WRETCH
KYUSS
PIXIES: GETTY
The rain-slashed greyscapes of Seattle might have birthed many of the defining albums of 1991, but a few clicks south, in the city of Palm Desert, California, and the sunbaked wilderness that lay beyond it, the rock scene was morphing into a different beast altogether.
It was here, amid the packs of teenagers, hiss of illicit beer cans, and generators giving life to cheap bass amps and hastily arranged spotlights, that Kyuss played their formative desert gigs and took their first lumbering steps towards the debut album that put stoner rock on the map. “There’d be a fire behind the drummer,” recalled guitarist Josh Homme, “and we’d play as loud as the generator would let us go.”