Doug Aitken didn't want a traditional documentary about his music and art-filled train project, so he instead made 62 one-minute films; FYF founder Sean Carlson talks about the music festival's growing pains; for bands like Lower Dens and The Drums, FYF is another stop on a never-ending road trip.
The challenges of putting on the FYF Fest: 'We have bands confirm and cancel constantly'
It’s hard to believe that FYF was once just a tiny punk rock festival among a few clubs in L.A.’s Echo Park neighborhood. Back in 2004, it was just a one-off idea from the mind of a then-18-year-old kid named Sean Carlson.
I had been asked to leave my Dad's house, after taking his car across the country twice without telling him. And the second time he was just like, You're gone, go away. I was living on a couch in Hollywood with six people in an apartment and going to shows every night because there was no space in the house to be home.
The problem was that most live music clubs in the area also had a 21-and-over age restriction. Carlson had his not-so-legal way of getting in — hint: A fake ID — but his friends didn’t, and he thought there had to be a better way.
It'd be great if there was an all-ages show that was like an art walk that you can walk in and out of all these different rooms. That was the concept of the first one.
The fest’s first year brought out around 2,500 people to see 30 bands at a handful of venues, including The Echo and the now-defunct Sea Level Records. Punk bands like Wires on Fire, The Mae Shi and Toys That Kill performed.
It was a disaster in the sense there was no organization, but people had a lot of fun...There was an energy.
Carlson quickly realized he had struck a chord with this idea. But he never expected it to continue for as long as it has: 12 years.
I didn't intend to do a second year, and then there was a demand for it. Then it turned into the third one. The fourth one was like, Whoa! This is something. There are bands flying in from all over the country. There's really a vibe right now.
Despite the fest’s meteoric growth, one constant remains: Carlson only books bands he likes. He likes to think of FYF as his personal mixtape for music fans, even if he gets a slew of angry emails.
After we announced the lineup I received a lot of hate mail. One in particular [asked], "Where's Alabama Shakes? Where's My Morning Jacket." Those are great bands, but I don't really listen to those bands. I couldn't tell you one Alabama Shakes song, I respect My Morning Jacket, but I just don't listen to them. I listen to Frank Ocean, I listen to D'Angelo, I listen to [FKA] Twigs, I listen to Morrissey. I listen to Jesus & Mary Chain way too much. It’s a mixtape that I made, and I can’t always please everyone.
The fest has moved around over the years. Its previous home was the Los Angeles State Historic Park in Chinatown. In 2011, concert promotion giant Goldenvoice joined on as a partner to help with logistics and marketing. That’s the organization behind the wildly successful Coachella Valley Music festival.
That partnership helped bring more structure and better planning to FYF, and also brought higher profile acts, like Morrissey, who has a huge fan base here.
Now in its 12th year, FYF has found a new home in Exposition Park adjacent to the Natural History Museum. It spans five separate stages, including the L.A. Sports Arena, and is expected to attract 40,000 music fans on each of its two days.
But the fest has not been without its growing pains.
Festival goers complained about long lines to get into the venue. And the distance between the main stage to the other stages could be a 30-minute walk because of the crowds.
We were learning, and last year there were some things that do not work at a festival. Now there's two pathways and you can cut on the other side. I was just down there walking [and] it's about six minutes. I know some people complained [that] it's far. [But] go to a European festival, go to Glastonbury and walk between the stages. This is six minutes in a scenic setting and not in mud, it's not that bad. The good thing with it being spread out [is] we can push the [volume].
But as the fest matures, so does the cost to maintain it. Ticket costs have risen steadily over the years, and this year is no exception.
The tickets are $175 now, it used to be $25. It also used to be not the most comfortable because it was $25. You can have it cheap, but you're going to be standing in the dirt with no shade. And because it’s very expensive to bring in stage, power, lighting — you can make it a little more expensive and its more comfortable. It's finding that balance.
So what’s the biggest misconception people have about what it takes to put on a music festival?
My favorite line, Where's Tame Impala? Why aren't they playing, man? People just think I go through a record collection and I just push a button and it books the band. They don't know the logistics, they don't know the negotiations, they don't know the ins-and-outs. We have bands confirm and cancel constantly.
Indeed, just two days before this year's event, FYF announced that headliner Frank Ocean was being replaced by Kanye West. Still, Carlson says the headaches are worth putting up with.
It's not easy, and I love that it's not easy. It's not just me making a phone call and I'm done booking in 24 hours. It's about 14 months worth of work and it's grueling and I'm banging my head against a wall. And I drive some close friends completely crazy because that's all I think about, but I also want to make this the best thing I possibly can.
Oh, and if you’re wondering what the heck FYF stands for, let’s just say it’s not safe for radio, but you can say that it embodies Carlson’s attitude.
I don’t have a mission statement, I didn’t have a business plan. I just want to put on a good show for my friends.
The harsh realities of life on the road for The Drums and Lower Dens
The Drums and Lower Dens have a lot in common, at least career-wise. Both indie bands came on the scene around the same time and both are from the East Coast.
The Drums hail from New York.
The Drums - There is Nothing Left
Lower Dens from Baltimore.
From the start, becoming one of those “it” bands via the Internet got a little bit crazy, according to The Drums frontman Jonathan Pierce:
Without exaggeration, we'd be waking up every day before the sun and flying somewhere, landing, immediately being thrown into a car and it's hours and hours of interviews and photo shoots. Then you go to the venue and you sound check quick, and then you do the show and then afterwards there's three interviews. You don't even go to a hotel. You go back to the airport and you try to get rest on the plane.
Pierce played more than a couple hundred shows with his bandmate Jacob Graham after they released their first album. The same goes for Lower Dens, but lead singer Jana Hunter says the band’s quick rise to fame was anything but glamorous: "When were first touring, we would bring cooking supplies with us. We would cook in a hot pot and when we got sick, we just stayed sick. I mean, it was really difficult and you just have that little kernel of, I know this is what I wanna do with my life to hold onto."
The Drums had its share of ups-and-downs. Pierce says that tour life was so intense that they lost two band members. "It was just so wild," Pierce says "And had Jacob and I not known each other pretty much our whole lives, I don't think we would've probably lasted either."
Both bands realize that relationships with friends, loved ones and even fellow band members can suffer from touring — and then there’s the relationship with yourself. "I don't drink. I don't use drugs," Hunter says. "I try to exercise and I read a lot. I find that reading is really important for me to keep myself feeling human."
But at the same time, Hunter says that touring let's them strike up a unique sort of relationship with their fans. During a recent show in Portland, Hunter told the crowd that “meowing” became somewhat of a joke on tour. And then later in the show...
They all started meowing, and I kind of know why they did, but it was pretty unreal that they all did and that it spread through the crowd like a weird wind.
You would think playing shows for adoring fans and selling out venues would be at least be enough to get by, but that’s hardly the case. "A lot of people lose money," Hunter says. "A lot of people use their day jobs to pay for [their music careers] until you get really well known."
Jonathan Pierce says finances are always on their mind, even onstage. "We just played in front of 20,000 people in Portugal two weeks ago," Pierce, says. "We're onstage and I'm nervous about paying rent. It's just a crazy thing."
So why do these bands keep doing what they’re doing? Why not call it quits? "What else are we gonna do?" Pierce says. "You take the good and the bad and you just try to maximize on the good."
One thing Jana Hunter realized is that while you have to tour to feed yourself, it does come with some perks: "The main impact that it has had [is] it made me a much, much better musician than I was before I started touring that much."
Listen to more of The Drums talk about tour life:
The Drums:
Listen to more of Lower Dens talk about tour life:
Lower Dens:
The Drums and Lower Dens are scheduled to play FYF Fest this weekend.
Doug Aitken translates his public art extravaganza 'Station to Station' into 62 short films
In 2013, multimedia artist Doug Aitken undertook a massive public art project called “Station to Station." He procured a train and outfitted it with LED lights that would respond to the environment as it traveled 4,000 miles across the U.S.
Along the way, Aitken staged 10 “happenings” in small towns and big cities. Artists of all types, including musicians Thurston Moore, Patti Smith and Beck, and artists such as Ed Ruscha traveled on the train or met up with Aitken to take part at the "happenings."
Aitken and his crew filmed everything, including in-depth conversations with the artists and musicians on the nature of creativity, but he didn't have a clear idea of what to do with the footage.
After considering a more traditional documentary, he settled on something that's more of a collage portrait than a narrative film. The result is the new non-fiction movie, “Station to Station,” comprised of 62 one-minute films.
from
on Vimeo.
Doug Aitken spoke with The Frame’s Oscar Garza.
Interview Highlights
I’m curious about the moment it occurred to you that you wanted to do this and you decided to do it on a train. Why a train?
I had never really thought of the project at the beginning of using a train... I wanted to make something that was collaborative, that was nomadic, and that kind of challenged the idea of place. I think what happens for all of us is that the place that we live in — the place that we occupy — becomes comfortable. And whatever we make there, whatever we create there, we sort of fall into certain systems. And I was interested in this idea of opening that up and disrupting it, and putting someone into a new space that they’ve never been [in] before. You know, that feeling you get when your eyes are opened and everything around you is electric.
Your film is not a linear documentary of the cross-country trip. Instead it’s 62 one-minute films that capture moments along the way — and those are not presented chronologically either. Was that your plan from the outset?
We initially started making a film that was somewhat like a documentary. and after a couple months I thought it was a completely stale format. It was kind of dishonest to the project and this idea of one story with one narration just felt completely corrupt. When you think of film you think of time. I thought, Why don’t we make a film based on time and why don’t we make every minute a separate film? So, it becomes almost like this acceleration from place to place, person to person. So we ended up doing it. It took us about 14 months of editing and I saw it in a lot of ways as [creating] a film that was about a modern landscape, and this modern landscape is like a kaleidoscope almost of different voices and encounters — music and things being made. That sense of landscape is this narrative thread that brings it all together.
Just in case I want to do this, how do I go about getting a train?
We actually found this kind of train prodigy. It was this amazing guy who was in his mid-20s who was [from] maybe a three- or four-generation train family. He was absolutely obsessed and put together certain train cars. He knows owners of different cars throughout the states.
What happened along this journey that you didn’t expect? What were the moments of surprise or panic or illumination?
Well, I’m really a believer in being in situations that feel new and awkward and different. And I love that feeling of being in motion — that sense you find when you’re traveling. For myself, the project was fascinating in the sense that, if you live in Los Angeles, you often see America as New York and Los Angeles, and then there’s some sort of vague space in between. In this project, really spending a huge amount of time in other areas and really looking at what’s going on there, to me, it was really eye-opening.