What a great name for a smokin’ album released at a rockin’ show by a wicked band!
Say it with me now…
Pa · chy · der · mous
Trunk · a · del · ic
Psychedelic power-trio Trunk put together a mind-blowing show last Saturday that blew the doors off Ottawa’s Live On Elgin. They brought in jazzfolk artist Dynamite Motel, surf-dance-punkers Randy Shenanigans, psychedelic/stoner rockers Big Moan, and two surprise guest vocalists – Kara Askwith and Keturah Johnson – to pump the volume, and the party, up to 100,000,000 watts.
The mellow, jazzy vocals of Mindy Amelotte (a.k.a. Dynamite Motel) smoothly brought in the night as the audience grew larger at Live On Elgin. Being an experimental artist as well, Mindy ended a first-rate set of her singing selections from her former CDs and her latest album, Green Lights, with two new numbers she has been working on that featured looped segments that Mindy soloed in conjuction with. I’m eager to see where this direction takes her.
Randy Shenanigans then ‘pet the cat‘ onto stage and ripped right into some mighty fine gnarly tunes from both their albums, Days of the Week from 2014 and this year’s Thematically Inconsistent. This is not your Daddy-o’s surfin’ jangle from The Ventures, Dick Dale & the Del-Tones, or The Rip Chords – no sirree. Hamid (bass), Matt (guitar), Dan (drums), and Gabe (guitar) mix in a vibraphone, a gong, Wurlitzer, and elements from Stoner, Psychedelic, Heavy Metal, …and perhaps just a bit of ‘boogie-woogie’. The growl and weight of Space Crustacean, Midnight at the Haberdashery, and of Ballad of the Two-Tonne Groundsloth are evidence to the injection of metal – perhap, maybe… “surfmetal”? – and, oh yeah, the tom intro on Welcome to Kung Fu Island is extra super-cool. These guys aren’t grommets, they’re stoked and right into the pocket …shreddin’ and shootin’ the tube like the big kahunas they are …each a Surfasaurus Rex hangin’ ten on a rhino-chaser ridin’ Ottawa’s musical point break …Yowza, Murphy!
( …all surfer lexicon definitely intended 😛 )
From the surf of Hawaii and Southern Cal, the audience transported inland to be immersed in the mountain-tremor wall-of-sound riffing of Psychedelic/Stoner quartet, Big Moan. Launching right into Drugs You Took / Pulling Teeth (…my current favourite) and Sacred Tree from their Big Moan EP, Calvin (guitar, lap steel, vocals), Man Dee (bass), Jon (drums), and Kane (guitar, synths) kept the crowd on their feet diggin’ and dancin’ to Calvin’s and Kane’s dual raw saw-tooth guitars splitting through the steamroller muscle of driving bedrock bass and drumming. A sterling cover of Deep Purple‘s Black Night preceded one of the two numbers not on their albums, Descent and Marsh, both of which bookended Black Hallows, probably the one song of theirs that has such deep rumbling bass and guitar riffing that it must have come from the lowermost regions of Tartarus itself.
Suzie, from Big Moan Hits The Farm, and Best Of The Worst, a close equal to Black Hallows in doom metal and from their latest album On The Floor, closed off their set. Suzie begins as almost ballad-like, then half-way through gathers a rockin-out momentum with an exchange of guitar leads that slide back down into where it began and scatters off into oblivion. Having been characterized as “playing much too loud since 2011“, I can honestly say …Big Moan is just the right volume.
All in all, this night was for Trunk and their second album, Pachydermous Trunkadelic (…what a f*kin great title!). Hearing cuts from this masterful collection of Psychedelic Funk/Rock/Jazz topped off the night beautifully. This trio of musical craftsmen – Mike Holuj (guitar), Jordan Edgecombe (bass), and Stefan Jurewicz (drums) – tore the paint off the walls of Live On Elgin with groove after hot groove. What they initiated with Telepathy, they surpassed with this current release – and getting to experience pieces such as the trippin’ Secondhand Euphoria, the steppin’ (…just like a prancin’ pachyderm) New King Hi-Fi, the jazzy Shangri-Lost & Found and the walking bass and serrated guitar fuzz of Calvin’s Beard live just made my day. And then…
And then… Trunk brings onstage Kara Askwith to render a fine execution Floyd’s Armada. Later, Dynamite Hotel returns onstage to lay down a sweet version of Limbo Blues. And finally, to wrap up an evening of smokin’ rock ranging from Surf to Psychedelic, Keturah Johnson delivers her haunting empyrean vocals to the mysterious psychotropic composition, The Concoctionist. But this wasn’t all… Trunk pulled out a new tune for the crowd – Funkaphobia – hinting at, perhaps, another album in the near future?
You can purchase Pachydermous Trunkadelic here ⇒
Trunk > Bandcamp, Facebook, Twitter
Big Moan > Bandcamp, Facebook
Randy Shenanigans > Bandcamp, Facebook, Twitter
Dynamite Hotel > Bandcamp, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube
