the last of the dead

Some 20 years after the death of Jerry Garcia that institution of counter culture The Grateful Dead have announced the gathering of the remaining core members Bill Kreutzmann, Phil Lesh, Bob Weir and Mickey Hart for the final time. They will reunite for three shows at the Soldier Field in Chicago over the Fourth Of July Weekend this year.
Ex member Bruce Hornsby, Furthur/RatDog keyboardist Jeff Chimenti and Phish guitarist Trey Anastasio will all make appearances on this 50th anniversary of the group.
Weir told Billboard. "These will be the last shows from the four of us together,"

And here's the thing, with the passing of their guiding light all those years ago and in a world where you'd maybe think the The Dead were very much part of the 20th Century, the online booking agents Ticketmaster broke all sales records when the Chicago dates were announced and sold out in seconds with half a million queueing up for sales. "Requests for tickets are believed to be in the millions.".

No doubt the whole extravaganza will be captured for posterity in every known medium and in true Dead tradition every type of bootleg going. Failing that call into the Internet Archive after July where, apart from being the only group to have an entire category to themselves, you'll probably find some genius has uploaded the entire concert including the sound check! For as we all know, The Dead Heads are a law entirely to themselves.
So after all this time these Dead Heads were just lying dormant waiting for the final calling. Surely the like of this pop culture phenomena will not be seen again.

Here's 'So Many Roads' from their last concert together and their last performance with Garcia in 1995.

ride into the sun

Them Aussies have definitely got a nice groove of psych going on down there. With a sound they describe as shoe gaze (and a bit 'stoner') and psychedelia this band have captured something that may well have emanated from California 4 decades ago. Ride Into The Sun have recorded a couple of mini albums and earlier this year the hypnotic single "Johnny Blossom". A short 2 minute track Lost Horse Valley fades into the main trip of the recording, you'll hear a brief section of that before the rhythm guitar of Johnny Blossom begins. A beautifully judged spaced out jam. This band are all about a live feel to their sound.
Find that warm Adelaide sun at their bandcamp site or the widget below.

trip into the brain pyramid

Defintiely a touch of a Electric Ladyland production with this preview track from Brain Pyramid's forthcoming album 'Chasma Hideout. This is stoner psyche with the wah pedal down on what sounds like some heavily phased vintage amps plus sampled over dubs and spaced out electrics. A monster loping bass line introduces the riff with a Hendrix "Foxey Lady" feel to the song. It's good to hear this sound again. Not many out there can do it quite as well as Gaston Lainé, Baptiste Gautier Lorenzo, and Ronan Grall. There's some very good stuff emerging from France.
They have some European dates in November to promote the album. This tracks fittingly called "Living In The Outer". Space". Get up to date details from their facebook page.

trip with the 'slow motion rider'

See the poster above. That's the way to work a band, get in a club at the weekend and stay there until you're chucked out and it obviously took a month for Slow Motion Rider to leave Casey's in Downtown LA. Must have been a very good scene there at the weekend.
After that residency the ideal move would have been to tour the new album but alas no tour dates are scheduled yet. So for now there's just the album to absorb. And what a sound they've produced or rather Rob Campanella (The Brian Jonestown Massacre guitarist) has produced.
If this trio of Alan Stone (vocals/guitar), Blake Kennedy (bass) Austin Hand (drums) can get close to the sound of this album playing live they're are set to blow some minds in the rest of the States. Europe would love this band too. This is superior garage psyche that has the playing power of the best jam style German and Swedish bands around with that added authenticity of US psychedelia. Make your own comparisons from psyches heritage because you'll hear them and dig it.
The widget streams 4 tracks from the self titled album, and below that the video for "Wondered Why". Which is low res and really just about the track.

Their label 'Committee to Keep Music Evil' are obviously a bespoke independant with the likes of The Brian Jonestown Massacre, The Asteroid 4, and Elephant Stone amongst their artists. Buy the Slow Motion album on Vinyl, CD, and MP3 here

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the machine

There's loads of them machines. It's easy to get confused, Machine, a Pink Floyd tribute band, then there's The Machines, a UK punk band, then there's that Florence and her Machine, and then there's The Machine, the ones from Rotterdam. Holland.

"The Machine pair molten stoner rock riffs with a fair dose of retro psych for good measure. The band also excels at incorporating acid-blues jamming that lifts their performance into outer space.” Roadburn Festival

Yeah right they're the ones, and so far with just three gigs to do this year because they're recording a new LP. But look at the gigs, a large chunk of Europe in just three hops.
Feb 01 2014 : Depressivefest - Moscow (RUS), Apr 25 2014 : Berlin (GER), Apr 26 2014 : Desertfest - London (UK).
And here's a track from their last album 'Solar Corona'.... which is a bit of a good title don't you think. Defintely a very authentic sounding stoned 70's feel about this. But then the Dutch know how to take that and work it out. The vocals are good in this too and all wrapped up in a few lines. Here's the sublime 'Infinity'.

vibravoid new single

More underground acid psychedelics from Germany?.. those people are putting some seriously 60's entertainment in their drinks.
This time the band come from Dusseldorf and are quite openly declaring themselves as "Europe's number one psychedelic and acid-rock band". They see all the other bands playing on the psychedelic scene in Europe as mere pretenders, Vibravoid's singer and guitarist Christian Koch - "Everyone calling themselves Psychedelic are usually cheaper, uninspired hard rock, stoner or heavy metal."
The man is obviously disillusioned with the way the psyche scene is going in Germany and sees their own early Pink Floyd influence as the true path to acid enlightenment. More the Syd Barrett 'Ummagumma' years of 1969 rather than the later Floyd versions.
Other media have described them as a heavy variety of psychedelic progressive rock. So that's another minefield of categorising sub-genre's. Which is not very psychedelic for anyone. In Syd Barrett's day that wasn't an issue and if you had to ask you didn't need to know.
It's pretty obvious what this is though..
The new Vibravoid 7" vinyl single release 'You Keep On Falling' and it's out this February.
So drop out and tune in. Nice liquid light show. They've missed nothing out.