This weekend the Rocks Off team will cover their third Fun Fun Fun Fest in Austin, at the festival’s new home Auditorium Shores. Each year this fest seems to get bigger and better, without losing it’s grimy luster. Is it the Austin City Limits Music Festival for the tattooed set, or is ACL the FFFF for the white-bread set? Not sure, but we do know that this year we were just a tad more excited for the FFFF lineup than the ACL one.
FFFF started in 2006 humbly with Spoon, Circle Jerks, The Black Angels, Negative Approach, and Peaches on the bill. The first year we went in 2009, the big drawls were Danzig, The Jesus Lizard, Mission Of Burma, Ratatat, Crystal Castles, and Fucked Up.
By the next year in 2010 the festival was preparing to move to across town to Auditorium Shores and ended their reign at Waterloo Park in fine fashion with the Descendents, Mastodon, Bad Religion, Best Coast, and GWAR closing her down.
This year locals Fat Tony and B L A C K I E will be making the bill as Houston’s sole emissaries, and this year the festival starts on Friday instead of Saturday around noon. In previous years they only had kick-off events Fridays and not full-scale lineups.
We picked out a few of the bands we are dying to see, and we included the complete lineup again for gandering.
Danzig Legacy
It’s Danzig doing Misfits, Samhain, and solo sets with Doyle Wolfgang Von Frankenstein from the original Misfits crew helping out with the band’s signature horror punk. Videos on YouTube of these legacy shows don’t disappoint, even if they are from a few yards out from the camera-shy Danzig.
Slayer
It’s Slayer, what else is there to know? But seriously, we are skipping Odd Future completely since they actually suck and aren’t worth the hype, and apparently hit photogs in the photo pit. Instead of hitting photogs, just don’t allow them in the photo area. Simple as that. God bless Frank Ocean, but fuck Odd Future.
M83
Kinda bummed we aren’t seeing M83 in a smaller space like Warehouse Live, but an M83 is an M83 show. The band’s mastermind Anthony Gonzalez is coming to Texas behind the great new release Hurry Up We’re Dreaming, which will no doubt be getting some end-of-year best-of list love around here.
Doomriders
Been a fan of this Converge side project since 2005’s Black Thunder, which we listened to until the disc was warped. Once you hear it, you will go “Oh, well yeah of course you like this crap…”
Wugazi
Hoping this is as fun to hear live as it is to listen to at our desks.
Childish Gambino
We got a man-crush on Donald Glover and his rap persona Childish Gambino. Glover will also be on the comedy stage doing his thing, which killed here in Houston this summer. If he’s the future of comedy, we are on board.
Tune-Yards
In which Rocks Off jumps on the indie-blog bandwagon for Merrill Garbus’ lo-fi W H O K I L L, has been one of the most infectious surprises of the year.
Murder City Devils
The MCD seem to play Texas more than some Texas bands themselves. Their discography doesn’t seem to age either.
Black Lips
Because we missed them back in the spring at Fitzgerald’s since we were covering Ke$ha that night at Verizon and got too much glitter in our eyes and we were waiting outside her bus until midnight. At least we are being honest.
Heartless Bastards
Well, Chris Gray will get mad if we miss seeing one of his favorite bands for some metal or indie crap.
The following list separates the stages by color, and not by day actually. Gives you all a good idea of the diversity going on here. Tinariwen and Cannibal Corpse in the same weekend? Sure.
Spoon • Passion Pit • Lykke Li • M83 • Blonde Redhead • GIRLS • HUM • Clap Your Hands Say Yeah • Okkervil River • Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears • Architecture in Helsinki • Ted Leo & The Pharmacists • Heartless Bastards • Tune-Yards • Ra Ra Riot • Tinariwen • Radio Dept • Cold Cave • We Were Promised Jetpacks • Mates of State • The Joy Formidable • Cloud Nothings • The Boxer Rebellion • Asobi Seksu • Keep Shelly In Athens • Le Butcherettes • Jim Ward (Sparta/At The Drive-In) • Joe Lally (Fugazi) • Future Islands • Crooks • Lemuria • TV Torso • Manejo Beto
Slayer • Danzig Legacy (Danzig/Samhain/Danzig & Doyle Perform Misfits) • The Damned • Hot Snakes • Murder City Devils • Black Lips • Cannibal Corpse • Kid Dynamite• Boris • Cave In • Negative Approach • D-Generation • Eyehategod • Russian Circles • Thee Oh Sees • Zero Boys • Paint It Black • Trash Talk • Youth Brigade • NoBunny • Davilla 666 • Bane • Earth Crisis • Graveyard • Doomriders • Ceremony • From Ashes to Rise • World Inferno/Friendship Society • Total Control (Member of Eddie Current Suppression Ring) • Death Grips • Touche Amore • Defeater • Mind Spiders • OBN III • Shapes Have Fangs • Schmillion • Thieves
Public Enemy • Major Lazer • Odd Future (OFWGKTA) • Diplo • Flying Lotus • Neon Indian • Four Tet • Spank Rock • Dan Deacon • Cecil Otter & Swiss Andy present: WUGAZI • Childish Gambino • Budos Band • Rakim • Del The Funky Homosapien • Big Freedia • YACHT • Baths • MNDR • Austra • Dengue Fever • Omar Souleyman • Black Milk • DJ Franki Chan • Ocote Soul Sounds • Auto Body • Bird Peterson • Brandt Brauer Fricke • Picture Plane • T-Bird and The Breaks • Cecil Otter (Doomtree) • G-side • Speak • Purity Ring • DJ Car Stereo (Wars) • B L A C K I E. • Fat Tony
Henry Rollins • Reggie Watts • Brian Posehn • Upright Citizens Brigade • Turquoise Jeep • Donald Glover • Ali Wong • Anarchy Championship Wrestling • Neal Brennan (Co-creator of Chappelle Show/Half Baked) • Best Fwends • Matt Bearden • Brody Stevens • Captured By Robots • Kenny “K-Strass” Strasser Yo-Yo Extravaganza • Whamcity Comedy Set • Louis Katz • Chris Trew • Veggie Hot Dog Eating Contest • JT Habersaat + the Altercation Punk Comedy Tour
This article appears in Oct 27 – Nov 2, 2011.