As the birthplace of Neal Cassady – the inspiration for the boozing and drugging Dean Moriaty in Jack Kerouac’s On the Road and the acid-crazed driver of Ken Kesey’s psychedelic bus of Merry Pranksters – Colorado can lay claim to a significant part in the United States’ battle with narcotic recreation.
It was fitting therefore, that the first retail cannabis outlet was opened on January 1, 2014 in the American state of Colorado, a direct consequence of the state’s recent decision to substantially relax the legal controls on cannabis. Notwithstanding the contrary views of narcotic ideological warriors, the development also marked a critical step in the United States’ emotive, costly and intensely political War on Drugs.
That Pennsylvania band The War on Drugs chose to play its first shows for 2013 just a few days before Colorado’s cannabis retail experiment began was largely ignored on local shores. The irony, however, was suitable. Hollow Everdaze – a band whose musical aesthetic owes substantially to the psychedelic experiments of yore – had already finished its set by the time we escaped the lingering culinary fumes of Christmas bonhomie, allowing Jarrod Quarrel, auteur of the industrial-electronic-pop outfit New War, to commence the elaborate preparation for his band’s set. While New War’s set improved with each musical event – to call them ‘songs’ would be to undersell Quarrel’s creative process – Quarrel remained critical of the sound production, though such subtleties were largely lost on the appreciative crowd.
The War on Drugs isn’t a drug band in the style of Black Angels, Brian Jonestown Massacre or Dead Meadow. Yet the influence of psychedelics, amphetamines and the humble weed can be heard, felt and tacitly sensed throughout the War on Drugs repertoire. Adam Granduciel is the kid who was always into weird stuff at school, and playing music that his classmates didn’t understand. The songs build, expand, stretch, concertina and revert to structure with perfect aplomb. You can hear the indie-geek delivery of The Feelies, the psychedelic nerd wanderings of Yo La Tengo and the prototypical punk exploration of the Velvet Underground, and a thousand and one lesser-known relations.
There’s the occasional new track thrown in from the band’s forthcoming new album, with ne’er an introductory comment thrown in. The announcement of the final song for the evening morphs into a three – or was it four – song finale, before the band meanders off stage, only to return for a concluding encore. The War on Drugs is over: long live The War on Drugs.
BY PATRICK EMERY
Loved: Everything.
Hated: Nothing.
Drank: Three Ravens.
