Mudhoney Articles
Addicted to Noise
22 January '98
Terrastock Psychedelic Music Fest Heads West
The second concert of fringe rock will feature sets from Bardo Pond and Neutral Milk Hotel.
The second Terrastock psychedelic music festival, featuring such artists as former Dream
Syndicate member Kendra Smith, Mudhoney, Neutral Milk Hotel and the Olivia Tremor Control,
will take place in San Francisco this spring.
Ptolemaic Terrascope editor Phil McMullen, who produced last year's inaugural
Terrastock psychedelic music festival in Providence, R.I., described the first show as a
"magical musical experience.
And it helped save his financially strapped magazine, he said.
"I didn't realize it would be such an emotional occasion," said McMullen of the
three-day fringe music festival that featured the first-ever U.S.
show by Flying Saucer Attack, as well as sets from such modern psychedelic-pop artists
as Bevis Frond, Richard Davies and Neutral Milk Hotel. "The bands were there just as
much to enjoy each other and the music," McMullen said. "There was a real mood
there, a sense of a movement that wasn't even intended. It was obviously
something special to a lot of people."
Last year's show followed the 1996 release of a benefit CD for the British psychedelic
'zine called Succour: The Terrascope Benefit Album, which featured
tracks from such big names as Palace, R.E.M.'s Peter Buck and Minus 5's Scott
McCaughey, as well as Flying Saucer Attack, Cul De Sac, Bardo Pond and
Robyn Hitchcock.
So now the whole wigged-out crew is doing it again. The second Terrastock
festival, "Terrastock West, the Left Coast Ptolemaic Perambulation," which is not
a benefit show, will take place April 17-19 at the International Center in San
Francisco and is slated to feature sets from Bardo Pond, the Bevis Frond,
Damon and Naomi, rare live appearances from Masaki Batoh and Michio
Kurihara of Japan's Ghost and former Dream Syndicate member Kendra Smith,
as well as McCaughey, Mudhoney, Neutral Milk Hotel, The Olivia Tremor
Control, the Silver Apples, Wellwater Conspiracy and 30 other new and popular
bands. Weekend passes, available only at Aqua@sirius.com, are $60.
One of the reasons McMullen said the first festival was such a joy was the level
of excitement fans and musicians shared. Jeff Mangum of Neutral Milk Hotel
called the event a "beautiful thing."
Mangum likened events such as Terrascope to being at summer camp, eliciting a
"certain feeling ... of excitement."
The event has shifted to San Francisco in part because of the enthusiasm of the
event's co-producer, Windy Chien, owner of the city's premier indie music focused record store, Aquarius
Records (located in the Mission district). "I established this friendship with Phil by e-mail
and then I drove across the country to the first one and we talked and bonded
and drank and he asked me to do the second one," said Chien. "The bands are really
into doing it again and most of them offered, on-site, to participate this year."
Terrascope has taken a wide berth with their coverage over the years,
profiling everything from ex-Beatle Paul McCartney to '60s pop-phenomenon
Tiny Tim and everything in between.
Another unique aspect of last year's concert, according to Chien, was that she
got to meet dozens of fellow Web music fans whom she had previous had contact with only through
the various music mailing lists to which she subscribes. "It was like a convention
of people from all these mailing lists," Chien said. "I was intrigued by the fact
that people who I'd met on these lists were coming in from all over the world to
hear this music and it was a completely non-commercial, word-of-mouth event."
The San Francisco event will be limited to 700 attendees (450 tickets have
been sold already), and will be spread out in four rooms: a ballroom where the
concerts will take place, a basketball court with food service and an acoustic
stage and a record fair room.
McMullen co-founded Ptolemaic Terrascope with the Bevis Frond's Nick Saloman
in 1989. He came up with the 'zine's nonsense name by combining the names of ancient
mathematical scholar Ptolemy and one of his favorite Captain Beefheart songs, "Tarotplane."
He said the first event broke even. Subsequently Succour: The Terrascope Benefit
Album raised enough money that the quarterly publication is
comfortable. "Although we haven't paid off our debts yet," he said.
