Indie psychedelic garage rock groups, The Black Angels with guest Black Lips, will be live from the Backyard Stage at the St. Augustine Amphitheatre for “The Birds and the Bees Tour”.
The Black Angels are Stephanie Bailey (drums, percussion, Philicorda), Christian Bland (guitar, Mellotron, bass, vocals, Vox Continental), Jake Garcia (guitar, bass, vocals), Kyle Hunt (bass, guitar, organ, Moog, Rheem MK VII), and Alex Maas (lead vocals, bass, harmonium).
“Our music has always been driven by the fear of the unknown and what’s to come”, explains Maas. “Growing up in Texas, in the Bible Belt, you’d have this feeling as a kid in church on Sundays that your whole entire world was just hanging by a string”. On “Death Song”, the Austin neo-psych rockers’ first new album in four years and their most fully realized work to date, the band explores what happens when that string snaps. Volatile, fuzzed-out guitars and crashing percussion meet swirling, reverberating vocals in a cinematic tempest of distrust and disgust. Attraction and self-loathing, greed and desire, faith and brutality are all intertwined, as the lyrics explore the kind of timeless questions that have dogged mankind for eternity; How much ugliness are we willing to perpetuate in the quest for beauty? Can we ever truly share what’s inside of our hearts? How long can we subject ourselves to the same self-destructive cycles before everything comes collapsing down around us?
The story of the Black Lips began in Dunwoody, Georgia, a quiet, conservative suburb of Atlanta, in the year 1999 after childhood friends Jared Swilley and Cole Alexander were kicked out of Dunwoody High for separate, yet equally bad, behavior. The former classmates took their mutual love of music (Link Wray, The Stooges, and The Ramones) and restless energy and channeled it into their newly found free time, and joined by friends Ben Eberbaugh and Joe Bradley, the Black Lips started playing shows around Atlanta, at house parties and bars. They spent this time honing their sound – garage rock infused with blues, psychedelia, and punk, plus a healthy dose of reckless abandon – and released their first 7-inch, “Ain’t Coming Back” in 2002 on Die Slaughterhouse records. Shortly before the band was set to head out on their first ever national tour, Eberbaugh was tragically killed by a drunk driver. Devastated but determined to carry on in Eberbaugh’s honor, the Black Lips hit the road as a trio just a few days later. It’s been 15 years, but that passionate dedication to touring has never left the band.
Doors 6:30pm / Show 7:30pm
Visit the St. Augustine Amphitheatre website for additional information and to purchase tickets. Tickets can also be purchased at their box office and at the Ponte Vedra Concert Hall box office.