A number of really good rock bands have come out of Spain over the years. One thinks of Los Brincos, of course, and Manta Ray, and also contemporary band Hinds.
Peralta rank along any of the above named. They are Spain's best kept secret. A throuroughly superb rock band. And I'm not the only one to think so. Sid Griffin, of the Long Ryders and the Coal Porters, says they his favourite band. And he should know. They've played together.
They are gigging once more around Spain and if you get the chance go and see them live, they really are an excellent good old fashioned hard rockin' live band. They really deserve to be better known.
Marcos Montoto is an outstanding guitarist, probably one of the best in Spain. He knows his Clarence White and has a knack of compact, melodic and slightly off the wall solos that really pack a punch. Pablo Gonzalez is a superb drummer, one of the best around. He has an innate drive and powerful funkiness that really push the band forward.He can also do
Keith Moon style fills and come right back in on the beat. Angel Kaplan (rhythm guitar) and Juancho Lopez (bass) are a formidable rhythm section that anchor the fireworks and keep the band on track. They all write their own songs and do vocals and harmonies but most of the lead singing is handled more than competently (in English) by Pablo.
The band's self composed songs are tuneful and reminiscent of late period Byrds, Flying Burrito Brothers, CSN and classic mid 60s Garage Rock. They do a fantastic cover of the Gram Parson's Older Guys which rocks harder than the original (see clip below).
All in all, a live band that delivers great songs, has a fantastic rhythm section, does nifty off the wall guitar solos, play 12 string
guitars, do harmonies, and even throw in some Who style feedback.
They tick all the boxes and just get
better and better.
Why the hell aren't they better known?
Check out some of last Friday's gig in their hometwon of Gijon, Spain here.
Cooper is a four piece Spanish rock band led by Álex Díez Garín, (vocals, guitar, composer, and ex-leader of another band of Spanish 80s mod revivalists, Los Flechazos).
They’ve been going since the early 2000s and have four albums behind them - all of which contain their own superlative take on the kind of late 60s jangly guitar driven mod pop forged by the likes of The Move, The Who, The Creation and in Spain, Los Brincos, back in the days when superpop was king.
And Alex really does have a knack for writing well crafted and seriously catchy tunes. Once heard, they will stay firmly rooted in your inner musical mental soundtrack for the rest of the day. Check out Entre Girasoles (Among The Sunflowers), Ola de Calor (Heatwave) or Cierra Los Ojos (Close Your Eyes) below for the proof.
An early evening set (7.30 pm) at the Botanical Gardens in front of a generally family oriented audience may seem like an odd gig for a rock group but the band’s energetic punchy set went over extremely well. Their brand of uplifting cheery sunshine pop works especially well in the context of all the pastoral greenery and trippy flower power of a botanical garden on a warm and gloriously sunny summer evening.
Alex Cooper
Alex also comes over a very decent guy. There is touch of the Paul Weller about him, visually if not vocally, and his message - if there is one - comes over as optimistic and positive. This is a man who, like John Sebastian of the Lovin’ Spoonful, understands the magic in the music – especially the magic in the music of the summer - and tries to summon it up for us all to share.
He succeeded. This was the perfect soundtrack for a glorious summer evening.
Check out some clips from the gig below and also their albums if you can find them.
I've been listening a lot to TheQuarter After's two albums recently. Their exceptional debut album is now 10 years old and the follow up - the psych drenched Notorious Byrd Brothers influenced "Changes Near" came out in 2008.
Since then nothing.
A massive pity as the band, led by brothers Dominic and Rob Campanella, who has worked with Beachwood Sparks, The Tyde, Brian Jonestown Massacre among many others, are one of the finest Psych Amerikana bands of the 21st Century.
Both albums are heavily influenced by the Byrds circa 1966. Which, for me anyway, is no bad thing. And if you love the sound of Mcguinn's 12 string as much as I do, you'll really go for these. The Roger McGuinn and Gene Clarke vocals / harmonies are also quite uncanny at times but the whole sound is much fatter, harder rocking than the Byrds ever were and at times is occasionally reminiscent of the Stone Roses or even, on the guitar work-outs,late 60s era The Who.
The second album "Changes Near" is a little more varied, less guitar heavy and possibly gives you an idea of what might have resulted had Carke, Hillman, Mcguinn andthe Clarence White era Byrds made an album together around the late 60s.
So I was just wondering what is going on with the band. They were touring up until around 2011 but I can't find any more about their present whereabouts or activities.
I'd love to hear something new from them.
For me, along with Beachwood Sparks and The Woods these guys have made some of the most satisfying, melodic and interesting psych albums of the last 10 years or so.
If you don't have the albums go find 'em
Here's a couple of live clips from youtube
Early Morning Rider (from Changes Near)
No Names Yet For Henry
This is splendid. From their first gig, according to the youtube uploader "opening for the Tyde and
the Brian Jonestown Massacre in the summer of 2000 at the Doll House in
Silverlake. Special guest Twink from the Pretty Things, Tomorrow, and
Pink Faries on tambourine. The song is a cover by 80s paisley
underground band the Steppes."
Hinds (FKA Deers) are my favorite band of the moment. They are a four piece band from Spain who specialize in trippy garage punk psychedelic pop.
They haven't recorded a full album yet but judging by their singles on bandcamp and the bits and pieces on Youtube they show an awful lot of promise for the future.
These songs are very catchy 60s inspired pop. Perfect joyful infectious music to listen to now that Spring is finally upon us.
And their videos also show a sense of fun that is occasionally reminiscent of the kind of send-up antics the Beatles used to get up to in the early 60s. And the Monkees.
They should have their own TV show.
Listen to these two tracks and fill your heart with spring. Album soon please!
The band are currently gigging all over the world. Last spotted in the USA I think...
"Peralta...mi Banda española favorita." - Sid
Griffin (The Long Ryders)
2014 has been a pretty good year for my kind of rock’n’roll. If
you are into 1960s influenced acid-tinged jangling sunshine psychedelia this
year has really brought forth a bumper crop.
Woods, Real Estate and The Ugly Beats have put out their
best albums to date and we have heard superb sophomore albums from Quilt and
the Allah-Las. Add to the above the excellent psych-folk debut albums from Cian
Nugent and Ryley Walker and you can see it really has been an excellent year.
An album that I really should have picked up on sooner – it
was released in April – is Peralta’s debut Time, Purpose & Gold. I saw the
band support the Ugly Beats in early December and was really impressed - so
much so I decided to check out their debut album.
I’ve been listening to it non-stop for the last two weeks and, for my money, it is worthy of being placed alongside the above mentioned albums as one of the best of a very good year.
Peralta are a band from Gijon
in the north of Spain.
Individually, they have been around for a few years playing in different bands
on the local and international scene. Angel Kaplan played with the most recent
incarnation of the Cynics and has also put out some high quality self-composed solo material
which is also worth checking out.
Gijon has a thriving local band scene - originally known as the “Xixon (or Gijon) Sound” in its heyday in the 90s (see here for more on the Xixon Sound) - over the years the town has given us the pure pop of Australian Blonde, the experimental
post rock of Manta Ray, the folk-pop of Pauline en la Playa and the garage punk
of Dr Explosion. Solo artist Francisco Nixon has shown an extra-ordinary talent for writing
wonderful 60s inspired catchy pop songs and the very successful folk troubadour
Nacho Vegas has turned himself into a kind of Spanish version of Leonard Cohen and/or Bob Dylan.
Peralta are veterans of this scene and recorded an EP in
2012 which included an excellent version of Buffy Saint-Marie’s Indian Cowgirl In
The Rodeo but this year’s Time, Purpose & Gold is their first full length album
together.
It is an extremely impressive debut - for my money one of
2014’s best albums. It’s full of well-crafted, self-composed songs that are
not only very catchy but bring to mind the early 70s glory days of Clarence White
era Byrds, The Flying Burrito Bros, CSNY, Neil Young and even the Eagles as well as harder rocking Brit outfits
like The Who (on You're Going Too Far) and The Faces (on Waiting For The Past).
As well as composing the material themselves the band also prove themselves to be expert players. They can really get into a groove. Pablo Gonzalez’s drums are outstanding throughout – especially on You’re Going Too Far – his urgent and exhilarating Keith Moon style fills and splashes really propel the song.
Guitarists Ángel Kaplan and Marcos Montoto are superb instrumentalists. Check out the guitars on Lock You In My Dreams. Great riff and a helluva solo.
The album is impressively consistent but also quite varied. Behind The Fence recalls the brilliant and sadly missed blues and bluegrass picking style of Clarence White whereas People Inside Of Me is anthemic hard rock and is reminiscent of The Who circa Quadrophenia
All in all, Time, Purpose & Gold is a superb collection of West Coast influenced rock. The vocals may occasionally lack confidence - understandable if one remembers English is not their native language - however the band show an unerring knack for clever and catchy song-writing and make inventive and memorable rock’n’roll. These are tunes that really stick in your head.
This album brings to mind some of the things I hold dearest - The Byrds, David Crosby, Neil Young, The Grateful Dead, The Who, The Faces and 60s Garage Rock. It freely drinks from the same well of Cosmic Amerikana and 70s rock but, much like The Woods, Beachwood Sparks and The Sadies, Peralta attempt add something new to the mix and, in so doing, they are worthy followers of that pioneering tradition.
Stunning West Coast Rock brought to you from the north coast of Spain. It’s already on my list of summer 2015 beach listening.
Anyone who has taken even a slight shufti at this blog will
have garnered (correctly) the impression that I hold the year 1966 AD in quite some
high regard.
For me, it was the musical peak year of the 60s - the year
with all the potential and none of the hang-ups. It was the year with all the promise,
the energy and the momentum but with none of the excess that was to bedevil the end
of the decade and the most of the 70s. 1966 is the year when, as Hunter
Thompson wrote in Fear and Loathing in Las
Vegas, “You can almost see the high-water mark—that
place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.”
And what a musical high water mark it was. The Beatles made Revolver,
The Byrds put out Eight Miles High, Dylan released Blonde on Blonde and in San
Francisco bands like the Grateful Dead, JeffersonAirplane and Big brother were
coalescing into the next new wave. 1966 felt like the year when it was all about
to happen.
If you could return in time you’d set the clock for the
spring of 66 wouldn’t you?
I would anyway. Summer in Swinging London, to see England win the
World Cup, and then off to spend the rest of the year on Haight Street SF and
seeing everyone at the Fillmore and Avalon
ballrooms.
Time travel is, for the moment anyway, impossible – or at
least difficult to arrange - but we do have
some splendid bands to recreate some of the ambiance of that golden iridescent
year – one of whom are the Ugly Beats from Austin, Texas.
The Ugly Beats at Sala Acapulco, Gijon.
Their new album “Brand New Day” is a sublime mix of 1966
inspired Garage Rock and Pop – their best yet actually – and judging by the gig
I saw at the casino in Gijon on Thursday night, they are a live band to be
reckoned with.
They played a varied mix of excellent original material from all of their four albums along with
some superb covers. Their version of The Rascals' Find Somebody is way better
than the original and the two tracks from the Ramones first album - Cretin Hop
and Today Your Love - went down a storm and fitted in perfectly with the band’s
hi-energy garage punk ramalama ethos. They even did a spectacular cover of obscure Spanish band
Los Nivrams' Sombras.
If there was a negative, it might be that there was a little too much chat from the stage at times. It slowed the pace and deadened audience enthusiasm - it might be an idea for some visiting US and UK bands to remember that, in places like Gijon, not everyone understands English
perfectly and some comments from the stage sailed wonderfully over the audience’s
head to fall, inevitably, quite flat.
Support band Peralta (a kind of Gijon super group made up of some ex components
of well known local bands like Dr Explosion and The Cynics) also put in an impressive
set and are definitely a band to keep an eye on. The two bands teamed up for a
couple of numbers and Peralta’s set encore of the Flamin GrooviesI Can't Hide (with Ugly Beats Joe Emery and Jeanine Attaway joining them on stage) was one of the night’s highlights.
An excellent night. What a pity so few turned up to see
them. But then if local promoters don’t advertise how is anyone going to know? Time
and time again I have seen poorly attended gigs in Gijon with no promotion or advertising. There
wasn’t even a poster of the show outside the main door of the venue fer
Chrisake...
Anyway, the Ugly Beats. Sublime shimmering Nineteen-Sixty-Sixicity.
It’s A Brand New Day.
It is.
Go see ‘em and buy the album.
Here's a video selection of the night's highlights from Youtube.
Ugly Beats Joe Emery and Jeanine Attaway joined support band Peralta for their encore. A stunning cover of the Flamin GrooviesI Can't Hide.
The Band's own Up On The Sun and Brand New Day.
A cover of the RascalsFind somebody.
A cover of Sombras by Spanish band Los Nivram (whose name is a tribute to the Shadows Hank Marvin - Nivram is Marvin backwards).
Arizona Baby are a Spanish band who, believe it or not, do a really impressive line in Cosmic Americana.
Their brand of Gram Parsons / Byrds influenced psychedelic acoustic country rock really works well - especially in a live setting. For a band that only has two acoustic guitars, a drummer and no bass, Javier Vielba (lead vocals and guitar), Rubén Marrón (lead guitar) y Guillermo Aragón (percussion) have a surprisingly full sound and are reminiscent, both in look and style, of an acoustic Byrds circa 1971 .
Check out this video they did for the title track for the 2012 album The Truth.
Their 90 minute set at the Sala Acapulco in Gijon on Saturday night was outstanding. I really enjoyed them. Below are two highlights.
Their new album is called Secret Fires and is available on Subterfuge. Check it out. They have a knack for writing tunes that are both catchy and imbued with a sense of good cheer.
Last Friday I had the pleasure of appearing again on Gimi's show "In Campo Aperto" on Gijon's Radio Kras in Spain.
We decided to put together a program about British late 60s / early 70s psychedelia and the birth of the "British voice" in rock music.
One of the notable things about late 60s British psychedelia is that for the first time British rock bands stopped the pretense of singing in American accents and started to sing about more homegrown themes in an English accent - albeit quite a middle class one. British psychedelia gave the Brits a chance to take American music and really make it their own.
It should be remembered that right up until the mid 60s everyone,
including the Beatles, was singing American inspired pop and R'n'B in
their best fake American accents. The true "British voice" in rock was born with Ray Davies and the Kinks singing about London's dedicated followers of fashion and well-respected men but then, around 1967, under the stewardship of Syd Barrett, Pink Floyd, Traffic, Caravan and quite a few others, it emigrates from the city to "get it together in the country" and explore the idyllic sultry summer afternoons of hazy childhood reminiscence in a manner that seemed quite heavily influenced by Lewis Caroll. British pop music of this period seems to take on a much hazier and greener hue as if to reflect the countryside itself. As I have observed elsewhere I can't help but think Jonathan Miller's (somewhat psychedelic) 1966 film interpretation of Alice In Wonderland may have had an influence on this new exploration of the pastoral but anyway, by the summer of 1967, a new interest in all things arcadian in British pop can plainly be heard in the addition of a new palate of instruments, such as flutes, mellotrons, harpsichords and horns, to create a kind of bucolic English baroque 'n' roll. Traffic and the Pink Floyd may have led the way but even the Rolling Stones sidestepped their usual R'n'B to make Ruby Tuesday and Dandelion - two of the finest examples of the new sound. The Beatles, as usual, topped everyone with Strawberry Fields Forever - a song and production which, in my opinion, is a kind of impressionist pop classic. In fact, considering its themes, perhaps this period can even be seen as a kind of British musical version of 19th Century French impressionism.
It has been criticized as an ephemeral and rather naive stage in British rock but some glorious music came out of it. So here is the show we put together as a kind of celebration of British pop's impressionist psychedelic baroque'n'roll period and its first attempt at a uniquely "British" sound. It is a mixture of the popular and well-known with a few unreleased rare things like the Traffic and Pink FloydBBC concerts from 1970 and 1971 respectively.
Enjoy. The commentary is in Spanish.
Pink Floyd - See Emily Play / Paintbox /
Kinks – See My Friends / Victoria
/ Shangri-la
/ Beatles – Strawberry Fields
Forever / Rolling Stones - Goodbye Ruby Tuesday / She’s a Rainbow
/ Traffic – Paper Sun / 40 Thousand Headmen
/ Traffic BBC in Concert (April 1970) - Who Knows What Tomorrow May Bring? /
Every Mother's Son /
Medicated Goo /
John Barleycorn Must Die /
Pink Floyd BBC Concert (September 1971) – Fat Old Sun /
One of These Days /
Yardbirds – Happenings 10 Years Time Ago /
Tomorrow – My White Bicycle /
Pretty Things – Defecting Grey /
Zombies - Beechwood Park / Hung Up On A Dream /
Caravan - And I Wish I Were Stoned / Don't Worry
/ Robert Wyatt – A Last Straw / Little Red Riding Hood Hits The Road
/ Kevin Ayers – Stop This Train
/ Religious Experience
/ Rolling Stones - Dandelion
Cian Nugent's Born With the Caul is very much a slow burn. It takes its time to deliver but deliver it surely does. Released at the end of 2013, I first heard it about 6 months ago and it didn't really hit. But after regular playings it has grown on me and I now reckon it's one of the great psychedelic guitar rock albums of recent years. Nugent's group is aptly named as their music is good old fashioned cosmic music - the psychedelia of the the desert, the night and wide open spaces. After careful listening it reveals itself to be well in the tradition of the Pink Floyd at their spaciest and the Grateful Dead at their most freewheeling.
24 year-old Cian Nugent hails from Dublin andhas been playing solo acoustic folk guitar for a few years now. He also plugs in with his electric band, the Cosmos, who include Ailbhe Nic Oireachtaigh on electric viola, Conor Lumsden on bass, Brendan Jenkinson on organ and David Lacey on drums. Their sound is a mixture of Celtic folk, jazz and psychedelic rock. They've recently been on tour with Ryley Walker (a perfect double bill if ever there was one). Nugent has recorded before but Born With the Caul is this line-up's first release.
The albumreferences acoustic blues and late 60s psychedelia - especially early Doors, the Grateful Dead, the Pink Floyd, early 70s Fairport Convention and John Cale era Velvet Underground. However this is an album that very much stands on its own two feet. This is not a nostalgic revival. The music here sounds fresh and very much alive.
A 3 track album clocking in at 45 minutes - nice LP length - Born With the Caul slowly navigates its way towards its thunderous and triumphant finale. Opening acoustic track Grass Above My Head starts off sounding like a lament but soon morphs into a kind of Irish folk version of a New Orleans style funeral celebration. The acoustic intro on Double Horse seems to pick up from the previous track's motif but quickly leads in to a droning eastern style raga sound. Given the previous cut's theme, is this some kind of meditation on the hereafter? Nugent spins a couple of riffs that bring to mind Robbie Kreiger's intro on The Doors' The End. The keyboards also give it the eerie atmosphere of early Doors. This is classic desert heat haze psychedelia. Indian territory. Ominous and strange. The ghost of Jim Morrison lurks and we get a hint of danger on the edge of town. Of course this is a terrain also explored by the Grateful Dead on Dark Star and by the Quicksilver Messenger Service on The Fool or especially side 2 of Happy Trails but this is also rich prospecting territory and Nugent's band convincingly stake their own claim.
The mood is enhanced by Ailbhe Nic Oireachtaigh's viola accompaniment which blends with Nugent's guitar without getting in the way of it. Some people have compared this album to Fairport Convention for its use of guitar and viola but I'm not really hearing that. If anything, it's more like John Cale's restrained use of viola in the Velvet Underground. Think of Cale's droning contribution to Venus in Furs and you get an idea of what a rich strange mix this is. The rhythm section is also excellent. David Lacey's jazzy drums are superb throughout. Towards the end Nugent's guitar takes on an angular repetitive riff similar to something Jerry Garcia might have come up with around 1969. The Grateful Dead references are quite apt. This ranks alongside some of the Dead's finest improvised work-outs from the late 60s.
Final track Houses of Parliament is the big one. It starts off rewinding back into the desert heat haze of the previous piece but then suddenly morphs into something far more Floydian. Built up from smaller pieces in to a larger whole it has the scope of the Floyd at their finest. Nugent also plays with the same subtle economy that David Gilmour had - there is no noodling here. We soon head into a relaxed funk riff reminiscent of the mid section in the Floyd's Echoes but David Lacey's drums add a jazzy groove that the Floyd never really managed. An abrupt tempo change and the band drives helter skelter towards the song's finale with unbridled punk energy and panache. Finally Nugent kicks in spinning a riff reminiscent of the Grateful Dead's China Cat Sunflower. It sounds triumphant. A joyous homecoming.
This is an album that has a clean live feel. The band actually sound like they recorded it live in the studio with few overdubs and very little in the way of effects. It is also an an old-fashioned "album" in the sense that it is best listened to as a complete whole. This is not designed to be divided up and downloaded in marketable bite form. It's a superb work worthy of its influences and which very much continues their spirit. Give it your time. Slow burner it may be but when it hits you'll be richly rewarded.
The preview below doesn't really do the album justice. It is, as I say, best experienced as a complete album. But if you really want a sonic idea...
Ryley Walker is a 24 year-old singer / songwriter and guitarist from Chicago. I must confess I knew nothing about him until a few days ago when I chanced upon his excellent new debut album All Kinds Of You.
Walker has a background in Chicago’s experimental free/noise music scene but recently took his music off in a more folk-oriented direction inspired by 60s folk troubadours like Tim Hardin, Tim Buckley and Bert Jansch.
With an extremely impressive guitar picking style and a voice that does indeed recall Bert Jansch, the album is of a consistently high quality. All the songs were composed by Walker and he draws on a variety of musical styles including blues, jazz and especially the mid/late 60s crossover folk jazz of Jansch, Davy Graham, Pentangle, John Martyn and Nick Drake.
The West Wind
The album opener,The West Wind, has a gorgeous arrangement and one can hear Walker's jazz background in the lengthy instrumental coda.
The album has a number of remarkable highlights. Blessings also features viola and has some of the fragility of Nick Drake's work. Clear The Sky is a similarly outstanding ballad. I really like the album's use of viola (played by Whitney Johnson). It works well and adds a very ethereal "British folk" atmosphere, sometimes reminiscent of early Third Ear Band, to many of the songs. Instrumental Fonda
recalls Davy Graham and the album closer Tanglewood Spaces features some really exquisite guitar playing. The album covers a lot of musical ground ranging from the atmospherically autumnal late 60s British folk sound to the wide open blues and jazz spaces of 20th century Americana.
Twin Oaks Pt. 1 displays Walker's impressive guitar style.
Since first hearing the album last week I haven't been listening to much else. This is an album which clearly returns to the source of classic mid 60s folk but breathes new life and reinvigorates it for a 21st Century audience. Walker has talent and is a spectacular guitarist. This album promises much for the future. He will be worth watching.
Ryley Walker - "All Kinds Of You" (Tompkins Square - April 2014)
1. The West Wind
2. Blessings
3. Twin Oaks Pt. 1
4. Great River Road
5. Clear The Sky
6. Twin Oaks Pt. 2
7. Fonda
8. On The Rise
9. Tanglewood Spaces
Untitled
While I was looking for more info on Ryley I came across this song on Soundcloud apparently recorded a couple of years ago. Here we find Ryley in psychedelic folk mode sounding like early Tim Buckley. The droning quality of the guitars and the eerie atmosphere also bring Nico to mind. Impressive. This could be a taste of future musical developments as a recent session on World Cafe also showed a notable Tim Buckley and John Martyn influence (listen here).
I really like this. Before hearing Lebanese singer Mayssa Karaa's version of Jefferson Airplane's White Rabbit if you had asked me whether it was possible to cover the song and actually add anything new or positive to it I probably would have just shrugged and said no way. The song is now too iconic and has become embedded in our minds as a kind of musical snapshot of late 60s hippiedom.
Mayssa Karaa
However Mayssa's new interpretation (recorded for the soundtrack of the film American Hustle), and sung in Arabic, brings out something that was perhaps only latent in
the original. There were a lot of Arabic, Asian and Flamenco influences on psychedelic rock in the mid 60s. Ravi Shankar is perhaps the obvious example. The Byrds listened to John Coltrane's Shankar inspiredIndia and made Eight Miles High. As a result a thousand shimmering sitar drenched guitar solos were born. The stunning 12 minute East/West instrumental on the Paul Butterfield Band's 2nd album also explored similar territory. Then there was Brian Jones Presents the Pipes of Pan at Joujouka which was a recording the Rolling Stone made of Moroccan group the Master Musicians of Joujouka playing live in 1968. In the 70s Led Zeppelin probably did the best justice to this kind of "fusion" on Kashmir from their 1975 Physical Graffiti album.
The hookah-smoking caterpillar
MusicallyWhite Rabbit is inspired by Ravel's Bolero and more especially Miles Davis' Sketches of Spain
rather than anything overtly Arabic. However given that there is a Moorish
influence in Spanish culture and music, and that these influences can be heard quite clearly on Davis' album, one could say that from a musical point of view
(let's leave the lyrics out of this) Mayssa Karaa's interpretation of the song returns it in some way to its eastern inspired musical roots.
So when I first heard this version it seemed so perfect. Not only is it a brilliant vocal performance that transfixes you right from the opening lines but it is imbued with all that middle eastern mystique that was there to begin with but was only hinted at in the Airplane's version. I'd love to know what Airplane singer (and song composer) Grace Slick thinks of it.
2014 has been a pretty good year for psych influenced rock with excellent albums from both Quilt and Real Estate. However with its jangling guitars and well crafted songs with brilliant tunes, the new Woods album leaves both behind. With Light and With Love is the band's 8th album and follows on from the band's previous two superb CDs Sun and Shade and Bend Beyond both of which were chockablock
with 3 minute pop wonders. Sun and Shade even had a couple of
lengthy psychedelically inclined instrumentals which showed the band had an experimental side which could also impress.
What differentiates With Light and With Love from their previous outings is the sound. It is their best recorded album to date and a long way from their lo-fi beginnings. It has a much richer sonic palate and places Jeremy Earl’s high fragile voice much better in the fuller sounding mix. The drum sound is thicker and colour is added through varied use of keyboards, backward tape effects and on opening track Shepherd even a pedal steel guitar.
Shepherd opens the album in a bright and breezy but somewhat unexpected style. Reminiscent of the Grateful Dead on American Beauty or Workingman's Dead it sees the band now pushing forward into countrified territory.
Second track Shining leads us back into the familiar Woods soundscape - shimmering guitars (is that a 12 string?) and catchy choruses - and successfully maintains the direction of the previous albums.
However just as soon as we think we've found our place on the map we are launched off into the 9 minute long title track With Light and With Love. Previous lengthy excursionsOut Of The Eye and Sol Y Sombra seemed to attempt to merge the repetition of Krautrockers Neu with the psychedelic spaghetti western trippiness of Quicksilver Messenger Service (and for me both really worked but they did tend to give the Sun and Shade album a slightly disjointed feel), however this is much more of a structured "song" with an extended guitar work-out. It features some spiky guitar riffs, occasionally reminiscent of Roger McGuinn in the ByrdsEight Miles High era, over a kind of fast shuffling rhythm. There are several shifts of pace and intensity and it rocks like the clappers. I really like it. Though I can't help thinking that most bands would have put this at the end of the album as a kind of grand finale but here we are still on track 3 of a 10 track album...
This is definitely a peak and one wonders how the band are going to follow it up but the track cuts / segues quite brilliantly into Moving To The Left and the pace, quality and momentum is maintained. This is shaping up like a classic album.
Next track New Light starts with backward tape loops and an acoustic intro. A nice thick drum sound kicks in over Earl's plaintive voice and its "Your only hope for tomorrow is starting anew... May we all sleep tonight" refrain would make it an excellent ending to a brilliant side 1 if you are listening on vinyl.
For me this suite of songs makes for the most varied, consistent and exhilarating 20 minutes on a Woods album so far. Can they keep it up for the rest of album?
I'm not sure the 2nd half matches up to the sonic fireworks of the first but it does get off to a strong start with Leaves Like Glass which features a delicious swirling mid 60s Dylanesque organ sound and comes over like some obscure single from around 1969. The next couple of tracks have a distinct Beatles influence. Twin Steps is mid-paced rocker with an acid style wah-wah tinged solo over a riff and a feel that bring to mind Revolver. The guitar on Full Moon seems to be a bit of a nod to George Harrison and Rubber Soul. Maybe too much. For me the riff here is a bit too obvious in its source and the song seems to verge on pastiche.
Last 2 tracks Only The Lonely and acoustic ballad Feather Man bid us a subdued farewell and, with a disembodied voice intoning over a tolling bell, the album suddenly cuts to a close. There is a slight air of lassitude towards the end of the album but Feather Man probably does make for a better ending than the mammoth With Light and With Love. Perhaps the grand finale is now too much of a rock cliche after all.
This
album sees the band maturing, better recorded and on occasion sounding like a mainstream "rock"
band but still pushing forward and trying out new ideas - eg Shepherd and With Light and With Love.
However I'm not sure it's as strong as its predecessor Bend Beyond - it lacks that
album's classic 3 minute pop song sensibility. Nearly every track on that album could
have been a single. That's not true here. But having done catchy folk-rock singles to perfection maybe that is what they now want to leave behind. This album builds on the tradition of previous Woods albums and maintains the qualities of melody, musical exploration and good-time cheeriness that the band deliver so well. This is optimistic, warm and welcoming music for which, in this day and age, one should be grateful. Either way
this a very strong album indeed. My favourite of the year so far and the first half a dozen songs here are some of the best music the band has ever recorded.
With Light and With Love (Woodsist)
Release Date: April 15, 2014
Formats: CD/LP/CS/DL
Shepherd
Shining
With Light and With Love
Moving to the Left
New Light
Leaves Like Glass
Twin Steps
Full Moon
Only the Lonely
Feather Man
Jeremy Earl - Singer / Guitarist
Jarvis Taveniere - Multi-instrumentalist
Aaron Neveu - Drums
John Andrews - Piano / Organ http://www.woodsist.com/woods/
The eternal return
I don't know about where you are but where I am it's now spring. And summer's coming...
Spring always seems to me to be one of nature's great psychedelic events. The eternal return. The relaunch into the high flytes of summer. Life is reborn, colour replaces the bleak monochrome of winter and our senses seem to refocus and intensify. The air is warm and fresh and people start taking most of their clothes off... and head for the beach.
And for me therein lies the sound of most of the music featured in this post. For me "Psychedelic" pop has a warm bright shimmering quality. Like distant movement seen through a desert heat-haze. Sunlight flashing on waves... It makes the perfect soundtrack for summer.
So, to celebrate these new incandescent manifestations of spring in all their psychedelic or otherwise glory here are 10 of the best new psych bands of the last 10 years or so. And psych in the 21st Century is not so much psychedelia reborn as the long strange trip just going further.
Some of the tracks selected below may have a strong whiff of the 1960s about
them but they are far from yellowing photocopies of a bygone age.There is a freshness about all these tracks. A timelessness. This isn't just nostalgia.
Anyway, time, as any Dr Who fan knows, is not linear. It's "like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey… stuff". Presumably it's all wet and gooey then... Or maybe time is like the sea. Vast and forever in movement. We just lose ourselves in the light speckled waves.
So when you listen to some of these don't be too surprised if you start floating and you're not quite sure of when you are...
Enjoy the summer. And don't forget a towel.
1) Quilt - Arctic Shark
Let's start with a track from Quilt's recent new album "Held in Splendor". Quite a step on from their first rather jam oriented CD. On this album they've obviously been concentrating on the song writing. It's a much more satisfying listen and sonically references David Crosby, The Byrds, Mamas and Papas and even Country Joe and the Fish.
2) Woods - Size Meets The Sound.
The Woods are one my absolute favorites here (along with Beechwood Sparks). They have been putting out consistently high quality albums for nearly ten years now. They have matured from their lo-fi beginnings into a great 60s inspired rock / pop band with some interesting experimental tendencies to spice things up a bit. Some of their instrumental jams come over like a cross between German Kraut rockers Neu and early Quicksilver Messenger Service. They also have the pop sensibility of Lovin' Spoonful or the Byrds. They have a new album out this month. Their last two albums Sun and Shade and Bend Beyond (from which this track comes) are particularly recommended.
3) The Smiles and Frowns - When The Time Should Come
Adam Mattson and Christopher James are a an American duo from Phoenix, Arizona who recorded a short (25 minutes), somewhat ethereal album full of very catchy songs in 2009 but now seem to have disappeared. The album takes inspiration from classic UK bands like the Kinks and more notably the Zombies and ticks all the psych quirky boxes.
4) Real Estate - Had To Hear
This is opening track from Real Estate's new and excellent album Atlas. Their third and best yet is a superb dreamy series of hazy summer afternoon suburban vignettes.
5) The Allah Las - Tell Me What's On Your Mind.
Is it 1965? Are we on the Beach? When are we...?
The Allah Las have a kind of chilled but perfectly evoked 1965 garage sound.
Their recently released first album is perhaps a little monotonous in its choice of tempos but I have high hopes for the second. This is one of the high points.
6) The Paperhead - Do You Ever Think Of Me?
The Paperhead are from Nashville, Tennessee but actually sound like a lysergically inspired creation of Syd Barret's slightly distorted consciousness beamed out to Alpha Centauri somewhere around 1968 and now returned to land in a swamp in deepest Tennessee. Their first album was a very Syd / early Floyd inspired affair. It is a little too loose instrumental jam oriented for me however this song is a classic.
7) Ty Segall - She Don't Care
I'm not a great fan of his electric stuff but last year's acoustically oriented and very melodic Sleeper albumshows some distinct Marc Bolan influences at times. Here's a taste.
8) Grizzly Bear - Knife
Imagine an alternate universe where Brian Wilson didn't have nervous breakdown in 1967, finished SMiLE with the full support of the Beach Boys and achieved massive success with it. What pop complexities would a confident Wilson have followed SMiLE up with? Grizzly Bear's albums, especially Yellow House (2006) and Veckatimest (2009), seem to me to take some of the ideas Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks were kicking around on SMiLE and take them further out. A kind of prog rock Beach Boys? Maybe...
9) Jonathan Wilson - Dear Friend
For my money Jonathan Wilson's two albums are nowhere near as good as he is live. Check out what I wrote about his live show here. After a Beach Boys / Beatles style intro the jazzy instrumental second half of Dear Friend from last year's Fanfare album reminds me of what the Grateful Dead were doing around 1972 / 1973 on their mammoth live work-outs of Playing With The Band and gives an idea of what Wilson and his band can do live..
10) Beachwood Sparks - Mollusk
Possibly my favourite band here. I've written about them here. Very Byrdsian I know. Doesn't this sound like it would fit right on Notorious Byrd Brothers? 2012's Tarnished Gold album is sublime summer music and my favourite album of the 21st century so far.
And what finer way to finish this set of psychedelic summer nuggets...
"You control the space and the time How it shines I am like your shadow, And I am like your shadow Happy faces, gleaming eyes Reflect the music in your hair Birds laughing, upon the golden sand".
Bonus track Quilt in the park on a sunny day playing what sounds like it could have been an instrumental out-take from Country Joe and the Fish's Electric Music For The Mind And Body. The expansive spirit of spring psychedelia resounds here. Chill...
The Sadies are a band I was always going to like. They follow in the best musical tradition of the pioneering Byrds and, although Canadian, have trail-blazed their own version of Gram Parsons' Cosmic Amerikana. They easily and convincingly cross mid 60s Garage Rock with Psychedelic Country, Surf music with twangy Duane Eddy style mock western TV themes and R'n'B with knees up fiddle-led hoe-downs. If they are not the greatest rock'n'roll band in the world, they are quite possibly one of the greatest rock'n'roll bar bands you will ever see.
The Very Beginning (from the new album Internal Sounds)
The guitar styles of brothers Dallas and Travis Good compliment each other perfectly. Travis has a rapid fire picking style reminiscent of the Byrds' Clarence White and Dallas does a neat line in Townshendesque feedback-drenched buzzsaw garage rock rifferama. Mike Belitsky keeps a cracking pace on drums and Sean Dean's acoustic
stand up bass is a welcome sight on stage and sounds so good you wonder
why anyone bothers with the electric versions. This is a band with a wide and varied repertoire and the chops to do it all justice. They are not messing.
They really are a cracking live band. In the Sala Acapulco in Gijon, Spain on Thursday night they delivered a 2 hour set that included highlights of their new album Internal Sounds (possibly their best yet) and some mega hot cover versions - notably Love's A House Is Not A Motel and a final barnstorming medley that referenced mid 60s Garage punk faves like Them and The Count Five
A House Is Not A Motel
Final Encore Medley
If you like the Byrds around their Untitled period (especially the live cuts on that album) go see 'em. They will not disappoint. Ladies and Gentlemen, the Greatest Rock'n'roll band in the world!
Well from Canada anyway...
Buy their albums too. My own favourites are In Concert Volume 1, New Seasons and their most recent album (and very Byrdsian) Internal Sounds which could be their best yet.
Post updated 18/11/2014. More of the show has been added
What we have here is a fascinating audio memoir of the teenage years of Sparks' Russell Mael growing up in Los Angeles in the mid 60s.
Russell and his brother Ron grew up in Pacific Palisades - a relatively affluent suburb of Los Angeles.
Russell went to Palisades High School and was in the "Class of '65". Both brothers enrolled at UCLA where Ron began a course in Cinema and Graphic Arts in 1963 and Russell studied Theater Arts and Film-making between 1966-1968.
In 1968 they formed a band called Halfnelson which later turned into Sparks - one of the most successful and critically acclaimed bands to come out of the glam scene of the early 70s.
Here Russell fills us in on the mid to late 60s LA scene and gives us an idea what it was like growing up "cruising up and down Ventura Boulevard in the San Fernando Valley or beaching it at Malibu or some other place along the coast" at a time when the US west coast scene was at its peak.
This was broadcast on BBC Radio 1 on a Sunday night around November 1979 and I remember listening to it as a kid and immediately trying to follow up on many of the bands featured - it was quite unusual to hear this stuff on British radio at the time. I think I managed to track down a copy of the then quite rare Nuggets: Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era LP not long after. And from there began a life-long obsession with 60s garage rock and psychedelia.
Unfortunately this cuts in and is missing the first few minutes but it is a great listen. I'm not saying what he plays, that would spoil it, but it's kind of like a radio version of Nuggets with some superb LA pop thrown in too.
Thanks to Captain Soul for uploading this and to Tomasz for contributing the first part.
And to Mal for having the wits to grab a C120 and record it one Sunday night long long ago...
