At the Knitting Factory, NYC... Nov 12 2008...
Headed up to this one with Mike from Prophase. We were both a bit burnt from this same bill minus La Otracina, playing the night before in Philly. Took the train this time around and was also safe in the knowledge that was heading into work late the next day. Unfortunately we got there a bit late and missed openers
Khoutek who had put on a nice set of slow boil psych the night before. Tuning into their CDs on the way up revealed some nice Spacemen 3 and/or Floyd tendencies.
We ran in for
Mondo Drag and only caught the end of their set, definitely disappointing (that we missed most of their set, I mean), as they were shit hot in Philly; a great blend of Sabbath type heaviness and some really fluid, ultra spacey guitar work. Nice and tight but just enough room for some really out there guitar action. It ain't all mega heavy though, in Philly they played a jam that was so close to the Ghost/Kurihara/Quicksilver thing that I was stressing trying to figure out if it was a cover or not. Anyway it was a great 15 minutes or so we got to see of them. Very impressive and their CD is great, too. And the Quicksilvery jam is on their CD and
myspace "Death Rattles." We celebrated them by feasting on an awesome cookie and hoisting Red Stripes. Here are some pics of Mondo Drag from Marvelous in Philly.
La Otracina were great as always, taking over with that swagger and spazz deal. Newish guitar dude Phil is fitting in great and they are like heavy Hawkwind psych at points, but also punk and shit. I swear, my buzzed skull was demanding I yell out for "Walk Together, Rock Together" but luckly I didn't listen. They played the hits "Raze the Sky" and "Fight For The Night" as well as a jam that either was "Kick Out the Jams" or sounded just like it. I was a little dizzy at the point, so sue me. The heavy riffing and the swinging drums and that little bit of evil in with all the good vibes.
We retired for some much needed awes and a smoke break outside. It seems the
Knitting Factory is moving to Brooklyn, which is a bummer of course. I saw a lot of great bands there and had lots of good times. Yep.
So this was the moment...
Plastic Crimewave Sound with Djin Aquarian of
Yahowa 13 as their second guitarist. I actually had to bail before they played their Philly gig, so this was my first exposure to the joined forces of psych goodness, all with that Chicago tie and stuff. Starting off with a cover of the Grateful Dead's "Caution (Do Not Step On Tracks)" (that is slated for release on a Dead covers comp I am putting together), the pretty much took off immediately, spirals and washes of deep guitar goodness mixed perfectly with each other. Steve was taking a more rock/heavy sound going on while Djin's acoustic through a bunch of effects provided such awesome color and background. While it was a super out there cover of one of the Dead's most heavy jams, Djin still gave a new dimension to the PCWS sound. I was definitely swirling myself and getting totally lost in the layers. Mark and Lawrence locked down a nimble (but not light) propulsive rhythm and Djin and Steve just piled on with the guitars. I stumbled around and took some pics and enjoyed more Red Stripe as they tore through some PCWS jams that sounded great with the addition of Djin's way distinctive play. They also played Djin's "Dinosaurs" and some other totally spontaneous jams. Nice long repetitive jams going deeper and deeper into the frontal lobe. Massively psychedelic, totally delivered on my high expectations. After much babble and beers and all that jazz, it was a knocked out train ride/car ride home for me and half day at the work place.
UPDATE: Ugh... PCWS and Mondo Drag got stopped at the Canadian border. Problems with the work papers... Massive bummer and the rest of the tour is canceled at this point... Fuck.
