This is a site where I post reviews of CDs, DVDs, LPs, and concerts. I have been writing music reviews on and off since 1984. I ran a heavy metal fanzine from 1984-1988 called Metal Madness and have been a staff writer for Aural Innovations for many years. I have also contributed to Chrohinga Well (RIP), Bad Acid (RIP), Lowcut (RIP), Roadburn and a number of other zines as well. I recently moved to Portugal so please request the new address and do not send any music to Denmark anymore. Tak..
This
was a very cool event at the large “gray” hall in Christiania. Magnus came over
to my place for some food and a couple of beers before we rode our bikes out to
Christiania. I learned a new way to go, which is much easier than the way I
normally go. We arrived about 19:15 and a circle of our friends (Nils, Karen,
Tom, Cven, Rhona, Anders and some others) were having some beers, joints,
mushrooms and just smiling and in a good mood. I joined them for a bit but then
wanted to go in and see what it was all about inside and see the documentary
movie about the making of the first Spids Nøgenhat album back in 2000.
Flowershowers- The light wizard….
Flowershowers had done amazing job
and there was projections of mushrooms and whatever images he wanted to project
on all the walls in the hall. It looked totally amazing. I think I counted 12
projectors that he controlled via one huge station at the front.
Anyway, the movie started at 20
and I stood and watched it with Nick Hasselby, who is featured prominently in
the movie, since it was his studio where On Trial and Spids Nøgenhat used to
rehearse and record some, that the movie takes place. It was also the Orpheus
records headquarters for some years. I had been to the Mad Scientists Studio a
few times. I also have known all the guys in this band for many years and
travelled with them to Hannover for the only Spids Nøgenhat outside of Denmark
in Hannover. Anyway, the movie is nearly
all in Danish except a small part where they travel to GZ digital media in the
Czech Republic and tour the record pressing plant and actually film the master
being cut. The movie is really cool and lasts about 40mins. There is not a lot
of the band playing but a few cuts from the studio, a fun interview where Guf,
Morten, Hobbitten and Nick are all stoned and talking about the record and
stuff. Perfect intro to this event.
The
band hit the stage about 21:15 and the place was pretty packed now. It was sold
out with about 1000 tickets sold. The band opened with Mere Lys from the new
record. The sound was actually really good considering this less than ideal
barn with a concrete floor, which always presents a challenge for sound people.
The visuals, were just mindblowing! Powerful, dynamic, psychedelic and trippy…
Some of the coolest I have ever seen and stitched together in such a cool way
and the same images was on the front of the screen, on the sides of the hall
and also the back of the hall. Incredible.. The band quickly zipped through a
lot of songs playing them all pretty straight with little improvisaton or jamming,
which used to be a much bigger part of the concerts, when they had fewer songs
to play. They mixed in the old tracks like Gi Slip, Psykedelisc tapet, with all
the new ones as well as covers fromFurekåben, and the
political Røde Mor (Lille Johnny). When the band played En I Græsset, I was
reminded of my friend Ralph Rjeily a lot, who used to manage the band and do
sound. He was a good friend and we all miss him a lot. He would have been
really proud and also amazed to see the Den Grå hall sold out and hundreds of
people singing along to Vand, Brød og Te, and other tracks. Ralph would have
smiled as I did…
The band left the stage for about
5 mins after a long spaced out version of Hvad har Du?, where Lorenzo had the
whole place singing, Spids Nøgenhat! Part of the jam was totally out into 1971
Hawkwind area when the jam was really intense. Hobitten was on the floor making
space sounds, the wall of blanga was powerful and very psychedelic. Guf was
freaking out on the organ as well.. This was at least 15-20 minutes long. The
band wanted to keep the jam going but Lorenzo was soaking wet from head to toe
and dripping and needed a break. Wow.. very cool stuff.
The encore tracks, of which there
were 5, I think were more straight up and not jammed out and started with a
cool version of Kommer med Fred, with Anders the drummer standing up waving the
peace signs and some of the audience followed…. He eventually played the drums
though and they extended this out some compared to the LP version. Lorenzo would switch from 12 string acoustic
guitar to the farfisa organ on nearly every other song and he was clearly
having a great time as everyone in the band seem to be. The concert ended the
mellow Ud på Landet. The ending, which was really intense at Roskilde Festival
a few years ago where the entire audience at 4 in the morning jst kept singing
the ending chorus over and over for like 5 mins after the band stopped playing,
did not happen here tonight.. The band gave it their all and played the entire
new record and most of the old songs and a few covers. I think the show was
about 2hrs and 10mins. I did not shoot any video as I was not in a very good
place with too many tall people but I am sure there will be some on you
tube.
We are really lucky in Denmark to
have such an amazing and creative psychedelic band that sings in the native
language. It is quite special lyrics and very meaningful a powerful songs if
you understand it. Amazing band….
Set List: Mere Lys, Hobittens Flyvetur, Gi’ Slip,
Lever Vi Nu, Det Psykedelikse Tapet, Den Gennemsigte
Mand, Lillie Johnny, Spids Nøgenhat i Græset, Jørden Kælder, Lolland-Falster,
Vand, Brød og Te, Hva har du taget?, Kommer med
Fred, Langebro, Når Spindelvævene Blomsterv, Udkoks, Ud på
Landet
This
was the first time this festival was held and the organizers went for an
amazing world class line up of psych bands, flying them in from UK, USA,
Germany, Sweden, etc.. to play. It was a good showcase of young Portuguese
bands as well. The audience was mostly PT music fans but I met people who flew
in from the UK, Ireland, Scotland, Holland, Germany, Finland and a few other places
as well. The weather was the best I have ever experienced at a music festival.
A mix of sun and clouds all day and clear and warm at night. You could go in
shorts, sandals, and a t-shirt 24hrs! Unbelievable.
Valada
is a very small town about 45mins away from Lisbon on a beautiful river
setting. The festival site was amazing with three stages and the camping out in
a small area full of trees. It was very easy to get around to all the stages,
food and beer places nicely placed, decent bathroom facilities, etc.. This was
all great and no complaints. Very cool decoration as well with the snake theme
and these orange stretched fly overs between the trees. The mood was fantastic
and I guess there was about 1000-1500 people. There was actually 3500 on friday and 4500 on saturday but it did not at all feel like that many people. Small beers were 1€, large 2€. Food and drinks were very
cheap. The festival t-shirt was 10€. The band merch was normal Europe prices of
15-20€ for shirts, cds, lps, etc.. so I guess they did not sell much except to
the foreigners. The security people
were really cool and laid back and when they checked my bag one time and I was
telling them I only had my diary, glasses, camera, phone, etc.. He said and a big
bag of marijuana! They did not care. People were freely smoking everywhere,
which was nice to see, such a relaxed environment and attitude. In fact, I
never saw a single person totally out of it the festival. Ok, so about the
bands…
Unrecognized
We arrived on the Thursday around
16, after a very nice grilled salmon lunch at the hotel. It was pretty easy to
find the festival site and find a place to park. This was a
sort of pre-festival and they had a stage set right on the water in a
location near the church in town. It was basically free for everyone since it
was on a normal street but you could get your wristband near the festival site
so you could just to straight in the next day. The first band was supposed to
start at 17 but they did not start until a bit after 18:45, so they were
already nearly 2hrs behind to start. The first band was a PT band called Unrecognized. They were a trio with a
powerful female singer, drums and guitar. The drums were very loud in the mix
and terrible sounding (but it would get better). They played a sort of bluesy
hard rock and would have been much better if they had a bass player. The guitar
player played some cool riffs but it was all a bit too much the same in the end
and no guitar solo or anything interesting to make their music stand out. They
played like 25mins. There was around 100 people watching.
DW VOID was next and they were no psychedelic either, a pretty
standard rock band with bass, drums, guitar and organ. The bass player doing
the vocals. Sue and I hung out a lot this evening with the old bass player from
Toner Low and his wife. Very cool people. They were ok but did not do much for
us.
It was still nearly 1½hrs later
when Torpe hit the stage. They were
a five piece band with two guitars, keys, bass and drums. They had a great bass
player and drummer and played instrumental music but neither guitar player
played any solos or anything particularly interesting which was a pity as if
they had a great guitar player it would be a pretty cool band.
Squq was next and now quite a lot of people, maybe 200 were
gathering around on the hill and near the stage. This band had a great energy
and a cool 4 piece horn section. The singer was a bit like Eddie Vedder, good
presence and some excellent songs. We really got into this band and they also
had a very good time. I would like to hear more of these guys. Hung out with a
really cool Spanish guy who was a big Øresund Space Collective fan. We would
see him a lot and hang out over the next days.
Aqua nebula Oscillator were on and I had missed them or only seen a
few minutes at Roadburn when they played so it was cool get to see them play at
least a 45mins set. We had talked with the singer/guitar player earlier and he
was very nice. He liked their show in Copenhagen a week or so ago even though
few people were there. Anyway, they play really cool Occult psyche rock with
strange themes, samples and cool spaced out synths and amazing guitar solos. He
is a far out player but really cool. They get all painted up and have a cool
stage presence this three piece of guitar, drums and synths. Fun stuff. It was
nearly 1 in the morning now and I had to drive 20mins back to the hotel so we
missed Mars Red Sky, which is a pity as I have all their records but still have
not seem them live. I heard they were really good.
Day 2
Killimanjaro
Feeling of Love
This day started at 12 with Cave
Story and ended at 6:00 with the Cosmic Dead! Each band only gets 30mins and
like 25 bands will play today. A bit crazy I think but let’s see how it goes. We
arrived in time to catch some of The Feeling of Love so we only missed 3 bands
(Black Leather, Putas Dedadas, The Jabberwocky Band). Feeling of love played
some cool 60s inspired psych with organ and a really good singer. Killimanjaro (PT) was a high engery
R&R band with a cool black bass player. They had the crowd going a bit but
still not that many people watching the bands yet (maybe 200?).
Francois Sky and Guests
Francois Sky (DE) and Guests, was an
interesting mixture of people from different countries and bands joining
Francious, who played guitar and activated the drum machine and sampler for the
other two guitar players and bass player to play along to. The first track was
really cool and then the next one did not really go anywhere and he aborted it
as the band was not really doing what he wanted them to. They played two more
songs and one was cool and the other was not so… It was clearly not very well
rehearsed or planned.
Asteroid 4
Originally
you should have been able to see on band on the Rio stage and then go down to
the Sabatoge stage and see the next but both scenes were off schedule so it was
a bit of a mess and you either watched one full concert and then caught a few
mins of the next and vice versa so you only caught pieces of these 30min sets..
Real bummer they could not keep the schedule.
Bombus
Born a Lion
Born a Lion was a kick ass PT band with the drummer singing. They
were very stoner rock like but the guitar player was only riffing and played
very few if any guitar solos. Seems the art of the real rock guitar solo is
dying out. Asteriod 4 was a band I
wanted to see but due to the schedule, we only caught like one song (really
cool HW inspired stuff) as I was hanging out with my friends in Graveyard and
watching the only other Swedish band at the festival, Bombus. They were the only metal band that played at the festival
and they were cool two guys doing the lead vocals, dual guitars but only riffs,
no solos, and high intensity. The soundman was terrible and I would say this
was the only band for the whole festival that did not have quite excellent
sound. Way too much bass and you could not hear the guitars clearly.
Wooden Hand
Cave
Sleepy Sun
Wooden Hand, is an American singer songwriter guy who just sings
cool stuff and plays electric guitar with some reverb on it. It was chilled and
people seem to like it quite a bit including us. Sunflare were a very intense PT instrumental trio that liked to
freak out! Guitar player was quite mad and cool. A bit like a noisy version of
their country mates, Black Bombaim. Sleepy
Sun from San Francisco were excellent and we caught most of their set as
Sunflare only played like 20mins. The singer in Sleepy Sun was cool and it was
a great band with cool songs and some excellent guitar work from the guy on the
left. So far, this was the best band of the day and also the most people we had
seen. Seems there was maybe 300 people and about 500-1000 on the festival site.
Cave were a five piece instrumental
PT band that played really hypnotic music. Some was a bit boring but then some
of it was really great. They reminded me a bit of 7 that Spells but without the
really great guitar playing.
The Wytches
We
were really in need of food now so we headed over to the only restaurant in
Valada, called the Eel house, where the main dish was some sort of pork,
everyday. We could hear Woods play
as it was not far from the Sabatoge stage and they sounded really excellent. I
wish we could have seen that concert. We saw one song of Ringo Deathstar on the Rio stage, who were a trio with a female
bass player. Rock and Roll! This was the end of the bands on the small stages
and now they opened up the big main stage area for the first time and 5 bands
will play from 20 to 02 in the morning and then the small stages start up again
until 6 in the morning. The Wytches
(UK) was a totally new band for Sue and I and we thought they were pretty cool.
They reminded me a lot of Nirvana but with a totally different guitar sound,
more 60s with lots of reverb and effects but the same attitude and energy. Cool
stuff..
Sweredriver, were an old UK
band from the 80s, I think. Sue and I did not like these guys at all. It was a
very dated Indie psych that I was never much of a fan of. Crowd seem to like
them ok but they did not get as good a response as The Wytches. We walked
around and checked the artists, people selling clothes, the painting wall,
merch stand, etc.. bought a t-shirt.
Red
Fang, had played at Roadburn but I did not see them so this was the first
time for me. There was about 1000 people now and they crowd was really into it
and crowdsurfing, etc.. I quite liked the attitude and high energy. These guys
were really into it, powerful and very professional with some tight
arrangements. A really Rollins band, like hardcore energy.. Hardcore and metal
mixed but almost no guitar solos despite two guitars.
Graveyard were next and again the crowd a big and the sound good.
The guys were in a great mood when I spoke with them earlier and this was their
last show for half a year as they start to make the demos for recording the
next record in 3 weeks. They opened with Blue Soul and it sounded great. They
would also play 2-3 more from the first record. The songs from Lights Out
really don’t stand up that well live to the early songs and they hardly have
any guitar solo parts. Man, the singer is still just sounding totally amazing
and the band have such and great vibe and sound. I really hope they go for more
longer tracks, with cooler guitar parts on the next record. Still a great band.
Love em!
Electric Wizard had the largest crowd of the entire festival for
sure. I guess 12-1500 people. I had hoped they would play some new material but
it was more of less the same stuff I have seen them play the last few years,
with Supercoven, Black Mass, Dopethrone, etc… What a killer and powerful sound.
They did not seem as spaced out and jamming as the last gig at Roadburn but Sue
and I liked them a lot and so did the crowd.
I spoke a bit to Dave and Ego from
White Hills but Sue and I were
pretty blasted after 12 hours of running around that we did not stay to see
them play starting at 2:20.. All the best bands for the day were late tonight
with White Hills, Naam, Black Bombaim, Cosmic Dead, The Telescopes, Rising Sun
experience (I just reviewed their CD and really wanted to see them) and Miss
Lava… Damn… Wonder how many people saw all these bands til 6 in the morning? Next
time we will rent a camper so we can stay locally and not have to stay sober to
drive the 20mins back to the hotel every night.
Day 3
We arrived a bit later today but
seems they were running behind schedule on both stages so the first band we
caught was Dreamweapon. This was a
three guitar line up and included the same bass player as in Francois Sky’s
band. They played very hypnotic stuff with some effects on the vocals that made
it pretty psychedelic at times. François came out and played on their last
number. Next up was a UK band called Air
Formation. They were an hour behind schedule now. Air Formation were too
boring. I have never been a big fan of this melodic dreamy psych stuff even
though they can sometimes have some really cool guitar. We saw only two songs
and then left to go see Exit Calm.
This was also some sort of indie rock that sounded like Slow Dive (that is what
my Finnish friend, Arto said!). We saw a few songs and then back to the Rio
stage to catch the band Mugstar,
whom I had never seen before. There was not a pretty decent crowd of 2-300
people. This was really hypnotic stuff with a very simple bass line, in fact he
played almost the same note the entire 30mins but the keyboard player who also
did the vocals, was freaking crazy and made far out sounds, strange vocals, and
even played melodica! I would like to see them do a longer set. Fun stuff.
Luckily, we only missed the very
beginning of the the PT band, The
Quartert of Noah! This was probably the best PT band we saw at the
festival. A very intense distorted sound and infact their sound guy screwed up
the PA as there was some noise from some bands all the time after this! Anyway,
intense guitar, bass, drums and orgain-keyboard player. The guitar and organ
player shared the vocals and both just really had a lot of energy. I am not
sure how to describe them really. Freak rock! The guitar player said he would
send me their CD to review. This was also the biggest crowd we saw at the
Sabotage stage the entire festival, so they must be getting popular.
Asimov was a stoner rock duo of just guitar and drums. They really
gave it all but it is so limited what you can do with no bass player and the
guitar player never did any solos so it was a bit tiring and the riffs were not
that cool and unique to really hold my attention. We saw the first 3 songs of
the PT band, Murdering Tripping Blues.
They had a really cool name but sadly the music did not really hold up for me.
It was a trio of guitar, keyboards and drums. The guitar had a nasty distorted
sound but it was not really very bluesy or trippy at all. Distortion rock. They
could have done so much more. Bardo Pond,
wow.. last time I saw these guys was at an apartment party event in Boston
called Deep Heaven in 1997 and the police closed it down after the band played
8 mins…. It was really cool to see the
band again and they are nearly as stoned as they used to be but the music is a
bit more pretty and melodic and not quite as dangerous as it used to be. I spoke
to them and they were really cool people. I enjoyed their short set a lot.
We took at break to get some food
so we did not see Bruto and the
Cannibals and only just saw the last like 1 min of Christian Bland and the Revalators. Spin Drift from Los Angeles were a strange band. We only saw the
last 15mins when they played Ghost Riders in the Sky, an old Country western
standard but in a quite psychedelic version. The lights were really amazing for
these guys. The rest of the set was hard to describe. Very interesting band. I
will have to check them out some more.
Now the main stage area was open
and it was time for the band, A place to
Bury Strangers. This was another young band that I had never heard of
before. The crowd was pretty big for this young trio playing loud, angry,
psychedelic noise rock with some melodic edges at time. The guitarist did not
do proper solos but made a lot of crazy sounds and noise with his guitar. They
played about 30mins and then it took at least 30mins to set up Psychic TV, so
they were now behind and soon would be way behind after it took like 45mins to
set up Hawkwind.
Psychic TV started
with a strange version of Astronomy Domine by Pink Floyd but it was pretty
cool. They played another short, happy pop song that sounded like something
from the late 80s. They have such a great guitar player. The best of the entire
festival. The last song of their set was a killer song and also had great
guitar solos and an awesome riff. They only played 4 songs for about 45mins or
so and had amazing visual projections just like at Roadburn Festival. Cool band
these days.
Hawkwind was supposed to start at 22 and did not start until like
22:45. They played an excellent 75mins set with quite a lot of different tracks
than when we saw them less than a year ago. The sound and the projections were
simply stunning. Dave’s guitar was the lowest instrument in the band, which is
always a pity as he still plays fantastic guitar. Tim only had a computer for
samples and a thermin, no keytar or synths. The band was in top form but I wish
Dave would sing more and when he did, I wish the sound man would not let Dibs
drown him out. Anyway, cool to hear a new version of Utopia, Uncle Sams on
Mars, Orgonne Accumulator, a killer version of Sonic Attack, Assault and
Battery and new working of the Golden Void (not nearly as cool as the old with
the wonderful Brock guitar solo), and they ended with Hassan I Sabha, which
they had to cut short due to time. This was our favourite band of the festival.
What a super cool festival but
also pretty draining and difficult and I wonder can the young stoned people
remember all these bands that they only saw play for a few minutes?? It was a
lot to take in and I was writing down notes. I have my doubts they can pull
this off again and if they do it again they should the same quality of bands
but half the number so they can play longer. Congrats to Nick and the
organizers. It might not have been a financial success but musically for the
fans and the bands, it was amazing.
This
is a fairly new five piece band from Portugal! This is their 2nd
record. The band play a great mixture of really groovy rock and roll,
psychedelic tinges, progressive tinges, interesting song arrangements and a
like for analog sound and gear. The long track, Countries Off starts things
with a groove and hook that you cannot avoid digging and then the track really
goes off into a very cool jam and never looks back completely.. The theme sort
of reappears after some spacey analog synth sounds.. Great song. The Integrity
begins with a slow smooth groove with some hand drums, organ and vocal before
having some nice mood swings with a great melodic guitar solo. Infinite space
of a Man without Character takes off at a fast pace and is quite a different
beast than the previous track with a lot of intensity and an aggressive nature
and is very short. Sailing on the corner of Danes Eye (cool title) starts slow,
spacey and floating with some nice mellotron and a beautiful melody and then
the rock and roll kicks in but it has a more cool groove like an US jam band
feel. Very cool stuff with a great lead organ that compliments the singing but
the song changes to a much heavier and darker theme with some really cool synth
sounds towards the end. Wasted Dreams of Red Flowers is the last track,
basically a full album side but it is broken up into five pieces starting with
the spacey Bird of Paradise and just continues with many really cool keyboard
solos and guitar solos and jamming spacey parts. There are some vocals as well
but it is mostly instrumental music. What a great find. There are not many
bands that I know of from Portugal besides Saturnia that play such adventurous
music. Great album. I will have to find their first one now!
I
have never heard of this band before and I am still on the wall about this new
three piece Swedish band, which features Christian Smedström from The Awesome
Machine. The opening track is a sort of bluesy rock and roll number with some
nice slide guitar parts and a pretty catchy chorus trying to get you to Dance! Same
Old Story is a down and dirty foot stompin’ blues song as well. The Wolf is a
short no-nonsense track in the same vein as the first. No real guitar solos or
jams in either of these tracks. Them Southern Women (Malmö?) has a really cool
groove and guitar riff. Smile at Trouble is a bit heavier and has some more
interesting guitar and I like the effect added on the voice and some piano by
Anders. Troubled Soul ends side A and has a more laid back feel and Fender
Rhodes piano to give it a bit of a spacey feel. Cool track and by far the
longest and most interesting on the side.
Side B has quite a few different
musicians playing on the record and a bit more variety. Send my your Pillow is
a blues shuffle of sorts with piano again and some slide guitar and double
tracked guitar (since Christian sings and plays all the guitar). Evil Ways is a
slower track again with some slide guitar and quite a different sound
production as they have now switched studio. The sound is a bit more raw, which
I think is a good thing for this kind of music. Pin your Soul starts slowly and
then builds up and the piano and organ kick in later as it takes off. Chasin’
the Tail features Ms Johanna on backing vocals and again joel joins in with
some piano to compliment Krister on bass and Krstoffer on drums. Tobbe plays
drums on most of the tracks on side A. God says Nothing closes out this record
and this is a slow mellow spacey track with a couple of loud outbursts and not
like anything else on the record, which is good as a few too many of the songs
are quite close in style.. After
repeated listenings, I have really enjoyed the record and you probably will to,
if you like blues…
The
UK psychedelic band, the SHS are back. This is a CD only release for now and
features 24 tracks split into 4 cycles of 6 tracks. There is a mixture of short interlude tracks,
which are often mostly either just keyboards or acoustic pieces and then a bit
longer piece of tracks with lyrics about talking to fishes or other strange
subjects. The tracks all except one (Drifting Away) are 3½ mins or less. If you
are a fan of Reefus Moons you will quite like this band’s music and humor. I am
sure they are a fan of his. The lyrical themes are actually the bands strongest
point as they make you smile with every track and clearly inspired by the
Beatles and Syd Barrett… Lovely stuff……
I
have never heard of this German trio before. This was released before on 141
records digitally but now for the first time on vinyl. The record is a
beautiful gatefold and my copy has a marbled orange vinyl that looks cool. The
couple of tracks are mid-paced desert stoner rock material with some cool guitars
(not many solos though) and a great vocal. Mothman is like a blues stomping
track but the vocal reminds me of Fu Manchu. Pretty cool music. Side B starts
off with a more uptempo track called I don’t Mind. Moonrising had some really
good parts and was a really rocking song. Stray Dog Love is a stoner blues
track! Overall, this is a record that I really started to dig after several
listens.. I am short on time but check it out….
