Psycho Las Vegas 2022 – Psycho Swim Notes
Posted in Features on August 19th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
08.18.22 – 11:03PM Pacific – Thursday – Psycho Swim
This is no place for lucidity.
I’ve been waiting weeks to say that. It is, however, a place for imposter syndrome, and I’ll admit to having already filled my quota of wondering how the hell I managed to get here. Considering I can barely get up to get myself a cup of water — I brought my pink water-drinking cup from home — let alone ice from somewhere down the hall, it feels pretty odd to not be at home right now. I am lucid, mostly. A little while ago I got back from seeing Kadabra at the Redtail and I guess that was the end of my night. I picked up a hamburger salad on the way back and that was dinner and I keep expecting it to kick in and have a surge of energy, but yeah, probably not.
Never had coffee today. There’s a Starbucks downstairs that I’ll hit in the AM. Desperate times, if I didn’t say that before.
What I learned throughout the course of today is that Resorts World is fucking huge. It’s three or four or seven plus-size hotels all interconnected. I don’t even know where one casino ends and another begins, or what’s where or whose is anything and there are a lot of flashing lights and a kind of mall attached with a big chrome watery-looking ball in it that’s like the mall art you remember but on steroids or maybe given a grim alien reboot. Finding the check-in to get my wristband this morning was a hoot, and from there I had my work even more cut out for me finding the pool. I was back and forth a few times throughout the day — there was one point during Early Moods where, righteous and doomed as they were, I just needed air conditioning. That’s poolside.
No, I didn’t go in. A lot of people did. My bathing suit is in the wash, or at least it was when I left the house yesterday to go to the airport. Clouds rolled in as the afternoon went on and Rifflord begat Early Moods begat Uniform and so forth, but it wouldn’t rain until during Elder’s set, which even though it was dark already still felt something like a godsend. I had been headed inside anyway. I’m getting ahead of myself.
The day was two days, how it worked out. I wound up splitting the schedule into two parts. Taking a break in the middle meant missing Deathchant, about whose set I’ve already heard good things, but made the rest of the day doable. Sometimes in life we have to make sacrifices. I’d rolled up early for Rifflord, got my bag searched for the first of three times today — the second time I was told to throw out my water bottle, which seems a little counterintuitive for an outdoor event in Las Vegas in August; I kind of felt like there should be refilling stations every two meters along the wall — and was asked about the camera gear but I said I was media (hence that whole imposter thing noted above) and they let it go. After I shot Rifflord and the head of Psycho’s team of 10 photographers came up to me and with a very West Coast manner, introduced himself and proceeded to tell me he didn’t know there was any outside media allowed to shoot the festival. The implication, of course, that I shouldn’t be there.
Well, there I was. One band, who rocked by the way, into a four-day festival, 100 degrees minimum with the sun trying to cleave my skull, and Photo Dude coming ’round to put me in my place. Yessir. Well sir, you see. And so on. He said his piece and even knowing I was right — which, yes, I was — it was still a kind of shitty way to start the thing. Fortunately, Rifflord had played “Tumbleweed” so I felt like I could take on anything the planet might put in my way, and it was too hot to be really bummed out. The trick is finding somewhere to be. Staking out a spot and putting yourself in it. I found a little shade toward the back and sat down. I’d been in one of the cabanas, but the people who’d staked it out came back and it was pretty clearly time to move on. I’d watch Early Moods, abscond for a few minutes to cool off by walking around the big, empty, fenced-off dirt lot that I assume is going to be eventually turned into some kind of ‘experience’, and then return for the finish of their set.
Classic heavy rock and doomer vibes. The morose aspects of Early Moods were a good setup for Uniform in that if Early Moods was bumming out about the world, Uniform were judging and finding it wanting. It made sense in a stages-of-grief kind of way. Rifflord and Early Moods were both bands I pointedly wanted to see, and Uniform’s harsher take — some industrial elements, mostly dark, aggro noise — was a shift in atmosphere that was welcome despite the groove the first two acts had established. By the time Uniform were finished, I felt like I was ready to die. I’d been hydrating and saying hello to the people kind enough to say hello to me, and I just plunked myself down at one point and did the math on eating and sleeping and found that their increasing my likelihood to last the full day made it worth a journey back to the room.
I did find my way back, eventually, but I’m still not sure that, say, if I was going to Dawg House to watch Elder at 1AM finish their rained-out set, I’d know how to get there. I’ll be asleep before then anyhow — already writing with one eye closed, which is never a good sign for continued consciousness. I ate a protein bar and then settled myself onto the bed, still not really having decided I was going to sleep. Then I turned off the light and was out in about five seconds. I’d set an alarm to be up in time for me to get back to the pool for Elder with flex enough that I got to see some of Bridge City Sinners’ goth-bluegrass, which was a good time, even if the singer seemed let down by the audience response. It was just starting to ‘cool off,’ so I got where both she and the crowd in front of the stage were coming from. Even having slept, I would hardly call myself up to full speed. And maybe it was a bad time to go off my meds after all. I don’t know.
Elder were next, and I’ll do you the favor of sparing you the music-as-magic-because-they-made-it-rain thing. I mean, yes, obviously that’s what happened, I just feel stupid writing about it. They weren’t through “Compendium” before it started coming down. As noted, they’ll be at the Dawg House — one of the many venue-type places nestled into the mall-ish area; I stumbled on it earlier — but yeah. I was on my way to catch Salem’s Bend who were on before Kadabra at the Redtail. I’d thought about hitting Eyehategod back at the pool and Midnight are Midnight, but there was no way I was going to make it. Death would occur. I got to see two bands I’d never seen before in Salem’s Bend and Kadabra, and that felt like a win, which I also kind of feel obligated to point out because some of the comments I got yesterday or whenever that was were a little off-putting, like I’m not enjoying myself. Well, I was getting on a fucking airplane. What’s enjoyable about that? Even if you’re looking forward to where you’re going, you have to get there first.
Psycho Las Vegas is really, really, really big. Yeah, there’s your pullquote — you’re welcome. I’m media! But even compared to when I was out here in 2018 and it was at the Hard Rock, it’s mammoth. Today there were four stages that had stuff going at various points. Tomorrow is six, and it starts at noon and it ends at 2:45AM and you could never see it all — they rightly call it a ‘choose your adventure’ festival — but it’s fun to try if completely overwhelming. I think that’s the idea. I think maybe it’s supposed to be fun. Sounds weird, I know.
But you have to understand the scale of the thing. This morning, looking at the schedule for the next four days, it was like I was staring down a tidal wave or maybe more appropriately a sandstorm since we’re in the desert, and I hardly feel any different about that now that the day is over. However big you’re thinking it is, it’s bigger. It’s more on the scale of SXSW Music than a regular one- or two-stage fest. More like getting around a city.
I was ready for Kadabra when they went on, following the heavy boogie of Salem’s Bend, whose guitarist had a very proud aunt in the crowd and whose bassist opted to go without pants, presumably being fresh out of the pool. Good fun all around, and Kadabra followed it well, with a more drawn out, fuzzier take that still reminds me of the first Mars Red Sky record. Their Ultra album came out last year on Heavy Psych Sounds and was a gem that I thought didn’t get enough love. Having seen them live, now I know that’s the case. First smiling drummer I saw all day, and maybe a win on tone as well, but it was the melody, depth of tone and the swinging groove that had me locked in. All of that coming together in a languid nodder psychedelia given just enough push to keep rolling downhill? Sign me up forever. Or at least for the next album.
Between the pizza joint, the Mexican place, the vegan place and the breakfast place, the nearest I got to a caesar salad was the hamburger-with-chipotle-dressing thing I ate a bit ago. Not something I’d likely order on a normal day — I have increasing trouble trusting red meat when I don’t know where it comes from — but glorious and quickly consumed for all that. My head has already started thinking about the long day that tomorrow will be, and that’s a good thing, but today was an interesting one. The heat, the sun and fatigue, disorientation, dreadful sobriety, and so on, were a drag at various points, but the music sounds good and it’s… fun. Still feels kind of strange to say that.
Tomorrow is the first day of the festival proper. I’m lonely but holding up. I’ve got Dreadnought, Stinking Lizaveta and Hippie Death Cult as one-two-three first thing in the afternoon, and coffee to find before that. First sleep.
Thanks for reading.
