GOOD WILLSMITH “HausLive 2: Good Willsmith at Sleeping Village 4/25/2019” (Hausu Mountain)

 

First things first: 4/25/2019, the date that this live show was recorded, was before the pandemic, so we don’t have to freak out about having 3,000 people packed into a crowded indoor venue – the only germs they spread that night are ones of peace and love, not COVID. Also, I’m not sure about that number. But what I do know is that Good Willsmith was on that night, maybe sensing that the end of immediate live music was near, maybe realizing that what the world is really going to need within a year and a half is a ripping live set to proffer hope to the hopeless in these dark times. Well, Good Willsmith, mission accomplished.
 
The trio of Max Allison, Natalie Chami, and Doug Kaplan has done the lysergic improvised groove thing for a while, and Max and Doug even live together and run Hausu Mountain together (not to mention make music as BBSitters Club and Pepper Mill Rondo), so I’m surprised they’re just not sick of each other. But they’re not, honest, and you can tell! The interplay is Grateful Dead-y, in that they’re just a family who gets it and each other, but the music is not Grateful Dead-y at all (leave that to BBSitters Club) – it’s got a sick psychedelic electronic element pulsing through the laid-back astro-drone, so by the time the awesomely titled “The Burning Orphanage Sidequest” melts itself down to the rivets, you should be off on some sort of cosmic trip.
 
And now you also have a souvenir of that trip. Maybe you were there at the original event, maybe you’re just coming to it now, but HausLive 2 is the perfect release to continue on this long, strange … ride the GW cats are on (following volume 1 by the magnificent Sunwatchers). So dub it and trade it like it’s hot, but don’t tell the band I told you to. I think they want you to buy it from them. It’s not like were getting stimulus checks every month or anything.
 
https://hausumountain.bandcamp.com/
 
--Ryan