Listen to Dead Meadow's Jason Simon perform a solo acoustic session for WCPO Lounge Acts in the audio player above.
CINCINNATI -- I spent a good chunk of my junior year of high school prisoner to my Spanish teacher (who possibly wore the same tie-dyed shirt under every button-up) as he preached on the finer qualities of Phish.
Perhaps it was a subconscious link of the agony of irregular verbs to stoner rock, but I never gave the genre a chance. That is, until psychedelic rock trio Dead Meadow chose to swing through the Tri-State on Friday night at the Southgate House Revival in Newport, Kentucky.
Rock music's dizzying array of subgenres can send you down a virtual rabbit hole, but "the fuzzed-out step-child of hard rock and heavy metal” stands out as my favorite descriptor for stoner rock, courtesy its Reddit page. "Songs typically feature a bass-heavy groove, detuned guitars and mind-expanding lyrics (if there are any, that is).”
Put on Dead Meadow's latest album, 2013’s 70-minute-long Warble Womb, and it all makes sense. It doesn’t even matter I couldn’t make out the lyrics half the time; the buzzy wash of words and jams make this music for lighting up incense in a dark room and just chilling with a bottle of bourbon (or other preferred mind-altering substance).
Nearly two decades and six albums along, Dead Meadow’s singer/guitarist Jason Simon, bassist Steve Kille and on-again-off-again drummer Mark Laughlin are self-recording their seventh album when they’re not on tour. Laughlin’s lawyer day job keeps him from the road, meaning Juan Londono of the Strangers Family Band is filling in for this trek to South by Southwest in Austin, Texas.
Dead Meadow's Jason Simon visited WCPO to perform a solo acoustic session for WCPO Lounge Acts. Watch below as Simon plays an acoustic version of "At Her Open Door" from the band's 2005 album "Feathers."
WCPO Lounge Acts features intimate in-studio performances and interviews from outstanding musical artists.
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