Bathysphere: A Psychonautical Voyage (07/05/13)

Set Times Read More Luna Luna was a 90s dreampop band from New York, who was probably most famous for that revenge-song “Slash Your Tires” off their debut album, Lunapark. After several years … Secret Colours Chicago-based brit-pop Secret Colours is coming to Minneapolis to play a very spacey/psychedelic set starring BATHYSPHERE (featuring Dean Wareham & Britta Phillips… First Communion Afterparty First Communion Afterparty looks like a pack of gypsies doing spacerock for their hippy listeners, at least they tried to bring some 'sun' into Minnesota with their two opening acts: Daughters of the Sun and Sleepy… Magic Castles Opening up Mallman were The Magic Castles and The Alpha Centauri. Magic Castles performing at the Turf Club in Midway, St. Paul ♥ Turf Club, St Paul (11/7/09) … Shoegazing Although "shoegazing" emerged from the UK in the late 80s, it wasn't until the early 90s, that the name really kicked into popularity because the UK music press (NME and Melody Maker) .…

Fans of psychedelic rock and shoegaze music are in for a treat as "Bathysphere: A Psychonautical Voyage" music festival kicked off last night and continues on to today at First Avenue and 7th Street Entry in Minneapolis.

For those new to the legendary First Avenue music venue, there are three stages within the building: The Main Room (First Ave), the Entry (7th Street Entry), and The Record Room (for DJs). For last show, the doorway between the Entry and the Main room was opened and free for fans to move back and forth between the two stages.

Most of the bands on the bill kept to the set time, but we'll learn later that wasn't the case with the Entry stage. Covering both stage proved to be a little difficult since set overlap and sometime you're forced to make difficult decisions to watch one band over the other.

We'll start with the Entry first.

DRIFTWOOD PYRE

It's tough to be the first band on, especially on the smaller of the two stages. Driftwood Pyre started their set while the vast majority of the audience was still over at Magic Castles, or had not shown up on time. Still, if you missed this band, members of the group would later resurface on the main stage with First Communion Afterparty.

FLAVOR CRYSTALS

Flavor Crystals were up next, they played hard psych rock in poor lighting. Very little lyrics, but lots of high energy guitar playing with emphasis on psych and kraut rock.

Unfortunately, due to my commitment to cover Cheval Sombre and poor planning on my part, I ended up missing Pony Trash and VonVeederVeld (who was off schedule).

PANTHER RAY

Panther Ray were about twenty minutes late, so I did manage to squeeze in a few songs. I have in my notes that this band is young and good looking, especially with the shorts, side-burns and 60s inspired clothing.

LIGHTFOILS

Chicago's Lightfoils was headlining the Entry stage. They played music that was more along my cup of tea, which is shoegazey and maybe dreampop. You know the formula: fuzzy whirlpool of guitar noise and indistinguishable ethereal vocals.

Their brief set included some new songs as well as some tracks from their self-titled EP, including "How It Is" and "Into Deep Sea".

Now for the main stage:

MAGIC CASTLES I actually thought Magic Castles was very good. It's certainly the only band the featured a flutist on an explosive jam at their set closer. Wasn't familiar with their music, but I did like the boy/girl songs they were playing.		SECRET COLOURS Like all the bands on the main stage, a projector displaying graphics or images of the band on the background. This was no different for Chicago's Secret Colours, who played tracks from their recently released album Peach to some psychedelic or images of the sun. Highlight of Secret Colours' set was when singer Tommy Evans busted out the melodica to play "Blackhole".
CHEVAL SOMBRE Cheval Sombre was a bit of a "supergroup", having Dean & Britta and Sonic Boom as his backup band. His set was on the quieter side, almost folky country at times. He showcased some songs from his Mad Love release, including "Once I Had a Sweetheart" and "Red Moon".		FIRST COMMUNION AFTERPARTY First Communion Afterparty said on stage that this was their first show in three years! They played songs from an upcoming album, which was supposed to have been released earlier this month, but is now delayed until later. I am assuming later this Summer, you will see more First Communion Afterparty.
SONIC BOOM Sonic Boom (aka Peter Kember) needs a little explanation. Kember and Jason Pierce started Spaceman 3, and when the band split, Pierce went on to do more space rock in the guise of Spiritualized, while Kember seem to be doing this weird one-man experimental music. Sonic Boom played an hour set, compared to all other bands, so it tells me that he must have a lot of material to draw from throughout his career as a producer, musician, creator of E.A.R. (Experimental Audio Research), and as Sonic Boom.		DEAN & BRITTA As for Dean & Britta, they were both in Luna, but for this tour, they are playing pre-Luna Dean Wareham's band Galaxie 500. With three albums (spanning between 1998-1990) to draw from, Dean & Britta had a lot of material to work with, including "Temperature's Rising", "When Will You Come Home", "Don't Let Our Youth Go to Waste", "Fourth of July" (how fitting!), "Tugboat" and the encore "Ceremony". While the majority of their songs were sung by Wareham, there is one exception: Britta took over "Listen, The Snow Is Falling", which, apparently was originally written by Yoko Ono.

Dean and Britta at First Avenue, Minneapolis (07/05/13)

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