CPH Winter Psych Festival- Meat Locker, Copenhagen, DK Nov 19-21st, 2015

I arrived early to help the organiser Kasper, with the multitrack recording of the bands. The sound guy was very cool and helpful and the group Tau was doing some soundchecking at the time. IT was quite cold and after a while I realized were actually inside a large freezer! The venue is a place where 100’s of pig carcasses were probably hanging many years ago…

Anyway, I set up the hard disc recorder and all seem to be ok. Jürgen (from Holland), Sabine and I went out to get something to eat at Warpigs. We had some BBQ and a really nice beer. The Bearvertown Neck Oil IPA is so excellent..  When we got back, the Kungens Män guys had arrived and were soundchecking. I had to make some new tracks as now we needed to use 24 tracks as the sound man had spread the channels out he was using, even though the total was only about 14.

Kungens Män started on time at 18:50 and played a 40min set of 3 tracks. The first two were quite spacey and the last one was more heavy and like the stuff they played in Stockholm with ØSC the weekend before. Really nice guys and great set and sound. Only about 30 people saw them play though. They had the new record for sale and it looked cool. I had no money to buy it though.

Next up was TAU, a duo from Germany of one guy from Ireland (?) and a percussionist from Venezuela.  They were really nice people. I chatted some with them.  The guitar player played an acoustic that sounded like an electric guitar with the effects. He played with synth (MS2000) looping, and really experimented. It was quite organic some how and they took you to some different place. They seemed to get more and more intense. I guess about 45 people were here now.

TAU

A new Danish band called Wizards of Love was next and there were quite a few people for this band.  Someone described as like Jesus and Mary Chain but they were more slick and people said they sounded like Oasis. I did not like them at all. The opening track the was just the guitar player with a very cool sound and singing with some basic drums and that was pretty interesting but then it was like mainstream 80s rock music. Nothing to do with psychedelic rock at all.

Wizards of Love

The UK band, the Telescopes was next. They were apparently started in the later 80s but everyone in the band except the one guitar player were for sure born in the 90s!! They were not hanging out at the festival at all as I never heard people speaking with an English accent. When their time was up, they emerged from the basement and took too long to set up and played over time as well, which was annoying but what a hell of a noise did they make. Very wild and the singer and both guitar players spent a good amount of time playing out in the middle of the audience. They played about an hour of wild noise rock with the occasional vocal or screams. No guitar solos, just a lot of guitar torture. It was far out…

Telescopes

The last band of the night was a US band called Myrrors. I had never heard them and this was the first of two shows they will play at the festival. I spoke to them briefly and they were very nice people.  They only got to play for about 45mins due to the 01:00 curfew and the Telescopes taking too long. The band had two guitars, bass, drums and violin, which often did not sound like a violin at all. The band had a lot of effects pedals. Some of it was cool but often a bit too dreamy and floating and each track ended with the same sort of dynamic and intense build up. I quite liked them though. 

Myrrors

It was a great first night with a lot of diverse bands and only one that did not really fit at all.  Sadly, there were issues with the electricity supply (dips in power) that were affecting the hard disc recorder and the light guys computer and the soundguys outboard gear. I hope they can solve that tomorrow. We only had partial recordings from most of the bands.

Day 2

We arrived about 5mins after 18 and ET Tumanson was already started. I rushed to set up the hard disc recorder again and managed to get most of his set. He was great as usual. Very passionate performer of raw, nasty, real blues music. Deep from the soul of Iceland! I enjoyed that a lot and there were about 30 people here.

The next couple of bands were not that interesting at all. Keine Fear for Flanger. This was not really my thing. Two guitar and drums One guy playing a 60s psych guitar sound and the other more normal strummed guitar. There were more people today and the guy doing the visuals was mixing in some movies into it and it looked really cool.

Fuji Dream was just a guy playing guitar and singing along to programmed stuff on a computer. We were very bored with this and it was not my kind of music and not psychedelic. Not that many people showed a lot of interest. There were also not that many people yet, perhaps 40. They had closed the door today so it was much warmer inside despite being colder outside.

They Myrrors

They had changed the order around so the Portuguese band, 10,000 Rusos would end the night and The Myrrors would play earlier.  The Myrrors were awesome. They played like 2 long jammed out tracks. The audience and everyone, even the band was high from their great performance.  Wow.. Hard disc recorder was working well today so only a few mins of Fuji dream was missed so far.

Moth 

The Moth were a Danish band that sounded like the CURE or Lords of the New Church. A goth like band with a total 80s sound but not original at all. They had a cool look and a very thin synthesizer player with both male and female vocals.  The young people liked them, so that was good.

Yohowa

Yohowa put on a very intense concert but it was not really what I like that much but they had a good crowd and people were into it. We sort of got sucked in it after hanging out with our Finnish friends who some how manage to get you to drink more than you should!!!

10,000 Rusos

10,000 Rusos were really nice guys and we had a chat with them outside. I did not get to see at the Reverence Festival this summer, where they played.  Anyway, there were a three piece with a drummer that sings. He plays this sort of snare, floor tom rhythm much of the time while he and the bass player drive the music hard and this left a lot of space for the guitar player to just freak out and make a lot of crazy noise at times and at other times, a more riffs. They were really good to build up to near climaxes but they never climaxed which was strange and disappointing. I just wanted them to go into a great guitar solo so many times when they had pushed it to a quite intense moment and then they never did. We were right in the front and enjoyed the show a lot… The Myrrors stole the show today though. Wow. They were great.

10,000 Rusos

Day 3

A lot of people with headaches today as we all stumbled home at like 2:30.  It was fun though..... The snow was very intense when we packed up the car with the gear and merch. Very nasty, cold and windy with a mix of rain and huge snowflakes. Very wet!! 

Spellbound Suntable

 We arrived about 17:25 and Spellbound Suntable were soundchecking and there were already about 20 people in the place.  They started about 15mins late. I quite liked the opening space track but then the 80s pad synths kicked in and I lost interest pretty fast. Very 80s synth pop very slight psych, I would stay.. Very Mainstream.  The singing and synths especially. Neither guitar players really played any solos and one also played some keyboards.  People enjoyed them. The visuals were great..

Red Lama

Red Lama, who played at the last psych fest was next. This band has a really great singer and quite cool grooves and vibe. Reminds me of the 80s Cult somehow but with dual guitars, keyboards and a djembe player. Virtually no guitar solos though, which was a pity. They had their own sound guy and he seem to not care that you hear the guitars as they were both way too low compared to the drums and voice. Massive bass sound which was good for the groove. I enjoyed them.

Agusa

Agusa was next. They have played at nearly all the Copenhagen psych event. It was great to see the guys and talk about our gig together in Athens. Such cool and nice people.  Chino (3AM, La ira de Dios) and his wife had arrived and it was really great to talk and meet him again after all these years… Anyway,.. Agusa had great sound after they sorted out the flute issues. They played a cool show but they were very unhappy with the stage sound. It was an omen for ØSC later.. Great concert.

The multitrack recorder seem to be working well today, so far, but this would not be the fate..

3AM

3AM was next and Chino was very slow setting up and took more time than Red Lama!  His set was mostly like high energy 80s electro stuff with programmed drums and other stuff and he plays guitar and sings over the top.  Some people loved it and quite a few hated it.. He really divided the audience. His last song was a Suicide cover song.  The multitracks froze and we only got the last track.

Next up was a Swedish band called Dead Vibrations. They were a young good looking four piece with a female drummer and a lot of energy.  They had a lot of energy and put a lot into their performance but musically you could hardly tell one song from the next and besides using a few effects pedals to make it a bit more psychedelic, it was mainly just noisy rock and roll with a lot of attitude and no guitar solos..  People liked their short 30min set.

Dead Vibrations

Øresund Space Collective, my band was next and we had a lot to set up. I have no idea how long it took to set up and we could not get the sound right. Monitor situation and the electronic percussion stuff was a mess. No one could hear him and the first half of the show the guitar players could not hear each other and Mogens and I were having the synths going in and out and I had some serious issues with my modular making noise and I could not sort it out as the sound was a mess..  We played a very intense show though and people really liked it. Jacob, a new guitar player was awesome.. Very cool… It was well received and many people said we were the best band and we saved this day from being quite lame…  Listen to the show below and you an decide... Sadly, our multitrack recording was fucked... 

https://archive.org/details/OSC2015-11-21.FLAC 

Thanks to Kasper, Daniel (visuals), Stefan, all the amazing volunteer staff, the hard working soundman, etc.. for making this a fun event inside the meat locker!!!!