Los Angeles psych band Wand play the Hi-Tone next Monday, their first time back at the venue since opening for the Ty Segall Band last fall. Wand come from the same school of psychedelic rock as California bands Thee Oh Sees and White Fence, representing the softer side of sun bleached rock and roll. Front man Cory Hanson also played in The Meatbodies and Together Pangea, two other prominent garage rock bands from southern California. While those two bands can easily be pinned to a genre, Wand’s music takes a little bit longer to digest.
Justin Tenney
Wand
On the band’s debut album Ganglion Reef, Hanson and company focused heavily on guitar tone, running their riffs through multiple synthesizers and effect pedals to create the spaced out, Frippertronics-influenced songs. Ganglion Reef goes pretty deep into the nerd zone with its references, with song titles like “Generator Larping” and the cover image essentially being fan art for the video game Final Fantasy VI. After touring for much of 2014, Wand found time to record their second full- length record Golem, and the album will be released while the band is on this month long tour.
Touring with Wand is New Orleans party rockers Babes, a band that is pretty much impossible to search for on the internet. Babes has a record on New Orleans label Pizza Burglar Records, and they’ve already developed a following in Memphis after stopping through town on several occasions. While they don’t have any songs about larping, Babes do have catchy garage rock hits like “We are the Babes” and “My Poor Friends Suck”, and they shouldn’t be missed on Monday. Locals Aquarian Blood open the show.
