Comets on fire: "nothing is sacred on this record. We've got pianos amidst pure sonic destruction."

Thrasher Magazine, August, 2004 by Jesse Locks

WITH THE HELP of mind-altering drugs and a volatile social and political situation, West Coast '60's psychedelic bands Iron Butterfly, Country Joe & the Fish, and Blue Cheer brought together a group of dissident youngsters looking for cultural change, inspiration, and a day's vacation away from the self. 40 years later, the drugs are still available, the political situation hasn't changed much, and the song remains the same, with only the band's name different. It's now Northern California's acid rockers Comets on Fire offering the modern day mystical salvation we need.

Childhood friends Ethan Miller and Ben Flashman formed Comets in '99, after a period of time that included a lot of partying and "deep listening" to mind-loosening music. The two had left their "small, weird, mythical hometown" of Eureka, CA for a beach bungalow in Santa Cruz. They chose their name to reflect their sound: "powerful, blinding illumination." The rest of the band was brought together by their drinking buddies and a common love of Kris Kristofferson records, and finally solidified with the addition of good friend and drummer Utrillo Kushner, Six Organs of Admittance folkie Ben Chasney, and Echoplex maestro Noel Harmonson. Together they found what Miller describes as "a nice dose of weirdness, tension, conflict and laughter."

"A lot of bands don't go for the shear brute force that we go for," says guitarist and vocalist Miller, over the phone from his home in the East Bay "We want to turn classic psychedelia upside down. Nothing is sacred on this record. We've got pianos amidst pure sonic destruction."

Blue Cathedral, Comet's third record and first release on Sub Pop, keeps to their trademark explosive blend of riffs, grooves, feedback, and distorted vocals, but also finds the band experimenting with controlled instrumental jams featuring keyboards and horns. The album builds and breaks like a big wave at Mavericks with equal moments of brutal rock 'n' roll assault, retreat, and finally, transcendence. Comets' undeniable trademark has been their use of the Echoplex (a delay and echo device that dates back to Motown and Elvis), and Harmonson will easily go down in history as one of the greatest Echoplexists of all time. Miller's vocals are almost unintelligible, blanketing the music with mystery and transforming a song into an experience, an album into a mind-altering trip.

Miller explains later in an email the significance of the Echoplex. "The lyrics and singing are encrypted within an archaic device, and the decoding of the message and the story is a loaded stimulus for the 1 istener ... In this way, Comets on Fire is not just dumb entertainment to just sit there and get brain-fucked by like bad television. We've created inherent aspects of the music that beg to be dealt with and explored by the listener, so that the artistic project continues in the hands of the buyer."

Tune in, turn on, drop out. This is not your parent's psychedelia.