Stoner Xmas Calendar

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[stonerxmas-blog]

December 17th - The outer extreme (or is it inner?)

@brogestarck: #stonerxmas 17: Its friday and Christmas is closing in. Wanna start the party with some Death Metal you can dance to?

It has the sound and it has the ruggedness. But this is probably as far away as you can get from stoner rock, and yet... it still kinda falls into the category.

Eagles Of Death Metal was one of the more odd things to come out of The Desert Sessions. Its basically Joshua Homme on drums and Jesse Hughes on guitar/vocals having a laugh. On The Desert Sessions they started out playing acoustic ragtime with death metal inspired growl vocals (oh yes... it was quite weird), but today its something completely different. Its boogie-woogie played on down-tuned guitars, and they have released 3 albums and a few singles this way.

Its the BEST party music you'll find!! And their live shows are out of this world.

Listen below to a song from their debut album. This really shows them at their very best: Full throttle, and tongue in cheek. A lot of sex, a lot of rock and a whole lotta dancing!

Buy on iTunes: http://itunes.apple.com/dk/album/death-by-sexy/id164825338

Official: http://www.eaglesofdeathmetal.com/

Listen on Wimp: http://getwimp.dk/album/1284474

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December 16th - Theres high desert, and theres low desert

@brogestarck: #stonerxmas 16: Over the course of 10 EPs The Desert Sessions have brought us rock, pop, acid, stoner... And a few bands!

The Desert Session is basically an amazing collective of musicians, that go out into a studio in Joshua Tree in the Californian desert, to write and record music. Its evident when you hear it that not a lot of time is spend on writing/recording each song, and the entire projects oozes of fast creativity and fun fun fun.

It's the brainchild of Joshua Homme (Queens Of The Stone Age a.m.m.), and since 1997 they have released 10 albums that features a huge list of amazing musicians: PJ Harvey, Alain Johannes, Mark Lanegan, Brant Bjork, Nick Oliveri, Pete Stahl, Dave Cathing and many many more. Oh and borrowing musicians from Soundgarden, Monster Magnet, Earthlings?, and many many more.

The 10 albums (Named from 1 through 10, but with a subtitle as well), are all EXTREMELY different from each other. The first are instrumental and quite mellow and psych-inspired. The middle ones are both very experimenting and rocking, and the last 4 has featured the most melodic stuff we've heard from them.

And you know whats really fun? Bands like Queens Of The Stone Age, Eagles Of Death Metal, Earthlings?, Mondo Generator and more all have songs that started out on a Desert Sessions album, and later became a key track on one of their own albums.

Its totally impossible to play 1 song, and by that give anyone a good idea of what The Desert Sessions is all about. So... heres 2! The first is called Crawl Home. Its from No. 9, and features PJ Harvey on vocals:

... and the second is called Johnny The Boy. It's from No. 2, and features Joshua Homme on vocals:

Here comes the bad news: Except for 9 & 10 (they are on iTunes) they are IMPOSSIBLE to find anywhere. On legal sites, anyway. I think you can find bootlegs on Ebay, and of course theres the good old torrent sites. Do it! These 10 albums are ... Bible.

Here's a link for a decent youtube playlist. Thats gonna have to do until they decide to press these gems up again.

[stonerxmas-blog]

December 15th - The brighter of the bunch

@brogestarck: #stonerxmas 15: Its not the most welcoming music but hey: They sound like the perfect combination of heroin and good sex.

It's not necessarily an easy quest to listen to an album by The Warlocks. You never know what you get: It can be quite melodic and cheerful (... ok maybe not cheerful), and it can be dark and evil sounding. I usually prefer the latter, but with The Warlocks I think their more bright and melodic stuff is where they really shine.

The song below is from their Surgery album, and I can not recommend this album enough. It's a really great album for parties! For the kind of parties that we (thats me and you reading this) enjoy attending anyway. Filled with short and sweet neo-psych, and just uplifting in a really weird and gloomy way.

Bonus info: Go to their website. You get free "save as" downloads of quite a lot of songs from all their albums!

Official site: http://www.thewarlocks.com/

Buy on iTunes: http://itunes.apple.com/dk/album/surgery/id78681510

Listen on Wimp: http://getwimp.dk/album/147691

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December 14th - Lysergic bliss

@brogestarck: #stonerxmas 14: Inspired by @badgirloftennis post yesterday, the next days I will highlight a few psych bands. Go listen!

As some maybe noticed, yesterday the blog was taken over by a very sweet girl. She highlighted a really cool (and new to me) 60s psych band, and that inspired me to pull out some of my favorite psych bands, and tell you all about them! After all, most stoner bands are inspired 1:1 by psych, so it's not too far fetched is it.

Amongst the psych bands that are from this century, this is - by far - my absolute favorite.

The Black Angels have taken the long slow way up from the dusty Texan roads in Austin: First started touring the States, then got themselves on board a tour bus to Europe alongside Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, and from there they've builded enough, to now headline their second European tour this coming spring.

On this trip they've also released 3 albums, that each has something completely different and amazing to offer. Its extremely jammy and drony, but always with a very clear path towards what seems to be their goal: A guitar and Farfisa indused lysergic bliss!

I've been thinking ALL day what one song with The Black Angels I wanted to play. And I still really haven't figured it out. So I'll go ahead and play you the very first song I heard with them. It got me hooked like a junkie on smack, and I hope it'll do the same for you!

Buy on iTunes: http://itunes.apple.com/dk/album/passover/id138073699

Buy one of their vinyls: http://www.theblackangels.com/index2.php#/store/featured-items

Listen on Spotify: http://open.spotify.com/album/76GyFrn5IwAYp2OGmhIlan

Listen on Wimp: http://getwimp.dk/album/2717701

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December 13th - The Psychedelic Stoner-Lucia Edition

@brogestarck: #stonerxmas 13: Happy Stoner-Lucia! To celebrate, today's post is written by @badgirloftennis. Miss Stoner-Lucia herself!

It’s December 13, and the day officially belongs to white-clad chicks with candles in their hair. But also the day where Stoner Xmas Calendar celebrates the invention of psychedelic drugs. Because without designer drugs today’s album probably wouldn’t exist.

So. Ever wondered what Jefferson Airplanes on LSD would sound like? Think again. And this time you might wanna add a registered communist and control freak, who obsessed about experimenting with synthesizers.

No, no! Please keep reading! The United States of America (who was formed in some distant pre-WWW age, where you’d never wonder whether or not your band name was Google-friendly) took a bunch of splendid songs and turned them into a psychedelic masterpiece.

All it took was the gorgeous voice of singer Dorothy Moskowitz and the tech-savvy nuttiness of Joe Boyd – and the result speaks – and hallucinates - for itself.

Buy it CHEAP on iTunes: http://itunes.apple.com/dk/artist/the-united-states-of-america/id289013086

Buy it on Amazon: http://www.amazon.co.uk/United-States-America-Remastered/dp/B0002CX1XY/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1292231881&sr=1-1

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DECEMBER 12th - Back in the woods

@brogestarck: #stonerxmas 12: Halfway through its time for an all time favorite: Pearls & Brass. 70s inspired and amazing musicianship!

Pearls & Brass is an absolutely A-MA-ZING trio from Nazareth, Pennsylvania. Probably one of my all time favorite bands.

They only did 2 albums, and I've absolutely no idea where they are today. There's no website, theres no label, theres no MySpace, Twitter, Facebook page or anything. Only thing I've managed to find out is that apparently they stopped playing together a few years back.

What. A. Shame.

The instrumental craftsmanship combined with the unique 70's inspired songwriting, is really something special. On their self-titled debut album its more bluesy, and on the latter "The Indian Tower" its more psych/stoner-ish, but both of them are really - in a word - breathtaking. And I'm SO annoyed that I'm probably never going to see these guys live. Their guitarist have a solo-project tho... But he will have his own post next sunday.

I obviously couldnt find anything studio-recorded on Youtube, so I tried with an audio-post. But really. Really! Trust me on this, and go and buy:

iTunes: http://itunes.apple.com/dk/album/the-indian-tower/id106207810

UPDATED: YAY! I just found at that they are actually playing 1 date in their home town in a few days! There's hope!

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December 11th - After the Sabbath

@brogestarck: #stonerxmas 11: Masters Of Reality have inspired the most prominent stoner bands of today. And they aren't really stoner.

If James Brown is the god father of soul, Masters Of Reality lead singer Chris Goss could maybe be the granddad of modern stoner rock. Not only have Masters Of Reality inspired quite the important bunch of modern stoner and desert rock (just ask Joshua Homme who his hero is), but he also produced albums for both Kyuss, Queens Of The Stone Age, and many more Palm Desert type bands.

And heres the fun bit: They actually aren't that stoner themselves! The most stoner-sounding they ever were was in fact when half of QOTSA was acting as backing group for Chris Goss. Especially their older albums have something very rare in the scene: REALLY poppy melodies, and clean vocals! Woah...

I really recommend you give the entire Deep In The Hole (2001) album a listen. Its a fabulous rock album, and it's incredible well written and performed. Listen here to the opening track Third Man On The Moon.

Guess who plays the guitar!

Buy on iTunes: http://itunes.apple.com/dk/album/deep-in-the-hole/id268879916

Listen on Wimp: http://getwimp.dk/album/3174118

Listen on Spotify: http://open.spotify.com/album/1534oKe66EuJrnr1AZgSQl

Official site: http://mastersofreality.com/

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December 10th - The goose, the pig, the horse, the worm

@brogestarck: #stonerxmas 10: In 27 years they have released 20 studio LPs, 8 EPs, 10 live albums and 47 singles. THE mighty MELVINS!

The Melvins have been around for almost 3 decades, and they have released a breathtaking torrent of albums and EPs. This of course wouldn't be anything special if it weren't because every single The Melvins album is so damn thought through, well composed and interesting to listen to.

They have changed their lineup numerous times (all though always holding on to the 2 core members Buzz Osborne (v. + g.) and Dale Grover (dr.), and they have changed - it seems - their entire mind frame about how they work with their music at least as many times. It seems that the only thing you can trust on a The Melvins album, is that at least a few songs will be named after an animal.

But really. The best thing about The Melvins? They fucking rock. And you should go out and buy at LEAST these albums: Stag, Houdini, Stoner Witch and (A) Senile Animal.

Buy on iTunes: http://itunes.apple.com/dk/album/stag/id72788567

Listen on Wimp: http://getwimp.dk/album/261922

Official: http://www.themelvins.net/

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December 9th - In the cold north

@brogestarck: #stonerxmas 9: Nordic stoner rock has always had its own sound. It sucks, see! But these Swedes.. They are something else.

I'm sorry. I know there's probably a few alright Nordic stoner rock bands out there. But guys: Everyone can TELL that you just don't live in a very warm and very humid place. And for some reason that seems to be quite the important ingredient for this type of music. Its almost awkward.

But! There ARE some good ones. And Truckfighters from Sweden are very good!

They've done 3-4 albums or so, but it's really only the first one that has that something special. But that album... sure as hell as that something special! Almost desert rock sounding: Very acidy and produced just the right way.

Just take a listen to this amazing song for riding your car. In fact its so good for riding a car, thats its not even lame that its called Desert Cruiser!

Buy it CHEAP on iTunes: http://itunes.apple.com/dk/album/gravity-x/id348658889

Listen on Spotify: http://open.spotify.com/album/38heJ8ItrskYeyQvIAD1e8

Listen on Wimp: http://getwimp.dk/album/3756395

Official: http://www.truckfighters.com/

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December 8th - When half is enough

#stonerxmas 8: They are half Melvins (literally), they are drum and bass (literally) and they mean serious business! http://v.gd/xmas8

Big Business is something as rare as a stoner rock duo. And what did they take out of the equation? The guitar!

But make no mistake... they make a pretty massive sound with just the bass, drums, and 2 vocals! In fact, so massive that the mighty The Melvins had to let them on board. Not only as a support act, but also as proper band members (the clever reader will then do the math and figure out that The Melvins now has 2 drummers).

Before this adventure they did an absolutely amazing album called Here Come The Waterworks. And its completely impossible for me to choose what song to feature in this post, as 3-4 minutes of Big Business doesn't really make sense... but trust me: 50 minutes does. The sound they manage to create with such limited instrumentation is fucking unbelievable.

But!... Here's one. If you like it just the slightest, do yourself the favor and listen to the entire album.

Just bass and drums? Yes. I saw them live. Just bass and drums.

For some reason I cant find them on the usual shop-places, but:

Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/bigbigbusiness

Official: http://www.bigbigbusiness.com/

Buy for 7$: http://www.hydrahead.com/store/#au=BigBusiness

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December 7th - Down below

@brogestarck: #stonerxmas 7: Detuned like there was no tomorrow and hard as concrete. But probably the most poppy melodies in the genre!

Florida based trio "Floor" could very well have chosen their name because its pretty damn difficult to imagine anyone going any deeper than these guys. Except maybe for Sunn O))), of course (watch out for a post about them later on in December).

Their guitars were extremely detuned, and rarely in any form of tune actually. But somehow they made it work. I think in their first original lineup they didnt even have a bass player actually, but they sure had some fat strings on the guitars!

They actually defunct back in 1996, after having recorded only 2 albums and some singles, but heres a really fun fact! Earlier this year they released a box set containing all their recordings: 8 LPs, with 92 songs all in all!! That... is a lot of b-sides.

Enjoy the amazing "Kallisti - Song for Eris" below. Its taken from their second and self-titled album, and it has the coolest mix of heavy-as-hell stoner rock and really cool male/female indie vocals that even Sonic Youth would be proud of.

Not much info to be found on these cats, since they haven't been around for quite some time. But:

Buy on iTunes: http://itunes.apple.com/dk/album/self-titled-outtakes/id358935399

Listen on Youtube: http://tinyurl.com/floorplaylist

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December 6th - Into the woods

#stonerxmas 6: The debut from The Sword sounds like if Black Sabbath and Old-Metallica had sex and made an album together. http://v.gd/xmas6

Due to Tumblr's fallout for the last 24 hours, this is the post from yesterday. Todays post will be up as usual during the afternoon.

The Sword has always been a personal favorite. Some would argue that they are more heavy metal than stoner, but their sound is just too fat and laid back to be heavy metal. I think I’ll just call them technical stoner rock.

 3 albums down the road, this Texan outfit has developed quite a bit since their debut ‘Age of Winters’. They are more produced today, and there’s less speed-of-light type solos. Its definitely more eatable, but the album that really stands out as a classic I’ll always listen to, is without a doubt the debut, closely followed by the second album ‘Gods of the Earth’.

 Listen below to the absolutely phenomenal “The Horned Goddess” from the ‘Age of Winters’ album. I’m totally blown away by the vocals in this one, and the amazing and constant shifts in tempo and style.

Buy on iTunes: http://itunes.apple.com/dk/album/gods-of-the-earth/id291714955

Listen on Spotify: http://open.spotify.com/album/77ZAnxOwAodoQ2u4VVm9N3

Listen on Wimp: http://getwimp.dk/album/2667947

Check out their website: http://www.swordofdoom.com/

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December 5th - The silent roar

@brogestarck: #stonerxmas 5: Slowpased, quiet, instrumental, highly repetitive and quite folksy. "Earth" is stoner rock for sundays!

After having released 3 full length albums, a few EP's and some live recordings, Earth and its main-composer/player Dylan Carlson disappeared from the face of the planet. Everyone expected that that was it. Carlson had serious drug and legal problems, and for the last many years the band had been in an everlasting struggle with various record labels.

But in 2005 the band released their first album in 9 years: "Hex; Or Printing in the Infernal Method". The album was in almost extreme contrast to what they had sounded before: The guitars were clean, the music was heavily inspired by american-indian roots and folk music, and they used instruments like trombone, organ, tubular bells and wind chimes.

Earth have continued to explore this "new sound", and have now done 3 albums this way. Listen below to the majestic "The Driver" from the "The Bees Made Honey In The Lions Skull" album.

When you listen to Earth today, its quite impossible to imagine that this started out loud, bone-rattling and heavy-beyond-belief.

Their website: http://www.thronesanddominions.com

Buy on iTunes: http://itunes.apple.com/dk/album/hex-or-printing-in-infernal/id215873951

Listen on Wimp: http://getwimp.dk/album/4490864

Listen on YouTube: http://tinyurl.com/earthplaylist

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December 4th - The drug-infused low

@brogestarck: #stonerxmas 4: Most people smoke weed to get high. The stuff Electric Wizard smoked made them go low. Meet Dopethrone!

It doesn't get much more dirty, grimy and distorted than this.

Electric Wizard is easily considered one of the best bands to come out of the british stoner scene. And their 3rd album 'Dopethrone' from 2000 is not only the bands finest moment, but also one of the pillars in the entire genre of doom metal.

The guitars are extremely loud and fuzzy, the vocals are manipulated and mixed way down into the mud, and the bands overall composing was much more aggressive on this album, than on any other of their 7 albums.

Electric Wizards 'Dopethrone' is the sound of a really really bad trip. And its not for everyone. But take the 8:44 minutes long ride on the second track "Funeralopolis", and enjoy how they go from the mild high of a joint, to a full blown heroin-infused paranoia attack. Its amazing!

  If you KINDA liked it, but thinks its just to hard and noisy, please check out newer albums. This IS the extreme!

Buy on iTunes: http://itunes.apple.com/dk/album/dopethrone/id178985072

Their newest album on Spotify: http://open.spotify.com/album/7w7fmy8gRYMrXICyG2c8ai

Their MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/electricwizarddorsetdoom

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December 3rd - The first landmark

@brogestarck: #stonerxmas 3: When you listen to Kyuss you dont know if they wanna fight you or fuck you. That's when rock turns to art.

In 1 years time it will be 20 years since Blues For The Red Sun was released. And really: It's not until now you realize how mammoth an effort the 14 tracks compiled on this album are.

Mainly written by Joshua Homme (Queens of The Stone Age, Desert Sessions, a.m.m.) and Brant Bjork, produced by Chris Goss (Masters of Reality) and engineered by Joe Barresi (Tool, Fu Manchu, Melvins, a.m.m.) this album has such an intense sound and power that its almost completely impossible to wrap you head around the fact that it's only sold 39.000 copies world wide.

This album is a landmark. This is the album that defined the genre, and still today takes the lead in stoner rock, and everything that came from it. Blues For The Red Sun incorporates acid rock, bluesy roots rock, grunge, psychedelic soulfull jamming and its all done with an amazing and brutal energy. Its creative bliss!

Watch the video for Green Machine below:

And heres the link for the video, for apparatuses that doesn't work with embedded videos: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTIh3T9RHIc&hd=1

Listen on WIMP: http://getwimp.dk/album/580874

Listen on Spotify: http://open.spotify.com/album/7wXj8GxTkGAUU99DXR7n2f

Buy on iTunes: http://itunes.apple.com/dk/album/blues-for-the-red-sun/id213508542

Buy on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Blues-Red-Sun-Kyuss/dp/B000001A3H/ref=ntt_mus_ep_dpi_1

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December 2nd - A trippy follow up

@brogestarck: #stonerxmas 2: Quest For Fire s/t album is a colorful 70s inspired acid trip with both instrumental and melodic bliss.

Take a listen to Toronto based Quest for Fire's self-titled album from 2009, and you'll understand why genre defining is such a difficult game to play. Within the first 7-8 minutes they have covered stoner, psych and acoustic folksy roots rock.

The entire album skips around like this, but it never gets confusing. The sound of the band - and the compositions - takes you by the hand, and leads you through this acid colored forest of an album, on a quest for fire that actually seems to have succeeded already after the first roaring track that is Bison Eyes.

Take a listen below to another highlight on the album "I've been trying to leave", in this fan-made music video.

But it CHEAP on iTunes: http://itunes.apple.com/dk/album/quest-for-fire/id310971558

Listen on Wimp: http://getwimp.dk/album/2759851

Listen on Spotify: http://open.spotify.com/album/2Uzjm5JENw4glpWZppqNKa

Visit their homepage: http://www.myspace.com/questforfire

Visit their label, and buy stuff: http://teepeerecords.com/bands/quest_for_fire/index.php

[stonerxmas-blog]

December 1st - A hard beginning

@brogestarck: #stonerxmas 1: Blue Cheer's "Vincebus Eruptus" from 68. Both brutal and melodic. Genre defining 20 years before the genre.

Before Black Sabbath, before Kyuss and before Cactus... There was Blue Cheer!

With tuned down brutality, and the melodic understanding and instrumental capabilities of Cream, Blue Cheer nowadays is often refered to as the real pioneers of Stoner Rock.

The sound and the look of the band, together with the deep and fat waves coming from their amps that are - obviously - bleeding from the maximum volume, is amazing. I love it! And I absolutely love this interview bit:

" - What makes Blue Cheer different?"

"... Heavy!"

Listen to their cover of Summertime Blues from American Band Stand. Sound is really really bad here, but the footage makes up for it.

For some reason their absolutely BEST album Vincebus Eruptus isnt available from the most common digital stores. But:

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Vincebus-Eruptum-Blue-Cheer/dp/B000001DYA

A decent "Best of" on Spotify: http://open.spotify.com/album/05BfQovzTQ3cMDf2tuH4vX

Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Cheer

Allmusic: http://www.allmusic.com/artist/blue-cheer-p3713