ALEX’S BAR
FRI | OCT 26

MAGIC LANTERN by LONNIE NGUYEN

Tonight Warlocks got the kind of fan a band wouldn’t do bad to add to the payroll—she had stamina, charisma and really limber limbs, and was front and center and cranked up really high for the entire set. Warlocks knew they owed her one—when she reached for a mic, singer/guitarist Bobby gave it to her, and she bent it down and shouted, “You should look at the crowd more! It would help your performance!” (At that point, I decided my work was done.) When they tried to finish, she got the mic again and demanded an encore with the same enthusiasm you’d demand a firefighter save your baby, so they gave her “Cosmic Letdown.” Then they drove to Denver. Magic Lantern is or will be loved in Long Beach shortly; credit to writer Mae Moreno for finding them at maybe their second show and directing the world to a MySpace profile named after one of the best first-tier Japanese psychedelic bandleaders who wasn’t Shinki Chen. Lantern is real-deal Kraut/Jap-rock (Can/Faust/Rallizes/Mako) as evidenced by the line-up: drudes and scholars in complementary measure, just like in the communes where they’d cut demos for Virgin, and someone needs to alert Julian Cope to these guys immediately. Possibly me. Right now. Hold on. Long beautiful songs with flute, tabla and an acrobat’s sense of balance and dynamic.

Tags: cosmic letdown, krautrock, magic lantern, mp3, psychedelic, warlocks