Music festival tunes up for next week’s celebration
The sound of music will be heard in local bars and halls next weekend during the second installment of the homegrown Hamtramck Music Festival. A number of local bands will be performing.
By Mike Murphy
Special to The Review
Ten-dollar wristbands are now on sale for the Second Annual Hamtramck Music Festival, which with 150 bands playing at 17 Hamtramck venues on March 5-8 promises to heat up an otherwise frosty Michigan winter.
Wristbands can be purchased directly from festival organizers at hamtramckmusicfiestival.com and at record stores, bars, and other retail outlets in Hamtramck and the surrounding areas.
“The event coincides with Wayne State’s spring break and it is also the kickoff event for bands travelling to the South by Southwest Festival in Austin, Texas the following week,” HMF Chief Organizer Eugene Strobe said.
Strobe said musicians and music lovers initiated the event last year after organizers of the Metro Times-sponsored Blowout decided to move their March festival into May and involved other Detroit-area locations outside of Hamtramck in the process. The HMF was a success.
“It was really great,” Strobe said. “Everyone we heard from said they loved it. They were excited that it was going on and that they could see the bands in such close proximity.”
About two dozen area musicians and music lovers make up the HMF organization. Some book bands while others concentrate on logistics, coordination and promotions.
Some of the bands are asked to play and others are found through an application process, similar to the Blowout and South by Southwest.
“We make showcases out of that pool,” Strobe said.
Festivalgoers will not only be paying for entertainment, they will also be promoting a good cause. All proceeds from the volunteer-powered festival are going to Ben’s Encore, a non-profit organization that provides young musicians and underserved school music programs in the Metro Detroit area with instruments, music lessons and scholarships. All HMF performers and organizers are working for free.
Last year, the HMF donated close to $3,000 to Ben’s Encore. About 1,800 kids were reached in one way or another, and proceeds from the HMF paid for nine scholarships and funded educational workshops and fairs, Strobe said.
The HMF’s headlining bands include: The Hentchmen, Saturday Looks Good to Me, Mexican Knives, Duane the Brand New Dog, Rebel Kind, Doop & the Inside Outlaws, Pink Lightning, Wasabi Dream, Cold Men Young, Danny Kroha, Casual Sweetheart, The Deadly Vipers, Duende!, Junk Food Junkies, Lac La Belle, Moonwalks, Prude Boys, and many more.
Strobe said the full schedule was finalized last week after about four months of organizing work and that the full showcase schedule for all the venues is now up on the HMF website.
This year, the festival is taking place over a long weekend with a free opening night party scheduled for Thursday at the Fowling Warehouse. At 11 a.m. on Sunday, the HMF will host an all-ages pop-up record shop and brunch with an additional band showcase at P.L.A.V. Post 10.
In between on Friday and Saturday, about 150 bands will perform and there will be a free shuttle service to transport people from venue to venue.
Strobe, who is also a musician, will be playing in The Witches and Cosmic Light Shapes. He puts a lot into organizing the event but he said watching HMF unfold before his eyes makes it all worthwhile.
“I get the enjoyment and the excitement of being in a walkable city that has 150 bands playing in it. I see new bands that I haven’t seen before. They blow me away, and I see other people enjoying it, too,” he said.
(A full schedule of the bands and participating bars and halls will be in next week’s Review.)
