By Samuel Rubenfeld
Election night at the Knitting Factory was not about politics: it was about turning on, tuning in and dropping out. Thankfully, the dour mood of the largely hipster crowd did not reflect on any of the bands performing.
Los Angeles-based sextet The Warlocks led a bill filled with neo-psychedelic rock that would have made a friend of the band, the late Timothy Leary, proud.
The first thing the band screams is the fact that they don’t want you to see them. They performed behind silhouette lighting for the whole set, forcing the listener to pay strict attention to the sound, and for good reason.
Throughout their hour-long performance, jams would filter in-and-out, heading nowhere but driving nonetheless. It was impossible not to get lost in the swirling and all-encompassing waves of sound.
It is the sound of a band obsessed with the Grateful Dead and Sonic Youth.
The band is known for its allegiance to both the beginnings of krautrock and to the classic sound of The Velvet Underground, and at the Knitting Factory, it was plainly on display. The guitars competed for noise dominance, drums rang out a motorik beat, and frontman Bobby Hecksher howled over the chaos surrounding him.
The Warlocks’ set grew louder and louder with each song. “So Paranoid,” the first “single” off the new record (the band hates the word “single”), grabbed the crowd’s attention and would not let go-it takes a looping riff to the point of oblivion.
The tour is in support of the new release “Heavy Deavy Skull Lover,” out on Tee Pee Records, home to the most famous neo-psychedelic collective, the Brian Jonestown Massacre; Hecksher himself was once a member of the BJM-and the Warlocks sound like them as though they were obsessed with the occult and are still dreamy and accessible.
“Shake the Dope Out” brought a lighthearted and groovy feel to snorting heroin. “Caveman Rock” sounded like the blues on mescaline.
Co-headliners Darker My Love were even louder than The Warlocks. Also from California, this band brings a punk attitude to psych-gaze, since two of the members come from famed punk bands The Nerve Agents and the Distillers.
Joining the tour to premiere new work of their own, the band featured some of the heaviest psych since Hawkwind. The newer music was the stuff of a psychedelic classical overture, with movements coming and going, times of spacious minimalism and then of freak-outs.
Darker My Love also played some material off its debut out on Dangerbird Records. The piercing riff from “Helium Heels” tore through the venue. “Enough is enough,” frontman Tim Presley cryptically repeated over and over again as the sound grew louder and louder around him.
Openers Silver Rockets put out a consistently interesting sound, despite chronic complaints from frontman Paul Dillon about how bad his music is and how his equipment was functioning. Dillon is not without psychedelic credentials himself, being a former member of Mercury Rev and Longwave. The sound was part Oasis, part Elliott Smith and part Velvet Underground, yet the band flaunted a punk ethos throughout.
Politicians could learn from these bands and celebrate-or lament -their long and tiring campaigns by “tuning in and dropping out” at a concert on election night.
(thewarlocks.com)