Following a first announcement that featured Monolord, Splinter, the Parker Griggs-led El Perro, Brant Bjork Trio and Stonerhead, the by-now-legendary Stoned From the Underground festival in Germany has made four more confirmations. And I know that might not seem like a ton, but frankly, they’re four killer-enough bands that I don’t think you need names to add. Persuasive enough is the argument of San Diego boogie-prog stalwarts Sacri Monti, Finnish out-there-bound jammers Skyjoggers, Elephant Tree making a return to the stage after years of (reasonably) limited activity, and Rochester psych-prog/prog-psych rockers King Buffalo, whose prior confirmation for Bear Stone Festival in Croatia (held July 3-6) begins to give some shape to their European tour plans for the summer.

Stoned From the Underground celebrates its 25th anniversary in 2025 — which I guess has made counting easy enough? — and if you don’t think that’s a big deal, I dunno, do anything let alone run a pioneering underground heavy music festival for a quarter-century of your life and see where you wind up. I’ve done my best in years past to keep up with the festival, which among all of them seems to be brought the least to my eyes by the algorithm — to wit, I missed the first announcement — and will do the same for the coming edition. By the time they get there it’s always a daydream, and with these four bands alone, this already would be.

Onward to what I snagged from socials and that snazzy new King Buffalo single:

⚡️STONED FROM THE UNDERGROUND 2025⚡️

July 10, 11, 12

We’re thrilled to announce fresh bands for the 25th Stoned from the Underground Festival:

@sacri_monti_band
@skyjoggers
@kingbuffaloband
@elephant_tree_band

And this is just the beginning – there’s more to come! 🔥

Grab your tickets now at www.thugo.de/sftu (link in bio) and join us in celebrating the 25th anniversary of Stoned from the Underground! 🎫

Don’t miss THE Stoner, Doom, and Heavy Rock highlight of 2025! 🪩

http://www.facebook.com/stonedfromtheundergroundfestival
https://www.instagram.com/stonedfromtheunderground
https://www.sftu.de/

King Buffalo, “Balrog”

The cultish etherealities of Daevar‘s doom, transcendentally murky in the spirit of Windhand but with an energy to its roll that the band owned vibrantly on 2023’s debut, Delirious Rites (review here) — which paired the Cologne-based outfit with producer Jan Oberg, also of Grin et al — will be on display at the 2024 edition of the legendary German fest Stoned From the Underground. Daevar, as well as The Pighounds, Einseinseins, Tommy and the Teleboys, Heckspoiler and Rýr — sorry, I couldn’t find a band called ‘ut,’ though they may well exist — feature in the second round of lineup adds from the event, which got its start in 2001 and is among Europe’s most consistent and influential heavy underground festivals.

You can see below the lineup these acts are joining. Did you hear that new Skraeckoedlan single yet? Their new album will be out by the time July gets here, and the same could be true for High Desert Queen, or even Greenleaf, who were in the studio last month. There are a lot of possibilities here and more bands still to be added. Some of these are appearing elsewhere — Daevar will also be at Desertfest Berlin and Freak Valley — as the ecosystem of Sound of Liberation and other bookers does its best to assure that everyone is/can be everywhere all the time, but Stoned From the Underground remains a pilgrimage I feel like I need to make at some point. It’s like metallers going to Wacken, only as I understand it with about 100,000 fewer people and thus infinitely more pleasant.

Here’s word from the fest:

As promised, here are more bands for 2024 Stoned from the Underground – Festival

Look forward to The Pighounds , Daevar, Einseinseins , HECKSPOILER , ut , Tommy and the Teleboys and rýr

Tickets are available at: www.events.design-erfurt.de/produkt/sftu2024

Previously announced: Greenleaf, Hippie Death Cult, Earth Tongue, Psychlona, ​​Earthbong, SKRAECKOEDLAN, High Desert Queen, Glasgow Coma Scale, ZERRE, Lucifer Star Machine

Stoned From The Underground 2024 will take place from July 11th. take place until July 13th, 2024 ! Cheers!

Event page: https://www.facebook.com/events/312293734774337

http://www.facebook.com/stonedfromtheundergroundfestival
https://www.instagram.com/stonedfromtheunderground
https://www.sftu.de/

Daevar, Delirious Rites (2023)

You’ve got the forerunners of Greek heavy rock in 1000mods as a headliner and Black Rainbows who should have a new record in the can by then, Dutch out-there-searchers Temple Fang and burly Osnabrückian sludge metallers Iron Walrus, Gnome who are frickin’ everywhere right now, Acid Mammoth who crush and I hope have a new LP out this year, Mother Engine, dreamy Darmstadt instrumentalists Lucid Void, plus the eternally weird Beehoover and DŸSE, and did I miss anybody? I don’t think so. In any case, this is pretty strong first announcement from the venerable and long-running Stoned From the Underground Festival in Germany. Set to take place July 13-15, it’s always a spot on the summer’s heavy circuit and an event I’ve admired from afar for a long time even if I haven’t always necessarily covered it. I don’t have an excuse, I’m only one person and I think more than 20 years on from when they started out, the fest needs me to write words about it not in the slightest. They are an institution.

In any case, it’s already a solid assemblage and obviously there’s more to come. Earlybird tickets seem to be on sale now, so if you know you’re going to be in the neighborhood or if you’re putting yourself there for the festival, traveling, etc., you might as well get the bargain. For the rest of us, a bit of daydream fodder:

Dear Stoned community,

So far we’ve been holding back on band announcements, but now we’re really getting started. Enjoy with us:

1000mods
BLACK RAINBOWS
Temple Fang
Acid Mammoth
Mother Engine
DŸSE
Gnome
Beehoover
IRON WALRUS
Swan Valley Heights
Lucid Void
…and more

Daniela Uhlig is already working at full steam on our new artwork for 2023, which will follow in the next few days – stay tuned!

Stoned from the Underground 2023 (Onlineticket): https://events.design-erfurt.de/produkt/sftu-2023/

https://www.facebook.com/stonedfromtheundergroundfestival
https://www.instagram.com/stonedfromtheunderground
http://www.sftu.de/

1000mods, Live on Rockpalast 2022

Feels like a given to me, but obviously I’m incredibly interested to see King Buffalo added to the lineup for Stoned from the Underground 2017 this July in Germany. That’s not to take anything away from Pentagram, Acid King or Mothership — also US-based acts — or from Berlin’s Samavayo, whom I also dig a great deal, but King Buffalo issued my pick for the best debut of 2016 in the form of Orion (review here), and the confirmation of their appearance among the hallowed many at Stoned from the Underground — the aforementioned, as well as Elder, Sasquatch, All Them Witches, Monolord, Steak, CJ Ramone, and so on — is the first confirmation of their going to Europe at all, let alone the timing of the trip. They were a band I was rooting for even before they appeared at The Obelisk All-Dayer this past August. It’s nice to see them making good things happen.

And again, check out the company they’re keeping as they go. Stoned from the Underground is of course one of the longer-running Euro heavy fests, but the 2017 lineup feels particularly high-grade thus far. I’ll continue to keep an eye out as others get added and do my best to update as we get closer to summer. I get a pretty strong sense a certain youth-minded trio from Australia are going to show up.

Till then, here’s the lineup and links:

Happy to announce some more bands for the Stoned From The Underground 2017 Festival: Pentagram, Acid King, King Buffalo, mothership and samavayo to announce. The 2017 stoned from the underground is FETT.

Lineup so far (more tba):
Acid King
All Them Witches
Cj Ramone
EARTH SHIP
Elder
Karma to Burn
King Buffalo
Monolord
Mothership
Pentagram (official)
Samavayo
Sasquatch
Steak
ZEKE

Get your tickets here: http://www.sftu.de/pages/raquo-tickets.php

The Stoned From The Underground 2017 takes place from July 13th until July 15th 2017.

The first STONED FROM THE UNDERGROUND took place in 2001…the festival offers a platform for diverse kinds of bands within the underground and beyond. The STONED FROM THE UNDERGROUND is a pure scene festival…a festival made by fans for fans.

https://www.facebook.com/stonedfromtheundergroundfestival
http://www.sftu.de/
https://www.instagram.com/stonedfromtheunderground

King Buffalo, Live at The Obelisk All-Dayer 2016

Long-running German festival Stoned from the Underground has announced that All Them Witches will headline the first of its three nights on Thursday, July 13, 2017. Presumably that means the Nashville outfit will be on a European tour supporting their now-impending fourth album, Sleeping Through the War, which is out in February, but either way, as they join a lineup that also features Elder, Monolord, Zeke, Steak, Karma to Burn, and somewhat curiously, CJ Ramone, they’re obviously keeping good company in Erfurt. I’ll keep an eye out for those tour dates and for more lineup announcements from Stoned from the Underground 2017 both, and hopefully be better at keeping up with fest than I admittedly was this time around.

Info follows as translated by robots from German into English:

STONED FROM THE UNDERGROUND 2017 – July 13-15

Hi guys, just before Christmas there are a couple of bands for 2017 the stoned from the underground.

Here we have all of them witches, which will be headlining on Thursdays. But that was not enough for us! We could also add the heavy Rock Heavyweights Sasquatch. And a little punk attitude hurts nobody and that’s why we have the cult-Speed Rocker Zeke booked for you. What, you guys that’s still not enough? Well, because Christmas is here let’s put another, cj ramone on it.

You can look forward to 2017 on earth ship (ENG), Elder (USA), karma to burn (USA), Mono Lord (SWE) and steak (UK)
Get your tickets here: http://www.sftu.de/pages/raquo-tickets.php

The Stoned From The Underground 2017 takes place from July 13th until July 15th 2017.

The first STONED FROM THE UNDERGROUND took place in 2001…the festival offers a platform for diverse kinds of bands within the underground and beyond. The STONED FROM THE UNDERGROUND is a pure scene festival…a festival made by fans for fans.

https://www.facebook.com/stonedfromtheundergroundfestival
http://www.sftu.de/
https://www.instagram.com/stonedfromtheunderground

All Them Witches, Live on Rockpalast 2016

What I like about the Stoned from the Underground festival, aside from the lineup, is the acronym STFU, which I’m told in clever internet-speak means “shut the fuck up.” Certainly I’d never have figured that out on my own, but it’s good to know. The fest is set to take place this July in ol’ Bundesrepublik Deutschland, and will feature a host of European stoner types as well as Garcia Plays Kyuss and a few other American acts thrown in for good measure. MeteorCity, via the PR wire, make it known that Greece‘s Nightstalker will partake:

MeteorCity recording artists, Nightstalker, will play this year’s Stoned from the Underground festival in Germany. It’s the 10th anniversary of this festival and it will be held on July 9th and 10th. Other bands performing include Garcia Plays Kyuss, Yawning Man, Black Cobra, Weedeater, Firebird, Ufomammut and many others! This is clearly a festival that you should not miss!

More info can be found here: http://www.myspace.com/stonedfromtheunderground