Making do with less
Artists, fans and promoters struggling amidst budgetary woes still find plenty to sing about
By Bliss 08/26/2010
Looking over Pasadena’s musical plate for the fall, what’s immediately notable is how slim the proverbial pickin’s are. There are fewer festivals and proper concert series than in years past, and schedules have been trimmed virtually everywhere. Artists, fans, bookers and promoters are all feeling the financial hurt.
Music’s lucky to find any harbor these days at Caltech, where performing arts have fallen casualty to budget cuts. While Make Music Pasadena, the summer’s biggest local musical event, managed to expand its scope due to increased corporate sponsorships, an autumnal counterpart, the annual Eagle Rock Music Festival, was “in limbo,” according to Director of Events Brian Martinez, when some underwriting sponsors pulled out and others coughed up less money. “Serious cutbacks” in their overall budget ultimately silenced talk of canning the festival. There and elsewhere, artists and promoters are scrambling to survive with less.
That said, several concert and club dates in and around Pasadena are worth saving on the fall calendar.
The first is the seventh FYF Fest, a something-for-everyone celebration whose varied lineup organizers liken to a mix tape.
Running from noon to midnight on Saturday, Sept. 4, in Los Angeles State Historic Park (1245 N. Spring St., downtown LA), the event promises three stages hosting 13 comedians and three dozen bands, including a few artists too rarely heard on local stages, such as Southern indie-folker A.A. Bondy and East Coast rocker Ted Leo & the Pharmacists. Also worth catching: eclectic LA duo Dead Man’s Bones (aka Ryan Gosling and Zach Shields), Dublab Soundsystem, Janeane Garofalo, Vetiver and Warpaint.
Attendees are encouraged to take public transportation to the fest, as the park’s close to the Metro Gold Line and Union Station. Info: fyffest.com.
Also happening Sept. 4: MeowMeowz’s grand reopening, fashioned like an indie-punk festival (on a much, much smaller scale). The “1 Stop Rock Shop”/gallery/rehearsal-performance space is celebrating its move into a new artists district location (2423 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena) and will host a barbecue and performances by local bands Never Dead, Triple Dog Dare, Analog Ghost, House of Mirrors, Majorelle and A Thousand and Fifty Lies. Info: myspace.com/meowmeowzrocks.
The 12th annual Eagle Rock Music Festival will take over a stretch of Colorado Boulevard and 11 venues (including six stages) in Eagle Rock from 4 until 11 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 2. A yearly project of Eagle Rock’s Center for the Arts, the fest has become popular enough that the aforementioned Martinez estimates close to a thousand bands submitted themselves for consideration this year. The budget crunch that’s delayed finalization of the fest’s musical lineup (which wasn’t ready at press time) has also served to underscore their community-oriented mission. Rather than a headliner-driven event, it’s become more of a musical free-for-all.
“It’s definitely been a struggle,” Martinez acknowledges. “We are definitely working with less money and still trying to put out a quality festival. More so than any year, the community — the music community, the arts community, the Eagle Rock community — are really, really coming together to help us do this for less. … It’s always been our mission to provide all kinds of arts to the Northeast, innovative and multicultural. We’re really trying to push the boundaries with genres and our programming partners, and trying to have fun with that.” Visit centerartseaglerock.org/index.php/music_festival for updates.
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