ELEGANCE IN LEISURE: ANCIENT FOREST

To start off I'm gonna quote myself from a review I wrote on Weird Missoula a while ago: "Ancient Forest reminds me of the Tolkien-obsessed eco-folk of Tyrannosaurus Rex...leisurely singing songs in [a] near-vulnerable voice, tunes deconstructed to their constituent parts, referencing trees, referencing Tolkien, and warped along some magic line unknowable to the uninitiated." That was in reference to the very first iteration of Ancient Forest I heard, one in which Kalen Walther was the primary, and for the most part, lone member. This full band version he's been touting lately though, man, OK: much of those above observations are still kinda true but I'm hearing more Syd Barrett-y affectations; it's a better presentation to all this soft-psychedelia. I feel like I wanna reference the band Gandalf right now and hey, that's right back at that Tolkien nonsense. Apt, I guess.

Ancient Forest's recent lineups have been a relative who's-who of Missoula's small but fertile little weirdo scene: members of J. Sherri and Mordecai (both Total Fest alumni) have sometimes joined Kalen at recent shows. Every time I've seen 'em it's been hella magical and for something like this to be native to our neck of the woods means we're really pretty lucky. These guys are the tops and yeah, they're playing Total Fest XIV. 

CHEMICAL LAWNS SPRAY TOTAL FEST

Chemical Lawns, actual live picture. Sweet, right?

The clusterfuck psych punk of Chemical Lawns owes debts to Mike Rep and probably his Quotas, Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments, Neil Young and Crazy Horse, Roky Erickson and Billy Gibbons, I think. Something about the name "Chemical Lawns" immediately takes me to the sonic plane of the Moving Sidewalks and 13th Floor Elevators occupied, that kind of a blown-out, mid-tempo late '60s psilocybin Texan vibe.

Members of: Mordecai, Ex-Cocaine, Poor School, Skin Flowers. Some of Missoula's and Butte's I guess, finest. Really had to try hard to not have our headline read: "MY CHEMICAL LAWNMANCE" or "THE CHEMICAL (LAWN) BROTHERS..."  You know, because that's the kind of witty wordplay you deserve, bro.

No internet presence. Playing Total Fest XIII.

LOTS HAVE BEEN DRAWN: ENTER MORDECAI

It's a profound pleasure to announce that those "small town losers" who need something to do, Mordecai, are putting things together to play Total Fest. Since the first time that I saw the Bodish brothers and "friend" play (2009, I think), I was completely blown away.

At this point, it seems silly to bring up their humble beginnings, but the fact that these dudes from Butte seemingly popped up from nowhere has always impressed me (more on this below). So a brief trip down my personal memory lane: Mordecai played the side room in the now defunct BSMT (not sure if this is the first time, but it's the one that sticks as the first time). From the first note, it was obvious that we were in for something special. The cramped room provided the perfect acoustics for their lo-fi, psych fuzz, Velvet Underground/Stooges style that weaves in and out of stability and coherence. Approving nods, winks, smiles, and "holy shits" were exchanged between me and virtually everyone I encountered. Throw in a Sister Ray cover that somehow seemed longer, more tangential, and more stoney than the orginal, and it was the perfect recipe for a mid-summer show, tucked away in the dark confines of a basement.

Now, in 2013, I think we're realizing just how good we had it. Here, in Montana, three young dudes played well beyond their years and, if you listen to all the chatter, well beyond their geographic boundaries. Thing is, that's all terribly wrong.

This is a tired discussion, but the internet has collapsed most of our traditional trajectories of time and space. For some reason, it's "odd" that a band like Mordecai sprouted from Butte, but it's not odd that, throughout the years, excellent music has erupted from small towns in Texas, Iowa, Pennsylvania, Montana, North Dakota, Oregon, etc. etc. etc. Before the internet, in spite of what some people may lead you to think, people made excellent music that didn't simply mimic what was spewing from big cities like New York, Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.

Yes, there was a world before the internet. Fanzines, skate mags, radio stations, friends, random dudes and dudettes helped small town kids create some seriously crazy, unique, experimental, genre bending shit that killed it.

So, with that, there is no reason to say that Mordecai came out of nowhere. They came from somewhere: a rich personal history, inquisitive journeys, mathematics, and some damn fine musicianship. It's a shame that they cannot play as often as we want them to. But, what isn't a shame is that they'll bring their psychedelic mutations back to Total Fest. Following last year's 7" on Wantage, they've released College Rock, which is as dirty and full of mutations as anything else that's out there. Solid jams that find a way to morph our collective memories into a newly formed and welcome reinterpretations of a mash-upped personal take on what came before them. Fresh atonal guitar with sneering vocals, solid bass and drum lines that grate at everything your parents loved, while celebrating it at the same time. It's as punk as it gets. Here is an old-ish jam:
Mordecai -- Composition 07082011 from Ed Shaw on Vimeo.

MORDECAI CONFIRM.
Butte, Montana’s a town known for it’s boom and bust past, its labor union support (you can still register w. the IWW in Butte), it’s gaping, caustic Super-Funded pit and the fact that its residents (primarily of Irish, Welsh, Cornish, Serbian and Finnish origins) used to make their livings mining copper. It’s a wild and beautifully vacant town with turn of the century-vintage infrastructure and the capacity for at least triple its current population. We’ve always thought of it as a small version of Pittsburgh (in the Rockies) complete with heavy industry, substantial stone mansions built by various huge money families and the same kind of hard-living vibe. That there’s a young band there called Mordecai which plays desperate, trashy punk rock makes the place all the more alluring. With two brothers, Elijah and Holt Bodish, and a third friend, Mordecai’s deal is pretty noisy, bizarre and excellent. That they come from a place nowhere near anything resembling a hipster (and completely disinterested with hipness) in a part of the world not known whatsoever for the exportation of its punk rock treasure only adds to their charm.

So, yeah. More about Mordecai. If only! I’ve seen Mordecai once, at Dane Fest 2009, at the BSMT in Missoula. They played with a handful other trashy bands (Francis Harold and the Holograms, Myelin Sheaths) and blew my mind with their spartan, blown-out punk. It wasn’t exactly tight or pretty, but it was entirely honest and inspiringly raw. They played for maybe 20 minutes, and when they were done, I didn’t want to see any more bands.