Lance Troxel
Seattle singer-songwriter Damien Jurado has been crafting smart, emotional, Nick Drake-style experimental folk for more than a decade.
Growing up in East Memphis, Brandon Herrington always felt disconnected from the local music scene and not just physically.
Though This Is Goodbye, the band he has played guitar with since 2004, was briefly part of the Smith 7 scene of bands that sprung up around a former Germantown skate park, the spacey rock outfit in the tradition of Radiohead and Sigur Rós has never really fit into any of the local musical niches.
Among the bands playing Fareveller Fest: Animal Sounds (clockwise from top left), Turbo Fruit, Mobley and American Gods.
"I've always been a huge indie music fan," says Herrington. "But I've always thought it's a style, and there's a level of artists that doesn't play Memphis very often."
Herrington hopes to change all that with the Fareveller Music Festival, a three-day, multivenue event that kicks off its inaugural run Thursday and continues through next weekend. Named for a song by Herrington's old band Dora and modeled on the Champagne-Urbana, Ill., Pygmalion Festival, the event is designed to fill what its organizers sees as a glaring indie music gap in the local concert schedule.
"There's more of these kinds of bands starting to come here now," says Herrington, pointing to the efforts of clubs like the Hi-Tone Café and Minglewood Hall in bringing in acts. "But those are all one-off kind of things. There's definitely no large gathering of that kind of music."
As opposed to local festivals like Memphis in May's Beale Street Music Festival and Gonerfest, which he praises for their focus on commercial rock and punk, respectively, Herrington sees Fareveller as spotlighting a type of indie band — more united in spirit than by actual musical style — that has been underrepresented here: This first year the styles run the gamut from punk to pop to folk and electronic.
"These are the bands that are playing or will soon go on to play the big national festivals," he says. "I'd like this festival to eventually become something where the bands that are playing Pygmalion and Pitchfork and Lollapalooza and Bonnaroo will begin to see Memphis as a good market to play."
Putting together a festival from scratch has been a Herculean task for the full-time marketing executive. He cobbled together some sponsorships, including from the Hi-Tone, St. Blues Guitars and Safety-Quip, but Herrington still expects to shell out a portion of the cost from his own pocket.
Likewise, with no proven track record — and wanting to keep all the concerts 18 and up — he's had to toss together a scattered list of four host locations stretching from the P&H Café near Crosstown all the way to Newby's near the University of Memphis.
But if his site map is far from ideal, Herrington is pleased with his lineup of 38 acts. The first year is heavy on local bands, but there are a handful of out-of-town acts such as Damien Jurado, Margot & the Nuclear So and So's, and Andrew Kelley Simons.
And he's managed to include some local underheard up-and-comers like Chase Pagan and Youniverse to play alongside better-known acts like the Subteens and Holly Cole.
With a total capacity over three days of about 2,000 in scattered venues, Herrington is concerned about attendance. He is counting on the deejay party Electrocity, which usually draws 400 to 500 people, to give wristband sales a boost with its Newby's slot on March 26.
He's also wary of the festival getting too big.
"I don't want this to ever become a South by Southwest," says Herrington of the huge Austin, Texas, music industry confab that is happening this week and that, ironically, is making it possible for Fareveller to attract some of its national acts by piggybacking.
"In an ideal world, I eventually see Fareveller covering Midtown, there being 10 or 15 venues — Otherlands, other places like that — and it just being a cool weekend of music. But if it never gets bigger, that'll be OK, too."
Fareveller Music Festival
Thursday (March 24) through Saturday (March 26). Wristbands: $25, available online at fareveller.com or at the door.
THURSDAY
Hi-Tone Café, 1913 Poplar
8 p.m.: Mobley — From North Carolina via Austin, Texas, the synth-heavy keyboards and epic songwriting of frontman Anthony Watkins II drive this unusual band's intense sound.
9 p.m.: Dignan — This experimental rock band hails from McAllen, Texas.
10 p.m.: Young Buffalo — An Oxford, Miss.-based trio charges their big chord indie rock with a subtle Afrobeat pulse.
11 p.m.: Margot & the Nuclear So and So's — The Indianapolis seven-piece mine their love for Wes Anderson films for their moody brand of "cinematic chamber pop."
Young Avenue Deli, 2119 Young
10 p.m.: Cities Aviv — This local rapper is a former punk singer.
11 p.m.: Total Savage — A Lord T. & Eloise cohort, this Memphis rapper brings a host of fresh influences to the local hip-hop scene.
FRIDAY
Hi-Tone
8 p.m.: Greenside Manners — Atlanta-based duo who are Big Star fans.
9 p.m.: While I Breathe, I Hope — Local punk outfit.
10 p.m.: Pezz — Closing in on a quarter of a century, this socially committed punk outfit is a Memphis institution.
11 p.m.: The Subteens — Memphis' long-running and still-popular pop-punk band.
Midnight: Mouserocket — The acclaimed art-rock collaboration between Robby Grant (Vending Machine, Big Ass Truck) and Alicja Trout (River City Tanlines).
Young Avenue Deli
9 p.m.: Andrew Bryant — The Bruce, Miss., native kicks off a night of independent-minded folk singers.
10 p.m.: The Wealthy West — Brandon Kinder, lead singer of Austin, Texas, ambient rock band The Rocketboys, goes folkie in this solo side project.
11 p.m.: Damien Jurado — Easily the biggest name among the out-of-towners, this Seattle singer-songwriter has been crafting smart, emotional, Nick Drake-style experimental folk for more than a decade.
Midnight: Chase Pagan — A local one-time metal singer with a country soul and Ray LaMontagne vibe.
Newby's, 539 S. Highland
8 p.m.: American Gods — A self-admitted shoe-gazing alternative rock band from Memphis.
9 p.m.: Youniverse — Hard-driving local experimental post-punk trio.
10 p.m.: The Oldest Profession — This show is being billed as the last for this bluesy, lo-fi Memphis trio.
11 p.m.: Nicos Gun — An '80s-tinged funk rock foursome from Philadelphia.
Midnight: Morning Teleportation — A psychedelic electronic rock foursome from Bowling Green, Ky.
SATURDAY
Young Avenue Deli
9 p.m.: Myla Smith — Local country/pop singer-songwriter.
10 p.m.: The Sheriffs of Nottingham — Bluesy, Black Keys-style garage rock from Memphis.
11 p.m.: Rainy Day Manual — A Memphis art-rock quartet.
Midnight: Jamie Randolph & the Darkhorse — The former member of the mainstream rock act Retrospect has developed into a formidable indie-rock singer-songwriter.
1 a.m.: Star & Micey — An endlessly inventive, rootsy outfit.
P&H Cafe, 1532 Madison
7 p.m.: Animal Sounds -- A folkie pop quartet.
8 p.m.: Holly Cole & the Memphis Dawls — Big-voiced Cole appears with the Memphis Dawls, the all-female chamber folk group.
9 p.m.: Andrew Kelley Simons — Soulful country-rock from Nashville.
10 p.m.: Jeremy Stanfill — Doing double duty tonight is the Streetside Symphony singer Stanfill, who also plays for Star & Micey.
11 p.m.: The Near Reaches — A new songwriting collaboration between local impresario J.D. Reager and keyboardist Jason Pulley, with Eric Wilson on bass and Brad Pounders on drums.
Hi-Tone
7 p.m.: The Rainy Saturdays — Psychedelic post-punk music from Memphis.
8 p.m.: Modern Convenience — Old-fashioned, science fiction-influenced punk trio.
9 p.m.: Death On Two Wheels — A five-piece that follows in the old-time rock-and-roll shoes of their fellow Atlantans, The Black Crowes.
10 p.m.: Surf City — This New Zealand quartet was originally called Kill Surf City, a nod to '80s noise-rock outfit The Jesus and Mary Chain.
11 p.m.: Bare Wires — Oakland, Calif., three-piece that straddles a weird, wonderful and raw place between late British Invasion, glam and punk.
Midnight: Pujol — Daniel Pujol's tuneful punk-rock act .
1 a.m.: Turbo Fruits — Nashville quartet with a blues-inspired punk sound.
Newby's
10 p.m.: Electrocity
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