One of the themes that is thrown up by this year’s Liverpool Psych Fest is the question of what exactly is psych? It’s a question that will be bandied about and indeed, there is even a symposium on the Saturday afternoon featuring discussions with all artists and record labels. We all have our own ides about what psych is and for this final part of our Psych Fest preview we thought it only fair to ask some of the bands playing there this year. We put a simple question to them and awaiting the replies…we think you’ll like this…
What does psych mean to you…and how does your music fit in?
“I think psych music has done a lot to edge away from that stereotypical day-glo image of colourful guys and ‘gals’ walking round doing peace signs and LSD in their underpants. There are revivalists out there and that’s cool, but we’re more interested in seeing how far the boundaries of psych can go, in our case how heavy it can get and at what point is ceases to be psych. There will come a time where our music will evolve so much that press will have a hard time calling us psych, and that will be fine. Our music tends to be dark, heavy and unpredictable but there will always be an element of psych in there, because that’s just what our default natural sound is when we jam. I like to think of it as a reflection of our personalities in music form, as pretentious and unsettling as that sounds!
The common theme running through psych music though is escapism. The recession did a lot to conjure that feeling and emotion in bands at that time to look for something a little out there, a little otherwordly, something to take your mind away from all the shite going in the world. People are still it their fair share of problems, and shit is still going on in the world, so we have seen psych evolve. It is now truly a global scene, and only the internet can have nurtured a community that spans such a varied fanbase. It’s great to see people of all ages and very musically open minded individuals at psych gigs. You can literally see anyone in the crowd from mods to metalheads, and 45 year old men in their paisley shirts to teenage hipsters. There’s no barrier to entry, and I think that’s also what makes it an appealing genre for fans and new bands. It literally invites people from any musical background to join in.
Ever since the first psych fest back in 2012 we’ve been itching to play, to just be part of the same line-ups they’ve had would be just incredible for us! Luckily for us, we’ve progressed as a band to a point where we’ve been accepted to play and are a little too over excited at the prospect of playing alongside some of our favourites Black Bombaim, Goat, Wolf People and Hills. It’s just the epitome of the genre, where it all comes together in a super deluxe package. It will be great to meet new faces and talk ‘psych’, see some of our favourite bands, but most importantly get on that stage and show people where we are at and surprise a few people expecting to come see a jangley pink Floyd covers band”
– Formes
“To me personally, I think Psych is a creation of Free Spirits, Dabblers and people not wired up right! It’s a very expressive and expansive creature whether its done with Guitars, Synths etc..it doesn’t matter to me! All I know? Is that people are making sounds that’ll reach spiritual levels
Playing this years Liverpool Psych Fest is a dream come true for me. I’d had about 2 jams with the band when I attended the first festival. Once I was at the festival, I thought? Fuck yeah! I want some of this! And vowed PHP would play it one day. I’ve attended the two previous fests as a punter and I’ve had my head blown off both occasions. I love the festival full stop! So to be playing is a big honour. Ive christened it our Spike Island ”
– Purple Heart Parade
“Five years ago I would have probably given some sort of bullshit response to this question; something along the lines of “Psych is a way of life, man”, or, like, “it’s a forward thinking attitude, it’s tuning in and dropping out and what the fuck”.
Increasingly, “psych” means someone asking me what “psych” means to me and how my music fits in; no-one’s fault really, but certainly a sign that whatever potency or iconoclasm there was in the first place has now jumped the shark over into a sort of “lifestyle”-, Urban Outfitters-ready set of clichés. Triangles abound, alpha-dudes run the scene here, dressed in black and ostensibly doing (dropping?) acid (who the fuck drops acid?) while they swing like monkeys from chandeliers to the chug of E-G-E-E. After one too many JD’s it’s time to sleep in the shaggin’ wagon until we give ‘er again the next night. A way of life indeed.
But calming down now, I see that as is the case in any prescribed cultural script-style event, there’s the opaque thick-headedness of the group dynamic (see above) and then there’s one’s individual experience, which, fortunately for you personally, can still be fertile and rich. You can see some slackers play shit reverb guitar, but you might also be able to see SWANS and have a truly enlightening, or at least stimulating, experience. At the very least, the psych umm movement talks the talk. There are vague notions that one should “think freely” in the air (triangles are somehow evocative of this), and that can be a good starting point for some people. At the end of the day, it’s silly and almost dangerous to talk about being part of a “movement”. They’re famously dogmatic and misleading, not to mention those riffs are so lame. Let’s stop talking about psych and start talking about you.”
– Suuns
“Psych means the 13th Floor Elevators. Our music have the same DNA .. trying to sound fresh and keep moving. Same as Bob , Stones etc”
– Les Big Byrd
“We’ve always considered ourselves a psychedelic band, even though like most bands we don’t particularly care to categorise what we do. However, one of the really positive things about Liverpool Psych Fest in particular is that there’s a pretty broad definition of what constitutes ‘psych’, and not necessarily a retro one, with bands like Grumbling Fur,Gnod and Barberos on the bill as well as the Christian Blands and Joel Gions of this world. We’ve always thought something like, say, Plastikman’s ‘Consumed’ is just as psychedelic as a record like ‘In Search Of Space’ by Hawkwind, and I think we see no reason why we can’t throw both of those influences into what we do.
As far as how our music fits into the scene, we’re really happy to be asked to play a fest like this, but it’s paradoxically hard to really see it as a scene when you’re in the middle of it, so we tend not to spend too much time thinking about it We try not to have any boundaries to what we do-if we wanted to make a bluegrass record tomorrow we’d probably do it. Maybe it would end up being a psychedelic bluegrass record, but even so!”
– Teeth Of The Sea
Some varied and interesting comments showing that maybe this psych thing has a lot more about it then what we first expect. Maybe you will make your own minds up but to finish this preview off we leave you with the words of one more band who probably sum it up better than anyone has so far managed. Have a great time and maybe we’ll meet you wondering around the hallowed stages. Psych out….
It means everything & nothing. In it’s purest form it is unclassifiable, as it should be, not conforming to rules. We shouldn’t as we don’t conform to the popular view of psych. We don’t care about fitting in, we just get on with making the music we want to make”
– Gnod
