Festival receives makeover for a cause

At just 24 years old, Los Angeles resident Sean Carlson has made quite the name for himself throughout the local underground music scene over the past several years — but not as a performer.

While most music-loving 20-somethings possess unrealistic dreams of lucrative recording contracts, Carlson took his appreciation for Los Angeles’ vibrant arts scene and turned it into something a rare few can pull off — a successful independent music festival.

Now in its sixth year, FYF Fest — formerly called F Yeah Fest — promises one of its largest and most ambitious lineups to date, adding art exhibitions, a variety of food vendors, a zine library and even a kissing booth in conjunction with the day’s 33 scheduled performances.

This Saturday, the festival moves several miles north of its usual indoors Echo Park locale to the Los Angeles State Historic Park in Downtown’s Chinatown neighborhood. In addition to a new name and a new venue, FYF Fest also seeks to bring awareness to the current condition of the state park system — a moved prompted by Carlson’s outrage against California’s recently proposed budget cuts.

“The main demographic [at the festival] is going to be between the ages of 18 to 30, and most of those people don’t know about the budget cuts,” Carlson said. “A lot of young people don’t follow up on the news — I’m not saying all of them, but a decent amount. I blame myself as well. But, if we can put on an event and put a cause behind it that we believe in — like the parks — that could help.”

Carlson organized the first incarnation of the event — a series of performances scattered throughout the Echo Park neighborhood — in 2004 when he was just 18 years old.

“I didn’t really know what I was doing,” he mused. “I asked a lot of my friends for help, we used smaller bands … It was something that was a bit unorganized and chaotic, but really fun at the same time.”

This did not mean, however, that Carlson’s first foray into the concert promotion world would be without pitfalls. Carlson’s the first to admit that the inaugural festival was a “complete failure.”

“Even though 2,000 people showed up, I decided to make [the concert] free and I think I walked away with about $4,” Carlson said. “The next year, we decided to charge $6. It went over really well, and it kind of grew from there … It was just this natural progression of growing from a grassroots punk festival into an event that was actually something.”

As time passed, the festival — still bearing the name F Yeah Fest — evolved from a local, underground secret into a nationally recognized event known for discovering and promoting a colorful assortment of independent musicians who would eventually become synonymous with the country’s burgeoning pop scene.

Yet for all of the indie-world notables peppering this year’s FYF Fest lineup, Carlson is quick to dismiss notions that he and his fellow festival organizers are hip, Pitchfork-savvy tastemakers.

“I’m not going to say, ‘Oh, we’re ahead of the curve!’ But there’s definitely a few bands that break out every year after the festival,” he said, citing performers such as Los Angeles darlings No Age and Memphis’ Jay Reatard, who found considerable successes in the years following their appearances at Carlson’s event.

“There’s always a few bands on the bill that no one has heard of at the time,” Carlson said.” That’s what’s really important to us — bringing in these smaller bands and giving them the opportunity to play.”

Saturday’s lineup includes a wide variety of musical genres, ranging from hardcore punk bands (Fucked Up, Converge), electronica-driven acts (Glass Candy, Telepathe) and experimentally bent groups (Lightning Bolt). A handful of key players in the independent music world — such as Dan Deacon, Wavves and Black Lips — are also scheduled to perform.

“We may not have mega headliners like the Flaming Lips or Grizzly Bear or MIA,” Carlson noted, speaking of successful performers within the greater indie contingent. “But we have some very well known, very well respected bands. We tried to make the lineup as eclectic as possible; we are flying bands in from all over the country that people don’t necessarily know of.”

And while annual music festivals with similar lineups — for instance, the Pitchfork Music Festival and the Coachella Valley Music and Art Festival — charge as much as $100 for a day pass, attendees of FYF Fest can delight in the fact that tickets to Saturday’s event remain notably inexpensive: pre-purchased tickets are $20, while those purchased at the door will cost $25.

Carlson cites his admiration of legendary punk band Fugazi’s infamous $5 ticket prices as the inspiration for FYF’s affordability.

“Everyone’s broke — but I want people to go out and enjoy themselves. It’s Labor Day weekend, but you might not have the money to travel … I have [Fugazi’s] ethic — I don’t want to charge a lot of money because if it was $40 or $50, I wouldn’t go. I don’t want to put on a show that I wouldn’t attend,” Carlton said.

Despite the large amount of publicity and buzz surrounding this year’s FYF Fest, Carlson’s hopes for the event remain as humble as they were in 2004.

“I really encourage students who are just looking for something to do, who don’t want to go to a frat party or sit in the dorms or wander around Figueroa to come do this,” Carlson said, beaming. “I love it when there’s people [at the event] who don’t know what to expect because it’s all a mystery to them. That makes it so much better.”

And Carlson’s advice for FYF Fest newbies unfamiliar with the lineup?

“Pick and see bands you’ve never ever heard of,” he explained. “That’s the whole point — walk around, check out a new band, have some ice cream, hang out, have a good time.”

To see the full FYF Fest lineup and to purchase tickets to the event, visit www.fyffest.com.