Bowery Ballroom

showview

Black Mountain

Jesse Sykes & The Sweet Hereafter

Tue 9/23

Tickets

18+

Doors 8pm

$16

Black Mountain

http://www.myspace.com/blackmountain
http://www.blackmountainarmy.com
After founding Jerk with a Bomb in the late '90s, Stephen McBean had by the mid-2000s transformed the Vancouver-area band into a group called Black Mountain. Drawing on blues, psychedelia, acid rock, and the Velvet Underground, Black Mountain's sound was a cross between the darkness and grit of the Warlocks and Brian Jonestown Massacre's trippiness. After debuting in October 2004 on Jagjaguwar with the 12" Druganaut, Black Mountain stayed with the label for an eponymous full-length, issued the following January. Joining McBean for the album were local players Matthew Camirand, Jeremy Schmidt, Joshua Wells, and Amber Webber, listed collectively to preserve the band's communal ethic. (Black Mountain ran concurrent to and intermingled with McBean's other band, lo-fi classic rockers Pink Mountaintops.) - Johnny Loftus, All Music Guide

Jesse Sykes & The Sweet Hereafter

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=11949404
http://www.jessesykes.com/index_02.html
My life is going by at an insane speed â€” as lives tend to do. I've been here just long enough to have almost forgotten where it is I really came from, or maybe it's that I've been here long enough to have learned how to let go of "that" constant longing for where I came from. I've started to love people I once disliked or even thought I hated, and I have stopped loving some that I thought I could never be free of. All that said, there is still a long way to go and I am just so grateful to be here â€” and grateful to be creating music with the people I hold dearest to my heart. I met Phil Wandscher in 1998 in a dive bar back when Seattle still had dive bars (how I miss those times!). I think I knew instantly upon meeting him that my life would change forever â€” just a gut feeling I guess, but i was right! Together, he and I have been lucky enough to spend our musical partnership with a group of really great, talented people â€” some who have stayed, some who have left â€” but who will never really be "gone."

In 2002 we christened our "collective" Jesse Sykes And The Sweet Hereafter. Since then, we have criss-crossed the country countless times, crossed the pond to Europe several times, had the honor of collaborating with bands such as SUNNO))), Boris, Mount Analog and avante-garde composer Eyvind Kang. I've had times that I'll remember for the rest of my life. The past has been magical, but all I've really been thinking about for the last year and a half is our latest record "Like, Love, Lust & The Open Halls of the Soul". We were trying to capture some pretty ephemeral stuff on this album â€” love and fragile human emotion, the 21st century's strange combination of swagger and vulnerability â€” and the feeling of a tight knit group of friends coming together and sharing music. We are very much looking forward to spending the next year on the road and seeing the people and places that we've been missing, and hoping that, at least for some people out there, this new album is (or becomes) a companion of sorts, just like it's been for me and the band for the last several months. Hope to see you soon! J.S.