Posted in Whathaveyou on March 24th, 2025 by JJ Koczan
That’s it for Freak Valley 2025 as regards lineup adds — a special moment in the cycle of any annual festival, as the complete shape of the thing is revealed for the first time to the people who’ll be attending — though the Germany-based festival set for June 19-21 on the gorgeous AWO grounds in Netphen apparently couldn’t resist sneaking a few names in under the wire. Seeing Bushfire added brought a smile to my face, as they’re something of a house band at Freak Valley that, in the now-several years I’ve been lucky enough to attend the festival, haven’t played. So much the better as they’ll do so with the occasion of a new album.
The Ocean are the last headliner to be announced Freak Valley‘s long-since-sold-out 2025 edition, and they join Motorpsycho and the reunited The Sword at the head of a significant bill bolstered by the classic boogie of Sacri Monti and London punkers Jools. I’ve never seen The Ocean, though I know Pelagic Records does a lot of killer, important work, so that will be an interesting first-time experience, and taking in the full bill from the poster below, it looks like it’s going ot be a wild couple days out in that field. Fingers crossed for good weather.
From social media:
Freaks, it’s time!
Our sold-out Freak Valley Festival 2025 is adding the last pieces to the puzzle, and it’s gonna be MASSIVE!
🔥 THE OCEAN – will be headlining Freak Valley Festival! Prepare for an epic sonic journey through crushing heaviness and deep atmospheres!
🔥 SACRI MONTI – Heavy-psych riff madness straight from California!
🔥 JOOLS – The UK punk collective bringing raw energy and rebellion! This one’s gonna be wild!
🔥 BUSHFIRE – Our longtime friends are bringing the heat to Freak Valley Festival with a Record Release Show!
Heavy, soulful, and packed with pure, unfiltered energy – their new album is ready to shake the valley, and you’ll be the first to experience it live!
The Valley is calling, and you’ve answered! Let’s make this one for the books.
Posted in Whathaveyou on February 10th, 2025 by JJ Koczan
I’ll admit it’s been a minute, but if you remember circa 2008/’09, Danish heavy rockers Highway Child released two banger records through Elektrohasch. I need to revisit, and will sometime in the next few Fridays, but a reunion adds to the appeal of the already badass and already long-since sold out Freak Valley 2025, which will also feature a stop from The Sword as they celebrate their reunion likely with a European summer tour, and new additions Battlesnake, Häxer and DZ Deathrays, who’ll bring some of that Australian punk energy last year have highlighted in Amyl and the Sniffers and C.O.F.F.I.N. — it’s a kick in the ass but one you need.
It’s a strong lineup, though, with Motorpsycho, Windhand, Dead Meadow, The Devil and the Almighty Blues, Early Moods, Kombynat Robotron, Travo and so on. Hell, Wedge are going to be there, as I also very much hope to be. I don’t have my flight booked yet, and I never call it 100 percent until I’m on the plane, but this is one I’m looking forward to seeing, and as always, thanks to Jens Heide and the Freak Valley crew for having me, as well as for once again having The Obelisk logo on the poster. Being in the company of Rockpalast and Rock Hard magazine there continues to be humbling.
Here’s the latest:
FREAK VALLEY FESTIVAL 2025 – BAND ANNOUNCEMENT!
Get ready, Freaks! This year’s lineup is bringing the heat with an exclusive Germany show from none other than THE SWORD – heavy riff lords returning to melt faces!
But that’s not all – Danish psych-rockers HIGHWAY CHILD reunite for an exclusive Germany show, a rare chance to witness their magic live!
Also joining the madness: the serpentine shredlords BATTLESNAKE, occult doom sorcerers HÄXER, and the high-voltage energy of Aussie punk-rockers DZ DEATHRAYS.
This one’s gonna be legendary. See you in the Valley!
Posted in Whathaveyou on December 26th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
In the interest of honesty, I’ll admit to tearing up a bit when I saw My Sleeping Karma would be playing Freak Valley in 2025. That’s a band I’ve listened to for 20 years, whom I’ve never seen, and who will be making their return to the stage this weekend as they play their first show since the passing of drummer Steffen Weigandin June 2023. Already I had very much hoped to be at Freak Valley next year — it would be my fourth in a row and it is a continual honor to be invited — but I think this pushes it to what social media might classify as a ‘life event.’ To think I might in a mere matter of months be ‘marked safe’ from never having seen My Sleeping Karma. If you need me, I’ll be daydreaming about standing in that photo pit when the music starts.
That’s not to discount Dead Meadow or Motorpsycho, certainly, or Sarkh, The Polvos! or The Thing — the latter are new to me as of this writeup, despite relative geographic proximity — just excited on a personal level. Fingers crossed I get to be there — as a policy, I never believe it all the way until I’m on the plane — for all of it. I did write the short announcement below (emojis and final line added later) and it went up last week, but I’m behind on stuff with the holiday, so forgive. The fest is sold out, as usual.
Here’s the latest:
Freaks,
From the bottoms of our freaky hearts, thank you for once again making Freak Valley Festival completely sold out. 💯
We haven’t finished with 2025 yet, though. Today brings six new additions to the lineup:
Of course, Norway’s heavy prog legends MOTORPSYCHO need no introduction. They’ll probably have three or four new albums out by June.
DEAD MEADOW will be touring on their upcoming album ‘Voyager to Voyager,’ making an emotional return to the stage.
We consider MY SLEEPING KARMA family, and their return to Freak Valley is a rightly anticipated reason to celebrate. It is an honor to host them as they also return to the stage in 2025 for a busy and emotional time. ❤️
We also welcome hard-driving New York garage rockers THE THING, Chilean cosmic fuzzlaunchers THE POLVOS!, and atmospheric progressive metal instrumentalists SARKH to the lineup for next June.
We look forward to welcoming you too. More to come early in the New Year.
We wish you a Heavy Christmas and a Fuzzy New Year
Posted in Whathaveyou on October 14th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
First names are out for Freak Valley 2025, and though I wouldn’t take the invitation for granted, it does warm my heart to think of The Devil and the Almighty Blues bringing their heavy preach to the AWO grounds in Netphen, standing on that stage, introduced by the esteemed Volker Fröhmer with a hearty “viel spaß!” or seeing the horn-laced shenanigans of Pendejo, the classic doom metal roll of Early Moods or the cosmic futurism of Kombynat Robotron, Travo who I never thought I’d ever see, ever, but whose record I very much dug, and Zig Zags, Wedge, Lurch and Scott Hepple and the Sun Band.
Richmond, Virginia’s Windhand — who just released a demo collection on Creep Purple called Songs From the Satan House and whose bassist, Parker Chandler (also Cough), quit the band about a week ago with some less than complimentary things to say about his experience — are the top name thus far on the bill, and aside from their needing new low end representation, it seems likely they’ll be at Freak Valley as part of a tour. Could Early Moods or Zig Zags join? It’s possible but not definite. Seems likely The Devil and the Almighty Blues will be on the road as well from their home in Norway, as they’ve also been confirmed for Desertfest London and Desertfest Berlin 2025, as well as Sonic Whip 2025, after playing Desertfest Oslo and others this year.
If they end up filling the dates between fests with club shows, that’s a fair amount of touring without a new record, so maybe Spring will bring news of a new The Devil and the Almighty Blues as well, or maybe those guys have just hit the point where they can show up for whatever reason and there’s a slot for them. If you’ve ever seen them live, that’s wholly justified.
Either way, a lot to like here in the variety, in the names themselves, and in the thought of taking in another wonderful weekend standing in the grass at Freak Valley, which is starting to feel an awful lot like a home when I get back each year. Hopefully that includes 2025 as well. Here’s the announcement, which I would usually have written, but I whiffed on because of the Quarterly Review. I’ll try and catch the next one if they’ll let me. Text and poster hit socials on Friday:
🌵 Get ready, Freaks! 🌵
The countdown to Freak Valley Festival 2025 has officially begun, and we’re beyond stoked to announce the first wave of bands set to blow your minds and melt your faces!
Brace yourselves for the crushing doom of Windhand, the blues-drenched heaviness of The Devil and the Almighty Blues, and the psychedelic thunder of Wucan! If that wasn’t enough, we’re cranking up the intensity with the raw power of. ¡Pendejo! , the crushing riffs of Early Moods, and the punk/metal chaos of Zig Zags.
But that’s just the beginning! Prepare to lose yourself in the cosmic grooves of Kombynat Robotron, get wild with the retro rock of Wedge, and let Travo, Lurch, and Scott Hepple and The Sun Band take you on mind-bending sonic journeys.
This is just the start, so get ready for more epic announcements soon. Mark your calendars, tune your ears, and prepare for the freakiest weekend of the year. Freak Valley 2025 is coming… and it’s going to be legendary!
See you in the valley! 🤘
Regular Tickets will first be available 14.October at Die Tintenpatrone in Siegen-Weidenau
The years, it turns out, are not making me any less weird, as I sit with my eyes closed at the Frankfurt Airport and build an altar to the queen of the gorgons while typing. It was that kind of weekend, as the best of them are. The sedentary grooving to Ruff Majik’s last record included, this has been the least stressful part of this trip. I got picked up at the hotel at 7AM, slept in the sprinter van on the way from Siegen, got through security and all the rest of it in ace time, and arrived at gate B44 after a not unpleasant stroll to the ass end of the airport. Some sharp not-quite-bacon porcine smell coming from the coffee/breakfast counter over yonder, and it’s a little warm, but if these are my biggest complaints — and they’re not, but we’re keeping it light — I’m doing okay. That’s the bottom line.
I was back and forth on wrapping up the Freak Valley coverage like this or just leaving it with “thanks thanks thanks thanks” in the last post since basically that’s all I want to say in the end anyhow, but on some level I feel like a few words of explanation are owed.
I know I mentioned my mother’s knee replacement on Wednesday, and I told at least 80 percent of the people I spoke to at the AWO grounds in Netphen about going from the hospital to JFK Airport in New York after they rolled my mom in a wheelchair to the back-part of the hospital where they do the real knock-you-out-and-butcher-you parts of medicine — I’ve been back there; the tears welling in my eyes tell me I’m still not over it — and I am fiercely proud of her for doing something that I think in a couple weeks even she’ll say she should’ve done years ago, but the background emotional radiation of that was very much a factor in my Freak Valley 2024 experience. It’s part of what I’ll remember about the last few days, to say the very least.
But the way it happened was also somewhat disorienting, since the operation was scheduled for last week, but got bumped because she got sick, and because of the Memorial Day holiday in the US — which is bullshit, yes; if my country cared about its military, it would be an institution of science for the public good instead of an overfunded oppressive imperialist tool blah blah blah; rethink all policing — we didn’t know until Tuesday morning what time she’d be going in Wednesday. And if it was going to be the afternoon, that would mean I wouldn’t be able to do the trip. So here I am over the weekend before, back and forth with Jens Heide, who runs FVF, saying I don’t know if I’m gonna make it, saying give away my room, no wait don’t, stressed and harried and overwhelmed. Factor in the six-hour time different and the fest didn’t even know for sure I was coming until less than 24 hours before I was due to board the plane.
Even as Full Earth went on Thursday afternoon to kick off Freak Valley 2024 in righteously progressive style, part of me was still back there, or still on the plane not sleeping, or trying to figure out why the train smelled like pee (spoiler: it was pee), whatever it was. But while I didn’t end up getting it tattooed on my person, my mantra that it’ll all be okay when the music starts held true. I don’t know what it is. Something about being in front of a stage, the blast of volume, that kind of electric surge; I need it. I tend to get my doses in bulk these days, and there are ups and downs to that like everything, but I am so incredibly thankful to have this music in my life, to have found it or been found by it, and that it is such a part of who I am. It’s not escapism when it’s your fucking life. I am fortunate to be able to do what I want to do, how and when and why and, especially in cases like this, where I want to do it.
I don’t have the kind of brain that always automatically moves the muscles of my face to smile when I’m happy to see somebody, a friend or acquaintance or even my own family. But that doesn’t mean I’m not glad to see you. Or if I’m distracted, or in a hurry somewhere, it’s just how I am. All that stuff that when you’re young you think you’ll figure out when you’re older? Well, I’m 42 now, and remain flailing in so many regards. As a person, in my body, definitely as a parent, as a husband, as a writer. I’ve put everything I have for 15 years of my life into this project and I still get condescended to as the ‘stoner rock blogger’ as if genre wasn’t the root of innovation in art, but typos aside — and I’ll probably be finding them for years in the posts from this weekend; hazards of taking notes on my phone, sorry about that — I’m proud of the work I do here. On a certain level, I have to be.
Thank you for reading, is the point, and if we talked at the fest and I seemed out of it, I probably was. I can’t be anyone other than who I am at this point, and frankly, being myself requires performance enough. I’m sorry if that was the case, and yeah, I do feel like I disappoint people who meet me in person after knowing me from the site, social media, whatever, but I’m doing my best. At the heart of it all, I appreciate you being a part of this thing if you are.
I’m gonna take tomorrow (which might be today by the time this is posted) and get caught up on writing and some stuff that I’ve been holding back while here, maybe work on a Conan bio I need to bang out or those Lowrider/Elephant Tree liner notes that are so long overdue.
Rain’s back on early in the day. I forewent Doom Yoga and hotel breakfast in favor of sleeping an extra hour. Time will tell on that choice. My head is swimming in last-day logistics; how I’m getting back to the hotel tonight, how and when I’m getting to Frankfurt Airport tomorrow, on and on. So yes, wet and scatterbrained. One or the other would be enough on its own. Poncho may yet make an appearance.
A few people have asked how my mother is doing. First, thank you for reading. I feel like I’ve transposed the haphazardly way this trip ended up being undertaken onto a kind of overarching mania of the experience, but one way or the other, it’s still restorative. She’s recovering from having her knee replaced on Wednesday, is walking, had started physical therapy. These things are months in the healing, but she’s strong and inspiring.
Though it shows little sign of it at the moment, the rain is supposed to stop this afternoon. We’ll see. I was sitting before the start of the show in the smoking tent; the wafting of joint smoke inexplicably cut with tobacco as is the method. Not my thing. I barely had the batteries in the camera when Volker took the stage and it was time to roll, so take that, last-day blues. Good thing my new Freak Valley hoodie is warm.
Sorry in advance for the typos.
—
Splinter
Thank you to Splinter for being the day’s reminder that everything’s okay when the music starts. The Netherlands based classic-heavy four-piece fronted by Douwe Truijens had the Hammond, the boogie, enough sleaze in some of their lyrics to feel like a #metoo waiting to happen (looking at you, “Soviet Schoolgirl,” et al), but there’s no denying the life in their performance. Rain pouring down on the early crowd, Truijens was nonetheless on fire strutting and dancing around the stage with moves drawn from an arena-ready playbook, plus shorty-shorts for the last song because when you’re doing a thing, you go for it. They were tight in addition to putting on a show, and “Every Circus Needs a Clown” from last year’s Role Models (review here) was a highlight in presentation and from-speaker force to go with the conceptual foundation of what they do. That is to say, they’re a band with a plan. And that’s not a negative at all. The songs are catchy and uptempo, fun if you can get on board with euphemism, and it’s over-the-top in just the way it’s supposed to be. Echoing the energetic start of yesterday, pushing it further, Splinter made a field on a cold, rainy afternoon feel like a sweaty nightclub, and for that, one can only be grateful.
Gravy Jones
Uh oh, I think I might dig this band. Another full-size Hammond on stage, cult-ish, classic-ish riffy vibe. I recall digging the Norwegian four-piece’s 2018 debut, Funeral Pyre (review here), for the quirk it brought to genre tropes, but the apparently-don’t-do-this-all-the-time outfit were more cohesive on stage, solid in groove, hinting or maybe more with that organ toward retroist dark-boogie, and on point in the interplay of the keys and guitar. The bluesy but not caricature vocals specifically reminded me of Buffalo, but if Gravy Jones only want you for your body, they’re almost certainly nefarious in that intent. At least some of what they played was taken from an impending follow-up to Funeral Pyre, as was announced from the stage, and wherever/whenever, I take that as good news in terms of such a thing existing at all. Because I just might end up a fan of this band. You know how that happens? Hear a thing. “Oh that’s cool.” Six years pass. You see them. “Oh shit that’s cool.” It was kind of like that watching them close out with “Mountains of Madness.” If you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna go see if they’ve got anything going at the merch.
Deathchant
My prevailing impression of L.A.’s Deathchant holds firm from seeing them last August at SonicBlast in Portugal (review here), and to save you the time following that link, I’ll just say it’s thar they kick ass. Two guitars that can lean into Thin Lizzy harmonies or thrash out at will, doomly in the title-track of Thrones, which they released last Fall, but gnarly and ripping at any speed, it’s like they play both the Heavy and the Metal sides of heavy metal, but they’re not doing some bullshit disaffected-white-dude aggro thing either. They get on stage, hit it, and groove with tonal presence regardless of a given part’s intensity, drawing from metal and rock on the way, charged and precise, but not so clear in sound as to lose their edge. Perhaps they’re subject to the perils of the band in-between, when it comes to style: too metal for some rockers, too rock for some metallers, but shit, I like bands who don’t fit (also bands who do; in no way does it have to be one or the other, remember), and they played a yet-untitled shouty new song and decided on the spot to call it “Freak Valley.” It ruled and I hope they keep the name. They should probably also have six or seven live records out by now, by rights. I’ll hope to see them again at Desertfest New York later this year.
Mouth
It didn’t take Mouth long to reroute the momentum from Deathchant’s raw Motõrheaded thrust to suit their proggier psychedelic purposes, and the sun came out for them, which can only be called appropriate. I did some liner notes recently for their Vortex Redux semi-reissue LP, and well, I’ll tell you truly, they’re not a band I ever really expected to see live. I mean, it’s a universe of infinite possibility, right? So a thing always could happen, but that doesn’t mean it will. And they were so much fun. Into the music, not trying to convince you that being on stage and playing their songs isn’t the most fun thing in the world. A positive vibe, energy front to back. There was one point where guitarist/vocalist Christian Koller went on his back on the stage while playing a solo and all I could think about was how much of John Dwyer’s dried-up spit from last night must be on there, but beyond that, not a worry in the world while watching them, and their affinities for ’60s psych, ’70s prog and multiple eras of heavy rock came through with poise and passion alike. The keyboard and snare jabs in “Into the Lines” and the slew of builds throughout were exciting and well crafted, and they put everything they had into the show. They weren’t a surprise for me, but it’s kind of a relief sometimes when you see a band you’ve followed for a while and they validate the reasons you liked them in the first place. Mouth did that and improved the weather. That’s a high point in any day.
Black River Delta
Swedish mellow heavy blues rock. Oldschool in ideology, modern in tone. It always takes me a second to stop listening for the stoner to show up when Freak Valley breaks out the bluesier stuff, but Black River Delta did well in the dinnertime slot. And immediately upon thinking of it as that, I realized I was starving. No goulash, but a vegan curry — no I’m not vegan, but probably should be, not the least because it would allow me to subsist exclusively on a variety of homeground nut butters — was the thing. Green beans, carrots, broccoli, onions and peppers of course, but most crucially there were four — yes, I counted, it was four — bites of cauliflower. Cauliflower! For upwards of six minutes while Black River Delta nestled into one comfortable flow after another, I found paradise. By the time another 15 minutes had passed, they’d be finished with their sharply composed and executed fare, delivered smoothly and suited to the style bringing together contemporary and classic as so many here have, but in their own way. And soon after that, the rain would start again, but since it was between bands and Black River Delta were so classy anyhow, I won’t hold it against them. It poured for a minute there, though.
Godsleep
And stopped doing so about 35 seconds after I ran away from the photo pit to get away from the deluge coming down from the roof overhang in front of the stage while Greece’s Godsleep were getting going. I was curious what series of circumstances brought a Rutgers football t-shirt into vocalist Amie Makris’ life — I got a MFA from Rutgers Newark, and my wife did her Ph.D. in New Brunswick; you don’t see a lot of Newjerseynalia in other countries [edit: I asked her later at the merch area and she said she got it from her sister] — but the shirt didn’t last much longer than the rain, and Godsleep’s material had so much push and sweep that the thought was in and out of my head like some kind of asshole who just flies in for the festival and then is gone. They slowed down a bit for the delightfully ’90s-reminiscent “Saturday,” which was a highlight of last Spring’s all-over-the-place-and-only-more-rad-for-it Lies to Survive (review here), but as that record will demonstrate, there’s no lack of variety in what they do regardless of tempo. Not being exclusively sad, slow and miserable, there are aspects of Godsleep’s aesthetic I can relate to more than others, but almost any in-genre boundary pushing is good news as far as I’m concerned, “Permanent Vacation” sort of bridges worlds between explosion-happens-now and more methodical whathaveyou. I found that their harsher moments were complement rather than contrast to the odd bit of desert riffing and sundry other lessons in kicking ass on display. Split LP with Ruff Majik post-haste, please. Both with some screaming, while I’m making requests. Dizzying but undizzied, intermittently furious, deceptively intricate, and rad. They finished by bringing it all back around to the riffs and were better than the veggie curry. Yup. That’s the review.
Speck
Mellow molten instrumentalism from Vienna trio Speck, whose expanses soothed with considerably more cosmic warmth than is offered by, say, actual space. It was my first time seeing the band, whose second album, Eine Gute Reise, came out last Fall, and it took them a while to get going, sure enough, but more, it took me a couple minutes to warm up to it, but all of a sudden I looked up and they were killing it. They’d continue to do so even as a torrential, bucket-style downpour took hold, adding another layer of soak to the already saturated everything and causing a scramble for shelter for some and a very pointed not-scramble from others, which I can respect. Rockpalast has a small tent set up outside the production truck backstage with a tv showing the livestream feed, right next to Lulu’s Garden, and I took advantage of that to wait out the deluge. It didn’t last — it couldn’t or it’d be Freak Lake Festival — but it was harder even than the rain before, and if you were caught in it, you know that’s saying something. I eventually made my way further back to sit someplace drier, but listened as Speck brought their set-long build to its payoff, and I couldn’t help but wonder if the livestream mics picked up the sound of the rain pounding down. If so, all the more reason they should make it into a live record. People mud-moshing like a hippie version of whatever Woodstock that was.
Amyl and the Sniffers
Thrills and such from brash, hard-hitting Aussie punk rockers Amyl and the Sniffers. When they were announced as a headliner, it kind of had me scratching my head, but obviously seeing them you get it in a different way. Their frontwoman, Amyl, came out in an overcoat and stripped it off to reveal her undies while singing a line I interpreted as “I like power,” so yes, if that’s what it was, then clearly. Not gonna take away from the statement or the volume that coincided, but on my coolest day I was never cool enough to be a punker, and today’s certainly not my coolest day. Still, can’t really argue with the ass kicking meted out, and after a certain point, loud groove is loud groove. They shouted out countrymen outfit C.O.F.F.I.N., who played the other day, which was nice, en route to the next onslaught. Rain stopped and started, as it has for most of the day.
I just kind of hung around and let both the noise and the water falling from the sky — because this planet is incredible and to our present knowledge completely unique in the universe in being able to support life and water is why and we treat it like shit; by the way I’m getting on a plane tomorrow morning, so I’m not indemnifying myself, rest assured; if you’re alive to read this you’re complicit there — wash over me while making the rounds saying a few quick goodbyes/hope-to-see-you-next-years. The harsh reality of needing to head to the airport early tomorrow has set in, so better to take care of that earlier than to feel bad about it later. There are a lot of very nice people here, and they are kind to me, and talk to me. I don’t have the kind of brain that always translates being happy to see someone into a smile on my face, but even if you just said hi this weekend, please know it was appreciated. I guess I’m saying goodnight there, too. Guess I got sidetracked talking about Amyl and the Sniffers. Okay.
Kadavar
The one and only. Because as many imitators as they’ve spawned, Kadavar on a level of their own. I knew to expect good things from their still-relatively-recent four-piece incarnation from seeing them play last summer at the aforementioned SonicBlast (review here), and god damn, they’re about as headliner as you get when they take the stage at something like this. They’ve been recording — for what, I don’t know, but I’ve got my hopes — rather than the old tour-tour-tour thing, while it was killer to hear Lupus Lindemann up on stage speak to the crowd in his (and most of their, I assume) native language. He, Tiger, Dragon and Jascha Kreft — last I checked, the ‘new guy’ hadn’t chosen a spirit animal — took the stage to defy the supposition that rock and roll has no more heroes, and while they’re a professional band putting on a show for an audience, on doing so, they throw down like no one else in this thing. “Doomsday Machine” into “Come Back Life” at the start? Come on. I hung around for a few songs, which was a choice facilitated by either the rain mostly stopping or my new Freak Valley hoodie just being soaked enough that I didn’t notice, then made my way out with more than a tinge of sadness at it being over, but secure in the knowledge I’ll see Kadavar again this summer, barring disaster, and as I arrived at the hotel after hailing a cab like the New York metro, throw-your-arm-out-just-at-the-right-time-to-catch-the-driver, it occurred to me to put on the Rockpalast stream. So I got to watch “I Fly Among the Stars” and so on that way. Scrolling back told me I missed “Black Sun” and the clap-along to “Die Baby Die” while in transit, which is a little sad, but I’m grateful for what I got.
—
The same applies to the festival as a whole. I’m grateful for everything I saw and heard — whether it was in accord with my everyday listening habits or not — over the last three days, grateful to Jens for having me over, for Falk watching out for me in the photo pit, to Alex, Marcus, Jamie, and Basti for the rides, and to you for reading any of it if you did. As she often is concerning a wide variety of subjects, The Patient Mrs. was right to give me the push out the door I needed. Such as I’m a duck, I’m a lucky one.
If I have time, I’ll do kind of an epilogue tomorrow, if not, probably Friday, which is probably what I’d prefer to allow for a little actual-processing/distance. We’ll see. Either way, thank you again. More pics after the jump.
I got to the AWO grounds where Freak Valley is held in time to pound a cup of coffee, fill my water bottle and head to the small stage where The Mad Hatter played yesterday evening to do some Doom Yoga. If I was a completely different kind of person, I would study and teach heavy yoga classes tied in with sonic-led meditation. There’s so much room in so much of this music that you could close your eyes and shavasana yourself into oblivion. The stretch and a few quiet minutes were appreciated in the moment, and I suspect that as the day wears on, they will only be more so.
There was a mulch delivery overnight that should cut down on some of the mud factor today, at least at the start, but the weather this far is also better; warmer, some sun but not too much. This makes my intended Saturn-logo hoodie purchase less mandatory, but I’ll get one anyway. Speaking of money, I texted that cab driver who drove me from the train station yesterday and asked if I could PayPal him or something since even after I found a cash machine — not at a gas station, as they commonly are where I come from — I couldn’t take out any money, I assume because I already spent it all existing in 2024, for which there are uncounted ‘premium’-style charges.
But Doom Yoga — which also happens tomorrow; I will hope to be there again — ruled, and finished just as Volker was doing the introduction for Dead Air; his baritone “liebe freunde” was an answer to the gong that finished the yoga session, in its way. Okay, time for the next thing. I didn’t even have the batteries in my camera yet. Welcome to day two.
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Dead Air
I had listened and written a bit about Dead Air ahead of coming here, and they were both younger and less punk — new song “Three Quarters” notwithstanding– in their presentation than I’d been expecting, so clearly my research skills need some work. Today is kind of all over the place sound-wise — not a complaint — but clearly the intention was to kick it off with, well, a kick, and Dead Air provided that without question. They’re a new-ish band, not too much out, etc., and you could get a sense of onstage as well, but that’s also a specific kind of electricity that a more established act can’t really offer, because even when they’re new to you, they’re not new to themselves, and that was part of enjoying their set too. You can’t fake that, and it is a moment that doesn’t come again in the life of any band. Given the potential in their sound, it will be interesting to hear what the next few years bring from them and how the punk (which is there, just not the sum-total of what they have to offer) and the heavy balance each other out as they take on tasks like a debut full-length and go on from there. But that they were a pleasant surprise despite the fact that I’d heard them before I take as a deeply positive sign of things to come.
Demonauta
Demonauta’s first time in Europe, apparently? I would have thought they’d made the trip sometime in the last 16 years, but I guess not. Either way, the Chilean three-piece were greeted warmly and by that I mean both people and the sun came out to celebrate the start of their set. I had been sitting for a few minutes in a little grove backstage with benches and a table where I’ve done a good bit of this writing that I’ll call Lulu’s Garden, because when I went there yesterday and asked if she minded my presence since it was just the two of us — private moments are rare at these things; sometimes you need or even just want one — herbanswe was a joking claim on it, “come, sit in my garden,” but the desert-style tone of Demonauta’s soundcheck was fuzzy and full enough to serve as clarion, and I wasn’t going to miss a chance that might not come again to catch them live. They manifest a bit of psychedelia along with all the groove-of-riff, which I took as a reminder to chill the fuck out. That was welcome and well-timed, as I had found myself restless in the shade of the smoking tent — too early in the day to smell that terrible; had to go — and needing a spot to breathe. I ended up watching the end of their set as Demonauta told the crowd they loved them before digging into mellow bassy fluidity and finding Kyussian push in an instrumental capper with bonus-extra proggy soloing, from a bench in the back, where it would have been easy to pass the rest of the day since I could see, hear and write all at once. Can’t do that on the swing set, you know. Genuine appreciation from the audience and band alike when they were done. It seemed to be, and I hope it was, worth the trip. For me, the takeaway is I have homework to do in getting to know 2022’s Low Melodies About Chaos better.
Stinking Lizaveta
They moved Cheshire Augusta’s drum riser — and at least while Stinking Lizaveta played, it was most definitely hers, despite Yanni Papadopoulos making an appearance up there once or twice, once with a flying leap off — to the front of the stage, and it was but the first of many “shit yeah” moments while they played. There’s no wrong answer for where to stand during a Stinking Lizaveta set except “anywhere else” but I was up front on the rail at stage left and Alexei Papadopoulos’ bass came through gorgeously. The likewise stalwart, brilliant and weird instrumental trio have been on tour over here for a bit, did the UK with Darsombra and I think are playing with Acid Mothers Temple next or in a couple days, but god damn, what a joy they are to watch and to hear. The sincerity of what they do, how much it’s theirs and how much they own it and embrace it and offer the crowd the chance to share in it — offer accepted, as regards the freaks in the valley — from the dizzying virtuoso twists to the punker spirit underlying it, they’re among the most positive extant outcomes of radical individualism I can’t think of in my mind, and creative with character and breadth that not only doesn’t let you down when they play, but that actively feels uplifting whether a given moment is loud, quiet, fast, slow, whatever. Alexei’s bass solo alone, never mind Yanni hopping off the stage to run his strings over the monitor and the guard rail. I’ve probably said this before and I can only hope to have the chance to say it again, but every festival needs Stinking Lizaveta, and before you start with, “really? even such-and-such?” the answer is still yes. You want to believe in the power of art to enrich your life? Listen to this fucking band.
Fuzzy Grass
All-smiles French heavy stoner blues seemed to hit just right with the crowd and the sunshine, and the first theremin of the festival felt like a thanks-for-showing-up bonus to give the boogie a bit of edge. Their 2023 album, The Revenge of the Blue Nut (review here) stood out, but the vibrancy that came from the stage was a different level entirely, and infectious, whether you were dancing or not. I bought some maybe-vegan sans-rice goulash and hung back for a while — I had scrambled eggs and some cheese with at the hotel, but it’s a long day and protein-plus-peppers didn’t seem like a terrible idea; served me well last year, and so on — as Fuzzy Grass headed toward wrapping up, and sat at one of the shared picnic tables over by the food truck area for a few restorative-despite-the-sauce-in-my-beard (also my shirt; someday I’ll learn how to be a person) moments, but I guess not much more than that in real-time since I made it back up before Fuzzy Grass were actually done. I feel like “spirited” isn’t a word often associated with any kind of heavy music or culture, but Fuzzy Grass’ take was at least that, with soulful vocals, metered groove and a friendly vibe that came across as organic I think mostly because it was.
Tō Yō
A deep dive into languid classic prog and psych, Tō Yō were among my most anticipated bands of the festival, and they did not disappoint. More subdued than not on average, they found a bit of push at the end of the set — briefly, right at the finish — but it was the exploration getting there that was the real highlight. Their debut album, Stray Birds From the Far East (review here), came out last year on King Volume Records, which is ears you can trust even if you don’t know what you’re getting, and was a soothing next-generation extrapolation on Japanese heavy psychedelia, patient and encompassing without overwhelming with their wash or getting lost in the purposeful meander. They drew — I don’t know if there are actually more people here today or if it’s just that the weather is nicer so there are more around — and rightfully so, not only because they trekked from Tokyo to play, but because of the places they went in terms of sound, whether it was that (still relative) blowout or the atmospheric breadth of the material from the album. They sounded like they could’ve played for four more hours and been fine. Might be fun sometime.
Dÿse
Specifically German thrills a-plenty from Berlin two-piece Dÿse, who had the biggest audience since Slomosa last night and treated said assembled masses to a noise rock so laden with quirk and intensity of thrust that you can only really call it progressive. They’ve been at it 20 years or so, and were obviously a known commodity to the singing-along throngs, but it was my first time seeing them and even not speaking the language I could tell they were a blast, if maybe not my thing. They reminded of the Melvins — who played here last year and also tore the place to shreds — in terms of the energy level, which yes, I think of as a compliment, and though I’m thoroughly ignorant of their work, there’s no stopping fun once it starts. It seemed likely that the intention behind putting them after Tō Yō was to lean into the contrast, if not outright shove it over — at one point I’m pretty sure I heard meowing? — and it worked because Dÿse owned the stage while they stood on it, had the crowd with them the whole time. Literal bouncing, like a video from Lollapalooza ’92 or something. It was a thing to see. And between you and me, I’m not gonna go chase down the entire Dÿse catalog and new Mr. Superfan from here on out, but I’m glad to have seen them. At least now I feel like I have some sense of what I’ve missed. Seriously. People went fucking nuts.
Daily Thompson
Snuck in a short changeover set on the small stage, which would’ve been awesome even if their new record, Chuparosa (review here), wasn’t so fresh in mind. I had seen the band show up a couple hours before, and I guess since they weren’t on the bill I assumed they were just here hanging out, but you’ve got 1000mods on the big stage line-checking, Dÿse just finished and here comes Daily Thompson to play “I’m Free Tonight” at the same spot where Doom Yoga when the doors opened. It was of course packed by the time I walked over, so I contented myself to listen to most of it from Lulu’s Garden, where the ladybug larvae have hatched, and to catch my breath before the final three acts of the night. Still, a happy surprise they’re here at all.
1000mods
A week and a half from now, when I still have 1000mods songs stuck in my head, you won’t hear me complain about it. They’re kind of an odd one for me to be sentimental about — they’re from Greece and I’m from New Jersey; it’s not like we hang out — but, well, I’ve been listening to them for about 14 years, and the way they’ve become such a landmark act, whether it’s here or when I saw them at Desertfest NYC last year (review here) or when I’ll see them again this summer at Bear Stone Festival in Croatia, they deliver, and I’ve yet to encounter them in a live setting where it was anything other than a pleasure to do so. As their last record hit during the pandemic, I’m dying to know what they’ll do next and where their ongoing progression will take them — because they’ve never put out the same record twice and never seemed like they wanted to — but for today it was just great to stand and watch them run through the set, to see people get into it, hands in the air, crowdsurfing, all that stuff. They’re one of very few acts I’d play for somebody who knows nothing about heavy rock and roll, and not just because the songs are catchy, but because they’re driven by and delivered with a passion that is unmistakable, as they were at Freak Valley. Sure bet and in a league of their own for what they do.
Alex Henry Foster
Including Foster himself, Alex Henry Foster played as a full six-piece band, The Long Shadows, featuring one drummer and a second kit, a keyboardist/saxophonist/laptopist/vocalist, two guitars in addition to Foster’s own, and a lone bassist. Clearly the former Your Favorite Enemies frontman puts texture into consideration in his work. After the first song, which featured the first bowed guitar of the weekend, Foster explained that he was supposed to play last year but had a medical crisis, then talked about being nervous and the community of the festival making him feel at home, and so on, and was very much the bandleader with a music stand, a shaker and other elements coming and going, keyed for resonance. A depth of arrangement was fair enough for material with such breadth, and the heavy-adjacent-but-not-beholden-to-genre post-emo progressivism was fluid in its reach and various builds, had a density of vibe, was expressive, but in the interest of honesty, something about it rubbed me the wrong way, whether it was too much or I was just tired. So I didn’t stick around long. Dude’s got a career, and I won’t talk shit (not that doing so would affect that career in any way) or belittle the complicated path that brought him to the Freak Valley stage, but I guess I wasn’t looking to be convinced. I went in back and sat for a bit, watched the campers coming and going, and that was fine. Fine. I went back out toward the end of the set and it had picked up, and Foster seemed like he meant every thank you he said, but I was still hearing 1000mods songs, so maybe I’m just too much the stoner rock blogger. Story of my life, to some degree.
Osees
It had been a long day well before Osees went on, but no denying the heavy psych rager that got underway as soon as they got started. I couldn’t hope to keep up with that kind of energy, but it was fun to watch. As will happen, the crowd thinned out some between front and back, but the John Dwyer-led, doubly-drummed troupe supernovaed through the set regardless, bombast and sharp turns and a feel that might’ve been madcap were it not so intentional. It was easier to find a place to sit, but I’ll really admit to being done before they were. I huddled in a corner and closed my eyes for a bit. I won’t call it sleep, but my phone was low in battery and I was more than spent in my limited social engagement resources — I was right to eat those eggs this morning — so with nothing but time until my ride back to the hotel in Siegen, I listened as Osees wove through effects-laced sprawl and intermittent out-the-airlock shove, ebbs, flows, ups, downs, more than a few sideways pivots. To my detriment I’m sure, I’ve never dug into their catalog and with 20-someodd LPs, I recognize I’d be about 18 records late in so doing, but I did my best to hang in as much as I could in the way I could when what I really needed was to be in bed. I’m not gonna complain. I’m here. I’m doing my best. I’m trying. Osees were fucking cool regardless, and Castle Face Records puts out awesome shit. There. I said a thing.
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Gonna leave it there, but I promise you I’m having a good time, even if I’m feeling somewhat obliterated by it all. I’ll hope to put up a wrap when it’s all over. I’m just trying to live it while I’m here as best I can. More pics after the jump. Thanks for reading.
So, hey. I’m at Freak Valley Festival. Not by much, admittedly. My general position is that until I’m standing (or preferably, casually reclining) in a place, I’m not convinced a thing that is maybe supposed to happen is going to pan out, but this trip was tenuous even by that standard. It’s Thursday. I flew out of NYC yesterday afternoon. I didn’t know for sure I’d be making the trip until Tuesday, and if I’d been able to cancel the flight and get a refund — which I couldn’t, because capitalism — I’d more likely have stayed home to be with my family as my mother recovers from having her knee replaced, also yesterday afternoon, which I was getting text updates about sitting on the plane waiting to take off. I’d have gotten them during the whole flight as well, but you had to pay for internet even just for basic phone signal — again, capitalism; the airline also randomly played commercials at one point during the flight, whether you were watching a movie or not; gross — but was able to find out after the flight landed how her evening went. I went from the hospital to the airport, stopping at home to get the dog for the car ride. My mother is fine and recovering, in case you’re curious.
The flight got in at 6AM and led to a train trip from Frankfurt to Siegen, where I’m staying, that took the better part of the next four hours. No sleep worth mentioning overnight on the plane; I was thankful to the very nice man at the information counter who printed out my route with the wheres and whens for changes — it even had the tracks; not gross — though the timing ended up being incorrect and there was an extra hour of waiting at Geißen. I was glad to have brought chargers. After taking a cab from the train station and not having cash for the driver, who of course didn’t take cards, I checked in, crashed for about two and a half hours, showered and headed out to the outdoor fest grounds in Netphen, which is the next town over. Did I mention it was raining?
All of which is to say that it has been quite a 24-hour stretch, but I know that once the music starts it will be okay. I’ll leave it there for now in advance of that.
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Full Earth
Not to say it’s a surprise that Full Earth’s songs are so recognizable from their earlier-this-year debut, Cloud Sculptors (review here), but I am willing to say that I don’t always think of an 85-minute synth-led instrumental heavy prog 2LP as a context for earworms. Nonetheless, here we are, with the Oslo-based five-piece offshoot of Kanaan (who play shortly) cementing the immediate you-are-here vibe of Freak Valley 2024, and living up to my “it’ll be okay when…” above — there’s a tattoo artist here in back; it is tempting to have that put somewhere on my person as a reminder for those days where it seems like “never” is when it’s okay — with their material, poised and purposeful live as on the record(s). I got to the grounds in time to grab coffee and almost buy two tie-dye shirts for my daughter — they’re awesome and the right size — but the line for the chipkarte (a bracelet with an RFID you put money on) was massive, so I opted to stay put for a few minutes, breathe and let some of the residual adrenaline go into the twisting movement coming from the stage. Light rain falling, mud in the photo pit, but I brought a poncho and am ready to dig in. Full Earth, to that end, were a perfect start.
Daevar
Köln’s Daevar released their second album, Amber Eyes, in March through The Lasting Dose Records, and for the life of me, I thought I reviewed it but can’t find the link. Maybe I just enjoyed listening to it instead and thought sentences about it without typing them? New realities every minute in whatever you call this universe. Either way, that Daevar record is murky-rolly-melodoom, and the trio’s ethereal thickness of tone worked well with the concurrent uptick in rainfall, pushing the line between drizzling and raining and making me glad I brought a poncho should it continue. You could argue that, despite the differences in sound between Full Earth and Daevar, the common factor is still immersion, and certainly in both there’s room for everybody, and Daevar’s nod was also enough to draw a crowd around the Rockpalast video-feed monitor backstage, centered in on riffs and density but broad in the guitar leads and bigger moments of crash. They’re an easy band to dig among the converted, it seems, though I have to imagine most humans not in this valley on the AWO grounds in Netphen would have any idea where they’re coming from. And maybe that’s part of what resonates too. Subculture speaking to itself about itself. I think that’s how you build community, right? With riffs influenced by other riffs influenced by Black Sabbath? Governments should be giving out grants for this shit. Somebody has their baby here in a carrier (with proper ear protection). The smell of mud and cigarettes and weed. Me and coffee. Plus riffs.
Kanaan
Striking how different Kanaan are in their intention than Full Earth, in which all three members of the band take part. For Kanaan, it’s the heavy jams, and where Full Earth felt plotted front to back, Kanaan are certainly tight as musicians — they’d have to be or neither band would work, let alone be good — but you can hear improvisation at root in their sound as opposed to composition. And they’re still playing songs from records — they dipped back to their first album, 2018’s Windborne, for “A. Hausenbecken” — so there’s a plot being followed, but the structure is different and the atmosphere follows on from that in a way that it might not for many acts whose players are pulling double-duty in a given festival day. I didn’t get many pictures before being unceremoniously kicked out of the photo pit for reasons that, if they were stated at all, were not in a language I speak — and that’s my problem, not the dude from security’s — but I’ve chosen to not stress about that shit. I started taking pictures at shows like 13 years ago because I felt like photos were missing from live reviews and I didn’t want to ask anyone else to do it, but I harbor no delusions of talent in that regard and I feel like all this time later doing the thing, it’s still tertiary in my mind to the experience of watching Kanaan take a bow at the end of their set. If it was something I was better at, I’d probably be more interested in it, and vice versa. I got a couple shots anyhow, and having now seen Kanaan three times and twice in the last year, I’m having a hard time coming up with anything to say about their on-stage chemistry that isn’t hyperbole. They should probably tour the States, in theory, but between visa fees and the crowd getting it, I have to wonder if it would be worth their time to do so in the first place.
C.O.F.F.I.N.
They win the day easily in terms of distance traveled to be here. And it’s a good thing their singer was busy also playing drums, since with all the barking behind the mic it kind of felt like somebody was going to get bit. I had listened to C.O.F.F.I.N. — whose moniker stands for Children of Norway Fighting in Finland; they’re from Sydney, Australia — on the ol’ internettobox, and they were plenty punky in person as well, but perhaps tailored their set a bit to the crowd to lean into groove rather than shove, though I’ll emphasize, no lack of either. Before they went on, The Mad Hatter did a secret-ish quick set during the changeover, giving a kind of local color to the bluesy proceedings. As for C.O.F.F.I.N. themselves, they wereI neither retro nor bullshit in their interpretation of old-school rock volatility, and even the barking had charm, let alone the dry ice bubbles that were launching from out of the stage. I’ll admit to being distracted and exhausted enough to feel like I earned the headache I was fighting against, but even in such a state the brash energy wrought from the stage was palpable, whatever else might’ve been going on at the time as it started to get dark a bit after 9PM. C.O.F.F.I.N. weren’t all the way my thing, much as I have one, but I got to take pictures for a couple songs and that was a relief, and then I hung back and watched the crowd go from drunk to drunk-dancing, which I took to mean that a hell of an evening was under way. And so it was, mud-mosh and everything.
Slomosa
“Cabin Fever” and “Rice” into the much mellower verses of “Psykonaut” at the start of the set was a bold play, but Norway’s Slomosa seem to be used to that by now, and it suits them on stage. A clearly developed and worked-on stage presence and vitality, songs that don’t sacrifice hooks at the altar of their own fuzz, and professionalism beyond the fact that to-date they only have one record out — there’s a lot about Slomosa to like, even beyond the earliest-QOTSA tone of “In My Mind’s Desert” and the stonery bounce of the drums in “Battling Guns,” which is a highlight of their out-at-some-point sophomore LP, which they followed with another new song, but not before saying they planned to release the set as a live album — an advantage of having Rockpalast on hand. Another new one, “Red Thundra,” followed, and an invitation to sing along to “There is Nothing New Under the Sun” followed, which was accepted by some even in back where I was standing. Bottom line, they were locked in. A band with this much going for them, even in a largely-ignored, underground style, all they really need to do is keep going the way they are. They’re not a stylistic revolution, but over the next couple years there are going to be a lot of bands coming out of Europe working under their influence — there already are a few — and on stage they absolutely lived up to what I hoped they would be. More, they seemed like they enjoyed it, and were at home holding their energy for the duration. If they can keep this lineup together, they’re on their way to being something very special. They finished with “Horses,” which opened their 2020 self-titled debut (review here), and it was easy to think they might do so for years to come, then did an encore of “Scavengers” that felt like it had been earned.
Monolord
Masters of nod. Even if you could deny Monolord at this stage in the game, for the life of me I have no idea why you would. A decade removed from their debut LP, Empress Rising (discussed here), the Swedish trio of Thomas V. Jäger, Mika Häkki and Esben Willems are easily among the most essential heavy bands of that same decade, and the way they’ve been able to take generic notions like heavy riffs and rolling grooves with melodic vocals and own them to a point of casting a subset of modern stoner-doom in their image is all well and good, but they also still kill it live. In a move that would only ever aid in that cause, they had the esteemed Per Wiberg — who was here in 2023 with the bluesy Kamchatka as well, and has done time with the likes of Spiritual Beggars, Opeth and Candlemass; his latest solo album, The Serpent’s Here (review here), came out earlier this year — sitting in on guitar before moving to keys for the 2023 standalone single “It’s All the Same,” which was duly flattening. It’s just about never what you hear talked about when it comes to their recordings or live shows — and they’re so heavy that it’s kind of understandable — but I’ll argue there’s emotional resonance at play especially in their later work, and it’d be miraculous if calling it that didn’t undercut the work they’ve put in growing as songwriters and performers let them march and convey slog without actually being a drag to hear. All this and Per Wiberg doubling the riff of “Empress Rising,” too? It was a good night to be alive at Freak Valley Festival, and I ended it up front while the band handed out setlists and tossed drumsticks to the crowd, and zero regrets for that.
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More tomorrow, and more the day after that. Hi from Freak Valley. Pics after the jump.
