{"id":21368,"date":"2021-08-04T05:30:47","date_gmt":"2021-08-04T09:30:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=21368"},"modified":"2021-07-30T09:30:23","modified_gmt":"2021-07-30T13:30:23","slug":"thirty-years-with-the-mother-hips-part-three","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2021\/08\/04\/thirty-years-with-the-mother-hips-part-three\/","title":{"rendered":"Thirty Years with the Mother Hips (Part Three)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Continued from Part Two<\/a> \u2026 <\/i><\/p>\n

\u201cWe started in Wisconsin and ended near San Francisco at the Shoreline Amphitheater,\u201d Tim Bluhm recalls. \u201cAnd by that time, we were headlining the side stage. It was a big moment for us: a lot of people say that\u2019s the first time they saw us.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2007, around the time of the release of their seventh album, Kiss the Crystal Flake<\/i>, the Mother Hips launched a festival of their own. In collaboration with Britt Goveah of music events coordinators FolkYEAH, they debuted the Hypnic Festival in Big Sur. Focusing on rock, folk and psychedelic music, Hypnic combines the eclecticism of a large festival with the intimacy of a family get-together. \u201cThat\u2019s always been a special thing about it,\u201d Greg Loaicono says. \u201cEvery year it gets bigger and better, but it doesn\u2019t get much beyond 400-500 people, including the bands.\u201d Due to the pandemic, the 2020 festival didn\u2019t happen, but with a bit of luck, this year\u2019s Hypnic is scheduled for late September.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

It hasn\u2019t been all good news for the band, though. Along with the good, the Mother Hips have endured their share of setbacks. \u201cIf you\u2019re in a band 30 years, shit\u2019s going to happen,\u201d Loaicono says. \u201cHiatuses, kids, marriages, divorces and everything else.\u201d In 2015, Tim Bluhm suffered a hang gliding accident. That led to a succession of hospital stays, one lasting 62 days. \u201cThere were times when we weren\u2019t sure if he was going to make it,\u201d Loaicono says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was unfortunate from several angles,\u201d Blum says with understatement. \u201cWe basically had to stop touring for a year, which was not ideal.\u201d But today he places the incident into a larger perspective. \u201cHistorically, when we’ve taken breaks \u2013 which we’ve done a couple times \u2013 it kind of resets everything,\u201d he says. \u201cWe usually come back stronger than before. So it\u2019s not all<\/i> bad.\u201d<\/p>\n

The album reissue project has been keeping the band members busy. Blue Rose Music has licensed the albums from their original labels, and proceeds from vinyl reissues will benefit the affiliated Blue Rose Foundation. Bluhm explains that that organization \u201cputs on charity events to raise money for disadvantaged preschool-age children so they can get scholarships to go to preschool.\u201d<\/p>\n

Taking full advantage of time off the road, the Mother Hips have been doing more than overseeing the reissue of their back catalog. They\u2019ve also been writing and recording an album of new material, scheduled for release later this year. And Loiacono emphasizes that the let\u2019s-see-where-it-goes approach they\u2019ve followed on previous releases remains their standard operating procedure. \u201cWe\u2019re in it right now,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd it\u2019s always cool, because we really don\u2019t know where it\u2019s going to go.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the occasion of the Mother Hips\u2019 30th<\/sup> anniversary, it makes sense to screen a little video made in 1992, A Hot Lunch with the Mother Hips<\/i>. That short film captures the original band in the moments before they broke out with their debut record. \u201cWe all have that experience of going back and looking at old photographs and stuff,\u201d Bluhm says. Doing that brings back the feelings of that time. \u201cThere’s a sense of discovery; everything around you is brand new, and that’s what youth is.\u201d<\/p>\n

Loaicono agrees, and he looks back at those flickering images with a sense of wonder. \u201cIt was such a different world,\u201d he says. \u201cEvery place we went to was all about music, whether we had a show or not. We were just constantly absorbed in that world; that’s all we did.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thirty years on, the Mother Hips still aim to capture that magic in their lives and music. \u201cUs old people are always trying to figure out, \u2018It used to be magic! Where is it? We can get it!\u2019\u201d Bluhm says with a knowing laugh. \u201cMostly, it’s right there when you look at those old pictures and those old videos, we were just in<\/i> it. And we’ve all been there, all of us.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Continued from Part Two \u2026 \u201cWe started in Wisconsin and ended near San Francisco at the Shoreline Amphitheater,\u201d Tim Bluhm recalls. \u201cAnd by that time, we were headlining the side […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21379,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,41,62,64,73],"tags":[4605],"class_list":["post-21368","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-indie","category-interview","category-rawk","category-reissue","category-vinyl","tag-mother-hips","cat-39-id","cat-41-id","cat-62-id","cat-64-id","cat-73-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21368","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21368"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21368\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21380,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21368\/revisions\/21380"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21379"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21368"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}