Review: The Psychedelic Knights of Zohar

Come and see: The music at this rock concert is only 50 percent of it. The other half is this crazy world that Brad, Jay and Cary – all comedians – have created.

“This fourth dimensional outer space kinda thing,” Brad said, “is telepathic communication in jams.”

“We’re just a working band that just so happens to be able to travel through time and space and dimensions and space-time,” Jay said.

And the Zohar? Are these guys mystics? “The illumination and imagination of enlightening yourself by being proactive as opposed to being reactive,” Brad said about the name. “It just seemed like the perfect other-wordly name,” Jay said, adding that the band members have no real connection to Kabbalah, or Jewish mysticism, for which the Zohar is the canonical text.

Like Andy Kaufman’s comedy, where you can’t tell if the artist is the creation or the creator, The Psychedelic Knights of Zohar, through seriously searing music and comically absurd stage presence, simultaneously love and hate, honor and ridicule, celebrate and mourn the over-indulgent glam, prog and psychedelic rock of their youth.

“It’s always ‘The Insert Adjective Insert Noun of Insert Pronoun,’” Jay said.

Some old Earth influences: Dave Gilmour, Robert Fripp, John McGlauphlin. The Stooges. Early Bowie. Deep Purple. The Who. Black Sabbath. The Tubes. King Crimson. Frank Zappa. Mahavishnu Orchestra.

Some newer influences: Thomas Erak from The Fall of Troy, Chris Sullivan from the band Ohm (“though some people might call it douchey jazz rock,” Jay said), Doug Martsch from Built to Spill, The Moody Sazuki and Pavement.

They grew up with music that was about kicking ass. Now, so much music is just guys in skinny jeans.

“There’s a tuba and a triangle. It’s not so much about rocking,” Jay said.

The Psychedelic Knights of Zohar want to bring back the rawness of avant rock while soothing the sonic wounds it with comedy. Their show is as much an ode to the past as it is a complete joke. Sometimes they do a Misfits medley with an appearance from their “space cowboy crooked manager.” Or The End by The Doors with added synth solos and all sorts of theatrics on stage and an appearance from the red-headed Verizon wireless guy – Matt McCarthy, a comedian friend of theirs – wearing an Eyes Wide Shut mask which he eventually rips off to reveal a third eye.

Which isn’t so seemingly random.

Online, the Knights endorse “products.” Brad’s gig is Third Eye Drops. Jay, for example, plays Navajo Industries Effects’ – they run off of succulent plants like Agave and Aloe – Transendence Pedal. You don’t hear the effect at the show; it kicks in later in the evening once the listener achieves REM sleep. Usually, “You’ll be visited by the spirits of deceased Indian warriors, magis, witch doctors and what not,” Jay said. Cary is a spokesman and avid user of Clock Sticks, which are digital clock drumsticks so the percussion man can tell time without missing a beat.

The Knights aim to lock together the two worlds of music and comedy with a podcast. Jay hopes it will be out before Christmas, or sometime in November as per Brad’s calculations. Breakthroughradio.com will host the podcast – a mixture of music, fake commercials and sketches.

Fr a more immediate example of the union of these two worlds, the Psychedelic Knights will be perform with Murderfist – a punk-rock, psychedelic sketch comedy group, according to Jay – next week, October 7, at Legion Bar in Brooklyn as part of a monthly show called Dogshit. Two hours of comedy. One hour of music. Zero dollars to get in. And the drinks are cheap.

“A good time for some real subversive rock comedy, or whatever,” Jay said.

At the Local 269, the show is relatively scaled-back. There are no sketches and no back drops here. Just sound-sensitive red, blue and green lighting, the costumes and intense shred.

Time For Now – “Our new hit single,” Cary says – is up next. Jay gets his own interlude on the Ibanez, Brad and Cary get their solos and then it’s a loud fucking crash into NOW! And some WOW! There’s actually some rhythm here, along with some whammy.

“We’re going into another world in a second,” someone says. “You’re in your world, but we’re in another world.”

With that, the Knights start up Another World with some Van Halen-inspired harmonic effects care of Jay. But even he soon moves beyond the effects in favor up straight-up rippage. Serious rippage. Ear-splittage. Sheets of noise that facilitate tenderization and rawness. No choice but to rejoice.

The bass playing here is the most grounded of the trio. While Jay’s guitar invokes the droning of a dragon. With fingers plugging my ears, it sounds like the dragon is laughing at me from another room.

Two guys here brought earplugs with them. They must have known. Another guy behind me is plugging his ears manually. The bartender is frozen in the thinker’s pose across the bar, staring intently at the Knights. In all, there are 11 people here: three in the band, two bartenders and five in the audience.

“Can you keep the girls from rushing the stage?” Jay asks no one in particular after finishing U R Here, the final song of the set.

There is one girl here. Maybe Jay has seen the future while journeying in the fourth dimension. No one is running toward the stage. The girl is engaged in conversation, doesn’t seem to even hear that the music has stopped. So maybe Jay has seen the distant future. Maybe.

Setlist: Intro, Colombo, Time For Now, Another World, Hot Potato, U R Here

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