In preparation for The After School Special Festival to be hosted by King Arthur Booking we took some time with Samuel of KAB to get at the heart of what TASSF is all about. Join King Arthur and some of the best of local metal, hardcore and progressive music from the Portland, Oregon area and beyond as they assemble at The Revolution Room in Camas, Washington on Saturday, September 25th.

Samuel, you currently sing for City Sleeps play bass for …And The Sirens Sang and are booking with King Arthur, anything else (ha ha)?
KAB Well City Asleep is pretty much dead at this point. I’ve just been reworking the songs and making them a little less Pop Punk, so its basically just me doing that now. But other then Sirens I just do solo stuff. I branch out everywhere from like, 50′s cover songs to indie stuff and I’ve done a few electronic/pop styled songs.

How do you stay fresh in your drive to push the music and in maintaining creativity?
KAB As far as keeping it new with booking I try not to book the same bands over and over again. I pretty much just cycle through a bunch of bands who seems to be doing well and mix it up. I also try to give my shows a name that kids can remember, like “The After School Special” or “The Night of The Living Dead” for the Halloween show. In my writing perspective, I just try to keep it as original as possible while staying within the same genre. I’m really into post hardcore, so you could say I’m a bit of a revivalist with that.

The After School Special Festival will be held at Revolution Coffee in Camas, WA – what makes this venue unique?
KAB The Revolution Room is sorta the “home base” per say for Sirens, and its a great friendly venue that I love. I book at Pop Culture (formerly Moxie’s) as well, but its a small venue and The Revolution Room offers the right size for a festival. Its a Christian church though, so I sometimes have problems booking certain bands due to the zero tolerance of vulgarity on and off stage. I love the venue though, and I definitely see it as a huge factor in bringing the music scene back to what it used to be.

Is this your first all day festival?
KAB This is indeed my first all day festival, but I’ve had Will Breitner [And The Sirens Sang] and Brady Johns [King Arthur Booking] helping me out a little as far as do’s and dont’s, so I feel I have a pretty good handle on it.

What inspired putting this show together?
KAB What I am going for with this show is a day where the kids can come out and listen to music and hang out with friends and have a good time and have a nice little break from the first month back in school. I pulled bands from across the board as far as genres go, with a hope that kids that tend to listen to a certain one type of music will be able to experience the other genres of the NW and hopefully come out to support those bands at other shows.

Is there a genre or theme that brings all these bands together?
KAB The general theme for this show is to basically have fun and unwind a little. You’ll find Pop Punk, Happy Hardcore, Death Metal/Deathcore and Post hardcore at this show. Its hopefully going to be a great day for the local scene.

THE AFTER SCHOOL SPECIAL FESTIVAL (9/25/10) – 2PM [ALL DAY] @The Revolution Room (2008 SE 8th Ave. – Camas, WA 98607)

FEATURING SOME OF YOUR FAVORITE BANDS! Get rid of the back to school blues and come out and support some of the NW’s finest locals! Guaranteed to be an awesome time! Bands include (Hurdcore.com alumni w/ links to interviews): Proven, City Of God, Roseway, Boy Named Sue, Her Death & After, Chin Up Rocky, Mourning For Memories, Accrue, Ghosts & Monsters, If All Else Fails, Upon Departure…AND MORE!

Look for more shows from King Arthur Booking in the Camas/Vancouver/Portland area, keep up to speed on the KAB Myspace page and keep your eyes peeled for The Night of the Living Dead KAB Halloween Show October 30th @ The Revolution Room (Camas, WA)

Contact hurdcore.com – “fans supporting local music.” for opportunities to promote your band or event (hurdcore@gmail.com) album reviews, band bios, content management and more. New interviews posted every Sunday, stay in touch by friending us on myspace and joining us facebook.

Come to Me all you who are weary and heavy burdened and I will give you rest. – Jesus

King Arthur Booking presents: THE AFTER SCHOOL SPECIAL FESTIVAL

Saturday, September 25, 2010
2:00 PM – 10:00 PM PDT

@The Revolution Room
2008 SE 8th Ave.
Camas, WA 98607

FEATURING SOME OF YOUR FAVORITE BANDS! Get rid of the back to school blues and come out and support some of the NW’s finest locals! Guaranteed to be an awesome time! Bands include (Hurdcore.com alumni w/ links to interviews): Proven, City Of God, Roseway, Boy Named Sue, Her Death & After, Chin Up Rocky, Mourning For Memories, Accrue, Ghosts & Monsters, If All Else Fails, Upon Departure…AND MORE!

Look for more shows from King Arthur Booking in the Camas/Vancouver/Portland area, keep up to speed on the KAB Myspace page and keep your eyes peeled for The Night of the Living Dead KAB Halloween Show October 30th @ The Revolution Room (Camas, WA)

Contact hurdcore.com – “fans supporting local music.” for opportunities to promote your band or event (hurdcore@gmail.com) album reviews, band bios, content management and more. New interviews posted every Sunday, stay in touch by friending us on myspace and joining us facebook.

Come to Me all you who are weary and heavy burdened and I will give you rest. – Jesus

In an iTunes era, where we consumers pick and choose our playlists from a virtual buffet of musical offerings, a day full of local metal ought to inspire even the most casual of fans to sample a exhibition of live local music. Savage Fest was not only a stage featuring a perpetual onslaught of metal, hardcore, progressive, melodic and a whole host of other -core local artists, The Camas Courthouse served as a theater showcasing the finest of Washington and Oregon skull melting rock. As hurdcore.com continues to team with local artists, agents and venues to promote what is happening in your neck of the enchanted musical forest, we hope to inspire an army of fans who don’t just observe but who participate in the best of what music has to offer. We are fans supporting local music and it was our great pleasure to get our metal on with the bands who performed Saturday, April 24th, 2010 for Savage Fest at The Camas Courthouse (hopefully the first of many).

Local acoustic favorites Jack Devore and Andy Hokanson (drummer for If All Else Fails) opened Savage Fest with back-to-back intimate sets. Both utilized the emotional tone of the acoustic with great skill and each had a commanding presence of their voices, Jack the quieter of the two would hit higher notes in stride without straining whereas Andy’s sound had a distinct pop-edge. Mourning For Memories was first up to bring out the brutal, operating with a youth and energy that make it clear that these dudes are developing a chemistry in their sound that won’t soon be forgotten. Mourning for Memories brought with them a significant segment of the local crowd and introduced the savage throngs to what will heretofore be distinguished as hello-kitty-core (note pic). On a day full of metal, scheduled for nearly 10 hours of back to back riffs, shreds and breakdowns, the diversity of what blossoms under the “metal” umbrella was already a feature note. Transitioning from thrash to popcore with Portland based Chin Up Rocky, mixing elements of pop, screamo, punk and what many are calling post-hardcore. Chin Up Rocky carries a positive if not happy tone that still has enough bite to induce you to get low.

The first and only band of the night to have two members dedicated exclusively to vocals was local hardcore/death metal quintet Edessa, sharing duties with guttural and serpentine screams. Edessa taps into the sound of old school hardcore bands such as Point of Recogniton with a proper mix of current dynamics to have already attracted for themselves a devoted local following. The band that perhaps traveled the farthest, hailing from Maple Valley, Washington also introduced the Savage Fest crowd to an apt use of simple props by backlighting their set with floodlights to create an ambiance that brought the band seemingly in full 3D into the crowd. We Move Mountains turned the mayhem dial up to 11 with a forceful combination of energy, creativity and dark mystery enough to be the backdrop for any number of Burton-esque films, inciting the crowd with cryptic incantations such as, “I’m normal. I’m normal. I swear to God, I’m normal.” While we at hurdcore.com may be slightly prejudice being that We Move Mountains was one of our first interviews (see WMM Interview), an experience with self described “catchy melodic McDonald’s-core” will be enough to get any bi-pedal creature fiending for more of their fierce riffs and spaztastic live performances. Look for more of We Move Mountains as they just wrapped shooting their video for popular song “Dan Nettekoven Snakes the Win” and a full length album to drop later this year.

Portland, Oregon doomsday death metal brought its local rep in Daematta who is in a period of transformation to break from a self-perceived pigeoning in the bland “name-your-core” mix of local artists and into a more distinct blackening of their metal roots. Savage Fest continued to showcase the best of heavy local music introducing the crowd to a band that was so dialed in as a professional act that perhaps the only pieces missing from this Portland thrash/metal band was a tour bus and personal roadies. Almost Is Nothing has the presence of master, gear legitimate enough to make even the casual fan salivate and a sound so shred-tastic that the only question remaining is whether your face or the dueling fret boards will last long enough to complete an entire set of this audio assault. Even the casual fan can see that Almost Is Nothing is on the brink of greatness, those who have the opportunity to witness them live while they remain at this level of public recognition should realize that it won’t be long before rocking with AIN won’t come at such a bargain.

Bring Me Solace is fairly new to launch upon the Portland area melodic/progressive metal scene, yet it doesn’t take long to notice a care to their sound the reaches far beyond a fashionable title. In the span of a 30 minute set, the bassist for Bring Me Solace walked, jogged and ran through every inch of his six-stringed fretboard multiple times, part symphonic Jedi mixed mixed with the shear brutality of Paul Bunyan dropping his behemoth axe through a withering forest. Longview, Washington based Upon Departure is another band that we at hurdcore.com had a previous interaction with, interviewing them in late 2009 as they began working on their latest release (still in the works – see UD Interview). Live, the riffs of Upon Departure oozed with some of the heaviest breakdowns of a day full of metal madness. Firmly grounded in their hardcore/metal roots, the young men of Upon Departure continue to challenged themselves to expand the experimental aspects of their music venture.

With an impressive local following and a willingness to experiment with intriguing harmonic concepts, as Focus On The Skyline continues to hone their craft and perform together they will acquire the synchronicity needed to produce a crisper edge to their sound. And The Sirens Sang appears to be on the fast track with live performance laced with a blue collar creativity that both imprints their set into the recesses of your memory as well as begs the question what they might be able to assemble with a larger budget. The largest band of Savage Fest by numberic standards, rocked double axes with bass, rapid drums, thoroughbred keys and a team approach to vocal responsibilities in addition to the designated throat. And The Sirens Sang literally filled the comfortable stage of The Camas Courthouse while flooding the crowd with an impressively polished sound that brandished a full-time commitment to exploring the potential of Key-core (or as my good friend aptly remarked, “It’s like Anberlin on a massive dose of steroids”). Combining skill, creativity and an unparalleled work ethic with most members holding responsibilities in multiple music related ventures without losing a step in the progression of And The Sirens Sang.

To my own dismay, I awoke the morning of the long awaited Savage Fest with a throbbing headache and bronchitis-esque cough. I held out as long as possible but illness and responsibilities at home lured me away from witnessing the combined brutality of local favorites Aleen, Settle’s Idols and the pit-masters of Portland, Proven. On a day full of metal at its purest, hardcore at the grassroots ever accelerating through the local atmosphere, and yet still “fans” balk at the opportunity to experience the music with abandon. Every major band started somewhere and whether you are a fan of a particular band or genre, the thrill of a live performance is a display of those who have dared to put their dreams in motion. Keep rockin’ local and when I see you next, let’s get moving!

GET DOWNZ TOUR to kick off at The Camas Courthouse (89 C Street, Washougal, WA) June 19, 2010 featuring And The Sirens Sang, We Move Mountains and Upon Departure – Tour runs North and East through Washington and then South from Eugene, Oregon (June 28th – rock with hurdcore.com!)

Check out the bands from Savage Fest:
Jack Devore (Blues, Camas, WA)
Mourning For Memories (Thrash – Washougal, WA)
Chin Up Rocky (Happy Hardcore, Portland)
Edessa (Hardcore – Camas, WA)
We Move Mountains (Metal – Maple Valley, WA)
Daematta (Death Metal, Portland)
Almost Is Nothing (Thrash, Portland)
Bring Me Solace (Progressive, Portland)
Upon Departure (Metal – Longview, WA)
Focus On The Skyline (Post-hardcore, Camas, WA)
And The Sirens Sang (Screamo, OR)
Aleen (Screamo, WA)
Idols (Death Metal, Seattle)
Proven (Metal, Portland)