Tabs Out

10.01.24 by Jamie Orlando

Jamie Orlando sat down for a video call with Adam Arritola, where they discussed the upcoming “Avant Garde A Clue” festival in Rochester, NY running from 10/7- 10/14. They also touched on Adam’s touring history and shared some fun stories about discovering secret cassette tapes by Id M Theft Able.

[Note from Matty: While I was unable to attend this call, I want to give a huge thanks to Jamie for scoring this + Adam for coming in clutch. Way back in march 2023 at Big Ears, I got to meet Adam by complete luck and we really hit it off over beer and hot dogs, continually running into each other over the festival and trading thoughts and opinion. Dude’s been a long time maverick and life in the domestic underground who’s efforts in festival booking shouldn’t go unappreciated even if he’s not recording music. He’s an essential part of that fabric and it’s great to spotlight this insane happening here on Tabs Out. Info + Links at the bottom!]

JO: I have Adam Arritola here, and he is putting on this massive festival this year in Rochester, New York called “Avant Garde A Clue”. So, before we talk about that, I saw on your website that you’ve booked a bunch of other fests, especially in Miami. How did you get into booking festivals like this? 

AA: When I was in high school, or probably like just getting into high school, I was pretty popular on social media already, before the whole social media influencer thing was a thing, and a lot of my friends knew me as a person that was very very into music and a friend made a suggestion and said “hey, you know all these people on social media and they seem to really be into what you’re doing and whatnot. Why don’t you try to throw your own concert and try to get everyone to come out and you can just call it Adam Fest?”, and I thought it was hilarious and so I booked a show with absolutely zero knowledge of how to do it. I just kind of asked all my buddies if they’d play on a really eclectic bill (and this was in 2012) and it was one of the most successful shows I’ve ever thrown, honestly. We sold the venue out. You had kids’ parents driving them out to this gig so that they could go mosh for 10 hours to ska… whatever genres I had on the bill.

JO: And it was called Adam Fest? 

AA: Yeah, Adam Fest 2012, then that happened until 2014, and then that was just kind of an annual thing and then I retired the name because I never wanted it to be about me. It was just kind of a joke at the beginning. I said okay I’m gonna start Eclectic Overdrive and from then on forward anything that I had booked had its own entity attached to it.

JO: Then it looks like you started booking experimental music festivals and I believe it was called The International… 

AA: Well no, International Noise Conference was originally Rat Bastard and Ralph Cavalero and that’s been occurring since I was a child. That was kind of the precursor to this, in the sense that I spent the majority of my youth going to as many of these shows as possible; and it kind of just completely reshaped my life, really. I wouldn’t even say my definition of music, but just my whole being. I didn’t think that when I started making noise 10 years plus later I would still be taking it so seriously.

JO: So, you kind of helped that with those festivals?

AA: Well, I was more of an attendee, and then I started Miami Psych Fest in 2017, which was supposed to encompass what I had been doing already. Every style of music, eclectic genres, and whatever, but heavily focused on more psychedelic arts. So that just kind of kept getting further and further into that realm and now Avant Garde A Clue is just taking it as far out as you can get, and sprinkling in a little of everything with it.

JO: Yeah, and that’s for sure, because if you look at this flyer for Avant Garde A Clue, there are SO many artists on it! “250 plus international acts unite for a historic week of anti-commercial arts”. One thing I really love about this flyer is how it’s not like the Coachella flyers where it lists all the biggest bands at the top; Foo Fighters and then the smaller bands underneath in micro text. It’s just in alphabetical order and there’s some big names and there’s some people you’ve never heard of, but they’re all just together. I like how you did that.

AA: Yep

JO: I think the biggest name that you got was Gong?

AA: Gong and then Doom Dogs (is a super group composed of Reeves Gabrels of The Cure and David Bowie and has Jonathan Kane who played in Swans and with Rhys Chatham and La Monte Young, and Jair-Rôhm Parker Wells). So between those two groups. Yeah, I’d say those are the largest names, probably. 

JO: Actually I was gonna ask you, being this is a noise festival of sorts, how many dropouts are you expecting of these 250? It wouldn’t be a noise festival without plenty of dropouts.

AA: Right yeah, I guess the ratio would be like 8% of the lineup. Well, you know I’m legitimately surprised. I sent out about 200 messages today and only like 3 or 4 people have dropped the fest so far. Kind of unbelievable that I have this many acts and that so far, with two weeks remaining there’s still quite a few people. There’s more than 25 acts a day, so that’s a lot of music.

JO: We got: Crank Sturgeon, Wendy Eisenberg [Matty’s note: they’re on FIRE rn!], Mike Pride, If, Bwana, Moth Cock [Matty’s note: GOATS], Cock ESP, Rob Magill {Matty’s Note: Rob is a fucking Ojai LEGEND holding it down on the central coast, big ups to Weird Cry!], Drums Like Machine Guns, Bad Trips, Frank Hurricane – those are just a few of them! This is a week-long festival. What are the days gonna look like?

AA: For the diehards, it’s probably about as much music as you could take in a day each day. For live music, I don’t know that you’re gonna want much more by the end of it.

JO: How many hours a day?

AA: I want to say it’s like 12 hours a day?

JO: Is there more than one stage happening at the same time?

AA: Not at the same time. There are rotating stages, and so what’s gonna happen is that if you have bands playing in one area where there’s a little bit more of a gear situation and other people setting up, the other stage will be utilized, and other people will be setting up on that side, so people will be able to bounce in and out. But music will be going on at all times. There’s no intermission, no sound check, nothing like that.

JO: Yeah, and then speaking of dropouts, the other trope about noise shows is everybody always forgets their patch cables. Are you gonna make sure you have some extra patch cables for these idiots?

AA: I’ll have some of my own to help people out with, the venue’s got some, but with this many acts, I hope that some people are bringing extra!

JO: So this kind of segues into another topic. I first met you as a touring artist and you’re just a very dedicated and hyper-organized person, to be able to tour in the way that you do, and to play so many shows. I’ve seen a lot of people tour, but I’ve never seen anybody do it quite like the level that you do it. Basically, it almost seems like you can put a pin on the map in the United States and you can say “oh I can play here”. So you obviously have a lot of connections. How do you stay so organized, both with your touring, and with booking this festival? It’s fascinating.

AA: I’ll say first and foremost, I think this festival was probably the first time anyone’s ever called me organized because I’m typically not a very organized person at all. I have high functioning ADHD and I’m all over the place all of the time, but I guess to answer that question; Being able to kind of be anywhere and make things happen; Even before I was performing, I was religiously attending every style show I could go to. I’ve lived, breathed, and slept music my entire life really, and a lot of the people on this lineup are people that I consider friends at this point, and that I’ve either played on bills with or that I’ve seen play throughout the years. It just goes really really deep, and so when you’ve been to thousands of shows with people all over the world, you start to learn the landscape of who’s booking where, and what towns are doing what, and if you don’t know, you probably do know somebody that does know what’s going on. That tour that I originally met you on, I only started organizing that like 2 months before the tour and it was a 58 city tour, and I had people that were in their 70s that were like “I’ve been touring longer than you’ve been alive and I’ve never seen anyone do anything like this in that span of time”. I didn’t really think anything of it when I was doing it. I did think that I got very lucky that I was able to actually line up the whole East coast up and down but, I certainly didn’t realize the gravity of how difficult that typically is, and I’m very grateful to everybody and this really wonderful community of creators all over the world that they’re just always willing to do last minute shows for you know.  What might be an audience of 3 people sometimes, but it’s always the right 3 people.

JO: Yeah, it really does seem like for that tour, and for this festival people were really rallying around you and trying to help you. That’s how we connected.

AA: Yep 

JO: So to jump back to the festival real quick. Is it just you putting it on or do you have helpers? 

AA: It is completely just me. The venue has very graciously offered the space for the week and I know that Tom (who is the owner and is in his mid 70s) will be running around the whole week also. Staying up early and late with us and helping do sound and keep things orderly. In terms of organization, asking everyone to play, getting the spot, promoting, it is pretty much me. I’m pretty much gonna try to cover Rochester in flyers the next two weeks, but aside from that, I’m not taking full credit for it. It’s everybody involved that allows it to happen. The organizational aspect was definitely something that I had no help with.

JO: I saw something on Facebook today where you said that there were like 1,500 people that responded favorably to the invite so there is some good traction, some good buzz.

AA: That one kind of caught me off guard because I’ve always been very about trying to maximize social media retention, and I’ve had this event page up longer than any other event I’ve ever done. I think I made this back in like November of last year and so I kind of just was teasing it for a while and before I even had an announced lineup there were already 200 responses on the event. Then I ran some ads for a while. I still have some ads running and if there’s anything I’ve learned through years of curating it’s that you can’t really trust metrics on Facebook in terms of anywhere near how many people will show up, but I mean if a tenth of those people show up that would be wonderful. So I think it’s a really good sign no matter what, and having that many attendees on Facebook too I believe puts you into like the “main algorithm” of what’s happening in the city. So maybe we’ll have visitors or random people that are just like “oh, what is this?”

JO: Are you performing? 

AA: Yes, I am. I have a couple of people that have asked me to play, and I’m kind of on the fence about how many I do play. I’m definitely not doing more than one thing a day. I really don’t like to play my own festival too much. I’ve always been weird about people curating stuff and overly playing their own thing.

JO: Humble of you.

AA: When friends ask you to play and they’re people that you respect and admire, it’s hard to say no sometimes.

JO: You kind of remind me, in a way, of John Zorn. I’ve seen things where Zorn puts on a festival in Europe, and he’s performing, and he’s also hosting, and he’s just so busy all day. People say that he doesn’t really eat. He’s just kind of running around and I’m thinking about you doing this for a week. Are you gonna be okay?

AA: Oh yeah. So this will be the second time I’ve done it for a week straight as an organizer. Originally in 2022, I did Rochester Experimental Week, which was maybe about half of these artists. It’s definitely exhausting by the end of the week. You want to take like another week of rest if you can, but unfortunately you have to return right back to real life right after. It’s taxing for sure. You have to be attentive at all times and especially being the person that people rely on for the whole thing. I’m the point of contact, so I’m gonna be getting grabbed and pulled in every direction you can imagine the whole fest.

JO: I would love to see your phone, the texts and DMs! Make sure you bring an extra phone charger! So, I want to change gears, and since this is an interview for Tabs Out, we definitely have to talk about tapes at some point, so the first question (not really related to tapes) is – I was trying to look up an Adam Arritola tape and then I saw that despite all your touring, and all the people you’ve played with, you have not released any music. 

AA: Nope. More than 10 years of live performance and I have not put any music or merch out and I guess I intend to keep it that way for the foreseeable future. Before you ask, it’s strictly because when I do release a piece of music I want it to be something that I can look back on 50 years from now and really just feel that it kept its place in time.

JO: Once you release this opus of work, do you have any dream labels you’d want to put it out on? 

AA: I do have friends that run labels that are very very close friends, and I did tell my buddies Scott Bazar and Joel Nobody that if I do put out my first release I would like to do it on Fork And Spoon Records, which is based out of Panama City Beach, Florida. A lot of that crew is coming up to play my festival and they’re some of the coolest creatives you’ll ever meet. It’s a really overlooked improvisational music area in the United States that most people probably don’t know exists.

JO: I have plenty of musical blind spots. I’ve never heard of Fork And Spoon Records. Are those guys putting out any tapes?

AA: I believe they are. They do multimedia stuff. I definitely have a number of CDs from them. I do have a handful of tapes as well. I haven’t been too in the loop though. I’m gonna be honest, especially like this past year, I haven’t been as in the loop with what has been recent. I feel like this year has just been nonstop and I really haven’t had time to dig into things the way I would like to. But hopefully after the festival eases up a little bit, I can spend some winter time digging in.

JO: Yeah, I’m definitely quite the same way. I’m always buried in a backlog of music that I haven’t listened to yet, and it makes it difficult to catch up on new stuff. But, is there anything from 2024 that you’ve been checking out? 

AA: Not off the top of my head. There’s a number of people that I’ve booked that have come through town, where I do have tapes from them. So between the tapes that I bought from him, and between the tapes that I went on an adventure for in Maine, I’ve been really exploring a lot of Id M Theft Able lately. 

JO: Yeah, let’s talk about that. I just noticed that he’s not playing at your festival.

AA: Unfortunately not. Skott has got family at home that he has to look after and I know he wants to be on tour, and it just didn’t line up this time unfortunately. But I had Skott here not too long ago. He played in my basement and It was a really fun night.

JO: He’s the best. He’s played out here a couple times too! He’s got some crazy geocaching adventures that you can do in Maine, and I did one of them! I did the one at the rest stop and I know you did too, but you did the one at the cabin and so why don’t you tell us about both of those experiences?

AA: Sure and to my awareness, actually I believe there is a third one that I haven’t gone on the adventure for yet, so the next time I’m out in Portland or Windham Maine area I’m gonna go on the search for that one. But yeah, Id M Theft Able is one of my favorite people and creatives in the entire world and when I went up to Portland, Maine to play a show there, it was actually the first show him and Crank Sturgeon had played as a duo since before COVID, and I kind of idolize those guys. So having them play a duo on a show I was coming through to play was very exciting. As I was on my way, Skott didn’t tag me in it, but I’m sure that he knew that I would see it on my feed. He refreshed his Kittery, Maine truck stop cassette adventure and so I remembered that on my way over there. At the Kittery rest stop, if you look around in crevices under the vending machines or above them (and you have to comb through spider webs), but, Id M Theft Able Tapes are waiting for you. So if you ever find yourself in that area, go make sure to grab one of those.

JO: Tell us about the cabin.

AA: That was the most fun I’ve had in my adult life, like no joke, and I was completely by myself when I did that. I went on this adventure and I intentionally told myself that I was not going to use the GPS coordinates when I got there. It was raining and it was this time of year all the trees were completely full. So you couldn’t see through anything, so I was walking around and combing through shrub for what felt like hours. I was almost about ready to give up honestly. And funny enough, I brought a video drone on tour with me. At one point I got so frustrated that I started flying the drone over all of the area. I flew the drone for like 20 minutes and could not find this thing for the life of me! And so it’s raining. I put the drone away and I said “okay, I’m not giving up on this”. I’ve already put too much effort into this and I kept going and going and going. Eventually I stumbled upon this abandoned shack, and just seeing the shack you know from my periphery when I finally spotted it was like, oh my god, is that it? It was like this magical thing. You could equate it to The Legend of Zelda when Link picks up treasure out of the chest.

JO: So, you held it over your head?

AA: That’s what it felt like to find the spot and then you walk in it, and it’s just like this completely decrepit room with this mattress that literally looks like somebody’s been murdered in this place. Then above the falling apart mattress, there’s a little banner that says “Take It To The Next Level” and the whole concept is that you go in there, you take a photo of yourself with one of the tapes that you get off the wall, and you send that photo of you with the tape to Skott and he will send you a custom made art cover for your cassette tape that you’ve acquired from this adventure.

JO: That’s incredible. Wow. So, I think that kind of wraps it up. I just wanted to ask, do you have anything else you wanted to talk about or any advice for people trying to put on their own festivals? 

AA: Yeah, just do it. Don’t think that you can’t do it. Anybody can do this. It’s not like something that you need a special skill set to do. I mean there are skills that could help for sure and I guess if you’re a more sociable person, which sometimes I’m not, it does help a lot. But just ask your buddies or ask bands if they’re willing to play a spot. Ask a spot if they’re willing to host a show. Sometimes there are hurdles you need to go through but if you’ve gone to shows throughout the years, you probably have some idea of the etiquette of how shows run and so as long as you’re making sure that the artists are taken care of before yourself, I think that that is the coolest thing you can do as a promoter. Just don’t be one of those people that get into music to try to capitalize on people. 

JO: Definitely. I’m not gonna be able to be there in person, but I’m planning on checking out the Twitch stream. Congrats, this is incredible. I’m really excited for it.

AA: Yeah, thank you Jamie. I guess the last thing I’ll add is that I’m really excited that this venue has allowed the whole week to occur as an all-ages festival. If you have the opportunity to expose youth to this, I would really highly suggest it. I think that it could really make a tremendous lifelong impact on younger people, and hopefully once I get burnt out from doing this, somebody attending this festival I want to be the next person to throw the next extremely large line up.

JO: 500 artists, 2 weeks!

AA: Yeah exactly!

JO: Alright Adam, I think that’s all I got and really appreciate you.

AA: Oh thank you, Jamie it was a pleasure.

Check the Avant Garde A Clue Schedule Here

Reserve a Spot at the Eventbrite Page Here