rose city band’s Spaced out on garden party

By Stephen Smysnuik

“Spaced out, chasing rainbows.” Consider the line. What does it conjure for you? A child-like state of wonderment? The psychedelic experience? A bitchin’ bumper sticker?

Let’s consider it as a descriptor for the life’s work of Erik “Ripley” Johnson, the space-rock visionary behind Wooden Shjips, Moon Duo—and now Rose City Band. The line was, in fact, written by Johnson for the song “Chasing Rainbows,” the lead single and first track off Rose City Band’s latest album, Garden Party. It’s both a thesis statement for, and a depiction of, the man at this stage of the game: cosmic warrior, melting faces, chasing rainbows.

Now, with Garden Party, Johnson has settled comfortably into this new era. Where Wooden Shjips and Moon Duo issue fuzzy broadcasts from some weirdo, far-away galaxy, Rose City Band’s receiving the messages back home, funneling it through some lysergic and resplendent countrified rock.

“I think coming up with a title Garden Party, I was trying to do something that’s kind of a celebration, with an optimistic thrust,” Johnson says, speaking from his home in Portland, Oregon, whose “City of Roses” moniker is the band’s namesake. “I am trying to make something that is easygoing and it isn’t just fluff, it isn’t just AM radio, yacht rock or something. It’s a fine line.”

While Wooden Shjips and Moon Duo are primarily collaborations with other people, Johnson can indulge his otherwise dormant authoritarian tendencies with Rose City Band, controlling all aspects of the records. All four albums were recorded mostly solo, with occasional backing duties doled out to a small number of musicians. The live experience—which includes Barry Walker on pedal steel guitar, Dewey Mahood on bass, Dustin Dybvig on drums, and Paul Hasenberg on keyboards—is a different beast altogether, with songs stretching out into improvised cosmic weirdness.

“These are not guys who are normally listening to country, except for Barry,” Johnson says. “We’re not a straight-up country. There are plenty of people out there who can play country music really, really well. So we just try, and our approximation makes it a little weirder.”

The project started out quietly, beginning with 2019’s self-titled debut, released without much promotion or even any indication that Johnson was behind it. The near-perfect Summerlong a year later was recorded with the intention of assembling a live band to tour with. The COVID-19 pandemic foiled those plans, and Johnson leaned deeper into the work.

“It was kind of a bomb for me. When COVID hit, Rose City Band became more pointed—the motivation was to do something positive,” he says. “I was taking more and more comfort in this music from my childhood. There’s something about music that you’re exposed to when you’re young, this emotional resonance that I think stays with you forever. And I wanted to make some music that was honouring that.”

Johnson says he wanted to make his “country rock record”, while admitting that Rose City Band is hardly that. The music is more akin to the rural rock of bands he listened to when he was young—bands like (um) The Band, Bob Dylan, and the Grateful Dead. Rose City Band might actually have its closest analogue to the Grateful Dead, especially the terrain explored in their seminal 1970 album Workingman’s Dead. Rose City Band’s first three albums inhabit the imaginary Fennario, fabled land of Dead lore, where echoes of Jerry’s own playing swirl through layers of pedal steel and a rollicking rhythm section.

Garden Party, which was produced by Tortoise’s John McEntire, stretches out in new directions, particularly in the final run of the album that begins with the exquisite “Mariposa,” which dives into jazzier Dead territory. Echoes of Neil Young, Flying Burrito Brothers, and Johnny Cash abound as well. It’s easy listening without feeling superficial. It’s spacey, without ever getting too weird.

“I have found that it has broader appeal,” Johnson says. “I think people of different ages can get into it. Friends of mine who are not music nerds—who like Wilco, or Bruce Springsteen, or maybe even Taylor Swift—they’re into it. It’s a little easy on the ears.”

Johnson says he’s currently working on a new project with Moon Duo/Rose City Band collaborator (and Vancouverite) John Jeffrey. He also says he “might do some Moon Duo stuff later in the year.” For now, the focus is Rose City Band, rehearsing and touring the West Coast and Europe this spring.

“The good thing about this project is, being the dictator in chief, I could just decide to make a record. I don’t need to plan it with other people and schedules and all that stuff,” Johnson says. “It’s like I could start working on one tomorrow, and just whenever I feel like it.” GS

Garden Party comes out on April 21. Rose City Band plays the Cobalt on May 4.