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Witch Mountain: Psycho Las Vegas Preview

Posted in Interviews with tags Nathan Carson, Psycho Las Vegas, Rob Wrong, Witch Mountain on 07/18/2022 by Kurt Orzeck

*Witch Mountain’s “reunion lineup”: (L-R) drummer/co-founder Nathan Carson, “engine-ear”/bassist Billy Anderson, vocalist Uta Plotkin and frontman/co-founder Rob Wrong*
*(Photo credit: James Rexroad)*

In just one month — 31 days, to be precise — the most anticipated heavy-music festival in the U.S. will kick off once again. Stationed for the first time at Resorts World, the fest is headlined by Mercyful Fate, Suicidal Tendencies and Emperor, the latter being one of the major bands set to play last year but forced to reschedule due to COVID-related complications.

Now in its sixth year, the festival appears to be reverting back to its roots with a lineup concentrated more on metal and less on indie rock, into which territory it ventured in 2019 and 2021. There are exceptions, of course — Warpaint, the Black Angels, Allah-Las and various members of the Wu-Tang Clan among them — but, by and large, attendees will once again gamble with the threat of going deaf.

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Blue Heron: Breaking Bad-Asses

Posted in Interviews with tags Blue Heron, High Desert Queen, Jadd Shickler, Kyuss, Magnetic Eye on 07/18/2022 by Kurt Orzeck

*Blue Heron performing at their record-release party on July 8, 2022*

“In the absence of genuine leadership, they’ll listen to anyone who steps up to the microphone. They want leadership. They’re so thirsty for it, they’ll crawl through the desert toward a mirage, and when they discover there’s no water, they’ll drink the sand.” -Lewis Rothschild (Michael J. Fox), The American President

Twenty-five years ago — shortly after the demise of Palm Desert, California’s Kyuss roughly 10 hours to the west — a new oasis of low-end heavy rock began to form in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The year 1997 saw the birth of MeteorCity Records, a label devoted to sludge, psych, drone and doom. The label quenched the thirst of hard-rock fans thirsty for more thunderous, bottom-heavy rock beyond what they found on Man’s Ruin Records (which collapsed in 2001).

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Exclusive: Cloak Finish Recording ‘Faster, Harder’ Third LP; Debut New Song Live

Posted in Exclusives, Interviews with tags Bewitcher, Cloak on 06/30/2022 by Kurt Orzeck

Summer generally leads to an absence of black in Boise. Black clothes are stowed away in closets. Black cars stay parked in garages. Even the black of night lasts fewer than eight hours. But tonight, two of the most hottest heavy-metal bands currently on tour in the U.S. — Cloak and Bewitcher — will paint the city black. Their co-headlining gig at underground venue the Shredder on Friday night is poised to be the most potent metal concert in Boise for the next two months.

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Spirit Mother, Lovers of Heavy Psych and Sardines, Canned Wait to Play Boise Tonight

Posted in Interviews with tags Blackwater Holylight, Ealdor Bealu, Neurolux, psychedelic rock, Spirit Mother on 06/09/2022 by Kurt Orzeck

What’s that you smell? Whiffs of psychedelic rock and roll wafting through Boise after Patton Oswalt and “Weird” Al Yankovic unloaded their scatological, puerile, yet admittedly golden nuggets of humor at the Morrison Center last Saturday and Monday? Indeed, it’s true: This evening, the Neurolux Lounge is clearing the air with three of the finest heavy-psych posses that the Pacific Northwest has to offer: Blackwater Holylight and Spirit Mother, from our dear Oregonian neighbors to the West; along with Boise’s very own, beloved Ealdor Bealu.

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Exclusive: Orchestra Gold Returning to Boise for Great Garden Escape

Posted in Exclusives, Interviews with tags Great Garden Escape, Idaho Botanical Garden, Orchestra Gold, psychedelic rock on 05/10/2022 by Kurt Orzeck

Erich Huffaker and Mariam Diakité of Orchestra Gold

African psychedelic-rock combo and Treefort Festival 2021 participants Orchestra Gold are coming back to Boise next month for a plum gig at the Idaho Botanical Garden’s Great Garden Escape series, the Bad Penny exclusively announces today. The concert will take place June 30 at the Meditation Garden, as part of a lineup that also includes Afrosonics and Hillfolk Noir.

Led by Malian singer and dancer Mariam Diakité and guitarist/multi-instrumentalist Erich Huffaker, the Oakland-based Orchestra Gold channel old-school folkloric music from Mali. More specifically, the band describes its sound “horn-driven rhythmic ‘orchestra’ music from ’70s-era Mali, West Africa, with a contemporary twist: analog psych-rock fused with Malian folklore.”

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The Sound&Shape of Things to Come

Posted in Interviews with tags Sound&Shape on 04/21/2022 by Kurt Orzeck

Years before anyone reading this article was born — unless you’re a member of the AARP, in which case, holla! — country-music mecca Nashville had already established its own original variety of music. “The Nashville sound” wasn’t exactly the most inventively named subgenre, but it didn’t matter: Record labels like Columbia and RCA Victor, along with teeming masses of musicians eager to embrace the next big thing, gave birth to a smoother, poppier take on country that endures to this day.

Problem is, when a city builds its reputation on a particular sound, it simultaneously confines itself. Musicians hoping to make it big are often constricted by the same phenomenon that lured them to the city in the first place. It’s worse than ever nowadays, with major labels having stripped the authenticity out of “The Nashville sound” in favor of a commercial strain that makes country music virtually indistinguishable from pop. Deforestation isn’t just happening literally; billionaires are cutting down creativity as well, in a metaphorical sense, with artists becoming an endangered species.

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Good Nite, and Good Luck

Posted in Interviews, Sound Off with tags Nite on 04/19/2022 by Kurt Orzeck

As children, we fear things that go bump in the night. Could they be monsters? Evil spirits? The devil’s minions?

As we age, we realize that most of those frightening sounds probably emanated from our parents having sex in their bedroom — a terrifying thought in its own right.

One of the lousier aspects of growing older is the loss of imagination. Case in point: Analytical website Skynet & Ebert determined in 2015 that people stop exploring new music and bands as early as 33 years old. Bands are culpable of ripping off each other’s sound, lyrics or beats.

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Yola ‘Stands’ Tall and Proud at Post-Grammys Gig

Posted in Concert Reviews, Interviews with tags Dolly Parton, Elton John, Grammys, Jon Batiste, Los Lobos, Yola on 04/14/2022 by Kurt Orzeck

*Yola at the Knitting Factory in Boise on April 6, 2022*

British-born, Nashville-based singer/songwriter Yola left the Grammy Awards empty-handed last week, losing to Jon Batiste for Best American Roots Song and Los Lobos for Best Americana Album. Still. the outcomes weren’t a huge surprise for an emerging artist whose music is not confined to a single genre.

Indeed, Yola didn’t seem phased whatsoever when she played her unique blend of pop/country/hip-hop/Americana/soul/R&B/you-name-it to the Knitting Factory in Boise. Smiles abounded through the crowd, who were enraptured by Yola’s vocal range and authenticity — and seemed to know the show was so special, they might tell their kids about it someday.

Her covers of Elton John and Bernie Taupin’s “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road,” Aretha Franklin’s “Day Dreaming” and Anita Baker’s “Sweet Love” iced the cake.

If you aren’t yet familiar with the gift from the music gods that is Yola, check out my recent cover story on the artist for Music Connection. In the feature, she discusses her most recent album, July 2021’s Stand for Myself; growing up practically destitute; the “hot mess” that is U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson; and her lifelong love of Dolly Parton.

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