Flush It Friday: A Trip Down Meadowy Lane
Wooze and wobble.
Back on March 28th, long-time D.C.-based psych-stoners Dead Meadow released their 9th studio album Voyager to Voyager via Heavy Psych Sounds. Though it’s been an age since I really thought about a Dead Meadow album, this one caused me to tumble backwards in time. The very announcement earlier this year had us listening to 2008’s Old Growth while getting zapped late night at Pink Goblin Tattoo in late January. Album opener “Ain’t Got Nothing (To Go Wrong)” is still the first song I hear in my head when Dead Meadow gets mentioned. Old Growth and its predecessor Feathers (2005) had been something of a departure from the band’s earlier sound, though only by degrees. Less heavy, to be sure, than Shivering King and Others (2003)—what is arguably the band’s best record—Old Growth (and Feathers) saw the band shift into the world of woozy, wobbly, langorous psychedelia. “The way that things go these days, I’m fine. Yeah, I’m doing fine,” Jason Simon assures us, though we can’t really be sure how sure he is. There’s a sense of torpid acceptance of how the world unfolds around a person. Good times come oh so slowly, the sun shines, people talk with nothing much to say. Life, in its myriad quotidian aspects, trips on. But we’re doin’ fine.
On February 19, 2008, just 10 days after I turned 21, Dead Meadow swung through Athens between dates in Atlanta and Greensboro. With the band playing downstairs at the short-lived Tasty World, I convinced a dude named Greg from my fraternity to attend with me. Maybe 20 people were there. I don’t remember much more. For the most part, Greg and I sat on the bar stools about 12 feet from the stage, watching Simon, bassist Steve Kille, and then-current drummer Stephen McCarty play an effortless, dilatory set, one that stretched comfortably across aeons. I was drinkin’ Bud Heavys to try to mellow out how stoned we both were, attempting to quiet that panicky little voice in your head that, shit, maybe it’s time to bug out and hit the bricks ’cause the scene is beat and who needs to sit in a bar watching a band play music anyway. Fortunately for my sweaty, itchy internal monologue, the band was collectively somewhere half past wherever it is “The Great Deceiver” hangs his hat. McCarty, in particular, I remember looking out at the crowd with pupils the size of flying saucers. Simon was the kind of rock star besotted you’d hope and expect from such an act. If these dudes could do all this in that state, surely I could sit here with them. I was immediately soothed.
At some point during the set, a person dropped a little baggie out of their pocket onto the ground. I saw the fumble and quickly realized they were unawares. I hopped off my seat, picked up the goods, and said, “Hey, you dropped this.” So appreciative was the person that they offered me… something. I think they worked at a salon called Republic, which was right around the corner from Tasty World technically in the same building, but I never heard what they said. A free haircut, I think. I nodded along placidly and said I’d be happy to take them up on the offer. (And, look, I probably coulda used an actual salon stylist workin’ on my salad those days. $10 Great Clips adventures were leavin’ me with a permanent case of better-wear-a-fuckin’-hat. Who knows what kind of different life I might have led starting at that moment if I had either heard the person correctly and, if it was a haircut, taken them up on the offer.) At this point, I’m not even sure there were 20 people in the bar. Maybe 15.
It was the only time I saw Dead Meadow. Their reign as the Three Kings of stoner-psych lasted till about 2010. (Pontiak would take up the mantle for the next 5 or so years, but that’s for another day.) Efforts since then have been okay. The formula seems to be set. Warble Room (2013) was the last time I bought a Dead Meadow record. The Nothing They Need (2018) and Force Form Free (2023) both came and went, more reminders of the glory days than a return to them. To be sure,Voyager to Voyager sounds like these last few records, but, for some reason I keep listening. Opener “The Space Between” is funky and sassy, the kind of hang-loose vibes that could unite frat boys with mostly disparate listening habits in 2025. (I should mention, too, that Dead Meadow has a particular knack for perfect opening tracks. You could make a best-of just from the first track on every record.) “The Unhounded Now” has a nice barroom shuffle to it, “A Question of Will” is all sunshine and blue skies, and “Dead Tree Shake” moves its hips like it still remembers those heady days of the mid aughts but is content that they happened but doesn’t need them anymore. Titular closer “Voyager to Voyager,” though, sounds the most like that old Dead Meadow that the band has in years. The first chords are strung along like a daydream before an almost moody riff bounces its way up and down its short little distance that then gets lost in a shimmering benzo haze. You want to close your eyes, a slight smile creeping across your lips, and give your head a knowing wobble. It feels good to be on that same wavelength again.
Sadly, bassist Steve Kille died exactly one year ago today, so let this post act as tribute. Riff In Peace.
With our respects paid, let’s Flush.
Stick brought us some of the worst music I’ve heard in quite some time in this week’s Press. Roldy bugged out over Akantophis in TTT.
Stevo is Likin’ what Lik has to offer. The album is out today!
Falxifer confirms that we’re correct to be stoked for next month’s release of the new Ossuary. (Big year for See Machine, too.)
Toilet Radio 544 finds Joe n Jordan wondering what the hell are any of these people ever thinking?
Get a taste of the first track from the forthcoming Patristic LP thanks to moi.
Sepulcrustacean dropped by to drop 5 Flaming Toilets on the new Felgrave.
365 and Prof. Guanaco delivered up some tasty morsels on a teeny tiny platter. Always fill up on appetizers!
New track from Skaphos that is, I’d like to reiterate, hella dope.
Not sure what more you could want from us this week! Happy Dormant Ordeal Day to those who celebrate. Make sure to share your thoughts on any posts you “missed” throughout the week with an always-appreciated comment or two. Then you can share your GBUs. Maybe W has some H for us, too! Smooches.
