[atlantaprog] Re: RogueFest 2004

BK:

Progression Magazine commissioned ME to write a review of RogueFest 2004. I wrote it, and they never published it, with no explanation.
I may never write for them again.

My review is posted below.

Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2005 07:02:26 -0700 (PDT)
From: BK Broyla <bkbroyla@xxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [atlantaprog] Re: rogue fest

Does anyone know if Progression Magazine (or other publications) ever did a review of the RogueFest '04? 

Wheat Williams
wheat@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
770-448-9734

RogueFest 2004 http://www.roguemusicfest.com/
A Parcel of Rogues in a Nation
by Wheat Williams <wheat@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Copyright 2004 by Wheat Williams. All rights reserved.

The third annual Rogue Independent Music Festival was held at the New American Shakespeare
Tavern in Atlanta, Georgia on Saturday and Sunday, July 17 and 18, 2004. This weekend
of acts from Atlanta and nearby is distinguished by the fact that it is a gathering
of bands more than a fan festival, and that by necessity. Matthew Trautwein of the
bands Karma Lingo and The Lost Boys, and also an actor in the New American Shakespeare
Tavern's repertory company, got together with Wade Summerlin of Cobweb Strange to
mount the first RogueFest two years ago. They were determined that if no regional
festival wanted to book them, they would put on their own festival, at their own
expense. And how it's grown since then.

Right after the first RogueFest, Allen Welty-Green of Z-Axis, a band known for elaborate
multimedia productions with dance troupes, came on board and started an Atlanta
email listserve called ARIA (Art Rock In Atlanta) to bring local bands together,
form their own scene, and start booking shows in local clubs. If you want to learn
about the Atlanta scene, you can join ARIA at http:// www.gnosisarts.org/aria/ .

Their DIY determination has paid off, though the Atlanta scene continues to struggle.
RogueFest is held in the New American Shakespeare Tavern, a well- known and wonderful
facility just a couple of blocks away from the historic Fox Theater, in the most
popular part of town for entertainment. Yet the Atlanta press has overlooked RogueFest.
Heck, the ProgPower metal festival, which brings in bands and fans from all over
the world and sells out the 1,000-seat Earthlink Live arena each fall, has also
been completely ignored by all the local newspapers and radio. So what hope do a
bunch of local bands (who couldn't get booked in any club in town a few years back)
have?

Like many festivals in progdom, RogueFest gets submissions from dozens of bands
all around the world who want to come and play. While that's flattering to the festival
organizers, it's never happened, because the bands thus far have had to pay their
own way, with no profit realized. RogueFest has had to concentrate on helping build
a grass-roots local platform, brick-by-brick.

To RogueFest's credit, none of this struggle was apparent to the 100 paying audience
members that weekend. The venue was great, and the festival organizers hired a stellar
sound system to complement the Tavern's professional lighting. All the bands' performances
went off without a hitch. Good food and drink were abundant in the Tavern's kitchen.
Greg Stafford of The Prog Palace Internet radio station set up a live streaming
simulcast of the whole weekend from the soundboard feed. And several bands pooled
their funds and hired a professional video company to tape their performances. Look
for future DVD releases at the RogueFest web site.

The Saturday show started at 3:00 pm with Wheatstone Bridge, a self- described "technical
metal" power trio from Hendersonville, North Carolina known for their heavy
practice regimen as well as their extremely tight execution.

Next up was Hazard Factor, a quintet from Tampa, Florida. This organic-yet-electronic
and orchestral-sounding band, centered around the flute and vocals of Misha Penton
and the guitar synth of David Eichenberger, provided a total contrast to the opening
act and seemed to set the pace for the rest of the evening.

Farpoint, from some unnamed location in South Carolina, is an evolving lineup of
players with some emotionally-moving, compelling original music and an acoustic
style infused with Southern charm that we will affectionately label "equal
parts Genesis and the Marshall-Tucker Band."

As the sun set outside, Atlanta's Lord Only took the stage with their unbelievable
collection of high-end hand-built instruments, enviable assembly of cutting-edge
electronics, and a huge drum set that even Neil Peart would find, well, adequate.
The quartet consists of two guitarists, a bassist with an arsenal of seven- and
eight-string axes, and a drummer, most of whom sing and all of whom have their instruments
interfaced to racks of synthesizers. Their daring and intricate arrangements, possibly
the complexity of each musician's signal chain, and certainly their decision to
lean heavily on new pieces not played out before, overwhelmed their performance,
which came out frustrating and unfocused.

Next-to-last for the night was Man On Fire, an exciting and forward- thinking act
whose sound is definitely not built on the 1970s foundation that seems to inspire
most all of the bands in the Atlanta scene. Vocalist, keyboardist, electronic percussionist
and producer Jeff Hodges augmented the band's arrangements with a Powerbook running
Ableton Live to trigger loops and samples, giving a cutting-edge techno feel to
what is most certainly a real live band. Eric Sands provided swooping and soaring
fretless bass lines; he's also the Vai-inspired shred guitarist on their recordings.
Then they threw everybody off by performing a credible cover of U.K.'s "Alaska/Time
To Kill" just to prove that, hey, prog festival audiences still love that '70s
stuff.

Closing out Saturday night was the much-anticipated reunion of Atlanta's Timothy
Pure. They are an enigmatic dark goth prog ensemble that appeared at the first Prog
Day nine years ago but that has not performed in the United States in seven years,
despite a couple of summer tours of Europe since then, and worldwide acclaim for
their recordings. Timothy Pure is led by vocalist and keyboardist Matt Still, one
of the most in-demand recording engineers in the country. Still has worked on most
every Elton John production in the last ten years, and shared a Grammy for his engineering
and keyboard playing on OutKast's Speakerboxxx/The Love Below, 2004's RIAA Album
of the Year. No wonder there has been little time for Timothy Pure's own music.

On stage, the quartet revisited dark and harrowing nightmare ballads from their
first three albums, played in an almost quiet style that owes more to Pink Floyd
than to metal. Matt Still provided more of a techno edge from another PowerBook
running ProTools, injecting samples and snippets of processed dialog. While their
performance was goose-bump-inducing, they failed to bring in any additional audience
members or ticket sales.

Timothy Pure re-united at the invitation of RogueFest, bringing their drummer over
from his home in Scotland, and taking the occasion to begin recording their first
new album of the decade, which we will hopefully see some time early next year.
Here's hoping that this exceptional act can find the time and the self-will to resurrect
themselves.

Sunday started off with a marathon performance by the Atlanta bands Electric Poem,
McFly, and Cobweb Strange. I say "marathon" because all three of these
acts are the same band, with the same members, led by bassist, singer and RogueFest
mogul Wade Summerlin. Electric Poem adds frontman Thomas Luke and a classic rock
sound. McFly is a touring bar band that plays '80s covers on 200 shows per year,
and also provides a full-time living for the members while financing their Cobweb
Strange habit. And the Cobwebs are, well, a strange and habit-forming band with
a sparse psychedelic sound that's hard to describe. Suffice it to say that, due
to their touring experience, this is one of only two acts at RogueFest this year
that were real professional stage performers that could engage the audience. They
were the only act so far that looked like they were having a fun time up there.

The Z-Axis quartet blew in with a truly psychedelic instrumental set, an impressionistic
slide show, and a dancer in costume. Always abstract in the conceptual sense, and
obscure in execution, this band with its Guitar Craft-disciple soloist is best understood
in the multimedia context-which is why we can look forward to the DVD release of
their performance.

Bell Jar is a newly-arrived goth quartet with a young female lead singer and an
acoustic guitarist. While this writer avoids the traditional prog hack tendency
to describe new bands by comparing them to a half-dozen famous acts from thirty
years ago, I couldn't help saying to myself, "This band sounds like early Souxsie
and the Banshees with Marilyn Manson lyrics." This doesn't do them justice
though, as they were the most modern-sounding and mainstream-music- friendly act
at RogueFest, by far. They have the potential to reach a commercial audience, and
they score points for their outstanding drummer and bass player.

How can I describe Karma Lingo? This Atlanta six-piece is the group with "way
too much talent for one band." It started out of multi- instrumentalist, singer,
composer and actor Matthew Trautwein's work with the New American Shakespeare Tavern.
He recruited Karma Lingo from among the thespians, and they staged a successful
original rock opera called Myth which, sadly, has never been made available as a
recording. Trautwein and other Karma Lingo members were also strolling musicians
and actors at the Georgia Renaissance Festival, and from a subset of Karma Lingo,
they launched The Lost Boys, a highly kinetic comedy musical act that injects rock
and roll into Shakespeare and Elizabethan England. The Lost Boys became the tail
that wagged the dog, selling around three thousand copies of their CDs locally and
without any distribution, and performing at Braves baseball games and the City of
Atlanta Fourth of July celebration. But Karma Lingo has soldiered on, working material
from their album Seven, which contains some great songwriting, arranging and performing
but which comes up short in its recording quality.

Karma Lingo are the other band at RogueFest that knew how to entertain an audience,
with a wide variety of rock styles, one or two epic prog outings, inimitable male
and female six-part vocals, and a truly enviable camaraderie. Plus their now-obligatory
performance of "Bohemian Rhapsody."

Unbounded Sky was both the dark horse and the festival closer. This unknown trio
of Atlanta high-school students won this position due to their prodigious chops,
considerable knowledge of and love for the '70s British prog canon and, well, because
just about all of the audience were old enough to be their parents and were darn
proud to see a new generation coming along. The trio of keyboards, drums and guitar
sorely lacked a bass player, and were working with a pick-up vocalist who bravely
tried to negotiate their intricate long-form compositions, mostly based on texts
from Tolkien.

To cap off the evening, Unbounded Sky brought out Allen Welty-Green from Z-Axis,
three singers from Karma Lingo, and hastily-recruited audience member Jeff Blanks
on a borrowed bass. They proceeded to run through "Wondrous Stories,"
"Let It Be" and a long Beatles suite. And the event came to an exhausted
end.

The aftermath of RogueFest leaves the Atlanta scene in a strange alignment of the
local constellations. It seems it just barely came off. Before it started, two scheduled
bands had to pull out due to personnel changes and injuries in a car crash. Right
after it ended, Lord Only broke up. Karma Lingo (and The Lost Boys) announced the
departure of a key member, and the future of both acts is very much in doubt. Cobweb
Strange was sent reeling when a member developed an acute chronic illness. (He is
now convalescing). Other Atlanta prog bands on the ARIA listserve who were not on
the festival bill are trying to piece together a monthly club performance schedule
and keep this resilient and independent scene moving forward. Finally, the organizers
of RogueFest III have let it be known that if there is going to be a RogueFest IV,
it's going to require a promoter and financing outside of the members of the local
bands. So let the call go out; the Atlanta scene needs your help.

Investigate all the RogueFest bands and their recordings at http:// www.roguemusicfest.com/ <<END>>
Copyright 2004 by Wheat Williams. All rights reserved.

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