By Juan R Govea
Fort Worth’s Mean Motor Scooter has been in and around the local headlines as of late. The band’s upcoming album Hindu Flying Machine launched into the alt-rock, surf punk airwaves at Fort Worth venue Main at Southside last Friday and landed on Bandcamp The following day
MMS drummer Jeffrey Chase Friedman states the 10 track album started off as an earlier attempted project with the reimagined title Hindu Flying Machine taking flight. While partly attributing inspired influences to the early writings of Erich von Däniken’s UFO spotting 1968 non-fiction Chariots of the Gods, Friedman says the album takes the listener to an unidentified psych realm.
Going on three years as a band, Friedman and MMS front man Sammy Kidd began developing different post punk and punk grinding melodies before the emergence of the now garage, surf punk Mean Motor Scooter.
While at a former Fort Worth nightclub Embargo circa 2014, Kidd and Friedman met Joe Tacke, Former member of the Dallas band Spook Easy and One Horn Studio owner. In May 2014, Tacke joined as Bassist for Endless Sky.
With a collaborative name change Endless Sky became Mean Motor Scooter in December 2014 and soon after the tracks for Mean Motor Scooter’s first self-titled album were released in 2015.
A year later Mean Motor Scooter releases two titled tracks with Benjamin Napier at Green Audio Studios recording drums for the William Burroughs inspired title album Naked Brunch and Tacke recording the rest of the 2016 singles Such a Seducer and Naked Bruch.
It wasn’t until this year, front woman of the fuzz folk sounds of I Happy Am, Rebekah Elizabeth joined the Mean Motor Scooter gents playing keys and adding what Friedman says a psychedelic dosed vibe.
Recorded with Robby Rux of Cloudland Recording Studio, Hindu Flying Machine creators Mean Motor Scooter share their newly signed Dirty Water Records (USA) stateside sister label to Dirty Water Records (UK) with artists such as The Darts from Phoenix, Ariz. as well US foreign bands from France and Sweden.
“With a mix of influences and atmospheres with each member assembling the fitting of songs,” Friedman says. “It’s kind of its own beast, with some of the tracks taking twist and turns into different directions.”
Featuring titled tracks influenced by a beat fiction character’s altered psyche and American sci-fi, Friedman says Hindu Flying Machine contains tracks such as We’re Not Alone, Sea Serpent and Wavespotting, which play well into the alt-rock category, but states he doesn’t speak for the entire the band.
Tomorrow’s album release party will be 18+ and $6 cover with Main at Southside hosting the talents of Henry The Archer, War Party along with Kyoto Lo-fi opening the night at 9p.m. Friedman says Mean Motor Scooter plans on playing a set-list of 20 songs and going on stage at 11:30pm.
Mean Motor Scooter will also be on the bill the following Sunday at Shipping & Receiving for the Dreamy Life Group Therapy Vol. 4 event. Performing an original song Mechanical Man along with several other DFW artists.
The band will hit the road during the Thanksgiving Holiday kicking off the Hindu Flying Machine tour playing with Dirty Water Label friends The Darts at Three Links Deep Ellum in Dallas. Friedman says the band will tour North to Tennessee back down to South Texas and ending their first road tour back at home in Fort Worth.
Mean Motor Scooter’s Ancient Alien Hindu Flying Machine
