8 DAYS/14 SHOWS/9 VENUES: A Countercultural Halloweek at Psyched! Fest

Psyched! Fest – San Francisco’s Independent Festival of Arts, Music, Diversity & Counterculture – opened Wednesday, October 25th at Rickshaw Stop. Brought to you by Psyched! Radio, the multiracial nonprofit DIY radio station and music collective, it spanned fourteen shows across nine historic local Bay Area venues, namely: Rickshaw, Great American Music Hall, The Knockout, Amoeba Music, Kilowatt, Arcana, Le Petit Paris 15, Thrillhouse Records, and 924 Gilman. This was just the second edition of Psyched! Fest to date, as the radio station itself was founded only two years ago by Janelle Viera and Guillermo Goyri. In what follows, I do my best to celebrate the many players and artists involved.

Headlined by San Francisco locals LSD and the Search for God, night one was explicitly shoegaze. Psyched! Radio draped the walls of Rickshaw with white sheets upon which visual mastermind Zachary Rodell projected a liquid light show. Pink Breath of Heaven was first on the bill, playing their first ever show before Lorelle Meets the Obsolete (Baja California, MX) took the stage. Lorena Quintanilla (Lorelle) and Alberto González (the Obsolete) dropped two bodies of work this past year: Datura in June, followed by Remezcla in September. Iggy Pop recently praised their music for its good edge and liveliness on BBC Sounds, and soundbathing in their gothic industrial presence Wednesday night led me to the same conclusion. This marked the second to last show of their October run with Film School (Los Angeles, CA) and LSD. Film School’s set blew my mind through smoke machine, strobe lights, and very established sound. They have been touring for their latest album Field since the first week of September, and recording since the early 2000s, yet played San Francisco with incredible poise and psychedelic vitality. Lead singer Greg Bertens commended Psyched! Radio for selling out their opening night of the festival.

Great American Music Hall, which has been a hot spot for live music in San Francisco since the 1930s, made for quite the dramatic shift on night two. With visuals by Rodell and a DJ set by Louie El Ser, the energy was cataclysmic: you could feel the floor reverberating beneath us. Newly formed dark wave band Dark Chisme was so happy to be kicking off the night, preliminary to the queer nonbinary experimental presence of GEM777. Hailing from Oakland, GEM777 dropped their first album Ego Death the night before. Tracks like “CyberEgoDeath,” “Drive,” and “Elevator xxx” defy classification through sonic alchemy that deconstructs everything you think you know about electronic dance or hyperpop. GEM777 sings, writes, and produces by themselves, for themselves and Bay Area fans willing to join their experimental cult following.

LA-based experimental dance music project Soltera played next. As the brainchild of Colombian American artist Tania Ordoñez, this group leverages techno, house, synth, and Spanish lyrics to entrance those unfamiliar with their work. Coming from the San Fernando Valley myself, I was so happy to see 818 representation in the Bay. Their new album “Sol y Santi” will be dropping on December 7th through independent record label CASA/TECA. Together with Dark Chisme and GEM777, Soltera harnessed Great American energy, and so set the stage for industrial powerhouse Sextile to close the evening with rave-like nightclub prowess.

Film School by Yansu Tan

GEM777 by Lex Andersen

Spoon Benders by Lex Andersen

Lorelle Meets The Obsolete by Lex Andersen

Soltera by Lex Andersen

Friday, October 27th was split between the synth-pop sounds of TR/ST, Glass Spells, and Ex-Heir via Great American Music Hall versus The Knockout’s more punk-leaning roster (Reckling, Annabelle Chairlegs, Daydream Twins, The Grizzled Mighty, and WIFE). I returned to the city for day four of the festival, hosted by Thrillhouse Records, community-generated and volunteer-run, in the Mission District where Psyched! Radio is based. This show was powered by Latinidad, bringing the following artists together for Psyched! Fest underground: Xocé Roman from Oakland and Mother Muerte from Vallejo, Mengers from Mexico City, as well as Los Sindes and Santhos (both from Sacramento, California). Chelsea Rose Salanoa (guitar, vocals) and Jose Cadenas (drums/percussion) of Mother Muerte were hauntingly impressive. They blend cumbia and metal to deliver “mystical rock ballads infused with danceable Latin rhythms,” per their Spotify page which deserves far more attention.

Saturday night was also split between two equally stacked lineups, with San Francisco’s own Chokecherry headlining Kilowatt and Pure Hex taking 924 Gilman by storm. Psyched! Fest made for stop number three along Chokecherry’s west coast tour, which continues through November and concludes right back in SF on November 20th. They played Kilowatt alongside the unholy trinity Buzzed Lightbeer, who were suitably, if not ironically, dressed up as nuns. I was most excited to see Pure Hex at Gilman, after catching the music video premiere for their track “Sleep” with support from Chokecherry back in May. Led by head witch Marta Alvarez (vocals), Pure Hex joined the Gilman bill to support Grooblen, Rose Haze, Sunset Images, Taleen Kali, and headlining band The Asteroid No. 4.

Pure Hex by Lex Andersen

Mother Muerte by Lex Andersen

Los Cogelones by Nico Chodor

Sextile by Lex Andersen

Dark Chisme by Lex Andersen

Zachary Rodell and Cosmic Dommy projected analog liquid art, together with digital manipulation and glitch work, onto the Gilman stage. They have been doing visuals together for ten or so years, working hard to perfect the art of psychedelic light shows which date back to the 60s. Zack and Dom were instrumental to visual amplification of the multifaceted sights and sounds of Psyched! Fest. These visuals continued through Sunday night’s show at Rickshaw [Fauxes, Mengers, Carrion Kids, Monsterwatch, and Frankie and the Witch Fingers]. Mengers also joined fellow Mexico City natives Vondré earlier that afternoon to play a short live set at Amoeba SF, where fans could buy any one of their releases on cassette, flexi disc, or vinyl and then get it signed.

Before embarking on Freakout Festival in Seattle, Vondré also played with Gumby’s Junk, Nobody’s Baby, Spoon Benders, and Death Valley Girls for the October 30th Psyched! Fest Akelarre (meaning witches’ sabbath) show at Rickshaw. I got to see the Spoon Benders in Oakland two Halloweens ago, long before How Things Repeat was ever fully realized. This gothic psych-punk record dropped in May 2023, and their live performance of track six “Strychnine” was so distortedly sinister. Rippers Leo and Velvet conspire with Olivia Jane (drums) to spur vocals by Katy Black that cut like Siouxsie Sioux. Death Valley Girls closed the night, and Psyched! Fest continued with Parisian influence from Agar Agar on Halloween day.

For Wednesday, November 1st, the radio station put together an authentic Día de Los Muertos celebration at the Great American Music Hall. Featuring live performances from Tropa Magica (psychedelic cumbia punk from East LA), Ramona (romantic psychedelic rock from Tijuana), former lead singer of the Mexican ska punk rock band Tijuana No! Ceci Bastida, and the Psyched! Radio veterans from Ciudad Nezahualcóyotl Los Cogelones, this night was rooted in cultura. CASITA MICHI empowered the ofrenda (altar) for the deceased with their hand-poured nostalgic candles, meanwhile Aztec dancers from Danzantes Mazahuales performed in between sets. Three brothers from Los Cogelones actually joined the traditional dance ceremony before sharing their rock mexica experimental with Great American. Although having played Kilowatt for Psyched! this past August, their energy for Day of the Dead was like nothing else. Using indigenous whistles and percussion, these Aztec punk sons of the sun personified electric cultural power. Los Cogelones play the University of California, San Diego on November 10th and should definitely be returning to the Bay sometime soon.

Bands like Los Cogelones are reflective of Psyched! Radio’s mission. Founded by a diverse group of musical creatives, the station managed to curate genre-bending lineups for each night, meanwhile keeping inclusivity at the center. Psyched! Fest was truly independent, promoting DIY counterculture just like the diverse nature of regular Psyched! Radio programming. By uplifting local, smaller artists from the Bay Area community, together with so many groups from Mexico specifically, lineups became multilingual and culturally appreciative in a way that most other festivals are not. I remain continually impressed by the station’s unwavering dedication to multiracial creative arts, though my eardrums are still recovering from this multi-day, multi-venue Halloween extravaganza. Broadcasting 24/7 live from the Mission District in San Francisco, California, ongoing Psyched! Radio festivities are not to be missed.

Article by Nico Chodor

Photos by Yansu Tan, Lex Andersen, & Nico Chodor