A few months ago I decided I needed to make a more conscious effort to make my record collection and my "dream record collection" the same thing. One of the key aspects of that was having full back-catalogues of certain bands. I sat down and listed out the bands who I'd love to see all nicely lined up in 12" sleeves on my wall; adding Kyuss to that list was obvious.
I've lamented before not stocking up on Kyuss vinyl when I lived in Australia. It was so readily available and not particularly expensive. I figured they'd all been reissued and I'd have no trouble finding them back home. In the 9 years that have passed since then, I've still never seen any of the Kyuss LPs for sale in the UK. Maybe I'm looking in the wrong shops, but it seems like a strange thing.
A few months ago I found myself on a work trip to San Francisco (something I knew would happen eventually if I worked in a tech company for long enough). That gave me a chance to revisit some of the record stores I'd visited a few years beforehand. Amoeba was at the top of my list, but on the way there I stumbled across another vast record shop, Rasputin's. Much to my surprise, I ended up spending way more in there than I did in Amoeba. There were a few excellent things about Rasputin's but the highlights would be that they all of the Kyuss LPs and so many Electric Wizard LPs that they had their own section (again, something you don't see in the UK).
The thought crossed my mind of buying all of the Kyuss album and living the dream of seeing them all nicely lined up. However, there were a bunch of other albums I wanted to get too and I only had so much space in my luggage. On top of that, it just seemed too easy. I doubt that'll be my only work trip to SF, so I decided to just get one and treat myself on future visits. I had no doubts about which Kyuss album to get on vinyl first.
I once nearly got into a fight for saying that I thought Sky Valley was better than Blues For the Red Sun. I'm not the fighting type, but I do feel very strongly about Welcome to Sky Valley. The first Kyuss album I heard was Blues and something just didn't click. A couple of years later I bought a copy of Sky Valley on cd in an HMV sale and was immediately convinced that Kyuss were incredible. I often think that Sky Valley has some of the best Kyuss songs (which it does) but maybe it was also that this album was able to hit me where Blues didn't. I'm glad it did. I quickly bought the rest of their albums and rate them one of my favourite bands of all time.
I don't need to tell you what the highlights are here; there are so many great moments on this album. I think Movement I (Gardenia, Asteroid and Supa Scoopa) might be my favourite. It's lucky that the songs are grouped into movements because I don't think I could pick just one song. Right now, I'm struggling to write this because all I want to be doing is playing air-guitar to Odyssey. It feels like a shame that the album isn't spread across three sides on vinyl, one for each movement, but as far as I can tell, it's never been pressed like that. There's not much to say about the packaging, but the cd didn't have much inside either.
One thing I should mention about this particular pressing is how quiet it is. I'm not sure how they've managed it, but playing this record at my usual volume is way too quiet. And I don't mean too for Kyuss (which does sound better when played louder than normal) but too quiet for any album. I've had to crank my stereo to levels I'd never usually reach. That said, there is something satisfying about playing Kyuss with the volume turned far further round.
Format: 12"
Tracks: 10
Cost: £12 new
Bought: Rasputin's Music, San Francisco
When: 08/07/15
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no
