Americana indie-rock psychedelic f--ked-up folk blah blah blah, take two

11 MP3 Songs
ROCK: Americana, ROCK: Folk Rock



Details:
Weed Patch: Act Two, in which project becomes band and delivers an album of impression, depth, and color: Some Kinda Happy.

To get you up to speed, L.A. songwriter Neal Weiss conceptualized Weed Patch to act upon his painfully slowly gestating rock 'n' roll fantasies and in 2003 released the debut album, Maybe The Brakes Will Fail. The effort, dubbed "fucked-up folk" by Weiss, generates ample acclaim, international airplay (thank you BBC!), an LA Weekly Music Award nomination and, of course, irreversible negative cash flow.

Meanwhile, it's time to take this thing to the locals. Band is assembled and a year later solidified: Weiss on vocals and rhythm guitars; Brad Richard on lead guitars, keyboards, KAOS pad, e-bow, slide and enough effects pedals to induce aural vertigo; Robinson on melody-rich bass; and Marty Rosamond on drums, low-rent drum samples and various other percussion.

In rehearsal spaces and clubs small and smaller -- oftentimes⦠sigh⦠nearly empty -- the quartet found its way to something new. If it at first it was all about interpreting the songs of Maybe The Brakesâ¦, the new lineup soon metamorphosed into its own collaborative beast, turning Weiss's skeletal guitar-and-voice creations into full-on three-dimensional experiences -- a melding of Americana and indie-pop and a knack for taking things into the supersonic stratosphere.

Some Kinda Happy is the product of the quartet's collective efforts. Recorded over eight consecutive bleary days and nights in a Venice, CA studio in June (compared to the year-long-stolen-hours-in-the-warehouse process that yielded its predecessor), SKH is an explosion of craft and hooks juxtaposed with tonal splattering and the impromptu, don't-look-back nature on an album mandated (economics, thank you) to be completed in so little time. Its 10 songs are exhilarating, soaring, gentle, experimental, epic, unpredictable, folksy, wise, naïve, and on occasion, wonderfully ear-bleeding.

"Their musical vision," the LA Weekly suggests, "combines the woozy sunsets and dark portents of Workingman's Dead, the smiley-face dream-pop of Big Star, and a noodling streak that treads into dissonant Wilco/Sparklehorse territory."

Some Kinda Happy was produced by creative genius awaiting anointing Seth Rothschild (ex-Gingersol) and mixed in Texas by the equally wondrous Matt Pence (Centro-matic, South San Gabriel). As the title implies, it is about the pursuit of happiness, be it framed by characters suffering from depression or chronic illness or simple mortality and the resurrection of life through the eyes of parenthood and the ones you bring into this oft lovely, sometimes harrowing world. (Three-fourths of Weed Patch, it's worth noting, are fathers.)

"I was raised on punk rock and angst and songs of disillusionment, but at the end of the day I cling to the notion of hope in the world," Weiss says. "Basically, I can't help but head toward the light, as corny as that sounds. It's just my nature."