I don’t know what it was that made me fall in love with the desert, or at least the idea of it because the closest I’ve come to experiencing it was staying at Matjiesfontein in the Karoo on road trips from Jozi to CT.
If I think back to my childhood, there’s nothing concrete there either – maybe some half-remembered movie scenes or vague, dusty dreams. The clink of spurs, the rolling tumbleweed, the blood-red sunsets.
Whatever it was, my obsession with desert rock has only made it stronger over the years. It was this shared love of that scene that sparked a connection between myself and Dan Nash who, as I write this, is living the dream.
His story is a pretty cool one. SA band Red Huxley were lucky enough to win a 5FM competition last year and subsequently got to meet the Eagles Of Death Metal backstage when they were in the country last year.
The guys got to talking with the band and were invited to this crazy little recording studio way out in the Californian Desert called Rancho De La Luna which is a legendary place in desert rock folklore.
Everyone from Eagles Of Death Metal themselves to my favourite band of all time, Queens Of The Stone Age to PJ Harvey and the Arctic Monkeys have recorded albums out there. It’s a kind of Mecca for bands that want to escape it all, soak up the solitude and untamed desert energy and just do what bands were born to do.
So Red Huxley created a Kickstarter campaign to raise enough money to fly over to the States and record their first album with the co-owner and founder of Rancho, Dave Catching, who has played in both Eagles Of Death Metal and QOTSA.
It’s not only a dream come true for Red Huxley, but it’s also a South African first (far as I know) so it carries national significance for each and every South African out there! Of course, the guys needed a coupla faithful scribes to make sure the interwebs could follow their exploits which is where Kim from Motion City Films and Dan come into it.
The guys have been gathering content and Dan’s been posting regular updates on the trip which you can check out on his site. So far, they’ve put out 5 videos of their trip which you can watch here.
They’re pretty cool, they give you a great idea of what the place is like, but what’s been really awesome to see are all the pics the guys have been taking, some of my favourites of which follow below:
What crazy place. I’m seriously interested to hear what Red Huxley’s album is going to sound like because holy shit, it looks like it’s been an insane ride.
I’ll get out there one day. It won’t be to live the rock n roll dream though, it will be with my daughter and J-Rab, cruising those dusty roads in a Cadillac like the guys managed to find, surrounded by “those on the fringes of the promised land, cut off from the American dreamâ€.
One day 
-ST
