If you went to the first So Sick Fest last year, you know you’ve been waiting around for news to see if it was making a comeback and—oh yes, its back!
Local promoters Barba-Q have decided to put together once again the insanity that is the So Sick Fest in El Paso this March. For those of you who missed out on the biggest rock & roll party of last year, Barba-Q brought to El Paso underground bands from all over the world, the United States plus local talent together for one night of drunken sweaty rock & roll fun. The event this year comes to us in two part installments: the first being a South by Southwest pre-party blowout dubbed Part 1: Burger Revolution, lands on Saturday March the 8th at Proper Printshop (1712 Texas Ave) the weekend before the Austin debauchery, the second part appropriately called La Cruda!, goes down on Monday the 17th at Lowbrow Palace (111 E Robinson Ave)—after the week of SXSW.
Busy already doing some of the booking at the super cool Monarch Bar, Barba-Q’s Leo “Chief” Lara has had the thoughts of a new So Sick Fest lingering in the back of his mind, “The decision to go 2 days, was mostly done because I was booking two big shows before and after SXSW. I just thought, instead of trying to find names for both, why not just do it as So Sick Fest Parts 1 and 2? We saw that the “So Sick” name already had a little bit of cache, so we just figured it wouldn’t hurt to just have both shows under that name and have more people already know what it was.” Thanks to the help of Barba-Q and their success with last year’s So Sick Fest plus the consistency of shows Chief has been bringing to town, the bands that have already been here before (Warm Soda, Peach Kelli Pop and Cosmonauts) already know that El Paso is ready to party—and they are also.
El Paso gets to preview all the bands traveling to SXSW this year, grouped together in a line-up that will be exciting to experience. The lineup for Part 1: Burger Revolution will include mainly bands from California’s Burger Records—famous for bringing back cassette tapes from the grave—all with their own unique sound and take on modern rock & roll: bands such as Gap Dream and Cosmonauts have a hypnotizing psychedelic sound that will travel throughout your body with a soothing shot electricity, while Warm Soda and Peach Kelli Pop will provide lo-fi garage pop melodies as sweet as candy. The line-up will also include The Abigails, Big Tits, The Garden, Mozes and the Firstborn, Mr. Elevator and the Brain Hotel, Summer Twins plus local bands—rock & roll punkers Nalgadas and the garage-psych sounds of Lake of Fire.
Part 2: La Cruda! charges on with an onslaught of more lo-fi underground noisemakers: the scuzzy garage-punks Nightmare Boyzzz and Audacity will keep the party going and the people moving, the surfin’ rockabilly sounds of Guantanamo Baywatch will make you shake your hips and then have a freak-out to the stoner-rock of Lecherous Gaze . The night will also include Dirty Fences, JC Satan and Boom!. Local pop-punkers Miijas and psych-shoegazers Mirror Men will open up on this night.
What does Chief say about whom to look out for this year? “Everybody! Every band on these shows is great. Most bands have been here before, so it’s always cool to have them back. But we have two European bands that I’m really excited to have on—Mozes and the Firstborn from Belgium, and JC Satan from France. Both are amazing! And of course, I’m looking forward to seeing Abel’s (El Paso rocker relocated to Oakland) band Big Tits live for the first time.”
If you don’t have the cash or the means to travel to Austin for SXSW, the So Sick Fest 2 is your bag; you get to party hard and enjoy good music without having to travel far—plus the option to not sleep on someone else’s floor is pretty cool.
