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It wouldn’t be psychedelic rock without mushrooms, namely, an 8-foot-tall, hand-painted mushroom.

That’s one of the visual effects of The Artisanals’ ‘Shroom Tour. The Charleston-based folk-rock band, which includes the former guitar player of Susto, is trippy and hippie in all the right ways, and that have garnered the attention of Billboard with a recent music video release https://happybet188.co and Q&A and a wide-ranging national tour that’s been going on for a year and a half.

Bubbling lava lamps, phosphorescent lanterns and Himalayan salt lamps complement the giant stage ‘shroom. Patterned tapestries line the tour van. And round, John Lennon-like sunglasses decorate the faces of songwriters Johnny Delaware and Clay Houle.

The band’s debut full-length album features spiritual lyrics and Eastern influences, reminiscent of George Harrison.

The giant mushroom isn’t just a metaphor though. The drug it represents is a real inspiration to Johnny Delaware, who was a part of the Acid Boys culture in Charleston surrounding breakout band Susto, which portrays the psychedelic drug and music-making atmosphere that propelled the band forward.

It’s also the title of a song from Susto’s debut album.

Lyrics include: “I’ve been running with the Acid Boys, ‘ooin’ in the bites’ Doing what we can to survive now Ain’t nobody got money but, hey, nobody really cares ‘Cause we just keep it hanging on.”

To Delaware, mushrooms provide a route to a certain mindset, which can help stimulate songwriting inspiration. But they’re not the end-all-be-all to his creative process.

“Drugs and psychedelics make you want to be a better person,” says Delaware. “They make you want to love the people around you and can inspire you in other ways to create. I’m not one of those guys who needs to get high to create, though. You can reach a dangerous realm if you need to rely on a substance to create something. But if I want to go on a spiritual journey, I’m gonna do eight grams of mushrooms and stare in a mirror to see if I turn into a reptilian.”

Johnny Delaware throwing up the peace sign was a guitarist in Susto before leaving to embark on his own music endeavor, The Artisanals.

Provided

The state of mind Delaware has reached while tripping helped inspire the direction for The Artisanals’ new album.

“Shrooms help you think: I need to wake up; I’ve been sleeping a little bit; I need to change my life around,” he says. “Which goes with the songs on the new album, which are about evolution and not being stagnant.”

The expansive 10-song disc was recorded at the Magic Barn in Iowa City during the winter. It was below freezing outside, and the band was holed up, recording for the very first time in the new studio that had relocated from New York City, where it was known as the Magic Shop.

The equipment was the same: a massive 1970 NEVE 80 Series custom wrap-around recording console with 56 inputs used for David Bowie’s final album “Blackstar,” Coldplay’s “Viva La Vida,” Lou Reed’s “Magic and Loss,” The Ramones’ “Mondo Bizarro,” Kurt Vile’s “Smoke Ring for My Halo” and Arcade Fire’s “The Suburbs.”

“It was dreamy,” says Delaware. “You’re sitting there recording, touching knobs that Bowie, Lou Reed, Kurt Vile all recorded on. You can hear all these other legendary records that you’ve listened to in your own music, and that’s so special.”

The Artisanals incorporated unusual instruments like a sitar, 12-string acoustic guitar, a gong, a Japanese koto, French horns, cello and more into the record.

“That’s what I love about rock: You don’t just have to be playing an electric guitar,” Delaware says.

His favorite track from the disc is “First Time,” which he says doesn’t hide behind allegories and metaphors. It’s a retelling of a vulnerable and sentimental moment in his life.

Though Delaware will always be grateful of his time in Susto from 2014 to 2016, he’s excited to finally be releasing his own material into the universe, with the help of songwriting partner and guitarist Clay Houle, bassist Eric Mixon and two new members of the band, drummer Nick Recio and keyboardist Ian Klin.

“Susto was kind of like a rite of passage,” Delaware says. “That’s the way old sages taught: If you want to do something, you have to help someone else do it first.”

He adds that there are no harsh vibes between him and Susto’s Justin Osborne. They’re still good friends.

“I’m an Acid Boy for life. It’s in my roots now. It carries through.”

Reach Kalyn Oyer at 843-371-4469. Follow her on Twitter sound_wavves.

Last year, Chicago’s Pride Parade was mournful, coming just two weeks after the vicious mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla., where 49 people were killed. Before that, same-sex couples celebrated a Supreme Court ruling holding that they had a constitutional right to marry nationwide.

This year, gay pride celebrations across the country have been marked by frustration at the state of politics in Washington, particularly President Donald Trump’s decision to rescind a key Obama directive that allowed transgender students to use the bathrooms and locker rooms of their choice.

Some officials wonder whether https://sedayubet.org this Sunday’s parade in Chicago, themed “Viva la VidaStand Up, Stand Proud,” will follow suit.

“Well, we have a new president,” said Ald. Tom Tunney, whose 44th Ward is home to most of the parade and many of the events leading up to it. “It will be interesting to see how the public reacts in this new era.”

In Los Angeles, the city’s decades-old pride parade was replaced with a “resist march,” and U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., led chants to impeach the president.

“There are so many issues on the front burner right now, and I think you’ll see that reflected,” said Richard Pfeiffer, Chicago’s Pride Parade coordinator. “Since the change in Washington in November, LGBT people and others have been marginalized verbally and in other ways. There’s anger over that.”

Pfeiffer said more than 250,000 people are expected along the parade route, and nearly 1 million could move in and out of the area surrounding the parade throughout the day.

As in the past, officers from the Chicago Police Department will be omnipresent along the parade route, which will begin at the corner of Montrose Avenue and Broadway in Uptown.

Officials said they will follow a security playbook similar to last year’s, when hundreds of additional Chicago police officers were stationed throughout Pride Fest and at the Pride Parade following the Pulse Nightclub shooting. Rich Guidice, first deputy director for the Office of Emergency Management and Communications, said the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security will also play a role.

“There will be a visible presence of police on the scene,” Guidice said. “Some you’ll see and some you won’t, but we have enough to ensure a safe event.”

Tunney said police and security guards will be too numerous to count.

“The police presence will be similar to last year’s. And last year’s was extraordinary,” Tunney said. “It’s a big weekend. It’s gone from 2,000 people at its beginning to more than a million. It’s become a parade for everybody. And I think that shows how we have more in common than we have apart.”

Thousand Waves, a martial arts and self-defense center in the Lakeview neighborhood, was scheduled to host a self-defense workshop for members of the LGBT community on June 17, but it was canceled because of a lack of participants.

Ryan Libel, the center’s executive director, said that is not necessarily bad news.

While self-defense workshops tend to teeter around 20 participants, Libel said bystander intervention classes have increased to more than 50. He believes more people want to stick up for minority communities.

“It’s definitely a quantifiable demand,” Libel said. “We’ve seen a really beautiful wave of support for underserved communities across the board. There is an increased appetite for standing with marginalized groups.”

June is Pride Month, a time when the LGBTQ community across the United States celebrates with rallies, artistic performances, street fairs and, especially in cities like Chicago, gigantic, lengthy parades complete with floats, waving politicos and lots of flags flying. And I’m not just talking the star-spangledbanner — the rainbowflag will surely be everywhere.

This flag, instantly recognizable for its distinctive rows of brightly colored stripes, was created in 1978 by the late Gilbert Baker. It has become, in the words of an April 2017 story by my Tribune colleague Rex Huppke, the “international symbol of gay pride.”

But just as the communities under the LGBTQ banner are more numerous than the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer identities used in the LGBTQ abbreviation check out my story on how the number of letters may be growing, so, too, are the flags proudly waved to represent the pride of various constituent groups, from the leather community to those who identify as intersex. A Google search showed a number of these flags have been further customized by different subgroups within each community, so variety abounds.

Chicago’s 48th annual Pride Parade kicks off at noon June 25. Here’s a visual lexicon of some of the flags you might see along the parade route this month. For more flags, check out Quoices, which bills itself as “a home for the voices and the stories of the queer community, as well as providing information on queer topics and culture.”

What happens if you’re at a Pride event or parade, spot a flag and don’t know what it stands for? Well, I’d politely ask the people around you wherever you are and see if they have an answer.

— Bill Daley

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Recalling the battles for equality — and knowing that some continue — has been an enduring theme over the years during pride events. This year is no different.

On Wednesday at Daley Plaza, American Veterans for Equal Rights hosted a salute to LGBT veterans.

“I was tired of seeing gay people kicked out of the military for no reason,” said Jim Darby, 85, who started AVER’s Chicago chapter 25 years ago.

“When I was in the military, gay people were disappearing and I didn’t know where they were going, but I told myself that it couldn’t be that bad. I didn’t get concerned until I left. I felt guilty. I should have been kicked out.”

After leaving the military, where he served as a Russian translator during the Korean War, Darby was able to take advantage of the GI Bill. He graduated from college and taught languages for more than 30 years in Chicago Public Schools on the South Side.

Darby was arrested outside the White House while protesting “don’t ask, don’t tell” in 1993, and he and his partner of 54 years, Patrick Bova, were the lead plaintiffs in Lambda Legal’s successful marriage equality lawsuit against the state of Illinois in 2014.

In 2011, “don’t ask, don’t tell” — a policy barring gays and lesbians from openly serving in the military — was lifted. And last year, the Pentagon ended the ban on transgender men and women serving openly in the military.

Darby said he was overwhelmed with how quickly things changed.

“We’ve come so far,” Darby said. “But I know we have some unkind politicians, and that’s putting it mildly, and, at the end of the day, we still have a lot of work to do.”

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This Thursday is the Mercury Music Prize, with the winner chosen from the shortlist of twelve nominated albums. As part of the prize’s remit is to “recognise and celebrate artistic achievement…and to help introduce new albums from a range of music genres to a wider audience”, we thought it would be interesting to get our writers to “live review” a nominated record they had yet to listen to, noting down their thoughts in real time. The Mercury First Listen Reviews are the result.

Lee Adcock on Florence + The Machine’s High As Hope

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Do you remember the naughts? I sure don’t. Or I do, but not on the musical plane. I tried to feel for the pulse of the modern “alternative” in my freshman year, but my signal was jammed with so many flashing lights, whiz kid stuff like Foster the People and MGMT and Phoenix and Franz Ferdinand, all of whom broke out ever so slightly before the present day. So nothing https://betwin188.website that caught on with my peers ever struck a chord with me: Adele, boring; The Killers, what fluffy nonsense; and why did my brainy friends rope me into shoulder-to-shoulder sing-alongs with Coldplay’s ‘Viva La Vida’?

Ergo, by the time cascades of harps descended from every house radio on Florence + the Machine’s ‘Dog Days Are Over’, I’d pretty much tapped out. It’s funny, though. Do you even remember the words to ‘Viva La Vida’? I sure don’t. But with ‘Dog Days’, every cadence, every lilt of Florence Welsh’s higher-than-the-heavens croon, every rafter-pounding stomp is etched in my head, like routes on a travel map. And all those roads lead back to 2009, the land of optimism and new beginnings, divided mainly by your allegiance for or against Lady Gaga.

Granted, that old guidebook hasn’t been updated in nearly a decade. Welsh and her machine have since won a Brit Award, recorded two more albums, and even headlined Glastonbury the first female-fronted act to do so circa 2015. What brings us here to High As Hope, then? Some nagging curiosity, perhaps, the same that makes you roll your eyes and RSVP for your high school reunion? Maybe. Or maybe I’m just looking for something new to remember.

Subtle, quiet. Hmm. Oh, but here come the soul piano chords. Wait, what’s that? No, don’t mind. This is much more subdued than I expected. Welsh is still kinda bombastic, but she’s holding the beast back, and I’m digging it. Strings. I feel like I’m missing out on a story, though. Wow, this is a super impressive salvo for the opener. Like a big velvet curtain. This “You’re so hard” part reminds me of Emilie Nicolas, who I haven’t thought about in a while. OH, THAT ENDING WAS LIKE BAM!

Whoa – “At 17 I started to starve myself” – ooh. Really like how this is progressing. An unusual sort of sexy – with purpose. Fuck me, the pointed piano chords are really hitting the spot for me. This song, I see, is about the ways we abuse and disregard our bodies for the sake of beauty – “We all have a hunger” refers, I think, to that desire to be perfect in some way. I had SUCH a problem with this in my teenage years, too, and in college as well – “You make a fool out of death with your beauty And for a moment, I forget to worry” – YES, THIS. As a 95-lb something, I got nothing but compliments in high school, and my mum just kept egging me on. Damn, this is already way stronger than I expected.

Now, this is quite airy, a shift in the winds. We’re in anecdote phase, I suppose. Quite regal – oooooh, I like that drum thing that just kicked in. I also like how the piano is literally hammering one note and KILLING IT. Oh, now it’s playing more notes. OOOH BUT THAT DRUM THING. Now the dramatic violins. Yeah, yeah, this production is knocking me out over here – it’s a pop record for sure, but there’s room for everything to breathe. Welsh’s voice isn’t cramming everything out, although she’s still knocking those home runs outta the park. There are horns in here now, I realize. And I’m still OK with this? Yes! I’ve lost the thread of this song, though. I think she’s conflating old romantic escapades with place-based nostalgia.

Starts again with just piano. Who is this “Big God”? Strings did a fascinating turn. They sound a bit…glitch here? Welsh mentioned ghosts – this does feel a bit ghostly, albeit in a theatre. A number in a musical about creeping around the haunted mansion. Yes. I still like it, though. This part’s quite bombastic, though – we’re not sneaking around anymore. “Don’t leave me on this white cliff I will slide down into the sea” – followed by some snazzy flutes and woodwinds. What does it mean?

Acapella opening – very typical pop move. For some reason, I’m thinking about Gotye. Remember Gotye? This song is a third of the way through, and I’m still not sure what we’re doing here. Oh hey, I just heard the first harp, I think. Yes. It’s hiding. I feel like this is Welsh’s attempt to write a new folk song, especially with the chorus: “I can’t hide from the thunder and a sky full of song”. A very mellismatic folk song, mind. Of Monsters and Men jolts to mind now, or maybe Fleet Foxes. Hmm. My enthusiasm’s wavering.

Crystalline piano here, the kind that plays in jazzy bars on rainy days or late nights. When she says “Grace”, she’s definitely referring to the concept of grace, not a person. Good to clarify. More anecdotes. This is quite an anecdotal album, isn’t it? I didn’t read anything about High As Hope beforehand, so I don’t know for sure. This one’s got a big chorus and has a subtle gospel choir in the back, a nice touch. That strange echo on her voice was a nice touch, too. This is quite a pleasant one. I feel like the bombast is well-deserved here – especially in the line, “Grace, I know you carry it”, followed by “This is the only thing I’ve ever had any faith in”. That’s sweet.

The violins are menacing here. Whoa! Then it segues to very old-fashioned soul momentum, which is REALLY pushing my buttons here. The violins arc up in a curious way. FUCK. YES! I am all about this one. Hmm? “Patricia, you’ve always been my door stop”? Is that a compliment? I don’t know, but I’m loving the warped arcs of the violin. And this bridge is a stunner – now we’re travelling through mist a bit, misty eyes rather, and I am spellbound finally. I see tea, I see me as a kid trying to fathom new indigos, I see the stars and someone beside me…

There you go! Nice segue from wonder to pitch black. Sort of. Welsh is singing again, and taking up negative space. Hand claps and things. A very standard folk-pop thing. Mumford and Sons, much. But not really – well, I was about to say intimate, but not quite. At any rate, even from this surface skim, I sense that Welsh thinks about these words more than the Mumfords do. Well – “And it’s born again with each sunrise”? Followed by a drum that goes down HARD. This part is giving me the shivers. Drama like this doesn’t happen too often in the alt-rock world, does it? Not lately. Synths have been the thing, and the 80s; Welsh is having none of that here. This sassy choir part is great; sing it, sister, sing it! Yeah, I’m here for this, front row of the symphony section. God damn, what does this even look like live?

Sombre opening. Either someone in the musical has died, or – no, that sounds more hopeful. Not death. Maybe something ended. Someone’s broke? Someone lost something. The piano suggests a departure, for sure. Oh, that’s right, this is called The End Of Love’. I wouldn’t know how that feels! I like how, even though Welsh is again filling the room with her soaring vocals, this is still minimal and tragic, like some empty apartment with dust on the floorboards. Some scene in Rent. Whoa, that synth scared me. What are you doing here?? I was just praising Welsh for not using you! There, I think I scared it off. The handclaps are back, but they’re different. Sharper. Sounds more like an actual audience, than a key on the keyboard. Of course, it’s a summer in New York – everything starts and ends in New York, doesn’t it? I’m still not sure what happened, but the tragedy feels, again, deserved. Good pacing.

She says here that she finds it harder to write about happiness as she gets old, because happiness is just boring. Is that true? But the loneliness never left her – oof, I get that, though. No chorus will come in, eh? Damn straight. This is quite clever. Welsh is talking about the mundane here, I guess the small victories or failures that just wash away with the tides. Quite a thing. And appropriately stark, private, beautiful. Oh! And it’s done! What an elegant finish! Like ending on a flourish instead of a bang. I dig it!

***

Wow. I just listened to what was ostensibly a modern pop record, didn’t I? And I more or less enjoyed it, didn’t I? I did! No wonder Welsh and her machine qualified for the Mercury, I’m inclined to say. This makes me think, that I’ve written off so many records this year because I thought they were too “big”, i.e. that the artist doesn’t deserve my attention. But damn! My head is running through all the chicks and divas I’ve been neglecting lately for all these low-level post-punk and new wave greenhorns.

For more information about Florence + The Machine, please visit their official website.

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