by Black Bubblegum

DOWNLOAD: Grails w/ Simeon of Silver Apples - Silk Road (MP3)

Grails at Knitting Factory, Nov 2008

Grails have posted a NSFW preview of their upcoming DVD, Acid Rain, due on April 7th via Temporary Residence Limited. Check it out below. "A year in the making", Acid Rain contains six music videos, video shot on their European tour, an entire live set recorded 11/16/07 at the Knitting Factory in NYC (when they toured with Om), and general weirdness like "vietnamese instructional videos of 'what to do in case of rat infestation'" (a direct quote from Emil Amos). Schweet.

Speaking of Grails live at Knitting Factory, the last time the band touched down here was during a collaborative set with Silver Apples as part of the Hallejuwah Fest. Their set was, to quote Kelly LeBrock from Weird Science, "a mind scrambler". Luckily, Radio23.org was able to capture the audio from "Silk Road" and make it available for download... check it out above.

Grails, along with Earth, Grey Daturas, and Tribes of Neurot (aka the experimental ambient nom de plume of Neurosis) were recently added to the Beyond The Pale Festival at Roadburn. For those counting at home, that officially tips the festival scale from stupid awesome to seriously-fucked-up-that-it's-sold-out.

"Acid Rain" DVD trailer below...

Continue reading "Grails - Acid Rain DVD trailer & live (w/ Silver Apples) MP3"

Silver Apples @ Knitting Factory in June (more by Zach Dilgard)

Flower Travellin' Band won't be here, but the The Third Annual Halleluwah Festival goes on, this weekend at the Knitting Factory in NYC. According to the venue, the current lineup is:

Nov 22 - Grails, Silver Apples, White Rainbow, Nudge, Pigeons, Hard Bop, Dinowalrus, DJs Marty McSorely & Thanksgiving Brown

Nov 23 - Gods & Monsters, Martin Bisi, Apse, White Rainbow, Nancy Garcia, The Low Suns, Max Ochs

The venue's website actually still also lists Silver Summit for Sunday, but I'm pretty sure they won't be there and the festival's MySpace does seem to have removed them.

For Silver Apples, Saturday night's show will be the second in two days. The first was Friday night at Brainwaves in MA. On December 2nd, Simeon (Mr. Silver Apples) will also supposedly be doing this:

At The Kitchen, Silver Apples will perform a re-creation on the Mune Toon concert in 1969. This event was part of the official New York City celebration of the landing on the moon that took place in Central Park in July of 1969. At the moment that Niel Armstrong stepped onto the surface of the moon Simeon and Danny burst into this free-form-rock electronic instrumental that was scheduled for only 16.8 minutes, but actually went well into the morning. It is said many babies were conceived in the bushes that night!

The event is listed on The Kitchen's website as An Evening with Farimani. Tickets are at Ticketweb.

Silver Apples' only other upcoming shows are in January in Australia. The occasion is the ATP fest happening there that was curated by Nick Cave. All dates below...

Continue reading "Silver Apples tour dates (Halleluwah, The Kitchen, ATP)"

"It is with great regret that we have postponed Flower Travellin' Band's performance to Tues. Dec. 9th; tickets will be honored at the door on the rescheduled date, or you may obtain a full refund at your point of purchase. The Third Annual Halleluwah Festival will still take place this weekend, and a $10 refund will be issued at the box office night of show for those who would still like to attend ($15 refund Sunday)." - Knitting Factory

bummer. It has to do with visa issues. Tickets for the new date (one show, not two) are on sale. FTB also list a Toronto show on their website.

Knitting Factory's website still lists all the other bands that were set to play the fest this weekend, but at least one, Silver Summit, definitely pulled out of their scheduled Sunday performance.

by Black Bubblegum

Flower Traveling Band @ 2nd World Rock Festival 1974

OK. I literally almost fell out of my chair when I saw this one..... the Knitting Factory NYC booked two nights of the legendary Japanese Psych/Doom/Alloftheabove prog rock of Flower Travelling Band! Their first two US dates EVER. 40 years later. Here's what allmusic had to say about Flower Travellin' Band and their classic LP Satori:

Flower Travelling Band was Japan's answer to Led Zeppelin meeting Blue Cheer and Black Sabbath at the Ash Ra Temple. Simply put, they played grand, spacey, tripped-out hard rock with a riffy base that was only two steps removed from the blues, but their manner of interpreting those steps came from an acid trip... From power chords to Eastern-tinged, North African, six-string freakouts, to crashing tom toms, to basses blasting into the red zone, Satori is a... new sonic universe constructed from cast-off elements of the popular culture of the LSD generation. Forget everything you know about hard rock from the 1970s until you've put this one through your headphones. It's monolithic, expansive, flipped to wig city, and full of a beach blanket bong-out muscularity. In other words, this is a "real" classic and worth any price you happen to pay for it.

Thats an endorsement. Grails have covered Flower Travellin' Band's "Satori" on their Interpretations EP, and will join Silver Apples, Arbouretum, Dinowalrus, Nudge, and others to open the first night (Nov 22nd) of the three floor event entitled "Third Annual Halleluwah Festival of Enthused Arts" at Knitting Factory. The next night, Nov 23rd, look for Hard Bop, Apse, Talk Normal, Nancy Garcia (of Monotract), and others to kick things off.

Tickets are on sale: November 22, November 23.

Flower Travellin' Band reunited in January of this year, playing a handful of shows in Japan, including the Fuji Rock Festival. The band dropped the NEW album We Are Here on Sept 17th via Pony Canyon Records. Featuring eight new tracks, you can stream three of them here.

Flower Travellin' Band was recently profiled in Julian Cope's Japrocksampler, where Cope named their classic LP Satori as his favorite "Japrock" record ever.

Union Pool plays host to Grails on November 21st with recently added guests Psychic Ills.

Apse recently played ATP NY and have another NYC show scheduled at Death By Audio on November 21st.

All tour dates, the festival flyer and a bunch of videos below...

Continue reading "Flower Travelin' Band playing 2-day Halleluwah Festival in NYC (first US show ever) (w/ Grails, Apse, more...)"