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 Adam Ritchie and his band inside the DMZSteve Schmidt and Link Smith skating in DMZ parking lotSteve Schmidt, somewhere between the heights and downtownGrove Circle Punx - Andy Conrad, Utrillo, Bryan Spinas, Matthew Thompson, Jason White, Josh Bentley (92)
 added story to The Link Springs Forms Event The Link Springs Forms added story to New Wave Festival added story to DMZ opens added story to DMZ opens added story to New Wave Festival added story to Econochrist forms added story to Hatful Day plays their first show added story to Big Boss Line forms added story to Women's City Club Show  |
1st annual Popfest  John Pugh // We formed in the summer of 1994 in the bedroom I shared with Jared Smith at the Kavanaugh apartments (aka Melrose Place). Lisa and I had a routine after work, where we would sit down and listen to "Lowrider" followed by "Take The Money And Run" while smoking weird Shaun Dack weed out of a steamroller (aka waterless bong). Then we would sit on the bed watching Power Rangers (which was really psychedelic in the early days)playing songs on the guitar and bass. We somehow combined all these elements into the most candy-ass twisted bedroom pop trash go-go songs imaginable. Story came in with one drum and some bittersweet lyrics about monkeys and girls named Eunice.... and there it was. We named ourselves after a movie none of us had seen (made by the same guy who made The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living And Became Mixed-Up Zombies). Our first shows were in furniture warehouse parking lots, at kickball games, during living room tea parties and as a soundtrack to late-night dry-hump orgies. We wrote about five songs (one of which was covered/extrapolated by Ricochet Rocket) and played whenever Story was home from school. Red Brigade was the direct ... (More) // Hi there. The basic premise behind the Popfests was that while we liked the hard stuff alright, we thought it might be fun to have at least one day of the summer that featured bands with less screaming--which seemed like a pretty novel idea at the time. One year Bunnygrunt came down from St. Louis, but after feeling kind of crappy for giving them the $30 or so we made for their gas money, we decided to keep the bands local and give the money to charities and we actually ended up making a lot more cash that way. Other bands that played that are not mentioned elsewhere (off the top of my head) included The Cannonballs, Ricochet Rocket, Superpowersteam '74, Invisible Cities, Matthew Bradley, and, uhhh, lots of others...that was a long time ago and each bill had 10+ bands on it, many of whom played their first and last shows that day, so forgive the memory loss...And just to set the record straight, the first popfest was the brainchild of Sarah Fan and me, and then there were several with Meredith, and then Storey Matkin-Rawn (sp?). I never had anything to do with the ones that happened in ... (More) // Those fests were fun because if it weren't for John Mark and Meredith for putting that on I don't think the scene would be still be alive. But I do remember seeing the Divine Hook-Up (post William Martyr 17) as well as K play. // From 1994 until 1999, each summer's highlight remained the Popfest benefit concert at the Riverfront Belvedere, often organized by John Mark Boling or Meredith Villines. The shows were remniscient of 1991-92's "punkfests", beginning earlier in the afternoon with home-baked and dumpstered goods, games, crafts and artwork for sale in addition to local and regional bands, usually a refreshing departure from the hard end of the musical spectrum. The first Popfest featured Rat Fink A-Bu Bu, K, Origami Critters, Fizzgig, and a few others to boot.  Trouble submitting your story? E-mail towncraft@matsonfilms.com Matson Films reserves the right to edit all responses. Please be courteous to your community. |
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Dave Wilkinson
Fizzgig
MacArthur Park
