The valley owes a lot to our desert-rock pioneers. Not only did they cultivate a massively influential music scene; many of them continue to find ways to celebrate our local environment.
Take, for example, Sonic Stargazers. It’s a new concert series happening at the Institute of Mentalphysics (aka the Joshua Tree Retreat Center) throughout the summer, and it’s being organized by Coachella Valley music legend Mario Lalli.
The Saturday, June 24, show is slated to feature Yawning Man, Lalli’s current band, as well as the Sound Bath Duo, while the show on Friday, July 28, will feature Earthless and El Padre El Don. The series will conclude Saturday, Aug. 26, with Sean Wheeler and the Rubber Snake Charmers alongside Mathias Schneeberger and Janie Cowan. General admission tickets for each show are $30.
“I’ve been setting up stuff in the desert for a long, long time,” Lalli said during a recent phone interview. “I started when I was a kid doing generator parties and underground events, and then I had a club in Indio back in the ’90s called Rhythm and Brews. I’ve always loved bringing people together around music, and over the last 10 years, the high desert has been drawing me up there because of the really vibrant artist community, both musically and visually. It just seems that 90% of the venues in the desert region are in the high desert, and every city out there has a spot for live music.”
Sonic Stargazers will be held at the Joshua Tree Retreat Center thanks to a connection with artist Rolo Castillo.
“Rolo is really a very hardworking, prolific artist, and he has a few creative spaces up in the Joshua Tree area,” Lalli said. “We’ve been collaborating on music and art stuff for a few years now, and he was helping me with this other event I did up in Joshua Tree at the High Desert Cultural Center. He and his wife have a lot to do with managing and maintaining the Joshua Tree Retreat Center, the Institute of Mentalphysics, so if you see a sculpture up there—if you see an installation or physical art there—it’s probably Rolo who facilitated it or actually built it himself.”
The event poster features a beautiful photo of a Joshua tree with stars behind it. Lalli said the image is helping build excitement for evenings of music out in nature.
“We started talking about summertime, and the weather being really great up there to have people out to do some sort of music series,” he said. “A friend of mine, Bruce Feagle, is an astrophotographer, and he did the photo that’s on the poster. Looking at his photography from the park and stuff, I just started thinking that it’d be cool to put in people’s minds that an outdoor show at Joshua Tree Retreat Center in the summertime in the evening could be really, really beautiful.”
All of the bands performing were selected because of their sound, Lalli said.
“I want to bring it to people’s consciousness that the music is curated to kind of fit that environment, so the music that I chose is primarily instrumental music,” Lalli said. “It’s also very cinematic and visually inspiring music. Yawning Man, of course, is somewhat of an ambient-rock improv (band). It’s very powerful and will sound perfect for that kind of environment. The Sound Bath Duo is actually the bass player from Yawning Man, Billy Cordell, and his wife. They have a sound-bath practice and a yoga practice. The Institute of Mentalphysics is a yoga-retreat center, and they have several events throughout the year that are yoga events. The idea is to bring the music element and push that envelope a little bit. Imagine, like, a sound bath with a rock-band level of intensity.
“The other band we got was Earthless, and they’re a bit more intense, and more on the rock side of things, but still very fitting for the theme of these events. Then I’m performing with my son at that show; we’re doing some kind of spacey ambient guitar music as El Padre El Don. The final show, we have Rubber Snake Charmers, which is Sean Wheeler getting his desert-centric poetry and readings with a band of eight to 10 musicians who are hand-picked for the event. There are one or two who are coming from out of town, but primarily, they’re all desert musicians. You have Robbi Robb from 3rd Ear Experience, Brant Bjork, Ryan Gut, Otis Link and myself included in that lineup.
“I also have on the bill Janie Cowan, another instrumentalist with very unique performances. She plays the upright bass with a bow, with all these kinds of spacey ambient effects on it, and then she does these kinds of soundscapes. The other person involved in that performance is Mathias Schneeberger. He’s affiliated with Rancho de la Luna studio, and he produced a number of artists. Mathias’ music is also perfectly fitting to this environment. He’s a brilliant instrumentalist, keyboard player and guitar player, and he does a loop-based performance in these instrumental, very rhythmic, meditative kind of explorations.”
The goal of Sonic Stargazers is to allow music to be shaped and changed by the landscape. For Lalli, it all goes back to how the desert-rock formula came from going out into the middle of nowhere and letting nature take over.
“When I used to go out in the desert and jam with my friends, we all came from playing punk rock and rock ’n’ roll, and being outside with the generator just jamming, the music took a certain direction that really had nothing to do with us or our thinking.”
mario LALLI
“The music is setting the scene to not necessarily be staring up at the stage the whole time, but just to relax and look at the sky, and look at the environment around you, and enjoy the vibration of that spot,” Lalli said. “I don’t mean to sound too hippie-dippie, but I don’t care where you’re from, or what your deal is; when you’re up there, it’s undeniable that there’s something special about that area. It’s nice to curate music that is fitting in the environment. When I used to go out in the desert and jam with my friends, we all came from playing punk rock and rock ’n’ roll, and being outside with the generator just jamming, the music took a certain direction that really had nothing to do with us or our thinking. It just flowed out, and it had very much to do with the environment that we were in. If you’re in a garage with a lamp on, and all your rock posters are on the wall, your songs are going to be verse-chorus, verse-chorus. When you are in the middle of the desert, the music starts to be affected by where you are.”
Lalli emphasized that respecting the environment is his main priority.
“I’m really inspired by the space at the Retreat Center to do more things there—and they’d always be very small things, because we’re very mindful of the environment of the space,” he said. “We want to tread very lightly up there and respect the environment, both the desert environment and also the environment they (at the Joshua Tree Retreat Center) have created. We have to respect all that when we do things. We can’t just go do some crazy rock ’n’ roll party fest; it’s got to fit and be respectful of all those elements.
“If I was just going to do some kegger-rock show, I’d do that somewhere down in the low desert where we could raise hell and not bother anybody—but that’s not the point of these things.”
Sonic Stargazers Summer Concert Series kicks off at 7 p.m., Saturday, June 24, with Yawning Man and the Sound Bath Duo. The second event at 7 p.m., Friday, July 28, features Earthless and El Padre El Don, while third event, at 7 p.m., Saturday, Aug. 26, will feature Sean Wheeler and the Rubber Snake Charmers, with Mathias Schneeberger and Janie Cowan. Tickets are $30 for each show, which all take place at the Institute of Mentalphysics, aka Joshua Tree Retreat Center, 59700 Twentynine Palms Highway, in Joshua Tree. Click here for tickets or more information.
