Tag: psych rock
Arroyo Secodelic Fest Is Re-vibing The L.A. Music Community- Preview and Giveaway
Danny Ryan
April 16, 2026
Arroyo Secodelic is on a mission to re-vibe LA as a festival capitol, bringing us an off-the-wall lineup no one would expect in one of the most unique festival set-ups that we have seen in a long time. The inaugural event will take place May 22nd- May 25th across seven different venues in Highland Park including The Lodge Room, Oblivion, Cheerio Collective, De Playa Records, and The Highland Park Ebell Club; Arroyo Secodelic is going to turn your Memorial Day Weekend into a psychedelic punk-rock dream. If you’re embedded in the L.A.music scene, there is no way you can miss this event. You can buy tickets now or enter our social media ticket giveaway for a chance to win 3 pairs of tickets @jankysmooth – read to the end for details. related: The 4th Wave Of Garage Rock in Los Angeles – A Retrospective With all of the hype surrounding Coachella over the past week, there has been a lot of discussion surrounding the absence of multi bill lineups missing from Los Angeles’ festival scene; especially with the fall of our local events like FYF Fest and Burgerama within the past decade. Even when diverse and promising festivals do arrive like This
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Spectrums of Psyche: Brian Jonestown Massacre at Ventura Music Hall
Rob Shepyer
March 24, 2026
The fact that two bands as sonically distant as ÖLÜM and Brian Jonestown Massacre could share a bill this past March 4, 2026 itself would go down in Ventura Music Hall’s history books is a testament to Psych Rock splendors. Psych Rock is the least monolithic subgenre you can find. That’s part of the sound’s psychedelic nature, that it encapsulates all the weirdness the world has to offer. That said, when a person thinks psych rock, the words come with sonic baggage. Psych Rock isn’t just an umbrella term for anything trippy, it’s a style and structure of music that is loose, vibey, wild, unhinged, dreamy, and more. related: BJM in Los Angeles- Music Snobs and Fentanyl Lolipops related: How To Humanize An Alien – Parliament Funkadelic at Ventura Music Hall ÖLÜM represents the sort of psych rock you imagine at a completely unchained house party in Silverlake circa-2015. They sounded like the best Turkish rock and roll the Middle East has to offer. It goes to show you, one man’s psychedelic is another man’s culture. That is to say, some cultures are more inherently psychedelic than others. With histories steeped in shamanism or mysticism, non Western cultures feel more psychedelic. Sure,
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Glass Beams at Ventura Music Hall: Desert in a Bottle
Rob Shepyer
August 28, 2025
This has been a psychedelic week for me, still feeling the afterglow of seeing Pigs x7, so before I could enter this new trip closer to home, I needed to sober up off the lingering sonic buzz. I wanted to clear out the leftover distortion rattling in my head so I could step into the Ventura Music Hall with ears and mind ready to feel the pure, authentic high off the sound of Glass Beams. related: Pigs x7 Launch North American Tour At Lodge Room Glass Beams plays in the tradition of distorting and disrupting traditional, exotic world music into modernized, minimalist psychedelia. Their music doesn’t need to shout, roar, or crash like a doom riff to get you there; it works in repetition, mood, and layering. It works in space. They aren’t the first to attempt this blend and they won’t be the last, but at the moment, they feel like the only band making traditional world music vibrations consumable for folks interested in dancing on clouds, instead of just headbanging in basements. Shows like this are rare in Ventura, though they strike a nerve in both artist and audience that no other city quite can. Ventura has always
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Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Launch North American Tour at Lodge Room
Rob Shepyer
August 27, 2025
Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs, OR Pigsx7 launched their North American tour from the Lodge Room in August, staining the sacred planks of the venue with more sweat and abandon than bands are typically used to expelling throughout a set. For those not in the blissful know, Pigs x7 are a beloved heavy band that’s been adopted by the LA psych scene, one able to discharge hallucinatory spores from their pores during their intense performances that induce pure rock and roll rapture. Their songs breakdown the same way your body does when in their crosshairs. And just when you’re completely destroyed and a pile of rubble before them, they find a way to engineer your rock and roll rebirth in their image. How this crossover from psych to metal took place was a mystery for me and the inspiration that made me trek out to their show in the hopes of catching an earful of insight into what sonic sinew connected their sound to the standard Desert Daze LA hipster. Somewhere between Sabbath worship and The Doors, Pigs x7 managed to straddle the line of two fanbases that, while sharing some DNA, rarely overlap this seamlessly. related: Desert Daze
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Take This: Win Two Tickets to L.A. Witch at The Lodge Room 05/23
Janky Smooth Central Command
May 15, 2025
We are giving away a pair of tickets to the L.A. Witch tour stop at The Lodge Room on May 23rd, 2025. Details below… Last time we caught up with L.A. Witch was at the Palladium in Hollywood supporting Janes Addiction and it just re-sparked our love for the band. On May 23rd we’ll get to see them in the preferred environment- an intimate gathering at an iconic venue in the city where they formed. related: Jane’s Addiction- Hollywood Royalty at The Palladium L.A. Witch embarked on a North American tour starting April 19, 2025, with performances in cities including New Orleans, Houston, Austin, and their hometown of Los Angeles at The Lodge Room in Highland Park. They are also set to tour Europe in the fall, with dates across Portugal, Spain, France, and the UK. For fans and new listeners alike, L.A. Witch’s 3rd full length, DOGGOD offers a compelling blend of haunting melodies and introspective lyrics, solidifying L.A. Witch’s place in L.A. Music Scene lore, once and for all. To Enter Our L.A. Witch Ticket Giveaway… Follow our instagram account @jankysmooth Tag a friend Winner will be announced Wednesday, May 21st at Noon Pacific. Good luck!
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Desert Daze 2022: 10 Years In The Evolution Of A Music Scene
Danny Baraz
November 8, 2022
Walking into Lake Perris Recreational Center took on new meanings this year after last year’s Desert Daze served to exorcize the ghosts of a global pandemic, to teach us that “Nothing that has happened so far has been anything we could control” and heal our mind, body and souls with drum soul-os. While 2021’s pared down Desert Daze was a cautious delight in a sea of dreck on earth, Desert Daze 2022 was a perfectly curated reckless abandon of people having sex in the lake again and breathing all over each other- in through the nose, out through the mouth. The headliners captured 10 years in the evolution of a music scene, the ascent of previously buzzworthy bands into icons celebrating a decade of seminal albums and a new wave of artists that might also one day celebrate the recently released albums they are currently touring on. For some people, Iggy Pop pulling out of the festival before he could impregnate us with music was a deal breaker but luckily, I received so much Iggy sperm the last 6 years that I was ready to bear my Beach House baby. related: Desert Daze 2021- Music, Magick and Medicine 2022 was
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UFOs From Tokyo: California Flashback at the Lodge Room
Dillon Vaughn
April 8, 2019
Years ago while searching the web for specific sounds from mostly undiscovered bands (to me, at least) from places I’ve never been lead me to a treasure trove of material that’s remained unmatched: PSF records. A very finely curated label operating in Tokyo under direction of the late Hideo Ikeezumi, PSF amassed a catalog of Japan’s underground legends since the mid 80s and continued providing a home for psychedelic and experimental works until Ikeezumi’s death in 2017. Black Editions, a somewhat recently formed boutique label based in LA, began reissuing classic selections from this catalog just before Ikeezumi passed. Operating as a magnet for some of these performers that very rarely (if ever) perform outside of Japan, it feels as if Black Editions has been building toward a perfect show highlighting PSF and it’s contributions to the underground. With the recent reissue of the definitive compilation TOKYO FLASHBACK, it made perfect sense for the label to host a two city festival (appropriately titled) California Flashback. related content: L.A. Buffs Up: Angel Du$t At The Lodge Room With a lineup populated by PSF alumni and associates alike, the two nights occurring in LA at the Lodge Room guaranteed a face melting
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Virtually No Dust: Desert Daze 2018
Dillon Vaughn
October 23, 2018
It’s impossible to talk about Desert Daze 2018 without discussing the previous year at it’s former location in the high desert. My personal experience as a visitor to DD 17 is unmatched by any other festival I’ve ever attended. The lineup was insane, the installations were engaging, and the location truly felt like it held some kind of spectacular aura. I’ve never understood the appeal of the Joshua Tree getaways Angelenos fiend for and I’m absolutely disgusted by the false bohemian ideology perpetuated by burners (and Burning Man as a whole) but for a brief three days in the high desert it all clicked for me. related content: Desert Daze 2017 Headline Here: Some Variation’s Of Rock’s Not Dead The Institute of Mentalphysics was a challenging place for some because of the of its sporadic dust storms and painfully low temperatures at night, so it seemed like a great idea to find a location closer to the city that still maintained a sense of the desert – minus the harsh elements. Cue the announcement of DD 2018 staking its new home alongside the manmade reservoir Lake Perris: a location touted as an oasis with “virtually no dust” tucked quietly on
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How to Trip Off Volume: Elder at The Roxy
Rob Shepyer
August 23, 2018
How do you get high? Flower? Shrooms? Synthetics? Running? There are many ways. Some of them led me to this style of stoner/doom metal in the first place but once I had first began frequenting those concerts and stood among other trippers before a stage where a high was induced through music, I realized not every method can be found on erowid.com. Volume can get you high. Walls of sound can break you through sobriety’s ceiling and beyond that threshold is an especially consciousness-shaking altered state. Few bands build walls of sound so high and holy as the ones featured at The Roxy at this show with progressive doom virtuosos Elder. related content: Earthless Liquified My Face At Teragram With Third Circle Visuals behind the projector’s eye, shooting liquid light on stage as if spitting venom like a Dilophosaurus on LSD, the stage was set for Los Angeles’ best kept stoner secret Yidhra to take the stage. Combining heavy, vibrating doom riffs with hallowed, commanding growls, and a theremin’s whirling alien essence, Yidhra’s sound is original and soul-stirring. Like if Sleep slept with Kenneth Anger’s Technicolor skull, this is dark-side of your trip black light metal to the bone. This
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Jerry Lives Forever: Grateful Shred at Teragram
Rob Shepyer
August 16, 2018
For half my life, I’ve been a diehard fan of the most hippie-slaying bands you could ever hear but throughout that time, working in contrast to that was my love of The Grateful Dead. The Grateful Dead were spawned out of Ken Kesey’s Acid Tests where they played as the house band and got so high that they had to improvise their sounds and obey the psychedelic flow running through them. It gave them the most original feel and song structure of any band from their era and garnered them the most cult following in the history of music. I’m sure had I been around at the time of the Grateful Dead, I would’ve been a “Dead Head” and if that undermines my punk credibility, allow me to share what I witnessed at a recent Dead and Company show at Dodgers Stadium: Dirty hippies, one wardrobe change away from crust punks, snorting cocaine right in front of sixty year old couples. Women flashing and everyone choosing their own seats with no care what was assigned to them on their tickets. Captured by The Dead’s music this month, seeing Grateful Shred perform at the Teragram Ballroom was my way of celebrating Jerry
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One Friday Night in Hell Part 4: Os Mutantes at Union
Grace Dunn
July 14, 2018
Beads of sweat, sans regret. Move your body to the voodoo rhythm of Bat Macumba on the most sweltering summer night in Los Angeles. I admit it felt too perfect a circumstance for the universe to combine this delectable lineup of Os Mutantes and L.A. Drones in the melting pot that is Union Night club. I remember looking up the show in advance thinking: “Why did a legendary sixties band choose a low key venue far out from the usual popular venues in LA?” I figured perhaps I haven’t explored the venue’s history enough to give it credit. I had been to Union Nightclub years earlier for a show or two, but never since. Either way, I looked forward to this because I missed their set back in 2013 at Carson Creek Ranch for Austin Psych Fest. Moving forward, I knew I wanted a refreshing night of music to dance and thoroughly enjoy movement with the musicians. I couldn’t foresee the added heat of the night making it almost unbearable to move even with the fans blowing into the audience. All I ever saw whenever I would visit the venue in the past was how rowdy the crowd was waiting for an electronic
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The De-Evolution of Burger Boogaloo
Rob Shepyer
July 5, 2018
Just like in my last Boogaloo review, Janky Smooth apologizes for the opinions herein and advise that anyone below the age of 18 or with an aversion to graphic language, obscenity, or humor, should not continue reading. related content: Burger Boogaloo 2017: The Ballad of John and Iggy Burger Boogaloo 2017 was so good that when we left Mosswood Park last July, we didn’t think 2018’s festival could possibly be better. After all, what band could out-punk Iggy Pop? What sort of headliner could possibly drive the festival further in its evolution? Were they going to bring David Buoy back from the dead? Total Trash productions was clever though, they knew they had to think outside the box if they wanted to make Burger Boogaloo California’s undisputed champion of festivals. So what did they do? They realized that progress doesn’t necessarily have to move forward like we’d expect. No, the answer was De-Evolution. And in the spirit of this movement backward, to the primordial swamp we once infested and called home, what was once the Gone Shrimpin’ stage in 2017, an ode to foot fetishes, was now Toxic Paradise. A mutant stage with tentacles and eyeballs sticking out of the
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