Stoner-rock all-stars the Freeks play Golden Bull in Oakland
SAN FRANCISCO -- SoCal fuzz merchants the Freeks headline this show at the Golden Bull Saturday night with SF psych outfit the Spiral Electric and power trio Slow Phase.
The Freeks are anchored by Ruben Romano, a talented musician who first made waves providing the hard-grooving propulsive backbeat as the drummer for both Fu Manchu and Nebula during their prime. When Romano was just a teen, he and fellow future members of Fu Manchu Scott Hill (guitar), Mark Abshire (bass) along with singer Ken Pucci got their start in the punk band Virulence.
After several EPs and the full-length If This Isn't A Dream on Alchemy Records that fell through the cracks as the record label went out of business shortly following its release, the group went through several personnel changes and eventually morphed into Fu Manchu.
With Hill taking over on lead vocals shortly after the name change, the band quickly developed a sound incorporating elements of classic rock, metal and proto punk that nodded to everything from Hendrix and Black Sabbath to Blue Cheer and the Stooges. The group would record several singles before they produced their debut album No One Rides For Free in 1994.
Fittingly issued on Bong Load Records, the recording showcased the fiery early line-up featuring lead guitarist Eddie Glass. Abshire would be replaced by Brad Davis by the time the group tracked it's follow-up album Daredevil. Fu Manchu's nearly constant touring and refinement of its stoner-rock sound paid off when the band hit it's stride with the 1996 release of In Search Of..., the band's first for new label Mammoth Records.
Powered by the enormous fuzzed-out riffs of Hill and Glass on catchy songs like "Asphalt Risin'" and "Regal Beagle," the album still stands as a bona fide classic of the genre. By 1996, Romano and Glass would split from the group, founding Nebula with Abshire and exploring an equally ferocious but more psychedelic style of stoner rock on the classic Let It Burn EP and their debut effort To the Center recorded with Seattle studio maestro Jack Endino (who recorded Nirvana, Mudhoney, Soundgarden and Tad among many others).
Romano would stay with Glass in Nebula for a decade, but his growing interest in songwriting -- he co-wrote all the songs on Nebula's Atomic Ritual and Apollo albums -- and playing guitar led him to leave the band and start the Freeks. Arguably taking an even more expansive and psychedelic approach, the Freeks could be Romano's most experimental project yet.
The band's line-up has evolved over more than a dozen years, at points including such luminaries as Zen Guerilla/Carlton Melton drummer Andy Duvall, Roadsaw's Hari Hassin and Bob Lee (Backbiter/Mike Watt) behind the kit. The band has released four albums with a pair -- 2016's Shattered and Crazy World two years later -- issued on the Heavy Psych Sounds label.
The Freeks spent some of the COVID lockdown in the studio, recording new songs for the band's latest self-released album Miles of Blues that came out last year. The current line-up of the band features Romano back playing drums, longtime guitarist Jonathan Hall, bassist Ray Piller (of Cleveland bands Biblical Proof of UFOs and the Duvalby Bros.), onetime White Manna synth player Robert Tripp and singer Jason Huebner.
Supporting at the show will be local psych favorites the Spiral Electric, who just shared the stage with the Freeks earlier this summer at the Kilowatt. The roots of the band date back over a decade to when singer/guitarist/keyboard player Clay Andrews and lead guitarist Nicolas Percey first met while attending a concert at the Fillmore featuring Primal Scream and the Brian Jonestown Massacre in 2009.
The new friends struck up a creative partnership, writing songs that mixed modern and classic psychedelia with Britpop hooks, shoegaze drone and propulsive surf guitars. The pair teamed with a rhythm section and traveled to Los Angeles to record their first EPs -- 2015's Upon Your Shore -- that showcased the band's expansive sound.
The group would follow up with a second EP late in 2016 entitled Ask the Sky that further refined the Spiral Electric's approach to creating neo-psych anthems in the studio. The band built on it's local following, touring and sharing Bay Area stages with like-minded artists from here and abroad including Dead Meadow, Spindrift, the Kills, Swervedriver, Black Mountain, Lumerians, the Dandy Warhols and Turn Me On Dead Man.
Starting in 2018, the band (now filled out by bassist Michael Summers and drummer Matias Dragos) worked on compiling and recording the material that would make up its first proper full-length album. Released in the spring of 2019, the sprawling, hour-plus eponymous effort spotlights a heavier guitar attack without sacrificing the band's knack for crafting swirling, psychedelic ear candy. Recorded with Dead Meadow bassist Steve Kile and mastered by noted engineer Howie Weinberg (Nirvana, the Mars Volta), the album marked a significant leap forward in the Spiral Electric's sound.
Later that year, the band appeared at several California music festivals including Desert Stars (Joshua Tree), SubZero Festival (San Jose) and Oakland's Holiday on the Moon that Andrews helped organize. Since the addition of current bassist Ryan McKnight in 2021, the band has been hard at work recording music for their forthcoming next album during multiple visits to Southern California. They released the effort's first single "Shadow in the Dark" last June.
Opening will be Oakland power trio Slow Phase. Another crew of seasoned players, the threesome features guitarist Dmitri Mavra -- the creative mind behind stoner-rock band Skunk and acclaimed psychedelic doom studio project Dungeon Weed -- along with explosive drummer/vocalist Richard Stuverud (who played with Northwest punk heroes the Fastbacks and earlier this year filled in behind the kit for Pearl Jam at several arena shows) and bassist/vocalist Anthony Pulsipher (Radio Haiku, Spidermeow, REQ'D). The band plays fuzzed-out hard rock that nods to the classic sounds of Mountain, the James Gang and Grand Funk Railroad.
The Freeks with the Spiral Electric and Slow Phase
Saturday, August 12, 7:30 p.m. $12
The Golden Bull
