Experimental rock bands bring tour to the Kilowatt in San Francisco
A pair of veteran experimental rock groups pay a rare visit to San Francisco Thursday when Oneida and Kinski bring their tandem tour to San Francisco's Mission District.
Pushing the boundaries of modern experimental rock since the late '90s, both the Brooklyn-based Oneida and Seattle band Kinski have become cornerstones of their respective scenes over the past quarter century plus of music making. Started in 1997 by drummer/composer John Colpitts (aka Kid Millions) and guitarist Pat Sullivan (who performed under the moniker PCRZ or Papa Crazee), the group's first album A Place Called El Shaddai's drew on a number of auxiliary musicians to create the collection's improvisational noise-rock tunes that nodded to NYC forebears like Sonic Youth while incorporating elements of '60s garage, hard rock, punk and psychedelia. That effort and the similarly freewheeling follow-up Enemy Hogs came out on the indie label Turnbuckle Records, but when the imprint suddenly closed up shop without warning in 1999, the band moved to Jagjaguwar Records for the next decade.
An expanded line-up featuring keyboardist Bobby Matador and bassist/guitarist Hanoi Jane contributed to what would be a torrent of releases during the 2000s (even after Sullivan's departure at the end of 2001) that included splits and singles with fellow experimentalists Liars, Brother JT, Plastic Crimewave Sound and Pterodactyl, side projects by band members while bringing longtime collaborators Shahin Motia and Barry London into the fold. Later in the decade, the outfit released its ambitious self-described "triptych" Thank Your Parents that was sprawled across three separate recordings that delved further into the avant-garde with its explorations of minimalism and drone.
At the same time, Oneida had earned no small amount of notoriety for performances in non-traditional public spaces -- many held at their own practice and studio space the Ocropolis in Brooklyn's Williamsburg -- that would sometimes stretch for hours-long improvisational odysseys at the fringe All Tomorrow's Parties festivals held in the UK and on the East Coast with guest appearances by such mavericks as Boredoms, Flaming Lips, Deerhoof, the Dead C, Mike Watt, Portishead, and Godspeed You! Black Emperor.
The ensemble took a break from releasing new studio work (though a steady stream of archival recordings from the now defunct Ocropolis and elsewhere would come out), but resurfaced in 2016 with What's Your Sign? -- a collaboration with minimalist composer Rhys Chatham. The group's more recent output on Joyful Noise Recordings including the more traditionally song-focused Success in 2022 and last year's acclaimed shift back into more unpredictable territory Expensive Air show Oneida remains one of the most formidable creative ensembles in American experimental rock. The current tour brings them back to the Bay Area for the first time in over a decade.
Current tour partners Kinski have forged a similarly singular (if less prolific) path since first coming together in 1998 after drummer Dave Weeks was serving beers in a Seattle pub and joined a conversation with guitarist Chris Martin and bassist Lucy Atkinson about the merits of analog recording. Delving into a spacious, heavily psychedelic style of tuneful alternative rock, the band started writing tunes, bringing on multi-instrumentalist Matthew Reid Schwartz by the end of the following year.
The band's self-released debut Space Launch For Frenchie revealed a debt to propulsive krautrock rhythms and extended space-rock jams as much as the layered guitar-drones of Spacemen 3 -- a locomotive cover of that band's song "Losing Touch with My Mind" closed the recording. While Kinski toured extensively with other indie-rock outfits like Hovercraft and Silkworm, their first jaunt with Japanese psych band Mainliner established an important connection with guitarist and Acid Mothers Temple founder Kawabata Makoto.
In addition to touring Japan with AMT, Kinski would record a collaborative split with the iconic Japanese psychedelic travelers that Seattle label Sub Pop released in 2003 after issuing Kinski's debut for the label Airs Above Your Station earlier that year. At that point, Weeks had moved on and was replaced by current drummer Barrett Wilke. The band's growing reputation for interstellar sonic exploration onstage led to higher profile tour support gigs with reunited post-punk giants Mission of Burma and Tool.
2012 saw the band join the Kill Rock Stars roster, who released Kinski's next three offerings starting with Cosy Moments. In 2018, the group marked its 20th anniversary with a vinyl reissue of their second album Be Gentle With the Warm Turtle and their then new effort Accustomed To Your Face. Last year saw the ensemble return to its roots as a power trio with the departure of Reid Schwartz. The band just released its first recording for the Comedy Minus One imprint entitled Stumbledown Terrace that was recorded with renowned Bay Area producer/engineer Tim Green at his North Bay facility Louder Studios.
The bands are joined on this West Coast tour that stops at the Kilowatt Thursday night by SF heavy experimental power trio Terry Gross. Contrary to what one might expect from a band named after the unflappably calm NPR interviewer, the threesome bashes out a bruising, kinetic style of krautrock-influenced groove displayed on their debut recording Shameless Imposter, a two-song 10" vinyl EP released on Valley King Records in 2018.
Featuring the six-string heroics of the Champs and Trans Am guitarist Phil Manley, Terry Gross came together three years earlier when he started playing with his El Studio co-owner, bassist Donny Newenhouse (Film School, Hot Fog, Buffalo Tooth). The split of Newenhouse's band Peace Creep with talented drummer Phil Becker (Pins of Light, ex-Triclops! and Lower Forty-Eight; Becker is also a partner at El Studio and an accomplished engineer) and Triclops!/Anywhere guitarist Christian Eric Beaulieu led to some informal jam sessions with Manley and the rhythm section at the studio, sparking the new project.
Digitally recording their freewheeling improvisations at El Studio, the trio began developing its unique chemistry that found the musicians exploring hypnotic extended grooves that at times recalled the droning motorik workouts of German rock experimentalists Can and Neu, but with the added heft of modern rock titans like the Melvins. Terry Gross started playing live shows on both sides of the Bay, sharing stages with the likes of Big Business, reunited Oakland favorites Drunk Horse and Hot Lunch and establishing a reputation for dealing out their unusual style heady, muscular extended tunes.
Last September, the group unleashed its latest effort, Huge Improvement. Featuring a trio of propulsive prog-punk tunes clocking in at over seven minutes that bookend the extended droning menace of "Full Disclosure" that captures one of the threesome's instant compositions as it happened live in the studio without overdubs or editing, Terry Gross continues to refine its unique sonic chemistry.
Oneida and Kinski with Terry Gross
Thursday, March 20, 8 p.m. $20
The Kilowatt
