High Bias stagestruck

TEXAS PSYCH FEST
@Stubb's, Austin, TX
August 10, 2002
@Room 710, Austin, TX
August 11, 2002
Psychedelia, it has been argued, was invented in Texas. Music critics and historians, especially those in the Lone Star state, claim that the 13th Floor Elevators were the very first psychedelic band. Certainly they were the first group of longhairs to refer to themselves with that designation via their 1966 debut album The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators. But to back up that argument you'd have to have a solid description of exactly what psychedelic music is, and that's a term for which you'll find as many definitions as dictionaries. Is it improvisational electric music as heavy on volume as on technical prowess? Is it droning atmospherics coupled with angelic vocals and poetic stream-of-consciousness lyrics? Is it spacey instrumental effects and Beatles-derived melodies stretched beyond their limits? Is it heavy metal informed as much by bong hits as by unfocused rage? It's all these things and more, as this weekend proved.

The whos and wherefores aren't truly important; what is significant is that Texas has a rich history of psychedelic rock stretching back to the 60s. The first annual Texas Psych Fest paid tribute to that history, gathering a diverse set of contemporary psych bands together for two weekends (the first one in Houston) of fan camaraderie and mind-expanding sonics, all for the benefit of Great Britain's venerable Ptolemaic Terrascope, the most fanatical and most interesting magazine covering the ongoing evolution of psychedelic rock. Organized by Primordial Undermind leader Eric Arn and featuring an ongoing light and film show by Lori Surfer, the Fest gathered freaks of all stripes in happy harmony for many hours of border-blurring sonics and acid-fried melodies.

While the term psychedelia may be associated with West Coast bands like the Grateful Dead, there was no Jerry Garcia-style jam band boredom on display at Stubb's. Opening the show was Denton's Wild Bull Orchestra, the latest project from North Texas psych genius Wanz Dover, late of space rock combo Mazinga Phaser and currently heading up the rocking Falcon Project. Though usually a larger band that includes a choir, for this appearance Dover had slimmed his group down to a quintet: a bassist, keyboardist, singer and himself and another dude on guitar and laptops. If what psychedelia means to you is the exploration of sound within the context of a strong melody, the Wild Bull Orchestra was probably the weekend's purest expression of the form. On tunes like "Nick at Night" and "Evening Sun," Dover switched back and forth from strumming his Fender to tapping out electrobeats on his Mac; the other musicians provided samples and sounds to accent his tuneful drones, while vocalist Sarah Alexander manipulated her ethereal cooing with a vocal processor. Under all the special effects, however, were songs with strong backbones that could even be called catchy; Dover's warm singing made it even more accessible. The band was a perfect example of the marriage between old-school psychedelic philosophy and futuristic technology, blurring the line between ambient soundscapes and song-oriented psych. The Wild Bull Orchestra's performance got the Fest off to an especially impressive start.

Next up was Austin's psych institution ST-37. Well into its second decade, the quartet hasn't lost a bit of its freaky edge. The band opened their set with an instrumental that relied heavily on tape loops before going into a surging rocker, fronted by the bassist's high-pitched vocals. If there is such a thing as meat-and-potatoes psych, ST-37 is it: high volume, noisy guitar rock with loads of effects, tape manipulations and drones. The closing "A Huge Rare Cheese," a cut from its forthcoming new album, showed the band's songcraft at its strongest. The high point, however, was when the singer announced "No Texas Psych Fest would be complete without a Roky Erickson song." He then lead his band in a wonderful version of "Birds'd Crash," a great song from the eccentric songwriter's extremely lo-fi collection Never Say Goodbye, a treasure trove of otherwise unheard Erickson tunes that every band with any taste at all should be borrowing from. Kudos to ST-37 for being the first and, considering how well it did the song, maybe the best.

Following that rousing set, Houston-to-Austin transplants Charlambides brought the mood down to sedate. A trio with the intriguing setup of two guitars and pedal steel, the trio of two girls and a guy didn't so much play as emit various string sounds and ethereal vocals. Each piece would get progressively louder as it went, but it was still merely the difference between a whisper and a croon. More concerned with pure sound than songs, Charlambides played lullaby music, perfect for a quiet evening at home, but maybe not so good for a smoke-filled rock club. Still, it was nice to note that the festival wasn't going to neglect the more ghostly aspect of psychedelia.

From quite and dignified to loud and obnoxious: Houston's Linus Pauling Quartet immediately dispelled the dreamy aura conjured by Charlambides with a powerhouse set of trippy hard rock that owed as much to Black Sabbath as it did to the 60s Stooges, a fact acknowledged by the band with the snarling "We Are Not Black Sabbath." A sense of humor wasn't required to appreciate the lab-coated sextet; after all, the three guitarists, bassist, drummer and oscillator manipulator possessed more than enough of one to cover everyone in the room. A good thing, too, as the poor band was beset with equipment problems from the first song; its guitar amps refused to fully cooperate for more than a couple of songs at a time. The group soldiered on, however, and when everything was firing on all cylinders, it was a joy and wonder to behold. You haven't truly experienced a heavy guitar riff until you've heard it cranked out by three high-volume six-strings simultaneously, especially with random oscillator accents. The Quartet ended their tons o' fun set with a death metal goof about a date with Satan, as the nebbish-looking guitarist set his axe aside to indulge himself in werewolf growls and high-pitched squeals for a few minutes. Both the silliest and the most overtly rock band to appear at the Fest so far, the Linus Pauling Quartet was simply great entertainment.

Austin's Winslow closed out the night with a set of shifting dynamics and uplifting melodies. Like the LPQ, the quartet had amp problems, but assistance from one of ST-37's pickers and a quick switchout kept the music going. As loud as it was, Winslow definitely made the prettiest music of the night. The band seemed more like a straight rock group than a psych band, despite the plethora of effects on the guitars. Its tunes weren't particularly unusual or trippy, but they were still good; the musicians were experts at manipulating dynamics for maximum emotional impact, and their way with a hook certainly helped. Closing its set with a brand-new tune that was easily its best yet, Winslow brought night one of the Fest to a satisfying end.

Personal obligations necessitated missing Girl Robots, the Austin combo that opened night two of the Fest at Room 710 the following Sunday, but the second set easily soothed the pain. Austin's Tia Carrera are an improvisational rock power trio featuring guitarist Jason Morales from the long-defunct Starfish on guitar and musician-about-town Andrew Duplantis on bass. Like Cream filtered through Sabbath, TC pummeled the air with soundwaves, riffs as thick as dictionaries and reams of feedback. In fact, Duplantis and Morales were just as likely to simply lean their instruments against their amps while the drummer pounded away, creating squealing mini-symphonies against which no earplugs could stand. The band moved from long stoner rock improvs to horrendous feedback and back again with no purpose except to have a rockin' good time. It was louder than God, vibrating palettes and ribcages throughout the club. The set ended with Morales slamming his guitar against the monitor and, yes, feeding back. Tia Carrera was a cracking way to start off the evening.

Next up was the mind-boggling Crevice. The San Antonio octet didn't play music that was particularly groundbreaking; its stock-in-trade was essentially ambient soundscapes with plenty of samples, featuring five keyboardist/samplers, two guitarists who rarely played their instruments in a traditional manner, a harmonica player and wailing theremin solos. The rhythm section-impaired group was sort of like a more musically inclined Negativland. What made the group odd was its appearance: seven dudes and one lady dressed to the nines in Western wear that would make the Nashville hat acts proud. Watching this good-natured bunch mug shamelessly while farting around on stage, making ostensibly avant-garde music while looking as if they were ready to take the stage at a line-dancing C&W club was, hands down, the trippiest event of the entire Fest. Despite the incongruity of the phrase, Crevice's performance can only be described as a hoot and a holler.

Recent Austin transplant Primordial Undermind was up next. The Undermind played a knockout set of instrumental psych during South By Southwest this year, and it did not disappoint tonight. Its lineup of a pair of guitarists (including Fest organizer Eric Arn), a pair of drummers, bassist and noise generator was perfect for its driving psych rock. As per its most recent album, the group concentrated mostly on its instrumental side, though it threw in some winsome vocals from time to time. With more complex melodies and a stronger sense of groove, PU was considerably less brutal than Tia Carrera, though not dissimilar. This is a group as comfortable with a catchy melody as it is with brain-frying noise, and it turned in what was probably the most satisfying set of the weekend. On the evidence of this often-amazing music, when you look up psychedelia in the dictionary you should find a picture of Primordial Undermind.

The final act of the Fest represented a coup on Arn's part. The Golden Dawn was a contemporary of the 13th Floor Elevators, releasing Power Plant, its one and only album, in 1968. Arn convinced the musicians to reunite especially for this performance. As music made by dudes that were there, man, the Dawn's songs contrasted greatly with everything else performed by the other musicians. This set was the only example of hippie rock during the entire Fest, with the music rooted in the blues and country and played in a fairly straightforward, undiluted manner by three guitarists, a rhythm section and a pedal steel man (plus a young blond hottie whose vocals weren't mixed forward enough to hear). Though one of the greybeard guitarists looked like he wanted to be anywhere else but on that stage, the singer was extremely personable and enthusiastic, giving the otherwise fairly colorless songs their personality. Though as rough around the edges as one might expect from a bunch of guys who hadn't played together regularly in over 30 years, the problem wasn't the loose musicianship so much as the, well, general lack of anything particularly psychedelic about them. The band was by no means bad, but it seemed to fit the theme even less than Winslow had the night before. Still, it's not every day you see the reunion of an honest-to-Owsley 60s legend, and a still-living example of music from back in the day was a fitting way to close off what will hopefully be the first of many Texas Psych Fests to come. Michael Toland

Copyright © 2002 High Bias