Crystal Antlers’ music machine

ILLUSTRATION by SHEA M. GAUER

Crystal Antlers’ wild weekend was one day at a biker fest in Las Vegas and one day at a metal fest in Reno-a kind of schedule that basically made Blue Cheer’s career and once had audiences bug-eyed on a certain chemical cheer themselves, and if you were worried that the world no longer had room for cheering bikers to push right up in front of a loud rock & roll band that figures 20 percent of their backline came from the garbage (and which surely understands that one day 100 percent of it will have to go back in the garbage with plenty of new dents and scorch marks) then Crystal Antlers brings news to cheer you. Does that world still exist? “It does,” says bassist/singer Jonny Bell.

Not to hammer at the heaviest comparison but it turns out Antlers are actually built the way Blue Cheer were: bass holds the song together and everyone else flips out, and live you can watch them do it, with organist Victor Rodriguez and sometime-guest keyboardist Ikey Owens
timing telepathic transmissions, and percussionist Damian Edwards clubbing his bongos while drummer Kevin Stuart clubs well-clubbed drums beside him, and guitarist Errol Davis flipping out only through the tips of his fingers at stage-rear while Jonny cooks a little under stage
lights and fires up for a long crazy howl.

Their briefer songs (”Vexation”) are like harder Nuggets rock (Seeds, Music Machine)
atomized and/or teratomatized: every piece exploded and then exaggerated almost beyond definition, and their longer songs ride the edge of event horizon. Some bands do dynamic “soft” and “loud” but Crystal Antlers do “tension” and “release” with vicious transitions between; on the drop-outs, Funhouse sax sucks in breath for the drop-ins that are about to start, and if you listen carefully you can hear as the needle smacks the peg.

“What it sounds like is us trying to play beyond our own abilities,” says Jonny. “And it gets this really cool tension. It’s fun to jam, but it’s interesting to cram it all into a little package. The first single is seven minutes and one second-that’s exactly how long you can do a 7-inch at 33 RPM, which I like, too.”

That side is “Parting Song for the Torn Sky,” a particular signature that closes Antlers sets at seven minutes and more: an up-the-hill-and-back loop on bass and then everyone else flowing slowly in with the confident intention of the first five thousand gallons through a crack in the dam. B-side was “Parchman Farm,” a nod to Blue Cheer (and Mose Allison, says Jonny) added at the request of the record label and because then there were no more Antlers songs. (When I first saw them at Prospector a long time back, equipment problems forced a covers set: Dylan as done by Chocolate Watchband, Black Flag, Misfits.)

Now there are maybe a hundred Antlers songs in various conditions and a new 45: “Until the Sun Dies,” which is hard-ass grawge stomp pulled apart at the fibers to fit a spaced organ break, and “The Swamp Song,” a rocker that doesn’t include a rest until a ragged line about Jonny’s soul. Unreleased tracks easily match the two 7-inches-Crystal Antlers are about ready for Arthurization if they want, alongside Rallizes-rememberers Residual Echoes and nuked-blues-band Entrance.

“In spirit, we’re more into the punk stuff than the psychedelic,” says Jonny, putting on a Sleepers 45 while Canned Heat and Last Poets wait on the bottom shelf. “Punk and soul and fuckin’ Prince!”

“And if you see the stage show, hell yeah!” says Damien. “We are a party-a bunch of musicians who love music, and if you pay $5 to get in, you get a $20 show. So buy a record-it’s $5, bitch!”

CLUB STRYCHNINE PRESENTS CRYSTAL ANTLERS WITH THE GRAND ELEGANCE, LION FEVER AND MOTHER’S SONS QUE SERA | 1723 E SEVENTH ST | LONG BEACH 90804 | FRI 8PM | $5 | 21+ | MYSPACE.COM/CLUB_STRYCHNINE

Tags: blue cheer, crystal antlers, ikey owens, Long Beach, que sera