Down, Not Out: Entrance Band frontman Guy Blakeslee and bassist Paz Lenchantin lived with surfer/artist/philosopher Yan Burdzinski until cancer took his life. Blakeslee says the experience shaped the group’s upcoming record. Amanda Charchian
Space Your Face
Los Angeles psych rockers The Entrance Band’s forthcoming record opens new doors.
Thursday, March 14, 2013
The Entrance Band’s 2012 EP Fine Flow is a departure from the heavy psychedelic blues that powered its previous work. The four introspective instrumental tracks are the songs that didn’t make it onto their upcoming full-length record – tentatively named Face the Sun – produced by Farmer Dave Scher.
The 34-minute album may be a sidebar, but it represents some of the best music the trio has ever rocked. The jams are spontaneous yet intuitive, and the chemistry between the members – performing Friday at Fernwood with The Range Light of Wilderness – is reminiscent of the Jimi Hendrix Experience.
“Having a trio, we each have a particular role in covering the sonic spectrum,” says singer/guitarist Guy Blakeslee. “Rather than have a bunch more people in the band, we each try to do as much as we can with our one particular role and usually it fills up all the necessary space – minimalist and maximalist at the same time. Each of us can be maximalist at the same time because the format is so minimalist.”
The 9-minute title track opener builds momentum before extricating itself from all things tangible and hovering above a rattling snare drum and Far East Indian riffs glazed in surf rock. All four tunes on the album could be overtures for four separate concertos but together they form a single entity with all-encompassing DayGlo brilliance.
“[The songs] are a good example of how when we really play together, there’s a meditative aspect to it,” Blakeslee says.
George Gershwin’s “Summertime” has been covered to death but The Entrance Band manage to give it some twists, turns and tokes – like slide guitar, reverberated tones and tenderized feedback – that makes it their own. They didn’t even plan on “Summertime” being on the album; they were using the classic tune as their warm up in the studio and someone happened to hit record. It came out so good it had to be included.
“We tapped into a hypnotic pattern and we elaborated on that into a hyper-aware state but also a spaced-out, blurry state of mind,” Blakeslee says.
THE ENTRANCE BAND and THE RANGE LIGHT OF WILDERNESS perform at 9pm Friday, March 15, at Fernwood, 47200 Highway 1, Big Sur. $5 advance/$10 door. 667-2422. www.fernwoodbigsur.com/music.html
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