HW: Sleep & HW & various

[Carl Edlund Anderson]

On ons 13 jan 1999 14.00 -0800 "Doug Pearson" <ceres at SIRIUS.COM> wrote:
> Has anyone checked out the UK fanzine 'Bad Acid'?

     Yeah, someone I know got a copy.  It wasn't too bad, though
reviews were fantastically opinionated--and therefore quite amusing
to read :)  I was familiar with a number of the bands being reviewed,
and only disagreed with about half the relevant reviews though ;)

> On Wed, 13 Jan 1999 10:37:47 +0000, Carl Edlund Anderson
> <cea20 at CUS.CAM.AC.UK> wrote:
>>     There are plenty of "stoner" (awful term) bands I think are
>>damn good.  Having heard "Holy Mountain" ... I've heard worse, but
>>I don't think it deserves its rep at all!
>
> Who's your faves? (and for the record, my top Sleep release is the 'Volume
> 4' fake live 7")

     My top Sleep?  Couldn't say really.  The only Sleep I've heard
in the last several years is _Holy Mountain_.  I don't remember their
earlier stuff terribly well, and I've not heard the new _Jerusalem_
(so to speak ;)

     Of bands lumped into the genre I think the Spiritual Beggars
have to be my fave.  I've seen them twice, once with Orange Goblin
(good band!) on first and Fu Manchu (first UK appearance of
the reconstituted line-up) headlinging, and not surprisingly Fu
Manchu were very pro but the Spiritual Beggars blew everyone away.
The inevitable Sabbath comparisons get made, but they don't sound
anything like Sabbath to me.  More like early Monster Magnet
meets Gov't Mule.  Heavy groove boogie.
     There's a track on their latest album which reminds me much
of something from _ISOS_ era Hawkwind but heavier.  Even a few
swooshy noises thrown in.

     My other recent surprise discoveries would have to be Dark
Sun (whose new album I look forward to tremendously)--a very
polished, catchy kind of space-rock--and the Spacious Mind who
sounds IMO like ISOS/1st album era Hawkwind just jamming wildly.
I'm usually not a big fan of really loose unstructured stuff, but
these guys really make it work.  Very spontaneous and you get
the feeling they are really creating something right in front
of you (seeing them live, anyway).

> The guitarist for "stoner" rockers Noothgrush (with whom Primordial
> Underming, the space/psych band I'm in share a rehearsal space) is a
pretty
> mean space-rock analog synth (ARP Odyssey, maxi-Korg, etc.) player, too.
> And although I like most of Hawkwind's ambient/techno stuff a lot, I'd
> still rather see 'em Kick Out The Jams!

     Well, Hawkwind have done some good floaty ambient stuff.  It
seems to dominate more now--or perhaps the rocky stuff isn't as
as rocky in comparison.  This decade, I think they hit on a
particularly good formula around 92-93--ironically, as the 3-piece--
playing really in-your-face space-rock, Brock really wailing on
guitar, and then slipping floaty ambient bits in as light to the
shade.  The enormous intro > Out of the Shadows > Snake Dance >
whatever medleys they had going were great.  They didn't even
need any sequencers and stuff to produced a perfect space rock
sound, they could pretty much do it as the three-piece alone!

     If Alan Davey gets a really heavy-sounding Bedouin album
out, he could do worse than send it to Kerrapp!  There are
a few people there who seem to have their hearts in the right
place, and Bedouin's live gigs certainly ought to appeal to
the segment of Kerrapp!'s readership that are eating up the
post-Kyuss bands.
     Heck maybe even HW could pull that off, but its been so
long since they've played, who knows what they sound like?
It always seems to change :)

Cheers,
Carl

--
Carl Edlund Anderson
Dept. of Anglo-Saxon, Norse, & Celtic
St. John's College, University of Cambridge
mailto:cea20 at cus.cam.ac.uk
http://hea-www.harvard.edu/~carl/