Earlier today, someone who I had worked with previously in the music industry reached out to me to see what I was doing now. My current career couldn’t be farther from the music industry and what I was used to doing within the Seattle music scene, but it’s not like I don’t think about it everyday. I’m reminded of the music scene daily because I still receive emails from bookers looking to see if I am interested in hiring their acts. I receive samples from new bands and artists interested in having their song as the Song of the Day on Yow Yow! It would be easy to fall back into it, but once you leave, you really kind of drop off the face of the Earth. When a bands’ career ends, the members go their separate ways – some within music and some not. Rarely do we find ourselves back into it, but it’s a career and industry that I have so much love and respect for. No one could ever understand how much work goes into a job in the industry unless you’ve done it yourself.
When I read this interview with Bumbershoot’s programming director Chris Porter, waves of nostalgia fell over me.
And there, on a whiteboard covered with sticky notes, the draft lineup for Bumbershoot 2013 appears. Porter has devised a color-coded system using the sticky notes: square pink ones are ideas, bands that have pitched the festival or the staff wants to pitch; square yellow sticky notes show bands that have been offered a spot but have not accepted; rectangular notes are for confirmed acts that will, unless something goes sideways, be playing Bumbershoot this year.
It’s a kind of organization that is so crazy, but you wouldn’t believe how well it works! The interview with Porter is not only insightful into what goes on in this role, but fascinating that one weekend takes an entire year to plan.
Don’t I know it, though. Been there – done that.
