Ptolemaic Terrascope (published by Nick Saloman and edited by Phil McMullen) has long been a leading magazine for the indie psych, folk, and experimental genres. The first Terrastock festival, consisting of artists featured in the Terrascope, was held in Providence, RI in 1997. The festival returned to New England in October for a fifth showcase of many of today's best indie/underground musicians.
I arrived at the Terrastock festival wet and exhausted from lugging more than a hundred pounds of CDs over more than a mile of cobblestones and cracked cement between Central Square in Cambridge and the Hyatt next to the Charles River on Memorial Drive. The venue turned out to be right across the street from Fenway Park, in a row of dance clubs frequented by upscale international students. The surrounding neighborhood was strangely abandoned since nearly all the businesses are only there for baseball fans on game days.
There was something immediately
welcoming about this odd setting. Standing in line in the rain,
I quickly met some people I knew from e-mail groups. I even sold
a few CDs and made a few new friends before entering the club.
I didn't pick up on any of the competition, falseness or desperation
that I usually encounter at industry festivals and conferences.
Terrastock was held at two adjacent dance clubs: a small dark
square room (The Axis) and a larger spacious open oval room (The
Avalon). The sound from the small room was dense and direct while
the larger room had crisp acoustics following the curves of the
walls. Considering the fact that there was a last-minute venue
change here from the Middle East in Cambridge, this was a good
setting for the festival. It's a testament to the abilities of
the organizers that things ran so smoothly in spite of the venue
change, horrible traveling weather, and the loss of the big Avalon
stage for Sunday (meaning that a second stage in The Axis had
to be built overnight). Cheers to Phil, Joe, Steph, Amir, Brendan,
Scott and everyone who organized the weekend.
Terrastock is a relatively small gathering but it is the event of the season for several branches of indie music. Most of the fans are world-class music collectors, fiercely supportive of their favorites and hungry to expand their horizons with new discoveries. Many people are also musicians and/or writers or have their own labels, magazines, radio shows, stores, rare music FTP servers, etc. In spite of a bit of post-festival squabbling online, my impression of the Terrastock community was one of a group of genuinely nice, interesting, mutually supportive people, excited to be part of the scene. It was a highlight to finally meet so many e-mail friends face to face, taking away some of the isolation of the digital age.
Friday's early performances are kind of a blur, though Pat Orchard's songwriting and guitar style did catch my attention. I was finding my bearings and getting to know people. With so many excellent performers spread out over three days, Terrastock 5 was somewhat of a musical overload, especially on a hard-partying, stormy weekend. Unfortunately, some of the bands I didn't already know sort of passed by me, leaving generally positive impressions. Certainly no one struck me as being bad.
Major Stars played an incredibly powerful set on Friday night. Kate and Wayne Rogers of Twisted Village Records look like an unassuming couple until they blast into the guitar parts like dueling Hendrixes. The closer "Elephant" was monstrous, as Wayne slammed an alternating open chord and high bend sequence over Dave Lynch's cascading drums, while Kate lifted her guitar over her head to get the perfect feedback from the upper stack. They simply rocked with authority.
Terrastock is a multi-headed monster, with the stylistic lines plotted on crossed scales of quiet to loud and structured to free form. There was an overall back and forth feeling to the first two days, the most dramatic example of which was the fact that the explosive Major Stars set was sandwiched between refined, meditative explorations from Charalambides and Windy & Carl.
Saturday gave me the chance to see some of my favorite groups live for the first time. Ethereal Counterbalance featured engaging stories and singing from Rustic Rod, members of the former Abunai! and a preview of the expanded Bevis Frond line-up. The Lucky Bishops did an outstanding set, proving that, despite some missed vocal cues in the booth, they can recreate the intricate, madcap sounds of their CDs in the live setting. They are a fun band to watch since they share the vocals and solos so democratically. The anthemic "Ashtralia" was particularly cool.
Most of the day on Saturday, I was in the big room running the Free City table with my friend Dave Stevens and some help from Jeannette Gustavus from Stickman/Sticksister Records. We had the best seats in the house, up high and directly facing the stage. Trondheim, Norway was well represented at Terrastock 5 by the Dipsomaniacs and Motorpsycho. Seeing the Dipsomaniacs was just about as close to seeing the Beatles or Kinks in the mid sixties as you could get. They played a great cover of The Kinks' "Love Me Till The Sun Shines" (with some self-effacing banter from frontman Øyvind Holm) and offered up some driving versions of new songs and rearrangements of early tracks, ending with a mind-blowing version of "Losing Sleep". Thomas Henriksen played a fantastic Theremin solo and then held the instrument into the crowd for some meaningful audience participation.
Motorpsycho thundered out like Led Zeppelin crashing a recital. Their highly complex, dynamic update of arena prog rock was extremely impressive. They hit on so many satisfying rock memories during a cover of MC3's "Black To Comm" that I wanted to wave my lighter in the air. The flowing but meticulously rehearsed set meandered in a groovy Live At Fillmore East kind of way that got to my '70s soul. A dramatic arrangement of "Fool's Gold" from Blissard provided a moving encore.
The parties Saturday night at the Hyatt Regency lasted until four in the morning so, on Sunday, people were starting to show wear from the pace of the weekend. Sunday's vibe we much more enclosed with everyone crowded into the little square room and heavy rain falling most of the day. The Alchemysts blew me away. Paul Simmons is an amazing guitarist to watch since he does so many unique things with feedback, the whammy bar and pedals. An extended visionary "DMT Blues" converted my exhaustion to a pleasant spacey feeling I could work with.
Another highlight early on Sunday was The Sunshine Fix. The bright punch of their Beach Boys' influenced rock suited the direct sound of the square room very well. They were one of the few bands at the festival that I'd seen before (when I met them at The Bottom Of The Hill in San Francisco last year for a Free City interview). Terrastock mainstays The Lothars played a quirky and entertaining set of Theremin madness. Sonic Youth was probably a bit too big for the small festival setting. The club was absolutely packed with people with Sunday-only passes; there was a more aggressive spirit to the crowd, and a few guys even heckled. It was getting really claustrophobic inside so I was very happy to step out for dinner with some fellow Broken Face writers. Due to slow service at the restaurant, we missed Delicate AWOL and barely made it back to The Axis in time for The Bevis Frond.
I've seen The Bevis Frond a number of times and always enjoyed their shows greatly. However, second guitarist Paul Simmons and new drummer Jules Fenton added a whole new depth to the Terrastock 5 performance, giving core members Nick Saloman and Ade Shaw opportunities to stretch things out and change things around. Nick and Ade are among the main founders of the scene so it's a real pleasure to see them in top form in their own element.
Later, I went upstairs to the backstage area to get away from the crush. While everyone else upstairs was busy generally celebrating and letting off steam, The Spacious Mind sat at a round table in a corner and meditated before their set. Sunday night's finale was beautifully planned: heavy abstract space rock from Lockgroove, Bardo Pond, Subarachnoid Space, The Spacious Mind, Kinski, and Acid Mothers Temple. It was an inspired decision to just let the out-rock rumble build to cathartic noise over the last five hours of the festival.
Terrastock left me feeling very positive about the state of independent music. I hope that some of these performances are made available to fans that couldn't be in Boston. In addition to hearing the stellar sets, I met a lot of nice people who do what they do just for the love of music. Terrastock didn't have the awkward sense of insincere marketing and desperate networking that defines the usual music industry event.
For more information, check www.terrascope.org.
Article © 2002 by Nick
Bensen.