Sand Reckoner

Sand Reckoner- Rounding out our list may be one of the most intriguing new bands on the Boston scene. Sand Reckoner’s self-titled debut is a fusion of blues and psychedelia that hearkens back to some of my favorite groups from the 1960s such as Procol Harum and Cream. My introduction to Sand Reckoner was the song “Morning Star” (listen below), and upon hearing the opening riff I felt like I had been launched into a time machine and sent back to 1969. I closed my eyes and could see myself swaying back and forth in a slow-motion sync with the guitar and when the guttural chants kicked in, it was game over. I was hooked and immediately felt the need to toss on a bandana, sunglasses, a tie-dye tee and grow a mustache. Sand Reckoner’s debut is full of similarly transcendent songs and you can hear the magic yourself by naming your own price for a download of their new LP. Sand Reckoner will be playing at The Middle East Downstairs with A Place To Bury Strangers on July 29th, get your tickets for that show here.

- Maimed and Tamed

Sand Reckoner- Rounding out our list may be one of the most intriguing new bands on the Boston scene. Sand Reckoner’s self-titled debut is a fusion of blues and psychedelia that hearkens back to some of my favorite groups from the 1960s such as Procol Harum and Cream. My introduction to Sand Reckoner was the song “Morning Star” (listen below), and upon hearing the opening riff I felt like I had been launched into a time machine and sent back to 1969. I closed my eyes and could see myself swaying back and forth in a slow-motion sync with the guitar and when the guttural chants kicked in, it was game over. I was hooked and immediately felt the need to toss on a bandana, sunglasses, a tie-dye tee and grow a mustache. Sand Reckoner’s debut is full of similarly transcendent songs and you can hear the magic yourself by naming your own price for a download of their new LP. Sand Reckoner will be playing at The Middle East Downstairs with A Place To Bury Strangers on July 29th, get your tickets for that show here.

- Maimed and Tamed

Originally hailing from Bucks County, PA, but currently residing in Boston, Sand Reckoner prove to be a melting pot of rock ‘n’ roll history on their full-length debut. Their smoky riffs and groovy rhythms bring about easy comparisons to The Black Angels, especially on “The Morning Star” with the howling, reverb-drenched wah in it's final moments. What sets Sand Reckoner apart from the aforementioned band is their willingness to diversify their songwriting. There is a heavy folk element that is evident from “Shooting Bullets” and also takes center stage in “The Darkest Dye”. However, they don’t stop at simply integrating folk into their musical concoction. There are elements of psychedelic, blues, surf, and arena rock to be found scattered throughout.

“No One’s in the Veil” is the longest but also most engaging track found on the record. The song blends acoustic guitars with call-and-response vocals before ambushing the listener with swirling distorted guitars. Producer Jim Anderson does an excellent job of bringing these elements together without overwhelming the listener. It’s no surprise since he has worked with big names such as Guns ‘N Roses. Even more notably, he worked with me on my Recording II project back in my ambitious days at Northeastern University. If you have been searching for a trippy blues-rock album, I recommend you stop by their bandcamp and download the release. They will be performing at the Middle East Downstairs with A Place to Bury Strangers, Hunters, MMOSS, The December Sound, and The Fedavees on July 29th - Stereo Typing

Originally hailing from Bucks County, PA, but currently residing in Boston, Sand Reckoner prove to be a melting pot of rock ‘n’ roll history on their full-length debut. Their smoky riffs and groovy rhythms bring about easy comparisons to The Black Angels, especially on “The Morning Star” with the howling, reverb-drenched wah in it's final moments. What sets Sand Reckoner apart from the aforementioned band is their willingness to diversify their songwriting. There is a heavy folk element that is evident from “Shooting Bullets” and also takes center stage in “The Darkest Dye”. However, they don’t stop at simply integrating folk into their musical concoction. There are elements of psychedelic, blues, surf, and arena rock to be found scattered throughout.

“No One’s in the Veil” is the longest but also most engaging track found on the record. The song blends acoustic guitars with call-and-response vocals before ambushing the listener with swirling distorted guitars. Producer Jim Anderson does an excellent job of bringing these elements together without overwhelming the listener. It’s no surprise since he has worked with big names such as Guns ‘N Roses. Even more notably, he worked with me on my Recording II project back in my ambitious days at Northeastern University. If you have been searching for a trippy blues-rock album, I recommend you stop by their bandcamp and download the release. They will be performing at the Middle East Downstairs with A Place to Bury Strangers, Hunters, MMOSS, The December Sound, and The Fedavees on July 29th - Stereo Typing

Originally hailing from Bucks County, PA, Sand Reckoner is currently based in Boston. Though only 21 years old, the band members have been playing together starting as far back as 2002. After home recordings and live shows caught the attention of producer Jim Anderson (worked with Guns N’ Roses and Graham Nash), Sand Reckoner finally stepped into the studio and turned out their new self-titled album. It is tough to successfully meld psychedelic blues, surf rock, and folk into a cohesive album without sounding too try hard, but these guys have managed it.

- Homeless Mind Theory

Originally hailing from Bucks County, PA, Sand Reckoner is currently based in Boston. Though only 21 years old, the band members have been playing together starting as far back as 2002. After home recordings and live shows caught the attention of producer Jim Anderson (worked with Guns N’ Roses and Graham Nash), Sand Reckoner finally stepped into the studio and turned out their new self-titled album. It is tough to successfully meld psychedelic blues, surf rock, and folk into a cohesive album without sounding too try hard, but these guys have managed it.

- Homeless Mind Theory

With appropriate confidence Sand Reckoner tackles blues infused psychedelia delivering a comforting sound like and elder sibling draping an arm over your shoulder. The trio engage the listener with some delightfully fused chords which merge in to each other as they sneak in to the ears. They provide a sound in which it is easy to lay back and kick the heels to allow the material to wend its way and work its magic.

I particularly delight in how the guitar is permitted to wander off on a rumble of its own, without the rest of the music dropping to become merely a showcase for the fret-work. As would be anticipated, individual tracks can extend far beyond my normal attention span of three minutes but, the competence of the song-writing doesn’t leave me reaching for headache tablets. The songs are superbly constructed and there is a direction of narrative that serves a relevant purpose.

Once again a trio has been able to surpass itself adding great value with limited players in which the listener can become completely immersed loosing all sense of time.

- Indie Bands Blog

With appropriate confidence Sand Reckoner tackles blues infused psychedelia delivering a comforting sound like and elder sibling draping an arm over your shoulder. The trio engage the listener with some delightfully fused chords which merge in to each other as they sneak in to the ears. They provide a sound in which it is easy to lay back and kick the heels to allow the material to wend its way and work its magic.

I particularly delight in how the guitar is permitted to wander off on a rumble of its own, without the rest of the music dropping to become merely a showcase for the fret-work. As would be anticipated, individual tracks can extend far beyond my normal attention span of three minutes but, the competence of the song-writing doesn’t leave me reaching for headache tablets. The songs are superbly constructed and there is a direction of narrative that serves a relevant purpose.

Once again a trio has been able to surpass itself adding great value with limited players in which the listener can become completely immersed loosing all sense of time.

- Indie Bands Blog

by Chrissy Prisco



deli: How did the band start?

Sand Reckoner: Matt and Ben have been playing music together for around 8 years now, and with Jon for the last 4. After being in a few different groups together, and relocating to Boston in 2009, we found our sound coming together in much more concrete way.


deli: Where did the band name, Sand Reckoner, come from?

SR: Ben found the name of a band while reading about Archimedes' theory "The Sand Reckoner". It comes from a paper Archimedes wrote about a hypothesis of how many grains of sand it would take to fill the entire universe.


deli: What are your biggest musical influences?

SR: Led Zeppelin, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, The Black Angels, The White Stripes, Pink Floyd, Crosby Stills Nash and Young, Fleet Foxes, The Kills, The Secret Machines.


deli: What artists (local, national and/or international) are you currently listening to?

SR: Boston friends Ghost Box Orchestra, The New Highway Hymnal, Coyote Kolb, Viva Viva, Dirty Dishes, and, of course, Red Bellows.

As for national acts, the new Fleet Foxes record is unbelievable, Battles new record is great and Queens of the Stone Age reissue of their debut blows our minds.


deli: What's the first concert that you ever attended and first album that you ever bought?

Matt: First concert was Kings of Leon/The Strokes, first record I was given was Will Smith's Willennium. The first record I bought by myself I think was Eiffel 65's Europop.


Jon: The first concert I ever went to was the great N'Sync. And the first album that I ever purchased was Third Eye Blind's self titled.

Ben: My first concert was Weird Al Yankovic with my whole family, but my first show without them was Jet and the Vines. I really can't remember the first album I ever bought, but it might have been a Sum 41 album.


deli: What do you love about Boston's music scene?

SR: The interconnection of it all amongst the city, and also the ease of hearing many of the great bands in our area, unlike somewhere like NYC where a lot of really amazing bands get overlooked.


deli: What would you like to see change in the local music scene?

SR: We really like the Boston scene. The only thing we would change is to have everyone in the city at all of our shows, every time. Literally. Every. Time.


deli: What are your plans for the upcoming year?

SR: We're really trying hard to get some new recordings out this summer. We're not sure whether we're looking at an EP or a full length yet, we just want to get more of our music out there. We've written 60+ songs within the past couple years so it's a hard process. Aside from that, we are playing more shows around Boston and looking towards the rest of the northeast.


deli: What was your most memorable live show?

SR: Our Sensory Exhibition we put on in March at a Boston church. We played and recorded 5 sets of music (38 songs) and had the entire church filled with multimedia art (paintings, sculptures, mirrors, projections, videos, etc.) along with live art being created on site. Next time we host it we'll be having some more great acts play with us and even more amazing artwork from local Boston artists. The recordings and videos from this year are currently being mixed and edited and will be available soon!


deli: Is there someone who has helped your band grow through support?

SR: Well it would be impossible to say that our families haven't been here to support us for a long time. We've changed a lot about our music and our ideas, and they've always been the ones that we can bounce our thoughts off of to see how they come across to others. Besides them, PeeWee Herman has always been a huge inspiration.


deli: Is there a piece of equipment you couldn't live without and why?

Ben: 24" Zildjian ride Cymbal because John Bonham is a God.

Matt: Holy grail reverb pedal because when you combine it with a Fender amp and a Strat, he will cry with happin - The Deli

by Chrissy Prisco



deli: How did the band start?

Sand Reckoner: Matt and Ben have been playing music together for around 8 years now, and with Jon for the last 4. After being in a few different groups together, and relocating to Boston in 2009, we found our sound coming together in much more concrete way.


deli: Where did the band name, Sand Reckoner, come from?

SR: Ben found the name of a band while reading about Archimedes' theory "The Sand Reckoner". It comes from a paper Archimedes wrote about a hypothesis of how many grains of sand it would take to fill the entire universe.


deli: What are your biggest musical influences?

SR: Led Zeppelin, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, The Black Angels, The White Stripes, Pink Floyd, Crosby Stills Nash and Young, Fleet Foxes, The Kills, The Secret Machines.


deli: What artists (local, national and/or international) are you currently listening to?

SR: Boston friends Ghost Box Orchestra, The New Highway Hymnal, Coyote Kolb, Viva Viva, Dirty Dishes, and, of course, Red Bellows.

As for national acts, the new Fleet Foxes record is unbelievable, Battles new record is great and Queens of the Stone Age reissue of their debut blows our minds.


deli: What's the first concert that you ever attended and first album that you ever bought?

Matt: First concert was Kings of Leon/The Strokes, first record I was given was Will Smith's Willennium. The first record I bought by myself I think was Eiffel 65's Europop.


Jon: The first concert I ever went to was the great N'Sync. And the first album that I ever purchased was Third Eye Blind's self titled.

Ben: My first concert was Weird Al Yankovic with my whole family, but my first show without them was Jet and the Vines. I really can't remember the first album I ever bought, but it might have been a Sum 41 album.


deli: What do you love about Boston's music scene?

SR: The interconnection of it all amongst the city, and also the ease of hearing many of the great bands in our area, unlike somewhere like NYC where a lot of really amazing bands get overlooked.


deli: What would you like to see change in the local music scene?

SR: We really like the Boston scene. The only thing we would change is to have everyone in the city at all of our shows, every time. Literally. Every. Time.


deli: What are your plans for the upcoming year?

SR: We're really trying hard to get some new recordings out this summer. We're not sure whether we're looking at an EP or a full length yet, we just want to get more of our music out there. We've written 60+ songs within the past couple years so it's a hard process. Aside from that, we are playing more shows around Boston and looking towards the rest of the northeast.


deli: What was your most memorable live show?

SR: Our Sensory Exhibition we put on in March at a Boston church. We played and recorded 5 sets of music (38 songs) and had the entire church filled with multimedia art (paintings, sculptures, mirrors, projections, videos, etc.) along with live art being created on site. Next time we host it we'll be having some more great acts play with us and even more amazing artwork from local Boston artists. The recordings and videos from this year are currently being mixed and edited and will be available soon!


deli: Is there someone who has helped your band grow through support?

SR: Well it would be impossible to say that our families haven't been here to support us for a long time. We've changed a lot about our music and our ideas, and they've always been the ones that we can bounce our thoughts off of to see how they come across to others. Besides them, PeeWee Herman has always been a huge inspiration.


deli: Is there a piece of equipment you couldn't live without and why?

Ben: 24" Zildjian ride Cymbal because John Bonham is a God.

Matt: Holy grail reverb pedal because when you combine it with a Fender amp and a Strat, he will cry with happin - The Deli

By Marielle Evangelista, News Correspondent and Anna Marden, News Staff



Northeastern University isn’t exactly known for its involvement in the art world. Yet, it was Northeastern student Matt Rhodes, a sophomore music industry major, who came up with the idea for Sand Reckoner’s Sensory Exhibition, an event that combined art, music and film. The exhibition took place Saturday, March 19 at Fenway Center on St. Stephen St.

Rhodes, a multi-instrumentalist and vocalist for the psychedelic-blues band Sand Reckoner, had the idea to combine a live album recording for his band with an art show and invite people to watch. Rhodes worked with Brittan Williams, a senior music industry major and president of Green Line Records, and Kaitlin Brewer, a painting major at Massachusetts College of Art and Design; they organized the multi-media event that incorporated music, live painting, a giant kaleidoscope, video images from the Northeastern class “Composing with Image and Sound,” and face painting.

“I thought it went pretty well. We had a little over 200 people come,” Rhodes said. “People stayed much longer than I thought they were going to. We were expecting people to come in and out as the day went on, because we were playing music for so long and recording most of the day, but a lot of people stayed there the entire time.”

Rhodes had a lot in mind for the event. He said the purpose of the mixed media was to create a “blending overlap of senses” for the audience.

“Just having music by itself is really, really great, but I feel like you can make it so much more if you include a lot of different aspects with it, and that’s where the visuals and creating artwork on site really helped out,” Rhodes said.

The majority of art on display was psychedelic-themed. The paintings were alive with swirls of color, and the images projected on the wall included scenes from old movies and artistic videos that reflected the strangeness of the human subconscious – like projections of cartoon words coming out of people’s mouths.

“Northeastern should have more of this stuff,” said Sophie Greenspan, a sophomore graphic design major who attended the event. “There’s not much of an art scene here. It’s nice to see this happening.”

There was a giant 2-by-5 foot kaleidoscope in one corner of the church, which was built by Brewer and her sister, and a table set up with free mini kaleidoscopes for the attendees.

“When we were talking about the concept of this show we worked in kaleidoscopes – it’s a multisensory way of looking at things,” Brewer said.

Attendees were invited to get involved with the interactive art pieces that were going on: People could contribute to a group art piece using water guns filled with crayola paint, watch as artists did live painting or have their skin painted by an artist.

“The body artist was working pretty much nonstop the whole time,” Brewer said. “She was doing her own original art on everyone it was a really neat thing to have.”

Rhodes said he thinks the Fenway Center is a Northeastern resource that “isn’t being utilized enough.” The advantage of the exhibit being held in a church, he said, was the type of sound the space allowed, such as reverb. Rhodes is happy with the way the recording came out, and said both Sand Reckoner’s loud songs and acoustic songs sounded great.

“[The church] was perfect,” Rhodes said. “I’ve always wanted to record in a really, really big open space like a barn or a church.”

Rhodes said the band is now working on mixing the recording, which he hopes to release in the next month. He said one raw track is already available online to download for free at Sand Reckoner’s bandcamp page.

In addition to the audio recording, the organizers of the Sensory Exhibit arranged for a number of videographers and photographers to document the show starting in its planning stages through to the cleanup and breakdown of the event.

Rhodes said they’re going to line up the aud - The Huntington News

Sand Reckoner is a band we’ve been stalking for some time now and their set at the Scott was everything I anticipated in the most unpredictable way possible. They couldn’t have picked a better night to introduce their new two-song demo, and did a hell of a job with both tunes, especially “Morning Star,” which saw Matthew Reverdy Rhodes whip out some heavy slide guitar licks. Whether they’re trading off instruments or sharing vocal duties, this trio shows immense talent and lots of promise. At points, they reflect modern shades of Zeppelin, with Benjamin Louis Hughes’ attack drumming style or Jonathan Lesh’s loose left-hand on the bass. At other points, they show a grungy recklessness that is more endearing and engaging than it is distracting. Sand Reckoner left me a bit zonked, and we were only halfway through the bill. - Allston Pudding

Since the 1960s, bands classified as "psychedelic" have been caught in the endless pursuit of trying to expand the senses beyond pure aural stimulation. The genesis of this sprawling galaxy of sight, touch, taste, and smell is a band's specific sound — the journey through sonics becomes a freeform expression in which diverse elements combine to create a single musical headtrip. The auxiliary bits orbit the band's creative identity, amassing a vibe that goes beyond mere music.

Sand Reckoner latched on to this aesthetic after crystallizing as a neo-psychedelic project in 2010. In March of last year the three Northeastern University students positioned themselves in their school's renovated house of worship, the Fenway Center, for what they dubbed the Sensory Exhibition. Surrounded by artists, designers, kaleidoscopes, video installations, and swirls of colorful creation, the multi-instrumentalist trio performed and recorded 38 songs over four hours. More than 200 people took in the experience.

"The idea was spurred on by the fact that we love reverb, and wish we could play all our songs in a church," guitarist/vocalist Jonathan Lesh said last week in Allston, a few blocks from where Sand Reckoner will release their debut full-length record tonight (April 5) at O'Brien's Pub. Drummer Benjamin Hughes says the performance had an even wider scope, in line with true psych-rock ethos community spirit: "As more artists became involved, it carried a greater appeal for everyone else."

That sort of inclusiveness is essential to the story of this trio of 21-year-olds. Hughes and bassist/vocalist Matt Rhodes — the brainchild of the Sensory Exhibition — had been playing together in their hometown of Doylestown, Pennsylvania, since age 11, and were joined by Lesh about five years later. The band's new record, a nine-song, homonymous album clocking in at 35 minutes, is a pinwheel of psychedelic sounds rooted in folk, blues, and '70s classic rock, with as many trippy, loud songs as gentle, dusty Americana numbers. But all the tracks, from the grunting guitar crunch of "Morning Star" to the folksy, spiraling hymnal "Veil," have the same sort of dirty, desert-trail vibe.

It's a noisy cohesion that works well, and immediately meshes with our city's ever-growing psych scene. The trio had been in town about a year as fresh-faced college students before Boston's psych scene — and bands like Ghost Box Orchestra, Quilt, and December Sound — took them in. Rhodes, in particular, has strong ties to Philly as a member of space-rock outfit Asteroid #4, but the band have found a true community here in Boston. "We moved here for school and then got serious with Sand Reckoner, so we really have no involvement in the Philly scene," Hughes says. "Coming up here has been a really welcoming experience."

Sand Reckoner is named after a work by second-century BC Greek scientist and mathematician Archimedes. "His paper called The Sand Reckoner basically was his way of estimating how many grains of sand it would take to fill up the universe," says Hughes. "He was the first one to work with such large numbers. I read the paper, thought it was a cool thing, and thought it would make a cool band name. It fits pretty well." But, adds Lesh, it still leaves something to the imagination: "Knowing our sound, it feels like it well-represents us, but I don't know that if you don't know our sound you'd automatically think Sand Reckoner is a psych-rock band. We wanted something thought-provoking. There aren't that many band names anymore that mean something."

Finding meaning in a name is all well and good, but in the end it's the songs that count. And after spending the past year crafting their album with Northeastern recording professor Jim Anderson — compiling more than 60 songs — Sand Reckoner is ready to soundtrack their identity. "It feels like the first time our recording can match the live show," says Lesh. "It's the first time we're proud enough of a reco - The Boston Phoenix

by Hana Nobel

(see www.myspace.com/thelonepinecones for newspaper clipping..it's on the homepage) - Huntington News

I’ve always felt that Sand Reckoner is the musical equivalent of the southwest desert lands. It seems completely appropriate then, that after going silent for two years, like a rattlesnake coming out of hibernation, they shed their old skin and come back as something slightly different — a step up the evolutionary ladder.

On title track, “Haunter,” they sound like the Sand Reckoner of old. Lots of grimy slide guitar and echo-filled, monotone vocals. It stands almost as a statement to the listener, “We may have evolved but we can still deliver the heavy stoner-rock sound with the best of them.”

The evolution I referred to earlier hits headlong on the epic, nine-minute “Priest.” The pace is slowed down to crawl — reminiscent of some of Earth’s finest instrumentals, while the underlying ballad is crooned in the style of Leonard Cohen. The song rolls through a series of cycles ranging from acoustic balladry to ultra-heavy bombast. In my humble opinion “Priest” is the crown jewel of Haunter and the perfect illustration of what this band is capable of.

Another new influence apparent on Haunter is the retro garage rock revival sound of bands like The Back Keys. That influence is most apparent on “Designer” and “Honest Man” which thin out the traditional Sand Reckoner sound in favor of crunchy, trebly guitars and tin-can vocals. It’s an exciting new direction for the band as they meld new influences into their already fantastic sound. (George Dow) - The Noise - Boston - George Dow