Psychedelic Horseshit

Matt Whitehurst (aka Matt Horseshit), the de facto leader of Columbus, Ohio noise-mongers Psychedelic Horseshit, claims the band first played in public in the fall of 2005 when he and some friends scammed their way onto the stage at a hippie jam band festival in Delaware County; asked by the MC for the group's name, he said, "Just call us Psychedelic Horseshit." As the legend has it, the band unexpectedly went over with the nuevo-hippie audience, and the name stuck. While Whitehurst (guitar, keyboards, and vocals) and his musical partner Rich Johnston (percussion) don't sound psychedelic, at least in the traditional sense, the rich, organic funk of the second part of their name hits home, as the band conjures a sound that recalls the early lo-fi experiment of Pavement, the arch and angular attack of the Fall, and the noisy joie de vivre of their friends and Siltbreeze labelmates Times New Viking. (Whitehurst, a My Bloody Valentine fan, has also coined the phrase "shitgaze" to describe their musical approach.) Using battered equipment (including a cardboard box pressed into service as a kick drum) and low-tech four-track recording equipment, Psychedelic Horseshit's initial releases were homemade small-run CD-Rs featuring titles like Blown Speaker Standards and King Tubby's Baddness Dub, until local label Columbus Discount Singles Club issued a vinyl 7" entitled Who Let the Dogs Out. The single's first pressing sold out quickly, and in mid-2007 a five-song vinyl EP, New Wave Hippies, hit stores. A few months later, Psychedelic Horseshit's first full-length album, Magic Flowers Droned, was released by Siltbreeze. Bassist Jason Roxas appeared on several of the group's early recordings, but in 2008 the group announced it was looking for a new bass player. The spot was later filled by Ryan Jewell, who helped move Psychedelic Horseshit in a more electronic direction. Apart from making news when Whitehurst bashed fellow lo-fi artists Wavves and No Age in the press, the band laid low until the release of its 2011 album, Laced.
© Mark Deming /TiVo