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| Rocky & The Chapter are just one of twenty bands playing this Saturday's North Jersey Indie Rock Festival |
Church of Indie Rock
I've told you a few times already about the North Jersey Indie Rock Festival. The festival is the brainchild of New Jersey labels Sniffling Indie Kids and Mint 400 Records. It takes place this Saturday, September 10th, from 12 noon to 8pm at the newly-converted Cathedral Hall in Jersey City. Admission is just $5 and kids under 12 get in for free.
The lineup of bands is stellar and represents multiple genres from both veteran bands and bands who are relatively new to the North Jersey scene. The bands representing Sniffling Indie Kids are Ken DePoto, C.R. & The Degenerates, Quality Living, dollys, Toy Cars, NGHTCRWLRS, Rocky & The Chapter, LKFFCT, and YJY. From Mint 400, we have Shane Vidaurri, Young Legs, The Maravines, Fairmont, The Bitter Chills, Tri-State, Ancient Babies, The Clydes, Underlined Passages, and Pixl-Visionary. Holding a special place, as you'll see below, are Sink Tapes.
The festival will also feature food, drink, and craft vendors; and, in something that's particularly close to my heart, the organizers have invited bloggers, writers, and photographers from around the state to discuss what they do before introducing the bands. I'll be there to try and explain myself to you before introducing Underlined Passages and dollys.
I sent some questions to label heads Neil Sabatino (Mint 400) and Frank DeFranco (Sniffling Indie Kids) to find out more about the festival. Both are in bands who will be playing sets on Saturday -- Sabatino with Fairmont and DeFranco with NGHTCRWLRS -- and each gave some illuminating and honest answers about their motivations. See what they had to say below, and come out to the festival this Saturday.
Can you talk a little bit about the history behind your labels and how you ended up teaming up? How do you decide that you want to work with a particular band?
Neil: For Mint 400 Records we started, just as a way for me to release my own band's material. We started helping our friends out with digital distro through our account and it grew into a record label. We were working with the band Sink Tapes, and they were using Mint 400 for all of our services, but at the time we were not pressing physical records. We let them search out record deals that wanted to work in conjunction with us and handle the physical aspect of their releases. They hooked up with Sniffling Indie Kids; and, as we co-promoted Sink Tapes, we realized there were a lot of things we could help each other out with. So the relationship blossomed, and we started to pool resources and work together.
As far as figuring out if we want to work with a band, that depends usually. We find bands in a number of ways. A lot of times we meet bands at shows or through other bands on the label. Other times a demo is submitted to us; and, once in a while, we just stumble across a band online or at a show that we know is a perfect fit. I usually know within 30 seconds of hearing a band's music if I want to work with them. For me, vocals, songwriting, and aesthetic are key components of what makes me interested in a band.
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| Sink Tapes |
Frank: Sniffling Indie Kids is co-owned and co-run by Eric Goldberg, Joe Lanza and myself. Joe and I grew up together (first time we met was on our third grade baseball team) in East Brunswick. We met Eric by chance in high school thanks to Joe looking for other bands in NJ that listed Nirvana as an influence on Myspace in 2005/2006. Our bands at the time would do things together here and there, which led to us becoming closer and eventually founding the Tiny Giant Artist Collective in 2011. The collective came to be comprised of bands we would meet while our own bands (Holy City Zoo and The Nico Blues) were playing shows. The bands we asked to join specifically shared the same ideals in regard to the punk rock ethos and wrote music we enjoyed listening to. In doing so, we put out two compilations to help circulate the music of the bands involved. The goal was to increase communication among bands from New York City, through NJ, into Philadelphia. What was also cool was that the collective not only featured bands, but also people at college radio stations, people who wrote for blogs and other publications, photographers, videographers, recording engineers and labels who all communicated via a Facebook group.
Alas, after about a year and a half, the group expanded; and, in the spirit of collective effort, we took a major step back from being main decision makers. Leaving the group to make decisions led to a too-many-cooks-in-the-kitchen type situation. Also, more people were getting brought into the group that did not share the same ideals of "how do we help the collective we" and instead focused on "what's in this group that can help me." We stepped away from the collective in late 2012. Two years later, Joe, Eric and myself had the itch again and decided to take all the lessons we learned from the TGAC and start a record label based on the same principles the collective was founded on. Just like with the collective, the first thing we did publicly was release a free 5 song compilation featuring the bands in our practice space (all who were previously in other bands in the original incarnation of the TGAC) in October 2014. Less than two years later we are now on release 26.
As Neil said, Sink Tapes brought us together on the release of Creases, and we've been rolling as a team ever since. As far as deciding if we are going to work with a particular band... many that we work with we previously had relationships with in some capacity dating back to the TGAC days. New bands that we bring in are bands that are made up of good people, make songs that get us excited and quality sounding recordings.
What made you decide to put together the festival?
Frank: A lot of it was very much a "why not" type scenario. It seemed like it could be a really fun thing to do, especially in an area heavily populated with musicians and alternative culture that does not get the same level of attention as other parts of the state. It also seemed like a really good way to help expose people to a lot of the bands that are involved with SIK and M4R while also bringing together a lot of people, all sorts of people, who are involved in the music and arts community in the state. Hopefully this goes as well as we hope and we will be able to continue to grow it into something bigger in the coming years that has more bands, labels, writers and artists involved.
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| NGHTCRWLRS |
Neil: Frank from Sniffling Indie Kids mentioned to me how the Don Giovanni thing in Central Jersey didn't really involve anyone from the North Jersey scene and maybe we should be trying to do our own showcase with labels from North Jersey. We looked at logistics and reached out to everyone we knew and were able to find the right space to do a large event with help from Mike McNamara of 4th Street Arts, BGT Enterprises and Anthony Susco of Rockit Docket. We wanted it to be all of the people involved with our scene from artists and bands to bloggers and journalists. I was doing a yearly showcase for my label at various venues over the last decade but couldn't pull off something this big without Sniffling Indie Kids being involved and splitting the work of putting on a festival.
It seems like a huge undertaking. How much time and effort did you put into lining up bands, co-presenters, sponsors, blogs, vendors, etc.?
Neil: We not only had to do all of the traditional things in putting together a festival, but also had to actually volunteer tons of time getting the venue into shape for a show. It was a recently converted cathedral and we literally had to help to rip out the church pews and kneelers, pull up a sub floor, lug out garbage, sweep, mop, sand, wet-vac. The blood and sweat of Mint 400 & Sniffling Indie Kids literally has gone into this event. I think since we decided to do this festival it has been all encompassing for the past 4 months and both labels have been working non-stop to ensure it's an enjoyable event. I feel like the bands, presenters and bloggers were all so easy to deal with compared to all the other stuff that needed to be done. Hopefully it's a memorable show for everyone.
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| Photo: Frank DeFranco |
Frank: To put it into terms that many other people who read your blog will understand... think about how much effort goes into running a regular show. There's the gear share, the collection of money, keeping the show running in a timely fashion, promotion of the event and a slew of other things involved. Now think about what it's like to increase the number of bands by four or five times and run not one but two stages, on top of all the other additional elements involved with this festival. Then, as Neil said, there's the fact that we've had to take some time on weekends to go there to physically prepare the space to be able to accommodate the event. Fortunately, working with the bands, co-presenters, sponsors, blogs and vendors has essentially been a breeze. Everyone has been very cooperative and understanding throughout the whole process.
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| dollys |
The venue, Cathedral Hall. Who’s behind the creation of the new space?
Neil: Mike McNamara, who used to run the 4th Street Arts Festival (and still runs 4th Street Arts) in Jersey City for many years, is the promoter who chose to get involved and help us see this thing through. He has spent countless hours working on the venue and helping us to coordinate this event along with his partners at BGT Enterprises. We are hoping this event lives up to the exciting atmosphere he was always able to create with 4th Street Fest. In addition Anthony Susco (aka Dancing Tony) of Rockit Docket helped us find the venue, a company to provide vendors and also a sound system for one of our stages. We're hoping this spot becomes a home for years to come for music in Jersey City.
From the pictures, it still looks pretty much like a church. Is that how it will look on the day of the festival?
Frank: It definitely still looks just like a church, which I actually think is pretty wild. When you walk around the building, its age really stands out. It so clearly was built in a different time and as a guy who likes older things, I really admire the architecture. Not that I know a ton about architecture, but it looks awesome and is definitely epic to walk around and appreciate.
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| Photo: Frank DeFranco |
Do you feel like there is a lack of venues for hosting live, original music in North Jersey?
Frank: The short answer technically is no; however, it is much more complicated than that. Are there places that bands can play? Definitely. However, there are a variety of complications when analyzing the "North Jersey" music scene and comparing it against New Brunswick and Asbury Park. New Brunswick and Asbury Park are both cities, densely populated with musicians with a lot of options when it comes to bands finding a show to play. Bands who don't live in those areas flock to them to play, creating a central hub of what's going on. Jersey City is a city too; however, there are maybe four places to play that can accommodate even just a medium sized audience. There's The Citizen, The Funhouse, Lucky 7's and Monty Hall; but that's really it. Part of the problem, too, is that it is geographically so close to New York City. I feel that it almost gets passed over a lot of times by touring bands which takes away from the attention Jersey City's music scene deserves. Additionally, in the broader spectrum, there are pockets of things going on all over in North Jersey such as in Montclair and Booton; but, since it is a bit spread out, it seems to limit the attention the areas actually get.
Neil: My problem with venues is that our bands would like to play on a regular basis, and sometimes they are going to bring a large crowd and other times they might not. No club owner wants to hear that. They also sometimes want to charge you $10 to watch your friends' band for 25 minutes. There is a real lack of venues that respect the artists enough to actually split the bar with them on a good night or let them curate their own shows so that lots of people come because they are excited about more than one band on a bill. Most of the time we try to put together shows at non-traditional places that people would actually want to go to, like we have done a few brewery shows at Brix City Brewery in Little Ferry. The shows are usually free and the drinks are cheap and a bunch of people show up and have fun. We'd like to keep costs down for the patrons and offer a comfortable atmosphere for people to enjoy music in. I don't know a ton of venues in North Jersey that can say that. Also, sometimes clubs are very insulting to our bands such as one club that I won't name that tells bands if they don't draw enough people they may be asked to not play. How are bands supposed to develop a following if these clubs don't let them build one? We always try to include our younger and less seen bands on everything and sometimes to do that you need to be in complete control of the places you are doing shows at. It'd be nice if there were more artist friendly places that did their job to make people want to come to the venue and didn't harass bands to beg like dogs for their friends and family to be at every one of their shows.
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| YJY |
Will Cathedral Hall become a regular stop for bands?
Neil: At this point we can't answer that; but, for the time being, at least through 2016 they will be doing as many events as they can that are art and music related.
Frank: Don't have a 100% solid answer on the plans as events there are really Mike's thing; however, I'd be happy to work on bringing in some bigger touring bands there as it's a venue that actually can accommodate quite a large audience. I think it could be great thing for the people of Jersey City and North Jersey in general to get to enjoy. Prior to my days, there used to be more spots around North Jersey that up-and-coming bands could play the night before playing in New York such as the Capitol Theatre (there's a great video of Talking Heads playing there in 1980). Cathedral Hall has the potential to become something like that if given the opportunity.
You’ve decided to include several regional blogs, websites, and journalists (like CoolDad Music!) in the event to discuss what they’re about and to introduce bands. What’s your view on the importance of the relationship among bands, labels, and outlets like the ones you’ve included at the festival?
Neil: The people we invited seem to be the people in Northern NJ who appreciate what both labels are doing and it's our way of recognizing that.
Frank: There's so much more to a music scene than the music itself. There are the people who come to the shows to hangout and enjoy them, write about them, document them via photos and videos... We reached out to people who are active participants in a cultural phenomenon currently taking place in the State of New Jersey and wanted to give them a platform to speak in appreciation for all they do for the community. There are so many good bands right now in NJ, it is actually hard to keep up with them, and these are the people who are helping give them the attention they deserve.
What can attendees expect when they head into Cathedral Hall on the day of the festival? How’s it all going to run?
Frank: A pleasant afternoon with good music and good people. At least that's what we're going for.
Neil: Potentially, if you are really ambitious, you can see all 20 bands because nobody will be playing at the same time. We are hoping because each band is only giving listeners a short set (5 songs) that it will be enjoyable for the whole 7 hours. There will be space to sit, time to shop on each level with our amazing vendors and plenty of food and drink. We are hoping it's a very relaxed atmosphere and people feel like hanging out the whole day with us. Also, for bands who are playing and ones who are not, it's going to be filled with a large group of people that are worth knowing in the music industry, so we hope some networking goes on. We hope, unlike the big festivals, that this one won't break the bank either: just $5 to get in and kids under 12 are free.
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| Toy Cars |
Ultimately, what would you like to see the The North Jersey Indie Rock Festival accomplish in its first go-round and what are your plans for the future?
Neil: I really hope this becomes an annual event that involves labels like ours that are sometimes passed over by these bigger festivals. As for the first one, I just hope we get through it smoothly with no technical issues.
Frank: I've got my fingers crossed that everything runs smoothly throughout the day. It's definitely not our first rodeo, but at the same time this is a substantially more involved event beyond what we've done previously. But that's the only way to grow and progress, right? Ideally, if we could get this to grow to encompass more labels, possibly two days instead of one, get after parties going on in numerous bars throughout the city with live music, make it a crazier shebang, that'd be awesome.
The North Jersey Indie Rock Festival takes place this Saturday, September 10th, at Cathedral Hall in Jersey City from 12 noon to 8pm.
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