When I lived in London me and my friends had this inside joke that when somebody partied (way) too hard he’d graduate from being a friendly fiend to being a goddamn ghoul.

I can’t say San Francisco’s Cool Ghouls are on that same distorted wavelength all the time, but by the looks of this wake & bake/instant day party video they are riding on top of it – and with songs like this guiding you, I guess you’d be riding high too.

On Queen Sophie they sound like a band that started playing The Matrix in 1965, got cryogenically frozen in late ’66 and was woken up 5 years later — they don’t really take into consideration the rise and fall of the hippie and its music, but rather take the the excitement of what led to it and the leveling that came right after it. In other words it’s the grit of early SF bands like the The Great! Society mixed with a sunny sprinkle of The Mamas & Papas’ Somebody Groovy pa-pa-pa-yeah refrain, stirred in Link Wray’s Fire and Brimstone cauldron, and served in a Flying Burrito, brother.

Listen and watch Queen Sophie’s party train below and go get their self-titled album, out on Empty Cellar Records here.