The Psychedelic Issue

49 PHOTOGRAPHY by Carlota Salvador Megias

DRIPS, COLOURS, AND LICKS

AN INTERVIEW WITH FRANKIE AND THE WITCH FINGERS

by Ariel De La Garza Davidoff

The Psychedelic Issue | Φ 50

Psychedelic music burst into culture at a time
of mass-market conformity; the vision of the
post-war good life was the now cliched nuclear
family behind a white picket fence, contained
and comfortable in its place in society and the
wider world. Then these records started showing
up, emblazoned with bright colours and shapes.
The sounds were strange, experimental; they let
the mind travel and swerve through as yet unseen
vistas. Time went on, and culture changed; the
substances became drugs and the radical optimism
for new ways of life that accompanied their rise
gave way to the ravages of time.

But, it's the Psychedelic Renaissance! Haven't you
heard? And alongside this renaissance, although
probably quite independently from it, psychedelic
music is flourishing. Not only can you now
hear obscure one album bands on Spotify, like
Relatively Clean Rivers, but, thanks to YouTube,
even the gold-standard of psych-rock connoisseurs:
90s-cassette-re-recordings-of-rare-bootleg-single-
run-LPs-from-some-San-Fransisco-record-shop-
owner-that-happened-to-take-a-dictaphone-to-
along-since-redeveloped-dive-bar-in-The-Haight.

But even better than all that grainy glory is the
impeccably produced, bone-shaking clamour of
contemporary psych-rock. And for this issue, we
didn't just want to bob our heads or snap our fingers
to the rhythm of some trippy guitar, we wanted our
face melted, so it was an easy call: we reached out
from our home in London, across the Atlantic, all the
way to the tar pits of L.A., to Frankie and the Witch
Fingers, hot off their latest tour.

The band – currently Josh Menashe (multi-
instrumentalist), Nikki Pickle (bass), and Dylan
Sizemore (lead guitar and vocals) – has been moving
towards ever more psychedelic territories since Zam
(2019) their ghoulish 5th release. Their latest L.P.,
Monsters Eating People Eating Monsters (2020), is
positively dripping with psychedelia, tonal shifts,
deep grooves, and distorted squeals. Cookin' B/W
Tracksuit, their newest single is taking their steady
trippy beats in funkier directions.

We stat down with bassist and resident graphic artist
Nikki Pickle and frontman Dylan Sizemore to ask
them how the psychedelic sausage gets made. This
interview has been edited for clarity and length.

So you guys have been on tour, right? Whereabouts?

Nikki: Yeah. We just got back a few days ago. It was
so good. We didn't have very high expectations; we
thought people might be a little afraid to come out of
their houses and do live music again. Everyone was
starved for music and was so excited to be in person
and see live shows again. It was like the craziest,
funnest explosion.

51

Dylan: We basically did like a whole U.S. tour minus were recording, which we still are, but I think it
the west coast this time. But we're going to do that was when we were hyper-focused on bringing that
soon, but yeah, we did a lot of the Northeast, we experimental Kraut Rock one-note-how-long-can-
played New York, Chicago, like all the fun cities. you-build-on-a-thing thing that Zam really started to
Nikki: All the way down to Florida and back through bloom.
Texas, it was kind of a big triangle.
What does Zam mean?
And what was your peak tour experience this time
around? Dylan: It's just like high energy. Like, it's kind of a
word we used to, like, if we were like talking about
Nikky: When we got to play Shaky Knees festival like coffee or you know, anything that like energises
in Atlanta, that was really cool. That was the first you, you get zamed or zam.And it kind of worked out
time I've ever experienced so many people that when because we were obsessed with Can, so CanZam…
they cheer for you, it's a roar. It's just like one sound.
There's not individual woo yay clapping. Does the band have a favourite band?

Dylan: That, and, I mean, Brooklyn was really fun. Nikki: We're all so different in the things that we
We played the Bowery Ballroom, which was a big like and consider favourites, and there's so much to
room for us and it was sold out. So that was really consume. So. Much. Music. We all have our own,
crazy. Everyone was crowd surfing and dancing and and then we cross over like in a Venn diagram of
it was just really fun. Cause it was still kind of an the stuff that we like. And then we definitely have
intimate show, you know, the crowd was right there. stuff that we don't like from each other's tastes too.
There wasn't a barrier or anything, but it still felt like Like I'm against folk music. I only like things that are
a lot of people at once. things that are heavy and electric. But yeah… I think
we all cross over in loving Parliament, Funkadelic–
Have you guys always considered yourselves a
psych-rock band? Dylan: Black Sabbath, Can, and I mean, that's what's
cool about being in a band with people and going on
Dylan: Yeah, I think so. I think we've always enjoyed tour together. We get to share in the kind of music
that side of music, which is just really explorative, we each like. So I get turned on to new stuff all the
both structurally but also conceptually and in the time. Whatever's playing on the radio or, you know,
production aspect of it. Like having the ability to on the stereo while we're touring, it's like now I'm
create crazy experimental sounds within the confines into Television because of Josh. I had never listened
of a normally structured song. I think psychedelic to Television.
music has always allowed for a lot of exploration.
Nikki: This! I never would have heard The dB's and
What's one strange sound you've come up with? gotten into them if it wasn't for Josh. Or, I don't know,
Karl Hector & The Malcouns. Like all those spinoff
Dylan: Strange sound… I mean, a lot of the time, we bands off that, that guy, like I never would have
just hide little layers of things like maybe textures of known about them. And now I listen to it all the time,
things. You know, synthesisers, ring modulators…At and like Bitchin Bajas! I learned from you (referring
one point during the recording of Brain Telephone, to Dylan, not this publication). And that's one of my
we were recording blowing a straw in water with a favorite bands. We can just go on and on…
bunch of delay and changing the speed of the delay.
And other things like that that are really fun to like Please do!
add in as textures. And maybe sometimes people
don't even notice them, but we like to colour the Nikki: Josh and Dylan got really hard into Radiohead
sound that way. this past year. And I'm so delighted by that because
I've been obsessed with Radiohead since forever. I
Both Zam and Monsters (…Eating People Eating know they knew who Radiohead was, but it's fun to
Monsters) were a more psychedelic sound for you see them diving into that lately. I'm like, yeah, but
guys. Is that the direction you're going towards? there's all, yeah. We're always turning each other onto
like new cool different stuff, but we're definitely not
Dylan: I think it's always happened organically, trying to like emulate anybody.
but with Zam we started playing a lot of rock and
roll stuff with a new drummer who was very jazz- Did you ever, as a younger band, try to emulate
oriented. anybody?

And so, I think that was the direction we headed in Dylan: Definitely. I mean, I think there's probably
naturally. And that was we were all digging at the very few artists who don't do that. That's kinda how
time, you know. We were really into Can when we you figure out what you want to do. The more you

The Psychedelic Issue | Φ 52

listen to music and the more you understand the on to the next thing… Yeah, definitely your favourite
different dimensions of what's possible, you start to song is the one that you like to play live the most.
notice other things. Starting out, the main break for I really like to play Reaper because it's got such a
me was listening to Nuggets, the compilation with spectrum of tones. Like you're groovy. And I get to
all the mid-sixties, late-sixties, psych-pop hits. I had like kind of leave that one a little bit, and then we
never heard anything like that up until that point; I smack into stoner rock for a little bit and then come
was like 20 or something when someone turned me back into ethereal land. I think that one's probably
on to that stuff. And then that opened the doorway to my favourite one to play live. I also like how crazy
this Garage Rock thing, and then I learned about the MEPEM... is to play live. I mean, it's the longest one.
contemporary artists that were making similar things, It's, technically for me, one of the most difficult ones,
like Ty Segal and this band called the OBN IIIs. but once you get through it, you feel like you've run
They were a huge inspiration starting out because a marathon. It's an eight and a half minute song. Oh.
they were kind of like the Stooges. You know what And it leads directly from the song before it. So by
I mean? the time you're done playing the song before it and
MEPEM..., You've played for like a good 10 minutes
What are your favourite Frankie songs? without stopping.

Dylan: It's usually just what you like to play live Dylan: Yeah. I like really like playing Underneath
because, there's something about recording an You. It was of one of those songs where we wrote
album… once the whole process is done and you've in moments where we could improv, and so it was
made the record, by the time you get it, you know, always really fun live to see, like how long we could
maybe we listen to it to celebrate, but then you don't play it and feed off the crowd. It kept everything so
really listen to it after that. fresh.

Nikki: Yeah. But there's something about artists that What does psychedelic mean to you?
once you've made something and produced it, you
like it for a minute, and then you're immediately, like, Nikki: Colours, sights sounds, like the synesthesia
I hate it. I want to do something else. I have to move of your senses crossing over into conscious and

53

unconscious thought, just like instinct. I think
psychedelic is, is exploring the spectrum of what the
mind is capable of perceiving or creating. It's like
trying to find and test the boundaries of what your
mind can think of, can create, can do, can take in, can
connect with other minds… It's finding the limits of
the brain, the human brain. What do you think?

Dylan: I mean, that's well said. Yeah. I think that
then lends itself to things that you already enjoy,
like music, art, movies, and media. When you allow
an association to be psychedelic, then it usually has
some kind of originality to it that comes from this
place, you know, from the essence of like what it
is to be human. Like it usually resonates in a way
that is more than just culture. Rather than creating
something that's already been created, you're
like pushing the boundaries of that and making
something out of nothing. Basically, I think that's
what psychedelia does to media: it mixes it in
different ways. It highlights the experience of being
on psychedelics, like in visionary art, where you're
like bringing something back from an experience.

Do you draw a lot of inspiration from psychedelic
experiences? Or other ones?

Nikki: Oh yeah. All the time. Anything that feels
cool, we bookmark it for later—movies, even just
experiences, like standing in a place or walking
somewhere. Or I don't know, a smell, anything that,
anything that feels important, we try to hang on to it
for later. I know Dylan has a running list of words
on his phone. Images, things that inspire us, we try
to bookmark them and hang onto them because I
dunno, it's like breadcrumbs in the path of life. It's
like, something's leading you. Hear that? You think,
oh, I like this. Oh, I love that. And then, you know,
maybe it leads you somewhere where you make
something out of it, or you're inspired by it to make
something.

Well, now that you mentioned it, what are the last
three words on that list?

Dylan: It's alphabetical.

Three random ones? Dylan riffles through his phone
and tells Nikki to pick one.

Nikki: Disembodied

Dylan: Directive panspermia

Nikki: "Machine Age Comes" and "Your Soul,
Lifted". Dylan, yeah, he's a wordsmith, he likes the
way words sound and feel in your mouth and sound
next to each other, and he likes the things they evoke.
He collects words.Φ

The Psychedelic Issue | Φ 54

PHOTOGRAPHY by David Fearn
Frankie and the Witch Fingers’ latest single Cookin’ B/W Tracksuit, is out now on Greenway

Records. You can stream it now on Spotify, Apple Music, and the other usual suspects.



STEERED BY THE NIGHT

by Jane Dabate

I stir and settle inside a swirling cauldron of haze,
Steered by the Night
Along with all these choices
abdicated for the sake of it.

The glitter in my pocket weighs like drugs
Same famous dissipated little trifle
Sweetness to save, becomes lost inside,
And eventually eat with our feet.

Stomping on the good times
Like tenacious banshees, or rows of soldiers.
Except we do nothing but socialize
And pounce on peril.

Our feeble brains spin webs of incoherence
Vivid enough to hold us the way a mother should
Lying down and laying up, a fingerpainted mess
Of all our free hands held.

PHOTOGRAPHY by Yagiz Alp Tekin 57

CARNATIONS

by Sofia Shah

To you with carnations —
A patchwork quilt in pricked fingertips
A flame in crisp palms —
Take it. Take it all.
All
Is now Yours

Calligraphy carved under my skin,
But still my fingertips tremble.
Fade away, I beg
The doctor that loved his monster,
a lovely Shell

Did you notice,
Petals drowned in dusk-light
Litter this note?
As I inform you:
To live in puddled shadows,
That is no longer satisfactory.

The Psychedelic Issue | Φ 58 MIND OUT by Sara Blanco



ART by Maja Bernaciak

EDITOR IN CHIEF
Chiara Zucchelli
SENIOR EDITORS
Ariel De La Garza Davidoff
Laura Empson
PROSE EDITORS
Ayna Li Taira
Maria Payro

Julie Uszpolewicz
POETRY EDITORS
Francesca Caselli
Antonia Kattos
VISUAL EDITOR
Gamel Oki

PHIMAG.ORG

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