terça-feira, 5 de julho de 2016

Seagaze Festival - An Interview with Jeff McCollough



O TBTCI abre espaço neste momento para uma bela iniciativa criada e concebida entre dois ativistas incansáveis para propagar a música ao redor do mundo, estou falando de Jeff McCollough (Blackpool Astronomy) e do mestre Greg Wilson (DKFM Shogaze Radio).

Os caras criaram e fizeram a curadoria do Seagaze Festival que terá nada mais nada menos do que quarto dias e acontecerá na LoFi Performance Gallery 429 Eastlake Ave E, # B, Seattle 98109 nos dias 28/29/30 e 31 de julho com um line up absolutamente imperdível.

Confira dia a dia nos links abaixo:


O TBTCI conversou Jeff pra entender o conceito e demais detalhes desse que promete ser um festival absolutamente épico e histórico, afinal não é todo dia que se reúne gente do calibre de LSD and The Search For God, Tender Age, Asteroid #4, Spindrift, Daydream Machine e muitos muitos outros espetaculares artistas,

Se você tiver uma grana sobrando, não pense duas vezes, vá viajar e "viajar" de verdade.

***** Interview with Jeff McCollough (Seagaze Festival)


Q. What is the concept behind the Seagaze Festival?
The concept of the Seagaze festival was to celebrate the shoegaze and psych music of the Pacific Northwest that was truly over looked. Plus it needed to happen. Fuzzy Ball which was another festival years before was great but it was years ago and really had no post-punk bands and honestly Post punk is very important as well. It’s a genre that we all enjoy and it fits with the nature of the festival. Plus creating something beautiful and positive was important along with making it affordable. Also I wanted people who were new to the genres to get a good taste of the best. Maybe broaden some musical horizons. It’s also very much about building a community of artists promoting and supporting each just like the bands did in the early 90’s in the Shoegaze scene and in Seattle and Portland. Tell us how it was born? Greg Wilson and I were online chatting and we both thought it was time. I had wanted to do something like this for a while and he and I both agreed with a few other people it could be done. I asked our friend Mama Casserole who books Lo-Fi performance gallery if we could do it and she was ecstatic and said yes! She would love to have the festival!!

Q. How was the process of curation and selection of bands for the first edition?
We had a basic idea of the bands we wanted. I started contacting the ones I was close to and after talking Tauna of Tender Age she started helping us book more Portland bands. Within a few days we had a very full line up and Mama Casserole seem to be having the same luck with the psych portion of the festival. It just seems like the stars aligned and we were able to get amazing bands. We all felt like it was magic. Maybe it’s the positive nature of what we want. Erik Blood being part of this also really helped. His and Irene’s involvement gave us a big boost and made it seem like this would be a reality. Honestly we feel very lucky to be able to do this and know we have a responsibility to make sure it’s a good time for all involved and who attend the festival.


Q. What is your opinion on the effervescent new scene of bands (shoegaze / psych / post punk) around the world?
Honestly we are excited and thrilled to see how many bands are making great music. Shoegaze has tons of new bands that are capable of making deep intense beautiful music that hits your right in the heart! Just listen to DKFM you will hear them. Psych is constantly expanding into new places. It also seems to be getting bigger some and more prolific which is great. I think the fact people have more access to music gear and recording than ever before is helping all of these genres plus pedal makers like Oliver Ackermann of Death by Audio seem to be expanding things by creating new effects that expand where we can go as musicians. So Psych is going somewhere and getting more intense in some great ways. Post punk is expanding as well and what makes me hopeful is the bands are generally well-versed and intelligent with reverence to those before them. The songwriting is intense and purposeful like that of those before them and the sounds are just as important which means post punk is practicing a lot of the same ideas as Shoegaze. Therefore the genres are starting to mix creating dark gaze, which is very promising.

Q. What are your plans for the future? New editions of Seagaze Festival are already being planned? We want to see how this goes. As with any new idea we need to put it into practice before planning the next one but we believe if it goes well we will back next year and have a better handle on how to make this work even better than it did this year.

Q. Final Thoughts....
We would love to see all of you at the festival. It’s a labor of love for music and the joy it can bring people. It’s about bringing people together and bringing great music into the live of others while helping our fellow musicians grow. I have been lucky to have some help from Omar Rashan (Charlatan) Richard O’Leary (God and Vanilla) Tauna Leonardo (Tender Age) and Jason Markin (The Emerald Down) as well as Greg Wilson of DKFM and Mama Casserole (LoFi Performance Gallery) who have made this all possible.
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Thanks

https://www.facebook.com/seagazefestival
https://www.facebook.com/DecayFM
https://www.facebook.com/blackpoolastronomyband