There is this amazing, unpredictable thing that happens when you turn up guitars really loud and you have this feedback or there’s an interplay between the guitar and the amp you are playing out,” Ackermann said. “It’s really awesome, beautiful, and kinda scary and unknowing. You have to be really paying attention to what’s going on while you control your instrument at that moment.”

“Their stage presence was strong as they rocked back and forth, up and down, and danced in the flickering storm of light and smoke. “

The whole record is just a steamroll of pure shoegaze noise bliss. But with hooks.

“When I was learning how to play guitar, I was just excited about how you could take noise and turn it into songs,” he says referencing the shoegazer genre’s lasting effect on him as a writer.

“you find yourself in awe of oliver ackermann’s (singer/guitarist) relentless energy. “

“The APTBS experience is heightened by the theatrics, owing in no small amount to the fact that their sets are, while remaining true to their trademark sprawl, a markedly tight, rehearsed feel to them. “

“Who needs bells and whistles when you build your own guitar pedals? “

“The show was great, the audience loved it; Ackerman throws himself into his live act, like no one else is there. It’s almost like he is exercising his demons and leaving the stage triumphant when he does. “

“I started looking at things unconventionally, because making things really simple keeps the ideas really pure. “

“Their music is just a wall of sound that comes at you nonstop. Combine that with the outstanding stage show and you get a performance like none other.”

Their live show is one of the most honest and raw performances I’ve ever seen in a band.

This is as it should be, since lead singer and guitarist Oliver Ackerman makes custom pedals in the comfort of his trendy NY loft.

They are all about delivering the sound and it was evident very soon that their live element is what has earned them the reputation of being one of the loudest shows in NY.

The headliner was A Place To Bury Strangers, who completely rocked the place. Though they were not an official SXSW band, they were one of the best bands I saw during the whole week. Towards the end of their set guitarist/vocalist Oliver Ackerman slammed his guitar on the stage and then proceeded to rip all of the strings off of it, which left a few people with their mouths open.

So, I was thinking about this and trying to not to get too glum. I realized that instead of complaining, I could help by pointing to some papers which are easily available online and which (to me at least) point to some of the most interesting ideas about software. To me, these are classic papers which contain deep “things you oughta know” about code – the material you work with.

Trippy buzz bands such as the Wooden Ships, Dead Meadow and A Place to Bury Strangers join the aforementioned locals and dozens more, including Sky Sunlight Saxon of legendary Los Angeles garage rock titans the Seeds. Not too shabby for a festival that’s only on its second year.

Ah, if only every post-millennial goth band could sound like NYC’s A Place To Bury Strangers. These guys bring the darkness but back it up with a claustrophobi-noise-noir that hasn’t really been explored since we lost Ian Curtis and Bauhaus drifted away. Sure, everyone dogs the trappings of goth but APTBS really digs into the darkness in a fresh and less cliched way. They headline a festival of sorts at Radio Room in Austin Sunday night.

The fest is not, however, an exercise in flower-power nostalgia: indeed, this year’s lineup is a cross-reference of pretty much every modern sound that could possibly fall under the “psychedelic” banner, throwing together the blown-out futurism of Brooklyn’s A Place To Bury Strangers, the drug-mellowed West Coast fuzz of The Warlocks and Dead Meadow, the classic Vietnam-flashback drone of Wooden Shjips and The Black Angels, the synth freakness of Houston’s Indian Jewelry, and the jangly reverberations of Austin’s own The Strange Boys into one altogether intimidating package.

Sun(But that’s the Lord’s Day?):Psych Fest 2 with A Place to Bury Strangers (11:30pm), The Warlocks (10pm), The Strange Boys (9pm), Asteroid #4 (Philadelphia, 8pm), Forever Changes (Austin, 7pm), The Vandelles (NYC, 6pm),

A Place to Bury Strangers    

No times listed as of yet, but here are the bands in all of their glory. Please remember the earplugs for A Place to Bury Strangers.

Sunday is top-lined by the fuzzed out and fried-to-a-crisp clamor of A Place To Bury Strangers, psych-rock revival O.G.s The Warlocks, and New York’s Raveonettes-esque noir-poppers The Vandelles. Once again the entire festival will be set to Fillmore-era liquid light projections, psychedelic art from The Angels’ Christian Bland (and a few bongwater-soaked, vintage pieces rescued from the Vulcan Gas Company), and backed by “classic trip sequences” provided by I Luv Video and Austin Underground Film—hopefully including something from Peter Fonda’s embarrassingly bad “let’s get Jack Nicholson high and film it” opus The Trip.