★★★★★
The Mother Hips formed in a dorm room in the sleepy college town of Chico, Calif., more than 20 years ago. In that time they've dealt with the usual rock and roll frills--intra-band drama, substance abuse, lineup changes and getting dropped from a major label (the Hips were on Rick Rubin's American Recordings in the mid-'90s alongside the Black Crowes, Danzig and Slayer)...
- www.pastemagazine.com
2013-07-12
★★★★★
I've been a Mother Hips fan for over twenty years. I was living in Chico, California during the bands dorm days at CSU. I was still searching, after eons of Dead tour, for a place to call home. While enjoying the magic of Maui and traversing that tiny island for the sound that would carry me into the future I picked up a Back to the Grotto cassette. That relic crystallized my vision and I realized that I needed to move back to Chico to be around The Mother Hips...
- www.jambands.com
2013-07-10
★★★★★
Formed 20 years ago at California's Chico State, The Mother Hips have personified the "greatest band you never heard of" for years. In the course of seven albums, founders Tim Bluhm and Greg Loiacono have alternated between riff-heavy rockers such as "Stoned up the Road" to Workingman's Dead-era Grateful Dead acoustic harmonies, but never have achieved the success of say, the Black Crowes or The Jayhawks...
- www.ink19.com
2011-11-24
★★★★★
In honor of The Mother Hips' 20th anniversary, the band and its archivist poured over countless hours of old tapes to create this four-disc box set full of previously unreleased material. Days of Sun & Grass: Unreleased Outtakes, Demos, B-Sides and Live Cuts from Chico's Very Own 1990-2001 is not the complete story of the Hips. Instead, it captures the spirit of the band's definitive early days, roughly leading up to the two year hiatus that threatened to kill the group...
- www.relix.com
2011-11-24
★★★★★
A long time ago (the early '90s, to be exact), the Mother Hips had about as much chance as any other band to be the next big thing in a music landscape booming with "grunge" and "alternative" bands. It never happened. Despite tuneful songs, major label signings, and plenty of talent, the Mother Hips never quite caught on...
- www.popmatters.com
2011-01-20
★★★★★
Sound: For 15 years in the industry The Mother Hips (singer/guitarist Greg Loiacono, vocalist/guitarist Tim Bluhm, bassist Paul Hoaglin, drummer Mike Wofchuck) have experienced everything possible -? drugs, switching labels, being on stage with stars like Johnny Cash, but they still didn't make it to being big. After 2001's slump "Green Hills Of The Earth," singer/guitarist Greg Loiacono left the band and other members started looking for luck in different directions...
- www.ultimate-guitar.com
2010-06-19
★★★★★
The Mother Hips aren't a boring band. Like so many other retro influenced bands taking cues from the majors of the 60's era sound, they sound as though they genuinely worked to make their fifth album, Green Hills Of Earth (named after the Heinlein sci-fi novel), a little bit different. For some time, The Mother Hips filled the ever so wonderful "hippie" niche, playing for the likes of the H.O.R.D.E...
- www.lostatsea.net
2010-02-19
★★★★★
It's sort of comical that most bands object (one way or another) to being compared to other bands. Usually, even if the comparison is good, the band will pass off some artist bullshit like "we'd like to think that what we have is totally ours." You get the idea. Of course, the labels seem to like comparisons. After all, namedropping a band in a press release (Fugazi and Tortoise are popular choices nowadays) is an excellent way to get a critic interested in the band...
- www.adequacy.net
2009-07-21
★★★★★
It may, initially, seem a good idea to combine one part Matthew Sweet with a dash of Pavement and a pinch of CSNY. Unfortunately the result on Kiss the Crystal Flake is more akin to CSI-NY, the bastard cousin of everyone's favorite procedural drama. Vegas has showgirls, Miami has David Caruso, but New York has... the chick from Providence...
- www.filter-mag.com
2009-06-12
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