On March 14th, the Brant Bjork Trio offered an evening of pure stoner rock to a sold-out crowd at John & Peter’s in New Hope, Pennsylvania. Bjork’s name is synonymous with the Palm Desert Scene, and he tours in a formidable trio that includes Mario Lalli, bassist and co-founder of pioneering bands Yawning Man and Fatso Jetson, and drummer Mike Amster, who also plays with Bjork’s fellow Kyuss alum, Nick Oliveri, in Mondo Generator. Their performance overloaded no fewer than three senses and left an impression on the crowd of music lovers who traveled from near and far for the show.
Opening the show was Stinking Lizaveta, the Philly-based trio blending prog rock, doom metal, and free jazz since the mid-1990s when they experienced early support from the euphemistically polarizing Steve Albini. The band’s sound features insistent, heavy riffs punctuated by shredding and pinch harmonics from guitarist Yanni Papadopoulos, playing a Gibson Les Paul through an Orange amp sans floor effects, augmented by powerful bass from his brother, Alexi, headbanging and playing a minimalist blue upright, and timekeeping by Cheshire Agusta, who managed to leave ample space beneath her full, powerful riffs and fills. (Surely she eats drums for breakfast.) The set was a masterclass in instrumental dynamics, with the band shifting seamlessly from sludgy, “all systems go” jamming to moments of quiet intensity to straight-up free jazz. Their sound ran the gamut, at times evoking the likes of Traffic, the Dead, and minimally operatic Pink Floyd, to triumphant jams where Agusta played galloping drumbeats that would have made Lars Ulrich and Nick Mason proud.
Following a brief set break, the Brant Bjork Trio took the stage to present their signature groove-heavy sound. Bjork exuded cool confidence as he cranked his Stratocaster and launched into “U.R Free,” the first track from their latest album, Once Upon a Time in the Desert. Lalli, a desert rock pioneer in his own right, is nothing short of an animal on the bass, providing a solid foundation for Bjork’s wall of sound style vocals, guitar chords, tasteful wah-wah-ing, and pentatonic licks. And you could set your watch to Aster’s locomotive drums, which kept the entire train moving through a set that tapped into something primal and masculine without ever approaching cock rock territory. (They’re more like an unfiltered American Spirit than a Marlboro Red.) As they turned to “Down the Mountain,” which Bjork described as “a new old song,” the band channeled the vibe of the early John Frusciante years of the Chili Peppers,
The air in the room was thick with the band’s sonic output, as this is a band you need to see live to appreciate the kind of full-blown sensory assault that leaves a crowd physically buzzing. At their best, the trio simply jammed hard, showcasing the muscular rhythm section as a foundation for Bjork’s playing and treating an East Coast crowd to the end product of decades of getting stoned and jamming in the desert. (To be fair, the Palm Desert Scene has seen contributions from East Coast musicians like Dean Ween and Claude Coleman, John McBain of Monster Magnet, and Matt Sweeney, but that’s another story for another day, perhaps.) Whether fast and grooving or slow and funky, the music was consistently hard-rocking, and it felt good (and also OK) to headbang to.
Photos by Peter A. Boyce @peteraboyce.
