Portable Shrines

The psychotropic Victoria Renard of Austin, Texas, graciously documented the Psych Fest II that is held before that music industry orgy referred to as SXSW….having fully recovered from 2 straight weeks of shows this is her account of the Psych Fest…

When you live in a town that greets you with a sign at the airport “Welcome to Austin, TX: The Live Music Capitol Of The World” and there’s an approximate 50 music fests per year and at least 150 operating music venues per night excluding sushi joints, vintage shops, backyard BBQ’s and grocery stores you tend to get a little lazy, even complacent about getting out to see live music. Not such the case when it comes to the annual Austin Psych Fest. The first of the “annual” tradition started last year in 2008 the week before the much anticipated/dreaded South By Southwest music festival by event organizer Adam Demetri of Live Music Capitol and Austin’s guardian angel of psychedelia, Christian Bland of The Black Angels.

Psych Fest was conceived as a tribute to the legendary 1960′s psychedelic venue Vulcan Gas Company which hosted local bands 13th Floor Elevators, Moving Sidewalks, and The Golden Dawn as well as a mixture of experimental and roots music like The Velvet Underground, Moby Grape, Big Mamma Thorton, Muddy Waters, and Mississippi Fred McDowell. Whereas the Austin Psych Fest kicked off in 2008 at the inconspicuous Red Barn in north Austin it made it’s sophomore effort at the newly opened Radio Room on 6th Street, Austin’s equivalent to Bourbon Street, in 2009. Joined this year by powerhouse publicist Jennifer Marchand of Bleu French Laundry Productions, who organized day long music fests tributing the year 1967 in music and John Lennon, Austin’s annual Psych Fest was a little more determined to bring the music to the masses: “the masses” being nostalgic local hippies, Spring Breakers, and foreigners (anyone outside the Texas border) with high dollar South By Southwest badges. As a South By Southwest “lifer”, I feel like five days of 24/7 live music and an influx of 70,000 visitors is total sensory overload… but what better time to bring the cream of the proverbial crop ranging from today’s reigning sounds of neo-psychedelia to the real deal 1960′s performers responsible for the whole tripped out mess?

Day 1 of Psych Fest:

I need to start off my review of Psych Fest with a disclaimer: I am late for everything. I told you, it comes from the pure complacency of being spoiled with great live music every day of my life should I choose to indulge in it and finances allowing. So to Woven Bones, who opened up the first night of Psych Fest, I missed you but we live in the same damn town so I promise to be there next time. Lower Heaven from L.A. are startling and dramatic like a Baudelaire poem meets the Cocteau Twins. If I ever needed to score a beautiful and lush dream sequence to a beautiful dream, they’d be my first choice. The Golden Dawn are contemporaries of the 13th Floor Elevators and, some say, mimic the Elevator’s style. Anyone who bothered to listen to the forgotten classic, “Power Plant”, would know better. Experimental sound applied in a way which would not be heard until later versions of prog rock resonate throughout. The Golden Dawn recreated their original vision in a live format which sometimes ventured into the Stevie Ray Vaughn style “white boy blues” stem which 1 out of 10 central Texans will revile and the other 9 will scream “blasphemy” when criticized. Finally, The Black Angels. My personal feelings are that they are the friendliest most humble group of rock & roll honest to goodness group to inhabit Austin, TX. I am glad they are the famous hometown band and I will never grow tired of seeing them play live over and over again until we all retire to the Rock & Roll Retirement Home should such a heaven on earth could exist. If they play Austin’s 20th Annual Psych Fest I would hope to be there along with them. I’ve seen some of the former 13th Floor Elevator’s fans and groupies still holding the torch and it is more than endearing.

Day 2 of Psych Fest:

Note to self: most people operate during daylight hours, so should you.
I know, I know. Arriving places after sundown is chic and all but if my first point of business is to check out all these great bands and not be a jerk.
You have to understand, not only do I require a bit of time to put myself together but I am also carting people around town as they arrive for South by Southwest music week, fixing breakfast, lunch, dinner for the elderly and recovering from a severe hangover which was poorly planned in light of the upcoming week of potential hangover disasters.
I missed:
8pm: Indian Jewelry (Houston/LA)
7pm: Daughters of the Sun (Minneapolis)
6pm: Shapes Have Fangs (Austin)
5pm: The Shine Brothers (Austin)
4pm: Astronaut Suit (Austin)
3pm: The Tunnels (Austin)
2pm: Smoke and Feathers (Austin)
1pm PJ and the Bear (Austin)

I spent a good deal of time trying to track down Golden Animals (hitting seattle 4.10.09 @ the comet), once I got to the Radio Room, so I could chat with them and take some photos which never happened because I parked myself front and center for Wooden Shjips (droning out seattle 4.11.09 @ the comet).

If you aren’t prepared for a contiguous, linear listening experience without much fluctuation between excitement and comatose then skip Wooden Shjips. I made the mistake of visiting the rest room in the middle of their set to overhear, “OMG! This band sounds like they are playing the same song over and over! I wish they would totally, like, stoooop!”. Why this sorority sister would choose to, like, totally attend a 3 day psychedelic music fest is beyond me. I think Blink 182 were, like, totally playing three blocks away. For real!

I’m allergic to pot. What happens to me when I smoke pot? I die. I feel like I’ve missed out on many great stoner type experiences in life, such as thoroughly appreciating Black Sabbath as they should be appreciated due to my intolerance to THC. Some bands have fog machines. I believe Dead Meadow have pot smoke machines entirely generated by their own audience. Yes, come to Austin, Texas where public pot smoking at rock shows is not only ignored by the po-po but practically endorsed. Ecstasy used to be offered for free at the bar as an alternative to driving home drunk back in the late 70′s so whatever, right? Steve Kille, bass for D.M., walks on stage with a gallon sized jug of Jack Daniels. At least 2/3 of it was gone. Did he share it? Did he drink it? No one knows for sure but it sat rather satisfactorily mid-stage throughout their entire set as the green fog rolled in.

Before I really touch on the whole drugs and psychedelic music subject I should bring up, Sky Saxon, the finale for day two of Psych Fest. It’s actually very sweet that a man can be captured and frozen in an amber-like stasis of innocence. Iphones and Twitter mean nothing to Sky Saxon and the pursuit of a pretty girl and an unfettered day by the a placid stream do. Sky Saxon is lost in time but what a wonderful time to be lost in. Backed by Austin’s Shapes Have Fangs he brought “Pushin Too Hard” and “Can’t Seem To Make You Mine” as if channeling a former self. He was vulnerable but still commanding as if the last 30 years really never happened.

Day 3 of Psych Fest:

This was the day. And night, as my own clock would time it.
This is what I missed:
4pm: Miranda Lee Richards (LA)
3pm: Christian Bland & The Revelators (Austin)
2pm: Cavedweller (Austin)
1pm: Cartright (Austin)

This is what I witnessed:

The Vandelles!
I love this band more than any other psych band right here and right now!
Beach Party movie on LSD.
A tree grows in Brooklyn shaped like an amalgamation of the African Baobob and a Mandrake root and it is The Vandelles.
This is the only band I know who can send sensitive emo types plugging their ears and screaming for mercy to stop the white noise in every direction.
Furthermore, there was a sign posted outside of the Radio Room that read “WARNING: Strobe lights in use. May cause seizures” but no warning that read “The Vandelles in use. May cause aural orgasms”. They are the loudest band since My Bloody Valentine and so energetic I felt like I was jumping on a big ol’ trampoline their entire set.
I don’t take photos of live bands much anymore because I feel like if you’ve seen one guy with a guitar, you’ve seen them all. “And besides”, I often say to myself as I walk away from the stage after the third song trying to tuck away my shame as the chump with a camera, “it’s not like they are gonna light their shit on fire”. So what do The Vandelles go an do? LIGHT THEIR SHIT ON FIRE! The Vandelles apologized to the audience for not having their first full length limited release CD “Del Black Aloha” not ready in time for Psych Fest. I was one of the first to receive it and it has not left my CD player since.

The Asteroid #4:
I blocked out my ears so I could dismiss the cries from the ladies in the audience of “cutest band at Psych Fest” and realize that The Asteroid #4 are quite actually The Stone Roses incarnate. The only way I could fully dig the Asteroid #4 was at a distance with the visual projections  provided by Nico Dominguez of Philadelphia (the rest of the projections which prevailed throughout Psych Fest were provided by Adam Demetri who does all the visuals for The Black Angels and Scott Conn who directed the very informative slice-of-life documentary about the Austin psychedelic scene in the 60′s “A Dirt Road To Psychedelia”).  If I didn’t know the Asteroid #4 were from Philadelphia and it was the year 2009, I’d swear I was in “Madchester” circa 1985. Not that I was there… but I saw the movie.

The Warlocks:
How can you shake the dope out when you can’t even shake the dope in? The Radio Room is a rather sterile place to host a psychedelic music fest. I wanted to pitch a tent and not pay $4 for a Miller. Or wade through an inch of standing waste water in the bathroom, or sit on unfinished plywood benches or sink into a quicksand like gravel pit which was laid out from the front of the stage to the back of the band viewing area. It seemed to me the Radio Room was not the Ready Room as they scrambled to open for the first time moments before South By Southwest music week began. Totally no dope, not dope at all.
As much as the city of Austin is not really a city by some people’s standards it is still a city. The Radio Room is centered in the center of said “city”. The future efforts of the annual Psych Fest in Austin is evidently supposed to take place at a Swiss Family Robinson style resort of a venue on the banks of the Colorado River just a couple of miles east of downtown, Bill’s Place. Bonfires and good times abounded later in SXSW Music Week as I ended up there two nights in a row until 5:30 in the morning with good friends in what seemed a never ending waves of psychedelic music. The Warlocks not only played an excellent, tightly knit set at Psych Fest but a very loose and inspired one later on in the week at Bill’s Place while Nate Ryan from The Black Angels sat in on guitar. The Warlocks may be cooling it a bit on the tour end but will be releasing a new album any day now, some of which you can check out on the latest Tee Pee Records sampler .

A Place to Bury Strangers:
What?! I’m sorry, I still can’t here you a week and a half later because I left my earplugs somewhere at the bottom of my camera bag when A Place To Bury Strangers played the final set of Psych Fest’s three day journey through varying musical strains in the key of A minor and guitar feedback. No, I’m not old. I just don’t want to end up like Pete Townsend. It wasn’t merely a loud set, however, it was a powerful ending to a great weekend.

I’ll have some live video footage from Psych Fest coming at you soon too…

Spindrift were touring around Texas during Psych Fest weekend and didn’t make it to Austin until later in the week…..i was able to grab some shots of them playing at The Beauty Bar in downtown Austin on Friday, March 20th….

Some more photos from Psych Fest II…