Chuck Prophet & The Mission Express, Kris Gruen
Since his neo-psychedelic Green On Red 80s days, Chuck Prophet has been turning out country, folk, blues, and Brill Building classicism. His last visit to European and UK shores with the Mission Express was way back in 2017, before the pandemic and before Chuck getting and finally beating cancer that floored him for much of this year. Chuck is back and better than ever with his Mission Express for his first European shows in six years.
The cult Californian musician finally returns to promote ‘The Land That Time Forgot’, his latest album out via Yep Roc Records which saw his best reviews to date with a UNCUT Album of the Month in addition he will have an exclusive tour album available at all shows. Priced out of recording in his beloved hometown, San Francisco, Prophet found himself re-energised in Upstate NY, just a few miles from the Vermont border, and made a record that he describes as “just as much a 21st-century exorcism as it is Americana.” The songs inhabit a world where the protagonists might be on the run from the truant officer, a handsy boss or the Immigration Service. These are love songs that turn political on a dime, infused with personal connections. Especially some of the more social material grows out of Chuck’s evolution after an upbringing in a Republican Party household. In his singular way, the album charts the slow-collapse of the party: from ‘Honest Abe Lincoln’s’ funeral train. through a childhood in Richard Nixon’s hometown, all the way to the playful mockery of the disc’s closer, about the clown who currently eats cheeseburgers in the Oval Office.
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