Off the Record

Plover 0:00
What's good everyone you're listening to WKNC 88.1 FM HD-2 Raleigh. We are a student run nonprofit radio station based outside of based in North Carolina State University. I'm clover and this is off the record. Here with me today is Ryan O'Doud of the CFR Council. How are you doing today?

Ryan O'Doud 0:18
I'm doing great. How are you?

Plover 0:19
I'm doing great. Thank you. Um, wouldn't mind this be a great way to kick things off? Maybe just tell us about yourself, where you're from? Just Who am I talking to right now?

Ryan O'Doud 0:31
Hey, I'm Ryan O'Doud. I've lived in North Carolina, most of my life. spent time in Rocky Mountain. I've lived in Raleigh Durham, I live in Greenville. And basically, I'm part of the CEFR Council, which is a cooperative of artists and musicians who work together to put on shows to premiere and show DIY musicians, especially outside of musicians in North Carolina.

Plover 0:55
Awesome. That's really cool. What does DIY stand for, by the way?

Ryan O'Doud 0:58
That's do it yourself. So it's, it's less of a genre than it is an approach to the production of the music, especially since the era of brand recording and major labels is over. Artists increasingly have turned to one another to be able to organize to put on their own shows.

Plover 1:15
Gotcha. Yeah, that makes total sense. That's really cool. So this is kind of a record label and also like a collective. Is that how that works?

Ryan O'Doud 1:23
Yeah, we are, we are a record label. We were releasing our 33rd album bittering Leviathan actually at the fest, but we're bigger than the record label, the record label started out as a way to organize people, but now it's kind of turned into a music festival and we monthly magazine and, and so on.

Plover 1:42
Gotcha. Yeah, that's really cool. Yeah, I was checking out a lot of your other content. There's so much more than just the label, of course, but um, it's sort of a DIY aesthetic. And is that something you also like, personally like to listen to as well? Is that something is is that just a job? Or is that like a sort of an ethos for you, if

Ryan O'Doud 2:02
you will? Well, for me, it's an it's an ethos, and it is a job to but it derives from when I was, I'm kind of an old man, sadly, I'm 36. But when I was in high school, I used to go to ice Nashville, and I used to go to basement shows all the time, in the era, almost before the internet, and and that inspired me. I really decided I wanted to be a DIY artist when I was in high school, and I wanted to do this stereotypical thing where you ride around in a van and book all your own shows. Only back then it was sending your cassettes out. And nowadays, it's it's trading links on the internet, which is, thank goodness, much easier.

Plover 2:39
Sorry, I think it cut out for a second. I didn't catch that last part.

Ryan O'Doud 2:44
I said, Only back in the day, it was trading cassettes. And nowadays is trading links on the internet. Wasn't that good? This is much easier.

Plover 2:50
Yeah, I know for sure that I know you guys still do physical media. So I'm glad that hasn't gone away. But now that that is definitely more convenient, sort of way of trading music. Does that help with like, kind of breaking down regional barriers at all like that? Usually, you know, we'd have to ship something as far as x state, but now it's a bit easier.

Ryan O'Doud 3:09
Yeah, totally. Because, of course, there's still great independent record stores out there. And there's great independent media, like you, yourself are doing right now. But at the same time, you know, costs have to be kept down if you're if you're an independent artist, and you're working with other independent artists. And so of course, being able to just trade data for free is, well, while it killed the record industry, it's great for independent artists. So I'm kind of happy that

Plover 3:36
we do have to see that. So there is one specific thing that you wanted to talk about, which was your sort of festival performance thing coming up this weekend? Could you let the people know what that's all about?

Ryan O'Doud 3:49
Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. It's called American Babylon six. And as you might guess, it's the sixth one of these that we've put on, it's our month, our yearly showcase where we kind of collect all the various spreads that we've made throughout the year and try to get them all in one place at one time, we feed the bands for free, we pay the bands, we do charge, of course, ticket prices for the audience, but it's it all goes to overhead and to directly paying the band's for their to encourage them to go on tour and encourage them to network with one another. And which is another great opportunity that it is is it allows artists to meet with other artists. So if you are an artist, we encourage you to come out because you're going to meet a bunch of other artists and then maybe you can also cut out the middleman. But it's called American Babylon six. And it's from the second to the fifth of Labor Day this year. We have 33 different performers who are going to be playing We have vendors, there will be performance artists, there will be painters, and it's just a really great time. And it's 18 Plus but we encourage everyone to come that possibly can because it's direct support.

Plover 4:54
Yeah, for sure. And I really like that kind of networking capacity to is not just Oh sit there face forward. Look at MUSIC There's kind of more of a an actual sort of community field going on which I really liked that kind of approach. Are there any specific? What are a few artists that are going to be there? Just a general overview?

Ryan O'Doud 5:11
Sure. There's a Durham act, German hickory named mumble tramp, which is an excellent like, old timey folk band mixed with like a punk band at the same time, we're going to have canned which is a wonderful performance art back. That's kind of a noise act mixed with comedy. It involves a lot of fishing, and he hits us to bang on a Pringles can. And then we have happy slap who is the genius known as archieve Cappy. And he basically Wow, he energetically dresses in all yellow and uses multiple flashing lights in you like loud aggressive noises rock music, but it's also got this kind of surreal and even darkness aspect to it. And then there's my act bitter Inc, which is a I call it Astro industrial, it's kind of a, an industrial by way of space jazz, like Sun Ra Arkestra, and Nine Inch Nails if I'm being really, really presumptuous about myself, that kind of thing. But yeah, there's gonna be many more other great acts as well.

Plover 6:19
For sure, yeah. And that's really cool that you're also pulling up. We'd love to see that. Yeah, I was checking out some of the artists. There are a lot of really funny names. I personally would love to see breakdancing Ronald Reagan myself. Just experiencing and also

Ryan O'Doud 6:33
his name happens to be Johnny Cash, which is funny to you from Los Angeles. He'll be out he's a VIP noise Hollywood artists. And he's, he puts on really wild, mostly hysterical performances involving. It's very hard to describe, but it's definitely humorous. And it's definitely loud.

Plover 6:55
Gotcha. So you mentioned that he was from Los Angeles. So I understand this will be mostly North Carolina artists, but so there's going to be few others kind of coming around from the area who sort of share a similar vibe to the artists playing.

Ryan O'Doud 7:08
Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's about half the artists are from North Carolina and about half the artists are from outside of North Carolina, and the ones that are from North Carolina. There's our kind of old tried and true friends. They've reappeared, you know, year after year. We've added a few extra this year from North Carolina. pusa puppet is a wonderful puppeteer from Greensboro, North Carolina, Benjamin Martin, and he puts on this very strange and extravagant, like EDM meets Sesame Street sort of thing. So we're looking forward to that.

Plover 7:41
Yeah. I'm already sold personally, that's that sounds amazing. So you mentioned that this is going to be a very sort of visual thing as well as just an auditory thing you mentioned there'll be some kind of painters is there going to be just like art going on while the music's going on? Or is it gonna be like art and music?

Ryan O'Doud 7:58
Oh, I believe that there will be like, in terms of visual art, there will be there's a there's a there's one film which is a chicken like in by Wilma agate. And there will also be performance artists help Martinez is mostly like a more of a theatrical performance artists, there will also be visuals, kind of sort of tied into certain people's performances. And then we should, we should also have just like paintings and drawings about, you know, displayed in various areas, and maybe maybe even you could pick one up if you're feeling generous.

Plover 8:31
That makes perfect sense. So um, so So artists are going to kind of really go out here kind of really sell themselves visually as well like, a lot of like lighting effects, kind of just adding things that add to the music as well as just being standalone visual art, I'm assuming,

Ryan O'Doud 8:45
yes, especially the more it gets towards the end of the night. So it's more compatible with like shows and stuff like that.

Plover 8:52
That's exciting. And this isn't just a festival of course, this is a festival kind of in a near Lake kind of a zone almost in the woods.

Ryan O'Doud 9:00
It is it's right on the edge. It's in its it's in Panther Lake, which is 8196 Panther Lake Road outside Willow spring, which is just in the bottom of Wake County. And my friend Sam owns the place and it's normally just like a fishing venue, but we kind of He lets us take it over once a year. And we do this with it. And there's boats, there's canoes, there's there's you can put up, you can put up tents, you can you could go in the forest, there's trails behind, you know, and all that kind of fun stuff as well kind of outdoorsy time. So it kind of gives you a lot of different environments that you can put yourself into if you want do up near the stage, but you can also be you know, rather far away from the stage hanging out in the woods. So you want to do Yeah, that's

Plover 9:41
really cool. And does it kind of like just to stay in stages, like kind of like in the middle there does that kind of like add to the ambiance of often like maybe maybe some electronic act and then like the woods around that that's really cool contrast.

Ryan O'Doud 9:52
Oh, of course. And you know, we can, you know, we push the music like there's only one road that it's right by so it's fairly rural. There's Guess he down the street. It's not like the middle of nowhere, but it's pretty well out there. And yeah, you can go hang out on the dock if you want to and listen to music or you can go all the way climb up there's a there's a little rock face that you can do rock climbing on if you want to there's there's a little creek there's a you know, and of course like I said, there's the woods as well. So it really I think I think it definitely adds

Plover 10:20
Yeah, that's that's super sick. Um, so I understand that. Creating festivals is not the easiest thing of all time. Were there any any specific kind of maybe logistical challenges with like getting it into like a woods for four days and like a massive vibe was that was there any like, very unique challenges to sort of the areas? It's like, pretty decent.

Ryan O'Doud 10:39
Yeah, yeah, actually, that was part of the Oh man. And that one little dream was always to put it in the woods but and that one ended up having we had to scale it down a little bit because turns out finding someone with property that's willing to let you use it for kind of, you know, counterculture festival is not always easy thing to do. So it took us until number four before we had someone who would really be on board with us, Samsung amazing human being for doing it. And now he's so attached to us, you know, and we're so thankful for him that this is our home now.

Plover 11:12
Thanks. Glad you lock that down. Um, let's see. You mentioned there was a film called Chicken licken i Is this is this premiere because I was looking it up and there's not a whole lot of material out there for chicken looking. If we could just kind of shed the light on that. That's okay.

Ryan O'Doud 11:28
Yeah, well, I don't want to give away too much. But I say that it's an experimental film. And it has comedy, but it's it's it's deeply surreal. Maybe like a darker version of what you might see on Adult Swim if you if you pulled it out and made it an hour long. And it's by Will my good. He's the director and the writer. And he does much of the acting, although he has a little cast of friends that he makes use of as well. He's he did a film that are second American Babylon, American Babylon to end times. And he did a film called Well, Burling worms, and it was went over extremely well. But it was very strange and hard. It's not. I can't we played cerebral. But it's, there's a lot coming at you at one level. So that

Plover 12:14
yeah, that makes sense. Well, that I'm really glad he's back. And that we can keep this tradition going. That sounds like an amazing way to cap off a night because that is the last show. Exactly right on that night.

Ryan O'Doud 12:25
Oh, yeah. Sunday night, big night. And it ends with the the film, I'm right there by the lake. And it'll and of course, the sound will be coming through the PA system. So it'll be nice, loud sound to go with the film. And it's going to be fun.

Plover 12:39
So, Panther Lake is. I've heard I've heard that 20 minutes outside of downtown thrown around is that like that? You mentioned one road is this, how people are going to be kind of accessing this.

Ryan O'Doud 12:50
So they'll drive there. It's Panther, it's Panther Lake Road. So they'll have to drive out there, there'll be a little bit of, excuse me, there'll be a little bit of carpooling and such as well. I'm organizing. I believe you can reach it by Uber if you need to. But it's not it's not too too far out there.

Plover 13:07
Yeah, that's really good. Um, again, everything I've heard so far. Sounds amazing. And this, this seems like a really cool way to spend your labor day weekend. So this is all run by CFR maybe, maybe talk a bit about two CFR is they as you mentioned, they work with artists to try to promote them, but also do kind of at least a monthly zine issues. Is that correct?

Ryan O'Doud 13:32
Yeah, we, um, the Design Editor for issues magazine, and it's a sort of a, you know, a 90 style alternative zine, except that it does have, it's primarily on the web now. But we do have subscribers that we do print out and send send copies out to if they want to, but of course, most people just want to check out the image. And that's perfectly fine as well. But the real concept of the zine is to mix little showcases called impressions of recent albums that have been put out by people that are DIY musicians, but mix that with kind of surreal articles and article adjacent sorts of things, which are just meant to put you in a different headspace than you're normally in.

Plover 14:15
Yeah, I was checking those out. And that for sure did that I was I was scrolling through like trying to process everything. And there were also a lot of interviews, that those were kind of a pretty key part of the zine as well.

Ryan O'Doud 14:27
Yeah, I tried to I try to interview one or two artists a month we have a featured artist every month featured artist interview. I have also interviewed sort of various fringe figures. I've interviewed board Raelle I've interviewed Sorry, I've interviewed a vermin supreme, you know, people that are kind of on the periphery of the mainstream, but they're not quite in the mainstream.

Plover 14:57
Yeah, I can definitely see the kind of vibe you're going for They're asked, What's the difference between like you would say, like, from, for me most interviews like consumer kind of through an audio recording or something, how does it kind of differentiate to see that like written down like, like how you have or sort of presented between surreal articles and such?

Ryan O'Doud 15:16
Well, it's, you know, it's it came naturally out of what I liked in what I've consumed throughout my life. And I just happen to hook up with people that are also into somewhat similar things. And sometimes, we've used the opportunity to be able to kind of encourage one another to keep working. And sometimes we've used the opportunity to influence one another in ways that we didn't know like, there's the whole, you know, there's tons of bands and artists, I don't know. And so having other people to work with on the scene every month gives me access to things I wouldn't have even thought of to look at myself. And hopefully, I give them access to that as well. For sure it works out really well.

Plover 15:58
Yeah, that's really cool. And so you're able to kind of network and then that's, is that how you find the other artists or features. It's kind of like, go through Bandcamp to see what the vibe is of a situation you

Ryan O'Doud 16:08
you're you got it now. It's all connected in one giant, giant blanket done thread. We used to just call it the network. And then we were just like, well, what if we just, you know, maybe a little more formal, just formal enough to get ourselves above board, you know, sort of gets a little access to mainstream and see what we do. But yeah, it's it's all about just connecting artists together. That's the point.

Plover 16:29
That's, that's really great. Um, you also like to shout out other art. I know, some bands from Chicago out there that that's really cool that this has that kind of pull from being a North Carolina focus thing that or is there. I do see any differences between like, the different regional scenes of DIY are very alternative music, I guess.

Ryan O'Doud 16:49
Oh, absolutely. My friend calls his sub underground. Yeah. Well, obviously, like LA and New York, they just have everything in the world there. But what really comes to me, what really comes really interesting is these kind of like bigger small cities, like Fargo, North Dakota, or Kansas City, or like Minneapolis. Like, you get this kind of mindset with people that are there that there's not going to be you know, they're not going to be picked up on on on the highway or you don't have to be picked up at a local venue like you would if you were in like LA or New York. So they get this kind of, they start to get listless I think and they start to just be like, Well, I don't, I'm never going to be famous. So I'm just going to do really strange things. And so that's that's what I like to get. That's what I like to mine as much as possible. But you actually in Chicago, Chicago's got an amazing experimental music scene that goes back a long time, of course, well before my era, but uh, yeah, I find a lot of the the Great. Experimental and sub underground bands that I like are from Pittsburgh, they're from Chicago. Of course, Austin is famous for this sort of thing. Phoenix, there's a lot of like, like, a lot of what I did is I just spent like, a year of my life, getting onto every single DIY city page on Facebook. Like I just kept like, trying to be on all them inviting people to be on all of them and asking me people's friends getting denied and trying again. But as much as you know, I got the time. So that's what I've done. And also in as far as we're talking about. Regions where we've operated, we technically have reviewed people from Greece from Latvia, lots of people from the UK, Canada. Brazil is a big one that keeps sending us things Korea so like there's there believe it or not this this is touched worldwide.

Plover 18:46
That's so great. I had no idea this was this is a global endeavor. That's so cool. And I'm sure that the differences between regions get exponential when you when you go like abroad and you have like different kind of like literally global sounds kind of does like creep into even like the harsh noise projects of Greece or something like that.

Ryan O'Doud 19:07
Yeah, exactly. Like people from asset multiple events that yeah, harsh noise. I had a guy from Athens buy a copy, which cost me like $11 to send him but I was like, you know, that's fine with me because I just think it's cool that I could say I did that.

Plover 19:22
That's a price a story right there for sure. Yeah, that's, that's really cool. You're focusing on like, breaking out of specifically like the production of it. Um, how do you think that ties into like the actual structure within music, like it's not just about the creation of music in a very DIY way, but also the the music itself is often kind of outside of the standard ways of song construction?

Ryan O'Doud 19:45
Well, you know what I think I think in addition to the fact that it just encourages experimentalism, is not exactly the right word, but it encourages a kind of reaching for something that they haven't heard, and they don't know the people that are doing it don't necessarily even know It is, but it's like they're, they're like, Well, I just want to do something else because I've heard all this stuff. But then also, I think that there's a huge growth in like a person with a phone or person with a laptop making. So like, so much of the music is based on like software synthesizers and stuff like that, which is kind of like a natural, almost a natural outgrowth of the material that's available available to people on an easy way. So like, you end up with a lot of like, one person acts, that's just like, some, some person in a basement in Pittsburgh just doing God knows what and just kind of modeling on their phone, but they end up making this crazy sounding really cool album, and then they somehow through, you know, friends of friends end up filtering it to us, and then we know them. So that's cool.

Plover 20:50
Those are great connections to make. And these would often be like, A, how would you describe kind of like a few, a few minutes of kind of just just some kind of noise that happens to be created, maybe improvisationally, or something like that, like, what would be like the, obviously, it's very hard to categorize everything from sub underground, but what are some like, standout things to kind of have some concrete examples, if you will?

Ryan O'Doud 21:16
Well, you've got different streams that, that that are kind of feeding everyone. And insofar as like, you know, the thing is, the more isolated someone is, okay, assuming that they're devoted to their craft, the more isolated that they are, the more weird it's going to get. But also, the less likely it is to get to you. So it's like, so there's like a spectrum of like, pop with a little bit of strangeness, which is much more likely to get around so that we can actually hear it all the way to the far extreme of it, you know, someone just making buzzing noises in their, in their just, you know, using some kind of jerry rigged, you know, people that are like amateur electrical engineers and stuff like that they're making these like, little pedals that they just turn knobs on, and they just kind of do it in the moment. And but then you also, the other thing is, is this other metric, which is like the people who are completely naive, compared to the people who like know, everything about music there is to know, and you get both of those people as well, because the people that know nothing are going to sound new. But also, if you know enough to not play what's already been played, then you'll sound really new to so it's, those are kind of the two metrics, I'd say.

Plover 22:33
That's really cool. Intersect. Um, so you mentioned a lot of like remote collaboration and kind of talking over things like Bandcamp. What would you say is its kind of the importance of like a physical show, like, for example, this Festival this weekend, or like a random venue in let's say, Pittsburgh, where the the harsh noise acts can play? How does that like kind of ferment and grow the sub underground scene?

Ryan O'Doud 22:55
To me, I think this could just this is just my opinion now, but I think it's incredibly important to play something out to people, I kind of have like the mentality that if you make a noise, and no one else hears it, have you made music? Like it's, I don't know, that could just be me being a gatekeeper, I don't know. But this is just my natural intuition and inclination towards things. And more importantly, what it gets you with is with other people who care about the same things that you care about, and that like the same things that you like, and I think that's, you know, seems to be carry over no matter what culture people are in, they do like to be with other people who care about the same thing from like, the same things they like, I think so. You know, take that with a grain of salt. Yeah, it's

Plover 23:45
really cool. And I guess you can kind of see like, if there was like one staple of any you kind of see like, a specific sound or seen kind of grow around that venue, you have, like, regulars come in there. And that can kind of almost influenced me, maybe not the whole city, but like at least that neighborhood or something like that.

Ryan O'Doud 24:00
Oh, that's that's absolutely true, too. Yeah, like, like I said, like Fargo had this with black ring rituals in the Seagrave studios up there. And there's different I don't want to, you know, just say, stuff like that. But But like, yeah, there's there's, you can evolve community out of a specific venue, you could evolve a community around a specific label, you could evolve a community about a certain sound, or even a tradition of having a certain sound like New Orleans still has, like certain kinds of jazz that they've been playing for the last 80 years or whatever, you know. But at the same basis, the kind of the idea of, of American Babylon is to try to sow as many of those threads together as we possibly can, which is why we've heard to say DIY and outsider as opposed to, you know, prescriptive labels about what what we can do because it does there is a range of bands that will be performing it won't just be one sound at all.

Plover 24:52
Yeah, for sure. So, yeah, that's that's amazing that that's kind of been able to build up and also divert stuff like that. And all that kind of connected into one at least vaguely through the CN CF N Council. Alright, so, so far, I'm so sorry. So how exactly were you able to kind of come into a position where you could interact with always like, how did how did what was kind of the roots of working into this sort of DIY label era? How does one kind of get into that?

Ryan O'Doud 25:25
Well, I mean, I started where I think it starts with most people, which is I started making my own music when I was young. And the world changed around me. And then, you know, the internet grew up. I mean, I was like, in middle school, when I got the internet, and the whole scaffolding of the infrastructure of the world kind of popped it in this direction, where you can kind of have direct contact with everybody. And then I, I said, Well, how am I going to promote? How am I going to do this, because I wanted, I knew I wanted to play music. And I knew I wanted to play shows. And eventually, I realized, well, if I want to play shows, I'm gonna have to put on shows, and then I realized just simple reciprocity is, if I want to be on someone else's ticket, then I have to put them on my ticket. And then it just like, it just came out of an evolution of doing whatever I like already, and just trying to grow and then help as many other people as I can.

Plover 26:20
Yeah, that's amazing. Did you find any, like, similar kind of infrastructure to what you were seeing? Or was this kind of, at least in your area, it's sort of a pioneering project,

Ryan O'Doud 26:32
I would say that the, the word I'm sorry, the kind of penetration of it is kind of pioneering, like doing it amongst tying all the different things together is pioneering but the but people like as we were saying, Before, people collect themselves naturally around certain things, certain scenes, certain buildings, certain bands, certain genres, you know, even certain ways of thinking, because we are also very LGBTQ plus friendly, and things like that. In and we just a while ago, me, it was originally me and someone named Michael rose, and someone in gray. And the three of us were like, what do we want to do? How are we going to make this actually work and grow? And then the big question was, how do we pay the artists because that's a really big thing. That doesn't happen, because there's just not a lot of money in it. So like, how can we get people actually a little bit of money for the music that they make, or that they make? And then the idea of doing a nonprofit, came into play, and so on and so forth.

Plover 27:35
Yeah, that's, that's really interesting, and especially the nonprofit and you'll be able to turn that around and like actually get some money that because you kind of think of like the sort of starving artist stereotype and that's an actually having some money in that is, is a really great way to promote this kind of sound. You mentioned that this is, for example, very queer friendly, there are various subcultures that could kind of really connect to this music is like the area, maybe in North Carolina, or just the general area, have those kinds of subcultures that were conducive to it, or was like the culture of North Carolina kind of able to work into this sort of DIY aesthetic.

Ryan O'Doud 28:12
Sure, especially because especially like by sewing them together by sorting them together, because, like, there's just too many of the names of this, you know, there's a pug, a punk subculture, with folk punk sub subculture. There's like an EDM subculture. There's a noise subculture. There's an experimental subculture. And then there's like, there's just a lot of people who are just in their house doing things, and aren't really, they don't know where to start, I guess. I do think that, that, this, that the Internet has allowed for things like this to evolve more successfully than they ever would have if the internet didn't exist, because some of these things can get a little esoteric, and but it turns out that there are lots of people around interested in it. It's just, we wouldn't have known that without the Internet.

Plover 29:08
For sure. Yeah, that's, that's a really great way to make that connection. Because like, as you mentioned, the cities like LA and New York, kind of just, you can't walk five feet without bumping into a noise pop band, but like, over here, and maybe it takes a bit more of a threading together and a combining of those subcultures, like you mentioned actly.

Ryan O'Doud 29:28
Exactly. And I it just beats me up, I think about like, like maybe 30 or 40 years ago, there might have been someone just sitting in their house like now and they never got heard by anybody besides themselves and maybe their family that was annoyed by them. And then and like but they didn't know that like maybe next city over there was like five people and then city tours from that maybe there was 10 people you know, it's it's a it's a brick by brick thing, you know, but it's, it's, it's fun.

Plover 29:58
That this is a great time to be alive and being music for sure. And speaking of being alive and being music, there is live music coming this weekend, of course, being American Babylon six. If there was one, like, one single artists that you were like, hey, all that come out of here, and I think that maybe specifically the listeners have, say, an alternative College Station would really enjoy. What would what would that be?

Ryan O'Doud 30:23
That'd be Embrasa. Embrasa, is a noise pop artist out of Los Angeles, actually, their their trio. And they'll be playing on Saturday, the third at nine. And they're really good. And they're on the more accessible end of this kind of thing.

Plover 30:44
Yeah, I gotcha. Yeah, that's a good way to get people in there. And then also, maybe be able to see the other acts beforehand and kind of build up through through that way. Which is always a great, it's a great way. I'm wondering, I do like that kind of kind of festival style of like, you have the the early acts, the kind of opening ones, and then you kind of draw towards, and maybe build around the more like, quote, unquote, accessible one, which again, in the sub underground scene is all relative, but still?

Ryan O'Doud 31:13
Well, I mean, it's, you know, I think that that structure is in people's mind, whether you want it to be there. That's just what mean, people expect that to be an opener and a headliner. And so I would say that we work with the structure that's, that's already in their head. You know, we don't, I don't want to see like we, we, we test how much we can be subversive. But when it comes to that, you know, putting the names up top that most people are going to want to hear is probably the smart thing to do. Yeah, we do.

Plover 31:42
Yeah, makes sense. Yeah. Great. Is there anything else you want to specifically mentioned about the festival while we're here?

Ryan O'Doud 31:50
Yeah, it's again, it's American Babylon six, it's September 2 through fifth this weekend, Labor Day weekend at Panther lake in Raleigh. $20. For one day, pass $40 for a four day pass, which will get you free camping as well. There'll be some snacks and stuff if you need them. We're CFR Council. Were cooperative. We're just doing our best to try to get artists, you know, a little bit of scratch and just get them to have fun and network with one another. And if that's something you're interested in, by all means, please, please come and please be generous. And am I allowed to say my cash app? Yeah, go for yet. And just Cash App money sign American Babylon. And anything that's a note of artists fund will go straight. 100% of the artists won't even be touched by the rest of us.

Plover 32:38
Nice. Yeah. That that that's a great philosophy. Are there any like other ways to like find y'all on social media or anything or like a website?

Ryan O'Doud 32:45
Yeah, there's an official event page on Facebook married about their American Babylon. Six, commodity fetish records and issues magazine are also available on Facebook. You can find me on Instagram bitter underscore, Inc. Underscore official. Other than that, oh, yeah, of course, commodity fetish. records.com. Other than that, you know, this is just about artists and working people who are artists.

Plover 33:10
Yeah of course, and what are some good ways to like, for example, preview the artists beforehand? Where do you like go for to like, look at the individual artists and kind of see wanna go for,

Ryan O'Doud 33:20
if you have a Facebook, go to the official event page, which is just American Babylon six, the number six, and all the artists are listed right there. And we we have already some uploaded their band camps and such, and we're going to continue to do that throughout the week as well.

Plover 33:35
So just like kind of check Bandcamp to see what the vibe is there.

Ryan O'Doud 33:39
Yeah, exactly. And I believe all the artists that are on the flyer, which is available on the event page, are have multiple social media, things, you know,

Plover 33:50
I'm out of curiosity to see if I have any upcoming releases have their own. Is there anything kind of maybe looking a little bit beyond this weekend?

Ryan O'Doud 34:00
Well, actually, like I said, bittering Leviathan is coming out on the third. And that will be at the actual fest, American Babylon six. We don't have anything prospectively at the moment, because we're pretty occupied at this. We'll probably start looking again after this. After this weekend.

Plover 34:16
Yeah, that makes total sense. Well, yeah. If there's anything you want to talk about, that's all good. Otherwise, this is this has been a great interview. Really cool, like, insight into a scene. I'm honestly not too familiar with myself.

Ryan O'Doud 34:29
Yeah. Well, I thank you so much for the opportunity and for being so cordial and you show up if you want.

Plover 34:38
I'd love to be there. I haven't gone camping in far too long and I'm eager to get back into it.

Ryan O'Doud 34:44
All right. Thank you.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai