But I’d already secured a house to crash at in Indio with a pool and a gaggle of good folks, and I’d been to Coachella the week before anyway. So on I went, out to Desert Hot Springs and up to Dillon’s Roadhouse, to see a lineup of rad bands that I myself would actually have booked–as opposed to, you know, a hologram of a dead rapist.

I got to Desert Daze late on Friday night, so only saw a couple bands on the inside stage, including Ahkiyyini, who scared me with their extreme modern hippie garb, only to blow my prejudices out my third chakra with their evil, hard-hitting psychedelic tunes right out of the fucking gate. Only ten minutes into the weekend, and already I’d heard my favorite band.

These guys had sent me their demo in the past, and while it was… adequate, it didn’t quite capture the power of their live show, which featured dueling male/female vocals from Tait Alexander Nalley and Ali Kellog, both so shamanistic and sexy that combined together, they became a totemic hermaphrodite god(dess) from down the corner of the cerebellum, ready to spring forth right out of your loins into the part of your neck that creates the death rattle, where they’ll scare the shit out of you with a hearty “hoooWAAAAAAAH!!” These songs had a driving, juggernaut cadence, almost like something you’d recognize from those early Hawkwind albums, yet darker (insert Amon Duul/Chrome/Guru Guru reference here), with a touch of Edgar Allen Poe. It was Dionysus electrified, or maybe an Egyptian deity, bare-bones as a shriveled skeleton yet fat as a crocodile.

I stayed a bit for the next bands, then got a good night’s sleep and stumbled in early the next day, right into the set of Mysterious Everything. This guy didn’t attract a huge audience, partially because people were just starting to roll in, partially because people thought he was tuning up for a bigger band! A one man project (one of the 10,000 one-man bands better than Greg Ginn), Mysterious Everything had a bit of a raga Cluster thing going on. Maybe he had some pre-recorded tones and notes saved in his keyboard, but it seemed his refreshing drone tones were based on notes he’d just laid down, similar to how N O W operates but far more mysterious and minimal. Sure, it was hard to concentrate on in a desert bar, and I talked loudly to my friends right through the whole set. But I felt bad about it.

Next was Sleepy Owl, a psychedelic outfit put together by Tait Nalley of Ahkiyyini, my faves from the night before. But where Ahkiyyini had the strong feminine power of Ali Kellog as the co-anchor, in Sleepy Owl, Nalley led the charge alone, playing both yin and yang in a summery dress. To kind of up the ante, he’d brought two fantastic female backup singers with him, who were grooving and shaking things and in general making me wonder why this wasn’t OUTSIDE, where the shadows and contours of the music could have fully fleshed out the spirit of this project.

Then again, it made more sense to let the sun shine on a band called Joy, who mesmerized me so much that I had to order a Sailor Jerry’s drink special just to snap out of it. A gleeful, burly trio, these man’s men played stoner rock so stoner, it wasn’t anywhere close to heavy metal anymore. But it sure was bombastic, making one reminisce about an era I never knew, when radio rock was trying one last time to be relevant through sheer sweat, before the shiv of punk rock pierced right through it.

Back inside Dillon’s Roadhouse, I caught Silver Chords, who were led by the fabulous Sasha Vallely of Spindrift on vocals, plus two other lovely lady singers flanking her, all harmonizing together like if they reshot The Fly so that Three Dog Night discovered too late that Bananarama had been in the teleportation machine with them (for those keeping score at home, that’s a thumbs-up!). The legendary Bobby Bones stood to the side, aloof, on guitar, and some dude with amazing rooster hair and a mustache tickled the keys. They played some great garage-y psychedelic-tinged rockers, concluding with “Lucifer Sam,” an oft-covered song that usually lacks the punch of the Pink Floyd original; the Silver Chords made it their own.

And whoever scheduled Silver Chords right before Strangers Family Band was a genius, because if there’s any band guaranteed to transition well from a cover of “Lucifer Sam” into their own set, it’s Strangers Family Band. Some bands, like Flaming Lips, love Roger Water’s mid-era stuff too much. But this is the first band I’ve known to have a therapy-worthy obsession with Waters as a bass player: like, literally, the first eight notes of their set on the outdoor stage were the descending bass lines of “Lucifer Sam,” and many of their other songs fell into that same template; what the Amen Break is to jungle, “Lucifer Sam”’s descending low end is to Strangers Family Band. It’s well past the point of mere reference: their song “Strange Transmission” is a reworking of “Lucifer Sam” that beats out even the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s “Crimson and Clover” make-over “Our Time” for second place in the Songs I Can’t Believe They Didn’t Get Sued Over competition (first place of course going to James Brown’s swept-under-the rug theft of “Fame” for “Hot (I Need to be Loved Loved Loved Loved”).

Strangers Family Band, I love you utterly, so please take these words in the positive spirit of healing that I intend: you can do better. You guys are the real deal, and with your skills, you could be headlining every Psych Fest from here to Austin to fucking Milan and Ibiza. You could be playing the Outdoor Stage at Coachella, printing your own brand of LSD, forcing Anton Newcombe to cry, replacing Roky Erickson’s backup band, and getting some top-shelf, all natural beav from gorgeous, wide-eyed hippie girls with powder blue dream-catchers in their hair.

You could be making Dead Meadow open for you! But instead you’re giving audiences the impression that you lack ideas. What you’re doing to Pink Floyd is not appropriation, and it’s not sampling; it’s hero worship. And your friends are too chickenshit to tell you, so let me spell it out as clearly as I can: STOP HERO-FUCKING ROGER WATERS’ RICKENBACKER 4001S. If you must steal, at least copy some obscure riff from the Orange Bicycle or Aphrodite’s Child or the third West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band album; then only me and DJ Nobody would know you’re biting people’s songs. But as it is, you are copying the first Pink Floyd album with transparent recklessness, and everybody knows it, and that’s a psychedelic sin.

Other than that, I still loved hearing you. I loved your shamanistic seriousness, your honest lack of showboating, your lyrical luminescence, your charm, and the classy way you kind of stay above the fray—especially you, John Rondano, and the crazy space-aged keyboard console you play that looks like a giant alien electric typewriter.

I love you guys, and I promise, my next review will be all nice things, because you are a dynamite combo. But please promise me you’ll find a cure for this malady. Take up thy stethoscope and walk.

Back inside the bar, after rejuvenating ourselves on the sounds of psych-blisterers Poor Sons, and the vodka from a clear crystal skull, we went outside again to see Spindrift, a band that further sweetens each time I see them, delicately, like bourbon; in another analogy, time is pulling them together more tightly, like the willow warping against the maple wood of a Stradivarius fiddle. It’s a pity that they didn’t put Bobby Bones of Silver Chords onstage, who had played the role of preacher in the film The Legend of God’s Gun, since some of their best tunes of the night were from the album of the same name, e.g. “Girlz Booze and Gunz.” I loved their cover of the Shadows’ “Apache,” but perhaps their best tunes were the ones slated for their upcoming album, Cowboy Songs and Campfire Ballads, some of which are theme songs that bandleader Kirpatrick Thomas culled from old TV westerns. It seems L.A.’s most cinematic cowpoke is turning to the small screen for inspiration.

Another one man band, Barefoot Shrubs, started playing inside, and like the night before (has he played every night of the event?), his eclectic, sound-collage, electronic noise-adelia was a 180 degree switch from what we’d seen outside. The audience watching him was actually a bit sparse, and the friends of mine who cared to comment about him had nothing to say but derision. But I liked it, even if the hippie girls clutched their ears.

Back outside, Dead Meadow were a bit dull, so dull that at first, I didn’t recognize their sound. I chalk up their lack of zing 100% to the absence of Stephen McCarty on drums, now that original drummer Mark Laughlin is back. And it’s sad: perhaps they reached their zenith with the Three Kings album and film just two years ago. Now their attempts to sound more Hendrix-esque are backfiring, making them seem like a working-man’s band at best, rather than an awe-inspiring monster of mindfuck. Come back to the light, boys. Even with McCarty, you guys have to do something to get that tight trio sound away from all the shenanigans and goings on that are making you weak sauce. Though perhaps the lack of oomph stemmed from the outdoor stage’s sound, and not the band itself—Dahga Bloom inside were able to keep us excited with their steady go-go-go psych sound, with energy very similar to Dead Meadow’s Hollywood Forever show in 2012, albeit with a sound that was very different, kind of Middle Eastern, with vocals like Mike Patton’s drunken Muppet son.

The rest of the night was a bit of a, well, a daze, as the heat and my own exhaustion were causing me to fall asleep as I took notes in the dark corner in the back (and yes, there are embarrassing photos on someone’s Instagram that I’d gladly pay to destroy, if this were the 70s and one could still destroy photos). Cosmonauts were sounding more mature, like they’ve grown even since I saw their performance at SXSW months ago, and Crooked Cowboy once again proved they were just as fast on the trigger as Spindrift—it’s always a pleasure to see both bands on the same bill, especially in the desert. It’s a friendly creative sparring that reminds me of Matisse and Picasso in the later years of their lives, but, you know, with Ennio Morricone being the paint they both use, which they dab on rough canvas with sagebrush.

But the sandman was calling me, and I’ll have to give a conclusive verdict on the winner next time.

-D. M. Collins

Download: The Hoof and the Heel “Fireworks”

(from the And All The Tigers EP available from the band)

The Hoof and the Heel is the new band from longtime L.A. RECORD illustrator Christine Hale—she does all our comics as well as many many illustrations!—and her friends from Montreal, and they will be performing tonight at 9 PM sharp (!) at Echo Curio with Fort Wife (f. Sub Pop freshmen Avi Buffalo!), Manhattan Murder Mystery, Crooked Cowboy and George Glass!

Alex Ebert + Har Mar Superstar

Pizza!, the latest addition to Manimal Vinyl’s roster, opened festivities with upbeat songs about skulls and the recession. “Did that boy just say the N-word?!” exclaimed a leather vested motorcycle man.

Pizza!

Weave’s outfits—surfer dudes on Venus, splattered with braille. The band beamed energy from their instruments that formed a constellation of Siouxie Sioux and tropical animals above people’s heads. A nod goes to Ivory’s commitment to a high bikini line.

Weave

Corridor, aka Michael Quinn, comes on epic—like leaping from a building but not hitting the ground. His music belongs to the ethereal realization you won’t crash. The wind whipped his hair wildly as he drummed on his cello. He shares alternacoustic mystique with Kurt Vile, except Quinn’s more metal. Bill & Ted might arrive and whisk him away to the future.

Corridor

Tiffany Preston beats the cowbell like it’s a drum pad and vice versa. As the biting wind trapped Rainbow Arabia‘s notes in the air for a second, it became appealing to sew a thread passing back and forth between cowbell, pad, Danny’s keys, congas, and back to guitar. The wind disentangled Tiffany’s voice from the mic effects—noticing her natural sound’s ornaments.

Rainbow Arabia

Prolonged exposure to We Are The World nears brain-washing. People think Ed Sharpe has a cultish power? I’m more likely to join We Are The World—their costumes as monk habits, and prayer as a Ryan Heffington dance routine. Beneath the sensory aerobics, I noticed, they all wear different shoes.

We Are The World

Respite from the World’s immaculate vision was found inside Pappy & Harriet’s, hopping and twisting around a shiny ghettoblaster’s pixie stick, midi karaoke beats. Matt Jones has Sonny Bono hair. His Jonesin’ partner, Jen Jones, crosses Debbie Harry and Tifffany—the latter accentuated by shoulder pads. The couple resides in San Francisco, exchanging romantic one-liners with distortion set on 11.

Jonesin’

New band members appear with Fool’s Gold all the time. But here’s hoping a rosy-cheeked preteen playing percussion tonight makes the permanent roster. Six chickens, seventeen marbles, and two helicopters also squeezed in on stage. The intro to “Suprise Hotel” lasted for miles—teasing that tropical guitar line between Lewis Pesacov and Matt Popieluch until the audience fully surrendered—before Luke Top uttered the song’s first word.

Fool’s Gold (*see the kid in the back right!)

With instruments and band members protruding in all directions, Ed Sharpe & Magnetic Zeros swooned on stage like an amoeba. The audience was sucked in. Alex Ebert suggested a volunteer get even closer and suck his ________. I imagined Ebert pulling a bathplug out of his pants and the whole audience slipping into a glowing light between his legs.

Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros

A fifteen-minute jam during Amanda Jo Williams’ last song put the country butter in psychedelic. Having a full band lay into her songs slowed things down so the rhythms could crack their joints. Amanda’s kooky voice usually whisks the audience away on horse rides after bunnies, but tonight the spread-out sound kept the audience stomping within these four walls.

Amanda Jo Williams

When both members of Hecuba collapsed on the floor, their heads touched the way Lady And The Tramp share a noodle. Fog gathered. Keeping a hand playing the keyboard, Jon Beasley rubbed his face on Isabelle Albuquerque’s cheek while she hunched over her knees. The audience huddled around as its ship reached the heart of outer space.

Hecuba

Laco$te’s X rolled around, climbed tables, and bent backwards during a short, electric set—so high charged it blew some fuses, including the band members’. Most people believed the sound splitting was a deliberate trippy effect. Laco$te could’ve mimed their remaining songs and kept the audience bobbing along.

Laco$te

Cold did not care much that the sun wanted to shine on Sunday. Voice On Tape’s echoing moans and romantic guitar strumming made me want scotch and a gambler’s ring.

Voice On Tape

He’s My Brother She’s My Sister performed when the air was white. You could barely see them when looking at the musicians straight on. This band’s day-after-glamorous-debauchery plus a banjo felt so right—considering the far-out night many people were still living. The audience slapped its knee and sloppily clapped along to what might have been Manimal’s theme song.

He’s My Brother She’s My Sister

Shivering, lacking vitamins and sleep, the audience sat cross-legged on Pappy’s dancefloor during Ariana Delawari. Gentle detailed guitar was punctuated when she struck hard chords or sincere moments—her eyebrows pleated like a sea for rain. Lulled, you forget she might be singing about politics and terrorism.

Adriana Delawari

Voices Voices was the last thing I could see before the boogie-man chased me home. For a finale to the melting rainbow they stirred until dissolved, the girls should have ridden off on motorcycles across the darkening desert—trenchcoats flapping behind them.

Voices Voices

Lips chapped the minute they tasted the air at Pappy & Harriet’s—those allergic to Chapstick have since cracked and ripped every time a smile recollects the Manimal Fest journey.

[View with PicLens]

—Daiana Feuer (words and photo)

I only caught the last two songs of the opener Tommy Santee Klaws, but they were enjoyable. The band has a multi-vocal harmony sound, reminiscent of CSN or more recently Fleet Foxes. The mesmerizing Amanda Jo Williams came up next. Her eerily delightful gothic-tinged indie country folk would sound just as fine at a campfire as it does at an indie club or an American Legion Hall. She was joined by Crooked Cowboy on the Moog and guitarist 5-track, and she took the show off of the stage (and the lights) to set the band on the floor. The set was weird, because I couldn’t see Williams, since she was essentially sitting in the dark with the rest of us. The songs sound great. She has a slightly childish, voice with a major-league drawl and a high vocal range that subtly increases into higher octaves when the lyrics call for it like on “Keep The Animals.” She’s firmly placed among my favorite local acts.

Cobra Lillies are a free-for-all freak folk band made up of several Eastside bands. The band began as a side project for The Monolators, and every time I see them they have new members and routines, which have included stomp dancing, cheerleaders, and tonight a flamboyant fashion show sketch to open the show. There were bicycle bells ringing throughout the night and all sorts of weird, down-homey folksy instruments. Eli Chartkoff (Male sacrifice/Banjo) will always sound like The Monolators when he sings, but he is more a mellow strummer and plucker with the Lillies compared to the hyper-physical performer he is with his main band. The lineup fluctuates a lot—anywhere from 8 to the teens—but they are typically mostly all women. They have a high energy, and the songs are fun, a little campy and not too removed from B-52s, minus the surf riffs. Eli and Mary’s toddler son joined them on stage, and it was funny to watch a kid playing air guitar and sucking his thumb at the same time. His banter between songs (he used the tap dancer floor mic) was funny also and fit in with the evening’s casual setting. I’ve seen them a few times at the dorm-room sized Pehrspace, and I felt that the size of the venue took away from the set’s chaos. They sprawled into the crowd like they always do (and really have to), but at the spacious Hall, the crowd was able to avoid the sprawl by pulling their metal fold-out chairs back, where at the smaller Pehrspace, they litterally absorb you into their band like a euphoric blob.

I like The American Legion Hall, and I hope they have more shows there, since it has the potential to be a great and valuable venue for the music scene on the other side of the tracks. One thing to be aware of is that the venue is run by veterans, and the audience needs to respect that. They will check your pockets if you try to enter while exhaling pit smoke, and it’s not the proper venue for anti-war statements.

—Scott Schultz

Daiana Feuer

Country-clad strangers huddled around the bar and red-lit couches, holding beers and cookies rather than guns. The DJ played Hank Williams between bands until they ran out of his material, then Loretta Lynn took over. Chilling on the tiered seating beneath The Cowboy Show’s intimate vibe, the audience sat rapt, almost hypnotized, every time a band took stage.

Amanda Jo Williams traveled west from middle of nowhere, Georgia. She is that small town girl chasing untamable lovers. Her squeaky voice reaches as high as she is tall, with an accent that washes her in the purity of cartoons.  A gently strange man called “5” wearing velour pants, long hair and big sunglasses, accompanied her on electric guitar, as if picking flowers or painting with watercolors. Lauren Brown, of He’s My Brother, She’s My Sister, added tap-dancing on a large box. The rhythm she created for “Nickel On My Back” almost turned the song into a hip hop remix. ONE heckler in the crowd felt the need to repeatedly hoot at Lauren. It can’t be helped. She is a babe. There’s got to be a rowdy cowboy in the bunch.—He’s lucky he didn’t get jumped by banditos.

Horse Thieves opened The Show with tales of raucous forms. Alex Maslansky works at Stories by day, but at night he dons a big jacket, swaggers in with a deep tone, and shakes his hand across his guitar as if it were the rolling hip of Elvis. The bleach-blond Brie Turner O’Banion on piano creates accompaniment for a brawl at the card table while adding poker-faced vocals to Maslanky’s lead. This Bonnie & Clyde had a third but essential wheel, drummer of drummers Nick Murray sat in with the band, contributing his finesse to a magical set.

When Crooked Cowboy & Freshwater Indians closed the night, the room transported to a hallucinated otherland, zenned out on the yelping coyotes of its imagination. Crooked Cowboy has got some soul. His two accompanying lady singers “doo doo doo” more meaningfully than a reverb-laden word or two could possibly equal. The tall one (name could not be found!) grabs her own throat and rattles her esophagus. When with tambourine in hand, her entire body jolted and bounced as powerfully as a wound-up toy. It was a thing of sheer beauty. Crooked Cowboy himself is one of a kind, bobbing his head surrounded by machinery, dueling basses, and a sensibility that’s spooky as a glimmering cobweb in a ghost town.

If only The Cowboy Show lived in a box you could open and partake when needed. These bands fit well together. An essence felt nourished by their crossing. In the saloon of dreams, it was a lovely night.

—Georgia Dorge

Download: Amanda Jo Williams “The Bear Eats Me”

(from the self-released The Bear Eats Me out soon)

L.A. RECORD likes fresh and spicy meat. We couldn’t wait for Amanda Jo Williams to wipe the dust gathered on her Jumbo Western in the long cross-country trek. Her quirky country style lets her be as comfortable strumming songs about sex as she (and her twins) are rhyming about poop. Right now she’s handing out CDs burnt on her computer, leaving them on benches and releasing them in baskets into the L.A. river. If fate will have it, those 24 peanuts of wisdom will wind up on a barstool near you. This interview by Daiana Feuer.

How many songs have you written in one stretch?
A lot. I go through spurts. I’d say one spurt will make twenty to forty songs maybe. But usually I’ll have someone that inspires me. Most of the time, it’s about saving the world. But recently I had a muse, so it made a different type of songs.
Who was your muse?
It was a sexy man.
I like the song about shopping cart sex.
That’s about the sexy man.
Where are you from?
Hogansville, Georgia. It’s close to La Grange. La Grange is a little bigger—that’s why I sometimes tell people La Grange. Hogansville is really small. It’s like an hour and a half south of Atlanta. It’s in the country. Very in the country. Yeah. Like Family Dollar. Horses. Fences. Broken fences.
Did you have horses?
I did. My horse Bobo, he was born there on the property. I saw him being born­—his feet were sticking out. That’s how it happened. Anyways, he was like fifteen, and then two or three years ago he escaped and got hit on the road, like a deer. A woman in her Cadillac—she waited too late to sue my mama. I mean, I’m glad she waited too late to sue.
You can sue someone for hitting their horse?
Yeah, ‘cause it’s not a deer—it’s not wild animals.
Can you talk about the poop song?
My twins, Ginger and Hominy—hominy like grits or corn—we did that together. It’s just like improv. They’re seven. They’re with their father now in Woodstock, New York. It wasn’t too long ago. I knew I was moving out so I created this Myspace page and it has the poop song and stuff that we did together, and videos. They have a really good sense of humor. They’re old souls. Go to their Myspace—it’s called Little Feet Learning Center. It’s my first friend on Myspace, and you can see tons that you wouldn’t believe. I started strumming and we started singing. The melody just came out. Kids that age—they like to talk about poop a lot.
Why did you move to L.A.?
For the music. I came out here in August and I played a show or two and I knew that my music would do well out here and just my personality. I wanted to stay. I’ve played in New York City and it’s just not the same. But out here something just clicked with my soul and my heart. I’m looking for a record label so I can start touring. I think it’s going to happen this year. I can see it. I can. I can kind of see things. I was thinking of burning a bunch of CDs and throwing them, and random people will pick them up—because if you believe in fate and destiny, it will land in the right hands.
What do you mean ‘you see things?’
I’ll ask myself a question about something or someone and I’ll say, ‘Oh, can I see myself doing this or being with this person or so and so?’ And if I can see it right away or if it feels right, I know it’ll come to pass.
What do you plan to do in the springtime?
What goes on in the spring? I think people get horny.
If you were a shelf in a record store, what albums would you want to hold up?
Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson and Kris Kristofferson when he sings—well, he can be there anytime because he’s kind of sexy. I guess Gene Wilder if he sang. Do you know the guy that played Ernest played old country songs—Jim Varney? So him—singing bootlegs. I guess Bob Dylan. I like Bob Dylan. Bette Midler singing ‘The Rose.’ George Jones singing ‘She’s My Rock.’ There’d probably be a kid’s song or something.
What imaginary place would you play a show in?
Ooh. Have you heard of the Land of Pan? I think maybe Edgar Cayce says it’s Atlantis…I don’t know if this all the same thing…and then my friend says there’s this place called Lemuria, today. It’s this place, maybe Lord of the Rings-like, you know, with fairies and all these other creatures. And there’s magic. And the waters are really blue and the grass is really green and the sky is very blue. It would be outside. And I would play when it was daylight and then a lot of people would play and it would become nighttime and then the magic stuff really gets intense.
What would it smell like?
Pine needles. Pine straw. Do you know what pine straw is? If you grow up in the South and you don’t have snow, you can slide on pine straw. It’s needles that fall from pine trees and they turn brown. You can slide. They’re really slick. So it smells like that. And all the things that smell good.
All of them?
Yeah, pure things that smell good. What do you mean all of them? No fake colognes or perfumes. That’s sort of scary. You know how you see someone and you pass by ‘em and they have this sort of smell. Because perfume is sort of not natural in a way. Maybe some is—fancy perfume—but it becomes very enclosing. Like a box.
What bathroom accessory do you think you’d be if you were a bathroom thing or hygienic product?
Shampoo, because you go in the hair, but then you get rinsed out, but the smell lingers, so you don’t have to be committed to the person, but they still want you and your essence is still there.
What do you think about the apocalypse?
There is something coming, but for me it’s like the end of something and the beginning of something new. Something incredible. You know how the ‘60s never really took off? People didn’t get out of it what they wanted to get out of it? I think this time people are going to get out what they want. You know about the law of attraction? I mean, feelings and your thoughts really do make your reality. And I’ve noticed in L.A., that it’s very magical here. Manifestations and things happen a lot quicker. There’s something magical about it. And this town is called ‘the angels.’ So, I think there’s a lot of angels here—maybe broken-down ones and sad ones.
Do you believe in ghosts?
Believe in ‘em? They just are. They’re hanging around. And if you can see…Your brain only lets you see certain things. Like your eyes can see a ghost, but your brain just won’t allow you to see the ghost because it would mess up everything you’ve ever believed in. Because someone always said there’s no such thing as ghosts. Because you wouldn’t want to go crazy all of a sudden. So your eyes can see it but your brain won’t let you.
What can you tell me about planets?
Well, you start talking about your signs and the planets and you have people that start saying they don’t believe in that. And I think sometimes people don’t want to believe that the planets have influence over us because they don’t like the idea of being controlled by anything because it’s a free-will universe. It’s like—you’re born at a certain time. You are who you are, so when you’re born, the planets represent who you are. If you get lost about yourself, you can look at your chart. For example, Venus is in my 12th house and that’s not good because it means I have a lot of secret relationships. And I do have secret relationships. And my very first boyfriend—he was a school teacher, when I was a student. Do you ever feel like you’re playing a role, like you’re kind of magical? Like Venus. I’m just using Venus as an example. Or I would say, like, the wise old magician guy. The wizard. You know, the shamans around the world—and then, you know, you ever meet those people that are kind of this ‘older man’? They seem to be alone, but you just know they’re wise and you want to learn from them? There’s different versions of them everywhere.
Have you encountered one recently?
The father of my twins—he’s kind of like that. He’s kind of wizardy. The way he looks. He’s a very good musician. He’s the one that taught me guitar.
What was your first guitar?
I played his. But my Jumbo Western. It’s not fancy—it’s cheap. My friend Ed Mack got this for me before I could play and he got burned up in a fire. It’s funny. My grandmama, she fell in a fire when I was a kid. She was drunk and we had this big hole—she used to put trash in there and burn it. And she was drunk, poking the trash down, and she fell in the fire. But anyway, Ed used to take care of her after she got burned and then he ended up— he had a few strokes, he was skinny—and he ended up with a fire in his house. Sorry. I have these weird stories.
If you had to give up your eyes or your ears, what would you choose?
Ears. ‘Cause hearing runs really bad in my family. We all wear hearing aids. Some of my cousins—who are younger than me—they wear hearing aids. So I think it would be an easy adjustment. If you couldn’t see, you could get hit by a car. If you couldn’t see, how would you know that someone was handsome and you wanted to marry him?
Maybe it would be how their body felt.
Yeah, that’s more important, ain’t it? You ever heard about astral projection? It’s the state between sleeping and waking. You can see through your eyelids. You’d be able to see an astral realm, even if you couldn’t see in this physical plane. You could probably hear though, too. Maybe it’s a question that doesn’t need an answer. I used to ask my mama which of us kids she loved the best. It was something in me that needed to be loved the most out of all of them. But as I got older, I realized it was a stupid question.
Do you see yourself going back to Georgia one day?
I see myself being here. It feels more like home than anyplace. I have to get a job. I love Georgia and I do have to go back there to refresh. It’s just slow and it’s pure.

AMANDA JO WILLIAMS WITH HORSE THIEVES AND CROOKED COWBOY AND FRESHWATER FRIENDS ON FRI., AUG. 14, AT THE COWBOY SHOW AT THE UNKNOWN THEATER, 1110 SEWARD ST., LOS ANGELES. 10 PM / $5 / 18+. KARAOKEFEVER.COM. VISIT AMANDA JO WILLIAMS AT MYSPACE.COM/AMANDAJOWILLIAMSMUSIC.

The Pisces Birthday Week cordially invites you to join us in:

ANY COLOUR YOU LIKE
A themed celebration of the cosmos, music, birthdays and doing good.
Consider the theme as an uncorked bottle of possibility – as a sugar cube sitting on a tiny spoon… or sweat forming between legs under a blanket.

FEATURING performances by:
The Crooked Cowboy with special guests (www.myspace.com/willeep)
Lucky Dragons (http://www.myspace.com/luckydragons)
Amanda Jo Williams (http://www.myspace.com/amandajowilliamsmusic)
Never At Night (http://www.myspace.com/neveratnight)
and dancing with DJ Lengua (www.myspace.com/djlengua)

PLUS a prism of colourful things to see, touch, eat and drink on the side…including free Grolsch, empanadas, and mind-melting visuals by Radical Friend (http://www.radicalfriend.com/)

Saturday, February 28, 2009 8:30 pm
Bandit Gallery 1549 Sunset Blvd, Echo Park, 90026
http://www.banditgallery.com/

$10 at the door
$5 with RSVP to colouryoulikeparty@gmail.com
(List closes at 5 pm on the 28th)

** $$All proceeds benefit the charity LAVRRC, a non-profit organization dedicated to relieving the needs of the mentally ill. $$** http://www.lavrrc.org/