Explosive garage-psych band Meatbodies plays new songs at the Chapel
Celebrated LA garage-psych band Meatbodies returns to San Francisco Wednesday, playing songs from their new album Flora Ocean Tiger Bloom at the Chapel.
Leader and main songwriter Chad Ubovich was already involved in several projects when he started his own band in 2011. Having played in the group Thief with high school friend and future Wand leader Cory Hanson -- a band Ubovich later dismissed as "a pretty boy band...trying to be Radiohead" -- and a brief stint in punk group Pangea, the musician toured extensively playing bass and guitar with Mikal Cronin and Ty Segall (who Ubovich would also perform with in the band Fuzz starting in 2011). Utilizing a variety of collaborators including Hanson, he began playing his own material at shows under the moniker Chad and the Meatbodies. With encouragement from Segall, he released a collection of tunes recorded in his bedroom bearing the same name on limited cassette through Segall's God? Records.
That tape led to In the Red Records signing Ubovich, who shortened the band's name to simply Meatbodies for its proper debut album in 2014. Featuring Segall playing drums and bass on some tracks, the record announced Ubovich to a wider audience as a crafty songwriter in his own right with its hooky blasts of propulsive psychedelic punk like "Mountain" and "Wahoo."
The musician managed to tour with the group despite his busy schedule with Cronin and Segall (both in his band and Fuzz), though Ubovich would not get to recording a follow-up effort until he put out the more ambitious concept album Alice in 2017. The effort also marked the first time Ubovich recorded with the touring line-up of Meatbodies with guitarist/singer Patrick Nolan, bassist Kevin Boog and drummer Erik Jiminez.
Facing burnout from his hectic touring schedule, Ubovich would withdraw from his creative endeavors and immerse himself in a nocturnal, drug-fueled lifestyle exploring the underbelly of Los Angeles. When he finally emerged sober, he started working on demos for Meatbodies' third album with drummer Dylan Fujioka (who played with LA prog-rock band Upsilon Acrux and gothic metal/industrial songstress Chelsea Wolfe). While he started production on Flora Ocean Tiger Bloom in 2019, technical issues at the studio led Ubovich to set the project aside before the pandemic brought the music industry to a standstill the following year.
The musician would eventually reconvene with Fujioka during post-COVID downtime to sift through the demos they recorded, putting together the stopgap recording 333 in 2021 and returning to the road with the current line-up of the band featuring Fujioka, guitarist/singer Casey Hansen and bassist Noah Guevara. The album's songs drifted down a hazy tributary that soaked Ubovich's melodies in flange and echo, pushing the band's sound in a more stripped-down, lo-fi direction.
After facing an unrelated health scare that left him hospitalized and being forced to move out of his home of eight years when it got condemned, the songwriter was eventually able to turn his focus back on the music he recorded for Flora Ocean Tiger Bloom. Finally released last month, the album takes widescreen, stadium-sized approach to Ubovich's latest soaring psychedelic anthems, nodding to shoegaze and the early '90s sounds of Jane's Addiction and the Smashing Pumpkins for what may be his most hypnotic and accessible effort yet. For this show promoting the new album at the Chapel in San Francisco's Mission District Wednesday, Meatbodies take the stage with support from Oakland electro-rock duo Abracadabra and experimental Seattle jazz/groove band sunking.
Meatbodies with Abracadabra and sunking
Wednesday, April 3, 7 p.m. $20
The Chapel
