Austin Sound

A couple of weeks ago, our friends over at Do512 officially launched their new in-house concert series with the inauguration of the Do512 Lounge. With help from Austin Music Weekly filming the gigs, they have put together an amazing, intimate experience. Consider it kinda Austin City Limits for next generation. So while they don’t have a deal with TV (yet!), they do have the web and the awesome talents of the AMW crew. Their first “pilot” show in the Lounge was Saints of Valory, but the Black Angels were really the ones to initially set the tone for what the Do512 folks want to accomplish - big bands, intimate venue, and free beer. Sounds like Austin to us! The Black Angels played about a 5 song set to a crowd of about 50 fans, and if you couldn’t be there, you should definitely check out the video below and pay attention to Do512 for your chance to get in on some of their upcoming performances in the Lounge. You can also check out more videos from the series on Austin Music Weekly’s Youtube page (as well as other great shows from around town), including the most recent Lounge sets from James McMurtry and the Bright Light Social Hour.

The second round of performers for this year’s Fourth Annual Austin Psych Fest, curated by the Black Angels, has been announced, and it’s hard to argue with any Psych Fest bill that tops itself with Roky Erickson. The Angels and Erickson of course have some history together, so hopefully we’ll even get to see some of that action from Night of the Vampire come alive. The Fest this year is both moving shop, and benefiting from some better timing, taking place over the three days of April 29 through March 1 at the East Side Drive In. Among the other new additions announced that we’re excited about are Young Prisms, Black Hollies, and Lower Heaven, and this is on top of the initial round that included Black Moth Super Rainbow, Atlas Sound, Sleepy Sun, and so much other good stuff. Check out the lineup as it now stands below, or visit the Psych Fest website at your seizured risk.

Here’s a little something to help get you in the mood for Halloween, especially as we seem to be actually experiencing some kind of weird autumn-like weather outside. The Black Angels’ new album, Phosphene Dream, is laced with surprisingly jangly retro-garage turns, and none moreso than the penultimate track, “Telephone.” The psych stars recently presented a video for it that is kinda creepy, kinda cool, and all around pretty good for the quick little 2:00 minute shot of a song. The video was directed by Oswald James, who is also directing the upcoming film about the third Austin Psych Fest that went down this year. As for this video, let’s just say that if you’ve ever wondered what the Black Angels will look like in oh, say, 60 years, well, here you go! Apparently they have and/or will develop quite a love for the head scarf - making your grandmother hip again, so go raid those attics to be ahead of the next hipster trend, folks! Check out the video for “Telephone” below, and while the band is currently across the ocean regaling the European masses, we’ll have a chance to catch them back in Austin on November 19 at La Zona Rosa.

The Black Angels will be dropping their third LP, Phosphene Dream, on September 14th. We’re going to go out on a limb and say that it’s going to be a platter of heavy droning psych rock. The Angels are actually the first band signed to relaunch Seymour Stein’s Blue Horizon label, so that’s kind of a big deal. “Bad Vibrations” was officially released into the wild yesterday to give us a taste of what the Austin quintet is cooking on Phosphene Dream, and you can check it out below. Wait for the freakout at the end! This comes on the heals of the group’s primo placement of their collaborative tune UNKLE, “With You in My Head,” on the new Twilight soundtrack - we bet the wolf kids in San Antonio will be totally stoked about this! (You can download their previously released track with UNKLE, “Natural Selection”, from our friends over at Covert Curiosity) The Black Angels are doing a bunch of fests in Europe leading up to the album, and ATP in New York, but we hope they’ll be back down here for a release show.

What, you thought we forgot? How could we forget the Austin Psych Fest. Now entering its third year, the Black Angles’ little psych shindig is a three day trip that this year will take place at the Mohawk. It kicks off tonight at 7:30pm and keeps rolling through Saturday and Sunday. The lineup this year is pretty phenomenal, and we’re going to direct you to the Austinist’s fantastic preview coverage that has been going on for several weeks, partly because we’re lazy, but mostly because it really is fantastic. If you didn’t purchase the three day passes when they were announced, you can still pick up tickets to each night for $18 a night, or $20 if you’re a minor. The lineup is below, and is pure wickedness. But if you want to start blowing your mind early, just stare at this poster for ten minutes. It should come with a disclaimer!

Tribute albums are such weird things sometimes. Especially when they feature the person being tributed. Awkward! We really wonder, though, if Roky Erickson has ever even heard of any of the bands on the new tribute album for him set to be released by UK showgaze label Sonic Cathedral. Called The Psychedelic Sounds Of The Sonic Cathedral, the album will feature A Place to Bury Strangers, Dead Meadow, and reported guest appearance by guest appearances from Kevin Shields and Sonic Boom. Guest appearances on a tribute album seem even weirder! Also on the album are locals the Strange Attractors doing the Elevators’ “Reverberation (Doubt)”, and the Black Angels (with Roky himself) doing “Roller Coaster.” The album will be released on June 7, which is actually the same date Erickson’s “Rokkervil” collaboration get’s released in the UK. That, also, is a little awkward. Sheesh people! Anyway, check out the tracklist below.

Man, remember 2009? Those were crazy days. All the drugs. All the music. All the PSYCH, man! And the Radio Room, remember that place? Austin has changed, man. It’s all condos and yuppies now. A place like the Radio Room could never exist downtown today, you know man? Back then, Sky Saxon could be a crazy shaman dude and it was cool. He’d be so disappointed with what this city has become today. If only we go back to when Austin was exciting. Now the lawyers are trying to kill the scene, and stuff, man. We don’t even want to go out anymore. Thankfully we don’t have to because we can stay at home and relive those halcyon days back in 2009 when psych ruled the city, with the new DVD release of Austin Psych Fest 2. For the release party tomorrow night at the Mohawk, a stunning reunion has been assembled of some of Austin’s best Psych bands from that golden era of the ’00s. The legendary Black Angels have curated the event themselves, and it will include that obscure BA side project that has been all but lost to history, the Viet Minh, along with period local mainstays Horse + Donkey, Shapes Have Fangs, and the Ghost Songs. They’re going to be screening the film at 8:00pm, so prepare for some crippling nostalgia with footage from that legendary era and Psych Fest, as well as an additional 20 minute documentary on Sky Saxon. We might cry tomorrow night for those lost glorious days of ‘09. Check out the trailer below:

Oh lord, it’s like the Sixties all over again! What started out as friendly and fun and awesome has now turned bitter. Bring in the lawyers! Two years ago, the Black Angels and Live Music Capitol started up the Austin Psych Fest the weekend before SXSW, held up on Burnet Road at the Red Barn. Last year, it expanded to 3 days and took place down on Sixth Street at the Radio Room (what’s up with that place, btw? We were promised a new venue!). But today the Chronicle reports that Adam Demetri of the events company Live Music Capitol is suing the Black Angels over the name. Um, wtf guys? Really? First of all - yeah, suing a band is always a worthwhile endeavor, and second, it’s not like this is ACL or even Fun Fun Fun Fest for that matter. It’s just a damn party! Everybody chill out. The really hilarious part of all this, though, is that as the Black Angels prepare for Austin Psych Fest 3 next April, Demetri is booking another version of the event around the same time that he’s calling the “Official Psych Fest,” and dropping hints that he’s going to pull the Doors’ Robby Krieger as a headliner. So, it looks like we might have a Psych Fest face-off after SXSW. We’re not sure if we can handle that much acid, but if the Black Angels’ goal was to return Austin to it’s Sixties Psych peak, we guess this is one way to do it.

At least week’s ACL taping of the Heartless Bastards, siren Bastard Erika Wennerstrom called a surprise guest to the stage in the form of the Black Angels’ frontman Alex Maas. Rumors of a collaboration between Maas and Wennerstrom have been circulating since SXSW, and the two have reportedly already been in the recording studio together. The result? A duet project called Sweet Tea, which premiered at the ACL taping with Maas strapping on a guitar and Wennerstrom behind the keys for a version of the Johnny Cash and June Carter duet “If I Were a Carpenter.”

This weekend, the Black Angels will present Psych Fest 2 at the Radio Room (formerly Bourbon Rocks on Sixth St.). Though only the Fest’s second incarnation, it has already blossomed into a three day event with over 30 bands, including headliners A Place to Bury Strangers, Sky Sunlight Saxon of the Seeds, and locals the Golden Dawn performing their 1968 psych classic, Power Plant. And of course, the Black Angels and scores of other fantastic Austin bands will be joining in on the fun. We talked to Angel’s guitarist Christian Bland earlier this week as he made preparations at the Radio Room, asking him about the past year’s experience teaming up with Roky Erickson (with whom they’ll be playing at the Austin Music Awards), the current psych scene, and the band’s plans for the Fest in the future. Psych Fest starts this Friday, March 13.