found at: http://www.eclipse-records.com

Abunai! broke up in mid-2002. The band's final recording, a 12" entitled "Two Brothers", was released on 02 Feb 03.

Abunai! upstairs at the Middle East, 04 Dec 1997, with Nick Saloman guesting on guitar.

Found at: http://www.cameraobscura.com.au/Bios/cambios_ab.htm

found at: http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/interviews/a/acid-mothers-temple-02

found at: http://www.parallelism.com/about.html

found at: http://www.aural-innovations.com/issues/issue3/terra2.html

Photo of Alva at Terrastock One by Sally Irvine

AmberAsylum...a filmic fusion of modern classical and post-rock...where arias and Art Songs meet in a pale field of electronic disturbance. Equally at home in the opera house or the smoky, raucous din of an underground nightclub, AmberAsylum plumbs the crevass between noise and beauty. Lyrical, confessional, dark yet aspirant, their strings, vocals, and spare percussion billow like furious mists across your consciousness...

Dark as it is beautiful, spare as it is complex, its supernaturally decadent powers will overtake you in the remote reaches of your imagination. There's no escaping the Asylum. And no reason you'd want to.

found at: http://www.neurotrecordings.com/catalog

Photo of Amber Asylum at T4 by Jerry Lombardo

 Their sound can best be described as “loud.” Also as “really amazingly fun.” With his New Magnetic Wonder promotion wrapped up, and the Apples rarities comp Electronic Projects for Musicians about ready to hit stores (April 1st on Yep Roc), Robert’s had more time lately to concentrate on launching TAR, including mastering the band’s first record, Buddha Electrostorm–originally planned as an EP, but with enough songs now to support a full-length.

Found at: http://opticalatlas.com

One of the great secrets in the American underground, Antietam arose out of the same fertile scene that spawned indie guitar rock luminaries such as Yo La Tengo, Come and Eleventh Dream Day.  Based in Louisville and anchored on the throaty, androgynous voice of singer/guitarist/songwriter Tara Key, Antietam can be seen today as one of the few remaining links to American’s noted Paisley Underground.  Though Antietam formed a few years after said scene’s heyday and came from more removed environs than either coast, its combination of wiry guitar dissonance and post psychedelic dreaminess plants the group firmly in the pantheon of great noise pop bands.  After the release of the classic Rope-A-Dope for Homestead Records it was feared that Antietam might be fading from the scene, but 2004 onward has seen much activity with live shows and two excellent new studio albums for the Carrot Top Label, including the fantastic 2CD Opus Mixtum, featuring acoustic vignettes worthy of Nick Drake right alongside blistering post punk eruptions.  Fans of the above groups, Throwing Muses and The Dream Syndicate will not want to miss this most excellent ensemble.  Key albums: Rope-A-Dope (Homestead), Victory Park (Carrot Top), Opus Mixtum (Carrot Top).

from the T7 festival program, written by Lee Jackson

Arco are unusual in a number of ways. Ask Chris Healy about his musical influences and you very quickly realise you're not talking to the archetypal record obsessive. Chris is in his mid-30s, and Arco is his first shot at being in a band. He didn't start writing songs until a few years ago. In fact, only David falls into the the category of serial band-member, drummer Nick having just dabbled a bit when at college in the 80s. Chris does mention Nick Drake though, and that gives some indication of the restrained, quintessentially British explorations of sweet melancholy that Arco specialise in.

(from a feature in The Ptolemaic Terrascope)

Photo of Arco at Terrastock III Aug 99 by Chris Gillis

found at: http://www.grimsey.com/autumnleaves.html
 

Unhinged psychotic madness, wildly propulsive psych-folk and Krautrock grooves move into a forested world of dream abstraction, ambience and moonlight trance that reveals a blurred close-up of a band that’s all about freedom, intuition and passion. Beauty is placed right next to chaos; order only a stone throw away from disorder. This is one of very few bands that can take their Ash Ra Tempel, Amon Düül, Tangerine Dream, Godz and Pärson Sound influences and somehow make them sound their own. Despite often investigating the eerie depths of late-'60s/early ’70s psychedelia there is something very modern and demented about all this that feels especially relevant these days. A fucked-up world is typically the birthplace for surreal musical journeys, and boarding Avarus’ vessel through history and into the present day certainly offers a different projection of all that madness.-Mats Gustafsson

found at: http://www.digitalisindustries.com

Avarus photographed at Terrastock 6 by Scott

I made it to Terrastock to hear the final moan of feedback from you guys. That was fairly annoying, as I planned my arrival time so that I could catch Roy Montgomery and then Azusa Plane, but the times kept getting switched around. So, since I still haven't seen you live, how is it different from your recorded material?

Well, in a live venue, we focus on being a loud guitar improv rock band. I have found that the quiet subtle guitar ambiance isn't always the most entertaining show to watch, so what we have done is set up the pounding rhythmic tribal drums and just play through our guitar amps with massive amounts of distortion/volume/effects. Lately we have added some other players such as clarinet/violin/4-track/organ/keyboards/second drummer to fill in some of the empty spaces and just give it some added depth. We like to let loose and wail on our guitars.

How were you approached to do it?

Phil McMullen has supported the Azusa Plane since day one until now (not many people have), and as soon as I heard about Terrastock 1, I asked Phil if we could play, and he obliged. He also invited us to Terrastock 2. I would have been very disappointed to miss them...

I haven't written anything on Terrastock, so hopefully you won't mind going into some detail about that weekend...

A weekend which was very strange and emotional for me. Sadly, our timeslot was messed up, and we were really off-kilter when playing, so we didn't really play the way we should have, and considering it will be the only time we make it to San Francisco, that was kind of a let down, but it was as amazing an event as Terrastock 1. The fact that you can bring all those wonderful musicians and people together is amazing. I don't know how Phil McMullen could pull it off, but it is pretty surreal when you are sitting and watching Alastair Galbraith paddle out into the bay in a little blow up raft. All I can really say it is a special event and the fact that it happens is a minor miracle.

Was Galbraith in the bay right out back of the concert place? What was he trying to do?

Yeah, it was pretty damn great. He went and bought a blow up raft because someone said they wanted to go boating.

That was the first time I saw most of those bands, and in most cases that was the first time I heard those bands. Seeing Neutral Milk Hotel was bordering on surreal. Mazzacane Connors' set was just elegant. Mountain Goats was funny and got me thinking about a bad relationship. Major Stars hurt my ears. Galbraith confused me.

All amazing...and all some of the greatest bands/musicians in the world. That is why the whole thing is nuts. All these amazing people left to toil in obscurity, and let's face it, most of them will toil in obscurity the rest of their lives. Alastair should be on 60 Minutes .

Why should Alastair Galbraith be on 60 Minutes ?

I can't explain it, really, Alastair just has this amazing spirit around him, he is a wonderful musician and painter. He lives in obscurity and squalor, and he should be a star.

Which musicians did you enjoy the most?

Neutral Milk Hotel.

Neutral Milk Hotel: wow. That was something. I loved how Mangum started on stage by himself and one by one the horn section crept onto one side of the stage and then the whole band crept on and that freak with the motorcycle helmet instrument was wandering around the stage in a haze. Did you get to talk to those guys about the show? It looked pretty exhausting.

They rule, they rule, they rule. I can't praise them enough. The new record Aeroplane... will go down as a life changing record for me. Jeff Mangum has a special talent. Live they just project it all perfectly. Every time I see them it's like a traveling circus -- two vans, a bunch of bands, and a million instruments. I dream of being in a band that great.

by Chad Bidwell

found at: http://www.ink19.com/issues_F/99_03/

Photo by Jim Newberry
 

From left to right: The Diminisher, Blue Hawaii, Marta Tennae
 

Bablicon was formed in Chicago in 1996 by The Diminisher (Dave McDonnell), Marta Tennae (Jeremy Barnes), and Blue Hawaii (Griffin Rodriguez). Each member is a writer, as well as an improviser. Plus each member can play an arsenal of instruments. In A Different City, their first album, has both material which is highly composed and wholly improvised. It was recorded by the band in an abandoned machine shop. The roar of Chicago's elevated train (whose tracks ran only a few feet away from the shop's walls) continually interrupted the proceedings.
After completing the album, Dave worked on finishing his degree in music composition, and Griffin set out to India to study the Veena, a South Indian relative of the sitar. Jeremy went on tour in Europe with Neutral Milk Hotel, and spent time living there as well.
In May of 1999, the band got together again for the first realization of its "painticons." 400 blank LP covers were placed on the floor and painted by the audience while the band performed. These covers were then used for the vinyl version of In A Different City. The record was released in the US by Misra and in the UK by Pickled Egg.
June 2000 saw the release of the Orange Tapered Moon EP. The main bulk of the recordings were done in a long, late night session at the WFMU studios in New Jersey in November 1999 with more additions/edits done at home. Again all the LP covers were hand-painted.
The group's third record, A Flat Inside A Fog, The Cat That Was A Dog, was released in June 2001. After its recording, Dave went off to study in China and Jeremy took up residence in France. Griffin began work on his new project, Icey Demons, and finished recording a record in 2003.

found at: http://www.elephant6.com/bands/bablicon.html
 

Photograph: C. Taylor Crothers © 1999

I heard someone comment recently that the limits of music have now been defined, bracketed by John Cage's silence at one end and Merzbow's maximum noise at the other, leaving only the option of filling the spaces in between. Bardo Pond demonstrate how much scope there is to innovate within that continuum. If rock music is to have any relevance in the new millennium, it is bands like Bardo Pond that will make it so.

(by Tony Dale, from a feature in The Ptolemaic Terrascope)

found at: http://www.eyelessingaza.com/mbbio.html

Photo of Bevis at Terrastock 2: Erik Auerbach http://www.aquariusrecords.org/exhibits/terra2.html

found at: http://www.allmusic.com

Article found in: http://www.secreteye.org/b/bio/

Photo: www.lotsofnoise.com

Article found in: the Terrastock 6 festival program

Photo of Bridget at T6: Phil McMullen

The name is John Terlesky, (born in Easton, PA.,USA) but people have been calling him JT for as long as he can remember. BROTHER JT since the early 90’s (suggested by a music writer/benefactor who felt some of his ramblings resembled those of a defrocked monk). It’s not easy to write to have the blessing for an official ‘ bio ‘ as John Terlesky admits himself because he does not feel he has achieved the notoriety to warrant it. What he has done is written a lot of songs. His first group the ORIGINAL SINS (1987-1998) put out some 10 albums and the same number as BROTHER JT as of 1991 onwards. As he himself describes " … To me it’s always been about the songs anyway. I think I only really feel in my element when I’m putting melodies and rhymes together, which could account for all the time I’ve spent doing it without much compensation. "

For a while when the Original Sins started it seemed like they might be going places: They got great reviews from Rolling Stone, Sounds and Creem magazines, did some tours of the US and Europe and even got a few videos played on MTV’S " 120 Minutes ". But their version of Garage pop never really fit in with either the 60’s purist or indie rock camps and they kind of fell through the cracks the Grunge scene created. The same could be also said for the BROTHER JT output, despite being labelled " psychedelic " or whatever, it’s either been a little too lo-fi and trippy for some and too poppy for others. Nevertheless it seemed just right for him at the time of writing and recording it. John Terlesky believes the reason he has never gained much acceptance is because he always " … wanted to reconcile the popular with the experimental ". The music he loved most (early Stooges, John Coltrane, 13th Floor Elevators, Beach Boys, Velvet Underground) all possessed both elements: light and darkness. In a way he is still trying to come up with just the right balance.

Strangely enough, despite the doubtful prospect of profit-making, people keep wanting to put out his records. He would have probably just kept writing songs anyway, so the fact that some value them enough to let them see the light of the day makes him feel pretty successful after all.

found at: http://www.tonguemaster.co.uk
 

Brothers of the Occult Sisterhood is centred around Michael Donnelly who resides in Kyogle, a tiny Australian town that stands in the middle of one of the country's largest rainforests. The stunning mountain scenery, the rainforests surrounding the town and the remnant magma chamber of an extinct and enormous volcano that can be found nearby are apparent when listening to their music. That being said, these people provide a diverse trek through the outer regions of acoustic improvisations, tribal folk eruptions, forested drones, roaring psychedelia, strangely fractured folk-scapes; and even then there's still a unifying cohesion to what's going on here.

Text found at: Terrastock 6 festival program

Photo of BOTOS at T6: Phil McMullen
 

"Charalambides are among the most beautiful and mysterious groups to have emerged from the American desert. Formed in 1991 in Houston, Texas, they have created a glowing template of humanist/mystical improvisation that has kneaded brain muscles from here to Kokomo."

Photo of Charalambides at Terrastock 5 by Avril Wine

found at: http://www.southern.net

 

Kate Biggar and Naomi Yang with "Rainbow Eyes" - photo: Richard Booth (from the private collection of the Editor)

The only tribute band ever to have played a Terrastock festival - the Magic Hour line-up pays homage to Merrell Fankhauser and Mu.

"We ride a white horse, our message is true / And our magic works in the daylight / Could it be that we've been searching for you / Come go with us into the sunshine / Come go with us over the rainbow...."

from the Terrastock Four festival program notes

Clockbrains have been playing live and recording as a band since 1989. Holding true to their DIY independence, their latest CD The Other Side of the Sky is the fourth of a series of self-released titles on the Fancy Basket Toy Co label. The first LP Everything You Want was an extensive foray in studio experimenttation - an eclectic blend of spacey psychedelia, carnival ride keyboards and drowsy swing, all overlaid with tuneful pop. With bassist Lynne Porterfield's part-time move to 12-string guitar the band added the complementary bass/guitar talents of Matt Appleby. The power hitting of new drummer Mark Hutchins, together with the melodious guitar work of Alleyne Rogers and the occasional spooky violinery of John Ettinger combine in The Other Side of the Sky, the result of Clockbrains' 5 year evolution in defining their own brand of noisy, melodic rock.

from: a Fancy Basket Toy Co press release

One of the staples of the Northwest [USA] psychedelic rock scene in the '60s, Crome Syrcus released a fabulous album in 1968 entitled Love Cycle. After many accolades and a move to San Francisco, the band split up and the members went off in various different musical and career directions. Their show at Terrastock 4 will be the first reunion of the band in many, many years.

from the Terrastock Four programme notes

photo credit: http://www.cromesyrcus.com/

Cul de Sac outside Jon Williams' Vermont recording studio.
l-r: Jake Trussell, Jon Proudman, Jonathan LaMaster, Glenn Jones, Robin Amos.

In the middle of what was to become Cul de Sac's fifth studio album (2003's critically heralded Death of the Sun), the band switched gears to lend their unique avant/psych-rock atmospherics to The Strangler's Wife. Thoroughly absorbed in the script and rough cuts of the film, the band began composing music specifically for key scenes. Glenn Jones came to the studio offering one of the best songs of his career - "Mirror II (Mae and Elena)", a yearning, Fahey-esque acoustic ballad (heartstring-tugging courtesy of Jonathan LaMaster's emotive violin melodies). Samples and electronic compositions were brought in by Cul de Sac electricians Robin Amos and Jake Trussell, exactingly constructed for certain scenes. The rest of the music was either composed in the studio or improvised on the spot, as the film was running. The resulting score unfurls a sonic scene-by-scene recreation of the movie as Cul de Sac heard it. From the film's opening sequence "First Victim (Apple)/Main Titles", Cul de Sac offer up a dose of their idiosyncratic Kraut-vibe, with a touch prog that brings to mind Goblin's 70's Italian horror film scores…but from there, the musical plot is anything but predictable. Sentimental/ominous acoustic-fueled compositions, horror show sound paintings, visceral drum 'n' bass meltdowns, ambient tonal soundscapes - all are revealed through the course of the recording, with remarkably dramatic effect.
In the spirit of classic Italian horror film scores of the 70's and film soundtracks scored by avant rock bands such as Nosferatu (Popol Vuh), More (Pink Floyd) and Zabriskie Point (Various), Cul de Sac has concocted music of a tremendously detailed, dynamic scope. The Strangler's Wife is a silver screen moment for one of the most expressive experimental rock bands of the last decade.

found at: http://www.strange-attractors.com/catalog/saah017.html

The music of Damon and Naomi is hard to pin down with words. Slow and mysterious, their transcendent folk songs have an intangible glow. Both their own web site bio and their label bio essentially say "Damon and Naomi play instruments and make music," giving no clues and instead pushing you toward the music itself. But that's mainly what I can do too…if you haven't heard any of their recordings, I suggest you do so as soon as possible. Since 1991, they've released four studio albums, an EP and a live album/DVD. The group started as a side project under the name Pierre Etoile, while both Damon and Naomi were members of the now-legendary dream-rock band Galaxie 500. After that band broke up they tentatively moved towards making music on their own, eventually getting comfortable enough with the idea to record a series of exquisite albums. Their most recent two recordings both highlight the group's continual collaborations with the great Japanese psych-folk band Ghost. In 2000 was the album Damon and Naomi With Ghost, which has a full sound perfect for laying your ears upon and dreaming the day away. This year saw the release of the live CD/DVD Song to the Siren, an audio and visual document of a tour they undertook with Ghost guitarist Kurihara as a third member. In an interview with the magazine Ptolemaic Terrascope described the tour in a way that, to me, is about as apt and description of their music in general as you'll find. He said, "During the tour I was gradually able to grasp their unique sense of timing and breathing. Particularly from around the middle of the tour on there were a number of amazing moments when we got this real synergy between the vibrations of the audience and the vibrations that we on stage were putting out. I guess that's what people mean when they talk about 'magic'."

Damon: We've actually ended up playing every Terrastock so far -- it's a special event, because it's so rare that you get to be with a lot of other bands, and still be in a comfortable environment for music. Industry events, like CMJ or SXSW, are really more about business than they are about music. And huge festivals -- not that we're experts, but we did play a couple once upon a time -- are just impossible situations for music. Terrastock is basically a chance for freaks to get together, both music fans and musicians -- it's like hanging out for a few days in a very good, living record store.
 

found at: http://www.erasingclouds.com/01oct.html

Not too many people have heard of Richard Davies, but he regularly gets compared to some of the greatest songwriters of all time, people like Burt Bacharach, Paul McCartney and Brian Wilson.

The 34-year-old Australian, who lives in upstate New York, says that while magazines may attempt to place him in such lofty company, he's not concerned with chiseling a spot on pop's proverbial Mount Rushmore.

"It's pointless to try and measure music along those lines," Davies says on the phone from his home near Woodstock. "Music is one of the few things in life where you can be free, man."

Davies is free these days, and he's taken advantage of his liberty to create two memorable and important albums of unabashedly melodic music: 1996's There's Never Been a Crowd Like This and the recently released Telegraph (Flydaddy).

The singer-songwriter first earned notice as leader of the Moles, a Sydney, Australia, band that spent the early '90s churning out abstract garage-pop tunes. Davies then teamed up with Gresham's Eric Matthews to form Cardinal, which issued a self-titled 1994 record that The New York Times called "the most brilliantly understated album" of the year.

Originally published: Willamette Week - April 15, 1998

Building from a whisper to a roar might not seem like the most original sonic formula in the world, but UK’s Dead Maids (formerly Monster Bastard Project) offers a stylistic twist to the proceedings that makes them extremely rewarding.  From the deep end of the ocean softly meandering guitar lines and bass rise to the surface and quietly explore the inner space of your mind, before morphing into massive cascades of Kinski-like guitar cacophony.  What sets them apart from many in the genre are two things, first of all the spectacular handling of the skins and secondly the trio’s predilection for stoner rock and angular post punk.  This all adds a raw and heavy element to the mix that makes the end result sound like a cross between Kyuss and Explosions in the Sky.

found at: http://www.dayrelease.com/delnews.htm
 

found at: http://www.dayrelease.com/delnews.htm
 

Dipsomaniacs on stage at T5 - Thomas Henriksen conjuring with the Theremin. (Photo by Amy Nyman)

Norwegian band The Dipsomaniacs have been active since about 1997, devastating all in their wake with a particularly right-on take on the classics codes and curlicues of 60s psychedelic pop. From his base in Trondheim, Øyvind Holm and collaborators have written, recorded and released a masterful series of three albums and numerous singles, starting with the raw four-track cassette recordings that became 1997's "Bumblebee Eyes", which had echoes of everything from Lennon to Gram Parsons to Guided By Voices. This was followed in the same year by the wonderful "Subterfuge" EP, consolidating on material, style, and recording technique. 

1n 1998, Holm released the widely acclaimed "Reverb No Hollowness" LP and CD on the Norwegian Progress label. The record showed increased confidence vocally and instrumentally, and was recorded on eight-track, resulting in more layering and punch to the sound. 

In 1999, an expanding line up took in a fourth member, Thomas Henriksen, on keyboards and harmony vocal duties, and by late summer Holm had written all the songs that were to become the Dipsomaniacs' third album. The "Braid of Knees" LP was intended by Holm to be symphony for turntable and headphones, and it succeeded beyond all expectations, being one of the finest psychedelic pop LPs of the past 10 years.

2000 was a year of consolidation for the band. They appeared at the LA International Pop Overthrow Festival, and released the "Burn Brightly" single on Camera Obscura. "Stethoscopic Notion", was released on Camera Obscura in October 2001 to great acclaim on both sides of the pacific. Byron Coley in Arthur described the album as "rich, full, and quivery - a smoosh of wonderful influences, blended in new ways - a triumph of some sort". In August 2002, the band released "The Tremolo Of Her Mind/The Strings Of Her Soul" on Free City Media Records allowing progressive rock jam itches to be scratched.

found at: http://www.cameraobscura.com.au/obscura.htm
 

The Great Leap Forward was the first release from the new label Career Records, co-founded by Ron Sanchez and Australian singer/guitarist Deniz Tek. To date, the label has also released the thrashing rock and skate punk of Deniz Tek and The Golden Breed and two brand new CDs by outstanding female rock singer/songwriters: Angie Pepper's Res Ipsa Loquitor and Penny Ikinger's Electra. Angie Pepper punks up girl group styles and sometimes sounds like Chrissie Hinde in her prime. Donovan's Brain backs Pepper on a few more psychedelic songs as well. Penny Ikinger has more of an indie Nico vibe featuring haunting passages of whispered vocals shrouded in walls of feedback. All of the Career Records CDs (as well as the Donovan's Brain back catalog on Get Hip) are highly recommended.

found at: http://www.freecitymedia.com/BigRonFrameSet1.html

Elf Power Elf Power was formed by Andrew Rieger and Laura Carter in 1994 in Athens, GA where they emerged as part of the second wave of bands linked to The Elephant 6 Recording Company: a coterie of like-minded, lo-fi indie groups which includes The Apples in stereo, Neutral Milk Hotel and The Olivia Tremor Control. The band initially began as a recording project when Andrew and Laura recorded the first album "Vainly Clutching At Phantom Limbs" at home, which they pressed a limited edition of 50 copies on vinyl to give to friends.



The positive response to the record led to the formation of Elf Power as a live band, and since then, they've gone on to record 4 more albums (When the Red King Comes, A Dream in Sound, Winter Is Coming & Creatures), as well as several ep's. The band has toured the U.S., Europe, and Japan many times with bands like Wilco, Guided By Voices, R.E.M., and Neutral Milk Hotel. They have worked with producer Dave Fridmann (Flaming Lips, Mercury Rev), and have attracted a rabid cult following worldwide.

found at: http://www.spinartrecords.com/bands.php?b=elfpower

Photo: http://tiger.towson.edu/~adebru1/elfpower.html

(from Wikipedia)

Currently residing in Los Angeles, California, The Entrance Band started out as the solo project of Guy Blakeslee (formerly of The Convocation Of…) under the more solitary guise of Entrance.  Across its three albums Entrance weaves a world of narcotic blues and desolate loner folk with tasteful psychedelic flourishes reflecting a traditional take on the outsider perspective of life.  Blakeslee’s plain spoken, deeply soulful vocals fall somewhere between the bluesy histrionics of Devendra Banhart and the down home folk country of Will Oldham, while relating traditional and often quite stoned narratives of devotion and heartbreak, love and loss over a wandering acoustic blues psych backdrop in the finest tradition of stripped down acid-kissed country blues.  The occasional feedback burst knocks things off kilter on a brilliant way with a nice 60s West Coast glaze, but through all The Entrance Band maintains a convincing almost traditional vibe.  2006’s darkly transfixing full band affair, Prayer of Death, marks further progressions with a deeper big band sound and supporting live players.  Hence the current name, The Entrance Band. Key albums:  Wandering Stranger (Fat Possom), Prayer of Death (Tee Pee).

from the T7 festival programme. Words by Lee Jackson.
 

Terrastock has always been about building connections across the global psychedelic underground, and probably no act on this festival’s roster embodies that ethos more than this unique duo. Masaki Batoh is of course the lead shaman of the long-lived Japanese psychedelic-prog-folk masters Ghost; his occasional past solo works have continued that group’s spiritual earth-psychedelia in a quieter but no less mind-expanding vein. Helena Espvall is best-known as cellist for Philadelphia acid-folk royals the Espers; however, the Swedish native has played in an incredibly diverse range of musical situations, from improvisational to classical, traditional to avant-garde. This is not the two’s first collaboration – Espvall played some Japanese concerts with Ghost in late 2007, and the duo have recorded an album due out later this year – but it will be the first chance for listeners to hear them weave their magic together on these shores.

from the T7 festival program. Written by Kevin Moist.

People say Everything Is Green is merely an authentic replica of psych-folk records from the 1960s-- that the band isn't just influenced by that sound, but they actually are that sound. But the difference between The Essex Green and folks like the Apples in Stereo is that The Essex Green make no attempt at twee-pop. You'll find no Wolfie-style, three-chord fluff here. The melodies echo the more complex pop structures of the 60s made popular by bands like the Mamas and the Papas, The Doors, or a darker Byrds.

found at: http://www.pitchforkmedia.com

The second album, Mellifluous Confluence initially had an even more limited release, being limited to just 1,000 copies, although a CD reissue has made it slightly more widely available. For this album, Rod played most of the instruments himself with an old friend and former Scratch Band colleague, Phil Smith, behind the drum kit. It's a good, if strange, album with competent, if unspectacular, guitar playing, Rod's distorted vocals and an array of effects. The stand out tracks are the lengthy Splashed with its wah-wah overload and hint of eastern scales and the hard edged, dark psychedelia of The New Koran. Aching Cellar is a more laid back piece with a hint of Pink Floyd detectable in the backing and guitar soloing, though not in the heavily distorted vocals. There's some pretty weird stuff as well, such as the Beefheart influenced In (which I guess is a reworking of a Magic Muscle track, Inside Out), the warped rock and roll of Bo Ties and The Old Lady Gets It which is a cut up of various snatches of dialogue from Hollywood movies and British soaps, adverts and variety shows with weird noises in the background.  He contributed a track, Let It Fly to the Ptolemaic Terrascope benefit compilation, Succour.

found at: http://www.borderlinebooks.com/80s90s/e0010.html

Was it psychedelic music, blues-rock, avant-rock, proto-punk, or comedy? All of the above at times; none of the above all the time. What Ptooff! offered was a combination acid trip/horror show. The roller coaster ride went through maddeningly repetitive metallic bone-crunchers, beautiful flower-power ballads, Cagean experiments in musique concrete, deliberately offensive comedy, solemn poetry, and sound collages that referenced Jimi Hendrix, Bo Diddley, and Swinging London nightlife. The Deviants may have been aligned with the hippie/underground movement. Yet if this was flower-power and free love, it was delivered with a sneer that had no patience for mindless flight from reality, with an anarchic energy that looked forward a full decade to punk.

The Deviants went on to release a couple of more conventional, far less impressive albums before disbanding at the end of the 1960s. Lead singer Mick Farren has been involved with several reformed versions of the Deviants that have made intermittent recordings from the late 1970s to the present. He's far better known today, however, as an author, both of non-fiction (including a critical Elvis Presley guide that he co-wrote with Roy Carr) and science/fantasy fiction. He has also worked as a rock critic, on and off, over the last few decades.

found at: http://www.alive-totalenergy.com/deviants.html

An experimental San Francisco-based group, Fifty Foot Hose comprised: Nancy Blossom (vocals), David Blossom (guitar/piano), Larry Evans (guitar/vocals), Terry Hansley (bass), Kim Kimsey (drums) and Cork Marcheschi (electronic effects). Their lone album offered an unusual mixture of styles, including a version of Billie Holiday's God Bless The Child, which were treated by Marcheschi's synthesized accompaniment. The set also featured Nancy Blossom's haunting vocals and invited comparisons with another unit, United States Of America. However Fifty Foot Hose provided a less scholarly perspective—Marcheschi had previously fronted the Ethix, a renowned local garage band—and thus appeared purposeful and exciting. Unfortunately the sextet failed to secure success and broke up in the early '70s. Larry Evans later joined the Hoodoo Rhythm Devils, while David Blossom established Blossom Studios.

Photo of the band on stage at Terrastock 2: Steve Burton, http://www.aural-innovations.com

Colour photo of Eliza Park (above) - not sure, but thought to be by Scott Sterbenz

Flying Saucer Attack began almost accidentally when Dave Pearce, a record store clerk, and his girlfriend Rachel Brook, recorded a couple songs on her brother's new four track tape machine. He played them around the store and got so many requests that he pressed the songs onto a single. Brook has since left to play in Movietone, and Pearce has made seven albums and played a few concerts, most notably at the Terrastock psychedelic festival.
found at: http://www.inkblotmagazine.com

found at: http://www.ecstaticrecords.com/freed_2.html

The world of Tara Burke is a place I'd like to visit. Throughout her career, she has made original, psychedelic tinged music. Using a farfisa organ as her trademark, her music flows from her fingers like honey from a beehive. It is an integral part of her, and it seems so natural. Burke, like many other artists in the genre, finds inspiration everywhere. Nature is life, and life is inspiring. Fursaxa has put out LPs on Ecstatic Peace, Time-Lag, and Eclipse in addition to a 3" CD-R release as part of the Jewelled Antler Library. Add in two brilliant self-released CD-Rs and Burke's discography is extremely impressive. Having toured and worked with the likes of Six Organs of Admittance and Acid Mothers Temple, Burke is hitting the road this autumn with Black Forest/Black Sea and Christina Carter.

text found at: Foxy Digitalis

Photo of Tara (foreground) chatting at the Taqueria while awaiting Lightning Bolt at T6: Phil McMullen

Photo of Alistair Galbraith at Terrastock 2, 1998: Erik Auerbach

An accomplished violinist and a naturally talented song-writer who cut his teeth in his mid teens with the brilliant but under-recorded The Rip, Galbraith has quietly gone about producing a number of excellent solo albums through a long, consistant career.

found at: http://www.fraew.orcon.net.nz/reviews/g.htm#

found at: http://citypaper.net/articles/2002-10-03/music.shtml

photograph of Ghost at Terrastock 2, 1998: Dianne Jones
 

Portland, Oregon quintet Grails share our love for Eastern psychedelia, organic Krautrock ambience, space and high-octane riffing. The results presented on last year’s Burning Off Impurities (Temporary Residence) is an instrumental rock album with shiploads of dynamics that unlike a lot of other bands in this genre never gets predictable. On the contrary this is a disc, or dbl LP, that continues to surprise all the way through its eights tracks. This might very well be one of those rare occasions when something truly great actually gets hyped. Just like with any Agitation Free album this is music that is ideal for long train rides or for laying down at the deserted beach staring at the ever-changing sky.

From the T7 festival program. Words by Mats Gustafsson.
 

found at: http://www.pixievision.com/greenpajamas/

Photo: Scott Sterbenz / Carrell McCarthy, Terrastock 3 1999

found at: http://www.borderlinebooks.com

Richard Treece of the Green Ray (pictured right) with Ron Sanchez of Donovan's Brain. Photo copyright Richard Booth.

found at: http://www.pehrlabel.com/grimblegrumble/#bio

found at: http://www.epitonic.com/artists/hilkka.html

    Hood make mope rock for the laptop era. This British quartet are survivors of a brief early - '90s moment of mingling between U.K. indie rock and techno. Reared on the guitar haze of A. R. Kane and My Bloody Valentine, these groups had their heads flipped around by Aphex Twin. While some of them, like Seefeel, gradually went all the way into abstract electronix, other, like legends-to-a-few Disco Inferno, remained attached to the song and the voice. Updating this dream pop-meets-electronica formula, Hood offers glitch with a human face, their sound poised between the Jack Frost fragility of New Zealand jangler the Chills and the faded-photo poignancy of Boards of Canada. Crunchy filtered beats jostle with bright acoustic guitar, crestfallen analog synths waver alongside mournful horns. But just as you've got Cold House pegged as a way-underground cousin to Kid A and Vespertine, another element comes in from far left-field: hip-hop. Abstrakt-to-the-max rhymes from Doseone and Why? of Bay Area crew Clouddead feature on three tracks, ranging from surreal lines like "sometimes the sun doesn't want to be photographed" to stuff that's more like a braid-of-breath than actual decipherable words.

As Cold House's title suggests, the dominant mood is desolate (Hood come from Leeds, the infamously bleak north of England). On "The Winter Hit Hard," gale-force winds of dubbed-out drumming buffet a frail sapling of a vocal melody, and the entire album teems with images like "there's coldness in this sky" or "your cold hand in mine." This dearth of heat is as much a matter of internal affect as climate, though. chris Adams' fallible voice recalls too-sensitive-for-this-world folk minstrel Nick Drake, and the lyrics manage to stay just on the right side of "precious" as they flick through snapshots from what seems to be the drawn out death throes of a relationship. Pained insights flash by concerting regret, the oppressive weight of the past, dreams "snatched from your grasp," and the way the world seems dead, stripped of all enchantment, after the love had gone. For Hood, life's a glitch, and then you cry.

found at: http://www.hoodmusic.net

Hopewell live at mercury lounge (© Dino Perrucci)

Hopewell's core members grew up in Hopewell Junction, NY: A small town north of New York City that went from farmland to strip malls in the space of two decades. The music is a visceral combination of rock and roll and romantic psychedelia. Underneath a flirtatious experimentation there is classic songwriting and a wistful sense of longing. An attitude undoubtedly fed by the notion that you can never go home again. When Jason Russo was twenty years old he found himself touring the world with the now legendary Mercury Rev. This profound experience led him to formulate ideas about music's ability to transport people out of their normal circumstances. For the next several years his brother Justin and his involvement with their upstate NY mentors punctuated Hopewell's early endeavors. It wasn't until the 2001 release of Hopewell's critically acclaimed The Curved Glass that the two decided to devote all of their attention to making their own music.

Hovercraft's unique musical vision veers between industrial noise, ambient sounds and the soothing lull that comes with repetition. If that sounds like heavy going, fear not--the ride might be abrasive at times, but that doesn't mean it's not enjoyable. Sometimes raucous and bumpy, sometimes serene and hypnotic, Akathisia has no lyrics to get in the way--just drums, bass, and assorted electronic gizmos.

Hovercraft is language, specifically the communication between three individuals, each in a hyperfocused state of mental and physical struggle, filtering into music the world around them. Abandoning accepted musical structure and utilizing traditional and modern tools, these three individuals, Campbell2000, Sadie7 and Dashll set out to find what they feel are proper combinations of frequency, pitch and tone, to express what they would otherwise put into words. Their language is their own, and to see Hovercraft perform is to voyueristically peer into their minds and witness a complex and extremely personal conversation about their findings and their confusion. By no means is the music solely an experiment, although the experience of the musician and listener very much is.

found at: http://www.mute.com/mute/links.htm#Hover

Lines from poems, tidbits of letters, a grainy photograph, a drawing or painting, the colors in the sky at sunset, drives along the parkway, hikes, all things psychedelic in nature, from leaves to the moss covering a tree:  These are the elements of one man folk/psych/drone ensemble Hush Arbors. Hush Arbors AKA Keith Wood delivers music that accompanies dreams, as it organically flows across the sky when you’re walking to work and creeps up on you when you least expect it to. There’s something equally chilling and spiritual about it, like an imaginary meeting of the Blithe Sons and Six Organs of Admittance in an attempt to describe various memories, and tell each other previously hidden histories. This is free folk bristling with rare invention and spirit, and the results are well on par with the undisputed masters of the genre.

from the Terrastock 7 festival program. Words: Mats Gustafsson

from http://www.theiditarod.org/

Ignatz is the nom musical of Belgian cartoonist Bram Devens, and his raw and hypnotic roots-driven music sounds like little else on the current scene. Named after the brick-hurling mouse in George Herriman’s 1920s/30s comic strip Krazy Kat, Ignatz brings a similarly surrealistic worldview to bear on musical roots drawn from early-20th century American folk blues forms. Starting from a deceptively primitive guitar base, Ignatz takes the implied drone at the heart of country blues and stretches it into the mesmerizing extended spaces associated with minimalists like LaMonte Young, interjecting ghostly vocal wails and psychedelic effects processed through a rough and fractured lo-fi sensibility. As heard on his two “official” recordings on the (K-RAA-K)³ label (cleverly titled Ignatz and Ignatz II) and a handful of limited releases, Ignatz’s music exists in a world all its own, one just off to the side of consensus reality – both old and new, neither roots nor avant-garde, simultaneously accessible and otherworldly, primal and sophisticated all at once.

From the Terrastock 7 festival program. Words: Kevin Moist

One of the most enjoyable aspects about Terrastock festivals is the combination of already established underground heroes and new names. The Insect Factory is admittedly a new name to me, but after exploring Silver Spring, Maryland guitarist Jeff Barsky’s deep oceans of drone and contemplative waves of sound it goes without saying that he fits nicely alongside any other Terrastock combo. The glistening sound clusters are brought forth in a tidal wave of tonal constancy, displaying a static, yet detailed drone tunnel that’s always moving but does so in a glacial style. Barsky sculpts a beautiful aural “rainbow in curved air” that reminds me of some of the finest minimalists and static drone-drifters. If you're getting tired of the legendary artists of this genre as companions for staring out the window at nothing in particular, here's a new one to hold on to.

From the Terrastock 7 festival program. Words: Mats Gustafsson

Most people know Glenn Jones as guitarist extraordinaire from Cul de Sac, in which his idiosyncratic blend of surf, Middle Eastern, Americana and acid guitar innovations are a signature of the band's much-ballyhooed sound. Across the better part of a decade, electric guitar (and the effects hybrid of his own creation, The Contraption) has been Jones' weapon of choice, but few people are aware that long before Cul de Sac was born, Jones played the acoustic guitar exclusively for many years. From the time his father bought him his first axe at age 14, Jones never even picked up an electric until the wave of punk rock broke over his consciousness at the ripe age of 29. Although eventually seduced by electricity, Jones never escaped his roots.

Photo of Glenn at Terrastock 6: Phil McMullen

Perhaps no one in the past couple of decades has epitomized the dedication of the international underground scene quite like Makoto Kawabata, whose tireless energy and breadth of vision have unified a dizzying array of bands, projects, and musical forms. Best known for piloting the Acid Mothers Temple mothership from its base in 1970s cosmic progressive acid-rock, his other work has encompassed everything from ethnic trance sounds to screaming hair-flailing power-rock, from free improvisation to delicate folk music, to avant-garde minimalism to post-noise maximalism, as documented across many dozens of releases from all corners of the globe. Kawabata’s sensibility combines a deep knowledge of the history of outsider music with a psychedelic spirituality and a sense of the postmodern absurd, all of which has garnered him a much-deserved reputation as one of the intergalactic standard-bearers for all things freakout.

From the Terrastock 7 festival prgram. Words: Mats Gustafsson

Kemialliset Ystävät is the drunken bird's dream, the mouldy instrument, the song of half past four am joy, people bathing in fairy's pee and releasing the enchanting sound and the tantalising sound. They have been active movers in the Finnish underground for over a decade now, slowly building their own castle of sound. Someone wrote that is was like "landscapes glimpsed from a train: marching band melodies scored for duck calls and bells, huge fields of teleporting percussion, accordion-led music box refrains and heartbreaking almost-songs carried on tides of wordless vocals". With members coming and going, the music of Kemialliset Ystävät is always moving to new and unknown territories.

Text found in the Terrastock 6 festival programme

Photo found at http://www.digitalisindustries.com/

The band self-released their first album, SpaceLaunch for Frenchie, in 1999 as a three-piece: guitar, bass and drums (courtesy of Chris Martin, Lucy Atkinson and Dave Weeks, respectively). In early 2000, the band added Matthew Reid-Schwartz on guitar and 2001's Be Gentle with the Warm Turtle (released via Pacifico Recordings) shows the four hitting a new stride. Seattle's The Stranger commented, "Highly emotive and aggressive, the aural rushes Kinski generates are unlike those of any other band currently playing in Seattle. Kinski routinely stupefies audience members with its passion and overarching force." And, Alternative Press weighed in with, "The disc makes one of the few strong arguments against the claim that rock is dead." The website fakejazz.com put it a bit more succinctly: "Kinski is fucking massive."

And they've spent their fair share of time in the van too. Kinski has toured with Hovercraft, Silkworm, Acid Mother's Temple (both in the US and in Japan), played packed rooms at the CMJ New Music Festival, Terrastock IV and V, and South by Southwest. They headline sold-out shows regularly at home in Seattle, and share bills with like-minded bands, such as Bardo Pond, Mouse on Mars, Black Dice and Mono (Japan). All of which is lucky for us, because Kinski is electrifying live: a lockgroove, hypnotic rhythm section surrounded, intertwined and metamorphosed by guitar dynamics. Theirs is an exercise in sonic tension and release; variations and explorations on themes more typically attributed to jazz artists; guitar texture and wash more easily described in visual terms. But, they're indisputably a rock band and their appeal is at least as visceral as cerebral. We're here to get our ya-yas (and/or yo-yos...) out, not our slide-rules. In Spring 2002 Kinski recorded their third album, Airs Above Your Station, working again with producer Kip Beelman. Shortly after recording the new record, drummer Barrett Wilke took over the drum stool and proved his mettle with a festival highlight set at Terrastock V, and subsequent tour home with Acid Mothers Temple.

found at: http://www.kinski.net/bio.htm

"... Over the course of two years, one album, one mini-album and one single, KIRK LAKE, writer and musician, has been striving to find a feasible accommodation for both disciplines, without getting closer either to wealth or a simple job description. "I do two things," he considers over Beck's and Embassy. "I write and I do readings of that stuff, or I do music-based things. It wastes my time as much as anyone else's to turn up and do a reading at a rock venue, 'cos that's not what a rock audience wants." His first album, 1995's 'So, You Got Anything Else?', was essentially a collection of spoken-word pieces backed by music from a variety of friends (Sonic Boom), or kindred spirits (Martin Carr, a fellow devotee of Charles Bukowski).

Though claiming compositional and arrangement credit, he is sanguine about his musical abilities. "I don't play anything and I have no knowledge of instruments. It seems to me a horrific concept playing in a band with the same people playing the same songs over and over again."

Kirk Lake got that band thing out of his system ten years ago in a self-confessed "shit" outfit called Shakedown, featuring one Simon Gilbert on drums. Simon has since gone on to pop stardom with Suede.

found at:http://www.hooligandevelopment.com

Kitchen Cynics is the project of one man: Alan Davidson. During the years Davidson has released tons of LPs, tapes, CDRs and CDs on countless small labels all over the world. Albums that are filled with highly personal lo-fi folk songs with a slight touch of psychedelica here and there. Melodious songs with poetic texts in which Davidson muses over everyday events in his home town Aberdeen, Scotland. Tranquil songs that read almost like a diary. Nothing is what it seems in Kitchen Cynic’s universe, for under all those beautiful and sometimes naïve melodies darker secrets hide.

text and photo found at http://www.digitalisindustries.com

People interested in music that defies the pop song convention, music that challenges that part of your brain that lies dormant during most aural experiences, need a band like Washington DC’s Kohoutek. This quintet began their wildly meandering journey across the more peripheral realms of free-form psych rock a few years back and from the very beginning they seemed determined to try to cross swathes of interstellar drone, guitar squall and loose, slowly evolving improvisations of drum and bass grooves and squelchy electronics with tapestries of gravitationally flowing darkness. What we get is a sonic bag that is raw, gorgeous, loud, dreamy, dissonant and mystical at the same time, somehow managing to transcend all sorts of seemingly limited genre barriers. Dedicated followers of bands such as the Spacious Mind, SubArachnoid Space and Ash Ra Tempel will for sure want to check these cats out, with a musical style that at its best rarely goes wrong in the live setting.

From the Terrastock 7 festival program. Words: Mats Gustafsson

Text found in the Terrastock 6 festival program.

Photo by Phil McMullen

Larkin Grimm, based in Providence Rhode Island, was born in a Memphis, TN commune and grew up in Dahlonega, Georgia in the foothills of the Appalachians with a family of singers and fiddlers. 'Harpoon', her debut CD on Secret Eye, reflects these rustic influences through a modern, psychedelic filter. Larkin's intense, ecstatic voice with swirling multi-tracked patterns recalls the richness of Illuminations-period Buffy Sainte-Marie and the sparkle of Linda Perhacs. Her instrumentation includes dulcimer, pennywhistle, bells, drums and guitar. Larkin was previously a member of the Dirty Projectors (Western Vinyl) where she astounded audiences with her mesmerising voice.

Text found in: the Terrastock 6 program.

Photo of Larkin Grimm at T6: Phil McMullen

The Selected EP is a stylistic mix of the best of the '90s. Some tracks on the disc were staples of early Lilys sets, but never made it onto record. Here, they appear in full glory. At times it's as if you're listening to a confused super group, featuring members from Ride, the Kinks, XTC, the Byrds, MBV, the Apples in Stereo, and the Stone Roses. Unusual, but very appealing.

found at: http://www.ink19.com/issues/december2000

Over the course of their 14 year (non)career, this five(-to-seven) member quartet of post-graduate miscreants named after a world-famous chemist has waved the flag of wasted higher than just about anyone else. Previous album titles such as Ashes in the Bong of God and Killing You with Rock have eloquently testified to the group’s philosophical orientation and collective motivations… Drop the needle on one of those albums, and you’re equally likely to encounter a Hawkwind-via-Butthole Surfers freakout about being abducted by aliens, a country-rock ode to the synapse-destroying joys of malt liquor in 40 oz. bottles, a punk rock number about Tex-Mex food, or a post-Sabbath sword-and-sorcery epic (and these are all just from their most recent LP, 2007’s All Things Are Light (Camera Obscura). Like so few of their peers (if indeed they have any), LP4 understand that “stoned” is not a mere adjective, but also a noun, a verb, heck, a whole way of being; that “Rock” in its purest form always involves a healthy blast of the ridiculous; and that the only direction really worth going is right over the top.

From the Terrastock 7 festival program. Words: Kevin Moist

Photo of the Linus Pauling Quartet at Terrastock 4 by Richard Booth, from the personal collection of the Editor

Led by the warped guitars of Brian Doherty and Donald Miller from the noise jazz band Borbetomagus, I Am Providence consists of one very long, very twisted jazz/rock/skronk workout. Building off the solid foundation of straightforward, no-nonsense jazz drumming, Miller and Doherty attack their guitars with something close to inspired malice. Both men strangle inspired and surprising sounds and textures from the necks of their guitars, producing an astounding experience that is both out-jazz like and deeply psychedelic.

from a review on Amazon.com

Lightning Bolt is an experimental noise rock duo from Providence, Rhode Island. Founded in 1994 while Brian Chippendale (drums) and Brian Gibson (bass) attended the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, Chippendale heard about "a new kid" who was a whiz on the bass. At the same time, Chippendale was preparing to set up Fort Thunder, a disused warehouse space in the Olneyville district of Providence that housed a number of different artists and musicians, now luxury lofts and strip malls - and originally the setting of the now legendary Terrastock 1 festival.

Text from: the Terrastock 6 festival program

Photo of Brian Gibson at Terrastock 6: Phil McMullen

Boston folksinger Mary Lou Lord has been in and out of the spotlight throughout the last decade. Coming off a publicity hiatus due to the birth of her daughter two years ago, Mary Lou got back to performance basics, spending the time busking in the street after her 1998 major label release "Got No Shadow". Mary Lou is now ready to emerge. She has recently provided the music for a Target commercial. She tackles songs by legends like Bob Dylan, Richard Thompson and Bruce Springsteen as well as newer "indie" oriented artists such as Elliott Smith and the Magnetic Fields.

found at: http://www.rubricrecords.com/bands/maryloulord.html

"Maybe not quite what Leon Theremin had in mind when he demonstrated his wonderful new device in the presence of V.I. Lenin back in the days when a new art for the masses required new instruments, The Lothars conspire to create a monstrous edifice of noise. Ramona Herboldsheimer’s purposeful electric strumming just about manages to hold together the joyfully bizarre arrangements of audio squiggles and deep space scrawls which Kris Thompson, Jon Bernhardt and Brendan Quinn produce on their theremins."
by Ken Hollings, The Wire

found at: http://www.wobblymusic.com/lothars/index.html

Scott Miller, veteran California popster and patriarch of the Loud Family, counts Jacques Derrida among his favorite writers, but he also loves all six albums by the original Monkees. That isn't as much of a contradiction as it might seem -- like much postmodern lit, the Monkees' big-screen movie Head is mostly about its own process -- and it goes a long way toward explaining Miller's songs, which embrace the pop craftsmanship of the psychedelic 60s even as they aggravate its artifice. His first band, Game Theory, emerged in the early 80s in the same burst of west-coast retro that produced the Dream Syndicate, the Bangles, Rain Parade, the Long Ryders, and the Three o'Clock. But like former dB's guitarist Chris Stamey, Miller has grown progressively more interested in subverting the sound with experimental electronics, avant-garde flourishes, and just plain weirdness. Attractive Nuisance (Alias) is the fifth album by the Loud Family, and its moderately catchy tunes are cut with all manner of strange noises: eerie horn samples fade in and out of "Soul D.C."; the trippy interlude of "720 Times Happier Than the Unjust Man" includes the sound of a skipping CD; an out-of-sync, gradually accelerating drumroll introduces the verse in "Nice When I Want Something"; and "Save Your Money," a quiet meditation propelled by a four-note piano figure, is decorated with a string of electronic blips, percussive blasts of guitar noise, and a spiky piano freak-out courtesy of Loud sister Alison Faith Levy.

Loud Family photo by Robert Toren

from http://www.loudfamily.com/nuisrvu.html

The Lucky Bishops are a 4 piece band from the West of England. Formed in 1996, they have taken the classic Hammond organ/guitar/bass/drums format and re-vamped it as a sound for the new Millenium. A combination of skillful songwriting, superb 4 part harmonies, inventive arrangements and outstanding instrumental work insured that they wouldn't remain unsigned for long. As a result of a demo tape the band sent to Nick Saloman at Woronzow Records, London, The Lucky Bishops played support to the Bevis Frond at a sold-out show at the Garage. They were so impressive that Nick and his partner Adrian Shaw signed them to Woronzow immediately.

found at: http://www.rubricrecords.com/bands/luckybishops.html

Mac Macleod's incredible musical journey starts in the smokey folk clubs of the early sixties, where he appeared alongside Bert Jansch, John Renbourn, Maddy Prior (as Mac & Maddy), Mick Softley (as Soft Cloud) and Donovan. He moved on to garage rock and full blown psychedelia, in groups such as the Other Side and The Exploding Mushroom.
Showing his friend Donovan some finger-picking guitar techniques, they busked around the West Country in 1964, before accompanying the tousled troubadour during his Pye years, and playing the NME pollwinner's concert in 1965. In 1968 Donovan repaid his friendship with a song, Hurdy Gurdy Man, written specially for Mac and his group Hurdy Gurdy. They performed their power version for Donovan at his Hertfordshire home, influencing the bard who adopted their electric fuzz for his next single.
Mac's journey was to take him around Britain, and across Sweden and Denmark, where he first formed Hurdy Gurdy. The group became an underground favourite and went on to headline at Middle Earth, supporting Pink Floyd at the same venue. The forthcoming anthology contains all of Mac's rare recordings, from the acoustic folky beginnings through a succession of one-off groups, the sitar-drenched Amber, two previously unheard blistering tracks from Hurdy Gurdy themselves, and even a guest appearance with a fledgling post-Zombies Argent.

found at: http://www.rpmrecords.co.uk

Text found in the Terrastock 6 festival program

Photo: from http://terrascope.co.uk/Features/Magic_Carpathians.htm

found at: http://www.subpop.com/bands/damon+naomi/website/magichr.html

Photo: Mike Lim

"Wayne & Kate come to Major Stars straight from Magic Hour, whose quick ascent from snarly West Coast-influenced rock band to all instrumental thugs brought many a tear to helpless Galaxie 500 fans. Bassist Tom Leonard has been at one time or another a member of every non-Magic Twisted Village ensemble, and Dave laid down the big beat in Vermonster. Now that these four have reconvened, they are taking their LOUD polystructural ROCK to the people...Major Stars aim to take higher-key improvisational wizardry and clobber you on the head with it while simultaneously caressing your mind."-Forced Exposure

found at: http://www.squealermusic.com/catalog/majorstars.html

Photo of Kate & Wayne at Terrastock 4 by Richard Booth, from the private collection of the Editor.

found at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/music/profiles/pages/man.shtml
 

Photo of Man (Micky Jones, Deke Leonard and Martin Ace - Bob Richards out of picture at back) at Terrastock 3 from the private collection of the Editor by: unknown, but thought to be by Jerry Lombardo

Barbara Manning is considered one of the leaders of the independent rock scene. During her multi-album career, beginning in Northern California with the highly acclaimed neo-psychedelic group 28th Day; San Francisco's semi-legendary edgy pop band, World of Pooh; Matador recording artist, SF Seals; her numerous solo albums, and now with the power trio, The Go-Luckys!, Manning has consistently collected praise from respected and cutting edge magazines as well as her own peers.

Barbara has played worldwide with such rock notables as Yo La Tengo, Giant Sand, Pavement, Calexico, the Replacements, Richie Havens, Donovan, Television Personalities, Stuart Moxham (Young Marble Giants), Jon Langford (Mekons), Faust, Urge Overkill, Gary Lucas (Captain Beefheart), and Sonic Youth.

(http://www.barbaramanning.com/biography.html)

But McDonald also remains a thriving, working musician who travels the world and continues to sell records. McDonald released the first Country Joe and the Fish record, containing an agit-prop folk version of "I Feel Like I'm Fixin' to Die Rag" on Rag Baby in October 1965, in time for the Vietnam Day Teach-In, a massive anti-war protest organized in Berkeley, California. Within months the nascent folk group had exchanged their acoustic instruments for electric, plugged in and were playing the burgeoning San Francisco psychedelic ballroom scene at the Avalon and Fillmore.

With the release of "Electric Music for Mind and Body", the band's 1967 Vanguard Records debut, Country Joe and the Fish joined the front ranks of the international psychedelic rock movement.The band's second album contained the rock version of "I Feel Like I'm Fixin' To Die Rag", one of the great anthems of the era. In August 1968, on the spur of the moment, the infamous "Fish Cheer" was invented to introduce the song at a performance in Central Park's Wolman Rink. The following year, McDonald led an audience approaching a half-million at the Woodstock Arts and Music Festical in the cheer.

found at: http://www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/Links/Comm/vvm/about/joebio.html

Photo: "Country Joe and The Bevis Frond Jam Again at the Aberdeen Alternative Festival" Left to right: Country Joe, Andy Ward, Aaron Shaw, Adrian Shaw, Nick Saloman. found at: http://www.ragbaby.com/magazine
 

found at: http://www.rubricrecords.com/bands/medicineball.html

The Minus 5 is a loose aggregation rather lazily led by Scott McCaughey (pronounced McCoy), in between trips to Spain with his long-time rock combo The Young Fresh Fellows and his joyous recent duties as a support musician with R.E.M. Other members of The Minus 5 generally include whoever's around at the time, but most often Peter Buck, plus Ken Stringfellow and/or Jon Auer of the Posies (and the revamped '90s Big Star line-up). Live appearances are sporadic and unpredictable (o.k., even unrehearsed); most recently, Buck and Barrett Martin (Screaming Trees, Mad Season, Tuatara) bravely joined Scott on stage, standing tall when projectiles rained. Others who have fulfilled Minus 5 duties on stage or on tape include: Jeff Tweedy (Wilco), Christy McWilson (Picketts), Lee Ranaldo (Sonic Youth), Mark Greenberg (Coctails), Mary Lou Lord, Mike Mills, Dennis Diken (Smithereens), Chris & Carla (Walkabouts), Tom & Terry (NRBQ), Amy Denio (Billy Tipton Memorial Quartet), John Ramberg (Model Rockets), John Moen & Jim Talstra (Maroons), etc., etc.

found at: http://imusic.artistdirect.com/showcase/modern/minus5.html

Photo of the Minus 5 at Terrastock 4 by Richard Booth from the private collection of the Editor

After a seven-year hiatus, this trash rock supergroup (featuring Mudhoney's Mark Arm and Steve Turner, Poison 13's Tim Kerr, Gas Huffer's Tim Price, and Aussie drummer Martin Bland) is back with a vengeance. With their newest record, Electric Children, they pick up they left off in the early '90s, sounding like a late '60s Rolling Stones- and New York Dolls-worshipping garage band whose members are still reveling in the paisley and diamond wonders of LSD. Hard blues riffs percolate in the firewater of the Monkeywrench's overall psych-punk fury as Arm does his best vocal impersonation of a deranged street corner priest. Reportedly Steve Turner's inspiration for the title track, "Electric Children," came in a message (and melody) from God; however that track does not appear on the album because Turner was too terrified to write the music.

The hard and dirty "Solar Revelations" and the eight-and-a-half minute psychedelic opus "In the Days of the Five" do appear, however, and you can listen to both right here to discover how out there the Monkeywrench's crusty feedback-blues really is.

found at: http://www.epitonic.com/artists/themonkeywrench.html

Mono is the quartet of Tamaki on bass, Takaakira "Taka" Goto and Yoda on guitars, and Yasunori Takada on drums.  The Tokyo ensemble has released four studio albums to date as well as a steady stream of collaborations, remix projects and EPs, all marking a progression and refinement which resulted in the release of two fantastic albums in 2006, You Are There and, in collaboration with sonic experimentalist World’s End Girlfriend, Palmless Prayer/Mass Murder Refrain.  There are other more popular bands that Mono could be compared to, but the young quartet has already shed any vestiges of idol worship and struck out on a singular path of distorted melodic transcendence, and in the process established itself as one of the finest ambient psych noise bands on the planet.  Be it a gentle rustling wind or a torrential sonic downpour, Mono’s soul-stirring melodies and massive rhythmic intensity coalesce to reveal some of the most visceral and hypnotic walls of sound heard anywhere in the last 20 years.  Call them shoegaze, epic noise psych, post-rock—what have you.  We prefer the term thrashgaze for sensitive souls.  Key albums: Walking Cloud and Deep Red Sky, Flag Fluttered and the Sun Shined (Temporary Residence), New York Soundtracks (Temporary Residence/Rykodisc), You Are There (Temporary Residence), Palmless Prayer/Mass Murder Refrain with World’s End Girlfriend (Temporary Residence).

from the Terrastock 7 festival program. Words: Lee Jackson

Experimental guitarist Roy Montgomery was born and raised in Christchurch, New Zealand, forming his first band, the teen garage combo the Psychedeliks, in 1971. After serving out the remainder of the decade in similarly obscure outfits including Compulsory Fun and Murder Strikes Pink, in late 1980 he co-founded the seminal Kiwi post-punk trio the Pin Group; their debut single "Ambivalence" was also the first record ever issued on the now-legendary indie label Flying Nun, its echoing, darkly melodic guitar sound foreshadowing the evocative sonic approach Montgomery would continue to pursue for the remainder of his career. After the Pin Group disbanded in 1982, a year later he received a $750 National Arts Council grant to form the Shallows, their lone 1985 single "Suzanne Said" further honing Montgomery's expansive drone aesthetic. However, he then spent the next five years largely removed from music, instead balancing his studies of Russian language and literature with his interests in cinema and avant-garde theater.

Montgomery returned to performing in 1990 after a chance meeting with fellow Pin Group alum Peter Stapleton led to an invitation to join the fledgling noise-pop band Dadamah. After a handful of releases the group splintered in 1993, with Montgomery resurfacing the following year with his first solo effort, Scenes from the South Island; with fellow guitarist Chris Heaphy, he also formed the duo Dissolve, issuing their LP That That Is...Is (Not) that same year. Montgomery then spent the next year and a half travelling through the U.S., England and Latin America, during that time recording a wealth of new material which found its way onto a series of singles for labels including Ajax, Siltbreeze and Drunken Fish. The full-length Temple IV followed on Kranky in 1996, while the following year he collaborated with the members of Bardo Pond in Hash Jar Tempo, issuing the album Well-Oiled; also in 1997, Montgomery appeared on the Flying Saucer Attack EP Goodbye.

found at: http://www.allmusic.com

Photo of Roy Montgomery at Terrastock 2 copyright 1998 Erik Auerbach

Motorpsycho at Terrastock 5 - photo Jeanette Gustavus

found at: http://www.stickman-records.com/
 

The Mountain Goats are a one-man band, masterminded by indie mainstay John Darnielle. Though Darnielle’s buddies occasionally widen their sound, two constants have remained with the Mountain Goats since their inception. The first is that Darnielle will be playing his guitar and singing the songs. The second is that the band will record on a ghetto blaster purchased at a department store. Both of these charming qualities have been ubiquitous on Mountain Goats records, and they are equally responsible for the Mountain Goats’ sound.

found at: http://www.dustedmagazine.com/reviews/116

Still orbiting the earth in Vermont is Matt "MV" Valentine, one of the founders of the Tower Recordings, and Erika "EE" Elder. Together with their dog Zuma they run the Child  of Microtones Terran Library of Exploratory Music and sing songs with the pro Mel Lyman combo 'The Bummer Road'. Sometimes their own lunar blues, sometimes fingerstyle noise/space, sometimes lonesome frontier folk... always environments. You will find many are one (MV/EE, Mo'Jiggs, Samara Lubeliski, Sparrow Wildchild and Nemo Bidtsrup) and they are kinda proficient on guitar/banter, lap steel/uke/theramin, harp/percussion, violin/bass, flute/ukelin, tambura/oscillator/guitar respectively, and yours hanging loose.

Text found in: the Terrastock 6 festival program

Photo of Matt and Erika (above) by Phil McMullen

Photo of Nemo Bidtsrup (right)

found at Foxy Digitalis

The end result is 40 minutes of fresh, powerful pop. "Girl at the Bus Stop" steals a few bars from the Steve Miller Band's "Space Cowboy" and turns them into the backbone of a chilling meditation on rejection. But overall the album teems with frantic mood swings. "You Were Right, I Was Wrong" is twangy and smart; "2am" is murky, and it depresses the Stones' "Get Off of My Cloud" chorus into a slow crawl. Briffa floors the wah-wah peddle in "For Your Eyes"; "Not Quite What We're Looking For" (the obligatory "hidden track") takes shots at American music. "This could be a hit . . . if it were a little more grunge, a little more Pearl Jam," Briffa smirks, in his best A&R accent. Fortunately, nothing on this album takes that advice.

found at: http://www.worcesterphoenix.com/archive/music

Marissa Nadler grew up in Boston, and lived in Providence, RI for a five years while going to painting school. There, she started recording records, with three or four unreleased full-lengths to date. With the support of a couple of special friends, she was convinced to try to put some music out. She did, and lately has been travelling and touring. From her earliest incarnations, her music has always been unique and gorgeous, skilfully and simply hinting at the songs of the sea, the haunting chansons of maidens, the cowboy ditties of ranchers, and the funerary processions of mourners.

Text found at: the Terrastock 6 festival program.

Photo: from a feature in Terrascope Online

Nonloc's Mark Dwinell has been wowing Northeastern audiences for years as the driving force behind the band Bright, purveyors of a potent brand of psychedelic space-rock. Dwinnel has branched out on his own, and returns now with an acoustic juxtapositioning of Fahey-esque drone-psalms and Drake-like finger-picked emotional odysseys. Dwinell, under the moniker of Nonloc, will be debuting this material on The Plague Tour. Bright has released numerous records on such labels as Ba Da Bing! and Darla.

found at: http://www.tindrum.com/sunshineplague

Olivia Tremor Control was much anticipated! The stage was absolutely cluttered with gadgets and instruments, resembling a musical curiosity shop. A very appropriate image.

For those not familiar with this outfit, they have an absolutely uncanny grasp of pop and psychedelia, sounding often like outtakes from "the White Album" or "Good Vibrations" era Beach boys (every reviewer says this) but never sounding either retro or imitative. The harmonies, the intelligence, the theremins!

There was so much coming and going of guest musicians from the E6 empire, and so much switching of instruments that I cannot hope to give you any account of movements. Plain and simple, these people are geniuses, and from an incredible pool of talent, unmatched anywhere. To me, they represent one of the finest bands in the world, of all time. Really.

Stretching out in the comfort of playing to the converted, they did less pop and more experimentation for this appearance than you may see at a normal gig. A long extended freakout, a natural bookend to "Revolution #9" or something, brought the show to a crescendo. One wag leaned into my ear and said "they musta figured this was a good chance to get high!" The thing is, they do it so much better than anyone else, it never loses its beauty or musicality. Joe Ross, of the Green Pajamas - himself a master of pop-psyche, said "man, that's the closest to "I am the Walrus" you are ever going to see!" I cannot recommend these ARTISTS highly enough!

In the ten plus years since its inception, Brooklyn based Oneida has built a solid reputation for propulsive post punk psychedelia.  Combining the raw intensity of New York City no wave and art punk with the minimal space of prime Krautrock (especially early Can), proto-punkers Rocket From the Tombs and other more progressive bands, Oneida is responsible for one of the most satisfying catalogs in underground rock today.  Glam rock stompers, proto punk garage assaults, sophisticated prog folk workouts and more are all present and accounted for across the span of their eight albums, most of which are available on respected indie, Jagjaguwar.  Oneida is guaranteed to deliver one of the most high energy punk psych sets of the festival.  Key albums:  Each One Teach One (Jagjaguwar), Secret Wars (Jagjaguwar), The Wedding (Jagjaguwar), Happy New Year (Jagjaguwar).

from the T7 festival program - words by Lee Jackson

Louisville’s Tara Jane ONeil has an impressive musical background as a member of seminal combos such as Rodan, Retsin and the Sonora Pines. From 2000 onward she’s been focusing on her solo career, and the intimate results can be heard on about half a dozen albums. ONeil often plays many of the instruments herself and has a variety of supporting players rather than a consistent line-up. Her music often works so successfully because of her great voice, strong and soothing, warm from the experience of life, deftly portrayed in her lyrical content.  The guitar playing is delicate but pointed, harmoniously layering several guitar tracks on many of her songs. There is most certainly further exploration of different instruments and sounds, but the voice and guitar playing is often what sets the mood so brilliantly. She has a defined style and her records reflect this consistency. O’Neil is also a notable painter. Her paintings grace each of her solo albums.

from the T7 festival program - words by Mats Gustafsson

found at: http://web.mit.edu/jonb/www/bands/orans.html

   Photo: http://www.davesag.com/shambala2002

Pat Orchard is a member of that rare breed of musicians, a singer/songwriter who cannot only sing but who writes real songs that means more than the obvious. Add to that the type of dexterity on the guitar that is only granted to a gifted few and you have the recipe for success. Born in Devon, England, he was, however, raised in Africa, principally Ghana and Zambia. He recalls how local musicians with their inherent feel for rhythm would play anything that came to hand; hollowed sticks, old pots and oil drums. Even if they couldn't blow or twang it they would hit it, "If they had a guitar it would invariably have the wrong strings on it" says Pat, "and would be tuned any which way but normal". Ten years later this complete disregard for the conventions of guitar playing and natural percussive feel would emerge in Pat's almost unique style of guitar playing.
His music has now developed to a degree that it crosses traditional borders of singer songwriter, acoustic and electric rock. His imaginative use of echo pedals and altered guitar tunings produce a huge and exiting sound from his acoustic guitar; some audiences mistaken in the belief that he is using backing tapes or guitar synths. In Pat's words, "I think songs should reflect the nature of the emotions they are attempting to express. If the songs are dreamy or melancholy, then I use long echoes to help the picture - if they are social or angry in statement, I'll use the guitar face board as a percussion instrument. I've never been interested in fad or fashion, writing in one particular style is uninspired and lazy!"
Pat Orchard has toured extensively in Europe and played many of the major festivals and venues, including Montreux Jazz Festival, Reading, Glastonbury, Terrastock and Phoenix. He has toured with artists as diversified as Annie Lennox, Johnny Cash, Emerson Lake and Palmer, Richard Thompson, Spiritualized, John Martyn, Bert Jansch, and Randy Crawford - a testament to how his music crosses over the borders of so many styles of music. (Interview by Phil McMullen / Ptolemaic Terrascope)
 

found at: http://www.patorchard.com

pApAs fritAs was formed in Somerville, Massachusetts in late 1992 by three Tufts University undergraduates. Mere kids at the time, the band's three members - guitarist Tony Goddess, drummer Shivika Asthana and bassist Keith Gendel - have watched each other grow into adults over the intermittent 7 years. During that time they've also released two stellar pop albums, made videos and television appearances, recorded a slew of singles and compilation tracks, toured with the likes of Blur, The Cardigans and The Flaming Lips. Unforgettable experiences, all. But it is this passing of youth in the face of an inherently youthful artform that most informs their current perspective and latest album, Building and Grounds.

found at: http://www.mintyfresh.com/pap.html

What began in the mid-90s as the moniker of multi-instrumentalist Tim Furnish has in recent years morphed into a seven-headed sonic beast that drifts off in all directions. We find Krautrock-inspired grooves, delicate guitar work, jazzy pulses and slow beats tucked in under a comforting blanket of warm drones. Their sound could probably be filed somewhere in the outskirts of the whole post rock gang, but what’s more important is we get a spiraling sound that’s all about textures and capturing a specific mood. Parlour is melodic, emotive, and deliciously epic in the best ways.

from the T7 festival program. Words: Mats Gustafsson

found at: http://www.fakejazz.com/reviews/2001/pelt2.shtml

A stunning performance by Debbie Saloman, the [then]15 year old daughter of Nick, performing under the name Petrocat. Debbie has a very powerful voice and she sings like a mature woman with great passion and drive. She sings Dusty Springfield songs like a Dusty Springfield, and Grace Slick songs like a Grace Slick (in her hey-day). So watch out for Debbie Saloman and her Petrocat, she has a great future ahead of her. An album is in the pipeline, and if you want to catch the spirit you should get a copy of the Woronzow sampler Like it? It's Yours. It has a great Petrocat song on it written by her dad.

found: http://members.rott.chello.nl/cvanderlely/terrastock/terrapc.html

found: band submission to Terrastock 6 festival program

The Photographic is an instrumental rock duo out of Louisville, KY comprised by Jamie See Tai and Chad Blevins. They have been around since 2003 but their first widely available album didn’t hit the stores until a few months back. It was well worth the wait as Pictures of a Changing World (Galaxia) shows that the band is very adept at crafting emotional instrumental soundscapes and dynamic epics steeped in hope and longing. Waves of splintering chords and ringing harmonics rain down these sessions, and the Photographic's live show is something even grander with Jesse See Tai’s video images intertwining with the bands cinematic sounds.

from the Terrastock 7 festival program. Words: Mats Gustafsson

Piano Magic are based in London and consist of Glen Johnson (English), Miguel Marin (Spanish), Alasdair Steer (English) and Jerome Tcherneyan (French). Though they compose and perform throughout their new album "Writers Without Homes", they suppress the desire to stick to the same instruments or even to play on every track. The result is a striking fluidity and a refreshing diversity.

"Writers Without Homes" began life in March 2001 and was completed in January 2002. Along the way, there were 3 studios, two producers (short-lived), two engineers, miles of home recordings, and a menagerie of guests.

Simon Raymonde (ex-Cocteau Twins and now head of the Bella Union label) plays piano on 3 tracks; Paul Anderson from Tram (Setanta Records) sings on "Already Ghosts"; Tarwater guest on "Modern Jupiter"; John Grant from The Czars adds his voice to "The Season Is Long"; Life Without Buildings guitarist Robert Johnstone plays on "It's The Same Dream", which also features vocals from Suzy Mangion of new Manchester unit George. But the real coup came when the band coaxed long-retired 60's folk starlet Vashti Bunyan out of retirement to sing on her first recording in nearly 30 years ("Crown Of The Lost"). Alongside these appear Piano Magic regulars Caroline Potter (voice), James Topham (viola) and Charlotte Marionneau (voice) from Poptones' Le Volume Courbe.

Piano Magic released their first record in 1996 and since then have recorded for over 15 labels with over 30 members subscribing to its union.

After walking into a Barcelona record store and hearing a Piano Magic track playing on their soundsystem, Spain's best (and second best known) film director, Bigas Luna, knew exactly who he wanted to score his next movie, 'Son De Mar'. The director of 18 films (including 'Jamon Jamon', 'The Tit & The Moon' and 'Golden Balls') instantly recognised that they were making music for films that existed only in flickers at the back of the listener's mind and decided it was time to give them a 'real film' to work on.

The soundtrack was recorded over a five day studio stint, is divided into 6 untitled sections and features the band's core members. Apart from their music, Piano Magic are also noted for their 'revolving door' membership policy - some 30 members have passed through the band over the past 3 years including Darren Hayman (Hefner) Pete Astor (The Wisdom Of Harry) and David Sheppard (State River Widening) but 'Son De Mar' features only the one addition, James Topham, on Viola.

found at: http://www.4ad.com/artists/pianomagic/biography.html
 

It's not surprising that Plastic Crimewave Sound has toured with Acid Mother's Temple, Oneida, Black Dice, Bardo Pond and played with loads of Japanese psych rock legends. It's somewhere in these nether regions that their sludgy take on violent acid punk and mondo heavy scuzz rock can be found. If you like squealing guitar lines laid over hypnotic rhythms, stunning walls of primitive, monolithic garage-punk, more f/x pedals than you really can handle at once and to stare at the at the sun without protective eyewear, then there's no reason you should miss these cats. Add to the hard rocking a tinge of cosmic pop and rhythmic psych-folk thrown in for good measure, and you have yourself a band that unquestionably will disturb your neighbors but at the same time is capable of kicking some serious ass. The hand-drawn artwork by bandleader Mr. Plastic Crimewave that often adorn the band’s albums is also something to behold.  Those of you in the know probably recognize his name from the quite amazing Galactic Zoo Dossier, the hand drawn comic/acid/psych journal published by Drag City. In both cases it goes without saying that you owe it to yourself to check them out.

From the Terrastock 7 festival program. Words:Mats Gustafsson

Pop Off Tuesday were formed in 1995 while Hiroki ("machines") and Minori ("guitar/vocal") were classmates studying English in London---"We had been to go to English school and enjoyed a moratorium. We played gigs twice." Where did the name come from? "We really don't remember how we named it."

They recorded a single for Origin Music, "This old lady", which John Peel heard and liked but, by the time he tried to book them for a session, they'd been forced to return home to Osaka as their visas had expired. Undeterred, Peel managed to track them down in Osaka where they recorded the session which was broadcast in July 1997.

"See My Ghost has in effect taken all the best bits from 60s pop, 70s krautrock, 80s synth-pop and 90s electronica and made a timeless collage of sounds that is a pure pleasure to listen to. It's a sound that's most definitely not of this world; rather, it comes from some other very cool place whose name no-one knows. I suggest you buy this as soon as you can lay your hands on a copy" ....The Satellite fanzine

found at: http://www.pickled-egg.co.uk/pop-off-tuesday.htm

Austin has proved to be fertile ground for growth and change, with a rotating Undermind lineup at various times including Tom Carter, Dave Cameron, Courtney Cater, BC Smith, Otis Cleveland, Jared Barron, Johnny Mac, Matt Martinez, Travis Weller, Joe Volpe, Elizabeth Warren, and even Vanessa Arn on the Triwave Picogenerator. A relatively spare quartet of these folks recorded the Undermind's all-instrumental expansive fourth album "Beings of Game P-U" for Camera Obscura in summer 2000. Various combos of the above players have appeared at the SXSW fest (four times), and completed a west coast tour with Seattle's Kinski in late 2001 and an east coast/midwest tour with Portland's Davis Redford Triad in spring 2002.

found at: http://www.cameraobscura.com.au/Bios/cambios_pu.htm

Primordial Undermind photo found at: http://www.perkypat.com/LiveReviews/st37_aug_5th_2003.html

However, as the 70s progressed, people, perception and the scene changed, and Tom decided to withdraw from the music world. More or less turning his back on music, he put himself through law school and became a civil rights lawyer, and actually put into practise that which he and so many of his contemporaries had preached in the 60s.

Sometimes you get an opportunity to do something you've only dreamt of. On the rare occasions that this happens, you have to move quickly or the chance may be gone, never to re-appear. One such opportunity presented itself to us last year, while Ade and I were touring the States with The Bevis Frond. We'd met Tom Rapp for the first time in the Spring of 1997 at the first Terrastock festival in Providence, Rhode Island. His performance there (his first for over 20 years) was, for many including us, the highlight of those magical three days.

Our paths crossed again at Christmas 97, when Ade and I did an acoustic show in Tom's hometown of Philadelphia. He and his wife Lynn insisted that we stayed with them, and we were bowled over by their kindness and generosity. A few months later, while the band was on tour, the Rapps once again looked after us. This time for several days. While we were staying with them, Tom played us a batch of new songs. We were blown away by their beauty and lyricism. Since Ade and I were planning to give our Woronzow label a much needed boot up the arse, it seemed too good to be true that it coincided with Tom's rekindled songwriting efforts. We asked Tom if he'd consider letting us put out an album of his new stuff, and to our utter delight, he agreed. 'A Journal Of The Plague Year' will be the first Tom Rapp album for 25 years, and we can assure any doubters that it is at the very least as good as anything he's done before. It was recorded at Damon & Naomi's studio, with contributions from them, and also Prydwyn of Mourning Cloak as well as Ade and myself. (Nick Saloman of Woronzow Records, on the album 'A Journal of the Plague Year')

found at: http://www.woronzow.co.uk/tomrapp_biog.html

Tom Rapp is a veteran of the 60's psychedelic folk outfit Pearls Before Swine, and much loved by PT regulars and many of the bands of the [Terrastock 2] festival. Not being familiar with his earlier work, I have no reference point here. I can tell you he was the absolute heart and soul of the festival however, his gentle and relaxed bonhomie defining the general mood.

He was joined on stage by his son, ex-wife, Paul Simmons of the Alchemysts, one of the Stone Breath fellows [Prydwyn, on harp], Phil McMullen (the festival organizer and all-around nice guy) and Masaki Batoh (who both clinked wine glasses in absence of finger cymbals!) and...am I forgetting anyone? Gentle folk-psyche.

found at: http://www.aural-innovations.com/issues/issue3/terra2.html

With each successive record, Rose has stepped further from the Mount Rushmore-sized shadows cast by John Fahey, Robbie Basho and Sandy Bull. Sure, you can hear their influence in his choices of instrument and material; and like them, he plays steel-stringed acoustic guitar, and blends American blues and folk styles with Eastern and Western elements.
But Rose, unlike the rest, came to finger picking fairly late in his personal musical evolution. He grew up listening to classic rock and graduated to punk without ever cutting ties with his old school. Pelt, the band in which he came of age as a player, used the punk’s anything-goes ethic as permission to use Indian instruments, as well as minimalist forms, without going through any lengthy dues-paying process.
 

text found at the VHF Records website

Minneapolis outfit Salamander began as a duo in the summer of 1992 featuring Erik Wivinus and Sean Connaughty on guitars and vocals. Doug Morman joined on bass in early 1993. The recorded and played gigs as a drummer-less trio until Bryce Kastning joined on drums and keyboards in early 1994. With this lineup they honed their twin obsessions with longform psychedelic improvisation and moody song-craft, slowly building the archive that would reveal itself in their first two CDs on the Australian Camera Obscura Records label.

Text found in the Terrastock 6 festival program

From the Terrastock 7 festival program. Words: Kevin Moist

This Science Kit will help you to understand the world of chemicals, of compounds and reactions."

from the Terrastock One festival programme notes

Bath-based Rob Sharples is a young British guitarist and songwriter whose brooding and stark take on the singer/songwriter tradition owes a debt to the music of folks like Nick Drake and John Martyn, but he has definitely found his own distinctive voice. Sharples’ music is an exercise in restrained but heartfelt moodcasting that makes you feel cold and warm inside at the same time.  Literate lyrics are delivered with soft god-sent vocals over beds of intricate guitar plucking that is melodic, yet complex. There’s not much out there in terms of official releases but I am guessing that won’t be for long as what we have here is an aural net of brilliant songcraft made up of sorrow and hope that has me thinking that Sharples has to be one of our times’ most talented musicians occupying the songwriter/folk spectrum.

From the Terrastock 7 festival program. Words: Mats Gustafsson

In 1996, Simeon re-activated Silver Apples, recording and performing with many musician friends and admirers. Some of the projects included a release of a 7" vinyl on Enraptured Records of London which included on the A side FRACTAL FLOW, the first new song by Silver Apples in 26 years.

found at: http://www.silverapples.com/

Hamilton, Ontario’s Simply Saucer never really received the wider recognition of many of their peers.  Bridging the gap between the first Pink Floyd album, The Stooges’ Funhouse and The Velvets’ White Light/White Light, the original quartet essentially wrote the book on high velocity psychedelic garage punk.  The reverberations of their brilliant first album Cyborgs Revisited -- co-produced by a young Daniel Lanois, long before he’d become one of the most sought out producers in rock -- can still be felt in the punk psych assault of modern bands like Comets on Fire and Major Stars.  The trick lies in the lacerating eruptions at the center of Simply Saucer’s compact and accessible pop nuggets, manifest as screaming guitar blasts shot into orbit by whirling electronics over a fierce proto-punk rhythm section.  Besides that Simply Saucer is simply the master of the extended raveup in the classic Brit Invasion style.  When these lads stretch out and open up the throttle, buckle up tight.  Things are sure to get bumpy. 

Despite a variety of lineup changes and little to no recognition beyond critical acclaim outside their home town, Simply Saucer was active throughout the 70s before calling it a day.  Luckily for us, all of the founding members -- Edgar Breau on lead guitar and vocals, Kevin Christoff on bass, Neil DeMerchant on drums, and Ping Romany on electronics -- have reconvened in recent times and released an excellent new album for the Sonic Unyon label and started playing live shows again.  Fans of vintage garage psych will not want to miss the mighty ‘Saucer in action during their first Terrastock appearance.  Key albums: Cyborgs Revisited (Fist Puppet), Half Human, Half Live (Sonic Unyon).

From the T7 festival program. Words: Lee Jackson

"Six Organs of Admittance were next, and Ben Chasny began by playing a few songs solo on acoustic guitar. As he was soundchecking, he pounded on the floor with his foot once or twice, later telling me that he does this at every soundcheck to determine how much thump he can muster when stomping during his songs. His set began very quietly, but once he got comfortable, he really began to get into the music. He played a song I recognized from Dark Noontide and then one I didn't know, but both were absolutely compelling. His voice is rich and soothing, warm yet dark, but more than anything it's extremely mesmerizing. There's just something about it that you can't tear your attention away from it, no matter what is going on around you. As his singing increased in intensity, so did his foot stomping on the wooden stage. As he realized the volume encompassed in just one stomp, he began to beat his feet more fervently, choosing different sections of the stage below him to strike with his boot. The result was a constant thundering bellow to accompany his tight guitar playing, effectively creating an even spookier atmosphere. During his third song, he continued humming the melody while putting his guitar down, rattling a few items on the floor with his hands before settling on a tambourine. Continuing to carry the acappella notes, he shook the tambourine while channeling the song with greater force, pounding on his knee, shaking his fist, as if pulling the tune from another place, a netherworld, slyly stealing a sacred spirit's soulful sounds. Nancy later commented that this part of the show genuinely scared her, and I must admit I agree. I wasn't sure if he was going to leap out his chair at people in the audience or not. But when the song ended, he simply said thank you and picked up his guitar again, as if the spirit had slipped away unnoticed. He was joined for the next two songs by Ethan Miller from Comets on Fire, and together, they did songs that were as enchanting as they were ferocious. The first began rather mellow, descending single notes played in unison, but at the bridge Ethan cranked up the amp and blasted a mighty sonic assault for a few minutes, writhing and twisting his guitar to pull amazing sounds from the equipment before letting it fade away, rejoining the descending single notes of the chorus in time for the song to end. The second was a little darker but equally beautiful, again punctuated by Ethan's outbursts that were the perfect compliment to Ben's agile and fantastic playing. This was absolutely one of the highlights of my weekend".

from: http://www.fakejazz.com/articles/terrastock5_ps.shtml

Kendra Smith at Terrastock 2, 1998 - photograph: Erik Auerbach

Floating serenely through the ether, Kendra Smith has inhabited many hues of psychedelia, from the primary paisley feedback scrawl of the Dream Syndicate (which the onetime bassist co-founded with Steve Wynn in 1981) to the swirly translucence of Opal (a group with ex-Rain Parade guitarist David Roback that transmuted into Mazzy Star upon her 1988 departure), the stonewashed pale Velvet folk-rock of the informal Guild of Temporal Adventurers to the shiny, thickly applied pop art surfaces of her solo album. Although the Californian has, on more than one occasion, followed the logic of drop-out music to its ultimate conclusion and withdrawn completely, she keeps coming back, a beguiling semi-precious stone in the not-quite-here and the not-quite-now. Smith and Roback initially formed Clay Allison with drummer Keith Mitchell (ex-Green on Red/Romans) and guitarist Juan Gomez. Gomez and the moniker (borrowed from a Western film character) lasted for one 7-inch single, after which the remaining three recorded two new songs to flesh out the lovely and understated Fell From the Sun — on which Smith's vocals meld handsomely with the subtle mood music, a pleasant drone of translucent elegance that resembles the Velvet Underground at their most restrained — and then renamed themselves Opal. Clinging to neo-psychedelia even as many of their Los Angeles scene compatriots moved on to other fads, Opal recorded a 1985 12-inch, one full album and enough leftovers to fill the posthumous Early Recordings.

Northern Line offers the gorgeous acoustic folk-blues of the title track and "Empty Bottles" backed with "Soul Giver" (also on Happy Nightmare Baby), which is eight-plus minutes of spacey organ and feedback guitar.

Happy Nightmare Baby has its share of nostalgic organ-colored drone contemplations, but adds an unexpected and amusing item to the repertoire: a stripped-down T. Rex imitation ("Rocket Machine") that drifts towards Television. Criticisms: Smith's laconic singing can become arduous, some of the instrumental work is self-indulgent nonsense and the pace is too slow. Qualities: the songs are there, the ambience is affecting and the performances offer enough texture and dynamics to make Opal's debut album ultimately satisfying.

Smith exited the group in the middle of the Happy Nightmare tour, which prompted the posthumous Early Recordings. It gathers outtakes, the four Fell From the Sun tracks, plus "Northern Line" and "Empty Bottles" from the three-song 12-inch. Draining away much of Happy Nightmare's pseudo-mystical fiddle-faddle, Early Recordings concentrates on Opal's acoustic side; the spare production adds a chilling closeness to Smith's vocals, and Roback's guitar noodlings feel loose and uncontrived. The previously unissued tracks, especially "Empty Box Blues" and "My Only Friend," have a casual, unrestrained grace. The CD appends "Hear the Wind Blow."

By '91, Smith seemed to have made her back-to-rustic-life hippie move permanent and was through with even gentle rocking and rolling. The Guild of Temporal Adventurers put paid to that assumption. Recorded as a trio of Smith, Jonah Corey and A. Phillip Uberman with four aides-de-weird, this spare and lovely 10-inch of folky electric pop wraps the persistent Nico/Velvets element of Smith's music — underscored by her adoption of pump organ as a primary instrument — around mild mysticism and a subtle intrusion of atmospheric sound effects. (To get to Smith from the sound of Nico, hold the accent and raise the room temperature about fifteen degrees in tone and passion.) Smith does most of the singing — the lullaby-like "Stars Are in Your Eyes" and the droney "Earth Same Breath" ("All the Next Day's Parties"?) are especially pretty — but co-writer Corey joins her on two of the six songs, including the Eno-esque "Wheel of the Law."

found at: http://www.trouserpress.com

Azalia Snail is a freeform music maker who has released over 10 albums of hallucinatory "space folk". Azalia has traveled the world over, turning the provinces on to her fascinating sui generis soundscapes. She has released music on Sub Pop, Dark Beloved Cloud, Candy Floss, Albertine, Normal (Germany), Garden of Delights (UK), Anyway, and other labels. A critical darling, she has jammed with the likes of Beck, Sebadoh, Low, The Black Heart Procession, Trumans Water, Supreme Dicks, The Apples in Stereo, and The Asuza Plane, among others.

found at: http://home.earthlink.net/~radiantmedia/abio.htm

"There was a third stage area [at Terrastock 3] where people could sign up for and do their own spontaneous sets or weird collaborations. Audience members could come and check out the list and see their favourite bands twice - or just enjoy the total non-organisation of it all. Performers on this stage included Pat Orchard, Warser Gate w/ Steve Hanson (doing "Can of Stella Overdrive"), the impromptu Staff Party (with members of Fuxa, Azusa Plane, Azalia Snail, Piano Magic, Warser Gate, and a guest spot from John the stage manager), Petrocat (Nick and Debbie Saloman), Autumn Leaves, Jamie Owen, Brendan (of Abunai) and Carl (of Windy), Lothars and Carl, Bevis Frond and Friends (Saloman, Shaw, various Alchemysts and Rod Goodway), and Tom Rapp with Prydwyn."

found at: http://www.terrascope.org/t3.html

Sonic Youth rose triumphantly out of New York's early 80s No-Wave scene. Originally fueled by the ripping guitar of Glenn Branca alumns Ranaldo and Moore, Sonic Youth grew into - and maintain their stature as - a rock 'n' roll aural-experimentation unit beyond compare. Sometimes melodic, sometimes atonal, but rarely boring, the band have covered a lot of ground in its nearly 20-year history. From the early scene-splashing Confusion is Sex (1983) to the more polished EVOL (1986), the band's early evolution is apparent. 1988's epic Daydream Nation secured Sonic Youth's status as a legendary, visionary band which would forever leave its mark on rock 'n' roll. Subsequent albums and tours have served to bolster the band's popularity, even when not establishing any new plateaus of creativity. More recently, offshoot releases (like 1997's Perspectives Musicales series) have shown evidence of a continuing interest in experimentation. A perpetually active band, Sonic Youth will surely entertain and challenge for years to come.

found at: http://www.inkblotmagazine.com

Photo of Sonic Youth at Terrastock 5 by Avril Wine

Based on live trumpet loops, drums, and assorted electronics, the Spaceheads reside in their own musical realm; not quite jazz, not quite electronica, and not quite rock, but deftly hovering somewhere between the three. Low Pressure hangs on lazy grooves and thick harmonized trumpet chords, sleazy deep beat bass and crushed-up metallic drumbeats. Spaceheads mix the raw emotional sound of breath with the banging of wood on skin, pushing both through the blips, crackle and distortion of pixilated electronic noise.

Thematically, Low Pressure is about impending danger, the coming storm. We live in uneasy times, in a world with invisible enemies. Environmental destruction is no longer just a dangerous possibility but is happening now. Our weather systems have been turned upside down. Science and technologies’ potential to liberate us grows greater by the day; contrasting more and more with its use to manipulate and control us. Can new technologies save us? Or is it a case of old technologies offering us all a hope for the future? The trumpet and the drum are ancient sound machines, herein battling their way through electronic webs. The hot-wired, super-charged, electro-panic of modern living.

found at: http://www.mergerecords.com/bands/spaceheads/bio.html

"I looked around and people's faces were distorted... lights were flashing everywhere... the screen at the end of the room had three or four different films on it at once, and the strobelight was flashing faster than it had been... the band was playing but I couldn't hear the music...people were dancing...someone came up to me and I shut my eyes and with a machine he projected images on the back of my eyelids...I sought out a person I trusted and he laughed and told me that the kool-aid had been spiked and that I was just beginning my first TSM experience..."

Formed in 1991, The Spacious Mind have since become known as one of the world's leading psychedelic bands. Their music owes as much to the acid haze of the San Francisco ballrooms in the late 60's, as it does to the unknown areas of space, heart and time. The twin guitars are battling over a steady drums/bass background, while the atmospheric keyboards are swirling in and out of your mind, and together they create a melancholic tapestry of sounds that should please anyone into consciousness raising or simply the message of LOVE.
 

found at: http://www.delerium.co.uk/bands/spaciousmind/

Spires that in the Sunset Rise is the musical collaboration of Kathleen Baird, Taralie Peterson, Tracy Peterson and Georgia Vallas. Steeped in primal experimentalism, the music is a repellant and magnetising swarm of harps, guitars, cello, drums, harmonium, banjo, mbira, spike fiddle, bells and vocals. Their eclectic, outsider folk has drawn comparisons to Comus, Current 93 and The Raincoats.

Text found at: the Terrastock 6 festival program

Photo: http://www.secreteye.org/se/spires.html