The anti-Roo

After hearing all the fuss and hype surrounding Bonnaroo (thank you, Kanye) that inevitably invades this town every year at this time, it was nice to head up to Louisville, KY for the Terrastock 7, a psych-rock/outsider folk  (my descriptions, not the fest’s) festival that was in every way the antithesis of the summer’s monster festivals. Held sporadically every few years, Terrastock was founded by Ptolmaic Terrascope publisher and all-around music head Phil McMullen, to showcase primarily underground psychedelic music. Though Phil live sin England, the festival has been held in The United States, the first one in Providence, RI in 1996.

Thsi year it was at Louisville’s Mellwood Arts Center, the festival hosting for the first time an outdoor stage. There was also an indoor stage, with a usually smooth transition from one venue to the other. As soon as one band finished, the crowd would immediately go to the other stage, where in most cases bands were ready to play (the Pelt show being the most obvious exception). The indoor venue held around 400 people, and though 1,000 people could have easily fit on the lawn, the crowd probably never topped 400, even on Saturday night when locals kids turned out for Japanese post-Slint band Mono. It was a small crowd all weekend, you seemed to recognize most everyone by day two, and everyone was super friendly, low-key and laid-back. It was my first Terrastock, and I was surprised at the lack of scenesters; everyone there seemed to be really into the music, were there for the performances and not the event. Frankly it was a rock nerd’s dream. Lots of middle aged dudes, bald heads and pasty skin.

I went up with two friends, and we stayed at the nearby Ramada Inn. it was the closest hotel to the Arts Center, less than five minutes by car, and a lot of bands stayed there, too. We saw Oneida and Major Stars in the pool, along with some festival-goers. There were a lot of tattoos on blinding white skin and hairy beer bellies in the water, though perhaps unsurprisingly MV and EE refrained from taking a dip. My friend Ian swears he saw Georgia from Yo La Tengo (she was there performing with with Ira as Sleeping Pill) peek out from behind the curtain of the room next to us when we were outside our room smoking and talking loudly at 2 a.m., but I think he’s full of shit. Regardless, the fact that the bands were in the crowd checking out other bands, operating their own merch tables and eating continental breakfast with other hotel guests was pretty cool. Not that these people are big time celebrities or anything, but y’know. The human touch and all that.

Speaking of big time celebrities, Byron Coley was there with a bunch of expensive records. Three Les Rallizes Des Nudes LPs (priced at $50. $60 and $100), at least one of which a member of Bardo Pond bought. Plus an Ornette Coleman at Town Hall test pressing for $1200. I don’t think anyone bought that one. A $250 Maher Shalal Hash Baz record did sell, though. My traveling buddies each bought a William Basinksi LP for $25 each, and those seemed to be about the reasonably or even under-priced records there. My only purchase form the Coley collection was Pita’s Get Out record on Mego.  It’s a good record.

More on the actual bands  later…