Celebrating psych-rock

SCENE & HEARD

26 bands combine to make unique experience at Deep Heaven Now 4

July 29, 2011|By Jonathan Perry, Globe Correspondent

DEEP HEAVEN NOW 4 At: P.A.’s Lounge, and Precinct, Somerville, Aug. 5-6. For event details, go to www.face book.com/event.php?eid=123210551096572

As Jinsen Liu knows from experience, when you’re dealing with hazy clouds of feedback, fog machines, and even a would-be rock star ego or two, occasionally things can go awry.

We’re not talking about 28 Degrees Taurus, Liu’s own shoegazing psychedelic band from Boston, and the mayhem it unleashes onstage. We’re referring to Liu’s stewardship of the sprawling biannual Deep Heaven Now psych-rock festivals, which showcase a mix of mostly Massachusetts rock bands (plus a handful of groups from around the United States) with an adventurous streak. These are musicians who love wrenching oceanic waves of distortion and spacey noise from their instruments, and for whom My Bloody Valentine - not the Beatles - serves as a blueprint.

“It’s a great little community that we’ve got here,’’ Liu says over afternoon drinks at an Allston bar. “The pool of local talent in Boston is deep enough so that this sort of thing can be done here [twice a year]. And it’s small but big enough so that you have that sense of community. You don’t feel lost, like you are in New York City or LA or Chicago.’’

Still, there can be trouble even in the closest of communities, and that’s what transpired this past April, during the third installment of the Deep Heaven Now series. Liu remembers it as “an administrative disaster.’’

“There was Sunshine Factory [a band from Alabama] setting off a smoke alarm with their fog machine, so that one entire side of the stage was shut down,’’ Liu recalls with a wince. “And there was a Baltimore band who drove 10 hours and didn’t like the drum set I got them. So they turned around and drove back, and it left an open hour [in the performance schedule]. There were a lot of things that went wrong.’’

But Liu remains undeterred. That band from Baltimore has not been invited back to play the latest installment of Deep Heaven Now, a two-day, 26-band blowout that continues the legacy of the original Deep Heaven psychedelic music events held in and around Boston during the 1990s. Deep Heaven Now 4 is scheduled for Aug. 5-6 at both P.A.’s Lounge and Precinct in Somerville’s Union Square, with staggered set times to accommodate attendees ambitious enough to sample every band. Additionally, Liu has made available (as a free download at deepheavennow.bandcamp.com) an outstanding compilation featuring most of the bands performing on the weekend bill.