Amusing the Amazing

June 6, 2011 8:10 PM

Kyuss were an epically loud, epically low band from the desert. They rose to local prominence by playing impromptu outdoor shows called “generator parties,” setting up for small crowds in the desert with gasoline generators to power their amps. Their sound was shaped by playing both guitars and bass through overdriven bass amps. They gradually shifted from an up-tempo prototypical stoner rock sound on Blues for the Red Sun to a more expansive and spacious sound on Welcome to Sky Valley and …And the Circus Leaves Town. Alumni have seeded such bands as Queens of the Stone Age (Homme, Oliveri), Fu Manchu (Bjork), and Unida (Garcia). And now, apparently, Kyuss Lives! Almost.

Three of the four founding members (John Garcia, Brant Bjork, and Nick Oliveri) have reunited and are touring the states to bring their fans “…as close as they could get to the real thing.” According to the abstaining member, Josh Homme, “…to me, reunions are just not necessary. It's not what it was, it's what it is, and KYUSS was a really magical thing — and if you weren't there, well, you weren't. That's just the luck of the draw.” Some footage of the reformed Kyuss Lives! playing Gardenia and a number of other songs.


Additional tuneage:
Covering Black Sabbath’s Into the Void
Flip the Phase
Un Sandpiper

posted by Existential Dread (33 comments total)

The Desert Sessions is my favorite Kyuss-related thing. Here's a video thingy.
posted by Huck500 at 8:33 PM on June 6, 2011

Their sound was shaped by playing both guitars and bass through overdriven bass amps.

I read this and realized that the Marshall stack, the artifact which perhaps most represents the entire genre of rock, is based on the Fender Bassman, a bass amp frequently appropriated by guitarists in the 50's.

That's all. I'm James Burke, thank you and good night.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 8:38 PM on June 6, 2011

I was introduced to Kyuss when I saw them opening for a big name band. At the time the crowd just wanted the main act to come out, but I liked what I heard enough to grab Blues for The Red Sun after the show. They're a cracking band, might go listen to some now.
posted by markr at 8:48 PM on June 6, 2011

Demon Cleaner is pretty cool
posted by autoclavicle at 8:49 PM on June 6, 2011

You neglected Slo Burn's "Amusing the Amazing" EP, for Garcia's output; no biggie but worthy of note.
posted by Dark Messiah at 8:49 PM on June 6, 2011 [1 favorite]

Also, tool covering Demon Cleaner w/Scott Reeder (also bass player for Kyuss); YouTube.
posted by Dark Messiah at 8:51 PM on June 6, 2011 [1 favorite]

KYUSS! FUCK YEAH!
posted by koeselitz at 8:56 PM on June 6, 2011 [1 favorite]

Damn, should have made one single post; sorry for this.

Brant Bjork also has a number of good solo albums; at least one under his own named called Jalamanta, which is still some of my favourite mellow-out stoner music. Also, his Brant Bjork and the Operators project was very good as well.

Kyuss had two bass players; Scott Reeder and Nick Oliveri. The latter of which has been all over the place; I think he even played bass on a couple of Dwarves albums (I only bothered with Come Clean). Reeder played on the Unida album, as well as hopping around with a few bands I used to listen to a lot back in the day; Sunn O))), Goatsnake, and Sixty Watt Shaman (Reason to Live is still a killer mountain rock album).

A lot of good stuff came out of Kyuss, that's for damn sure.
posted by Dark Messiah at 8:56 PM on June 6, 2011

Dark Messiah is right: Jalamanta is one fine, fine set of little-known stoned tuneage.

Fans of Fu Manchu and Kyuss will dig it.
posted by gcbv at 8:59 PM on June 6, 2011

I have recently switched to playing the bass through a Marshall 100 watt head, and let me tell you, it's MASSIVE.
posted by Devils Rancher at 9:02 PM on June 6, 2011 [1 favorite]

Also, out of all the *us bands of the underground '90's scene, Grotus was my fave.
posted by Devils Rancher at 9:03 PM on June 6, 2011

Sleep is also playing 3 shows this summer. Great summer for stoner metal.
posted by azarbayejani at 9:10 PM on June 6, 2011

"If you weren't there, well, you weren't. That's just the luck of the draw ... I like that nobody saw Kyuss, and that it was largely misunderstood. That sounds like a legend forming to me."

I respect that.
posted by fuzzypantalones at 9:13 PM on June 6, 2011 [3 favorites]

Sleep is also playing 3 shows this summer.

That's actually just one song.

/ducks
posted by Dark Messiah at 9:17 PM on June 6, 2011 [8 favorites]

Dark Messiah: I was actually at one of the first shows where Tool brought Scott Reeder out on stage to play Demon Cleaner. It was at the Hollywood Palladium, '97 I think...a couple warmup shows for the Aenima tour. That's where I first found out about these guys, when some stoned hesher grabbed my shoulder and spat "That's Kyuss, bro!" in my face.

Devils Rancher: Blacky from Voivod used to play a '72 100 watt Marshall with half the tubes removed (!) to get a super saturated fuzz bass sound with a ton of clarity. Nothingface from 1989. Apparently it would run hot enough to unweld parts of his rig. I've never heard anything else like it.
posted by Existential Dread at 9:35 PM on June 6, 2011 [2 favorites]

Desert generator parties. That’s what growing up as a stoner in AZ in the 80’s was all about. Bonfire, kegs, bands, flannel shirts, Rock.
posted by bongo_x at 9:36 PM on June 6, 2011

For some reason, although I like most everything else Josh Homme has been associated with, I'd never really listened to Kyuss. I'm rectifying that right now, so thanks for this post!
posted by asterix at 9:54 PM on June 6, 2011

Hmm, really not the same without Josh Homme.

I saw QOTSA in 1998, when a friend I hadn't seem in years called and said, "hey, the singer from Kyuss has a new band, and they're playing at the Aptos Club tomorrow." Half the crowd left after the local band played, leaving about 50 people for Queens of the Stone Age. They ran out of songs and had to play two Kyuss tunes for the encore so that the crowd didn't start a riot.
posted by oneirodynia at 10:36 PM on June 6, 2011 [1 favorite]

I read this and realized that the Marshall stack, the artifact which perhaps most represents the entire genre of rock, is based on the Fender Bassman, a bass amp frequently appropriated by guitarists in the 50's.

For us in Canada, the go-to stoner sludge amps are descendants of the Traynor YBA-1, which is exactly like the Fender Bassman and the Marshall JTM45, except that it is grey and somehow always, always, always covered in dust.
posted by Sys Rq at 11:39 PM on June 6, 2011 [2 favorites]

Great post.

Yawning Man, generally considered to be one of the main inspirations for Kyuss, have also reformed and played a handful of dates over the past few years. "Catamaran", from "...And the Circus Leaves Town", was a Yawning Man cover.

For the completist, Kyuss released their demo under the name "Sons of Kyuss", which can be found in piecemeal on YouTube.
posted by outlaw of averages at 11:45 PM on June 6, 2011

I found Kyuss since 1994 when the guy I was dating at the time played their music constantly. I will forever thank him for that.

My biggest brush with greatness came on the night of QOTSA show in Athens, GA, about 6 or 7 years ago. I went into a local record store to see a friend who worked there and Josh Homme was in the store looking around. I walked in and my eyes probably grew to embarrassing levels when I saw him, because my friend gave me that look that undeniably says "just be cool, man, be cool." I did my best to control my fangurl squee and tried to compose myself. I'd seen famous musicians in the shop before. This was no big deal, but inside I was all OMYGAWD IT'S JOSH HOMME RIGHT THERE MY 20 YR-OLD SELF IS DYING RIGHT NOW!!1!

This was a tiny shop with room for at most 4-5 people to stand around between the stacks at the same time (and at that you're too crowded to get out) so he definitely overheard the following conversation:

Friend: Are you coming to the show tonight?
Me: I don't know yet, and that's why I'm here. I wanted to let you know I have a trapeze show at [other bar]. I'm performing to Phototropic. You should come because it should be epic.
Friend: Well, I have to be here all night. Hope you make it.
Josh Homme: [silence and complete lack of reaction]

I did not make it to the show, but I got to do a trapeze piece to Kyuss(!). Epic.
posted by Eumachia L F at 12:06 AM on June 7, 2011 [2 favorites]

{I found Kyuss IN 1994, obviously}
posted by Eumachia L F at 12:07 AM on June 7, 2011

It's refreshing to me that Josh won't do a reunion nomatter how much money is offered. In this day and age, that's an exceedingly rare stance to take.
posted by Hickeystudio at 1:16 AM on June 7, 2011

Kyuss! was the best live band I ever saw; something about their live energy made the experience comparable with Slayer in their pomp.

I saw Kyuss Lives a couple of months ago. While they didn't quite have the exuberance of the old days, and being in a venue 10 times the size never helps, they were still thoroughly excellent. 9/10, marred only by the fact they used to go to 11.
posted by nowonmai at 3:05 AM on June 7, 2011

It's refreshing to me that Josh won't do a reunion no matter how much money is offered. In this day and age, that's an exceedingly rare stance to take.

Of course, it helps to have a successful solo career so that you aren't tempted to re-unite for money. Not that Homme isn't doing the right thing by taking a principled stand, but it's easier to make these sorts of decisions when one is not tempted by the filthy lucre.

Also, Homme might be in a different state of mind than the others after a surgery scare where he almost died due to "complications". There's not a lot I can find online about this; perhaps like his experiences with Kyuss, it's something Homme wants to keep to himself.
posted by spoobnooble at 4:48 AM on June 7, 2011

Kyuss is before my time (I probably wasn't in middle school yet when this stuff was coming out), but the one thing that is consistent about all of the stoner/desert rock is that I really, really love the heavy, bassy hyper-distorted riffs...but really, really hate the vocals (sorry!). Something about the macho growliness that I just can't get into.

That's why I love QOTSA so much - the vocals sound cleaner and less offensive to my prissy indie rock ears. Are there any other super heavy desert rock-type bands with cleaner vocals?
posted by windbox at 5:23 AM on June 7, 2011

Thanks for this post! I'm going to see Kyuss Lives at Copenhell in a couple of weeks so this is a perfect opportunity for me to get acquainted with their stuff.
posted by sveskemus at 5:48 AM on June 7, 2011

I used to listen to sooooo much Kyuss... them and Sleep. Holy crap.
posted by ph00dz at 7:23 AM on June 7, 2011

The thing with being old is I still think of QOTSA as being "that new band with the guy from Kyuss".
posted by bongo_x at 8:40 AM on June 7, 2011 [2 favorites]

Nice post!

I had a friend of my dad's who was on some major label swag list, and he ended up giving me a bunch of tapes of stuff he didn't like. In one batch, I got Sky Valley, Stoner Witch, Helmet's Betty, The Wildhearts and a handful of also rans (like The Toadies).

I have to admit that I didn't get Kyuss until years later, when I'd already loved Fu Manchu, Verbena (Souls for Sale only; their followup sucked), Sleep, and basically any metal with a huge bass sound. Oh yeah, and I started smoking a lot of pot. Strangely enough, it all clicked.
posted by klangklangston at 10:47 AM on June 7, 2011

John Garcia also performed some with Karma To Burn and they even recorded some studio stuff last year. But, like most things with Karma to Burn expect it to take a forever to be released.
posted by remo at 11:30 AM on June 7, 2011

Back in college, my roommates and I used to put on Blues for the Red Sun while watching the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers with the TV sound off. For some odd reason they complimented each other really well in a Pink Floyd/Wizard of Oz kind of way.
posted by remo at 11:42 AM on June 7, 2011 [1 favorite]

Totally forgot to mention Garcia's guesting on Crystal Method's "Born too Slow". Great song, considering I am not a fan of Crystal Method.
posted by Dark Messiah at 1:13 PM on June 7, 2011