Austin Psych Fest: More Interesting than that ACL “Yawnfest”
Another year older, another year wiser and another Austin Psych Fest.
It is good to live in Austin. (Provided you don’t need parking downtown.)
When I parachuted into Capitol City in late February 2013, I had little idea just how much psych music permeated the fabric of the Austin music scene. The colors, children, look at the colors. The mere existence of a psychedelic music festival in America, let alone Austin, was news to me. I think it was news to a lot of people.
In the year between psych fests and its upcoming incarnation running May 2-4, I’ve seen more psych rock than I have in a lifetime, with a local scene boasting the likes of The Black Angels, the angels-associated Christian Bland and the Revelators, Nada fave’s Mirror Travel, Holy Wave, numerous others and even the recent opening of RVRB Records –a psych rock record store/boutique recently owned by a pair of the above-mentioned angels.
All of the bands I’ve listed to so far speak to the deep and amazing local seam of psych rock gold that there is to be mined in these parts, all of whom will be appearing at this year’s festival (Holy Wave plays a Thursday kickoff show the includes another promising local band, The Wolf).
Add to that the arrival of genre gold standard-bearer Brian Jonestown Massacre along with The Dandy Warhols, the legendary Zombies, Mikal Cronin (pictured above), The War on Drugs, Loop, Panda Bear, Of Montreal and well, APF is already way more interesting than this year’s scheduled ACL yawnfest (with all due respect to my beloved Replacements).
Some festivals offer the past, others the future. Compare the two, decide for yourself.
APF even has a shuttle service offering a link between the ranch setting of the festival and the city. Things are getting serious. Full speed ahead for the APF.
Get real time updates on APF via our Twitter and Flickr pages. Get a sense for the festival by watching this trailer for an upcoming documentary.