Mushroom - I Don't Remember Yesterday, Today It Rained
(Live at the Tip Top Inn, San Francisco March 1st, 2000)
(Limited CDR 100 copies/Digital) 4 Zero Records FZ008, 2011-07-11

Mushroom has been ranks among the top 5 psychedelic rock bands out there for so many years I've stopped counting. It's just one of my favorite bands ever, and either you're a good friend of mine and read/heard about Mushroom already, or you're not a close relative and surely never heard about them - even though that's their 17th album since 1997… This particular night was a special night for Mushroom, the band was debuting a new bass player; Jeff Palmer. Another unusual aspect of that night was the use of a 3 piece horn section helmed by trumpeter Marc Capelle (long time sideman of Mark Eitzel and American Music Club), trombonist Carroll Ashby (a veteran of Mushroom’s 1999 European tour) and Mushroom co-founder Erik Pearson on saxophone. Rounding out the line-up was keyboardist John Sanders, drummer Pat Thomas and percussionist Dave Mihaly. Mushroom’s sound is ever changing and evolving and on this night, it's evident that the band was channeling a lot of early 1970’s progressive British jazz - such as Ian Carr's Nucleus, The Keith Tippet Group, Chris McGregor's Brotherhood Of Breath and Soft Machine’s Third.

Read the full review of this album by Mr. Moo
Read the extensive interview from Pat Thomas
Download Mr. Moo presents Mushroom pt.1 mix (sept 2011)
Download Mr. Moo presents Mushroom pt.2 mix (oct 2011)

Mushroom / Pat Thomas
(Interview by Mr. Moo, for Paris DJs - summer 2011)

Mushroom, the only one worthy of a well-deserved name, is a very potent band...

Originally from The Bay area, home of the freaks, this rather instrumental combo channels every style there ever was in progressive music: californian psychedelic, electric jazz & funk, kraut-rock, afro-beat, avant-garde, ragas, garage, british folk & jazz, soul, prog & space-rock.

Read the in-depth interview
Download Mr. Moo presents Mushroom mix pt.1

Ebo Taylor - Love And Death info
Free The Robots - Ctrl Alt Delete info
Gonja Sufi - A Sufi And A Killer info
Homelife - Exotic Interlude info
Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey - Stay Gold info
Marco Benevento - Between The Needles And Nightfall info
Mushroom - Naked, Stoned & Stabbed info
Quantic and his Combo Bárbaro - Tradition In Transition info
Skeletons - Smile info
The Souljazz Orchestra - Rising Sun info

After publishing a solid 10-records-a-year selection of the last decade (from 1999 to 2009), we took a few days to think about the 2010 best of... READ THE COMPLETE ARTICLE ON COLORED-INC.COM

Mushroom - Naked, Stoned, & Stabbed
(CD) 4 Zero Records / The Royal Potato Family, 2010-04-27

Mushroom, a musicians' collective based in the San Francisco Bay area, return with their first album in three years, Naked, Stoned, & Stabbed, to be released April 27 through 4 Zero Records/Royal Potato Family. A new phase for Mushroom, the project was conceived as a cross-continental Cinema Verite travelogue of time and space. Acoustic, ambient and blending eastern and western hemispheres, its music floats on an ethereal blanket of sitar, violin, pump organ, celesta, vibraharp, dulcimer and flutophone, while African, Latin and Indian percussion replace a conventional drum set. Enigmatic song titles include Celebration At Big Sur (The Sound Of The Gulls Outside Of Room 124), Though You're Where You Want To Be, You're Not Where You Belong, Tariq Ali and the only outside composition, a remake of the Syd Barrett/Kevin Ayers collaboration, Singing A Song In The Morning. Recorded over a weekend at The Wally Sound in Oakland, CA, the sessions were both planned and spontaneous with producer and percussionist Pat Thomas often adding and subtracting instrumentalists on the fly. Configurations range from a duo to a trio to an octet, and thus give each song a varied approach. At the time of the recording, the band had just come off a multi-night run of performances interpreting Pete Townshend's 1971 rock opera Lifehouse. The vulnerable and dynamic music of that experience provided a catalyst that resulted in the album's final 13 tracks. Mushroom also cite influences like Sandy Bull, Alice Coltrane, Davy Graham, Brian Eno and Fela Kuti as having played a roll in the sounds found on Naked, Stoned, & Stabbed.