Season 2 - Episode 4 :: "An Entry Into The Esoterica w/ James Toth (Wooden Wand)"

Season 2 - Episode 4 :: "An Entry Into The Esoterica w/ James Toth (Wooden Wand)"

From The Burning Nerve Ending Magic Podcast :: A Sun City Girls Story by The Self Portrait Gospel

January 28, 2026 · 1h 17m · Season 2 · Episode 4

About this episode

James Toth discusses the impact of the Sun City Girls and the cultural shifts in music during the 1990s.

Depending on when you where born, most people know exactly where they were, who they were with, and if it was on a school night, or not when Fugazi's "Repeater" was released, or "Facelift" by Alice In Chains, "Goo" by Sonic Youth, "People's Instinctive Travels and The Paths Of Rhythm" by A Tribe Called Quest in 1991, and rightfully so. These are just a just a few academic artifacts of a decade that was shifting significantly from the underground into the mainstream, and there was nothing you could do to stop it. But do you remember where you were, who you were with, and if it was on a school night, or not when the Tempe/Arizona-based group the Sun City Girls released their mythical masterpiece "Torch of the Mystics"? This week's guest, James Toth (Wooden Wand), does, and he's here to tell all. Having been a sonic staple in the New Weird America movement from the late 1990s and early 2000s, it was here that this culturally captivating climate influenced several artists, who were undoubtedly touched but the Girls' metaphysical magic. Toth recently wrote the lucid liner notes for the archival release of Paris 1942's "Birds in Their Cages" on Superior Viaduct back in the November…

People in this episode

Host: The Self Portrait Gospel

Guest: James Toth

Topics covered

  • music history
  • underground music
  • New Weird America
  • Sun City Girls
  • cultural influence
  • interviews

Keywords

  • Sun City Girls
  • James Toth
  • New Weird America
  • music influence
  • Torch of the Mystics

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Wooden Wand, Superior Viaduct, Three Lobed Recordings

Books & works: Torch of the Mystics, Repeater, Facelift, Goo, People's Instinctive Travels and The Paths Of Rhythm, Birds in Their Cages, Famous Asthma / Tibetan Jazz 666, Extra-Sensory Defection / Graverobbing

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