“Hey baby I just want to take you home,” the Ouija Beegees song ‘Twilight Zone‘ starts out. “Get high and watch the Twilight Zone.” — and who doesn’t, I guess? Or at least you can let the song take you there.
The four-piece rock band from Anchorage, Alaska blasts a sort of dazed-and-confused mix of garage rock held together by the belting vocals of lead singer Katelyn Guinn and adorned onstage by plastic skeletons and rosary-wrapped mics. Their sound captures the vibes of some classic rock mainstays, but not in a way that pigeon holes the group’s unique sound.
The Ouija Beegees are a rock band, through and through. Beyond that it’s hard to pinpoint where they fall on the hard rock spectrum, and that’s not a bad thing. Their tunes are pushed along by booming bass lines and drum kicks, then polished off with tight guitar riffs (and one face-melting solo!) and Guinn’s signature voice that draws inspirations from folk rock legends (at least to my ears).
The group crammed into Homer’s Bunnell Street Art Center this past weekend to rattle windows and shake Valentine’s-themed paintings hanging on the wall. The exposed rafters of the historic Old Town building stretched overhead as bright lights illuminated the art and artists performing.
The Ouija Beegees played an hour-long set as part of a joint program produced by Bunnell and local public radio station KBBI called ‘Bunnell Arts by Air,’ where musicians from near and far play live and are broadcasted on air live to audiences around Southcentral Alaska on AM 890. The early show on Friday night was ahead of the group’s main gig with the Wet Spots at Alice’s Champagne Palace.
Photos were shot with an Olympus OM-2n and Ilford HP5 film.
