The LP4 Is No More…But The Cryptographers Arise from the Ashes, Tonight (Along with ST 37 & Morning Scales The Mountain)

The Linus Pauling Quartet is dead; sad, I know, but it’s the truth, and I’ve been meaning to post about it for a long while now, since I got the bad news in July of last year. It’s definitely signified the end of an era in terms of the H-town music scene, at least for me — the LP4 had been fixtures here since 1993, practically the entire time I’ve even been aware of Houston music.

They made some truly awesome, awesome music, and their video style and fascination with all things sci-fi/fantasy/horror/science/beer turned them into an iconic heavy-rock band, in my mind. I mean, c’mon — how many bands do you know that released their own playable RPG module, like the LP4 did with 2013’s Assault on the Vault of the Ancient Bonglords? I’m betting the answer is “none”.

Now, the dissolution of the Quartet doesn’t mean the members of the band have stopped making music; far from it. Guitarist Clinton Heider and bassist Steve Finley have shifted to become full-fledged members of Mlee Marie‘s Hearts of Animals, as previously mentioned over here, and both are also in a new band I’ve yet to hear called Razortooth.

The remaining members — Ramon Medina, Larry Liska, Charlie Naked/Ebersbaker, and Carol Sandin Cooley — have (re-?)joined with Finley, as well (damn, that guy keeps busy) to form new band The Cryptographers. Charlie’s teased me with some hints of what they’ve been up to over the past few months, but the band is finally making its live debut tonight, Saturday, June 2nd, up at — where else? — Rudyard’s.

I don’t have much of a clue of what the Cryptographers’ set will sound like (the only thing they’ve released so far is an in-studio jam session called “Krautrock in D”, on their Bandcamp page), but Charlie says the new band is a very different beast from the old. I’m told there’ll be less of a big-guitar ’70s stoner-rock thing going on; “less Black Sabbath and a lot more VU and krautrock.” Which still sounds very cool to me.

If you really want to know what this new post-LP4 thing sounds like, though, you’ll have to get on up to Rudz this evening, where the band will be hitting the stage for the first time.

They’re opening for Austin trancerock legends ST 37, with whom the old LP4 did a split-7″ about a decade ago. ST 37 are celebrating the 20(!)-year anniversary of their 1998 album Spaceage, and supposedly they’ll be playing a whole bunch of songs from that album tonight.

As an added bonus, Morning Scales the Mountain are playing, as well. I’ll be honest — I’d never heard of the band, but lo and behold, they’re from Houston, and hey…that guy looks really familiar; where have I seen…? Holy shit, that’s Tom Carter! So yep, this is apparently the new band of psych-rock guitarist Tom Carter, whose ’90s band Charalambides set the Texas psych bar pretty high for several years there, and The Mike Gunn spawned fully half the bands in H-town since then in one way or another.

This makes me extra-happy, I have to say, because Tom had some pretty severe health issues for a while there, and the last I’d heard he’d forsaken Houston for NYC. It seems like he’s back now, I guess? So that’s a nice little extra prod to get your ass off the couch tonight; get on up there, y’all.