The Bearded Ones

http://thebudosband.bandcamp.com/album/burnt-offering

I'll start with some kind of witty reference to the cover: Can you smell the ominous, heretical reek coming off this album? If anything, its title -- Burnt Offering -- gives you the sense that the group is intentionally trying to piss off some higher power by charring whatever offering they're putting up on the pyre. 

Does that work?

They are The Budos Band -- according to one band bio (last.fm), a derivative of los barbudos, Spanish for "the bearded ones." And so we have a killer album title, and an even better group name -- alone almost enough to pull me in.

If you shamefully judged the album by its cover (like me), not to worry. The content is sure to surpass your already-high expectations. Call it neo-funk fusion, Afro-funk, proto-Afro-funk rock jazz, or Afro-funk rock, their sound is an astounding mash-up of Ethiopian, funk, and jazz-influenced instrumentalism that is so full of energy, I'm certain you'll be caught off guard. I can only describe the sound as abrasive but smooth, full-bodied and organic, something like what the utter bliss of cosmic background noise would sound like if we could detect the wavelength directly with our ears, unadulterated and pure.

I'm waxing poetic, but this group really is quite unlike anything I've heard coming of age within the last decade or so -- mostly because they sound and feel like a group whose heyday was three decades earlier. But alas, they're out of NY, and they released their self-titled first album in 2005. I can't take credit for this discovery; a good friend of mine passed them along to me, and I've been obsessively listening ever since. Their most impressive quality -- and what I think truly makes them a superior group -- is that, according to the autobiography on their website (and the ethos of their label), they record only in analog, and in live takes. So if they are on point and really hitting it hard, you can actually feel it. And if someone misses a note, they'll leave it in -- so you'll feel that too. They're humanizing the music, and that makes it unique, organic -- they don't have to say they really care about what they're doing, because look at all the shit they go through to record an album.

I could write much more about them, but you'll just have to listen. This album is great, but they have a pretty extensive discography, all of which is in keeping with everything I've said here. If you start with Burnt Offering, I recommend "The Sticks." It's my favorite, and it'll give you an idea of just how good this band can be. 



The Rolling Stones?

Organ, sitar (trippy), mellow/melancholic -- Smiths-esque, punk-esque, rock-pop-esque. ‘90s?

Alright, my first official post will feature this really fantastic group that popped up unexpectedly during a spotify radio session -- The Brian Jonestown Massacre. While their moniker puts into question the fabric of reality that is current events and pop culture from the last half-century -- pulling of course from the mass cult suicide of the early '70s, and none other than Brian Jones, guitarist for an early rendition of the Rolling Stones -- ya gotta love it. Something about it seems very '90s, doesn't it? Fitting, because they got together at the start of the iconic decade. And I've already learned something from this group -- that no matter how smart you think you are, the term shoegaze will creep up on you and strike you down, very harshly. I thank the shuffle feature of many a radio streaming program (likely some algorithm that I don't understand) for illuminating the gift that is the BJM.

If you need more proof that these guys love the Stones, check out their fourth album:

How many requests can satanic majesties possibly have? Do they only make requests of Brit-blues/pop rock ensembles and/or those who fall in with them? The answer to the former is two (that we know of -- see The Rolling Stones ca. 1968). The answer to the latter is probably irrelevant -- and think, we’re not even certain if these requests belong to those satanic majesties, or if they’re the ones doing the requesting (hint: a careful look at both covers will underscore current confusion).



They don't sound exactly like the Stones, which actually legitimizes all of this Stone-code. There is something withheld but confrontational about their style, because it seems to move freely between the genre it belongs to and the genre it pays homage to. They still keep it totally authentic, and I’d peg them as a beautiful '90s neopsychedelic gem, eclipsed probably by the likes of Oasis and others in that vein, with a rich (there's sitar!) but subtle sound that makes you want to live in the past, but glad you're around to hear these musicians. Sometimes you feel like you're underwater listening to them, and other times you feel like you're blinded by the sun. Sometimes you're just left in awe by the quality of musicianship. They are definitely worth checking out if you love the '60s, The Stones, or '90s genre mixup phenomena.