Austin Psych Fest II

fuck.
this line up was totally insane.
if only there was a festival that put this kind of stuff on in the uk.
ET : glad to hear it was ace .
i am v..v.v. jealous sir ..
brmc/warlocks/indian jewelry/goat/raveonettes/black angels/warpaint //
i mean seriously .. thats a friday night playlist @ ireallylovemusic hq

oh .. and thunderstorms + festivals = perfection ..
something about the intensity of nature and a festival.

One of the best moments so far was when Atsuo of Boris stood up through the on-stage smoke - mallet held aloft like a victorious Conan - and then just bashed the hell out a gong as the audience (tripping, high, drunk, tired, etc.) cheered him on.

http://www.austinchronicle.com/binary/0023/Boris_as_Atsuo__Shel_.jpg

Most WTF so far: Batoh’s Brain Pulse Music

http://www.austinchronicle.com/binary/5b0f/Masaki_Batoh__Shel_.jpg

fuck.

thats immense ..

[re boris]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDq0EFpqKzQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FeqJ9eGjeQY

did you see kaleidoscope?

Sure did! Terrific backing band with folks from Asteroid #4, BJM, etc. who had a real feel for the songs.

sweeeet

This looks fantastic, great photos too! I saw Batoh with his brain pulse machine in front of just a handful of people in Brighton last year. It was pretty far out, but I have to admit I was left wanting something more (it only went on for about 20 minutes iirc!). That was the first and only time I've ever seen him perform too. I guess that Michio Kurihara was there too w/ Boris?

Had to retweet this (re: Goat)

"it's gonna be some Wicker Man type shit"

I guess that Michio Kurihara was there too w/ Boris?

Nope, just the standard Boris lineup.

CLINIC! CLINIC! CLINIC! (was so happy to see them finally!)

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8396/8691140363_9142c4baab.jpg

Clinic were the very last band to play, but the people who were left were WAY into them (a crowd surfer even had their own surgical mask).

Also, I want to nominate Billy Gibbons as the Czar of the National Strategic Guitar Tone Reserve. Most of the Moving Sidewalks' set was your standard 1969-vintage psych blues, but hearing him bust out a couple of Hendrix covers was like seeing Mickey Mantle play baseball. Utterly timeless.

Took some video here and there... Will post at some point, but it's time to go westbound and down. Still need to perform my civic duty and listen to Tres Hombres in Texas.

"while driving through Texas" I mean.

First announcement for 2014 is pretty great:

http://noisey.vice.com/blog/get-psyched-for-austin-psych-fest

Headliners are fine and all, but imo this poster surges in the middle and finishes strong.

http://assets.noisey.com/content-images/contentimage/21040/APF2014-WEB.jpg

missin' the stank, but otherwise looks solid!

That is a nice variety.

The Golden Dawn!!!!

there is a small chance (depending on gf's grad school application results) that i may be living in austin in May, so i'd be pretty pumped to attend if i could!

Going again! Had such a great time at the last one.

http://www.austinchronicle.com/music/2014-02-07/playback-unlocking-infest/

Psych Fest's Second Movement

The Reverberation Appreciation Society confirms a second wave of acts performing at the seventh annual Austin Psych Fest May 2-4 at Carson Creek Ranch. Headliner Primal Scream has fallen off the bill following news last week that the Scottish rockers canceled their U.S. tour. "The cancellation of a top-billed artist is quite a blow for a small independent festival like Austin Psych Fest," admits festival organizer Rob Fitzpatrick. "While we did our best to try and keep them on the bill after the tour got scrapped, the band couldn't make it work." In their place, the Brian Jonestown Massacre, which headlined Psych Fest two years ago, and Dandy Warhols, the former act's co-stars in essential rock doc Dig! This second vetting, which comes in the wake of the APF's initial Dec. 4 announcement, heralds the return of Nigerian guitar slinger Bombino, who pairs nicely with fellow Saharan desert rockers Terakaft. Other notables joining previously announced psych festers Loop, the Zombies, the Horrors, Of Montreal, Black Lips, and Black Angels include garage-pop idol Mikal Cronin, Swedish retro-metallers Graveyard, and TV on the Radio side project Higgins Waterproof Black Magic Band. The Octopus Project leads a list of new locals: Pure X, Holy Wave, Roger Sellers, and Mirror Travel. Other new additions include Temples, Night Beats, Warlocks, Peaking Lights, Pink Mountaintops, the Fresh & Onlys, Bardo Pond, Asteroid #4, Sleepy Sun, Cosmonauts, Indian Jewelry, Elephant Stone, Golden Animals, Morgan Delt, Mark McGuire, Secret Colours, Doug Tuttle, and Les Big Byrd. "We know it will be the best year yet," enthuses Fitzpatrick, "regardless of this bump in the road."

More to the point: BARDO POND!

Rightly so.

oh man!!

I just bought tickets. Too many bands I've long wanted to see that won't be anywhere else near me.

ugh you guys i want to go to this SOOO BAD

is the venue nice? are we talking multiple stages here? if so, how badly do the sets conflict?

that Doug Tuttle album is awesome

Pictures above should give you an idea at least. Thought the venue was outstanding for what's basically a big park next to a river.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBS2G2zwj_Y

thanks for posting that video, it certainly seems to capture what it's like being there. huge help.

i wish more festivals spread their programming across multiple indoor venues in an urban settin as opposed to setting up stages in a giant field. like SXSW and MusicfestNW in Portland, although MFNW just changed from the former to the latter.

oh Elvis, man, i just scrolled up. somehow i had totally missed your 2013 reports/pics/vids. wouldn't have even asked my question if i had seen 'em. thanks.

The problem with multiple indoor venues are the lines to get in - makes stage-hopping very difficult if you have to keep waiting.

Medicine just added!

Also, there's some sort of pre-party going on with The Warlocks. More info as it comes in...

Anyone else here going?

I'm going. Won't catch the pre-show, but I'll be there for the fest itself.

Daily Lineups are up. Loop closing the festival:

http://www.austinpsychfest.com/daily-lineups-and-single-day-passes-released/

Annoyed that I have to choose between Medicine, Acid Mothers Temple, and The Horrors on Saturday night.

medicine

That's what I'm leaning towards even though I saw them last year.

Yeah, that's one of the worst overlaps. Leaning toward Medicine myself.

acid mothers were kind of a letdown when i saw them, might of just been an off night though

So, I still detest festivals, but this was pretty amazing.

pretty bummed I wasn't able to go

As I suspected, my favorite bands were the ones I had no clue about... La Femme's manic on-the-border-of-silly-but-totally-in-control garagesplatter mayhem. Kikagaku Moyo's utterly heroic transcendence (so badass they play the sitar standing up)

Loop was perfect. By Sunday, Psych Fest was in need of a serious Wire-like intensity to blow out the "hey man, keep Austin weird hippies" and Loop delivered. "Arc Light," "Mother Sky" and a light show the size of a drive-in movie theater was worth the drive and deficit spending to get out here.

Also, I met EZ Snappin! Subtract another degree of ILX separation.

Don't forget Zombie Zombie! No clue they'd be that much fun.

http://kinggizzardandthelizardwizard.com/album/float-along-fill-your-lungs

my coworker caught these guys, said they were amazing. this song is an entrancing behemoth.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzTfiZ7a2JY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rDW3fCoUAQ

FWIW there's shitty weather coming in (rain with possible flooding), and this event didn't seem ready to handle that.

It's the venue that is the issue, not the event organizers or anything they can control. It's a big open field by a river. The parking lot is a field. It'd be impassable in minutes with rain, and there's no cover for hail,tornados, etc.

that's a huge bummer for folks who came in from out of town for this... but you really, really don't want to be caught in a giant crowd in a flood-prone area during a flash flood here. I feel even worse for the organizers, because if the storms don't materialize, they're going to get (unfairly) savaged.

bright side: I now have a fighting chance to see Slowdive if they manage to rebook at another local venue!

Yeah, it seems like when a big selling point of your event is on-site camping, cancelling on those grounds is a no-brainer.

This could be a boon for other venues in Austin and surrounding markets if they could pick up some of the acts (although I don't know how much contract dodging that would entail).

And by "event not being ready to handle that", I meant having back-up venues in town or another--perhaps indoor--site ready, but otoh that is kind of nuts.

The logistics of a "just in case" backup for an event with three simultaneous stages and 10-15,000 fans is basically impossible. Would be nice, and I feel horrible for the promotors and the people that have traveled from all over the globe.

probably the tornadoes and extensive straight-line wind damage from tuesday night's storms made the county a little more conservative in their judgement... same conditions are forecast for friday night and the ground is pretty saturated.

bummer. i was contemplating heading out to at least one day of this. i think they obviously made the right decision.

XPS Wow, did not realize they were drawing that much. A just in case scenario there would only work if they were at a venue were they could just move everything inside and, you know, wasn't a three-day deal. (Many years ago a Houston date of the Warped tour got hampered by a huge rainstorm. The venue was the then-new Reliant Park--they were gonna do a half and half indoor outdoor setup but had move everything inside and just made the end time much much later (from 8:00 PM to 11-12-ish). Perhaps the venue took exception, because the a similar weather thing happened to the event a couple years later, and it was cancelled outright.

it seems like the brunt of the bad weather will be tomorrow evening, I'm surprised they didn't try to run on Sat. and Sun.

on the website they explain that they had to clear out of the grounds and wont have time to set up again.

Plus the grounds themselves will be muddy as fuck--not a problem for hippies, natch--but they'll have to re-sod the whole place afterwards (a similar thing happened to Zilker Park after an ACL Fest iirc).

i was at that ACL, got there early because i was volunteering and got to watch the grass slowly turn to sludge throughout the course of the day. it was pure mud -- i remember everyone walking around barefoot and thinking it was a bad idea and low and behold a good number of people got some weird skin condition!

two friends just flew down for this from NY...

all that scary weather everyone was panicked about is looking less and less likely to materialize, very typical Austin weather paranoia

All the scary weather went up I-35 to DFW.

and all the backup shows sold out instantly

Pictures from the Sleep, Boris, SunnO show show amplifier stacks worthy of MBV if not more. Worth searching instagram for picts.