Man, do I love me some Kyuss, always one of my faves, it continues to amaze me how many of my all-time fave bands (Dozer, Fu Manchu, QOTSA, many more) that I have not yet got around to profiling here, just shows that maybe I'll be around for a while longer.......
Hell, yes, Kyuss.....blasting out of Palm Beach California, Kyuss were originally singer John Garcia, guitarist Josh Homme, bassist Chris Cockrell, , drummer Brant Bjork , and guitarist Nick Oliveri ..They released an EP, (prior to Oliveri's joining) "Sons of Kyuss", and then shortened thier name to the more accessible "Kyuss"....the EP is quite good, in fact, quite a portent of things that would be coming. Thier sweet blend of heavy metal and hard edged punk gave birth to what we might eventually refer to as "Desert Surf" (some do) or more commonly, "Stoner Rock"......my understanding is that this EP has never been "officially" released, but bootlegs are fairly common.......please give it a listen to understand just where this talented bunch were coming from.
The first album, "Wretch" came out in 1991, a lot of the material from the EP is repeated here, as well as freakier workouts such as "Son of a Bitch" and "The Law".....Cockrell would play on only a couple of tracks here and then leave the band.
1992 saw perhaps their top effort, "Blues For the Red Sun", which gets more and more acidic....Homme plugged down tuned guitars into bass amps to obtain the very unique guitar sound, lyrics are often indecipherable, and, in just my opinion, this album IS the foundation for modern day stoner rock. The wah-wah, the distortion, the Sabbath-like riffage, bands such as Monster Magnet or Orange Goblin would be unimaginable without it. From "Green Machine" to "Thing Song" to "Mondo Generator" this is an absolute stone-cold classic album, that no home should be without.
They continued to develop and progress even more with 1994's "Welcome to Sky Valley", which is broken up into Pink Floyd-like "Movements", which IMO work perfectly......some pressings (including this one, unfortunately) are programmed into 11 tracks, the better ones are programmed into only three, as this works (again, like a Floyd album) MUCH MUCH better as an album listened to in it's complete form. "Demon Cleaner", "Whitewater", "Space Cadet".......all great, as is the entire album....."Blues For the Red Sun" was a 5-star effort.......in my opinion, this was as well.
".....And the Circus Leaves Town" is a huge letdown, the band was running out of ideas and was in the process of transforming into Queens of the Stone Age......"Hurricane" and "One Inch Man" are reasonable, the 34-minute "Spaceship Landing", maybe not as much.In 1997 to drive the transformation home, they released a split EP "Kyuss/Queens of the Stone Age", the highlight being Homme's "Born to Hula", and a cool cover of Black Sabbath's "Into the Void".....I enjoye this album even though I am not generally much on the splits stoner bands put out, this one works as it shows "where" Kyuss was going.......
To do this correctly, I'd now do a post on Queens of the Stone Age, but that's even more complex and I have a bunch of boots, might take a while to get it together.......and there is another factor......
"The Desert Sessions" series is an important part of the Kyuss story, although not Kyuss per se.....at various times there was participation from all the various members of Kyuss, from Mark Lanegan, PJ Harvey, Twiggy Ramirez, and many more....these are all-star jam sessions to be sure, I know many who hate these, I can't see why, there are some remarkable moments on them......I think if you have any love for Kyuss and thier imaginative hard rock at all, please find time for the "Desert Sessions" series which I have included here......not exactly typical recordings, but I really like most of them, I'm not going to go into much detail on them because you get the idea, but please give these a try also.
SONS OF KYUSS EP-01 Deadly Kiss/02 Window of Soul/03 King/04 Isolation Desolation/05 Love Has Passed Me By/06 Black Widow/07 Happy Birthday/08 Katzenjammer
WRETCH-01 (Beginning of What's About to Happen) Hwy 74/02 Love Has Passed Me By/03 Son of a
Bitch/04 Black Widow/05 Katzenjammer/06 Deadly Kiss/07 The Law/08 Isolation/09 I'm Not/10 Big Bikes
11 Stage
BLUES FOR THE RED SUN-01 Thumb/02 Green Machine/03 Molten Universe/04 50 Million Year Trip(Upside Down)/05 Thong Song/06 Apothecarie's Weight/07 Caterpillar March/08 Freedom Run/09 800/10 Writhe/11 Capsized/12 Allen's Wrench/13 Mondo Generator/14 Yeah
WELCOME TO SKY VALLEY-01 Gardenia/02 Asteroid/03 Supa Scoopa and Mighty Scoop/04 100 degrees/05 Space Cadet/06 Demon Cleaner/07 Odyssey/08 Conan Troutman/09 N.O./10 Whitewater/11 Lick Doo
...AND THE CIRCUS LEAVES TOWN-01 Hurricane/02 One inch Man/03 Thee Ol' Boozeroony/04 Gloria Lewis/05 Phototropic/06 El Rodeo/07 Jumbo Jumbo Jumbo/08 Tangy Zizzle/09 Size Queen/10 Catamaran/11 Spaceship Landing (part 1)/12 Spaceship Landing (Part 2) M'deea/13 Spaceship Landing (Part 3) Day One
DESERT SESSIONS VOLUME 1 & 2-01 Preaching/02 Girl Boy Tom/03 Monkey In the Middle/04 Girl Boy Tom/05 Cowards Way Out/06 Robotic Lunch (Alternative Version)/07 Johnny the Boy/08 Screamin' Eagle/09 Cake (Who Shit on the?)/10 Man's Ruin Preach
DESERT SESSIONS VOLUME 3 & 4-01 Nova/02 At the Helm of Hell's Ships/03 Avon/04 Sugar Rush/05 The Gosso King of Crater lake/06 Monster in the Parasol/07 Jr High Love/08 Eccentric man/09 Hogleg/10 You Keep On Talkin'
DESERT SESSIONS VOLUME 5 & 6-01 You Think I Ain't Worth a Dollar, But I Feel Like a Millionaire/02 Letters To Mommy/03 I'm Dead/04 Punk Rock Caveman Living In a Prehistoric Age/05 Going to a hangin/06 A#1/07 Like a Drug/08 Take Me To Your Leader/09 Teens of Thailand/10 Rickshaw/11 Like a Drug (Instrumental)
DESERT SESSIONS VOLUME 9 & 10-01 Dead In Love/02 I Wanna Make it Wit Chu/03 Covered In Punks Blood/04 There Will Never Be a Better Time/05 Crawl Home/06 I'm Here For Your Daughter/07 Powdered Wig Machine/08 In My Head.....Or Something/09 Holey Dime/10 A Girl like Me/11 Creosote/12 Subcutaneous Phat/13 Bring It Back Gentle/14 Shepherd's PieSOOOOOOOOO, Whatcha think, if this is new to ya? As I said these are faves of mine!