Psych Fest at Seaholm Power Plant - Day 1 [Review and Photos]

The Night Beats

One of the band’s who played Psych Fest 3 that returned this year was Seattle’s Night Beats. After another solid year of touring under their belt, the band was more confident and their sound was more fully realized than it was at the Mohawk. On top of some entertaining yet highly puzzling banter from bassist Tarek Wegner (ex: “Hi, my name is Jamal and my parents don’t understand me”), the band’s repertoire of catchy, desert-tinged songs gave vocalist/guitarist Lee Blackwell an opportunity to show off his instrumental abilities. Blues inspired riffs, moments of pure feedback, and several great solos resonated from his instrument while his band mates played the supporting role without a hitch. The band has a full length debut due out this summer, and judging by their performance, Night Beats will have plenty of new fans eagerly awaiting the album’s arrival.

The Quarter After

One of the problems with the rigid pace of festivals is that if a stage is running behind, the bands are the ones who have to pay the price - a notion very evident towards the end of The Quarter After’s set. Guitarist Rob Campanella (who has been a touring member of the Brian Jonestown Massacre since 2000) said in a very disappointed tone “We drove 24 hours to get here” upon hearing that the band only had five minutes to play after three songs, as Stage 2 was a bit behind schedule. Of course, when your shortest song hits around six minutes, the festival setting isn’t a place to expect to play any more than five songs. Despite all this, however, the band’s four song set showed The Quarter After to be a very solid and tight-sounding band, with Campanella’s guitar playing being the central focus. Many of their songs begin as straightforward power pop songs, but they tended to veer off into hypnotic soundscapes before returning to their original structures. It was a shame that their set was cut short, as many people in the crowd were just getting into them before it ended all too abruptly.

Shapes Have Fangs

There was a very healthy crowd around Stage 2 for local heroes Shapes Have Fangs. The band’s garage like sound was played with the same kind of energy that the band utilized when they opened for The Raveonettes last month. The main differences between the two performances was that there was considerably more reverb, and for whatever reason the vocals were lower in the mix, which was likely not the band’s doing. As is typical for Austin groups, there was a dedicated group of fans at the front of the stage dancing along to every song, showing their allegiance to local flavors. The band returned the favor by playing with confidence and a sense of urgency, feeding off the crowd’s good vibes. All in all, Shapes Have Fangs played another enjoyable set that proved they are in the upper tier of the Austin garage rock revival scene, no small feat in a city saturated with these kinds of groups.

- Ryan Lester

Blue Angel Lounge

Thanks to Blue Angel Lounge of Hagen, Germany, for finally making it to Austin! Although they played in the 8 p.m. slot on Psych Fest’s second stage, they could have easily pulled off a headlining spot. The title of their second release, Narcotica, offers an apt characterization of the band’s overall feel: entrancing, comforting and edging closely on the darker side of bliss. Their performance was certainly one of the most beautiful that we heard at Austin Psych Fest. The more intimate confines of the second stage provided a perfect space in which to appreciate the high degree of focused care that they dedicate to their music. Blue Angel Lounge perfectly balanced drone with melodic hooks and innovative rhythms, as well as enchanting vocals that that were as evocative of those of Ian Curtis as they were of Gregorian chant.

Radio Moscow

Radio Moscow was a wonderful surprise; we were thrilled to hear these guys for the first time. The band is ridiculously solid for what some might erroneously pass-off as scuzz rock. They absolutely rocked our socks off! If that were all we’d been looking for, they certainly delivered in spades. But there’s more to Radio Moscow than that. They melded a classic late '60s British psychedelic blues base with elements of southern rock into something entirely new. Parker Griggs fronts the band, drips snaky lead riffs from the edge of the stage, and occasionally sears the audience with wicked and welcomed guitar solos breaks. He’s also a damn good blues rock vocalist and a blast to watch. These guys provide the best argument we’ve seen for continuing to embrace genres that are now often dismissed. Sleazy southern blues rock is alive, thriving, and white-hot in the hands of Radio Moscow.

Crystal Stilts

Crystal Stilts brought retro ‘60s - ‘70s Southern California psychedelic rock to the first night of Psych Fest. Laid-back surf rock guitars and steady percussion rhythms were punctuated by repetitive vintage electronic organ melodies and simple chords. The now rarely-seen overhead projector liquid light shows kicked in during their set on the main stage. It was then abundantly clear that we were at a genuine psychedelic celebration, and that new, danceable psychedelic music can be fresh and engaging.

A Place To Bury Strangers

When it comes to pulling out all the stops and flat-out rocking, it’s hard to beat A Place To Bury Strangers; they always play a good set. One of their greatest strengths is their ability to accurately gauge venues and audiences. We’ve seen them give a kick-ass, rollicking biker-bar performance, as well as something closer to a backyard barbecue show. But Psych Fest provided the ideal venue for them to showcase their true brand of noisy, bar-room psychedelic rock. The Seaholm Power Plant is a concrete cavern, but they burned it to the ground like it was a house of matchsticks. These guys are genuine rock warriors, and an absolute joy to watch. A Place To Bury Strangers uphold the curious innocence of rock music performance: turn it up, go for it, and play your asses off. Regardless of the venue, we’ve never seen them miss with any pitch they’ve thrown.

The Omar Rodriguez-Lopez Group

The Omar Rodriguez-Lopez Group stole the show on the first night of Psych Fest. We’d seen Cedric Bixler-Zavala around the venue, so anticipated a partial Mars Volta reunion. But from the very first downbeat, it was absolutely clear that we were in for something more stunning than even the much-revered Grammy winners, Mars Volta. Rodriguez-Lopez is one of the finest guitarists to emerge in the past decade, but Cedric was the star of this show. He is an amazingly dynamic and engaging performer, and played to audience members hugging the rail just as well as to those at the back of the house. Cedric Bixler-Zavala has developed into one finest front-men and vocalists we’ve seen in years. Low-end dance beats thumped under Omar’s virtuosic guitar performance, all of which perfectly framed Bixler-Zavala’s mesmerizing performance.

This Will Destroy You

This Will Destroy You was one of the bands that we most looked forward to seeing at this year’s Psych Fest. Having previously experience their immersive live performances, we can confidently say that they are one of the finest ensembles working today. While their performance was, as always, thoroughly engrossing, they were suffering from one of the most common and abhorrent atrocities committed against any band; their van and fairly exotic, modified gear were stolen just a couple of days before Psych Fest. This Will Destroy You has a bit of a cult following who stayed to hear them through the entirety of their set. In an act of generosity, and fundraising to help finance the replacement of their van and equipment, they performed pieces from their upcoming LP, Tunnel Blanket. After their set, they met their audience at the merch table for an exclusive, personal sale of their upcoming LP, due for release on May 10, 2011.

- Ken McCandless

Beach Fossils

When the Brooklyn surf rockers Beach Fossils were announced as a late addition to the Psych Fest lineup, it seemed a weird fit, though if we learned anything at this year's festival, it's that the definition of psych music is seemingly expanding. (Perhaps it's an approach rather than a certain agglomeration of sounds, anyway.) Nevertheless, a set of songs built on cleanly-picked guitar hooks that loop and interlock to create summery melodies doesn't remind one of, say, any of the other bands who performed last weekend.

That didn't stop Beach Fossils from putting on a solid show in the relatively early slot of 7:30. Sonically, the band have improved since we last saw them opening for Here We Go Magic in August. At that show, the only drums were a floor tom and a snare; they brought a full kit to Seaholm, and with a drummer who seemed massively improved, the songs had an extra oomph to match the heavy reverb on the guitars and vocals. The set culled equally from last year's debut self-titled LP and the What a Pleasure EP released earlier this year. The gathered watchers mostly disregarded frontman Dustin Payseur's claim that "usually, there's a big mosh pit going on in front," opting instead for the casual head nod, repeated ad infinitum. "I guess this is psych fest," Payseur added. It took the band a while to find their groove, which can perhaps be attributed to tiredness (they'd taken the red-eye from New York that morning), but by the end of their 35 minutes, they'd found it.

Tobacco

The penultimate performance Friday night on Stage Two was Tobacco, the solo project of the mastermind behind Black Moth Super Rainbow, and a generally weird (in an awesome way) dude. He came out to the stage, quietly set up his analog monosynth, an electric guitar, and a couple other pieces of equipment that we couldn't peg. There was no greeting or fanfare as he and his live band - two fellow Black Moth members - launched into the first warbling, quasi-magical electro-psych tune of many, instantly electrifying the packed room.

What's most immediately noticeable about Tobacco's (or even Black Moth's) live set is how great the drums are. The drummer (BMSR member Iffernaut, probably) pounded and riffed on his set like a maniac, and did so while dressed in a head-to-toe ninja costume, providing plenty of bottom end to the euphoric analog grooves produced by Tobacco and Seven Fields of Aphelion. The projections were mostly from Tobacco's Fucked Up Friends, a two-part DVD series of found footage, drawn mostly from '80s workout tapes, informercials, porn and other, further-out annals of the bizarre. The band hardly let up during their set, cranking out jams that transformed the room into the happiest, weirdest club you've ever seen.

- Phillip Pantuso

Atlas Sound

With an acoustic guitar, harmonica, and a bag of tricks, Bradford Cox took to the main stage Friday night appearing much like a minimalistic folk musician. Of course we all know appearances can be deceiving, and with the assistance of various pedals and effects - modulators and loops - Cox created obscure orchestrations from stripped-down, simple chords and beats built by thumping or tapping his guitar. With barely decipherable lyrics, the focus was on melodies that melded in textured layers, swirled together with distorted echos, billowed into atmospheric orchestras, and loops that reversed only to revert back with the uttermost control. Aside from a couple crowd pleasing tracks off 2009’s Logos - "Shelia," "Walkabout," and "Attic Lights" - most of the reverb-heavy songs melted together in the complex but seemingly whimsical structure of his wandering jams, which all-in-all made for a hypnotizing performance full of intrigue as curiously menacing projections played upon the screen behind him.

- Jessica Skinner