Austin.com

On Sunday May 1st I went to what I’m guessing was the climax of the Austin Psych Fest. I’m saying that because Roky Erickson was going on at 9:30pm while in the next room Cold Sun started at 9pm. Hence I missed my favorite vocalist from the late sixties. However what I did see was Austin’s very own psychedelic secret. When I first started hanging out in Austin in the summer of “70 I was lucky enough to catch several performances of Cold Sun.....yes thats right over 40 years ago. So the two bands at the climactic end of the festival were both from the psychedelic window...”65 to “70.Do you think the Psych Fest guys meant to send some sort of “listen to your roots” message to the younger psych bands? Anyway way back then Cold Sun was playing the tunes from their original DARK SHADOWS album. Back in 1970 Austin was going all cosmic cowboy and hard rock so needless to say they stuck out where ever they played.  As a musician myself I had no idea how their first show in 40 years would go. Well first of all hearing them for the first time at full volume verses the old days with much smaller P.A.s  was wonderful and instantly I was taken by the way Bill’s Vocal lines fit against the giant songscape of a tune from the new release RITES OF OSIRUS. I bring this up first because on top of Bill’s highly original electric auto harp and the huge psychedelic guitar river of Tom McGarrigle is the extraordinary song writing/lyrics that Mr. Miller managed to put out and stay fluid with after over forty freaking years. I would even say Bills voice and Toms guitar have more soul and conviction than ever. As Cold Sun marched song by song into the hazy gloom of the Seaholm Power Plant concrete bunker with its almost effective authentic light show I felt as sense of time travel both forwards and backwards and was struck by the fact that the new tunes although different were just as effective as the original batch. The original bass player Mike Waugh and the much younger drummer Tom Trusnovic became sort of a giant two headed half human half robot that properly ate the songs alive. All the while a new guy named Jasper Leach that did not look old enough to be Bill or Tom’s son played guitar, keys, and sang while he directed the onslaught of atomic explosions punctuated by syncopated aortas and Bob Dylan meets Tommy Hall lyrical summer storms. I don’t know how bill captured and trained this music mind slave but towards the end of the set it started looking like not only had Jasper learned his powers well but the set could only have gone this well with him directing....this reminded me a little of Star Wars 3 where the Sith described killing his master in his sleep and taking over...just kidding. Amidst all this in the middle of their set the guy behind me tapped me on the shoulder and showed me his smart phone with the headlines OSAMA BIN LADEN IS DEAD which of course meant the Bill and Tom had resurrected Cold Sun with the RITES OF OSIRUS just to kill Bin Laden....well done men now back to work on the lobbyists. In my opinion there is no other undiscovered psych band from the 60’s much less now that carries and stokes the fires of the living mind expanding music entity called PSYCHEDELIC as well as these guys do....go to worldinsound.com and get their C.D.s and if you don’t agree with me then start over and play them again.   fred mitchim