For two days, Milwaukee Psych Fest VI offered a musical buffet of more than 30 scheduled bands spread across four stages at two venues—not bad for a genre that has next to no commercial potential and defies easy description. Listeners were able to enjoy sounds from their comfort zone or, if so inclined, jump off a musical cliff.
Late Friday afternoon at the Boone & Crockett outdoor stage the weather turned perfect for a city that had been going toe-to-toe with winter for nine rounds. Led by southpaw guitarist Rick Franecki, local veterans Vocokesh played improvised music that seemed to match the sun spiking through the clouds above. As the rhythm section pulsed, Franecki shredded a bit and then reeled his sound in, not unlike a fly fisherman wresting a trout.
Having Vocokesh lead off the festival was something of a talisman. In the days before the internet, Franecki’s band F/i was noticed around the DIY world, thanks to his networking skills. He probably licked his tongue raw mailing out cassettes to every corner of the globe.
By nightfall, North Carolina’s Nest Egg took the stage indoors—a perfect setting. The room offered a good size stage up front and a balcony at the rear where the light show alchemists took aim. The full immersion light show offered intense, ever-changing images and strobes on the walls and ceiling.
If you ever wanted to listen to music inside a kaleidoscope, you were in luck. This is as close as most of us will ever get to a Fillmore experience. Nest Egg offered a fairly motorik approach with reverb and delay just this side of out of control. The concise, pummeling tunes played well off the room’s acoustic properties with a key being the short-scale bass guitar pounding like a heartbeat with the drums.
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Back outside, Dire Wolves were gearing up. You ever just stumble across something so perfect that you wonder if the band is that good or the stars just happened to line up perfectly? It’s always a sign of an interesting set when you can’t tell if the band is still doing their sound check or if they’ve started playing for keeps. The instrumentation of drums, bass, guitar, violin and saxophone offered plenty of possibilities.
Dire Wolves should have made an album with Sonny Sharrock. The guitar drove a riff; then the violin moved from melody to peals and then faded out as the sax took over the dialogue before bells and percussion cooled the proceedings down—until the wordless vocals upped the ante again. A pair of long pieces, then a short ballad, and they were gone.
How much were tickets for this festival? You can’t put a price on this sort of music. This is the kind of music set aside for ceremonies with colored sand and poisonous snakes—the kind of music that should be playing before you walk into the club and continue as you are ushered out.
Back inside, The Telescopes took the stage with their wall of shifting sound. They are another band perfect for this massive sensory overloading light show. Even the between-song tuning was symphonic. You ever wonder what Sonic Youth might have sounded like if they had loosened up and didn’t try so hard to be beyond cool? The Telescopes ran with that vibe for a good long while.
With Company Brewing hosting day two, the music continued. By the evening, all acts had moved inside, and this urban Center Street location offered a nice contrast to Friday’s nearly isolated lakefront setting.
Minneapolis’ Magic Castles offered music reminiscent of the Rain Parade with a lush wall of sound buoyed by Moog synthesizer and Farfisa organ. Jason Edmonds writes songs that just keep unfolding with subtle hooks. You get the feeling this band is just as at home here inside a club with a pulsating light show as they would be outside performing in a field at a free festival.
Depending on how many of the acts you took in, Saturday’s headliners—Lumerians—could be seen as the ultimate payoff to a grueling, if enjoyable, musical expedition. They came highly recommended. With a fairly complicated rig of pedal boards and synths, they made sure everything was ready, and after a quick sound check, said they would be back in a few minutes.
The house lights came down, the PA music faded, and a group of shrouded figures in robes with glowing LED eyes took the stage. In the tradition of Sun Ra, The Residents and Rust Never Sleeps, Lumerians caught the attention of the still-crowded club and proceeded to pummel and overwhelm an audience who reveled in the experience. The light show was still peaking, and by the end of the set, it was an all-out sensory attack—not fair to the listeners hanging by a thread of emotion and physical strength, yet fitting.
Literally minutes after the band played their final notes of music, a sweaty guy sat next to me and set up his merch table. Having shed his robe, this Lumerian realized there was still work to do.
