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Windy & Carl also play Wednesday, April 15, at the Bottom of the Hill at 9:30 p.m. The Alchemysts, a South England psychedelic punk trio, and Grimble Grumble, a Chicago-based ambient experimental outfit that uses traditional rock instruments, open. Tickets are $6.
Major Stars
They used to call this acid rock. Guitarist Wayne Rogers has navigated a half-dozen improv-driven outfits over the last decade, including Crystalized Movements, B.O.R.B., and Vermonster. One-half of Major Stars, Wayne Rogers and Kate Biggar, played with Galaxie 500's Damon Kurkowski and Naomi Yang in a short-lived side project called the Magic Hour. Apparently that quartet spent too much time touring outer planets and inner space. MS's new record, The Rock Revival, is just that -- a revival of late '60s/early '70s guitarists who played Hendrix-style throbs over a steady blues rock 4/4 that allows for endless jams, solos, and then a few more jams, just for good measure. Four songs here play for 39 minutes.
The Bevis Frond
Without Nick Saloman, who essentially is the Bevis Frond, there would be no Terrastock. Saloman started playing music in the late 1960s in England, but didn't formally begin the Bevis Frond until 1986. Sounding impressed with all things psychedelic, from the jangly jams of "Eight Miles High" to the acid drip of Cream, from the damaged folk of the Soft Boys to the sludgy heaviness of Iron Butterfly, guitarist Saloman and various co-conspirators (occasionally enlisted from more celebrated space-rock aggregations like Hawkwind or Camel) have released a dozen albums and a truckload of singles, several of which are collected on this year's North Circular. Yet Saloman is more than a revivalist. Instead, he uses those various sounds as platforms for his own songs, well-crafted, occasionally twisted gems that explore relationships ("He Had You"), autobiography ("Eyeshine"), and the clueless mainstream record industry ("That's Why You Need Us").
The Bevis Frond also play with Brother JT & Vibrolux (see previous page) Thursday, April 16, at 9 p.m. at the Great American Music Hall. Tickets are $10.
Silver Apples
Silver Apples are legendary in some circles for being one of the first bands to embrace machines and odd technology and then give them human emotion. The late-'60s duo paired Danny Taylor's avant-drumming style with Simeon Coxe's jury-rigged banks of oscillators, sound-generating machines that vary, fluctuate, and repeat noise waves. At the time, nothing else sounded like the two-chord noise and droney racket that Silver Apples made. Coxe stumbled back into music a few years ago when he discovered that his old records had become commodities among a new generation of experimentalists. Drummer Michael Lerner and keyboardist Xian Hawkins play with Coxe on his two most recent records, Beacon and Decatur. On 1997's Beacon, the group's jerky rhythms and repetitive phrasings sometimes sound ridiculous, self-serious, and overwrought -- like a parody of the music that the old Saturday Night Live Sprockets ensemble might dance to. But once in a while there are moments, like the oscillation twirl and electric crickets that work themselves into "I Have Known Love," that are genuinely weird enough to impress even the harshest cynic.
Silver Apples also play Monday, April 20, at the Bottom of the Hill at 9:30 p.m. with Bardo Pond (see below) and Primordial Undermind, who traffic in textural psychedelic guitarwork and propulsive rhythmic drive. Tickets are $7.
Cul de Sac
At their best, Cul de Sac, a Boston-based four-piece, capture human connections and relationship dynamics within instrumental songs. Last year's The Epiphany of Glenn Jones, the group's fourth full-length -- titled after a revelation the band's guitarist had while working with flat-picker John Fahey -- used interplay to express a tug of war between collaborators. On "The New Red Pony," the record's best track, Fahey plucked a gamboling solo for half the song while the rest of the group created an incidental backdrop. Fahey's acoustic guitar faded to Jones' heavy, heavy electric, saturated with effects. Fahey shot back a set of crippled blues riffs that sounded like he was learning how to walk again. As Fahey finished, the studio mikes picked up a brief snippet of dialogue. "Hey, let's hear a different key," he said. Time stopped for half a second. And then Jones' guitar came back down to slay the wounded in the final 20 seconds of the song.
Bardo Pond
Sometimes Bardo Pond make songs. Sometimes the Philadelphia quintet make noise. Sometimes the two happen to coincide with one another. Lapsed, the band's fifth full-length effort, is a tumultuous stew of feedback that burbles with elements of My Bloody Valentine overdrive, New York no wave, and -- rarely -- old-school psychedelia. Often the compositions begin as actual songs before slipping, ever so gradually, typically one instrument at a time, into a distorted squall, a ceiling of noise. Other times ringing guitars and flute provide graspable melodies as the rhythm section plods and airy vocals float over top of the noise. Sounds pretty good any time, a lot better when you're stoned.
Bardo Pond also play Monday, April 20, at the Bottom of the Hill at 9:30 p.m. with Silver Apples (see above) and Primordial Undermind. Tickets are $7.
