Flying Saucer Rock-n-Roll 

This year's conference will be unlike any other UFO event. Each night there will be ufo researchers and a panel discussion just like during the day but after dark there will be live ParaUFO music, Flying Saucer Film Festival and Psychotronic Entertainment.

Music is an amazingly mind altering technology. With simple beats and rhythms a person's heart rate and brainwave activity can be 'entrained' to a specific frequency. Music can change your mood. It can put you on the edge of your seat in suspenseful anticipation and it can exalt the very fabric of your soul.

Some people have suggested that the creative artistic types often seem to be experiencers of paranormal and contact phenomena. Many a musician has wrestled with the various issues associated with UFOs, aliens and the paranormal. Austin has played host to a number of such artists like Roky Erickson of the 13th Floor Elevators and Jon Sanchez of the Flying Saucers. There are tons of UFO songs out there in the ether. 

Good examples of intuitive psychics and/or experiencers are scheduled presenters Eugenia Macer-Story and Pamela Stonebrooke. Besides giving their ufo lectures both Eugenia and Pamela will be gracing us with their own musical stylings. Eugenia plays guitar and rights songs for the numerous plays she has written. She will be performing her own style of "Interdimensional Music" Friday evening before that nights film festival. Then on Sunday night Pamela Stonebrooke, an accomplished jazz singer, will belt out several of her own tunes.

At the end of each night we will be featuring a taste of Austin's own anomalous music community; first on Friday night with veteran Austin rockers PONG then Saturday night with ethereal feedback artists Experimental Aircraft and finally Sunday night with garageband rockers SciBorg Sam & the Automatons.

See what others are saying about these awesome Austin musicians:

PONG!

"The name fits the retro-futuristic kind of mood we're in," explains guitarist and vocalist Gary Chester.
 

Joining Chester are Jason Craig (guitar, vocals), Lyman Hardy (drums), Shane Shelton (keyboards, vocals), and Larry Strub (bass, vocals). Craig and Shelton have spent time in local punk rock bands Pocket FishRmen and Moist Fist, respectively. The remaining three created one of Austin's most important post-punk bands, the mighty modernist rock trio Ed Hall.

After releasing a handful of albums and touring the U.S. and Europe, Ed Hall -- like their last label, Trance Syndicate -- called it quits in 1996. Personality clashes didn't break up the band, but rather the familiar story of years of hard work with less-than-desired rewards. Bassist Strub moved to Thailand for a few years and taught English. Chester stayed in town, playing with Moist Fist and fashioning Gold, the band that became Pong.

Checking out the band's rough mixes prove the point. "Incapacitated" is a toe-tapping disco-rock jam that announces "aliens have landed at the White House, California has fallen into the ocean," that last word delivered in a fatalistic falsetto drop. "Foot Foot" begins with Stonesy "whooo-hooo" harmonies mixed with Warm Jets-era Eno vocals and an upbeat rhythm. The flowing, flowering intro of "Bubble Jungle" morphs into a cavernous shuffle groove, full of melodic stalactites and weird vocal stalagmites. Pong songs are often like Dali paintings, at once organized, inviting, and scary."
    Austin Chronicle

"Dramatically switching gears, Austin's Pong sludges up on stage. For those of you who were fans of Ed Hall, Pong is all three members of this former seminal Austin band, along with two other chaps adding keyboards and another guitar into the mix. These veterans not only put on a stellar show, but have some great material to go along with their antics."
    SplendideZine
 

EXPERIMENTAL AIRCRAFT
www.ExperimentalAircraft.com

"Another chance to lay back and drift easy as Austin, Texas' Eperimental Aircraft put the shimmer on and start glistening. Ten tracks of blissy and sonic pop and rock combinations driven by fuzzed guitars, lush female vocals, and an occasional Moog/synth sound. Dynamic, jam-ready, and spaced." 

-Unknown

"Dreamy, narcotic, trance-inducing, space landscape of sounds. T.J. O'Leary, guitar and vocals; Rachel Staggs, guitar and vocals; Mark Smith, bass; and Jason Ferguson, drums." 

-Unknown

"These Austin-nauts drift through the ether with beautifully fuzzy guitars and lush girl vocals. The odd Moog and organ slinks through as spaced-out hooks expand into Sonic Youth-style jams. Shimmering moments of quiet provide valleys to match the band's loudest peaks." 

-Williamette Week

"With neutron stars in their eyes and a new self-titled EP in hand, Experimental Aircraft phases their brand of ballsy bliss-rock into an Austin landscape woefully short on shoegazerdom. References to drone masters Bailter Space might be more apt, but when the band hits its stride, they're evocative of the seemingly Precambrian days when My Bloody Valentine walked the earth." 

- Michael Chamy, The Austin Chronicle

“Shoegazers and noise enthusiasts Experimental Aircraft weave through Indie Rock signatures with alarming dexterity. From Their Sonic Youth-inspired string noise and two-note dissonance to Swervedriver’s hollow, NASA-approved screech (“Sci-Flyer”, “Son of Mustang Ford”), and finally Lush/MBV, Doppler-effected grooves, it’s obvious they’ve done their homework. While an ability to mirror and medley some of ‘90s Alt-Rock’s greatest moments deserves some respect, it’s Experimental Aircraft’s own style and kinetic flair that remains most impressive.” 

-Listen.com

"And lo, a great deal of drinking then took place at Opal's. A whole lot. There were discussions of camping and Mississippi and the feared "Zachsquatch". And over all of this debauchery spun the gorgeous music of Experimental Aircraft, another Devil in the Woods band. Their self-titled album is simultaneously a tribute to the our shoegazing past and a hint at some sort of blissed-out sonic future. Sure, there are traces of My Bloody Valentine and Slowdive and Chapterhouse, (how couldn't there be?), but Ex-Air have moved past the early 90's hip-hopped percussion and focused more exclusively on guitars and what distortion does to them. Lead singer Rachel's dreamy vocals and lyrics remind you that music is safe when the world isn't. Theirs is beautifully controlled noise that can pretty much insulate you from whatever attacks. It hasn't left Squid's discman since she left Austin. There's really never been a more perfect end to an evening."

PlayingInFog

 

SCIBORG SAM 
& THE ROBOPIMPS

www.SciBorg-Gear.com

Alexander Uriostegui, the leader of SciBorg Sam & The Automatons, is both musician and author. His book SciBorg Sam & The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence is 'a journey of nonstop action, adventure, mystery, chaos, corruption, gratuitous violence, controversial issues, eroticism, and sick humor.' 

SciBorg Sam designs cyborg outfits for his band and is totally into UFOs and Extraterrestrial Intelligences.

Read an excerpt from the book:
www.sciborg-gear.com/journ.htm