2010 Next to Last Festival adds Elephant 6 / Merge Records band The Music Tapes and hip-hop artist Edan live with Paten Locke to its line-up
2010 marks the third year of the Next to Last Festival – a left-of-center music and arts festival based in the creative funnel ofAthens, Ga. From October 27th through the 31st, six venues around Athens will feature 70+ artists from around the world, possessed of singular and unique visions.
The festival organizers have just added two awesome new bands to the line-up this year: local great The Music Tapes (Elephant 6, Merge Records) and hip-hop artist extraordinaire Edan, playing live with guest Paten Locke.
Hip hop bedroom geek Edan (aka the Humble Magnificent) emerged during the small but vital hip-hop genesis in Boston at the tail-end of the 1990s. These artists shared a love of block-rockin’ retro-beats and veneration for the hip-hop “new school” of the late ’80s and early ’90s, and a proclivity for irreverent, tongue-in-cheek lyrical styles, to name the most significant. Bedroom geek Edan was the most block-rockin’ and irreverent of all Boston’s underground scientists. A triple threat on the microphone, as a producer, and behind the wheels of steel, Edan will be joined at the Next to Last Festival by guest Paten Locke.
The Music Tapes a member of the venerable Elephant 6 Collective, which includes bands like Neutral Milk Hotel, the Olivia Tremor Control and the Apples in Stereo, began as the brainchild of Julian Koster. After playing with Neutral Milk Hotel and heading his own project, Chocolate USA, Koster formed The Music Tapes, which released their debut album 1st Imaginary Symphony For Nomad in 1999, featuring an DIY aesthetic shared by most of its Elephant 6 contemporaries. The album would stand as the sole recording from the band until 2008, when they released the critically acclaimed Music Tapes for Clouds and Tornadoes.
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This year, the festival will be headed by two far-flung musical legends, Van Dyke Parks ( co-writer and co-composer of the Beach Boys’ masterpiece SMiLE with Brian Wilson) and New York City’s ESG (the iconic dance band from the South Bronx), both of whom represent the dynamic and mutated platform of artistic discovery offered by the festival.
Other performers will follow in these indelible footsteps. No two artists sound alike but each carries the commonality of personal vision. Other confirmed artists include: adrian orange, Avocado Happy Hour, Bird Names, bubbly mommy gun, Bunny Brains, Circle Pit, Creepy, Deaf Judges, Diane Cluck, DJ Dog Dick, Dope Body, The Dream Scene, Future Ape Tapes, How I quit Crack, Hume, Lord Scrummage, Malaikat Dan Singa, The Missoula Oblongata, Mouser, Noot d’ Noot, quiet hooves, Reptar, Skeletons, Summer Hymns, Tunabunny, Weekends, and Witches.
You can take a listen to the bands on SoundCloud
The festival will also showcase films, late night warehouse parties, haunted spaces, and more! A professional crew is documenting the entire event on film and tape for releases in the Next to Last Songs audio/video compilation series.
Tickets are on sale now via the festival’s colorful new website, where one can also find a wealth of multi-media information and entertainment