The Single Life - 7" of Fun: Featuring My Plastic Sun

My Plastic Sun - Silicone Junkie (digital)

A while back I espoused my love for the late '80's purveyors of darkened psychedelia, The Jet Black Berries. When that band crawled out from their earthen grave and unleashed a total surprise of an album Postmodern Ghosts, I was taken by for a ride by my ear drums, kicking and screaming back down into that abyss of horrorscope pop that the JBB's did so well.

Well, the band is on hiatus right now, but that didn't stop the boys from keeping on keeping on.  Turns out that drummer Roy Stein and singer Johnny Cummings have been busy with their latest project My Plastic Sun who've just debuted their newest single, "Silicon Junkie" and damn if my ears aren't taking me for a ride again.  Big and fleshy, there's still some trappings of psych here, but now it's all wrapped up and buffed in a clear coat of modern pop sensibilities.  And damn if it doesn't cook.  Johnny's voice is smooth as melted butter as he pours over the song, textured guitars wail and undulate, Roy pounds out some polyrhythmic bashings, and the bass plows right into my brain.  Toss in an earworm of a choral hook and we got a chugging winner here.  Seriously, put these guys out on tour with Ripple band, Sky Parade and we're set for a shoegazing, electro pop party.  Cool song that rocks and grooves.  Nice job, boys.  Looking forward to hearing more.

www.myplasticsun.com

Porcupine - Witness to a Chase Scene

A while back I wrote about the fun Porcupine/Metal Ghost split 7".  Now my favorite indie, dream pop shoegazers are back with a 3 song 7" that simply smokes.  "Witness to a Chase Scene" percolates out all revved up late-60's spy film cool with it's Peter Gunn guitar licks and low-down feel that just takes over at the 19 second mark.  Way cool.  It doesn't take long for the boys to mix it up, bringing in some of their hallmark alt-psychelic pop.  A tiny touch of emo?  All good.  "Evil Twin" brings back the more math rock-y aspects of the band but is no less accessible, and "Dare to Jump" jumps right back into the more angular paths without ever losing it's ability to chug along at a head-bopping pace.  Another winner.

Buy the 7" from Porcupine's bandcamp and you'll get your choice of vinyl/cover color combination: red cover/white vinyl, orange cover/clear vinyl, green cover/black vinyl, or heck, just buy the 7" triple box set and get all three.


http://porcupineband.bandcamp.com/track/witness-to-a-chase-scene

Dead Weight - Cosmic Lunch

There's a new southern bluesy classic riffing band in town and they go by the name of Dead Weight, and their music is anything but.  Big guitars with sizzling lead riffs, big blues-based chugging, and vocals soulful enough to raise this unit above the pack.  "Cosmic Lunch" is everything you'd hope for from a song with that title.  Tasty morsels of psychedelic guitars searing and tearing through the classic riffs.  And the fine treats don't stop there.  I have no idea what a "Gannymead" is but the song cooks along like a freight train, chugging off into southern blues rock nirvana.   "Lady" slows things down enough for a classic-styled power ballad just long enough for "Stone Frog" lives up to the bands claim that they play voodoo reefer rock.

Check em out.  Any band that lists Led Zeppelin, Red Fang, Baroness, Down, Pride and Glory, and Pabst Blue Ribbon as influences is a band right up our alley.

https://www.facebook.com/DeadweightTheBand/app_2405167945

Jet Black Berries Live On Ripple Radio

The buzz isn't building . . . it's becoming a siren!  With the reformation of '80's post punk rockers, Jet Black Berries and the release of their new album Post Modern Ghosts, word is out!  With their first single "God with a Gun" racking up serious airtime world-wide, and their latest, "They Walk Among You," being claimed by zombie enthusiasts wherever they may dwell, the Jet Black Berries are officially back from the dead.

And what an appropriate metaphor.  First rising to national acclaim with their song included on the cult-favorite Return of the Living Dead soundtrack, the Berries hadn't been heard from since the late '80's.  But fate has intervened.

Hear the whole story, talk with the band, hear cuts off the new album, all on Ripple Radio.

Just hit here, and join in the fun.   8pm Pacific time.   Join the zombies.

Ripple Radio

And here's some videos to whet your appetite.

Jet Black Berries - Postmodern Ghosts

I remember the light the most.

There I was, late night, burning the midnight oil in the Ripple office.  Reviews to write, press releases to ready, new releases to schedule.  Sofi, as always, took her place in her bed to my right, snuggled in amongst the brimming stack of vinyl.  But I had no time to dig into that enticing vinyl buffet.  Ripple work called to me.  An eerie silence tingled my neck.

And then the light came.

Consciousness lost in a second, I awoke, no longer at my desk.  The room looked vaguely familiar to me, a place from a distant memory. Rising from my desk, I spun, disoriented, searching for a clue.  The familiar call letters KSPC FM blazoned on the wall across, separated from me by a thick layer of glass.  Lights flashed in chaotic rhythms, engulfing the switches, knobs and buttons on the mixing board at my hands.  A vinyl record spun to my right, pumping the room with moody, atmospheric, neo-gothic psychedelia.  Somehow, in some unspeakable way, I’d been transported through time.  Inexplicably, it was 1984 again.

And the record spinning was the Jet Black Berries.

Bursting onto the scene in the mid-eighties, the Jet Black Berries were part of the amazing stable of artists attached to the Enigma/Restless label.  The Cramps, TSOL, Tex and the Horseheads, 45 Grave, Green on Red, The Leaving Trains, The Pandoras, Redd Cross, Get Smart.  Talk about a label that had tapped into a sound, Enigma produced some of the all-time best American dark psychedelia ever released.  One band after another, there seemed to be no end to their talent.  And on that essential Enigma Variations volume I album, The Jet Black Berries ranked with the best. 

Blending a river of never-ending hooks to their blackened atmosphere and a touch of cowboy/western punk, the JBB released three albums in the mid-late 80’s, and contributed a standout track to the classic horror shtick sound track, Return of the Living Dead.  Then, like their zombie brethren, they disappeared.

Until now.

As I rose from the desk in my 1984 radio station, I noticed something was different. The JBB spinning wasn’t Sundown on Venus or the soon to be released underground classic, Desperate Fires.  The sound was familiar, but different.  Hauntingly pulling at a memory, but inspiring in entirely new ways.  Ringing of the past, but powered by the energy of the future.

This wasn’t 1984; it was present day and the Jet Black Berries were back and better than ever with a brand new album,Postmodern Ghosts.  Reuniting four original members of the band with newcomer singer/guitarist, Johnny Cummings, the JBB had risen from the ether, back to lurk amongst the living.  And what an album they’ve put out!

You don’t have to be familiar with JBB’s original incarnation to jump right in with the start of this album.  Following a haunting synth and church bell opening, “God with A Gun,” literally erupts from the speakers in searing post-punk psychedelic glory.  Riding a guitar passage reminiscent of The Chameleons, “Don’t Fall,” this just may be my track of the year.  An outburst decrying people who use religion as an excuse to commit acts of barbarism, “God with a Gun,” isn’t just a great pop song, it’s potent.  “Are you sure this is a song you’re ready to sing/if God with a Gun is love, let’s make him king” Johnny sings over a rampaging, bass-heavy, chiming soundscape.  Guitars swirl and churn in glittering rivers of texture.  Dig that mid-song bass breakdown, the maniacal run across the toms in the post-chorus bridge, the layered harmony vocals, the subtle escalation of pace until the song explodes into that raise-your-hands-in-the-air-and-sing-along-at-the-top-of-your-lungs chorus.  I mean seriously, talk about a chorus that can elevate you to that place.  That special place where the world around you dissipates and the music enveloping you is all that remains.

But Postmodern Ghosts is no one song wonder.  “Ominous” tells the tale of the odd things that happen, the murder and mayhem, that somehow is still a part of the human psyche . . . unstoppable . . . always ready to re-emerge . . . an ominous presence.   Now take that message and wrap it up in a post-Church or later day Echo and the Bunnymen vibe of pulsating bass, rising and falling, swirling guitars and you’ll find one of the catchier songs to penetrate your consciousness in sometime.   “Pipes of Pan,” takes this Church influence one step further in a rousing, keyboard swept pumper.   Johnny even sounds a touch like Steven Kilbey here, singing deep in his range.

Throughout, the sound of the original JBB’s is as refreshing as that breath of yesterday.  Roy Stein’s drumming is solid and penetrating, Chris Yockel’s guitar shimmers and sparkles, Mark Schwartz’s keyboards lay down the atmosphere, and Gary Trainer, the main songwriter, drives the whole thing from the back of the bus with his unrelenting, swooping bass.  And the new kid, Johnny Cummings is a revelation, fitting into the mix seamlessly.  “Welcome to My World,” is another dark psych masterpiece, slow and inviting at times, vicious and intoxicating the next.  “Psychic Children of Doom” shows these cats haven’t lost the tongue-in-cheek horror attitude that landed them on the Living Dead soundtrack, and they attach this “postmodern ghosts on the radio,” vibe to a jaunty, muscular rocker.  “Invocation” rides an Echo and Bunnymen bass line through swirling mists of tension and mood.   “Garden of Delight,” has to be the next single off the album, so effectively mining the still-sparkling Paisley Underground-vibe of yore, married to a hyped-up sound of crashing guitars and smashing drums.  Catchy as fuck.

Then there’s “They Walk Among You,” a remade classic from the Sundown on Venus bonus album.  Digging into their quasi-cowpunk roots, “They Walk Among You,” is without a doubt the greatest zombie-epic ever penned and performed in song.  How this song has avoided being used in a zombie film soundtrack defies all logic and thought.  With zombies as hot as vampires these days, I will make it my personal mission to get this song included on some major motion picture.  Somewhere.

With the final pulse of the closing punkish rocker, “American Survival” still ringing in my ears, I watched as the radio control panel before me faded away.  I re-emerged in 2010, the new JBB album still spinning in my player.

The past is gone, the present is here, the future awaits.  And it’s all good.


--Racer

Buy here:  Postmodern Ghosts


http://www.myspace.com/jetblackberries

A Sunday Conversation with the Jet Black Berries

All the band members gathered outside the glorious rehearsal studio (actually our guitar player’s dungeon-like cellar) to share a few pops and answer the questions. It’s a beautiful mid-August night in upstate NY.

Band members:

Chris Yockel – lead guitars, sitars, psychedelic embellishments - Original member
Gary Trainer – bass guitar – Original Member
Mark Schwartz – organ, mellotron, piano – Original Member
Roy Stein – drums, backing vocals, recording engineer – Original Member
Johnny Cummings – lead vocals, piano, guitar, assorted keys – New Kid in Town


Great to have you guys back.  In the day, you were such a cool part of Enigma scene, one of the great lost record labels of the '80's.  Stretch your minds, if you will, and tell us bit about those heady days?

Gary: It was cool to be on the same label as 45 Grave, Devo, Green on Red, Red Hot Chilly Peppers, Smithereens, TSOL. It was a great scene to be a part of.

Roy: What about Poison and Ratt…..as I remember they paid the bills we ran up.

Chris: I don’t know about heady….I remember long road trips and a crowded van.

Roy: Actually the era had a great vibe to it and Enigma was a really supportive label.


Any particular shows you recall from the halcyon days?  Any crazy bands you play with?

Anonymous band member:  Well that Cherry Hill New Jersey show, gigging with the Psychedelic Furs, getting off the stage and going back into the dressing room to find literally hundreds upon hundreds of lines of some sort of powdery white substance made freely available to all band members…all of us of course passed the offer up…not sure what the Furs did…stuff wasn’t even on the rider.

Gary: Playing with Willy Loco Alexander at the Rat in Boston, We backed him for the show and he tore the stage up.

Roy: Ya….”Hit her with the Axe”, he was freak’in awesome. Also playing with the Pretenders. Two members of that band were so wasted they could barely stand. There was smoke coming out of Chrissie Hynde’s ears. I’ll thought she was gonna kill them both right on stage.

Your sound was always a wild combination of psychedelic, rock, and more.  Go with that.  How did your sound come about?

Gary: it’s a blend of Chris’ San Francisco style guitar.

Roy: and Gary’s New York Velvet Underground influence.

Mark: and the band’s interest in psychotronic films and avant-garde literature ala William Burroughs and Jean Genet.

 What was the peak of your early career?  And the low, what was the low?

Gary: Peak was "Love Under Will" getting placed on Return Of The Living Dead Soundtrack.

Roy: Low was playing a show in Milwaukie for a whole 6 people…who if I remember right were watching bowling on TV…..women’s.

Chris: High and low was sharing a hotel room with 7 guys when you bring a hot girl back to the hotel



How, why did the band come to an original end?

Gary: Our lead singer left the band to take a job in the music industry and it just seemed like the right time to take a break…..

Roy: for 22 years.


What had you all been doing in the ensuing years?  Music?

Gary: 3 of us formed the Atomic Swindlers, a female fronted Bowie-esque sounding original band. See: www.myspace.com/theatomicswindlers

Mark: played with a bunch of junkies.

Johnny: (finally speaks now that we are moving into the 90’s and beyond.) - being born and getting potty trained.




 So now, however many years later, your back.  What led to your reformation?

Gary: We were asked to do a reunion show in a great venue for a decent amount of cash.

Roy: And we went into the recording studio to record a one off single to help promote the show. Gary and I were behind the studio glass when Johnny started singing… he sang the first line to" Garden of Delight", “Jet black berries I do ingest, the body’s transparent soul comes to my bed” and Gary turned to me and said “holy fuck…” He sang great right out of the box and the reunion show was a rip…..everything was so easy we decided to keep it together and see where it lead.

Let's talk about the song-writing process for you. What comes first, the idea? A riff? The lyrics? How does it all fall into place?

Gary: It can happen in a variety of different ways. Sometimes the hook comes first, sometimes an instrumental riff, sometimes words or a phrase.

Roy: Ya…anything can come first, the song" God With A Gu"n was based on a story in the news last summer about some …um….pastor in Kentucky who regularly has sermons about how “God and Guns belong together”…and he asks his parishioners to bring their fire arms to church….I think he was trying to answer that eternal question, “what would Jesus pack”?


What're your intentions these days? What are you trying to express or get your audience to feel?

Gary: World domination

Chris: We want to take our audience on a psychedelic journey.

Roy: We want the audience to feel like evil mushrooms on parade

Gary: I want the record to be an epiphany for anyone hearing it

Johnny: Any musical endeavor is an attempt to recreate for others the magical feeling you felt when some piece of music really inspired you

Roy: Jesus Johnny….you’ve got more way brain cells left that the rest of us.


When I was a kid, growing up in a house with Cat Stevens, Neil Diamond, and Simon and Garfunkel, the first time I ever heard Kiss's "Detroit Rock City," it was a moment of musical epiphany. It was just so vicious, aggressive and mean. It changed the way I listened to music. I've had a few minor epiphanies’ since then, when you come across a band that just brings something new and revolutionary to your ears.

What have been your musical epiphany moments?

Chris: Hearing when the tone arm hits the groove on the first Quicksilver record

Gary : Hendrix -  Are You Experienced, Ziggy Stardust.

Mark: Television

Johnny: Discovering the Beatles music for the first time

Roy: Early Procol Harum records. Live it was an eighties Cramps show. They were in a small club in Rochester, NY and the people in front had pulled Lux’s pants off. He was totally naked swallowing his microphone with his johnson waving at the audience, the drummer was pounding out a brutal tribal beat and Ivy was killing on guitar…the whole club was pulsating…to top it off Lux started pulling down the ceiling tiles above the stage, club owner tackled him…the band just kept up the attack…total mayhem….unforgettable rock and roll at it’s best……………



Come on, share with us a couple of your great, Spinal Tap, rock and roll moments?

Gary: Besides the cold sores?

Roy: Lucky for us we couldn’t afford props and such and we never played concert halls big enough to get lost in….and none of us would dare bring our girlfriends or boyfriends on the road, god knows with who and where they’d end up…and Enigma didn’t give a damn as to what our album covers looked like….in retrospect we had it pretty good.

 What piece of your music are you particularly proud of?

Johnny: I’m very proud of the record in general. I think it’s an authentic and honest album and I think it will really give the listener a ride

Chris: We got lucky on some things this time around

Roy: We made the record that we wanted to make…I was the engineer and mixer on this and I don’t want to sound corny but I was really proud of my mates…they just kept laying down good shit….bam-bam-bam, we never hit a wall. Easiest most fun music I’ve ever made in my life.


Older now . . . wiser?

Roy: Yes

Johnny: I’m older now than I used to be

Roy: Jesus, you weren’t even born when the first two Jet Black Berries records came out!!


The band has just left to fill up on more cheap Imported Royal Ultra Dark Rum, courtesy of Chris Yockel…the band’s medicinal go to guy for all these years.


Who today, writes great songs? Who just kicks your ass? Why?

Seriously….the band says nothing for two minutes while they sip on their various beverages. It’s a contemplative and respectful silence…Finally the general consensus is:

We’ve been in a cave for the past two years so we don’t really know what’s “hip”
Roy: Cormac McCarthy kicks my ass….does that count??


Vinyl, CD, or digital? What's your format of choice?

Chris: Vinyl

Mark: Vinyl

Gary: I’m a format whore

Johnny: What’s vinyl?

Roy:  Hey, I say whatever floats your boat but I love the ease of digital.


Band argues and comes close to blows


Whiskey or beer?  And defend your choice

Chris: It all works

Roy: Valium and Rum

Johnny: what’s vinyl???


We, at the Ripple Effect, are constantly looking for new music. When we come to your town, what's the best record store to lose ourselves in?

Record Archive is the place to go, The Bop Shop, and The House of Guitars for the total musician’s experience


 Any final comments or thoughts you'd like to share with our readers, the waveriders?

Johnny: Chuck Norris once kicked a 50 yard field goal while having sex

All the guys: We’d like to share Postmodern Ghosts…and our thanks to the folks at the Ripple Effect for digging us out of the crypt and giving us the opportunity to say hello and be heard again…..it’s been a while, it’s good to be back.

www.myspace.com/jetblackberries

Single, "God with a Gun" hits radio next week. Full length CD October 12th!!!

Ripple News - The Jet Black Berries Come Roaring Back with New Full Length CD Out Sept 7th

Jet Black Berries gained ominous notoriety as one of the bands that contributed to the “Return of the Living Dead” soundtrack along with the Cramps, the Damned and the legendary Roky Erickson. The Jet Black Berries released 3 albums in the mid to late 80’s on Restless and Enigma Records. The band broke up in 1989.....but zombies are hard to kill.........

20 years later three of the band's original members, bass player/writer Gary Trainer, lead guitarist Chris Yockel and drummer/writer Roy Stein find themselves through an unusual set of circumstances together in an upstate recording studio one afternoon. Roy is engineering another session and his two old chums dropped in to check things out and give him a hard time. They talk about recording in the old days vs. the new digital era and how fantastic it is that now you can get your music recorded and out to people to hear in just hours. The studio is chocked full of gear, the session is over....so.....the band phones up a young local guitarist and singer they really admire named Johnny Cummings (yes Ramones' fans that's his real name) and 3 hours later the band has recorded "Gardens of Delight." Back from the grave and ready to party the band digs up their original keyboardist/organist Mark Schwartz and head into the studio to have a blast and record some more tunes.

A few months later Bug Music, one of the world's largest publishing companies hears the new tunes. Bug loves the sound and the band signs a deal with Bug Digital. The fabulous folks at Bug will be releasing the resurrected band's first full length CD in the fall of 2010.

So here we go again for another round....four zombies and a punk kid. If you dug the first incarnation, undoubtedly you'll agree the new songs serves the legacy of the band well.


Recent Press Reviews

"What a great band. The band's three-song EP-release show was riveting, and it played in front of a packed house." City Newspaper

Best of 09 Critics Pick, "it sounds great. It's timeless with relevant and reminiscent components throughout." City Newspaper

Check out JBB on Facebook: Here

Read more: www.myspace.com/jetblackberries