Wookie Foot is a spiritually electrified big band — a barefoot, red-eyed, dreadlocked orchestra. Led by fuzzy guitars and dubby percussion, it is a Dalai Lama philosophy with a Rage Against the Machine mentality and a Sublime-inspired sound. The album is saturated by psychedelic spirituality that fortunately, in the Zen spirit it encourages, never takes itself too seriously. Using its music to fight everything from hatred to monkey oppression to capitalism to CEOs to supermarkets, Wookie Foot is more of a three-ring activist circus than a band. The group’s songs are backed by a radical ethos that makes it perfect for the dreamers, the nature lovers, the leftists, the spiritually oppressed and the stoned among us. "Settle Down" and "Out Loud" are by far the best tracks on the album; they fully utilize the talents of each band member and are lyrically crystalline.
If you’re looking for breathtaking musicianship akin to Steve Kimock or even Phish, don’t look here. But that doesn’t mean Wookie Foot isn’t fun, because it is. And the Beastie Boys were fun and the Ramones were fun. Hippie silliness at its best. Domesticated is available on the band’s Web site, www.wookiefoot.com
E-mail Joshua Gross at [email protected].
