6pm doors, 7pm first band, show over by 10pm. $20 advance. 21+.
Proof of vaccination required at the door for entry.
photo: Kristy Walker
Over nearly 20 years, Howlin Rain may have become the quintessential independent American rock ’n roll band: a steam-spitting Hydra of cranked guitars, kicking asphalt dust through a kaleidoscoping travelogue of desert motels and dives, volleying forth transmissions of sci-fi poetry from the blacktop veins of this cracked and aching country.
Now, in America 2021, capping this strangest and sorest of years, the band returns with The Dharma Wheel, a six-track, 52-minute dive into a joyous fantasy realm of exaggerated present.
“I wanted The Dharma Wheel to be a portal from our everyday world, the one from which you stand on hard ground and hold the album in your hands and peer into the artwork, and into another universe,” says songwriter, guitarist and vocalist, Ethan Miller. “You enter into that universe with your eyes and ears and mind and take a ride through free-form meditation on these ideas — from big, fundamental concepts about our existence right down to the grease that rolls down the arm of a pulp novel killer as he eats a gas station hot dog in an old Dodge in an alleyway.”
Mammatus has been conjuring up a heavy blend of riff laden, space trippin, proggy, hazy far out rock and roll for fifteen years now. Since forming in the shadows of the Santa Cruz Mountains of California in 2005, they've delighted the ears and minds of adventurous listeners around the world.
With an excess of fuzz and wah noise, Mammatus manage to combine all the best bits of 70’s UK psych rock with the sonic assault of early Monster Magnet, Mudhoney and heavy sludge doom rock.
Low Plateau from Oakland, Ca is Eli Eckert (Once & Future Band, Drunk Horse) on guitar and vocals, Aaron Calvert (Winfred E. Eye) on bass and harmony vocals, Chris LaBreche (Sweet Chariot, Parchman Farm) on drums and Utrillo Kushner (Comets on Fire, Colossal Yes) on keyboards.