoned Jesus, Greenleaf and Somali Yacht Club on the road together. Elder, Pallbearer and Irist. Hippie Death Cult out there on their own now that their would’ve-been-tourmates High Reeper dropped off. Naxatras making the rounds. Sasquatch doing like they do on a stretch with Orange Goblin before continuing a longer European run (you should always stretch first; ain’t nobody getting younger). Electric Citizen out with Fu Manchu. All of this is organized, mapped out ahead of time, and a lot of it is starting this weekend at Up in Smoke 2022 in Pratteln, Switzerland, as though to save you the time, money and effort necessary to hit up all these individual tours, which may or may not be routed everywhere to start with.
You can see the final lineup below with Fu Manchu, Orange Goblin and Elder getting top billing, and as the first of Sound of Liberation‘s Fall festivals in Europe — Keep it Low in Munich and Desertfest Belgium will follow in the coming weeks, and there’s a bunch of others besides — Up in Smoke is distinguished by vibe even more than timing. I’ve always been curious what it would feel like to sleep in the venue after a show. Indoor camping. Are there showers? Could be a pretty smelly affair by the third day; Up in Stink Lines, if you will. But more about the mindset. Are you so locked into the experience at that point that you wake up, find breakfast and are ready to roll as a part of the thing? I’m not sure I’d ever actually be brave enough to do it — not exactly the camping type in any context — but it could be interesting. Sound of Liberation has also posted the time-table, if you’d like to know more about what time to wake up.
The lineup below is final final final, and the day splits make it look like one hell of a festival. If you’re going to be there, I hope it’s a blast. I’d love to hear about it:
UP IN SMOKE 2022 – DAY SPLIT & DAY TICKETS – UP IN SMOKE FESTIVAL Z7 Pratteln 2022
Posted in Whathaveyou on September 15th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
A little curious that even though Ukrainian heavy rock forerunners Stoned Jesus have issued two singles/videos from their upcoming Season of Mist label debut, Father Light, in “Porcelain” and “CON” — both streaming below — no actual release date for the album has been announced. Of course, I say this even as the Kyiv trio announce a new stretch of November touring, and I’m writing before the daily glut of 10AM East Coast US press releases come in, so it could well be that word of such a thing will come through after this is posted — that kind of thing happens from time to time; I see something on a band’s socials and jump the gun with what later turns out to be half the news and need to adjust — probably about five minutes after, if past is prologue. I hear going on tour around an album launch is a thing that happens, so it would make sense.
And you’ll no doubt note that they’ll do cuts from the largely inescapable Seven Thunders Roar even as they play new songs — I very much enjoy how stubbornly not-stoner everything they’ve done since has been — and one assumes they’ll find welcome either way. They’re Ukraine’s biggest export in heavy rock, and even the fact that they’re calling the run with countrymen VOVK the ‘Heavy Resistance’ tour speaks to the fact that they know it. Guitarist/vocalist Igor Sydorenko has been outspoken on social media in providing historical and cultural context to the Russian war of aggression in his home nation that’s been going on for the last seven months, up to and including launching the Jams for Victory series, a third installment of which has been released.
Tour announcement follows, and again, if and when word shows up about the record, I’ll let you know.
Here you go:
Your favourite psych/grunge/doom/prog trio is back on the road! STONED JESUS are going on Heavy Resistance tour in November, playing live shows in Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Poland, Slovakia, Bulgaria and Romania. Apart from playing the now-legendary Seven Thunders Roar (2012) material, we will premiere new tracks from our upcoming fifth LP (including recently released “Porcelain” and “CON”).
Joining us are fellow Ukrainians VOVK (post-metal/progstoner), who are currently working on the follow-up to their debut album Lair (2019). By visiting the show you can not only enjoy the music but also support Ukraine and help us win on the cultural front as well!
10.11 Kablys – Vilnius, LT 11.11 Sveta Baar – Tallinn, EE 12.11 Vagonu Haal – Riga, LV 13.11 Lemmy – Kaunas, LT 14.11 Drizzly Grizzly – Gdansk, PL 15.11 Pod Minoga – Poznan, PL 16.11 Hybrydy – Warsaw, PL 17.11 Fuga – Bratislava, SK 18.11 Form Space – Cluj-Napoca, RO 19.11 Mixtape 5 – Sofia, BG 20.11 Expirat – Bucharest, RO
Poster by Soares Artwork
Line-up: Lead-Vocals and Guitar: Igor Sydorenko Bass and backing vocals: Sergii Sliusar Drums and backing vocals: Dmytro Zinchenko
Posted in Whathaveyou on August 15th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
Even by the terrifying scale of my own self-imposed pity parties, it feels like a real wank to be bummed out about this, but there’s a part of me that is anyway. What started this past March as an ultra-Swedish run with Greenleaf, Truckfighters and Asteroid, then just became Greenleaf and Truckfighters has instead morphed with the also-canceled prior Stoned Jesus and Somali Yacht Club tour to become a powerhouse Sverige/Ukraine triple-whammy, and though I was slated to attend originally in March and then again this Fall, well, my flight’s been canceled and no, I’m not going on this tour, I’m not writing a book about it and I’m not going to see any let alone all of these shows, including that Erfurt date Sept. 23 with Colour Haze, which I don’t give a fuck who you are or how many gigs you’ve seen is some remember-it-for-the-rest-of-your-life shit right there. So yes, pity party.
The reasons for tour jumblage could hardly be more valid. Plague, war in Ukraine, one of the dudes in Truckfighters expecting a baby — pretty sure it’s Niklas, so congrats to his expanding family — and no, it wasn’t really feasible given my own life situation at this point, but on the scale of escapist daydreams, this is probably the shttiest gonna-do-a-thing-then-not I’ve hit into since that time I didn’t go to Australia with Kings Destroy and Radio Moscow. Glad it’s happening though either way, so I guess call it bittersweet.
You’ll recall Somali Yacht Club earlier this year released The Space (review here) as their label-debut for Season of Mist. Stoned Jesus are ramping up to issue their own new album — the announcement for which I expect pretty much as soon as I publish this post — on the same label and have prefaced it with the single “Porcelain” that you can stream below, along with tracks from Somali Yacht Club and Greenleaf, who released Echoes From a Mass (review here) last year on Napalm and announced back in March they’d signed to Magnetic Eye Records for their next LP.
Anyway, with the caveat that that Stoned Jesus news is probably going to hit my inbox in like 40 minutes at 10AM when everyone sends their good-morning press releases out, here are the tour dates. More to come on all three of these bands because they’re rad and I enjoy writing about them. This comes from Sound of Liberation via socials.
Peace:
GREENLEAF, STONED JESUS & SOMALI YACHT CLUB – ROOTS OF HEAVINESS TOUR 2022
Hey friends,
we’re happy to announce that Stoned Jesus, Somali Yacht Club and Greenleaf will hit the road again this September as a triple pack. The two Ukrainian bands Somali Yacht Club and Stoned Jesus are allowed to leave their country again despite covid and war. We are super grateful to have the bands with us and can’t wait to finally see them live again! Teaming up with the mighty Greenleaf from Sweden it will be a tour packed with powerful riffs against war!
Check out the tourdates below, grab your tickets and join the party!
Posted in Whathaveyou on August 11th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
True, most of the lineup for Up in Smoke 2022 — set for Sept. 30 through Oct. 2 in, as ever, Pratteln, Switzerland — was previously announced, and some of it goes back to what the fest would’ve been in 2020, but I’ve got two reasons for posting it now. First, it’s a new announcement and the festival’s social media has fallen into some kind of digital chasm I don’t and couldn’t hope to understand, and second, that lineup is perfect.
Seriously, they say there are more bands coming. Don’t on my account. This’ll be just fine. There was one band on this poster with whom I was not immediately familiar by name, and that was Midnight Deadbeats, who released their debut album, Moonshine Carnival, in late 2020 on Sixteentimes Music. You can stream it below. To me it sounds like earliest Dozer and if you think I’m about to complain about that you’re out of your mind. And everybody that surrounds on this bill is someone I’d like to see, whether I’ve seen them before or not. Fu Manchu and Slomosa. Irist and Orange Goblin. Naxatras and Echolot. Stoned Jesus and Sasquatch and Mars Red Sky and The Heavy Eyes. Greenleaf. Somali Yacht Club, High Reeper and Hippie Death Cult. Fucking a.
I won’t get there — these Fall fests are perennially out of my reach — but god damn what a show this weekend will be. Sound of Liberation is handling the promotion and that’s where to go for social media at this point. They just made the announcement that follows:
UP IN SMOKE FESTIVAL: LINE-UP ANNOUNCEMENT
Hey friends,
Today we’re absolutely stoked to present you the majority of bands for our beloved Up In Smoke Festival!
Get ready for three days of heavy psychedelic, stoner rock and doom at the Z7 Fabrik in Pratteln, Switzerland!
Already (re-)confirmed for 2022:
FU MANCHU – ORANGE GOBLIN – ELDER – STONED JESUS – PALLBEARER – GREENLEAF – SASQUATCH – NAXATRAS – MARS RED SKY – SOMALI YACHT CLUB – ELECTRIC CITIZEN – SLOMOSA – MOTHER ENGINE – IRIST – HIPPIE DEATH CULT – HIGH REEPER – THE HEAVY EYES – CARSON – ECHOLOT – MIDNIGHT DEADBEATS
More bands to be announced!
Tickets: https://www.sol-tickets.com
Tickets + 3 Day Sleepover Ticket: http://www.z-7.ch
