The Main Street Gospel’s new song “Beyond Repair,” recorded and filmed live in Columbus, Ohio at The Alter.

Directed and Edited by: Brian Polk
Director of Photography: Victor Matkovic
Audio Engineer: Brian Simakis
Produced by: Outsider Entertainment
outsidere.com
myspace.com/themainstreetgospel

“Love Will Have Her Revenge” is out now on Tee Pee Records.

The Main Street Gospel Sign With Tee Pee Records, Set To Release Debut Album “Love Will Have Her Revenge” June 29th!

The Main Street Gospel have signed with Tee Pee Records and will release their debut album “Love Will Have Her Revenge” on June 29th.

The Main Street Gospel is a Columbus, Ohio trio who mix psych-infused classic rock with dusty country vibes and dirt-stained blues. The band was born in 2005, when Barry Dean–former tambourine shaker for the Brian Jonestown Massacre–began writing songs with longtime friend Ryan “Tito” Ida. Adam Scoppa joined the band on drums the following year.

Dean grew up around music, as his grandfather was a touring and recording guitarist for acts like Roy Rogers & The Sons of the Pioneers and The Georgia Crackers. It’s safe to say that passion for country music was passed on to his grandson. Tito grew up listening to Hank Williams and Bob Dylan and also paved his musical path early on. Scoppa takes his back beat cues from vintage Chicago blues and ’60s garage.

Together, the band has a strong sense of understanding and respect for the true roots of rock n’roll. Their sound recalls elements of folk giants The Byrds and Neil Young, while at the same time retaining the modern aesthetics of revivalists like Spacemen 3 and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club.

To date, The Main Street Gospel have played several shows with like-minded bands such as Dead Meadow, Hopewell and fellow Ohioans Buffalo Killers.

In early 2008, the trio mobilized themselves to Akron Analog Studio in Akron, Ohio to record what would become the band’s first 7″ single. ‘All Your Love Is Gone’ b/w ‘Who Shot You Down’ was recorded and engineered by The Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach, whose influence certainly resonates. While the songs are decidedly stripped-down in essence, they still manage to accomplish a big, layered sonic delivery.

The Main Street Gospel’s debut album will be 11 tracks of cool, driving rock n’ roll titled Love Will Have Her Revenge, sure to please bluesy alternative country, classic rock, and psych fans.

The Main Street Gospel:
Barry Dean – Vocals, Guitar
Ryan “Tito” Ida – Bass
Adam Scoppa – Drums, Percussion

Upcoming Shows:
4/9 Carabar – Columbus, OH
4/14 The Matinee – Akron, OH
5/7 The Circus - Columbus, OH
5/29 Ruby Tuesday’s – Columbus, OH

MP3: By The Rippling Green

I don’t know if it’s something in the water, but there seem to be a great deal of psychedelic/stoner rock bands coming through town (or forming in town) these days. San Franciscan quartet Assembled Head In Sunburst Sound will make the latest addition to the list with their appearance at The Summit Friday night. This multi-gendered band is touring in support of their 2009 Tee Pee Records release, When Sweet Sleep Returned, eight tracks of hazy, road-weary rock with what I would call rural undertones. 1970s influences are harnessed into songs that feel like miniature mystic journeys, so I can only imagine how this will play out live.

Fellow San Franciscans Sleepy Sun share the bill with their own 2009 release, Sleepy Son on ATP Recordings, in tow. Judging by the jams on their myspace, their music appears to be right in line with that of their tourmates. EDIT: Local prog wizards Moons are not playing this show. Perhaps there will be another opener.

MP3: Skeletelepathic

The music of Brooklyn quintet Weird Owl brings to mind several influences and touchstones that helped create their psychedelic sound.  However, the most prominent characteristic of Ever The Silver Cord Be Loosed , released last week on Tee Pee Records, is that the album feels like a series of mystical quests that stretch across space, time, and subject matter.  The challenge faced herein is trying to tie together these rambling journeys into one palatable package.

The music here is a tad gentler than your average modern psychedelic band.  Citing Crazy Horse as a reference, there is a subtle country/folk hue to some of the tunes that allows the music to have some American highway grit to go along with the omnipresent interstellar highway grit.  There is plenty of guitar to sink your teeth into, but the players tend to avoid the heavy riffing you might expect.  The keyboard parts range from pointed rhythm to hazy atmospherics, including some hearty organ playing, and the rhythm section offers a solid underpinning to the spacey leanings elsewhere.

The lead vocals of Trevor Tyrrell paint him as the captain of a mixed-up spaceship, yearning for great adventures into the past and future simultaneously.  I am told that the themes of the songs include “past-life relapses involving the Battle of Little Bighorn” and “the Atlantean seascape of the subconscious mind,” so there is some heavy stuff going on here.  These types of lyrical aims tend to make it easy to distinguish otherwise similar songs, as the Little Bighorn mission makes the country-tinged rock of “13 Arrows, 13 Stars” considerably different than the folksy “Skeletelepathic,” though I suppose the tale of his powerful bones is just more subdued.  The lyrics can give the listener a great deal to digest, and more details of these tales come with repeated listens.

Your enjoyment of Ever The Silver Cord Be Loosed likely depends on your imagination and your interest in Weird Owl’s perspective on visionary experiences.  The album functions well as a solid psychedelic rock album, but joining Tyrrell and crew on their journeys into the ether requires some commitment and some suspension of reality.

MP3: Neptune With Fire (Edit)

Released in August, Neptune With Fire is the debut release for both the Ancestors, a Los Angeles-based metal quintet of varying description, as well as for North Atlantic Sound, a new imprint on Tee Pee Records. The near future of the label (as well as that of the band) will be interesting to follow, as this epic release paints North Atlantic as a label with clear artistic and conceptual standards and, therefore, upcoming releases already have a strong benchmark set for them.

What makes Neptune With Fire different from any other album that I’ve heard in 2008 is that the album’s ample 38:26 running time is composed of only two songs: the 17-minute “Orcus’ Avarice” and the nearly 22-minute title track (a seven-minute snippet of this track is posted above to give you a taste). Therefore, though there are attributes of many metal subgenres on display here (psychedelic, doom, sludge, etc.), the most obvious characteristic of this album is the band’s desire to jam. Both tracks feature lengthy sections with moments of distortion and noise used as transitions.  Neptune With Fire is presented as a concept album, as a metaphorical character experiences a transforming journey.  Unfortunately, the lack of and oft-unintelligible nature of lyrics on the songs (which are apparently sung by committee) hinders my understanding of the quest at hand.  This is not a major detriment, however, because the moods of the different sections of each song and the transitions between these sections shed some light into the pain and glory expressed therein.

The band handles their various styles ably, as the album’s opening psychedelic passage jams pretty hard, and the almost medieval air of a large portion of the title track lends an air of weighty fantasy.  Though J. Christopher Watkin’s organ stands out on the title track, the individual instruments usually blend into a cohesive unit as the band focuses on creating airtight sonic portraits.  Many of the songs’ sections lumber repetitively as momentum is built very slowly and the groove forms and transforms naturally.  The abundance of these transformations of varying speed keep these long tracks fresh and allow the band plenty of time to construct the appropriate moods and tie up loose ends when necessary.

Neptune With Fire is a strong debut for the Ancestors and is highly recommended to those who have the patience for metal epics.  The album, featuring artwork designed by Arik Roper (who has done the same for many of the Ancestors’ psychedelic metal compatriots), is currently available on both vinyl and CD at the Tee Pee shop.

MP3: Thin Line

Man, Sweden seems like a happening place these days (or, you know, from my distorted American perspective, it’s been cool for the last decade or so). I wonder how the live shows are over there, as that would be quite the road trip. Anyway, the swelling American rock ‘n roll depot that is Tee Pee Records (Brian Jonestown Massacre, High On Fire, Teeth Of The Hydra) recently issued the self-titled debut from Gothensburg’s Graveyard. This quartet claims old-school influences like Cream and Black Sabbath, and does a respectable job of honoring such touchstones.

From the somber opening drums of “Evil Ways,” it is obvious that producer Don Ahlstenburg (The International Noise Conspiracy, Soundtrack Of Our Lives, etc.) has helped craft a gritty throwback record. Despite that (or inspired by it?), the band goes on to drop nine tracks worthy of today’s rock ears. Lead singer Joakim Nilsson loves to howl on the fierier numbers (“Take Us For Fools,” “Lost In Confusion”), but can also turn out a comfortable croon (though he does verge into “Grover”-esque territory at times during the otherwise-smoldering “Blue Soul”). Though the twin guitar attack of Nilsson and Jonathan Ramm does not delve into mind-bending pyrotechnics, there is a subtle (classically-influenced?) virtuosity in the instrumentation that keeps the proceeds light in front of the thunderous yet agile rhythm section of Bikar Edlund (bass) and Axel Sjoberg (drums). The boys possess a tempered sound that, despite surges in volume and tempo, never allows the songs to come off as “happy,” so this is not a record to look to for a pick-me-up. However, the somewhat-downtrodden subject matter is rotated enough to avoid a severe onset of depression (especially with the sentiment of well-chosen closer “Satan’s Finest”).

Though Graveyard is not exactly an original rock ‘n roll outfit, their style is varied enough to interest fans of both classic hard rock and more contemporary rock sounds. This effort is sufficiently sturdy to show the potential of a bright future beyond the grave.