Idol Listening: Sweat Lodge’s Playlist of Rare Retro Texas Pysch and Hard Rock
Austin, TX psych rockers Sweat Lodge will be on tour with Monolord and Beastmaker later this summer, traversing the US and parts of Canada for a five week-long run. That’s quite a touring bill of psyched-out, stonery, sludgy good times: if you don’t partake in Satan’s lettuce might wanna wear a gas mask to the show. Oh, and ear plugs, definitely bring ear plugs, because it’s gonna get loud! Get dates here.
To celebrate the tour’s pending launch, we asked Sweat Lodge guitarist Dustin Anderson to put together a playlist, and he dug deep to list out some of his favorite retro, rare psych and hard rock jams, all written by bands from the state of Texas. Check out his playlist below, followed by a few short interview questions.
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1. Bubble Puppy – “Hot Smoke and Sassafras” (1968)
2. The Moving Sidewalks – “You Made Me Shake” (1968)
3. Lord August & The Visions of Light – “Let Me Be Me” (1968)
4. The Conqueroo – “Passenger” (1968)
5. Smoke – “M.C. Boogie” (1968)
6. American Blues – “If I Were A Carpenter” (1968)
7. Houston Fearless – “Not Foolin’ Me” (1969)
8. The Purple Sun – “Doomsday” (1970)
9. Josefus – “Crazy Man” (1970)
10. Bloodrock – “Wicked Truth” (1970)
11. Corpus – “Creation A Child” (1971)
12. Poe – “Automatic Writing” (1971)
13. Stone Axe – “Slave of Fear” (1971)
14. Ultra – “Mutants” (1976)
15. Lazer – “Demon’s Daughter” (1979)
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAXcMq3laHlgLIz7LR7FGCHg7DxUCHxQe
Is there something about Texas that makes it a great source of psych rock?
Austin has always kind of been a city full of hippies, weirdos, and outcasts compared to its more conservative surroundings. There are lots of people here into underground music and its sub-genres. Psychedelic experimentation in the ’60s created bands like 13th Floor Elevators, The Golden Dawn, Shiva’s Headband, etc. and now we have great festivals like Levitation. Austin still has something going on.
Which year was the best ever for psych rock?
That’s hard to say, but I prefer the harder stuff from 1971.
How did you discover all this stuff?
Books, blogs, Wikipedia, YouTube and digging through record stores for hours. Being a nerd and wanting to learn about old music.
Which of these bands do Sweat Lodge take the most influence from?
Bubble Puppy and Josefus for sure, even though we don’t really sound like them. Both bands are actually still active and play a couple times a year.
What are you guys up to after the Monolord tour?
We have a four-song EP coming out with Brutal Panda Records sometime in the fall and we are basically just working on new music in addition to that for a full length. We might tour again before the year is over.
