A studio session with Joel Jerome at his home studio, the Psychedelic Thriftstore; photographed by Rafael Cardenas.

The back to basics approach often yields some of the most raw and realized work from a multidiscipline artist. For LA polymath Joel Jerome, their new album Super Flower Blood Moon for Dangerbird Records was assembled from a rudimentary ritual of recording phone voice memos, organized by way of a four-track application. Having worked with Cherry Glazerr, La Sera, LA Witch, Dios (Malos) and more over the years; Jerome shines a light on stripped down songs from the soul, further aided by atmospheric production touches supplied by Rob Schnapf. Famous for the home studio dubbed the Psychedelic Thriftstore; Joel Jerome leads the audience to lush pastorals of the spirit that lay between the rolling metropolitan valleys and hills and the seemingly infinite spaces of the galaxies.

Super Flower Blood Moon begins with the gentle coming down ballad "When You Land" that soars in a holding pattern above a desired tarmac. Joel sings out sincerely into the stratosphere, a love song of commitment for a beloved inviting them with open arms and outstretched hands to return to earth from the liminal spaces of clouds and expanses of azure skies. "Falling Star" doubles down on the aforementioned devotion, that ponders the fruitful beauty of a future that is full of love, care and cherishing support in a world that feels less than certain or stable. Motifs of hapless romanticism ring out throughout the record, like the amorous ode of "Nobody Like You" that strums in earnest in praise of finding that special someone that is unlike anybody else on earth.

The grounding feeling of abode and solace permeates the album as well, with the homecoming of "We Made It Home" that resounds with a strong sense of sanctuary from the exhausting and adversarial externalities that rage outside the sanctity and peace of our respective domiciles. The closing hymn "Everybody Come On" sails off with heart for tranquil horizons, full of autobiographical quips on previous collaborations, scene worship and other items of idolatry that brim full of pride, a strong sense of purpose and vision to pique the listeners’ interest on the next offerings from the influential Los Angeles aesthete. Super Flower Blood Moon is a glorious song cycle from one of LA's under-sung icons that is your favorite SoCal pop star's favorite pop star. Join Joel Jerome after the jump for an exclusive survey of curiosities, inspiring interests and much more:

The dreams, drive and journeys of Joel Jerome

Presenting the prolific Joel Jerome; photographed by Julia Brokaw.

The Forgotten 90's

The 90's are back and its tripping me the fuck out. I was talking to a friend of mine who has the same affinity for the band Duster from the pacific northwest and in particular their album "Stratosphere" which is one of my top 10 albums of all time. I was mentioning how ive been discovering these young new bands on the internet that had SO much of that mid to late 90's clean dissonant guitar chord action, grungy dark power chords and those classic 90's sounding drums and he called it "the forgotten 90's" which i thought was perfect! 90's revivalism has been going since Nirvana's "Nevermind" turned 25 and 90's hip hop/r&b fashion was coming back but other parts hadn't been mined as much, the pre-indie, non major label stuff like Duster and Slint and so on. So when i heard Mineka's new album Dark Matters and in particular songs like "Zipline" and "The Glow Up" I was immediately transported to my bedroom in Berkeley when i first moved away from home and was able to completely immerse myself in music that was unsettling as it was comfortable. I LOVE that younger generations are appreciating that stuff and finding inspiration in music that ive always thought was criminally underrated.

Night School

As mentioned in the story above I discover a lot of music going down YouTube holes and what I call Night School. I'm a night owl and basically the times between 11pm and 3am are my most mentally, creatively fertile time. It's the end of a long day in the studio or just living life and while my body is out of it my mind is basically raring to go. So as soon as the wifey goes to sleep (she is a professor and has a REAL job) I light up a jazz herbal cigarette, get on YouTube and start my Night School session. I look up and research anything and everything I wanna learn about. Whether it's woodworking videos, intermediate chess tactics, recording techniques, live band performances, synthesizer demo's you name it, I let the gods of art, culture and wisdom guide the way. I dive right in for a few hours and try to learn what I can during that night's session and treat it like a course study, I take notes, save videos in specific folders and pretty much catalogue the most important and interesting things I learn. At the moment I'm studying Blockchain technology, Web 3.0 and crypto stuff as it relates to my music labor activism and boy is it fucking fascinating.

UMAW

UMAW stands for Union of Musician's & Allied Workers and it's a new music worker union created during the beginning of the pandemic by a handful of musicians who came together to lobby for pandemic assistance for musicians and other freelance workers. Like SO many other musicians when the world shut down I was left wondering how the fuck were we gonna survive in an industry that completely devalues our work and offers no safety nets for musicians and music workers. Touring and playing live shows is one of our major revenue streams as musicians and when it stopped it shone a really bright light on the other way musicians make money through streaming and how little it actually amounts to. Digital streaming services like Spotify who we're being completely relied on as one of the few ways to give scared and isolated people a means of comfort by providing the worlds music commercial free for $10 a month, TRIPLED in valuation during the pandemic while musicians we're struggling to get Pandemic Unemployment Assistance. Not to mention the writer of the song doesn't get that whole THIRD OF A PENNY but has to possibly split that with the rest of the band, managers, labels etc. It becomes a pretty small spec of a payment and something that even bands with a solid fan base and hundreds of thousands of streams can't possibly turn into a living wage. Meanwhile you have these digital streaming services investing billions of dollars sponsoring European soccer clubs and buying blocks of prime Los Angeles real estate while bands are giving up and calling it quits, questioning the viability of continuing something they are good at and fulfills them because they can't pay rent and afford to go to the doctor. While i was questioning my own path moving forward I decided either way I had to do something proactive to try to address some of these issues musicians and music workers face and UMAW fell right into my lap. I'm an active Steering Committee member and a member of Streaming, and LA Local committees and plan to do everything i can to help this organization grow and work with other musicians and music workers to continue to organize around issues such as demanding fairer deals from streaming services, ensuring musicians receive the royalties they are owed, establishing more just relationships with labels, and creating safer guidelines for venues. Feel free to reach out to me for ANY questions or more info on what we do and how you can help! (one way to help is BUY music from musicians!)

Touring Mexico and Latin America

Cuernavaca, Mexico; courtesy of Visit Mexico.

I'm from Hawthorne California home of the Beach Boys and Redd Kross and every summer for the first 15 years of my life I would spend 2 months in Cuernavaca, Mexico with my large extended family of 20 aunts and uncles and roughly 60 cousins. IT WAS SWEEEEET. It was my "other" life, very separate in experience from my American one. I thought every place in Mexico was like Cuernavaca but it wasn't until I became an adult that I realised how special and multi-cultural Cuernavaca was, as it was "The Spanish Learning Capital of the World". It made sense now why I'd see these young international students in "El Centro" the downtown area where most of the shops, cafe's and historical buildings were. I've been wanting to explore other parts of Mexico and other Latin American countries and what best way to do it but touring and playing music in front of my peoples! So one of my biggest goals with this record is to hopefully get the opportunity to explore these other Latin American cities and meet other brown creatives and music fans. Right now my band consists of one other person, my buddy and avid surfer, writer, artist Evan ApRoberts and we are totally conspiring on how to tour any and all coastal cities and other cool "alternative venue" locations throughout Latin America. Fingers crossed!

The Lakers

The Los Angeles Lakers; logo courtesy of the NBA.

We'll this was one fucked up season for my beloved Los Angeles Lakers. Most likely the most disappointing Laker team and season since Kobe went down with that achilles injury in 2013. But at least he went down swinging, they were another disappointing underachieving team but he carried them with sheer determination, and ultimately to the ruination of his body, and absolutely willed them to the Playoffs. This year, not so much. They went out with a whimper. Missed the playoffs. Missed the play-in game. Lost every single game down the stretch they HAD to win and lost plenty of games throughout the season that they never should've lost. Utterly embarrassing at times. It was so deflating as a lifelong laker fan. Losing is acceptable if at least you put up a goddamn FIGHT. Like I said I grew up in Hawthorne California, five minutes from The Fabulous Forum in Inglewood where the Lakers played during the 80's "Showtime" era. I also was a witness to the Kobe/Shaq 3 peat dynasty and the late 00's Kobe back 2 back championships. THIS SEASON WAS A DISASTER. I leaned on Lakers Twitter to keep me sane and have a place to commune with other distraught fans. We are EVERYWHERE. This off-season is going to be VERY interesting and i am READY FOR IT. Also: Winning Time, what a show!

Joel Jerome's album Super Flower Blood Moon will be available May 13 via Dangerbird Records.