Originally formed in Ocean City, New Jersey, but now based in the heart of the New York City independent music scene, Brooklyn, Peanut Butter Lovesicle is making some of the most down and dirty, gritty, blues-inspired rock and roll, and folks, these songs will have you quivering in your boots, and loving every second of it. This is harder-edged rock music, with a sexy set of vocals and some seriously dirty guitar, all deep and growling, absolutely mesmerizing. The band have released an EP called Heavy Daze Wildcat Craze, a live EP called The Raucous Kitten, and a recent single, a real mind-blower, called Black Eyed Blues. These songs are all romp and stomp and sexy creep, heavy on the big, low, bluesy guitar licks. This is just the kind of music I wanna hear while slugging back my beer in a dark, hot and sweaty, basement dive. Such a perfect soundtrack to late-night thoughts of, well, you know....... Peanut Butter Lovesicle is a three-piece, of family members no less: Jake and Mike D'Arc, brothers on guitar and bass, respectively, both sharing those wildly sexy vocal duties, and drums and more vocals are provided by their cousin Timmy Miller. The band has already paid a visit across the pond to London and played some gigs there, but are now back in Brooklyn, so those of us who are in the NYC area, let's hope for some upcoming gigs, soon! This is just the style of music that true rock and roll fans can easily love, full of attitude and swagger, and rightly so. Give me the grime and grit of Peanut Butter Lovesicle's blues rock, and keep it coming, boys, it's WAY too good....
Heavy Ghost, out of Cary, Illinois, is a five-piece making some of the most fantastically hazy and catchy shoegaze music I have heard in a long time. Actually, I can't name one other band I've heard in recent years making music that sounds quite like this. Definitely taking influence from the original crop of shoegazers from the early 90s, the vocals are hushed and part of the overall delightfully woozy feel of the songs. Synths are used brilliantly in all four songs of this EP, to give the songs their hazy vibes, and the surprise of a tambourine here and there, well that just puts a little bit of psychedelia into the mix, perfectly. Heavy Ghost has given us an amazing little debut EP, go listen on their Band Camp page, and get it for yourself.
DSK loves the DIY spirit of young, creative musicians who are saying F the system, let's make music because we can do it ourselves, have a lot of fun, and give some cool people some great tunes. I recently briefed you on Alligator Indian, a band from North Carolina, USA, working on some great garage/punk tunes. Well they have some buddies who are also involved in the DIY music scene of North Carolina, a Greensboro band by the name of Boy Party (I do believe there is a little story behind the name, 'borrowed' perhaps from another buddy's blog name?!). Boy Party have recorded their first EP called On Yr Lips in Nathan's garage earlier this year, and this EP is lo-fi garage rock lover's heaven: 5 songs of sweet, sometimes tongue-in-cheek, lyrics sung over perfectly jangled (or perfectly fuzzy, in the case of I Saw You and the title track) guitars: odes to kissing, the beach, and lazy summer days spent wishing for things you don't have. So, Boy Party is Nathan, Zack, and Logan currently seniors in high school, getting ready for arts & film-making studies in college next year, but for now, they are having some great fun in the garage, literally, with their music. Nathan, don't worry: people will most definitely hear your songs! Folks ready for some fun tunes should go right HERE for a free download of the EP. I can certainly see this EP on lots of peoples' summer play lists, fits right along with anything Real Estate and Beach Fossils: pure summer bliss.
6Noir, from Paris, France, recently released their debut EP, a self-titled, 4-song, mind-blowing debut of an EP. The band have a signature sound: the dark, dusty, sultry sound of the old American West, which they have woven brilliantly into the fabric of their songs. I am not talking spaghetti-western, which psych fans may know as the type of western-style music favored by Spindrift, Federale, and Los Sundowners. I adore the spaghetti western of all those named bands, of course, but 6Noir has gone for something different with the western flair, something bigger and more epic, and immediately they come on to the scene with music that captivates with stories sung over twangy western-style guitar, and stomps of heavy drums and bass lines. Deep, rich sounds of growling guitar compliment Prisoners; False Sun gallops along a driving beat with tambourines, as strums of guitar fill the song. Salvation, a slow-burner with lovely lyrics, builds to a crescendo, lets down to a descrescendo, on and on, with the big guitar ride missing in so much of today's rock music. The West is just, well.....The West echoes with the twang & stomp so perfectly played by 6Noir, such a swagger, indeed. You can practically hear the spurs *click* on that one, a true highlight of this debut EP.
6Noir is a three-piece: Raphael sings, Louis plays guitar, Roscoe drums. For a three-piece, their sound is huge. Sometimes I think I am listening to a five-piece. The guys are relatively new to the music scene, starting out as a band in May, 2009, in Paris, and now that they've finished and released this brilliant debut EP, they are working on their second EP (to be released in January 2011), and for the more distant (hopefully not TOO distant) future, a full length album.
The band is in the process of packing up their gear and a few belongings, and moving from France, down to that mecca of all things psychedelic, Sydney, Australia. They are quite excited about this move, as they don't really find France as the place for them and their music, and feel the scene in Sydney will be more receptive to them as serious musicians. Sydney seems to 6Noir to be the place for them to really open up as a band, get involved in music seriously, and find like-minded people to spend their time with and play their music for. Raphael says "(Where we are now) we don't feel as a part of it, and as matter of fact, I wouldn't say there is an actual scene, call it whatever you like to, but we see many bands, and we know them but we feel most of the bands are just trying to be the new Rolling Stones (!) , the new Strokes, the new Black Keys....the thing is, Paris doesn't care about the essence of music. Some see music as an opportunity to make some dough and organize "rock n roll nights", but it's all fake and full of trends. People come, they might enjoy the night, they get drunk, and those who organize stab the artists in the back really..." 6Noir feel the opposite is true of Sydney, and I am inclined to agree, knowing what I know of the Sydney scene......ALL of Australia, really. That country has given us psych fans an ungodly amount of fantastic music in recent years. We certainly are lucky that musicians from down under make their music and send it all over the world to the rest of us. Good to know 6Noir will be finding such a great new home to continue doing what they're doing, surrounded by people who appreciate it for more than just a drunk night out! I, for one, cannot wait for their next release.
Psychedelic soul......folk-a-delic......just plain fantastic, people. Silver Phial, from Los Angeles, California, USA: check them out now HERE. Smooth and lovely, full of spirit, full of soul. Review to come soon, but for now, enjoy the tunes on MySpace and on Last.fm. They are beautiful, and so is their music. What a vibe......life can be so good, can't it??
I have had the pleasure of owning and listening to Silver Phial's debut EP, Aeronautique, now, for a few weeks. Each time I listen, I find myself singing along. For those of you who enjoy a good dose of modern bands like The Quarter After, Thousand Dozen Gloves, The Stevenson Ranch Davidians, or classic bands like The International Submarine Band, or Mountain Bus, you will adore the country style folk-a-delic tunes of Silver Phial. Aeronautique consists of four original songs composed and produced by the band, and a cover of a tune by the wonderful Emmit Rhodes, Better Side of Life. Harpsichord-tinged Mountain Boy is a sweet tale from the countryside, where from hardships, dreams emerge and take a soul away from it all. Ohio is my sing-along-song: grab your tambourine, join in! The title track is a catchy, upbeat pondering of what could be, on the freedom of wings. The Emmit Rhodes cover, Better Side of Life, better than the original? Could very well be, it's a must-hear. The EP's closing song, Seasons of Love, a warm, sexy tune: bit of jazz, bit of sway, wraps it up perfectly.
Photo credit: Sarah Morrison, courtesy of the band's MySpace.
Time for me to take this blog back to its roots: to a young band from the UK, who just happen to be a slice of the same psychedelic heaven that Black Market Karma come from, AND they happen to be friends and gig partners with BMK. Daylight Frequencies is this band, and you HAVE to hear them, if you consider yourself even a small fan of today's psychedelic music. I, of course, am a BIG fan of this music, so I jumped at the chance to experience Daylight Frequencies' soon-to-come EP. From the beginning, from the opening swirls of Lions Den, which explodes into a psychedelic supernova that The Black Angels would be envious of, this five-song EP, the band's debut, is relentless. As Lions Den flutters to a close, Six In The Chamber pops one of those caps in you, with guitars that sound like an army. Rustic Bones, a just-evil-enough trip through the guitar walls with some heavy organ accents, slides you into The Day Thief, which growls and swirls full of the dirtiest guitar and heaviest pounding drums ever, and ends with you in a hypnotic trance. Where The Light Flows ends the EP with a slow and sensual groove that turns into an immense flood of, you guessed it, my favorite style of guitar: oh so dirty, and oh so psychedelic. Pretty much a perfect EP, from start to finish.
The demos of Daylight Frequencies were recorded mostly with three members, although the band does consider itself a four-piece, just looking for the perfect fourth, a permanent drummer. Luke kindly answered some questions for us, here is a little q & a:
You are friends/gig partners with Black Market Karma? Oh yeah! They're a great band, we put them on in Leicester sometime last year for a psych night we did. We're hoping to get together to play some shows in France together soon. I know they've been over a few times and say the crowds are cool over there.
How long have you been together & working on this music as Daylight Frequenies? We've been going about a year and a half on off, trying to get the line up right.
We were going strong until last summer our drummer left. We decided to wipe the slate clean, write and record all new material and start promoting that as much as we can.
What influences your music, from bands to anything else out there in the world? A lot of bands, but i think also writers such as Hunter S. Thompson, Jack Kerouac, Aldous Huxley. These are all great writers. But a lot of our material comes out of jams at rehearsal, then we'll put our heads together and pick out the best pieces, listening back over a game of darts or something.
What would you want listeners to take as the 'experience' of your sound? One review described us as "Strung out, heavy Psychedelia" which i think has a nice ring to it. We go for a big wall of sound, try and take the listener to a bigger place. We encourage them to close their eyes and just let it take them where it will.
Also, is there anything you would want readers to know about you & your band?
We'll be finishing the new E.P in March 2010, we're trying to get it released. But it will be available for download by the end of the month. Keep checking our Myspace for upcoming dates (if you are in the Leicester area, which I wish I was).
Daylight Frequencies has got that edge, that deep, heavy sound, that gets into your head and makes you a little mental. Their music will get into you. Check it out.
Thank you Luke, for your help with this. My best to you and the band.
Tokyo Raid is a three-piece band from San Fransisco, California. Ben Utah sings and plays bass, Tim Kearney sings and plays guitar, and Mike Thompson plays drums. I came across the music of Tokyo Raid last summer, when I was following leads to good bands by finding out what ex-BJM members are doing (Dean Taylor was playing with Tokyo Raid predecessor The Mandarins a while back) when they leave The Brian Jonestown Massacre. Seeing Dean Taylor's name in The Mandarins, I listened to their songs, and they were some brilliant, catchy little rock songs, something I wanted more of, so I chased up the artist a bit more, finding that Mandarins main man Ben Utah had a band called Tokyo Raid. The songs playing on their MySpace player were from their EP Cleopatra. I wanted it, pronto. Did not find it, but did find their self-titled EP on iTunes. Indulgence and Source Inside, totally addictive songs with their fast, sharp drums and angular, punk-ish guitars. Dark Eyes, Battle of Seattle, and the biggest winner of that EP, Sunday Morning, a long, smooth charmer of a tune, make up Tokyo Raid's self-titled EP. Also now available from the band are a second EP titled When The Devil Calls, Tell Him To Take A Number, and 2 singles titled Let's Pretend We're Friends and 31, all worth getting, my friends. Great garage-style guitar rock, smart, energetic, and edgy.
I asked my favorite edgy guitar rockers a few questions, to see what Tokyo Raid have been up to:
How long have you been making music, and what different projects have you been involved with over the years? Other bands and solo stuff?
MIKE: Been playing music for 20 years this year. Had few bands in high school then formed The Big Nasty before college, played with them for 8 years, 4 of which were spent in Austin,TX. Then moved here and freelanced, then joined Midnight Strangers which led to my current stint in Tokyo Raid.
TIM: I started playing in bands in Washington, DC. The most notable were called Red Right Return and LBJ. I've also recorded some soundtrack work for some short indie films.
BEN: I’ve been in bands since I was 17. I was in a bunch of Seattle and San Francisco bands and I have done solo stuff.
Has Tokyo Raid become your main project now? Are you playing gigs around your home city of San Francisco?
TIM: TR is now my main project. Most SF clubs look down on bands that play too often within the City so we try to space out our local shows to every 4-6 weeks. We're now also playing more shows up and down the west coast.
MIKE: Yup.
BEN: TR has been my main project since 2004. We are looking forward to playing in other cities in 2010. When we were still called the Mandarins, we had an aborted Europe tour and I would love to correct that and start playing beyond the West Coast.
What is happening around your home city? Does it feel energized as far as music goes? Do you fit into a scene there?
TIM: There are a lot of scenes in SF but there seems to be decent cross-pollination between them. Tokyo Raid probably hovers somewhere between the SF garage rock crowd and the Oakland rock/punk crowd. Although it's common to find some gypsies, metal heads, and drum and bass fans at our shows.
BEN: I have never comfortably felt like I belong to one scene or another. I think there are a ton of things happening right now, but it’s so marginalized or splintered it is sometimes hard to see if anything is happening at all, until it does happen.
What kind of guitars/amps/gear do you use? (I love learning what my fave musicians use & enjoy playing on, and I think others enjoy this too)
MIKE: Ludwig drums, Paiste cymbals
TIM: I play a Gibson hollowbody electric guitar through a 1980's Marshall head that powers an Orange cabinet.
BEN: Since switching to bass, I am playing an Epiphone Jack Casady Bass through a bass big muff and into an Ampeg SVT-3 and out a Peavey Black Widow cabinet. It’s a hollowbody as well so it gets great growl and feedback.
What artists do you yourself enjoy?
MIKE: The Who, The Clash, Motorhead, Dropkick Murphys, whatever rocks...
TIM: Some regional bands I like are The DoDos, Bellavista and The Entrance Band.
BEN: I’ve been listening to a ton of Suicide, Joy Division and She Wants Revenge lately. I am digging everything from the Black Angels right now.
What is Tokyo Raid working on right now? Are there albums available to us yet, or will there be in the near future? What does 2010 hold for you and your projects?
TIM: We're about to release five or six songs we worked on over the Fall of 2009. The recording process took longer than expected so we've had time to write some new material while recording older songs. We'd like to crank out future songs faster using a more live recording style.
BEN: Tim’s right, we labored over most of 2009 on songs we were recording, it ended up taking more time than we expected. We should have two releases shortly…the new one plus back catalog stuff off of Cleopatra will be available online soon. Once that is available, all the EP’s will be up and online.
Is there a trip to NYC in your future?!
TIM: My last band played a show in Brooklyn a few years back. I've had the itch to visit NYC lately so it's ALWAYS an option!
BEN: I would love to get out to NYC.
Where can we find your music and more about the band?
On the quiet side, introspective and lovely, Chatham Rise are working on music to make you love long winter nights. Based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where the winter nights are indeed cold and long, Chatham Rise are making songs with names like Here, Gone, and Air. Do you get a feeling instantly, just from hearing the song titles? The band's name, their song titles, and their artwork do convey a feeling before you even hear a note. Chatham Rise's debut EP opens with Gone, a wistfully gorgeous piece of sound, which begins with strummed guitar and slightly sad vocals, then thunders into big guitar and drums. Autopilot uses tribal, pulsing beats to pull along the drone, and the chanting, ghostly vocals. Border Crossing is shoegaze at its finest: a calming, sweetly sad melody with barely-there vocals, just enough to warm you a bit. Fans of Chapterhouse and Slowdive will love Border Crossing. Here closes the EP with a sparse guitar, and almost no percussion, light vocals, and a feeling of hope and high, above the melancholy. This self-titled debut EP is self-produced by the band, and I am honored to have special copy of it in my collection. Sad yet uplifting, quiet yet inspirational, Chatham Rise indeed make you feel. Check them out on MySpace, friends.
The intriguingly dark & groovy sounds of Strangers Family Band have drawn me in. I have been playing their EP, Beware The Autumn People, a lot, found from reading the amazing all-psych-all-the-time blog Trip Inside This House. I mention these words 'dark & groovy', but there is soooo much more here, so much more. The seven songs that comprise this psychedelic gem of an EP have been crafted by five young men who have been musicians practically their entire lives, and came together two years ago as a complete band with the talent and desire to create songs that are as compelling as they are catchy. The title track, Beware The Autumn People, kicks in with carnival-like keys, which slide into a stomp of drums and guitar reverb, and lazy vocals, slurred over the stomp. Strange Transmission, with its unmistakable Doors-vibe, is just brilliant: from the deep, slightly ominous, Morrison-style vocals, to the organ keys in the background, to the imagery of a spiral staircase leading you to a midnight splendor. This song meanders its way through image to image, hypnotically. Tangerine is two precious minutes of space cadets and sweet dreams, set to a lovely little organ melody. Wooden Hands is.....a mysteriously dark, unique, quite catchy....love song?? Not your ordinary love song, I assure you! Enochian is a spooky little minute of whispery effects over possibly a sermon. Girl I've Been Taken, with its sly-sounding vocals and little organ jam at the end is probably the grooviest slice of psychedelica I have ever heard. No One Sees Her comes on as a happy little jaunt, with horns over plucky guitars and light, bouncy drums, but still......something dark lurks in the background...... The members of Strangers Family Band seem to have been born to make music. Scott (bass) and Rick (guitar) are brothers who have been playing music as long as they can remember. Rick and Juan (who plays drums) played music together in high school, and Scott and Ates (vocals) became song-writing partners in college. Kevin, their bloody brilliant keyboardist, was the last addition to the Family, and completes it oh so well. The band name, well, that just seemed to fit perfectly as they are truly either blood or close enough to it, and strange indeed, intriguingly so. Currently on heavy rotation in the Strangers' house is music that comes from some of the most creative minds of the 60s and 70s, albums that take you on theme-park rides through their concepts, albums by The Kinks, The Pretty Things, The Beatles, early Donovan, 13th Floor Elevators, and Syd-era-Floyd, to name just a few. Conceptually, Strangers Family Band is planning on taking us on their own musical-mind-trip beyond the Beware The Autumn People EP, with the full-length they are currently working on. Scott cites some interesting influences that go beyond even obscure psychedelica or concept albums: Balkan folk music and Carnatic music. This is one band who is so left-of-center, I have to admire and love it! Somehow, Strangers Family Band take their talent and their love of so many different styles of creative, interesting music, and make their own quirky, hypnotic, darkly enthralling music. Besides the requisite drums, guitar, and bass, Strangers Family Band utilizes Hammond organ, sitar, electric sitar, ukulele, upright bass, quattro, and tablas. On the upcoming album, a multitude of local musician friends of the Family play guest. For now, go to their site and download Beware The Autumn People. What are you waiting for?! Go check out Strangers Family Band! A big, warm thank you, to Scott from Strangers Family Band, for enlightening me about the band, and big thanks to the whole band for making this amazing psychedelic music and sharing it with us!
This blog's sole purpose is to bring some well-deserved publicity to new or less-known artists who fit the bill of 'new psychedelic, shoegaze, experimental, folk, and garage rock' music, through videos, links to MySpace pages and Band Camp pages of the artists, gig reviews, and through interviews with, and information about, the artists themselves. It is dedicated to Black Market Karma. Their music made me want to shout about it from the rooftops. But today, instead of rooftops, we have the internet & blogs, yeah.
November 2011: DSK Blog is retired. It's been a fun 3 years, soooooo much thanks to all who contributed and participated!
