Word has come down this morning that the venerable Stoner Hands of Doom fest has been canceled for 2013. Set for Nov. 7-10 at Strange Matter in Richmond, Virginia, the lineup was to feature bands from across the country, concentrating on Northern and Southern acts from along the East Coast like Gozu, Weed is Weed, Valkyrie and Black Thai, but also bringing in groups from the Midwest such as Devil to Pay, Grel, Lo-Pan and many others. A note was reportedly sent to the bands from fest organizers Rob and Cheryl Levey that read as follows:

We regret to inform you that after careful consideration Cheryl and I have decided we cannot go through with SHoD Festival this year or in the future. We appreciate all that have helped and support our efforts and regret and problems this will create but we are done with our festival thank you for all you do and hope to see you in the future.

Peace, Rob and Cheryl

As of this post, SHoD has yet to make an official announcement of the reason behind the cancellation and what could bring them — after the work of booking and finding slots for 40 bands and with just over a month to go before the first night — to call it quits on the long-running and underappreciated festival. With tours booked surrounding and the dates reportedly in place, steps are being taken to save the fest. When I get updates, I’ll give them.

Obviously the cancellation of Stoner Hands of Doom would be a massive bummer, even when you take away the tours set up with it as their centerpiece. One can only hope that, should the Leveys really be done — and again, there’s been no official word from SHoD as of now — someone can possibly step in and at least get through 2013, if not continue the fest in the future.

More to come, I’m sure.

UPDATE:

Brendan Burns of The Eye of the Stoned Goat has sent the announcement around that he’s hoping to take over the fest under his banner. This message went out a bit ago:

To all bands playing SHoD this year-
I am working on trying to take over this event as a ‘Eye of the Stoned Goat’ event. I would really love your support and if we can get Robert Levey to give us his blessing I would still like to see the event go as planned….
-Brendan

UPDATE:

Brendan Burns of The Eye of the Stoned Goat has stepped in, spoken with SHoD‘s Rob Levey and Strange Matter in Richmond, and the fest will take place, at least for this year. He says:

Just talked to Mark at strange matter we are still good to go! Spoke to Rob, I have his full support… SHoD XIII will go on as planned

Tags: Richmond, Stoner Hands of Doom, Stoner Hands of Doom 2013, Virginia

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 3rd, 2013 at 9:50 am and is filed under Whathaveyou. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.