Flavor Crystals Setlist

Eyes Go White
Mirror Chop
Mirror in My Mind
Tsar Bomba
Antenna House
Diamond Mine
Neuzesandfly

Tour Dates

Mar 5 Canal Public House, Dayton, OH
Mar 9 Sunflower Lounge, Birmingham, UK
Mar 10 Bullingdon Arms, Oxford, UK
Mar 11 Oslo, London, UK Cosmosis Festival
Mar 12 Victoria Warehouse, Manchester, UK
Mar 13 Cookie, Leicester, UK
Mar 15 Les 4ECLUSES, Dunkerque, France
Mar 16 Maison Sage, Paris, France
Mar 17 Iboat, Bordeaux, France
Mar 18 La Lata de bombillas, Zaragoza, Spain
Mar 19 Sidecar, Barcelona, Spain
Mar 20 Siroco, Madrid, Spain
Mar 22 Le Sonic, Lyons, France
Mar 23 Bad Bonnie, Dudingen, Switzerland

“Thanks for coming out on a Tuesday night,” Ringo Deathstarr’s Elliott Frazier said on stage. When someone in the audience shouted out, “Thursday!”, Frazier followed with, “What did I say? Did I stutter? Honestly don’t know what f****** day it is.”

That’s the spirit that Ringo Deathstarr was in at the Turf Club in St Paul, last night (March 3rd). The Texan band is touring in support of their new Pure Mood album.

As you can see from the Turf Club show poster, it lists fellow Austin band Future Death as part of the show, however due to some other commitments, Future Death decided to play the Des Moines Social Club on this night instead.

The evening started off with The Cult of Lip (previously known as Vats). Since there was one less band on the bill, it seemed like everyone else had extra time to play their set. The band had little to say in their 30-min set, save for “Thanks for coming out. We have a 7” coming out soon. That’s all I have to say.” The Cult of Lip currently has a self-titled cassette, limited to 100 copies.

Next up was Flavor Crystals, who we previously caught in 2013. We noted that they played hard psych/kraut rock and with very little emphasis on lyrics. I guess the reason for this, as we witnessed last night was that the singer Josh Richardson actually has trouble remembering lyrics, etc.

The band had pages and pages of handwritten lyrics on stage, and when asked about it later, Richardson explained that they were a “security blanket” and most of these songs were new, from their recently released The Shiver of the Flavor Crystals… including set intro “Eyes Go White” and set closer “Neuzesandfly”.

Hearing these new songs, I felt they were more melodic now… and the music, at times, sounded very space rock.

A few weeks into Ringo Deathstarr’s 2016 tour, someone stole their luggage and left the band with just the clothes off their back. They reached out to their fans that they needed clothes and the response was so overwhelming that they had to write, “We do not need any more clothes! We got new suitcases and they are stuffed to the gills! We have no more space!”

A typical sampling of Ringo Deathstarr’s music feels like they listened to a lot of Ride, maybe some Black Rebel Motorcycle Club… and definitely plenty of My Bloody Valentine.

It was a pretty good turnout for a late, late Thursday night. Ringo Deathstarr took the stage at 11pm and played tracks from their latest Pure Mood, including lead single “Guilt” (which we played on the last podcast). They ended their 55-min set with a “Special song for you” called “Summertime”.

The song is a little special, as it is the b-side to their first 7” In Love in 2009. The single was later compiled in the Sparkler release in 2011.