Prepare to get shocked

Starting at noon this Saturday, April 19, serene indie popsters Beach House, techno-primitivists Mahjongg, retro-metal monsters Dead Child and off-kilter folkies The Dodos, as well as 11 other musical acts, will play a daylong concert in Dunn Meadow – all for free, as part of the 23rd annual Culture Shock festival hosted by IU student-run radio station WIUX.

Since the festival was founded by WIUS (pre-FM WIUX) staffers Jim Kerns and John Pollock in 1986, Culture Shock has grown, shrunk and grown again; seen boom and bust periods; experienced good and bad weather; advocated causes ranging from the abolition of South African apartheid to environmental awareness; and evolved from a loose gathering of creative individuals to a full-on rock concert.

In the process, Culture Shock audiences have been privy to performances by Yo La Tengo, Spoon, Alkaline Trio, Early Day Miners, The Verve Pipe, Bunnygrunt, Damien Jurado, Scout Niblett, Koufax, Harry and the Potters – and, most recently: Xiu Xiu, Sunset Rubdown, Catfish Haven, Black Moth Super Rainbow and David Vandervelde.

For this year’s edition of the festival, the process of bringing the bands to Bloomington all started with a bulletin board in the hallway of the WIUX headquarters on Eighth Street, affectionately called the WIUX Mansion.

“We try to make (the lineup’s selection) as democratic as possible,” festival organizer and WIUX Special Events Director Jon Coombs said. “So, this year, on the bulletin board out there, we just put a list, and anyone could write anything.”

WIUX DJs, bands playing live shows for the station, and casual passersby were all invited to contribute suggestions as to who should play at Culture Shock. Armed with this inventory, Coombs, with the help of local promoters Spirit of ’68 Promotions, went about seeing which bands happened to be available. They also had to find bands that were affordable – the concert might be free to the public, but someone had to pick up the tab.

“(Some bands) wanted way too much money,” Coombs said. “They think we’re Union Board, whose pockets are, like, infinitely deep – and ours are very, very, very limited.”
For some bands, the expense of traveling to Bloomington was simply too great – as it was for The Explorers Club, who were forced to bow out of this year’s festival. (They have, however, promised to play next year’s Culture Shock, and WIUX is finding a replacement for them at this year’s festival.)

In the end, the price tag for this year’s Culture Shock was just more than $7,000 – the money coming from a mix of University funding, an on-air telethon, sponsorships and support from Union Board. This represents a bargain, Coombs said, compared to last year when the headliners alone, Sunset Rubdown and Xiu Xiu, cost $6,000.

“The two bands were way out of the way, and they could have played Chicago, they could have played a much bigger market on a Saturday night,” Coombs said. ”So, if you want the bigger bands, you’re going to have to pay a lot more money to come to the middle of nowhereland, practically. We learned that the hard way last year.”

The investment, however, appears to be paying off. The recruitment of nationally known indie bands for 2007’s Culture Shock not only drew sizable crowds, but garnered this year’s festival the attention of influential publication Pitchforkmedia.com – which the organizers hope will draw even more people to Dunn Meadow. However, Coombs was quick to note that Culture Shock offers more than indie rock.

“Indie rock is our bread and butter, but it’s called ‘Culture Shock’ for a reason,” he said. “We don’t just want some run-of-the-mill indie rock bands one after another. We’ve got a jazz quintet this year, we’ve got hip-hop, we’ve got world music, we’ve got some post rock, some instrumental rock on top of our basic indie rock stuff. ... There is a definite emphasis on making it not just indie rock.”

In this, there is a reflection of the festival’s original stated purpose as a showcase for not just rock, but performances originating from foreign cultures and countercultural scenes. (The first Culture Shock even went beyond the world of music, to feature dance troupes, puppet theater, mime and displays of fencing and medieval combat.) And, also true to Culture Shock’s roots, this year’s festival will feature Bloomington acts alongside nationally-touring artists. One band that merges both these traditions is local group Impure Jazz.

“Some find it hard to pinpoint a specific genre, but I’d say (the way we sound is like) if jazz punched math rock in the face, and then experimental rock’s crazy uncle tried to break the fight up by putting on a Paula Abdul record,” group drummer and IU freshman Joshua Morrow said.

For Morrow, the appeal of Culture Shock was the potential for public exposure and fun of playing for a crowd.

But for Josh Hinton of Nire, a gently melodic acoustic duo from Portland, Ore., a major draw was simply the opportunity to play at an outside festival.

“We’re excited to be playing in a different type of environment,” Hinton said. “Our shows are often in small, dark spaces, so playing in a meadow and potentially at high noon will be kind of surreal.”

This sentiment was echoed by Ryan Holladay of Brooklyn, N.Y.’s The Epochs.
“The only other show we played outside was at Columbia University with the Walkmen,” Holladay said. “I borrowed their tambourine and completely destroyed it during ‘Thunder & Lightning.’ I felt pretty terrible. But if that one outdoor show was any indication, expect some serious instrumental carnage.”

Besides instrumental carnage, bands varied widely in their claims of what audiences should expect from this year’s performances.

Answers ranged from the biological (“A sing-a-long with two very sweaty dudes,” said Chris Ward of two-man chamber-pop group Pattern Is Movement) to the financial (“It’s a free show so the audience should expect to get their money’s worth,” said guitarist David Pajo of Dead Child).

However, when asked what the Culture Shock crowd could look forward to, singer Casey Dienel of jazz-influenced indie pop act White Hinterland offered the most, while using the least words.

“Magic!” she said.