A.V. Club: Best of the Decade

Just Announced Psych Fest #2

 A Place To Bury Strangers and The Warlocks pitch in to freak out

black angels Briana Purser The Black Angels
by Sean O'Neal February 13, 2009

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Those already strung out on Austin’s psych-rock revival—and anyone who was hoping to rest up the week before SXSW—should probably stock up on orange slices and Vitamin B, as judging by the recent announcement of Psych Fest #2, this long, strange trip is nowhere near over. Last year’s Psych Fest, organized by pied pipers of drone The Black Angels at their studio-cum-artists’-commune the Red Barn, was hailed as a revival of the smacked-out spirit of the Vulcan Gas Company, a cosmic cowboy retreat that recalled the hazy, halcyon days of groups like The 13th Floor Elevators and Shiva’s Headband. This year’s Psych Fest, indicative of the genre’s slow crawl toward downtown ubiquity, abandons the dirt floor free-for-all for a sprawling, three-day marathon taking place March 13 through March 15 within the confines of an actual club, Sixth Street’s newly renovated Radio Room (formerly Bourbon Rocks).
But just because the walls are closing in (and the prices are going up) doesn’t mean you have reason to be paranoid: Plenty of familiar faces from last year’s roster are returning to get you through, including roughed-up R&B breakouts The Strange Boys, haunted folkies Cavedweller, and shoegazers Astronaut Suit and The Tunnels. The Black Angels themselves will headline Friday, and local Love-cover-band-that’s-played-more-gigs-than-Love-ever-did Forever Changes pops through Sunday—which would easily be the most ersatz retro act on the bill if it weren’t for Saturday's headlining gig from Sky Saxon, self-proclaimed “King Of Garage Rock” and leader of Nuggets veterans The Seeds. Saxon will perform backed by one of The Seeds’ many obvious descendents, Austin’s very own Shapes Have Fangs.
The addition of Saxon is only the first clue that Psych Fest really got its shit together this year. In fact, the number of big touring acts suggests it’s even making a bid to stand shoulder to shoulder with other annual festivals like ACL and Fun Fun Fun: Saturday brings in slow-minded sludge-metal band Dead Meadow and San Francisco’s gritty groove merchants Wooden Shjips, plus Houston’s industrial experimentalists Indian Jewelry; Sunday is top-lined by the fuzzed out and fried-to-a-crisp clamor of A Place To Bury Strangers, psych-rock revival O.G.s The Warlocks, and New York’s Raveonettes-esque noir-poppers The Vandelles. Once again the entire festival will be set to Fillmore-era liquid light projections, psychedelic art from The Angels’ Christian Bland (and a few bongwater-soaked, vintage pieces rescued from the Vulcan Gas Company), and backed by “classic trip sequences” provided by I Luv Video and Austin Underground Film—hopefully including something from Peter Fonda’s embarrassingly bad “let’s get Jack Nicholson high and film it” opus The Trip.
Tickets are $15 per day or $45 for a three-day pass, and are available online starting today at 12 p.m. Those too wacked-out to deal with computers, man, can chill until next week and then hitchhike up to one of those stores… you know, the ones that sell music that comes on, like, those circles? You know, the shiny black circles? That you put the needle on and they make sound? Far out.
Complete lineup:
FRIDAY, MARCH 13
11:30pm: The Black Angels (Austin)
10:45p.: The Golden Dawn (Austin)
9:45pm: Lower Heaven  (LA)
9pm: Woven Bones  (Austin)
SATURDAY, MARCH 14
12:15am: Sky Saxon (of The Seeds) w/ Shapes Have Fangs (LA) 
11pm: Dead Meadow (LA)
10pm: Wooden Shjips  (SF)
9pm:  Golden Animals (LA)
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)
SUNDAY, MARCH 15
11:30pm A Place To Bury Strangers (Brooklyn) 
10pm: The Warlocks (LA)
9pm: The Strange Boys  (Austin)
8pm: Asteroid 4  (Philadelphia)
7pm: Forever Changes (Austin)
6pm: The Vandelles (NYC)
5pm: The Upsidedown (Portland, OR)
4pm: Miranda Lee Richards (LA)
3pm: Christian Bland & The Revelators (Austin)
2pm: Cavedweller (Austin)
1pm: Cartright (Austin)
 
 

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