Dead Meadow

“Here With the Hawk” b/w “Tomorrow Never Knows”

scum stats: lathe cut limited edition of 60, hand-screened covers

Usually I know what I’m gonna write about here at least a week in advance. But something about the psychic nature of this week had wiped my mind and I was clear fresh out of ideas as I rolled into my office at 9am.

Getting on top of an indexing issue with my inbox and chasing up loose ends had me hit lunch time with still no ideas. All you can eat sushi buffet still had me no closer to a solution.

Back in after lunch and I’m alerted to a package on my desk addressed to Ban Blackwell.

Man, a perfectly suited punk pseudonym that’s been sitting in front of me this entire time.

I forgot I’d bought this on Discogs the other day. Mailbox surprise.

A-side is a groovy little number, pretty standard until the squeal of the solo peaks JUST at the end of the song. Nothing necessarily to write home about.

But I can’t lie, the whole reason I plunked down the $100 asking price for this was because the b-side covers “Tomorrow Never Knows” and I just HAD to hear how DM handled that.

First time I saw Dead Meadow was opening for the Make-Up at the Detroit Contemporary art space in 2000. First of three bands, no records out, sold out room packed full of bodies, no idea what to expect…and they absolutely slayed.

The neo-pscyh, guitar gymnastics frontman Jason Simon unleashed that night left char marks on the interior of my skull that remain to this day. This big, huge, silver box that sat atop his amp seemed to be the source of much of the magic.

I spoke to him afterward and made sure to get a copy of their self-titled album when it was released a few months later. Clear vinyl, because I was a collector from the get-go.

And I stayed on-the-ball with their releases probably until I moved to Nashville. There’s a couple I’m clearly behind on at the moment. Life has a way of giving you jobs and kids and a house, but taking away artists that you used to follow religiously.

So in what feels like a slightly slowed down tempo from the original, “Tomorrow Never Knows” is exactly what you want from Dead Meadow. The guitar heroics are unthrottled. The drone is a subdued undercurrent propelling the whole beast along.

I could listen to this a thousand times in a row.

Side notes: this is Dead Meadow’s first-ever 7-inch single

I’m 90% certain this is the first time the band has ever released a cover song (prove me wrong and there’s a prize in it for you)

I can’t find a clip of “Tomorrow” online, but apparently it is tacked on to the end of the CD version of their new album