Scraped Into My Hands, Eating as I Go Along
Country rock minimalism and "cosmic rock road trips."
Earth, The Bee’s Made Honey in the Lion’s Skull (Southern Lord Records, 2008)
I’m listening to Earth’s The Bees Made Honey In the Lion’s Skull*, an all-timer album. Country rock distilled down to its elements, psychically chopped and screwed like a Neil Young and Black Sabbath team-up. Earth had made plenty of very heavy records by 2008, but Bees continued an on-going shift into more transparent contexts: a variety of mostly clean or lightly overdriven guitars (and a guest appearance by Bill Frisell), flooding organs, acoustic piano, sparse drums. Old Earth was scorched, these doomy Cormac McCarthy-esque rumblings are toasted. Western music fit for an Old Testament God: ominous, resplendent, and terrifying. And as it turns out, a good Saturday AM record.
The JPW meets Dad Weed combo band (Zach Toporek on guitar and vocals, Andrew Bates on bass, Cameron Knouse on drums) played at the Cibo Carriage House last night to celebrate the duel release of my single “Halfway to Eloy” (PopMatters calls is a “cosmic rock road trip”) and Zach (Dad Weed)’s new one, “Flesh Prison.” Michael Krassner and Wild Life played an incredible set with a moving cover of Bowie’s “I Can’t Give Everything Away,” as did Paula Tesoriero and her dreamy band. Krassner is such a gracious host, too.
Image via FORT LOWELL RECORDS.
Something Happening/Always Happening is out September 9 on Fort Lowell Records but I think copies might start shipping out sooner than that if you wanna grab one.
* The Bees Made Honey in the Lion’s Skull is a reference to Judges chapter 14, in which the strongman Samson was traveling with his mother and father:
"5…When he came to the vineyards of Timnah, suddenly a young lion roared at him. 6 The spirit of the Lord rushed on him, and he tore the lion apart barehanded as one might tear apart a kid. But he did not tell his father or his mother what he had done. 7 Then he went down and talked with the woman, and she pleased Samson. 8 After a while he returned to marry her, and he turned aside to see the carcass of the lion, and there was a swarm of bees in the body of the lion and honey. 9 He scraped it out into his hands and went on, eating as he went. When he came to his father and mother, he gave some to them, and they ate it. But he did not tell them that he had taken the honey from the carcass of the lion.”
Whole lotta Samson not telling people about stuff. The chapter ends with him killing 30 men.
Other news:
Over at Hello Records, we’ve teamed up with Epitaph to offer the first-ever vinyl version of The Special Goodness’ Land Air Sea. This side project from Weezer drummer Pat Wilson and Atom Willard (Rocket From the Crypt) is pure riff music, full of blissed and fuzzed-out melodies that are equal parts “Green Album” minimalism and “Blue Album” pop directness. Over at WASTOIDS, we’re sharing episodes of The Special Podness, a mini-series with Pat, Atom, and Weezer archivist Karl Koch.
We’ve got a great talk with occult scholar and author Mitch Horowitz coming up this week on Aquarium Drunkard Transmissions—a follow up to his talk from earlier this year. We talk Bigfoot, String Theory, ESP, Satanism, skepticism, thought causation, and the National Prayer Breakfast. Click here to subscribe via your preferred podcast app.