Shoot the Moon, the new live record from motorik psych outfit AUTOHAUs, is out June 15th, and from the first second, it’s clear this is no ordinary release. It’s a tribute, captured in one room on one weekend, to Kevin “Philly Kev” Morpurgo, an early champion of the band who passed in 2023. Kev was the one who first nailed AUTOHAUs in a phrase: “motorik psych with extra Kraut.” Shoot the Moon is what happens when the band gets to say thank you back.
The recording was made at a memorial weekender held in 2024 at Bar Nothing, Kev’s beloved venue, perched on the cliffs of Cliftonville in Margate, the sea right outside the window. The band was invited to play, but as the press notes describe it, “this was less like a conventional show and more like a gathering: a chance to celebrate Kev’s life, his music, and the community he built around him.”
To understand the gravity of the day, you have to know Kev’s resume. He was a founding member of the Philadelphia grunge band Dandelion in the early ’90s, moved to London, where he played in The Hells, and more recently was part of the uncompromising noise-rock project Dethscalator. Alongside the bands, he ran venues and promoted shows. AUTOHAUs invited friends of both the band and Kev to sit in for the memorial: Dan Lyons (Fat White Family, Brian Jonestown Massacre) and Jonny Halifax (the Jonny Halifax Invocation) showed up to add vocals to what became a mostly improvised, motorik-led set.
The result is four tracks of pure communal psych. “Golgotha” opens with Dan Lyons delivering an improvised spoken piece over an extended introduction. “Horizons of Their Minds” follows, the band locked in on that signature kraut chassis, Glenn Howard’s bass keeping the engine humming. “You Know Nothing About Cars or Martial Arts” is the most direct gesture of the set, with AUTOHAUs covering Dethscalator’s own song with Jonny Halifax on vocals, performed with the blessing of Kev’s bandmates. The closer, “Keep Walking Weird,” was recorded at Bar Nothing back in October 2022, when Kev was still very much there to hear it. Including it here is a quiet act of love.
The whole thing was mastered by Ali Renault at Dream Machine Studios, which preserves the room’s live air and spit. If you’ve had Neu!’s “Hallogallo” on repeat lately, or the slow-burn end of GNOD, or any of the Brian Jonestown Massacre records that lean hardest into the krautrock rails, Shoot the Moon will land. Fans of Goat, Moon Duo, Fat White Family, and the kraut revivalists who actually understand what made the originals tick should dig this one. More importantly, it sounds like exactly what it is, a roomful of people honoring someone they loved by doing the thing he loved.
Leave a Reply