It came as a surprise to all of us when it was announced that the once thriving downtown music festival, Neon Reverb, was returning this year after a bit of a hiatus. The lineup this year is stacked. Between Ty Segalll, The Melvins, Chuck Ragan, Beach Slang, La Sera, and various other bands at the top of their game, Neon Reverb has decided to come back kicking and screaming.
The thriving success of downtown’s music scene is in part due to Neon Reverb putting the various venues and bands, carving their place within music, on the map. Pairing nationally touring bands headed to Austin for SXSW, with the finest local talent, spells a win-win for all parties involved, and creates an actual party for those in attendance. I sat down with two of the people responsible for the modest festival’s resurrection, James Woodbridge and Ronald Corso, at Corso’s shop, 11th Street Records, for an in-depth talk about this year’s hopes for the festival and the plans they have for its future.
From the looks of it, everyone is stoked that Neon Reverb is back. But what made it have to go away to begin with?
James: I had to step away to work on my book. Jason (Aragon, Neon Reverb overseer) did one basically on his own. It was like, “fuck, it’s hard enough with three guys, with one guy, this is insane.” It just seemed to get kind of crowded out. Life is Beautiful, the Rock in Rio thing and all this stuff. These events were kind of acting like sponsorship black holes, sucking up any potential sponsorship so nobody was interested in helping build this at that time.
Ronald: I think at the same time there was also kind of a lull in the scene that had been down here before. There was kind of a disruption in the natural flow of things by all the big shit that was happening down here. During that time, there just seemed to be a lull in [new] bands.
James: That is true. The local music scene kind of slowed down.
It seems that during that lull, you mentioned a thriving house show scene popped up.
Ronald: Which is funny because prior to the first wave of Neon Reverb stuff and the downtown stuff that happened in like 2007 or 8, there was a west side house show thing going on. That’s the scene that most of the National Southwest bands came out of. Those house show bands will make their way into the rock clubs before too long.
The prices for Neon Reverb tickets are super reasonable and inexpensive, what helped keep the cost so low?
Ronald: Well, that’s what it was back in the day.
James: We wanted to make it accessible. We know people here don’t have a lot of money, and…
Ronald: …we wanted to sell it out.
James: Yeah, we wanted to sell it out [laughs]. Also, one of the things we’ve always been good at is getting decent deals. We don’t throw tons of money. Bands hear “festival” and they add another zero on their charge. We’re like, “nah, nah, nah dude, it’s not that kind of thing.”
Ronald: Touring bands are all kinda stoked to be in on something like this because, to use an overused phrase, it’s kind of real. It’s not your standard kind of bullshit corporate festival. It’s really grassroots, and the whole point of this thing from the beginning was to have great local bands on stage with national bands. You know, what is it, 60/40 local to touring? So it really is a local band festival with some marquee names just to get people to come out. You concentrate it into one weekend and those shows look like the way we prefer local band shows looked year round. You’d go to a Neon Reverb show, and I remember I played a bunch of them, it was great because it was a packed house. You get up on stage and you looked out on the crowd and you’re like, “wow, this is a lot of fucking people here for this show.” It’s just a great feeling for the band, and it gives everybody kind of a push forward through the whole year. People get serious about making records and going on tour and all that kind of stuff. It’s just a boost.
James: “Let’s get our record done to release it during the festival.”
Ronald: Yeah!
With all the great local bands popping up, was it easy picking bands and figuring out what shows to place them on?
Ronald: No, it wasn’t because even though the touring lineup is probably the best one that the festival has had so far, we still needed to keep it kind of small and tight. There were a lot of other venues back in the day that aren’t in this festival. Yayo Taco, things like that. The whole idea, especially because we were doing it in a really short amount of time, is to do it right, keep it small. So there’s a ton of great bands that we weren’t able to put on the festival this time. That was the worst part of it, really.
James: Right, it’s being like, “ah man, what about these guys? Well, where are we gonna put ‘em? Crap.”
Ronald: We did one bill that’s kind of a nod to the history of the festival; there’s a lot of O.G. bands. Black Camaro and The Big Friendly Corporation. The Mapes, that’s kind of an O.G. Neon Reverb bill.
James: It’s got Bleached on it, though, and Colleen Green.
Ronald: And that’s another thing, that’s just because, where else are we gonna put her [laugh]?
You can just pay her in weed and she’ll play anywhere.
James: You know Colleen Green?
Ronald: That’s amazing
I’m not a huge fan of giant outdoor music festivals, I don’t think that’s the best place to experience a new band. If this is successful, do you ever see Neon Reverb going outdoors?
Ronald: Yeah, I don’t like them either.
James: The farthest we would want to go that route would be to kind of expand to what Punk Rock Bowling does. One big outdoor stage, plays during the day, get some great bands and then you’ve got all these great club shows. We’re never going to give up the club shows, it’s always going to be our focus. We’re about showing the world our bands, our venues, our downtown. That’s why this is Vegas’ festival. You can’t move this anywhere else, it’s not possible.
Ronald: You can put Life is Beautiful [anywhere], or Rock in Rio. I mean obviously Rock in Rio…
James: …it’s not in Rio!
Ronald: This is specifically our thing. Now, what we’d like to do is maybe jump Las Vegas Blvd and get some of the Arts District venues in play. Who knows what new venues open up. I’d really like this to show the smart money in town that music is a thing that they should bet on, and the kids are something that they should bet on. The single biggest challenge to putting on this festival, and I got fucking cracks in my head from beating it against the wall, is getting anybody to allow us to getting have an all-ages show anywhere.
That was actually my next question.
Ronald: Dude, it’s incredible. You wouldn’t even believe it.
James: Yeah, him in particular. He’s been pounding the pavement, knocking on doors.
Ronald: It’s just so important. It’s really ludicrous to see how much people are afraid of teenagers, for fucksake.
James: We got a couple 18+ shows though. We got Fremont Country Club, it’s great that that venue has that license and they can do that. That was really cool. But, we really wanted to have full on all-ages.
Following that vein, what would you like to see change about what’s going on downtown?
Ronald: I love the scene and I love the people, I’d just like to see some new people. There’s two million people in this city, I’d just like more of them to know what’s going on down here. I’d like for the people in Mountain’s Edge or whatever that are going, “well, there’s nothing going on in this town” to know what’s going on down here.
James: That was always part of the original vision, like back when there wasn’t really so much going on down here we were still trying to get people to come in from Summerlin and Henderson. Don’t be afraid of downtown. Come on down, it’s cool.
It’s brewing a lot of awesome bands. Where do you see it going from here?
James: Bigger.
Ronald: We would like to start doing events throughout the year. The main festival will probably always be this weekend in March because it’s right before SXSW, it helps with routing.
James: It gets us bands cheaper.
Ronald: I wouldn’t be surprised as we cultivate relationships with a lot of these people, because we’ve had people reach out to us from various casino companies and stuff like that that are interested in being a part of this because they read about it on the paper and they’re like “hey that’s looks great, rub some of that on us.” That’s cool and all. You might see some “Neon Reverb Presents” stuff at some downtown casino showrooms. Because those showrooms are all ages.
James: That’d be a great way to expand.
Have all the surrounding businesses and casinos been supportive?
James: We’ve only talked to a couple of the casinos. I mean, El Cortez has always said “yeah, we’re in.” Some others are just learning about us now. We got contacted after the news started coming out in the paper and they knew that we were for real. We’re doing something cool. But, we weren’t able to put something together in time this year. One of the things I’ve been involved in mostly is talking to sponsors and they’ve all said kind of the same thing which is basically, “hey, if this one goes well we’re in for twice or three times the money next year.” So we really want people to come out and support this one and really make this thing look great because it’s going to affect what we’re able to do next year. We’re talking the sponsors like Southern Wine & Spirits, they’re going around their different booze brands and saying, “hey there’s a music festival, do you wanna kick in any money to get your logo on the poster?” That’s how it works, that’s how these things get funded. If this festival goes off well and we end up in the black, or at least don’t lose any money…the shows are full, the people are psyched.
Ronald: Then next year they’ll devote more money which allows us to book bigger bands, more venues, work towards that outside stage.
So what does a successful Neon Reverb look like to you guys? Ticket sales or buzz?
Ronald: If they’re coming out, they’re buying tickets.
James: Yup.
Ronald: One of things, I don’t know if you saw that Facebook post I made the other day, but I’m buying my tickets, he’s buying his tickets. There are no comps. I mean, even band’s girlfriends aren’t getting in for free.
James: Bands do because that’s part of the payment. Our view is bands get paid. We had one band tell us, “don’t pay us anything.” We’re like, no, you’re getting paid. Bands get paid. Pay to play is bullshit.
Ronald: For us to cover the event with tickets sales over and above what the sponsorship guys have given us to allow us to book these bands in the first place, because that’s what we need to do, we need to put deposits down. The Melvins aren’t just going to come here without a deposit. Some of these bands are flying in for the festival, we had to pay for the airline tickets. So, the short answer to your question is, yeah, what would make it successful is for it to be successful. For the shows to be packed. We kept it small, we kept the price low, we got the dopest talent that we could possibly afford, and we did really well. Kudus to Mike Henry. Mike Henry booked this entire festival, and he pointed this out, for what a band that plays at four o’clock in the afternoon at Life is Beautiful gets paid.
James: One band. Our entire talent budget is the one band. Four o’clock. Life is Beautiful.
Ronald: We just had to make some calls on what it is that we could risk, because it’s the first time back. The support has been amazing, but we weren’t sure if people we’re going to give a shit. Everybody that was involved with Neon Reverb four or five years ago might have aged out of the scene, they might not give a shit anymore, the kids might’ve never heard of it. The main thing is, it would be successful if it enables us to grow it bigger next year.
-Alan Madrigal
Tickets for Neon Reverb are on sale now via the Neon Reverb website. You can also pick up tickets in person at 11th Street Records.
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