Well. All right, then. Here we go.
For the last several months, we’ve been working tirelessly, mercifully, on an idea. That idea? To completely and shamelessly rip off South By Southwest and try to turn Frederick, Maryland, into a tiny version of Austin, Texas, if only for one day, sans the abundance of food trucks (yet with the addition of something called a “Pickle Back”).
The plan, as it went, was to hop around to all the fabulous music venues downtown (and even some places that aren’t usually tied to musical events) and beg, borrow and barter with all of everybody in order to see if they might be on board with such silliness. If anyone could spare an hour, or two, or three or four on a Saturday afternoon, we would be eternally grateful and all of the good local music karma would be placed on any possible venue who might be willing to help us out.
Naturally, though, a whole good lot of them told us to go get bent.
Still, we pushed forward. And now, we can finally officially announce details and plans for what we are calling The Thing (yes, we apologize in advance for the moronic name). It even has its own website, which you can visit every now and then to find out more news about The Thing as it becomes available and/or confirmed. As we stand right now, exactly one month and one day removed from it, here’s what we can tell you for sure:
The date is going to be Saturday, June 11. Music will be filling the rooms of the following fine establishments who were kind enough to allow us to put some music in said fine establishments throughout that afternoon:
- Cafe 611
- Gravel & Grind
- Cafe Nola
- The Blue Side
- The Cellar Door
- Olde Towne Tavern
Then, as the music winds down that day, we are going to cap this first installment off with the only proper way to do so: Old Indian, one of the finest, most beloved Frederick bands of the last many years, are going to play their final-ever show – again, ever in the history of forever – at the 200 East Art Haus. They are going to share that stage with Atomic Mosquitos and Outsideinside. That portion of the day will begin at 7 p.m. and the cost, if you want to go to only that show, will be $7 for those under 21 and $10 for those 21 and up. Why is that? That’s because if you are 21 and up, that $10 ticket also gets you a token for a free beer. See. We’re looking out for everybody.
As for the rest of the day … well, here’s what we have so far:
Cafe Nola (3:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.)
Austin And Olivia (Formerly The Bird Watchers Club)
Cafe 611 (2 p.m. to 6 p.m.)
Stitch Early
Retro/Ricole Barnes
J Berd
Suburban Thugs
Passport Sport
Poetic Endurance
Jase Kevion & T.A.G.M.G.
Olde Towne Tavern (3 p.m. to 7 p.m.)
Lost Keys
More TBA
The Blue Side (1 p.m. to 5 p.m.)
Frederick Rock School Showcase Featuring
The Girls
Jayme Salviati
Samantha Johnson
More TBA
The Cellar Door (noon to 4 p.m.)
Jeff Cosgrove & Friends
Gravel & Grind (4 p.m. to 8 p.m.)
Brent Renken
Super Lucky Elephant
Raven Jackson
Andrew Bromhal (Of Silent Old Mtns.)
In case you haven’t picked up on it, the venues are, for the most part, split into genres. Cafe 611 will host hip-hop. The Cellar Door will host jazz. Gravel & Grind will host acoustic acts. The Blue Side will host high-school-aged artists. And so on and so forth. It begins at noon at The Cellar Door. It will end around 11 p.m. at 200 East. Got that? Good.
Now to what it all costs. If you wish to purchase a wristband that gets you into each venue throughout the entire day – including 200 East for the Old Indian farewell – it will cost you $15. That price also, for what it’s worth, includes a token for a free alcoholic beverage at 200 East that night. If you only want to check out one of these venues throughout the day, the price to get in the door per venue will be a simple five bucks. So, $15 for access into seven different venues for music over an 11-hour span, plus a free beer. Or $5 per venue, no matter where you go. Hey. You do the math.
Also of note: If you wait until the day of the event to purchase a wristband, the price ticks up to $20.
As for when said tickets and/or wristbands go on sale? Well, that will be next week and you can check back to this very website on that very week to find out more on how to get in on that very $15 deal.
Now for one final thing: This is, without any question, dedicated solely to helping each aspect of Frederick’s music scene come together for one big, gigantic day filled with music and fun and more music and more fun. After all the costs this thing is going to warrant, trust us when we say that nobody is really going to make much money off any of this.
Instead, this is designed to help the city of Frederick take that next step toward being a destination town for music, at the very least, on a regional scale. The musicians who have agreed to help out with this by playing an hour or so set throughout town need to be applauded for believing in something in its infancy. Likewise, the handful of venues that didn’t turn us away immediately need to be celebrated just as much for their willingness to get on board with a plan that will undoubtedly disrupt one of their summer Saturday afternoons.
This whole thing is a product of so many different people from so many different walks of life coming together for one day to try and help lift Frederick up, so hopefully (maybe, please, pretty please?) you guys, as spectators, can come help support this initiative as well. None of anything can ever be accomplished if ideas like these are met with apathy or cynicism, so to anyone that may be planning on checking this out on any level whatsoever … well, let us be the first to thank you, and thank you, and thank you, and thank you for helping support the local music scene. So many people do it in so many different ways on a daily basis, and The Thing, in effect, is an attempt to try and bring all of that together, if only for a day.
So … OK, then. Enough preaching. See you June 11?
