The Love Dimension

The Love Dimension is an energetic San Francisco-based Psychedelic 60s Pop band that’s playing quite a bit in the Bay Area. Platon Mag inquired to know more…

Could you tell us a bit about The Love Dimension’s line up and history?

Jimmy: The Love Dimension was started in the fall of 2008. After a long break from music, I came back to it with fresh eyes, ears and an open heart. It was very much inspired by a lot of the spiritual teachings I was studying at the time. The music to me is about awakening. Both the pain and pleasure of that process. It is about the natural evolution that each of us goes through as we wake up to the bigger picture and begin to move towards wholeness and oneness.

The Love DimensionThe band’s line up is continually shape shifting and changing. There’s been about 15 different band members over the past two years. For a while I was trying to get a solid stable lineup together, but seems as the though the Love Dimension doesn’t want to take any specific shape or form for too long. I’ve accepted it more recently and just decided to keep it more as a collective. Then I can just check into who is available to play and put a band together for each show.

Its kind of nice in a way, because each show is a different experience. It can be stressful though when it comes to booking shows, because I just have to trust that things will come together and workout somehow.

Its also been a great lesson in detachment and the impermanence of things on the physical plane.

How would you define the type of music you guys play?

Jimmy: It’s pretty diverse. Most of the time we play as a 60’s influenced Psychedelic Garage band. But depending on the lineup, it can sometimes sound more punk. We do acoustic sets as well that take on a more bluegrass folky type of vibe. Recently we even played a country set under the name the Lonesome Dimension. It was great. We did some originals along with Hank Williams and other covers. I really enjoy just adapting the Love Dimension to the show and/or venue. It really helps to keep it fresh and fun not only for us but for the people who come out to see us play live

Has the Love Dimension released anything?

Jimmy: We’ve released a 4 song CD EP and 7 inch single so far. We have a 4 song 7 inch EP that is scheduled to come out on Judas! Records in May. We also have two full lengths that are recorded and ready to go. We are trying to shop those around to various labels to see if we can get some help releasing them.

What are your projects after this show?

Jimmy: Well, we have a show the next night at the Gingerbread House in San Jose. Also have some shows up in Portland in mid March and working on an east coast tour for May.

Anything else you want to add?

Jimmy: Follow your heart in life and in all things you do. It always knows best.

Friday March 4th @ the Uptown, Oakland w/
The Love Dimension
The Ferocius Few
Hosannas
Cleveland Browns

The Love Dimension CD is available at the Amoeba stores in SF and Berkeley, and at Rasputin’s in Berkeley. - Platon Mag

July 20, 2010
Online Review: The Love Dimension
By: Kevin Minnick

San Francisco psychedelic crooners The Love Dimension's new self-titled EP rambles along like a weary drifter, aching for solace in a loveless landscape. This album is all about searching in some way - whether it's heading West or looking inside to find meaning in life. As the band's name suggests, love is the answer.

Lead singer Johnny L. Dias channels Johnny Cash in opening track "I Found Gold" as he sings of "traveling out West in search of a new style," only to realize the searching he needs to do is inward. Sounds a bit cliche, but the lead guitar's psychedelic twang is downright eerie at times - think "Ring of Fire" on acid. The rest of the album doesn't quite match the intensity of "I Found Gold," but there are still nuggets to be found. "Lighthouse in Your Mind" and "Living in Atlantis" have pop polish and uplifting chord progressions that give the EP some musical variety amid the country leanings, but the lyrical content remains the same: The Love Dimension are searching, always searching.

Closing track "Look To The Sky," cradled by a soothing background raga drone, is another homage to the lone drifter, in which Dias contemplates a life of fruitless searches. The slow, tired feel to the song seems to suggest that The Love Dimension have ceased their wandering ways. Laying the album to rest with a closing chorus of "My soul now has a home," The Love Dimension seem to have finally found satisfaction. Lets hope they don't rest on it for good. - Performer Magazine

Alma Mahler
Reviewed 2010-08-03
Psychedelic alt country with steel guitar and indie rock 60s pop with sitar (say that right and you may get a rhyme outta it). A pretty tripped out mix of sounds across these 4 songs. I liked 1 & 2 best. No FCCs.

(1) * Rolling alt.country rhythm with awesome steel guitar and good male vocals (2) * 60s pop and the sound is right on, I woulda guessed it was legit 60s.... (3) Indie rock with 60s elements vibe to this track – still catchy – has female backing vox (4) Sitar kicks this one off! slow spiritual. same great croony male vocals. - KZSU Radio Online Review

What's so good?

San Francisco has it all: beautiful parks, friendly inhabitants, delectable restaurants, and mind-blowing musical talent. With a community so collectively interested in local bands, it’s no surprise that The Love Dimension has gained a great following in the Bay Area.

Made up of Celeste Obomsawin, Raphael Wayman Davis, Sean Carney, Dave Polk, and lead vocalist Jimmy L. Dias, The Love Dimension takes the Bay Area by storm booking gigs all across San Francisco and regularly playing shows at Ghosttown Gallery and The Fuzzplex in downtown Oakland.

“The Dark Night of Your Soul” from their 7? vinyl welcomes back 60s-rooted psychedelic rock with developing guitar progressions and retro organ drones reminiscent of The Doors Waiting for the Sun era circa 1968 (may I also mention that Dias sounds strikingly similar to a modern-day Morrison?). The illuminating lyrics are beautifully orchestrated with disquieting depths: “The journey you’ve embarked on, it can be long and challenging. But if you try you may find your way, through the dark night of your soul.”

The fast-paced upbeat succession of ”The Lighthouse in Your Mind” opens up this gate of stampeding vibrations, making the listener just want to close their eyes and give into the fluctuating beats that are taking over their body. This intoxicating atmosphere of periodic oscillation brought to you by The Love Dimension is unparalleled to what their live shows offer. If you live in the Bay Area, it is imperative that you see them in all their glory. Go to the bar, grab a beer, and once the crowd starts forming a dance circle, join in and let the music take over.

A local paper described the band as such: “From funky bass lines to original lyrics that shine light through the spectrum of love and the inner journey, The Love Dimension successfully rocks the audience out of their minds, into their hearts, and onto the dance floor.” - Indie Shuffle

Is it just me being a harbinger of music to come or is this a trend that the masses are influencing? I find myself being drawn to more music with overt 60’s derivations. Bands like Best Coast and Cults on the pop side then Tame Impala and new Smashing Pumpkins (see the latest “Spangled,” “A Stitch in Time” or “Astral Planes”) on the psychedelic front.

San Francisco’s The Love Dimension oozes retro-rock glory. “Dark Night of Your Soul” floats on a cloud of organ notes, weed, and love grounded by fuzzy guitars and lead by Jimmy Dias’s vocals – a sort of Eric Burdon tinged with Jim Morrison. In fact, TLD comes across like The Animals resurrected through the vessel of BRMC. “Living in Atlantis” continues the garage barrage with a touch of The Strokes coursing through it.

“I Found Gold” adds a subtle twist to the psychedelic party by harkening the journeyman sounds of Johnny Cash with a quick strumming guitar and a drilling snare cadence whipped by brushes. It makes you feel like you’re on the open road or walking into a Quentin Tarantino scene.

kissesandnoise_the-love-dimension_album-review2The Love Dimension walk a very thin line between derivative late 60’s flower rock and nuanced hat-tipping to a bygone era with their slavish attention to genre. The token sounds of tambourine, Hammond organs, and fuzzed-out guitars loaded with reverb could, in the wrong hands, evoke the term, “knock-off.” TLD manage to pull it off with grit and passion while re-introducing new ears to a straight-forward interpretation of rock n roll – something to be admired and noticed in a market of squawking electronic indie music. - Kisses & Noises

LIVE REVIEW: The Love Dimension
The Hemlock Tavern
San Francisco, CA
April 3, 2010
By: Zachary D. Rymer
May 2010

I arrived at San Francisco's Hemlock Tavern equipped with an admittedly modest preconception of the Love Dimension. In my mind, they were a perfectly capable band with an affinity for the vibes of the deeper roots of psychedelic rock. At the very least, I knew the band had six members. Notions such as these became obsolete the second they appeared. Nine people dressed like Terry Gilliam characters took the stage, carrying at least twice as many instruments. The band's sense of multiplicity showed conspicuously on each of its members. Celeste Obomsawin, a sort of all-purpose performer, had a case at her feet that was brimming with maracas, washboards and other percussion apparatuses. Guitarist Jimmy Dias embodied his role as the ringleader by dressing like a redcoat officer, poised to charge the field armed only with his Fender Jaguar.

Variety is undoubtedly the Love Dimension's modus operandi. And thankfully, it showed in their performance too. The discordant guitar style of songs like "Got Gratitude" and "Dark Night of Your Soul" were delightfully reminiscent of Barrett-era Floyd. The band would then turn the trumpets and the harmonicas up to 11 for songs like "Lighthouse In Your Mind," and you'd be moving your feet and shaking your hips to a funky blues tune. The fast-paced rhythm of "I Found Gold" gave off vibes of an old Western TV serial, transforming the Hemlock into the OK Corral ?for a few fleeting moments.

The crowd fairly devoured every flavor they whipped up in their 45-minute set, myself included. If this is typical of their live shows, ?then the Love Dimension is clearly out to prove themselves as musical ?chameleons. This is not only unique in my experience, but admirable. I have never felt better to find out that I knew nothing about anything.

http://www.myspace.com/thelovedimension

Photographer: Zachary D. Rymer - Performer Magazine