Words by Michael Pinchera / Photos by Dian Barber
Not even the promise of filth could ruin
the 2014 Austin Psych Fest as the breadth of the event, psychedelic music, and
its fans continues to grow year over year.
The forecast of clear weather for
the entire three-day festival brought smiles to the thousands of people that
trekked out to Carson Creek Ranch—there would be no torrential rainfall as
happened one messy evening last year, the first time the event incorporated
camping. These early days in May would have warm afternoons, cool nights and
some refreshing breeze, perfect for an outdoor gathering of tribes. However,
most areas of Texas (including Austin) are experiencing an ongoing, yearslong
drought. Combine that with the foot traffic, staff and security four-wheel
vehicles, and intense reverberation from the sound systems at the three stages
and we were all on a planet transforming into Arrakis. Dirt was everywhere.
Small dust devils (imagine tiny tornadoes that don’t cause any damage) sprang
to life all weekend. The dirt particulates were so prevalent that many of those
camping only bathed once (if at all) because upon emerging clean from the
restroom, they would quickly be re-coated, inside and out, with dirt.
There
was also a recurring thread in my head during the subsequent festival days:
This event is one of the destinations where “burners” are going instead of the
summer Nevada-desert-based temporary autonomous zone Burning Man, following
that event’s meteoric overpopulation. Given the Austin Psych Fest’s visible
growth, at least one attendee wondered out loud if the 2015 edition would
institute a lottery system, like Burning Man, to randomly determine who can buy
tickets first. I simply wondered, “Did the burners bring all of this dirt with
them?”
DUSTED
A long queue awaited me to initially enter
the campground because the security guards were searching all baggage. One of
the guards erroneously bellowed, “No weapons or fire!” to which smart comments
erupted from those roasting in the sun-soaked procession: “So I’ve got to bring
the fire back to me car?” and “I hope you’re not smuggling fire in your
pocket.” Presumably a financial matter (for insurance and profit), this measure
was primarily to weed out weapons and alcoholic beverages—the latter of which
could, of course, be purchased once inside Carson Creek Ranch.
During the hour-long wait/natural tanning
session, my examination of the festival’s audience began in earnest. I’d
already met attendees from throughout the U.S., but I was thrilled to see that
the international contingent was still in effect. Queued up, I spoke with two
twentysomethings from Jakarta, Indonesia, who extended their American vacation
upon learning about the Austin Psych Fest. In the campground, my most immediate
neighbor included a young man from Manchester, England, who was sharing a tent
with a pair of gals from Toronto, Canada. I also quickly encountered, among the
sea of humanity, people I’d met at last year’s festival who had once again
traveled from as far away as Australia and France to soak up the best
psychedelic music and vibes available in the world. Notably, even though he
didn’t travel far, Thor (the tent mallet god last year) unknowingly set up camp
perhaps three metres from me. The vibes grew ever more pleasant and the
comfortable community feel first experienced in 2013 came back to me—this was
already becoming a reunion.
As fans explored the festival grounds
that first afternoon, many paused near the Elevation Amphitheatre (a
medium-sized staging area on the banks of the Colorado River) to take a photo
of or quizzically look upon this sign nailed to a tree:
It’s otherwise tempting to cool off in
the stunning waters of the longest river (almost 1,400 km) to begin and end in
Texas. Similarly, this was to be a long, exhilarating, and exhausting weekend,
even though the clear day topped out at a mere 28 degrees Celsius when Gap Dream took to the river stage.
During this performance, I met one of the aforementioned burners—a university
biology professor from Washington State—who’d had enough of the ever-crowded
Burning Man and already found bliss at the spacious Austin Psych Fest,
searching for and observing the native amphibian and reptilian wildlife.
It’s otherwise tempting to cool off in
the stunning waters of the longest river (almost 1,400 km) to begin and end in
Texas. Similarly, this was to be a long, exhilarating, and exhausting weekend,
even though the clear day topped out at a mere 28 degrees Celsius when Gap Dream took to the river stage.
During this performance, I met one of the aforementioned burners—a university
biology professor from Washington State—who’d had enough of the ever-crowded
Burning Man and already found bliss at the spacious Austin Psych Fest,
searching for and observing the native amphibian and reptilian wildlife.
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Quilt Chilling by the Colorado River
|
The first to deliver international flair
to the river stage was the African Tuareg group Terakaft. It’s sobering to discover such musicians for which some
people the world over already swoon—and have been doing so for decades. Like
listening to Os Mutantes or a Peruvian chicha band for the very first time more
than a generation after they originally recorded music, this show was a
reminder that there are, have been, and will continue to be countless
psychedelic gems about which you’ve never heard, singing in hundreds of
languages. Savvy musicologists, the Internet and globalization, however, are
helping to unearth these performers and place them in front of new eyes and
ears on an international scale.
The four members of Terakaft took the
stage each dressed in a reflection of their culture: the two Tuareg guitarists,
from Algeria and Mali, in turbans and extensively embroidered traditional
indigo-colored ankle-length robes; the Pakistani tablaist (playing what looked
to be a wooden box that was some sort of magical electric tabla) in a white,
subtly embroidered, airy short-sleeved shirt and jeans; the Canadian bassist in
a light blue, long-sleeved button-up shirt open with a plain white undershirt
and jeans.
“Recursive blues” may be the best way in
which to describe that element of Terakaft’s music. The blues developed from
work songs and spirituals in post-slavery Southern U.S. African-American
communities. That sound made its way all around the world and influenced the
music of the repressed and exiled Tuareg people who, ironically, favor the blue
of indigo dye. In the final turn, here was an act with two Tuareg musicians,
playing their music—exhibiting Middle Eastern, Spanish, and blues influences—in
the American south.
An incredible story only bolstered by
Terakaft’s talent which mesmerized the audience for what felt like a too-short
set as each song could have continued pleasantly for 15 minutes. Halfway
through the show, a bearded and dreadlocked young man wearing a sleeveless
shirt and a sari-style skirt (typical Burning Man attire, if such a thing
exists) began whirling and dancing wildly in front of the stage. His physical
expression of excitement spread as he invited a young woman to join him. Within
the course of one song, at least a dozen people spanning generations and
nationalities had been recruited or joined the dancing pit on their own accord,
kicking up more and more dirt with each hop, spin and step. Alas, Terakaft
stood out as a special variety of psych music and in doing so began stretching
the perception (albeit, culturally) of those at the festival.
 |
| Terakaft Plays as the Audience Dances up a Dirt Cloud |
I overheard the multicultural expanse of
psychedelic music being discussed by some fans on the first day: “Is there any
psychedelic rap?” one asked. Indeed, for a genre that includes varieties of
most musical stylings—ambient, blues, doom, folk, funk, industrial, metal,
noise, pop, punk, reggae, rock—one area not represented well is rap. I pointed
the inquisitive psychonauts to the late DJ Screw (pioneer of “screwed and
chopped” music) who often made rap psychedelic. What dub is to reggae, screwed
and chopped is to rap. DJ Screw is the originator, as was the case with King
Tubby is the dub world. Sadly, this rap sub-genre, just as with dub, now
consists of “artists” that lack the originator’s vision and creativity.
Relatively early to the modern pop-psych
style and masters at it now, The Black
Lips surely inspired some younger acts playing this event. Accordingly, The
Black Lips offered up the festival’s major first dose of “flower punk” (as the
band likes to call it) during an orange, pink and purple sunset at the
Reverberation Stage (the largest of the three festival playgrounds).
Their fans
found a groove in the performance (two women were dancing on a tall, round
wooden table) and looked incredibly pleased (such as the guy relaxing on a
blanket while digging through his backpack upon which was handwritten “LOOKING
FOR DRUGS”).
My tastes shy away from the pop flavor of psychedelic music that
has grown over the past decade—it’s not psychedelic enough, and many bands in
this sub-genre fail to effectively differentiate themselves from one another.
Where this specific Black Lips show falls on the band’s live spectrum (great,
good or “meh”), I cannot say, but I just didn’t feel the music.
It’s likely impossible to not have
emotion conjured up when hearing two of the most emblematic songs of the 1960s
created by The Zombies. “Time of the
Season” and “She’s Not There” are incredibly important to the history of
psychedelic music, and they both consistently place your mind in the bygone
world leading up to the summer of love. Yet, as is the case with most bands
from that era, the music is only softly psychedelic compared to how the genre
has developed over the past 50 years. At the same time, it’s an honor to
experience bands such as The Zombies live, even with just two original members—the
ones most important for their sound, Rod Argent (piano/organ/vocals) and Colin
Blunstone (vocals).
The Zombies’ vocals and piano formed an
optimistic operatic sound, unique at a festival that can also deliver aural
doom and trippy noise. However, they followed The Black Lips so I was already
wondering when the blast-off psychedelic would return to the festival—that
didn’t place me in a great mindset to fully appreciate The Zombies. After
several songs, my inner dialogue: “C’mon, play ‘She’s Not There.’” A few songs
later, “C’mon, play your hits!” I never think like that and felt shameful for
having done so, but they’d failed to grab me with a single song. They played
“the hits” for their final two numbers, catapulting everyone back to the 1960s.
In that moment, with that crowd, you could believe that just perhaps it was the
time of the season for loving.
On the tenth anniversary of DIG!, the lauded documentary that hurled
The Dandy Warhols and The Brian
Jonestown Massacre—and their tumultuous relationship—into mainstream
consciousness, the two bands came to play the same (relatively) small festival,
brought together by mutual friends. Upon release of the event’s schedule, I
quickly noted that they were, however, set to play on different days. “They
need to play together,” I thought at the time, not just to wow the audience but
to further the collaborative aspect of the festival. Too few artists during the
Austin Psych Fest join their fellow performers onstage as special guests,
whereas it’s the greatest time and place to do so—a heavy concentration of
musicians, their friends, and other bands they’ve influenced.
The Dandies appeared Friday evening,
musically in the strongest condition in which I’ve ever seen them. They were
honed and commanded the main stage in front of thousands of awestruck fans. In DIG!, The Dandies were portrayed as
choosing the path of money in contrast to BJM’s Anton Newcombe putting art
first. Yet there was nothing but love for The Dandies here. It didn’t take long
before lead singer Courtney Taylor-Taylor welcomed to the stage “friends who
are in town practicing”: Enter Newcombe and BJM tambourinist Joel Gion...and
the crowd went wild.
Newcombe and Gion joined in for only one
song, the BJM classic “Oh Lord,” but the collaboration cast a positive light on
the festival as a place where hoped-for (if not unrealistic) surprises actually
happen.
BAKED
The second day at the festival was
notably warmer (33 degrees Celsius) by the time the first band emerged, so I
found some shade along the river and relaxed, watching kayakers enjoy the calm
water and the residual music. Due to increasing temperatures and stronger
winds, I wore a bandana around my nose and mouth, in anticipation of an even
dustier day.
The Brazilian duo Boogarins continue in the tradition of forefathers Os Mutantes, but
I found them to be more compelling and original than the 21st-century output
from Sérgio Dias and
friends. Their placement early in the day on the river stage was a sublime
reminder of the beauty of the Portuguese language and how well it blends with
psychedelic sounds.
What should you expect in a musical group
from Niger playing this festival? Bombino’s
sound on the main stage matched his band’s attire in comparison to the previous
day’s Tuareg act, Terakaft—the music more modern and clothing slightly less
traditional (shorter sleeves and robes and no turbans). At least a full
generation younger than the leads from Terakaft—though also having lived in
exile—Omara “Bombino” Moctar expertly fused the Tuareg sound with psychedelic
rock. This show concluded a five-week tour, and ended with Moctar and his three
bandmates joining arms and bowing repeatedly. They’d earned it. Taken together,
the performances from Terakaft and Bombino revealed the evolution and expanse
of Tuareg music.
Back on the river stage, The Golden Dawn, one of the original
Texas psychedelic groups—contemporaries of the 13th Floor Elevators—was again
resurrected in stellar glory to a modest crowd (including at least one woman
topped only with a neon-glowing bra). This is music you’ve had little chance to
see played live—and one of the great things about this festival—another “lost”
gem presented to the psych geeks. The band released only one album (Power Plant, 1968) and broke up that
same year. Front man George Kinney reformed the band in 2002 and performed live
for a few years (including the 2012 Austin Psych Fest). The sound is classic
Texas psych: rock infused heavily with blues and trippy lyrics covering themes
of mind expansion and perception. Their live show was louder and more active
than that which I’d later hear on their album. Sure, they were playing
46-year-old songs, but the sound wasn’t stale, it had been successfully
reinvigorated. I had never before heard The Golden Dawn (recorded or live), but
their music and performance grabbed me.
Dead
Meadow, next up at the river stage, was “harder” than
I’d anticipated—and I was glad for it. Their set vacillated between deep
slowness and out-right mind-altering psych—often in the same song. These
longtime Austin Psych Fest veterans were a perfect bridge between the bluesy,
evolved vintage of The Golden Dawn and the gods of modern psychedelic music, Acid Mothers Temple & the Melting
Paraiso UFO. It thus came time for Kawabata Makoto, Higashi Hiroshi,
Tsuyama Atsushi, Tabata Mitsuru, and Shimura Koji to show the kids (young and
old, festivalgoers and musicians) how psychedelic rock is done. On the heels of
their 2013 Austin Psych Fest show in the Levitation Tent, the Japanese
collective were given more and better space and time for their blistering
performance this year: 10:15 p.m. at the riverside Elevation Amphitheatre. As is
typical, these master musicians sometimes appeared to play effortlessly, while
still conjuring up mind-melting spirits. But with the onset of facial
gesticulations and limb-, nob-, and instrument-twisting movements in concert
with an incredible live environment, the world changed.
Yes, the Austin Psych Fest is
put on by the Reverberation Appreciation Society (co-founded by The Black Angels’ Christian Bland,
Alex Maas et al.), but this really is Acid Mothers Temple’s festival.
They deserve prime time on the main stage, however the tiered ground by the
river was the best way to exponentially concentrate the energy of the band and
the crowd for an unforgettable, gobsmacking freak-out.
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This is How the Show Felt
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The incredible part is
that Acid Mothers Temple does this regularly while touring clubs every year in
Europe and America. They’re absolute professionals in blasting chaos to a crowd
of 12 or 2,000. This specific performance, however, was special. Of the dozens
of times I’ve seen the various Acid Mothers Temple incarnations live, this was
the best. A heavy, maddeningly curated, on-point jam that culminated in
Kawabata dousing his guitar in butane and setting it ablaze—a bright orange
glow that left many dazzling eyes to wonder if the stage itself was burning—while
still playing the damned thing. One burn wasn’t enough, though, he ignited the
guitar four times during their closing minutes. It’s one feat to play a flaming
guitar; it’s leagues more impressive to do so with long, wild hair, such as
that bouncing and pouring off of Kawabata’s head.
After midnight, as temperatures dropped
to near 16 degrees Celsius chilling many in attendance who still wore clothing
suitable for a hot day in the sun, The
Brian Jonestown Massacre, complete with Joel Gion on tambourine and Matt
Hollywood on guitar, closed out Day Two on the main stage. Despite a late start
and a set terribly short for a headlining act, the crew was tight—not unlike
The Dandy Warhols in that respect—professionals that have been mastering the craft
for a couple of decades. The performance was a very good one—which is notable
due to the band’s consistent inconsistency at live shows. Buying a ticket to
see BJM live is always a gamble, but this time it paid off.
RIPE
A small tented stage in the campground—only
accessible to those camping—was a pleasant bonus this year. None of the
scheduled performances on this stage made me take note until Rishi Dhir (of the Canadian band Elephant Stone) sat down with his sitar
on the final morning, before the festival gates opened. With a handful of
people sitting under shade trees near this stage (the day was already
approaching 32 degrees Celsius), as well dozens under the tent directly in
front of it, Dhir began outputting calm, careful tunes.
Audible preparatory
activity coming from the festival grounds—separated from the camping area by a
chain-link fence—interrupted Dhir, who turned to a staffer to say, “I can’t
play with that,” motioning to the main stages which were blasting recorded
music. His music was delicate—just a man and his sitar—and the random audio
track that infiltrated his soundscape was absolute noise in comparison. A
minute or two later, before Dhir could leave the campground stage, the noise
ceased and he continued a wonderful set, blessing the final day.
The Puerto Rican Fantasmes lifted the final day at the Elevation Amphitheatre
beautifully with Latin influence (for obvious reasons) and even an oddly
stunning spoken-word track. As I stood in front of the stage, a song ended and
for the next, the lead singer moved aside and the keyboard player approached the microphone with a tattered paperback
book in hand. He read a passage from Four
Great Plays by Henrik Ibsen as the band played in support.
It was more of a
semi-dramatic reading than a spoken-word performance, but you get the idea. The
volume of the voice going in and out, at times the words felt abstract. I
wondered, “Is he reading this because the passages have a distinct meaning or
is the attraction to have a band playing inviting tunes while the words offer a
completely different or even meaningless intent?” (I picked up the Fantasmes' 2014 Thralls to Strange Witchcraft, and it is incredibly good...I'd cite a favorite track, but it's just a four-song, 20-minute-long EP and the entire thing is beautiful. I. Need. More.)
Am I in New Orleans? Perhaps an Egyptian
cult initiation? Is this the latest creation from whatever Frankensteinian
laboratory gave birth to Goat?
Golden
Dawn Arkestra detonated a multicultural fusion with, one is left to
suspect, a mission to out-funk Parliament Funkadelic while bringing a
psych-laden, energetic performance—complete with a variety of outrageous
costumes and masks, a brass section, and dancers in hot pants (yes, there was twerking and it was good).
The funk on display at the Levitation Tent (the
club-like smallest of the three stages) was nearly overwhelming, saved by the
deftness with which the entire ensemble performed. More of this groovy fun
would have been nice at the festival, but at least the psych-funk that was
selected was top notch.
Despite being an unknown to many
festivalgoers, Kikagaku Moyo filled
the Elevation Amphitheatre during this, their first tour of the U.S. It’s easy
to recognize the Acid Mothers Temple influence in the band’s music, but that’s
a simplistic connection and shouldn’t suggest anything derivative in Kikagaku
Moyo. The opposite, in fact, is the reality. This young band, formed in 2012,
is incredibly original—complete with the most psychedelic and heaviest sitar
I’ve ever heard (played for the entire set while standing up)—and its members
are already comfortable enough to improvise live and really go off the rails.
Beautiful, stunning stuff.
+2.JPG) |
| Kikagaku Moyo's Daoud Popal Blissing Out |
Their new album, Forest
of Lost Children, was the only LP I bought during the entire festival (yes,
I was exercising severe restraint), and in it you find the building blocks of
the band. There’s more serenity on the recording, but more energy live. Easily
one of my favorite acts of the weekend and a must-see if you get the chance.
It’s odd to go from such intriguing and
talented up-and-coming performers to a band such as Joel Gion & the Primary Colours. The music was perfectly fine
for the gathering, but overall, uninspired. In conjunction with Gion’s vocals
(flat) and lyrics (vacuous), the group came off as a not-ready-for-primetime
collective of secondary and tertiary Brian Jonestown Massacre players. They
lacked something unique, which was essential in order to stand out at this
festival of geniuses.
When the music was over the previous
night, I joined a circle of campers playing with lasers and other toys outside
of Thor’s tent. A small pod of people passed by, leaving behind one of their
herd who landed face-down on the pasture in the middle of our circle in order to
have the green laser pattern shone across his body. Moving his arms like a
bird, he exclaimed that he now looked like a peacock (a curious assessment of
one of the laser’s patterns) and then humped the ground. All very odd, but not
unheard of at such events. The stranger then sat up—all the while riffing
ridiculously and keeping the group in stitches—and was subjected to a black
light, crime-scene-style examination by Thor. “We don’t know you,” Thor said,
laughing while moving the light around. On the right leg of the stranger’s
pants, the black light picked up a mysterious splatter. Nothing else was
shining under the waves of the light except for this spot. Of what was this
evidence? A call-back to the stranger’s earlier comments, one participant
declared the bizarre mess was surely peacock jizz, to which the stranger
answered by running his finger through the spot and licking it. “Chipotle
cheese,” he said after pondering the flavor. “But why is it glowing under the
black light?” Thor asked, now truly perplexed and hoping to find an answer. The stranger then picked up a guitar and played an acoustic version of Marcy Playground's "Sex and Candy." However, a light show at another part of the campground got the group’s attention
and it went off to explore, never understanding the exact “what” and “why” of
the stranger heretofore known as “Peacock Jizz.”
The next morning, as tents were being
packed up and campers prepared to leave, one last song could be heard from
across the grounds. With the sound floating in and out due to the wind, I
couldn’t be sure if it was coming from someone performing live or playing an
mp3. But the source did not matter. It was the most appropriate song for that
moment in that pasture, amid a temporary community that was literally being
dismantled, Roky Erickson’s “Goodbye Sweet Dreams.”
