Fresno's 9th Swede Fest - maybe the most unique event out of Fresno - is next Thursday the 24th. And there is still time to get your entry in this year's festival. The deadline is Sunday before Midnight. As a added bonus, this time around you can see your Swede in an actual movie theater!
| | | |
| |
It's the time of year in Fresno when the Creative Community goes balls out. Besides the standard awesome Fresno stuff, the next 10 days has the added bonus of the Rogue Festival (hope you've been saving your Rogue Dollars).
Tonight has many choices. First there's Art Hop, plenty of stuff to do. Like a can't miss Jazz Hop show at the new CMAC with Poor Man's Poison, or Art Hop stuff like this:
There's the beginning of Rogue with stuff like this and this and this:
Then there's the typical Thursday night music stuff with AC Myles at the Lamp Post and a tour kick off show from Bully The Kid and I Do Not Exist:
The next 10 days in Fresno shall be interesting:
| | | |
| |
Friday night at Fulton 55 local podcaster, Dirty Dowdy, is starting a new Fresno holiday tradition with the "Festivus Festival". Lots of Festivus inspired events (like Feats Of Strength) will be happening plus plenty of local comedians, some porn stars hanging out, live podcasting and good local music from Session, From The Fallen and Dislodic.
Fans of Seinfeld don't need Festivus explained to them, but in case you do:
| | | |
| |
It's taken years but Dorktown finally got the dynamic duo of Bryan & Roque from Dumbdrum.com and Swedefest.com. Good timing too as their Swed Fest is coming Saturday and their sweded Avengers trailer has been exploding the Internet's nerdy head.
So Bells and Mikey will be talking to them about that, other Fresno/Dumb Drum business and then add a good Star Wars rant to appease the Dork Gods. All within Dorktown Episode 102.
Listen by downloading or clicking the file below:
Music by Trumpet Solo and Rademacher (go buy Babyhawk Vol II).
Make sure to check out Swedefest.com and head out Saturday for Swede Fest 8:
| | | |
| |
In case you haven't seen over at Dumb Drum or The Beehive, the Fresnans from DumbDrum.com and creators of Swede Fest made a Sweded version of the trailer for The Avengers movie and released it before the festival to get some buzz going.
They got it.
It's all over the Internet now (like, the other Internet, not just Fresno's). The video has 70k views and counting and has already appeared on sites like:
Mad props (wait, does anyone say 'mad props' still? ... fuck it we're going with it) mad props to the Dumb Drum/Swedefest folks.
Here is the actual trailer followed by the sweded version. PRO TIP: Play them at the same time and you can see how well they match up. Nice work!:
Swedefest 8 is coming November 5th and there's still time to get your own Swede in.
| | | |
| |
So you know that Incubus is in town tonight. That's fine, they did okAaaay the last time we saw them at Save Mart Center. Surely they will be adiquate again. Godsmack will be all hard rock at the Fair on Saturday night. Audra is back in Fresno this weekend too. All good stuff. But we usually prefer the lesser traveled, smaller, local inspired shows.
The kinda shows you'll always find in... BANDGEEK!:
FRIDAY
KUPPAJOES: After a big of a hiatus, Kuppa has returned, returned strong too with rising alt-rock band, I Am Empire. They are off of Tooth & Nails Records, are from San Jose and have shared a stage with the likes of Flyleaf, Sublime, Deftones and Silversun Pickups Also playing tonight is Phinehas, Corsair, Blood & Water and Nine Lashes. [$10, 7pm Door, All Ages]
FULTON 55: Leave it to Patrick Contreras to do something extra special that Fresnans aren't used to seeing: "The Tiny Country, Big Show Concert". Please check out this page for more info on this:
BROADWAY KLUB: This venue isn't going to stay a secret for much longer if they keep getting good shows. Los Angeles punk band Naked Aggression plus All Or Nothing, The Furloughs and more:
AUDIE'S OLYMPIC: Something. It's a bar too, go hang out.
SATURDAY
THE BEL-TOWER: Much respect to the little venue that could. The Bel-Tower has made it through a DIY year and would like to celebrate with a festival. It's the FYBT Fest! A BT compilation tape will be available along with all these bands!: ACxDC, Resist and Exist, Duke Nukem Forever, Ruptures, Clarence Boddigker, They As In Them, Desecrator, Tiger Lily, Glamour Tronic, Skomm, Tyrannosaurus Zebra, Iwanaga - all are local! Note the early start (because that's how festivals work, sun):
| | | |
| |
Best of Fresno times for us, Friday and Saturday night. The 4th Fresno Urban Sound Expierence happend with Fresno's music community, supporters of Downtown and the arts, and just regular dudes, all coming together to have a good time, showing how fun Fresno actually is.
Highlights
>As with all of the FUSE Fests, the walking around, bouncing back and forth between all the venues was cool. Folks were starting to get the hang of it on Saturday as nice groups of Fresnans were roaming to and from the Ironbird Lofts and African-American Histroy Museum stage as each set ended and the other began.
>Festival goers that couldn't tell you what the diffrence is between Rademacher and Azazel but went and had fun anyway.
>The festival within the festival "Eli Fest" at Club One. Drummer Eli Reyes drummed for five bands straight through the night, and didn't die or nothin'. The room was mostly packed all night too.
>Downtowners that happen to be walking by and getting a free show at Iron Bird and AAHM and really enjoying the music.
>All the bands seemed to have a blast no matter how big or small their crowd was.
>Musicians from different genres checking out other band's sets, being impressed and saying "how good these guys are" even though the music wasn't there thing.
Lowlights
>Not enough festival goers getting over to see the Downtown Club venue. Great Fresno spot and good music that was missed for the most part. Certainly the last second venue change had something to do with that.
>On Saturday there were two stages outside Iron Bird Lofts. Most of the lofts have a balcony and those that live on the East and South sides could watch and listen to said stages to their hearts content. Nobody did ... except for one dude that came out to have a smoke then went back in. What the hell? You have a freaking music festival happening outside your balcony and you don't hang and check it out? Ya don't have a party during the festival and jump down, listen to some music, jump back up and keep partying? Sorry Iron Bird Loft people but you're fucking lame.
>Nobody shows up to the bands playing early. Not sure if that's a Fresno thing or what. You guys missed out on Sounds & Sciences, they kick core ass.
>There are a lot of local bands, good bands, with NO following. No regulars that come to see a show of their favorite Fresno band, regardless of where they're playing. Yes, there are a few that have that, but more don't than do. Kinda weird to us but whatever.
Buzz Bands
Bands or sets that we saw that we were impressed by or ones we heard folks talking a lot about were the Sunburns, Kevin Hill Blowout, Dia Del Astronauta, Distrito Torre, B-Rawcity, Westerns, Let's Go Bowling, College Kids, Lezayr, The Dirty Stomp, It'll Grow Back, Abigail Nolte, Boxcar Figero and pretty much everyone that played at Hero's - upper tier musicianship right there.
Something To Take With You
One thing to remember Fresnans for next year and when you go out to enjoy bands around town in general: Crowd the stage. Yeah, we get not doing it when it's something mellow or whatever. But mostly this is a sign of respect to the bands and a way to experience the music more intensely. Fresnans are notorious for sitting in the back of the room and nodding.
Guess Fresnans need to get educated. Maybe we'll learn that before FUSE 2012.
Here's a video we put together of FUSE 2011:
| | | |
| |
Every week Bandgeek is about promoting what's happening in Fresno's music scene over the weekend. This weekend we're letting FUSE Fest take over, because it's the bestest, because we're involved with helping it happen and because there's no time to post anything else.
Much respect to Audie's Olympic, The Bel-Tower, the CYC, Starline, Babylon, Kuppajoe's, Full Circle Brew, Club Retro and many others, who week after week, support the scene. But this weekend is all about Downtown Fresno for us.
UPDATE: For online ticket buyers, Will Call is at Fulton 55 for FRIDAY AND SATURDAY!
TONIGHT! It's the South end of Downtown with: (names in red are new editions or have changed venue)
Friday September 30th
JOE’S STEAKHOUSE (All Ages)
6:30 Werebear
7:30 Dale Stewart Band
8:30 Marlson Bruegen
9:30 Brian Kenny Fresno
10:30 The Dirty Stomp
DOWNTOWN CLUB (21+)
6:30 Sounds & Sciences
7:30 Achievement House
8:30 Lezayr
9:30 B. Rawcity
10:30 Koncrete Rose
11:00 Meatball Magic@FUSE (dance party!)
HERO’S SPORTS LOUNGE (21+)
7:00 Karen Marguth
8:00 Boxcar Figero
9:00 Lance Canales & The Flood
10:00 The Neptunes
11:00 Motel Drive
12:00 Bully the Kid
CLUB ONE (21+)
7:00 Brother Luke & The Comrades
7:30 College Kids
8:00 Westerns
9:00 Rademacher
10:00 Fay Wrays
11:00 Quiet Americans
Saturday enjoy the Mural/Cultural Arts District with:
Saturday, October 1
AFRICAN-AMERICAN HISTORY MUSEUM - outside in back (All Ages)
5:00 The Milford Higgins
6:00 Kevin Hill Blowout
7:00 Your Hero Is A Villain
8:00 Azazel
9:00 Bruno dA uNo
IRON BIRD LOFTS - outside of old Iron Bird Cafe (All Ages)
5:30 Distrito Torre
6:30 Fast Car
7:30 It’ll Grow Back
8:30 Niilo Smeds
9:30 Werebear
FULTON 55
7:00 Irie Sun
8:00 tba
9:00 Let’s Go Bowling
10:00 Poplord
11:00 Buffalo Guns
FULTON 55 – COFFEEHOUSE STAGE - upstairs (21+)
6:30 Abigail Nolte
7:30 Heather & Joe
8:30 That Guy Kevin
9:30 Suicide Lounge
10:30 Restaurnaut
TOKYO GARDEN (21+)
10:00 Josh & Jaime
11:00 Blake Jones & The Trike Shop
12:00 Sunburns
1:00 The Backstabbers
New map is a great help to figure out where the hell is everything.
MORE INFO!
There is a super awesome FREE IBikeFresno bike valet happening both nights. Ride your bike down to the festival and these nice dudes will take care of it for you all night. Check the bike icons on the map for each night's location.
Also also IMPORTANT: The place to buy and pickup tickets ($20) on Friday is at Club One! You can start picking up tickets at 5:30, doors open on the early venues at 6.
Buying your ticket on Saturday (if you didn't get the 2-day pass on Friday) means going to Fulton 55 when you get there and the first band is playing at 5:00!
Twitter hashtag for the event is #fusefresno. There is a Foursquare thingy up too to check in with.
All venues on Friday have fine dinner options (and BOOZE) so make sure to plan your dinner at FUSE on Friday. Saturday there will be a good taco truck around plus Tokyo Garden will serve dinner till about 9:30 or so and there will be booze at Tokyo and Fulton 55.
Parking is free Downtown at night and on weekends (since the Grizzlies season is over) so find a spot and you're done. Friday the Spiral Garage will be a good option. Saturday just find a random spot in the Culture Arts/Mural District and that's it. Easy.
There will be band merch and festival merch so bring some cash.
Get there early. Stay late. Bounce around. Sample sample sample. See what Fresno's music scene is all about. See ya out there!
| | | |
| |
Don't go to Club Karma Friday night. Don't. There will only be silly people there. Nobody that knows what's happening at FUSE Fest Friday and Saturday night anyway. Due to circumstances out of FUSE Fest's control, Club Karma double booked themselves on Friday and chose not to have FUSE held there - not so great for your Karma there guys.
So FUSE got awesome and moved that stage to the Downtown Club (just a lead-cord away down Kern) with a few kickass and understanding bands spreading themselves out to exsisting stages as well.
Check out the acts in red as they are the ones that have been moved and re-think your route.
Friday September 30th
JOE’S STEAKHOUSE (All Ages)
6:30 Werebear
7:30 Dale Stewart Band
8:30 Marlson Bruegen
9:30 Brian Kenny Fresno
10:30 The Dirty Stomp
DOWNTOWN CLUB (21+)
6:30 Sounds & Sciences
7:30 Achievement House
8:30 Lezayr
9:30 B. Rawcity
10:30 Koncrete Rose
11 Meatball Magic@FUSE (dance party!)
HERO’S SPORTS LOUNGE (21+)
7:00 Karen Marguth
8:00 Boxcar Figero
9:00 Lance Canales & The Flood
10:00 The Neptunes
11:00 Motel Drive
12:00 Bully the Kid
CLUB ONE (21+)
7:00 Brother Luke & The Comrades
7:30 College Kids
8:00 Westerns
9:00 Rademacher
10:00 Fay Wrays
11:00 Quiet Americans
Saturday, October 1
AFRICAN-AMERICAN HISTORY MUSEUM - outside in back (All Ages)
5:00 The Milford Higgins
6:00 Kevin Hill Blowout
7:00 Your Hero Is A Villain
8:00 Azazel
9:00 Bruno dA uNo
IRON BIRD LOFTS - outside of old Iron Bird Cafe (All Ages)
5:30 Distrito Torre
6:30 Fast Car
7:30 It’ll Grow Back
8:30 Niilo Smeds
9:30 tba
FULTON 55
7:00 Irie Sun
8:00 Aire Espacial
9:00 Let’s Go Bowling
10:00 Poplord
11:00 Buffalo Guns
FULTON 55 – COFFEEHOUSE STAGE - upstairs (21+)
7:30 Heather & Joe
8:30 That Guy Kevin
9:30 Suicide Lounge
10:30 Restaurnaut
TOKYO GARDEN (21+)
10:00 Josh & Jaime
11:00 Blake Jones & The Trike Shop
12:00 Sunburns
1:00 The Backstabbers
New map is a great help to figure out where the hell is everything.
You also may have noticed the Fulton 55 "Coffeehouse Stage" (there won't be coffee unless you drink beer like coffee) lineup is in. Head upstairs at Fulton 55 at those times to see some different kinda stuff... and stuff.
Also new is the IBikeFresno bike valet happening both nights. Ride your bike down to the festival and these nice dudes will take care of it for you all night. Check bike icons on the map for each night's location.
Also also IMPORTANT: The place to buy and pickup tickets on Friday is at Club One. So make sure to hit there first.
Buying your ticket on Saturday (if you didn't get the 2-day pass on Friday) means going to Fulton 55 when you get there.
Twitter hashtag for the event is #fusefresno.
So excited. Gonna be a epic weekend for Fresno's music scene.
| | | |
| |
Welcome to FUSE Fest week! The biggest local music festival in town begins Friday night and ends early Sunday morning. Time to start planning your festival route and this may be of some use to ya:
Friday, September 30
JOE’S STEAKHOUSE
6:30 Werebear
7:30 Dale Stewart Band
8:30 Marlson Bruegen
9:30 Brian Kenny Fresno
10:30 The Dirty Stomp
CLUB KARMA (STAGE 1)
6:30 Bully The Kid
7:30 Achievement House
8:30 Lezayr
9:30 It’ll Grow Back
10:30 – 2:00AM: Meatball Magic @ FUSE
CLUB KARMA (STAGE 2)
7:00 College Kids
8:00 Sounds & Sciences
9:00 B-Rawcity
10:00 Koncrete Rose
HERO’S SPORTS LOUNGE
7:00 Karen Marguth
8:00 Boxcar Figaro
9:00 Lance Canales & The Flood
10:00 The Neptunes
11:00 Motel Drive
CLUB ONE
7:00 Brother Luke & The Comrades
8:00 Westerns
9:00 Rademacher
10:00 Fay Wrays
11:00 Quiet Americans
Saturday, October 1
AFRICAN-AMERICAN HISTORY MUSEUM
5:00 The Milford Higgins
6:00 Kevin Hill Blowout
7:00 Your Hero Is A Villain
8:00 Azazel
9:00 Bruno dA uNo
IRON BIRD LOFTS
5:30 Distrito Torre
6:30 Fast Car
7:30 Nate Pearce Band
8:30 Niilo Smeds
9:30 Touchdown Jesus
FULTON 55
7:00 Irie Sun
8:00 Aire Especial
9:00 Let’s Go Bowling
10:00 Poplord
11:00 Buffalo Guns
FULTON 55 – COFFEEHOUSE STAGE
7:30 Heather & Joe
8:30 That Guy Kevin
9:30 Suicide Lounge
10:30 Restauraut
TOKYO GARDEN
10:00 Josh & Jaime
11:00 Blake Jones & The Trike Shop
12:00 Sunburns
1:00 The Backstabbers
The lineup can be a volatile thing so check the site for changes. Look at the map if you're not sure where these places are. Sign in on the event page and annoy invite your friends. Festival goers get a handout when they check in that shows everything above. Tickets $20 for a two-day pass. $15 for one-day ($15 2-day for Creative Fresno members when you buy them at Fulton 55).
Feel free to share your route in the comments!
| | | |
| |
Seems appropriate to use audio to get you primed for FUSE Fest 2011. This is why we teamed up with Joshua Tehee from Fresno Famous (and festival organizer) to bring Fresnans a special episode of Flowing With Famous called "Flowing With FUSE".
You'll hear some festival history (like how it got started), info on this year's lineup and venues and why it's held in Downtown Fresno. But most importantly you'll hear clips of some of the musicians from this year's fest - many times as the bands are mentioned during the podcast. Just as a little warning, there is a bad word here and there, so be wary and junk.
Click and listen!:
Hosted by: Joshua Tehee and Mike Seay.
Stellar editing by: Reid May.
Other festival stuff
More podcasting in relation to this year's festival is coming all month long from the Dirty Dowdy Podcast. The first one has Eli Reyes (drummer from several FUSE bands - Rademacher, Fay Wrays...) and Fresno's Town Goob.
2011 lineup news! There was a scheduling conflict with Sahab so he won't be able to play. Sucks, yeah. But it's cool because more bands have been added (if you didn't notice). Those being:
>The Neptunes
>The Milford Higgins
>Distrito Torre
Also, the Facebook event page for FUSE 2011 is up and ready for you to invite yo music loving friends. Share, why dontcha:
| | | |
| |
It starts today. One of the oldest and largest gay and lesbian film festivals in the country. Reel Pride, the 22nd annual one, to be exact.
Check the lineup, get to planning. The Bee's Rick Bentley has a good primer for you. Tonight's film kicking it off is "Dirty Girl":
| | | |
| |
It's already time again to make a swede. Organizers are currently taking your sweded films (in under 4 minutes) for Swede Fest 8. And you better hurry because this Swede Fest thing has gotten so popular the festival can only take the first 20 swedes entered.
Side note: Very kickass how popular this first-of-its-kind-local festival has become.
Read up on all the details and get filming. And then be at Full Circle Brewery November 5th.
| | | |
| |
It's official. The Fresno Urban Sound Experience is only weeks away. You can already buy tickets. Oh and it's fully funded now, thanks for asking *jaw drop*. All that's left is to tell you who the hell is playing this annual ultimate display of Fresno musicianship.
Lineup ... NOW!:
| | | |
| |
Last year Reid May's band, Trumpet Solo, played F.U.S.E. Fest and they had a good time. But you won't see a return to the lineup for Trumpet Solo because Reid moved out of state. So not metal.
Maybe it's a little bit of homesickness or he just plain likes giving back to Fresno's music community, because Reid created a EP specifically to raise money for this year's Fresno Urban Sound Experience. The Downtown Fresno music local music festival is happening Friday September 30th - Saturday October 1st.
If you download his $4 EP "Back To The Garage" off of Bandcamp, all the proceeds go to F.U.S.E. Now THAT is pretty damn metal. Listen and buy:
In other money-raising-for-FUSE-fest news, the Kickstarter Campaign is up and going. There are many days left but no reason to wait for the last minute to be a backer. You being a backer is how F.U.S.E. stays an authentic/indie/DIY style local music festival. We want to keep highlighting Downtown Fresno venues and local music talent, without having to get the corporate sponsor - Personally, we've been to enough shows with a Coors/Bud Light stage.
More F.U.S.E. news, the lineup announcement is coming soon. It'll be over 30 acts this year. No pre-party night because it's a full two day event. Should be fun to figure out which night has the best lineup and which night has the best venues. We say both.
| | | |
| |
Recent Comments