Before Show

As I mentioned yesterday, Spaceslug — who flew from Warsaw, Poland, to L.A. and drove through the desert to Las Vegas, having apparently also done so when they were here a couple years back — are staying with Adam as well. There was talk last night of going to the Valley of Fire today. I offered to bring my camera, and it kind of turned into a photo shoot. Incredible sights driving around with Spaceslug, sitting in the back with classic rock radio on. “Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting,” “Revolution,” “Me and Julio Down by the School Yard,” etc. Some Edgar Winter.

I met a Hungarian couple in a parking lot by a closed visitors center in the state park, went up and introduced myself and did my best to hold a conversation in their language. That they didn’t tell me to fuck off immediately I took as a big win. I don’t usually do stuff like that.

The shoot was fun, climbing over rocks, taking shots with incredible backdrops, some pictures by a cool cave overhang. No idea if they’ll use any of them for anything, but I probably will put some in posts unless I’m told not to.

This is the last night of Planet Desert Rock Weekend VI, which is of course bittersweet. I look forward to getting home to my family tomorrow evening, and I’m bummed to leave a great time behind. I spent much of 2025 talking up the experience here last January. I feel like this something really special and its own thing among fests. It’s like a boutique festival. John Gist, who promotes and curates, should probably be charging $300 for tickets.

Because I went back to Adam’s and napped for an hour, then had a cup of coffee before going to The Usual Place, I missed Spaceslug’s soundcheck, but got there in time for Bask’s, which was cool since I hadn’t seen them before, so like a little preview. Westing got a check after, which is how the other nights have mostly gone. Lots of hustle around the place as the crew gets everything ready. That tense thing in the air is real.

I’d already had a good day by the time I set foot in the venue. I still was looking forward to the night to come.

Here’s how that went. Thanks for reading:

The Show

Westing

They were the only band of the weekend who brought their own drumset. Westing’s 2023 album, Future (review here), was their first under the name, which had been Slow Season until 2021. Onstage, guitarist/vocalist Daniel Story Rice thanked John Gist for getting the band “out of semi-retirement” and noted it was their first show with their new guest lead guitarist Josh Cuevas. It was my first time seeing them under any name and in any incarnation. They did “Back in the Twenties” and “Nothing New” back-to-back, which is also how Future started, and their heavy ’70s-via-’10s sound was both ready for raucousness but still letting the music breathe in a way that made it feel laid back. I wasn’t surprised to dig them — and the drums that Cody Tarbell brought did sound perfect in the songs, to be fair, bassist Hayden Doyel rolling smooth lines alongside for a Zeppelin nod, benefiting from the sound in the room that’s been kind to bassists (and everybody) all weekend — but I’m glad I did. It was such an inviting sound, I’m not sure how you would not. I put my phone down and stopped writing for a few just to take it in. It’s the last night. Time for it.

Familiars

The only Canadian band on the bill, and another first for me. Toronto’s Familiars made an awful lot of sense coming off Westing, with a classic-rooted sound, purposeful and expressive melody, and a fuller, fuzzier tone (on average). The trio of guitarist/vocalist Kevin Vansteenkiste, bassist/vocalist Jared MacIntyre and drummer Anton Babych, set themselves to task early and were quintessential non-aggro heavy rock. The groove came through loud and, yes, warm, but they weren’t a bash-away kind of band. A more subtle touch, like when you see the wavforms of recordings from the ’70s and there are peaks and valleys where modern recordings shove everything so far forward. They had more country in them than just Vansteenkiste’s hat, and that ‘Gold’ (in the FM radio sense; they closed with “Bonanza,” also about the gold rush) had a shimmer whether a given part was loud or quiet. And in terms of the themes for the night, some twang made sense, at least up to Bask. Familiars were not a band I’d be likely to see otherwise, and I appreciated that about the set, but also just the set itself. You wouldn’t call them raucous on stage, and if they were thrashing around, I dont think it would work with the songs. Faor enough. They got into it in their own way, and with a light sway, the audience did much the same.

High Desert Queen

There aren’t a lot of American heavy rock bands who at this point can hold a candle to what High Desert Queen bring to the stage. They’re one great record away from headlining things like this, and at PDRW, they were a needed kick at just the right time; very much the centerpiece of the lineup, taking the flow of the first two bands and upping the energy level admirably. Chill vibes it ain’t, with High Desert Queen, with frontman Ryan Garney doing calisthenics early in the set to get the crowd on the band’s side, then making it worth their while for the rest of their time, drummer Phil Hook, bassist Morgan Miller and guitarist Rusty Miller conjuring a roll that could ebb and flow but was never really all the way gone. This was my third time seeing them, and if you never have, they’re an impressive watch. Garney shouted out “Head Honcho” to John Gist, which was fitting, and went on to demonstrate what can happen when you’re both a really good band and inclined to work your collective ass off, as without being cloying, High Desert Queen are about as engaging a stoner band as you can get. They played “Tuesday Night Blues.” Killed. I’m learning that’s how it goes. The crowd was pretty consistent all night, but High Desert Queen brought more to the front. As they will. Then Garney started the weekend’s only moshpit. Of course.

Bask

While also being quite heavy — I mean, it’s been four nights of this stuff at this point, and I’m talking remarkably heavy — Bask’s sound was lush in a way nothing else this weekend has been. Some of that is arrangement — unless Spaceslug have one hiding or somewhere, Bask have the only pedal steel guitar of the weekend, and they use it to cast a floating sunrise over proggy guitars, Southern-style noodling and riffs. I recalled digging 2025’s The Turning (review here) but hadn’t really gone back to it, which I regretted watching them play — is the notion of Americana emotional baggage? — and I was glad at very least to be in the room to be subsumed into that wash of sound, somwtimes a lead cutting through but rarely not beautiful. An unexpected highlight of the weekend for me, but mostly just because I’m a yutz and this is the first time I’m seeing them. I was good and tired, but as heavy as it was, it wasn’t abrasive. And even when they heavy-countried, that nod was there. Drift, crush, soothe.

Spaceslug

There’s the blowout. I was wondering before they went on how Spaceslug fit into the narrative. Westing was classic, Familiars added Canadiana, High Desert Queen brought it to ground in rock and electrified the room, Bask called back to Southernism on the part of Familiars and High Desert Queen, and then there’s cosmic psych prog metallers Spaceslug. But it’s the weight, the notion of a heavy atmosphere, and an attention to the details of their sound that make it fluid, though honestly I’d be pretty happy to watch Spaceslug no matter who was opening. But the context of the night up to that point was part of what made it special. And it was that. Maybe Spaceslug do that all the time — I’ve never seen them seven nights in a row, I’m kind of sad to say — but I don’t always get to see it. Accordingly, I stopped writing for a while to loosen the earplugs and let the full range (and volume) in. Not like my ears weren’t ringing anyway. Wish I could say I lasted, but I’m too old not to know what’s good for me. Even so, Spaceslug were glorious in sprawl and volume and depth, all three sharing vocals, absolutely locked in. That was how I ended the night, off to the side of the stage, being bowled over. I didn’t end up writing again until they were done, and that was the right choice. Some moments you just need to exist in. I’m lucky to have existed in these.

After Show

The Uber driver had disco lights and funk grooves, so that was a win.

Thank you John Gist. Thank you Adam and Jocelynn Sage. Thank you The Patient Mrs. Thanks to my mom. Thank you for reading. Everybody who made this trip possible, which to some degree or other, is everybody.

I met a bunch of cool people and saw a bunch more I already knew. Real interpersonal interaction, like the humans do. It can be scary stuff.

Tomorrow (today by the time you read this) you won’t hear from me after this post. Travel day. I get to New Jersey at around 8:30PM, so not much time to write. I have a couple posts ready to roll on Tuesday, but give me a few days to get home, catch up on home/housework and be with my wife and daughter. I’ve had a really, really good time here, and I look forward to being with my family. My life is an embarrassment of love.

Thanks again for reading. More pics after the jump.

Read more »

With Westing‘s sign on, announced below, the lineup for next January’s Planet Desert Rock Weekend VI is complete. Maybe? Probably. At least until fest curator John Gist decides to squeeze in one more, so call it a non-zero chance. But officially, for now, it’s done, and Westing cap off a staggering assemblage, internationally sourced at a time when that is getting and will continue to get rarer, and still intimate enough that by the end of the weekend, just about everybody will know just about everybody if they want. I went this year and I’ve been talking about it all frigging year. I very much hope to make it back.

The lineup is a big part of why. While far removed ethically from the spectacle that typified the notion of a Las Vegas-based heavyfest for most of the 2010s and into the 2020s, Planet Desert Rock Weekend has more of a reach — and more of an interest in having a reach — than most if not all other US underground to-dos. You’re an American. How the hell else are you ever gonna see Saint Karloff, or Fuzz Sagrado, or Saturna, The Quill and Isaak? On average, the last three years I’ve gone to three or four European festivals a year. I’ve never seen any of those bands. Here you get Kaiser and Throttlerod. The sense of these bands as “hand-picked” is palpable, and that absolutely includes Westing as well.

Formerly known as Slow Season, the band made their debut under the new moniker with 2023’s Future (review here) and further refined the prior outfit’s penchant for classic-heavy songcraft and unpretentious melody, renewed in purpose and sun-baked as ever.

The PR wire has all the details and such:

We love to come up with cool surprises and we hope this is one many from the scene will be excited for! We have Westing joining Planet Desert Rock Weekend VI in Vegas! Westing originally started out as Slow Season before switching to their new name. This is a rare show for Westing as they have only played a couple times over the last 7 years. Fronted by Daniel Story Rice, this band embodies the 70s sound authentically through their 4 releases. Vegas Rock Revolution had them as part of a show back in 2018 with Mos Generator and we can tell you that this band is superb live.

At PDRW we try to delicately blend artists that represents the amazing heavy underground scene into our lineups each year. The respect we have for the 70s rock sound is something we honor as without it…. there is no scene. For 2026 we have legacy bands like Atomic Bitchwax (Heavy rock/Stoner), Throtttlerod (Classic Stoner rock), Freedom Hawk (Heavy rock/Stoner), The Quill (Sweden/ Heavy Rock/Classic rock), Heavy Eyes (bluesy psych), Dirty Streets (Vintage rock) and Fuzz Sagrado (Brazil/Germany) which is a continuation of German heavy psych/kraut rock band Samsara Blues Experiment mixed in with strong newer bands like The Devil & the Almighty Blues (Norway/Heavy Psych Blues), The Well (Heavy Psych-Doom blend), Saturna (Spain/ Hard-heavy rock), Kaiser (Finland/ Heavy Rock-Stoner), High Desert Queen (Heavy Rock), Saint Karloff (Norway/ Stoner-heavy rock-doom), Isaak (Italy/Heavy hitting stoner), Bone Church (Stoner/70s ), Paralyzed (Germany/ Vintage hard rock), Familiars (Canada/ Heavy Psych-Folk) and Phantom Hound (Heavy Rock/90s tinge).

At PDRW we strive to create a fun environment for fans and bands to enjoy each evening’s music as well as create long lasting memories. Our shows do not start until the evening so people can enjoy all that Las Vegas has to offer such as museums, gambling, sightseeing, shopping, parks and much more! We are humbled by the killer support and can’t wait to show everyone a good time in Sin City!

Here is a nifty guide –> https://scenetrekker.com/planet-desert-rock-weekend-vi-las-vegas-travel-planning-guide/

Ticket link: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/1254021715709

Event page: https://www.facebook.com/events/1890287758376482/

https://www.facebook.com/VRRProductions/
https://www.facebook.com/vegasrockrevolution/

Planet Desert Rock Weekend VI Preview Playlist

Visalia, California, heavy rock traditionalists Westing release their new album, Future, on Feb. 24 through RidingEasy Records. The fourth album from the band overall, it’s also the first since they changed their name in 2021 from Slow Season, adopting the moniker from their till-now-most-recent LP, Westing (review here), which was released in 2016, and their first since welcoming All Them Witches guitarist Ben McLeod to the band with founding members guitarist/vocalist Daniel Story Rice, bassist Hayden Doyel and drummer Cody Tarbell, who also recorded the album and has worked with Cloud Catcher and others. Despite the rebrand, Future‘s nine-song/40-minute run remains loyal to their classically-inspired ethic, with a sound that’s growth malleable enough to position Tarbell‘s drums as the John Bonham stomp beneath opener “Back in the Twenties” as Future struts out of the gate, or turn twang into pastoral sentimentalism in the guitars of “Artemisia Coming Down.”

A tour de force for Rice vocally, from the soul-shouts in the leadoff to the attitude-croon of “Nothing New,” the hilarious-even-if-you’re-not-in-on-the-joke (and I’m not, so I’d know) chorus of, “There ain’t no Larry here,” in side B’s “Stanley Wu” and FM-radio-ready falsetto hook that opens wide in capping shuffle rocker “Coming Back to Me,” it is an album of mature performance and craft throughout — something that feels like it could only be made by a band who know who they are as artists and a group — but infectious in its energy just the same, with a sing-along call and response in centerpiece “Big Trouble (In the City of Love)” that, for as based around classic rocking ideals as it is, is so much more about right now than 50 years ago.

Tarbell‘s production, which is crisp, modern, clear and organic, helps assure that while Future is most certainly in conversation with the past and lyrics like those of “Back in the Twenties” place it squarely in the present — “Another lost generation/Here come the good times/Here come the fascists…” — its sound is nonetheless forward-looking in its realization of the material. It’s not futurist, or sci-fi, or cloyingly trying to be something other than it is for artsy kudos. In the spirit of, say, a band dropping an established moniker after about a decade and moving ahead with a new one, Future is unhindered by its classic aspects.

One would be hard-pressed to think of another American band working at Westing‘s level in the stylistic niche they are. In Europe, the names come easier, with the likes of Graveyard, Kadavar, and hosts of others, but especially on this record, the band distinguish themselves in method and dynamic from the underground pack on either continent. And more than the sound of Future, it’s the songs. After “Back in the Twenties” gives over to the fuzzier but likewise memorable rollout of “Nothing New,” they turn to the atmospheric “Lost Riders Intro,” a two-minute stretch of ambient guitar and drone ahead of “Lost Riders” itself, the central riff there seeming to call out Journey and Thin Lizzy via The Lord Weird Slough Feg (the latter is a stretch, but it’s there) with a moodier stateliness.

The party picks up as “Big Trouble (In the City of Love)” revives the Zeppelin thread to finish out side A — and the aforementioned “Stanley Wu” will make you believe dancing days are here again in short order — but though “Lost Riders” is shorter than “Nothing New,” its dual guitar leads and methodical delivery are neither as upbeat as much of what surrounds nor lost in a brooding mire, establishing a kind of middle ground that pushes outward the expectations for the rest of Future to come, so that when they hit into “Artemisia Coming Down” with its mellow, atmospheric beginning, graceful melody and highlight finishing solo, there’s precedent for the going.

Leading side B, “Artemisia Coming Down” — on the vinyl, “Lost Riders Intro” is integrated into “Lost Riders” as well, so it breaks down to four cuts on each side, eight total; of course it matters less when you’re listening to the album straight through — is another classic turn that Westing make theirs, fleshing out the mood of “Lost Riders” while shifting toward a direction of its own, smoothly shifting into the acoustic-led “Silent Shout,” which makes its title into a kind of single-breath repetition, almost an afterthought worked into its verse lines, so that by the last time it comes around near the song’s finish, it’s expected and welcome, a particularly floaty ’70s dreaminess that also serves to set up the arena-style chorus of “Coming Back to Me,” after the uptick in physical movement that “Stanley Wu” brings. An homage to a local bartender of the same name, its lyrics are less generally relatable, perhaps, than some of the material here, but it’s easy to get wrapped up in the title character’s persona as channeled through the band’s. To put it another way, they bring you into the place, the bar, the character, the story.

This is true of Future across its entire span, and it comes back to the quality of songwriting at work. Many aspects of Westing‘s sound are pointedly not revolutionary. They are classic heavy rockers playing to that ideal, less now than when Slow Season released 2014’s Mountains (review here), perhaps, but they know where their roots lie nonetheless. And as the already noted shuffle of “Coming Back to Me” lets its tension go for that chorus about being free, they make you believe it. Not everybody can do that, in this microgenre or any other, let alone turn the song back around to its boogie and proceed onward like nothing ever happened, until the next chorus arrives. And not for want of trying.

To call it graceful would maybe undercut some of the edges purposefully left rougher — like how the kick drum in “Back in the Twenties” is supposed to thud like that, and the back and forth of “more” and “never enough” in “Big Trouble (In the City of Love),” with “more” throaty and held out so that it’s “moh-ore” with Rice answering himself before McLeod rips out neither the first nor the last righteous solo — but it is lucid and tasteful. Westing may be a new incarnation of what Slow Season was, but part of that is the clear benefit of that band’s experience and chemistry that’s on display throughout these tracks, even with the change in personnel involved in making the record. It moves you like the best of rock and roll can, makes you remember why you fell in love with groove in the first place, and whether it’s up or down at a given moment, or raucous or subdued, it’s got its heart right on its sleeve and craft that’s in a class of its own. One would be a fool to ask more of them than they give here.

The video for “Back in the Twenties” premieres below, followed by the band’s bio… which I wrote. That’s right. It’s a bio I wrote, and I’m posting it under the review of the album, which I also wrote (just now, in fact). In the interest of full disclosure, I was compensated for writing the bio (it’s why I put the bio in blue, to distinguish that promotional content from this editorial content), and in the interest of context, I’ll point you back to that 2014 review to stand for how long I’ve been writing about the band before I got a Paypal kick to do it for the text below. I don’t know if it matters, but there you go.

Enjoy:

Westing, “Back in the Twenties” video premiere

“We’ve never been averse to a self-imposed challenge, really.” – Daniel Story Rice, Westing

Late in 2021, Slow Season announced they’d become Westing, and that Ben McLeod (also of Nashville’s All Them Witches) was now in the four-piece on lead guitar alongside guitarist, vocalist and keyboardist Daniel Story Rice, bassist Hayden Doyel and drummer/recording engineer Cody Tarbell. Their new LP (fourth overall for RidingEasy), Future, is not coincidentally titled.

Says Rice, “We wanted to hit the reset button on some things and so we included a new band name to that list. Fresh start, for the psychological effect of it. We first met Ben in 2014 opening for All Them Witches in San Diego, and we did that again in 2016 and he and Cody corresponded about tape machines, music production, and other similar nerd stuff. We started swapping a few ideas early in 2021 and then flew him out for four days in August 2021. We got Future mostly down in that short span and did some remote stuff for overdubs, but nothing major. Obviously, our creative processes jelled pretty well to allow for such an efficiently productive session.”

So the story of Westing, and of Future, is about change, but the music makes itself so immediately familiar, it’s so welcoming, that it hardly matters. For about 10 years, the Visalia, California, outfit wandered the earth representing a new generational interpretation of classic heavy rock. The tones, warm. The melodies, sweet. The boogie, infectious. They went to ground after supporting their 2016 self-titled third album, and clearly it was time for something different.

Listening to Future opener “Back in the Twenties,” the message comes through clear (and loud) that however much Westing’s foundations might be in ‘70s styles, the moment that matters is now. It’s the future we’re living in, not the future that was. The big Zeppelin vibes at the outset and on “Big Trouble (In the City of Love)” and the local-bartender remembrance “Stanley Wu,” the dare-to-sound-like-Rocka-Rolla “Lost Riders” and the softshoe-ready shuffle of “Coming Back to Me” that leads into the payoff solo for the entire record, on and on; these pieces feed into an entirety that’s somehow loyal to homage while embodying a vitality that can only live up to the title they’ve given it.

“To me, ‘future’ is a word that embodies both hope and dread,” explains Rice, “and the future seems to be coming at us pretty quick these days. In some ways, it really feels like I am living in “the future,” as if I time traveled here and don’t really belong. That feeling pervades this band’s ethos in some ways. I thought Instagram was a steep climb until I met TikTok.”

Is Future the future? Hell, we should be so lucky. What Westing manifest in these songs is schooled in the rock of yore and theirs purely, and in that, Future looks forward with the benefit of the lessons learned across three prior full-lengths (and the accompanying tours) while offering the kind of freshness that comes with a debut. No, they’re not the same kids who released Mountains in 2014, and the tradeoff is being able to convey maturity, evolving creativity and stage-born dynamic on Future without sacrificing the spirit and passion that has underscored their work all along. – Words by JJ Koczan

Westing on Facebook

Westing on Instagram

Westing on YouTube

Westing on Bandcamp

RidingEasy Records on Facebook

RidingEasy Records on Instagram

RidingEasy Records on Bandcamp

RidingEasy Records website

The Obelisk Questionnaire is a series of open questions intended to give the answerer an opportunity to explore these ideas and stories from their life as deeply as they choose. Answers can be short or long, and that reveals something in itself, but the most important factor is honesty.

Based on the Proust Questionnaire, the goal over time is to show a diverse range of perspectives as those who take part bring their own points of view to answering the same questions. To see all The Obelisk Questionnaire posts, click here.

Thank you for reading and thanks to all who participate.

The Obelisk Questionnaire: Daniel Story Rice of Westing, Brim, Sun Umbra & Fuzz Family Booking

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How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?

Composing lyrics along with vocal melodies and harmonies are my largest contributions to the music of Slow Season/Westing, Brim, and Sun Umbra, but I do write songs or just instrumental parts for guitar and keys as well. As far the lyrical side goes, I think that I am trying to find a way to express feelings and ideas that I find difficult to express in a strictly verbal sense. Music is very therapeutic for me in that way.

I came to do this work by very intentionally practicing songwriting in my early twenties. I would perform an exercise where I would open a newspaper with my eyes closed and put my finger on a column at random. Whether it be a classified add or murder mystery, I would set about writing a song using the details of that randomly selected newspaper content as a creative exercise.

After toiling on bedroom recording projects for awhile, I finally got the gumption to emerge and collaborate. I joined my first band when I was 23 because I felt confident enough in my singing abilities to provide a second harmony part to some three-part harmonies a friend had. I brought my lap steel along because I could fake proficiency at that instrument with enough reverb and a volume pedal. Soon enough I had started to play keys and harmonica in that band and began to gain confidence from the repetition of performance after performance. Cody Tarbell joined that band as our third drummer and we soon broke away and started to do what would become Slow Season in late 2011.

Describe your first musical memory.

I remember choking on a coin while the congregation sang a hymn at the church my parents and grandparents attended in Porterville, CA. I think I was two years old. I remember singing mixed with hushed panic as one of my parents hung me upside down and hit my rear end until the coin dislodged. I have no idea if there is an extended metaphor there or not. The second memory I have is attempting to harmonize to Beach Boys songs with my mom while we drove in the car. She sang either the alto or tenor parts in a church where instruments weren’t allowed and four-part shape note hymnals honed my musical ear.

Describe your best musical memory to date.

I started crying a teeny bit when King Crimson played “Epitaph” and just generally killed it at the Fox in Oakland in late 2019. It was an incredible show and helped me to process what had been yet another difficult year in my life.

When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?

Outside of personal spiritual matters, I’d say a music-related belief I once held was that analog recording was superior to digital because the limitations of the medium became a component of the art’s aura itself. Now that I’ve done a record with Cody that incorporated some digital aspects into the latter parts of the production I can decisively say that that’s not really true. What’s more, recording digitally enabled us to work remotely with Ben [McLeod] since he wasn’t able to finish every single thing he needed to in the four days we had to record the new Westing record.

Where do you feel artistic progression leads?

Hopefully to a better understanding of self, others, and life in general. Inevitably it will probably lead you away from fans of your early work as you grow and change as an artist and as person. Sometimes that means more financial “success” and sometimes that means less “success” but in the end at least you did what you had to do. I def don’t begrudge some of my favorite older artists their later output because the music they make now isn’t for me – it’s for the old fart I’m gonna become and the people that became old farts alongside the artists from their own generation.

How do you define success?

In broad terms I think it means reaching your deathbed without having compromised your core values. In musical terms, to me it means sharing my thoughts and feelings in a way that I can feel honest and uncompromised by economic interests. Financial success in music to the point that it paid my bills would probably destroy the pleasure and therapy of it for me.

What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?

Most of the films that I’ve viewed in the last few years. I used to like movies but the vast bulk of productions in the last decade or so have gotten so dumb/redundant. I hate walking away from a screen feeling robbed of time and attention with nothing to show for it.

Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.

I’d like to either score a film or write and direct a serialized music video series. Either way, I want to be a part of combining visual narrative forms with music that will help audiences to interpret the visual art and immerse themselves more fully into the experience.

What do you believe is the most essential function of art?

Yikes. I’d say it mostly has to do with mediating our own confusing lived reality with our own imagined reality of the ideal. We are finite creatures who shit and stink and die and yet can also comprehend truth and beauty and the infinite. That’s a lot of therapeutic ground to cover, and I’m guessing music in addition to visual arts and narrative forms help with this in psychological, spiritual, and even concrete physical ways. I’ve gotten into to the ideas of Ernest Becker, Otto Rank, and Norman O. Brown in the past and that has helped me to make some sense of cultural functions like the arts.

Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?

Harvest time in my garden and the creation of a community garden next year at the non-profit I volunteer with. The focus is on organic, sustainable practices that address the realities of the seemingly permanent California drought. We are going to break ground in August on a community modeled after the Community First! Village in Austin which provides housing, relationships, services, and dignified income opportunities to people who are chronically homeless.

https://www.facebook.com/slowseasonmusic/
http://instagram.com/slowseasonmusic
http://slowseasonmusic.com/

https://www.facebook.com/sunumbraband
https://www.instagram.com/sunumbra/

http://facebook.com/bandbrim/
https://www.instagram.com/brimband/
https://brimband.bandcamp.com/releases

https://www.instagram.com/fuzzfamily/
https://www.facebook.com/fuzzfamily/
https://visaliahomestead.weeblysite.com/

https://www.facebook.com/ridingeasyrecords/
https://www.instagram.com/easyriderrecord/
http://www.ridingeasyrecords.com/

https://www.facebook.com/royaloakie/
http://instagram.com/royaloakie
https://royaloakie.bandcamp.com/
https://www.royaloakierecords.com/

Brim, California Gold (2022)

Slow Season, Westing (2016)

If you were to ask me how long it’d been since Visalia, California’s Slow Season released their most recent full-length, Westing (review here), I sure as shit would not say five years. Three, maybe? Four at the outside? However, there’s no arguing with math, and by the time they’ve got their next offering out through RidingEasy Records, that five years may well be six.

They’ll also have a new name, as they’ve apparently decided to take Westing as their moniker — not sure why, but I’d love to know — and are furthering their “fresh start” feel by bringing in guitarist Ben McLeod on lead.

Now. If your eyebrows shot up at the mention of that name, I checked, and yes, it’s Ben McLeod, also of All Them Witches. Uncertain if he’s relocated to the West Coast or is working remotely with Westing or what, but again, that’s another thing I’d love to know. One way or the other, as regards six-stringers in the sphere of modern heavy, that is the proverbial “good get,” and one looks forward to finding out more about how his joining Westing came about, presumably at some point after or concurrent to the new album’s release next year. Fascinating times we live in.

For a refresher on Westing, the album, you’ll find the Bandcamp stream at the bottom of the post. The band’s announcement of current and upcoming doings came from social media:

IIIIT LLLLIVES!!!

Hey! It’s been a minute.

First off, please welcome our new lead guitar player, Ben McLeod.

Second, we are changing the band name to Westing.

Third, there’s a new record that will be coming out in 2022.

It’s been over two years since we’ve played for y’all and it is time to change that with a set of brand-new material at the following:

November 5th – Booze Brothers (Vista, CA)
November 6th – Permanent Records Roadhouse (LA, CA)

Stoked? Let us know!

Westing (formerly Slow Season)

https://www.facebook.com/slowseasonmusic/
http://instagram.com/slowseasonmusic
http://slowseasonmusic.com/
http://www.ridingeasyrecords.com/

Slow Season, Westing (2016)

Grooves and platters galore. My motivation behind doing Vinyl Day 2017 was simple: I felt like listening to records and sharing that process. It was kind of an off-the-cuff thing. Just an idea I had and ran with it. I figure it doesn’t need to be anything more than that, right? Isn’t putting on an album its own excuse for putting on an album? I tend to think so.

And yeah, I made it a hashtag. Because it’s the future, and hashtags. Instagrammaphone and whatnot. I’m a novice at best when it comes to the social medias, but it seems to me that if you’re going to share a full day’s worth of what you’re listening to, that’s the way to do it. So that’s what I did. If I clogged up your feed or whatever and it pissed you off, sorry.

For anyone who might’ve missed it, it turned out to be nine records of various sorts. Here they are, complete with accompanying audio when I could get it, because it’s the age of instant gratification:

Time to start #VinylDay2017 off right. @Stickfrau released ‘The Mules of Nana’ by Norway’s Orango earlier this year, and the LP breathes Southern rock-infused life into classic heavy boogie. Vinyl comes in a gatefold with a CD version as well and liner notes on the sleeve explaining who Nana was, what a mule is, and the band’s origins. Awesome record, awesome kickoff to the day’s listening. #boogie #orango #vinyl

A post shared by JJ Koczan (@hptaskmaster) on Jul 25, 2017 at 4:21am PDT

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Next up for #VinylDay2017 is the 2015 self-titled debut from Sweden’s @snowydunesofficial. I missed this at the time it came out but it’s a vintage psych boogie rocking gem and the limited-to-200 gatefold double-LP from Rock Freaks Records is an awfully fun way to play catchup. Their next record seems to still be in the works. One to watch for, for sure. #vinyl #sweden #heavy @freakvalleyfestival

A post shared by JJ Koczan (@hptaskmaster) on Jul 25, 2017 at 5:18am PDT

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Smaller platter but still plenty of rock packed into @the_flying_eyes’ “Poison the Well”/”1969” single. They’ve got a new LP due in September and I’m not sure if either of these tracks are on it, but the Baltimore psych blues four-piece take on #thestooges with a boldness of their own and “Poison the Well” is well worth highlighting on its own. Underrated band. Hope to hear the new record soon. @j.b.h42records #vinyl #VinylDay2017 #45rpm

A post shared by JJ Koczan (@hptaskmaster) on Jul 25, 2017 at 6:56am PDT

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Front to back one of my favorite albums of the year. I wasn’t sure if @sunbloodstories could top ‘Twilight Midnight Morning,’ but ‘It Runs Around the Room with Us’ is gorgeous in mood, gracefully textured and completely willing to set its own head on fire at the end. Check it out if you haven’t. LP comes with a note hand-signed by the band. #vinyl #VinylDay2017 #boise #psychedelic

A post shared by JJ Koczan (@hptaskmaster) on Jul 25, 2017 at 7:51am PDT

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Rolling on with #VinylDay2017 with Eclisse’s ‘The Origin of Error’ on @laybarerecordings. Definitely surprises in store for anyone who hasn’t heard it. Moody, far-ranging and heavy in a post-rock kind of way but given a psych edge through dreamy vocals and organ, lush guitar, etc. But it moves! And it rocks! Glad I grabbed it off the shelf, as it’s the least genre-minded LP I’ve heard today so far. The kind of stuff one calls progressive because no other words fit. #vinyl

A post shared by JJ Koczan (@hptaskmaster) on Jul 25, 2017 at 9:28am PDT

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Sweet, summery groove of @slowseasonmusic on a clear 12″ from @easyriderrecord. Organic, classic-style heavy rock that gets to the root of what it’s all about: killer songs and good times. ‘Westing’ was a highlight of 2016, but ripe for a revisit all the same. Daniel from the band just started a booking company too called @fuzzfamily, so they’re branching out. As long as they don’t forget to do another record in the meantime, that’s cool by me. #VinylDay2017 #vinyl #slowseason #seethroughrecords

A post shared by JJ Koczan (@hptaskmaster) on Jul 25, 2017 at 10:10am PDT

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Another 7″ for #VinylDay2017 from Carlton Melton and Black Elk Medicine Band. Split released by @valley_king_records with two deeply different vibes, Carlton Melton space tripping and droned out on “Observatory” and Black Elk Medicine Band (feat. Isaiah Mitchell of @earthlessrips) dug into a bluesier vibe on “Mortal Fire.” Either side, you don’t lose. Art by Alan Forbes and a mastering job by John McBain make it even more special. #treasure #quicklisten #vinyl

A post shared by JJ Koczan (@hptaskmaster) on Jul 25, 2017 at 11:04am PDT

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Heavy punkers @SinnerSinners go all rouge for the @LastHurrahRecords version of their ‘Optimism Disorder’ LP. The red and black splatter sets the perfect mood and the side split really brings out the variety in their songwriting, stylized and crisply produced but still driving in an aggressive sense and universally catchy. Sleeper hit? Better hope so since there were only 800 pressed. #VinylDay2017 #vinyl #red #grownuppunk

A post shared by JJ Koczan (@hptaskmaster) on Jul 25, 2017 at 12:05pm PDT

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I’ve been listening to records for #VinylDay2017 pretty much straight through since about eight this morning, and my brain has turned to complete mush. Accordingly, I can think of no better way to bring these proceedings to a close than with #TheClarity by #Sleep. This is the clear red @SouthernLordRecords version with the David D’Andrea art on the second side. Looks and sounds incredible at 45RPM. Can’t wait for their new album, produced by Noah Landis from Neurosis. Thanks for following along today if you did. #vinyl #praiseiommi #riffs #mushbrain

A post shared by JJ Koczan (@hptaskmaster) on Jul 25, 2017 at 12:48pm PDT

There you have it. Had to be Sleep to end it. Pretty awesome day of music on the whole, and whatever was on your playlist yesterday, if it was this stuff or anything else, I hope you enjoyed. I’m gonna call Vinyl Day 2017 a definite win. Thanks for reading.

[Stream ‘Miranda’ from Slow Season’s Westing by clicking play above. Album is out July 15 on RidingEasy Records.]

From the upbeat shuffle of opener “Y’Wanna” on down through the creepin’ blues bounce of “The Jackal” and the funk and classic psychedelia that shows up in “Miranda,” Visalia, California’s Slow Season make a strong case for the laid back, groove-minded next generation of West Coast heavy psych with Westing, which is not necessarily trying to be anthemic or representative of anything larger than itself — far less pretentious than that on the whole — but winds up that way anyhow. The four-piece of guitarist/vocalist Daniel Rice guitarist David Kent, bassist Hayden Doyel and drummer Cody Tarbell self-produced their third full-length behind 2014’s Mountains (review here) and a prior self-titled that RidingEasy reissued late last year, and that fact becomes important because while they still sound like a young band, that is they deliver their material with a sense of energy and purpose, Slow Season three albums deep are actually considerably seasoned, thanks in no small part to considerable time on the road alongside labelmates and others over the last two years.

As a result, Westing (also on RidingEasy) benefits from growth in basic presentation and versatility while pulling together its vinyl-ready eight-track/37-minute run, easily digestible for its hooks and flow but with depth of mix and performance ready for any listener looking to dig a little further on repeat listens. Over the course of its two sides, Slow Season show off different looks between vintage-derived boogie and heavy blues rock with more ethereal touches, but though they break out the organ on the penultimate “Manifest,” they never lose sight of the overarching mission of their songcraft and they never fail to engage the audience.

A big sticking point for Mountains was its clear Led Zeppelin influence, and Westing has some of that as well in songs like “Flag,” the guitar and spacious drums of “Saurekönig,” and closer “Rainmaker,” but it’s less direct than last time around, and as Slow Season have continued to grow — and actively forced themselves to grow by touring — they’ve arrived at a more individualized place, still at home in the earlier-Graveyard sphere of modern retroism, but in some crucial ways answering the question of what comes next for that sound, particularly in their affinity for bluesy tones and swing. Both feature mightily on “Y’Wanna,” which launches with a shuffle in medias res to immediately give a sense of movement.

There’s a sun-baked warmth in the chorus as well, and they open up to it fluidly, what sounds like a blend of acoustic and electric guitars intertwining amid multi-layer vocals and the solid rhythmic foundation of creative bass and drumming that will become a running theme as “Flag” takes hold like someone called in for boogie reinforcements. Laid back but not lazy, “Flag” typifies side A well in its rhythmic sway, catchy hook and steady flow, but the blues spirit underlying begins to deepen on “The Jackal” in the guitars, bass and drums, and Rice‘s vocals are more than up to the task set for them. He’ll have another highlight performance shortly as “Damascus” opens side B, but what Rice brings to the album overall isn’t to be ignored in helping capture the moods elicited from the songs, “The Jackal”‘s tension and roll seeming to be in conflict but finding resolution in a final verse and chorus after a quick break en route to the nod of “Saurekönig,” which as noted is one of the more Zeppelin-style cuts, but heads off on its own path to Kashmir nonetheless.

Thinking of it as a companion-piece to “Y’Wanna,” “Damascus” gets underway in not entirely dissimilar fashion, but the process “The Jackal” and “Saurekönig” started in expanding the palette continues as the instruments drop out of “Damascus” to let Rice bridge to the chorus on his own, weaving into and out of falsetto smoothly as the fuzzed-out groove surges back. Arguably the most memorable single track on Westing, “Damascus” is one of just two to reach the five-minute mark — the other is “Manifest,” still to come — and it uses that additional runtime to back its last chorus with a solo-led jam that winds and careens with some final vocal lines that thuds to a sudden stop and lets “Miranda” pick up on the beat, more led by Doyel‘s bass than anything thus far but still full in its arrangement.

The sunshine of the album’s first hook is recalled, but there’s a rush at the heart of “Miranda” as well, and that ensures there’s no sense of the band being repetitive. “Miranda” is raw songwriting at work, classic in its construction and the momentum it builds, ready to be pressed as a 45RPM and shipped to record shop storefront windows. As side A began to broaden with “The Jackal,” so too does side B with “Manifest,” but true to the form, “Manifest” pushes further, its subdued and melancholic feel made even more wistful by the organ and the guitar work. There’s a linear build happening, but until about four minutes into its total 5:57, it’s so subtle as to be almost overlooked. At that point the track takes flight, albeit momentarily, but the payoff effect is prevalent all the same, and the turn back to the chorus on just a couple quick crashes is the kind of thing that would trip up lesser bands.

Organ ends “Manifest,” which leaves the swinging, swaggering “Rainmaker” to finish out with one last boogie slide. The difference I suppose between it and “Flag” or “Y’Wanna” is the noisy movement near the end. They bring it back around to the central riff for the last measure, but for a while there Slow Season seem to really let go in a full freakout, and it shows that as far as Westing has gone up to that point, they can still go further. That might be the message of the record as a whole as well, but not at all to be ignored is how much Westing finds Slow Season making a direct contribution to West Coast heavy rock. In its vibe, natural chemistry and songwriting, that contribution is formidable.

Slow Season on Bandcamp

Slow Season on Instagram

Slow Season on Thee Facebooks

RidingEasy Records

Best wishes to West Coastly heavy rockers Slow Season, who begin this very evening the touring cycle for their upcoming third LP, Westing, due out July 8 on RidingEasy Records. Not at all the first tour for the four-piece, it’s a nonetheless ambitious coast-to-coast run, starting out by heading north to Seattle then looping back through the Midwest before a quick swing into the Northeast and back down through Texas to get them home. It’s a significant amount of road-time, all the more considering the record won’t officially be released until after it’s over, but though they still have a youthful vigor in their sound as the new streaming track “Y’Wanna,” which you can hear below, demonstrates, these guys are practically veterans at this point.

If you didn’t hear their prior record, Mountains (review here), the vibe was strong with it. The song below gives me high hopes for the new one to follow suit. Dates and audio:

Slow Season tour starts [this] week and doesn’t end until the last week of June! Who’s rolling out and where? *w/ @thedirtystreets

PRE ORDER the new album Westing at www.ridingeasyrecs.com

MAY
16M – Visalia, CA – Cellar Door
18W – Santa Cruz, CA – Blue Lagoon
19Th – San Francisco, CA – Thee Parkside
20F – Oakland, CA – Golden Bull
21S – Grants Pass, OR – G Street Bar & Grill
24T – Portland, OR – The Liquor Store Bar
25W – Seattle, WA – Funhouse
27F – Boise, ID – The Shredder
28S – Salt Lake City, UT – Urban Lounge
29Su – Denver, CO – Hi-Dive
30M – Omaha, NE – Reverb Lounge
31T – Chicago, IL – The Double Door
June
1W – Indianapolis, IN – Bent Rail Brewery
2Th – Kent, OH – Stone Tavern
3F – Pittsburgh, PA – Gooski’s
4S – Rochester, NY – Bug Jar
5Su – Brooklyn, NY – Idio Gallery
6M – Philadelphia, PA – Kung Fu Necktie
7T – Columbus, OH – Rumba Cafe
8W – Cincinnati, OH – Northside Yacht Club
9Th – Nashville, TN – FooBAR *10F – Memphis, TN – Hi Tone
*11S – New Orleans, LA – PARTY!
*12Su – Hattiesburg, MS – The Tavern
*13M – Shreveport, LA – Bears
*14T – Texarkana, TX – Arrow Bar
*16Th – Oklahoma City, OK – Blue Note
17F – Denton, TX – Andy’s
18S – Austin, TX – Hotel Vegas
19Su – San Antonio, TX – The Mix
22W – Phoenix, AZ – Yucca Taproom
23Th – San Diego, CA – The Merrow
24F – LA, TBA

https://www.facebook.com/slowseasonmusic/
http://slowseasonmusic.com/
https://www.instagram.com/easyriderrecord/

Slow Season, “Y’Wanna” from Westing (2016)