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Acid King – Busse Woods

$6.75$18.74

Description

We are thrilled to be able to be apart of Acid King’s legendary Busse Woods album here at RidingEasy Records. This is newly mastered, Gatefold with all lyrics and a printed sleeve with loads of unseen pictures from over the years.

PRESSING INFO

100 Clear

75 Jimmy Hendrix Splatter (Yellow, green, purple)

400 Orange Opaque

300 Purple with Black Swirl Opaque

400 Black 180 gram

300 Opaque Yellow with Green Swirl

Digi – Pak CD

400 Green with Black Swirl (BAND EXCLUSIVE)

300 Putrid Orange

Stream Acid King – “Busse Woods”

It could be anywhere. Every small town encompasses that one long stretch of forest where kids run to get high, jam out, and just escape. This place counters the suburban boredom with a bag of weed and booming speakers. It drowns out existence for a few blissful hours before returning back to school, work, or life. For San Francisco-based stoner metal trio, Acid King vocalist, guitarist, frontwoman, and mastermind, Busse Woods offered such a retreat in her native Illinois as a teenager in the 70โ€™s. This 3,700-acre section of the Cook County Forest Preserve system beckoned her during high school with its buffet of dope, frisbee challenges, and Black Sabbath blaring from numerous trunks well past sundown. Those days left such an imprint on Lori she titled Acid Kingโ€™s second full-length released in 1999โ€”but named her after her seventies hangout two decades laterโ€”Busse Woods. Celebrating its 20th year with a special reissue on Riding Easy Records and tour in 2019, it represents the heart and soul of the band.

โ€œAs an adult, I think back on it now and canโ€™t believe we did that and the whole thing existed,โ€ she laughs. โ€œWithout getting busted, thatโ€™s just what we did. This is way before the War on Drugs, as you can imagine. Those days were a big part of my teenage life back in the seventies. Itโ€™s how life was. We were just a bunch of suburbanite kids listening to metal, smoking pot, and experimenting with psychedelics.โ€

When Lori discovered the famous true crime book Say you love Satanโ€”the story of a Northport, NY teenager Ricky Kasso a.k.a. โ€œThe Acid Kingโ€โ€”she named the band after this and identified some parallels to her own teenage hangout.

She laughs, โ€œThe difference is we just ย were normal teenagers not total screw-ups, angel dust addicts, and murderers! ย The combination of our teenage forest preserve hangout, Busse Woods and the story of Ricky Kasso and his teenage forest preserve hangout, Aztakea Woods ย ended up to be the perfect mix and inspiration ย for the release. As far as Busse Woods goes, itโ€™s one of those places fans can make up their own meanings to. Itโ€™s a mix between these stories in this old school era we sort of shared.โ€

Busse Woods, as an album, still exudes the same sense of mysticism it did upon release in 1999. As the story goes, Lori and bandmates Joey Osbourne [drums] and Brian Hill [bass] entered a practice space to write the full-length follow-up to their Manโ€™s Ruin debut Down with the Crown. Organically, they jammed out five originalsโ€”โ€œElectric Machine,โ€ โ€œSilent Circle,โ€ โ€œDrive Fast, Take Chances,โ€ โ€œCarve the 5,โ€ and โ€œBusse Woodsโ€โ€”take on โ€œ39 Lashesโ€ from Andrew Lloyd Webberโ€™s Jesus Christ Superstar, which Lori admits she โ€œwas constantly listening to and it was influenced by the heaviness of the guitar solos.โ€ The guitar tones remain awesome and really resonated enough with her to have an unlikely cover song on the release.

As everything gelled, they recorded with legendary engineer Billy Anderson at the now closed Division Hi-Fi Studio in San Francisco on two-inch tapeโ€”the master of which remains in Loriโ€™s possession.

With its revved-up riffing, thick bass, airtight drums, and cavernous vocalizations, the music conjured up the bliss of a stoned motorcycle ride across the river Styx and back.

โ€œIt puts you in a headspace and gives you a little internal power,โ€ she says. โ€œIt might be inspirational or motivational. It was a special time.โ€

Prominent Bay Area artist Frank Kozik initially released the CD on his Manโ€™s Ruin record labelโ€”famous for releases by everyone from Queens of the Stone Age and Kyuss to High On Fire and The Hellacopters. Then, as she admits, โ€œeverything fell apart.โ€

Behind the scenes, personal and professional relationships crumbled. Marriages ended. Lineups shifted. In the face of such tumult, the music of Busse Woods rarely got its due on stage in the aftermath, even though the aesthetic would prove influential.

In the middle of various reissues and re-releases, Acid King kept touring internationally throughout Europe and Japan from 2005-2015. ย In between this time they jammed on riffs and started to craft songs but ultimately didnโ€™t kick it into high gear to finish the release until 2015. They reawakened in the studio with the 2015 opus, Middle of Nowhere, Center of Everywhere. While the new music caught critical acclaim and fan approval, a funny thing happened, and Busse Woods also came back to life. Its songs would generate the most streams on Spotify. Theyโ€™d generate loud responses in concert and became their most critically acclaimed release to date. The stars aligned.

Twenty years down the line, it felt only right for Lori and Co. to revisit this landmark and give it the proper tour it deserves. โ€œCarve the 5โ€ was never played live, and the frontwoman will reverse the track order for the tour with the album instrumental finale โ€œBusse Woodsโ€ as the opener.

โ€œThis album defines the band in many ways,โ€ she admits. โ€œItโ€™s the one we get asked about the most, and it will be really cool to go back out and play it.โ€

In the end, Busse Woods emanates the same magnetism, mysticism, and magic it did two decades agoโ€”if not more.

โ€œFor the old fans that bought this record twenty years ago, I hope theyโ€™re excited to hear the songs all played for the first time like this,โ€ she leaves off. โ€œBy the same token, I hope that a lot of new fans who havenโ€™t heard it also have a special experience. Weโ€™re going out of our way to make it special for everyone. Itโ€™s what Acid King was always meant to be.โ€

Additional information

Weight N/A
Color

COLOR, Putrid Orange, Green Black, Clear, Hendrix Splatter, Orange, Purple with Black, Yellow with Green, Black, CD

Brand

RidingEasy Records

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