General Admission Standing Room Only

KING BUZZO & TREVOR DUNN

King Buzzo, the iconic founder and lead vocalist/guitar player for the Melvins, and Mr. Bungle bass player Trevor Dunn, join forces this Summer, teaming up for the “King Dunn Tour,” which kicks off on Aug. 1 at Pappy + Harriet’s in Pioneertown, Calif.

“I’ve been waiting a LONG time to do an acoustic tour with Trevor,” Buzz Osborne shares. “He’s a fantastic player, and has the ability to make his bass sound like an oil tanker crashing into a coral reef.”

Osborne and Dunn have collaborated several times over the years, including Dunn’s participation in King Buzzo’s 2020 album, Gift of Sacrifice, as well as both being members of Fantômas, and Dunn’s work as a part of Melvins Lite. On the “King Dunn Tour,” Dunn will will play a stand-up concert bass, while Osborne will sing and play acoustic guitar.

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JD PINKUS

After being a part of the 1980 Georgia Boy's State 100 meter freestyle record winning team, held in Milledgeville, GA, the future was looking bright for JD Pinkus at 12 years old.

'Til the end of 1985 in Atlanta, where he dropped his swimsuit and Orange Sunshine and traded it for a life on the road playing Bass with Butthole Surfers, spreading the Butthole word. Later ‘Bassing’ for Melvins, Helios Creed, Honky, and many more..

Upon this spiritual journey he bonded with his 5-string banjo, spreading it on different recordings, including being backed by John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin on Bass guitar in 1991 while he produced Butthole Surfers, as well as Flaming Lips and Melvins Recordings.

Finally a Cassette label mogul and banjo player extraordinaire, Danny Barnes, enlisted Pinkus to record his first solo Long Play recording for his cassette label Minner Bucket Records, which was then later released on Heavy Feather Records in 2018, 'Keep On The Grass'.

Soon to follow was a relationship with Shimmy Disc / Joyful Noise Recordings and the releasing of another solo psychedelic SpaceGrass Banjo album, 2021’s 'Fungus Shui', as well as a collaboration with fellow Banjo Psychonaut, Tall Tall Trees, produced by Kramer called 'Ponder Machine', 2023.

The newest JD Pinkus album (release date June 7th 2024) on Shimmy Disc, is 'Grow A Pear'. An album 5 years in the making. Bridging old sounds from his past with the more recent sounds of the fungal mountain he lives on now, with the assistance of a Blunderbuss of great musicians.

Past SpaceGrass Banjo shows and tours with the likes of Sleep, Weedeater, Clutch, Helmet, Quicksand, PW Long, Scott Biram,... Soon to be touring with King Buzzo and Trevor Dunn thru the US. 2 months starting Aug 1st . Look out for JD Pinkus Fall solo tours for EU/UK and Australia.

Go to JDPinkus.Com for tour updates, news, merch, social media links, videos, glamour shots, or just to hang out for a bit…

Links: Official Website | Facebook | Instagram | Spotify

SAAJTAK

The band Saajtak, based in Detroit (Jonathan Barahal Taylor, Ben Willis, Simon Alexander-Adams) and Brooklyn (Alex Koi), makes futuristic music that synthesizes a wide range of genres—often in ways that seem to clash against each other, always in service to the song. The band has quietly made music in Detroit for the better part of a decade, collaborating with members of clipping. and sharing bills with Xiu Xiu, Ava Mendoza and Greg Fox. Koi sings and writes lyrics; Taylor plays drums, Willis bass; Alexander-Adams contributes keyboard and electronics. But to individuate their contributions does the music a disservice. Saajtak sounds, feels, like a living, breathing organism, for which recordings don’t present definitive documents as much as they reflect songs at given points in their lives. After four independently-released EPs, saajtak released their highly anticipated debut album, For the Makers, on American Dreams on June 3, 2022.

Saajtak’s compositions are rooted in collective improvisation; their first release, spectral [ drips ], collects several free improvisations. The band was recording music live for a full-length debut when the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic pressed pause on their principal way of making music. In response, the band began working on new music remotely, in increments of eight days. Every two days, members would trade songs, gradually sculpting them into final iterations. Willis recalls putting on his headphones as he began recording bass: “The layers that Alex, Simon, and Jon had begun to craft engulfed me like a wave, filling me. I was suddenly surrounded by my friends.” Over time, the music organically cohered into an album, bringing together influences as wide-ranging as Richard Davis, Meredith Monk and Melvins. Koi’s lyrics balance narrative and enigma, incorporating several perspectives within a song in an approach she calls polyphonic narrative. “I like to imagine how personas might converse in worlds with varying levels of familiarity and skewness,” she explains. “What we receive are relationships that flow between splintery and harmonious, and that contain both ecstasy and affliction. There’s a big thrill in all this, when nothing can be apathetic.”

The record is in motion from the start, opening in medias res with anthemic lead single “Big Exit.” Koi treats her words like playthings, stretching syllables past semantics, vocal lines in conversation with one another. Alexander-Adams’ electronics quiver, and Taylor’s clattering kit seems to deconstruct the rhythm it builds, before the song unspools into a lush, minimal coda just before the 4-minute mark. “Concertmate 680” follows in a similar fashion, with a tight groove belying the song’s spare lyrics: “Desire 5ever rainbows. Spy on you.” Collaborations with guitarist Kirsten Carey, saxophonists Marcus Elliot and Kaleigh Wilder, cellist Pat Reinholz, and vocalist David Magumba add still more color to the band’s vibrant compositions. “There’s a Leak in the Shielding” references history, then uses it as a weapon: “Here, now, there is no pen,” Koi sings, “and your children’s children will not recognize them.” Her vocal melody, and the seeming naiveté of her inflection, recalls Arthur Russell, as do Alexander-Adams’ wet, percussive electronics. Throughout, the album mixes the organic and synthetic. Even as motifs, images and lyrics recur, the music thrums with energy, opening into new worlds.

This, perhaps, is part of the point: to illustrate an escape, to be one. To Alexander-Adams, For the Makers was "as much a healing practice as it was a means to create"; to Willis, it "feels like a year-improvisation, for which the music never stopped the whole time." Says Taylor, "it represents our collective voice in the deepest sense: an amalgamation of our individual vulnerabilities, imaginations, ambitions, and love for each other." The album is testament to the restless creativity powering Saajtak's engine, and the importance of cultivating creativity, trust and community.

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