Dead Meadow

La grande époque du rock psychédélique des années 60 ne cesse de faire des émules: c’est le cas de Dead Meadow. Originaire de Washington DC, cette formation est un trio né en 1998 (qui deviendra ensuite quatuour) dont les influences sont à chercher auprès de Jefferson Airplane ou Jimi Hendrix avec un zest de Led Zeppelin.

THE THREE KINGS DBL LP+DVD, CD+DVD - FIVE NEW SONGS, LIVE RECORDING AND ORIGINAL FILM

There is a California myth about these cloaked spirit characters on the coast.  Lost souls from another time and world who are trapped here and watch us for one reason or another, I guess depending on your view you are either lucky or not to run into one.  John Steinbeck actually writes about them in one of his short stories, Flight.  Steven Kille, Bassist for Dead Meadow alludes to the characters that the three band members portray in their upcoming film The Three Kings (Xemu Records).  A stunning mix of fantasy film and multi-camera live concert footage, The Three Kings overlays the transcendental experience of the band’s music with film vignettes of The Three Kings at work.  They are sort of a play on characters we allude to a bit in our last record (Old Growth), but elaborated on with the biblical Bedouins concept of wandering holy mystics and function as a vehicle to bring all these ideas we have had for years into your living room.  The Kings look into our mortal world where each of the three human characters we play are tempted by the dark side of things and each react differently.  Not sure if it is a moral tale, but I suppose a viewer can look at it like that. 

The package consists of an album that stands alone with live material and FIVE new studio songs produced by Kille including That Old Temple mixed by Dave Schiffman and mastered by Howie Weinberg.  Temple is the first single and has an accompanying video.  Dead Meadow have cradled the wide niche that resides between desert soaked 70’s fuzz rock and sonically ambitious indie rock for over a decade.  Members Steve Kille (bass), Jason Simon (vocals/guitar) and Stephen McCarty (drums) have released five studio albums, three of which were on Matador Records and two on Xemu Records.  Also of note is that a Dead Meadow classic song was re-worked for the new Wolfmother album Cosmic Egg with the band’s consent and collaboration. The Three Kings is a celebration of the band’s lyrical mythos and is directed by Artificial Army who in the past bent reality with videos for the likes of The Sword, Mars Volta and Coheed & Cambria.       

The idea for the film seems guided by otherworldly forces and was inspired by the California DIY art scene.  As such, the music was recorded live at an art warehouses in L.A.  It was like a speakeasy that threw amazing concerts which blossomed by word of mouth.  There were always the same few hundred people coming regularly, with numbers growing with every subsequent event.  The band and film collective actually used another warehouse next door as an office/practice loft. We rented space there as did Artificial Army.  We’d be practicing late at night and the only other people in the building was Artificial Army editing their work, so naturally we became good friends’ says Kille. 

Supporting 2008’s Old Growth release, the band recorded the live concert on the last date of an 89 show tour.  We were just going to record the audio as a document to our performance at the time or as an official live album, but Artificial Army just said cool, let’s bring down our cameras too!  They did an amazing job!  That summer Kille and Simon Chan of Artificial Army lived a block away from each other and spent each day kicking around ideas for what became The Three Kings. The film is replete with professional actors and exotic locations including the California sand dunes where George Lucas set Tatooine as well as Lautner’s Elrod house in Palm Springs where the James Bond film, Diamonds Are Forever was shot.  The result is an updating of classic rock films for the viral generation