New (ish) Demons: Jape Squad

Jape Squad
Breakfast With… 
Spooky Records 

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The Jape Squad is a many-limbed group of jangly Aussie superhipsters (I think there’s like, 7 of ‘em, plus maybe a couple more who just shake tambourines and look cool)  who sprang to wobbly life in 2001, with the intent to out-drug the Spacemen 3. Or at least to play some truly druggy Spacemen 3 covers. Their signature sound is gospel-tinged, soulful garage rock n’ slop that mixes the junkie-glam bliss pop of West Coast superfreaks like Brian Jonestown Massacre and the Dandies with the acid-fried Velvets-isms of Jesus and Mary Chain and whatever you want to call that ethereal, proggy space cult ‘otherness’ of the Polyphonic Spree. That’s a lot of crazy-ass sounds to mush together, but the Squad o’ Japes manage to squeeze a very groovy sound out of all the loose-limbed hippy-punk weirdness. “Breakfast” is not the meal that’s brought to mind while this one shimmers away on the stereo, but since they don’t have a name for eating bowls full of puffy clouds and rays of sunshine yet, I guess it’ll have to do.

Listen to 'em on Myspace!
Yeah, I know. Best I could do.

- Ken 

Just a reminder...

Hippie Death Goddess(es) of the Day

Joanna and Klara Soderberg are two teenage sisters from the burbs of Stockholm who craft swirly, woodsy folk-jams, dress up in hippie-chick rags and make Wicker Man-esque videos. It's acid folk without the acid, but twice the Swedish hippie chick.

They have a new album, Lion's Roar, out any day now. On vinyl! Sweet.

PS: If you have a little sister, she might also be into this band. They seem to have a pied piper effect on the kids. She could def do worse.

PPS:  the sisters are influenced primarily by Bright Eyes - which is still pretty good, for teenagers - but for street-cred sake, let's just say they are way into Susan Christie.

- Ken 

Gunslingers: Manifesto Zero

Gunslingers

Manifest Zero

World In Sound Records

Imagine if the British blues boom never happened in the late 60’s (a concept that Ken and I seem to be obsessed with). Everything else the same: The Vietnam war, LSD, Eastern Religion, free sex, Andy Warhol, Nixion, Black Panthers, the Fillmore East and West, the whole cosmic egg scramble. Just no Eric Claption, instead Rockabilly was all the rage, Johnny Burnette is king. The kids aped Charlie Feathers and Hasil Adkins (this would happen in the late 70’s of course, but I’m talikin’ Sci-Fi here) and John Mayall started an Eddie Cochran tribute band, later on they traded in their leather jackets for beads and the evolution of rock continued on its natural crash course with oblivion. Flash! It’s 2012 (wow!) and the Gunslingers seem to be oscillating around this parallel universe of rock history. As if that’s the way it went down.

MANIFESTO ZERO, the follow up to the amazing NO INVENTION came out back in 2010, where was I, smoking grass in Malibu listening to James Gang records? Meanwhile somewhere in France a Texas chainsaw “massa-cree” was going down. Instead of chainsaws it’s guitars. This is what Tex Watson heard inside his mescaline-addled brain when he was chasing the farmers wife around with a carving knife. Dig it!



-Swilson

Hippie Death Goddess ( of the Day)

Dana Gillespie was gorgeous, hip, and had an incredible voice. She was a former teenage water skiing champ! She went out with Donovan. Starred in Hammer films. Had a song produced by Jimmy Page. Backed up Bowie during the "Honky" Dory period and recored the Hippie Death Goddess anthem "DEAD". She currently fronts a blues band on a Caribbean island. Some girls have all the fun.

New Demons: Lobster Prophet

Lobster Prophet
Tropical Alien

LSD and Beer. Two great tastes that taste great together. It's not all King Crimson and Hawkwind when your on that stuff. Allot of times it's the New York Dolls and Laughing Hyenas. LSD makes you impervious to the effects of beer and beer makes you feel like your impervious in general, which is helpful when your on acid.



-Swilson

Orange Sunshine

Love = Acid (2003)
Motorwolf Records 

The problem with music in the late 60’s was the hippy shit, right? The goddamn peace and love stuff, the acoustic folkies, the going-to-San-Francisco-with-flowers-in-yr-hair. But what if the 60’s were as wildly murderous a time as these strange days? What if it was ALL Charlie Manson and napalm and muddy drugfreak people and Up Against the Wall, Motherfucker? Well, then, there’d only be, like, 5 bands left standing- the Stooges, the MC5, Hendrix, Blue Cheer, and Orange Sunshine. Not that dutch acid-warriors OS were actually THERE or nothin’ - the cats in the band were all born somewhere around the death-of-disco - but they sure the fuck sound it. This here album is such a throwback to the era, such an utterly authentic psyche-punk-blues fuzz-riot, that it seems bizarre such an artifact is on compact disc at all, like ya really oughta hold out for the reel-to-reel edition, ya know? Dig the 15 minute ode-to-Cream “Hey Mama”, complete with an extended space-madness supernova guitar solo that sounds like a mastodon slowly sinking into the tar pits, or their harmonica-driven fuck-blues take on “I’m a Man”, or the duck-walkin’, Chuck Berry-on-even-more-drugs retro-rock n’ roll of “Wham Bam…”, or the swank fuzzboogie of “Ain’t No Way” for ample evidence of OS’s brilliant UFO ride back to ‘Nam. Sez on the back that this ‘un was recorded “At Hans Mulder Studios, The Hague, 1971”, and even tho only half of that is true, you’ll believe it, man. This is the best idea 60’s drug rock has inspired since that time you dipped an entire Freak Brothers comic in blotter acid. See ya on the spaceship.



  - Ken