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Check out:
- Mother Kingdom Website
- Orquesta del Desierto Website
- Interview with Steve 'Dandy' Brown
- Orange Factory Website
Mother Kingdom(SWI)
Orquesta del Desierto(USA)
Sojo, August 18th, 2004.
I
have no idea how Swiss four-piece Mother Kingdom ended up
on the Sojo’s stage, as they’re not exactly the kind of band you’d
think of when skimming over the list of bands that’d been playing there
the last few months. But hey, diversity often keeps things interesting, so
why not? Well… the problem is that Mother Kingdom, though obviously
founded by skilled musicians, didn’t exactly manage to leave a lasting
impression. Falling in between harmless & radio-friendly alternative rock
and confessional singer-songwriter stuff, the band delivered a rather subdued
set (two acoustic guitars, electric bass, drums) that simply lacked a few
highlights and could’ve done with a few more barbs. Don’t get
me wrong, singer/guitarist Didier Rieder and his fellows certainly have the
chops, but as one song segued into the next, you’d start to wonder when
they were gonna give the finger to the traditional mould and do something
else for a change. Europeans that they are, they’d never actually descend
into the realm of what Alicia Silverstone would’ve called “complaint
rock” (Clueless anyone?), but there were only a few songs I
could still vaguely remember a few days later; one of them being “Dazed”,”
the other a catchy and propulsive tune called “Broken” that had
‘single’ all over it. I’m pretty sure there’s
an audience for this kind of alt rock, but speaking for myself, I think it’s
just too respectful towards its American inspirations, which is kinda unfortunate,
since they probably have more of an identity than they actually showed the
Sojo’s audience that night.
On with Orquesta del Desierto and I’ll
immediately tell you it was – again – one of those “Wow,
hey, I didn’t expect THAT!”-nights. Even though I was
fully aware of both the weight this band carries (the members having played
in/with bands such as QOTSA, Fatso Jetson, Earthlings?, Goatsnake, Hermano,
etc) and the extraordinary direction of this project’s music, they’d
exceed my expectations. 
By
far. It’s not that easy to pinpoint the band’s sound, as it’s
much lighter than any of the other bands I mentioned: instead of ultra-blues
riffs, you get acoustic textures, sweet melodies and a desert vibe that has
more in common with Calexico than Kyuss. Conjuring up images of an excruciatingly
hot day in New Mexico/Arizona/Nevada/California without an insane
stack of Marshall amplifiers, it is possible and the way in which
Orquesta del Desierto delivers the goods is easily as gratifying. That said,
from the first song onwards, it did become clear that the band was out there
to rock. “Reaching out” was an awesome combination of
force and melody, classic rock and gentle desert vibe, the six-piece sounding
like a modern update of Led Zeppelin, but with accessibility instead of excess
and the continuing presence of acoustic guitars (Mike Riley would play in
the background, Country Mark Engel switched from acoustic to electric and
back, while the genre’s unofficial father, Mario Lalli, remained his
own awesome self on electric guitar). But it’s not just the triple guitar
attack that sets this band apart as the rhythm section of Dandy Brown (bass)
and Bryan Brown (drums) laid down rock solid grooves and Pete Stahl…
well, I honestly can’t think of any vocalist he can’t compete
with. Even though the variety of bands he’s been a member of is quite
baffling (ranging from the hardcore punk of Scream to the traditional doom
of Goatsnake and the experimental rock of Earthlings?), he’ll always
remain instantly recognizable, with a great tone, range and knack for damn
fine melodies. That’s another thing that sets this band apart: they’re
not about crushing you, about molesting you with down-tuned guitars and lumbering
heaviness. Instead, they want you to shake your booty, sing along or let yourself
be carried away by the images the music may evoke, because despite the rock-format,
the music possesses a very strong cinematographic power. The band continued
as dedicatedly and tore through its first and second album with songs about
being stuck in the same old places and discovering new ones, from “Quick
to Disperse” to the grand Dos-opener “Life without Color”
and the mighty “Summer,” which even topped the already wonderful
studio version. It’s hard to point out highlights in a set that was
filled with ‘em, as “Smooth Slim” (‘about a friend
who passed away’) switched from a gentle intro to rumbling, galloping
verses that made you yell for more and “What in the World” brought
shuffling ‘70’s rock (complete with extended solo by Lally and
harp playing by Stahl) into the ‘00’s without becoming
derivative or uninteresting. 
Unexpectedly,
the band also launched into an energetic take on Cream’s “Deserted
Cities of the Heart” and (less unexpected) a few songs from other ‘side
projects’, such as Fatso Jetson’s “Monoxide Dream”
(sung by Lalli), and Earthlings?’s “Nothing.” The band ended
the set with the intense climax of “Someday,” delivered a fierce
take on “Scorned Liver” during the encore (drinking songs are
always enthusiastically received at the Sojo, so it seems) and returned for
a second encore (I mean, the crowd may not have been huge, but it
was hysteric!) to do a semi-improvised monster jam. With the volume
and pragmatic limitations of a live gig, the concert couldn’t offer
a sonic experience the equivalent of the actual albums (where you have more
percussion details, organ, piano, some trumpet, etc) but they somehow managed
to keep the soul, charm and Mexicali vibe of many of the songs intact,
giving them a more straightforward interpretation. Because of their particular
direction and refusal to conform to the given standard of desert rock, Orquesta
del Desierto will probably never be the subject of mass hype, but that’s
cool. Some bands deliver bad-ass stuff under the radar of mass production
and those who make an effort to find out about original new music that’s
worth your time and money will eventually stumble into them. May they continue
in this (or any other) direction for a long, long time.
Read album reviews of similar or related artists: Interview Steve 'Dandy' Brown