What's up FuseBox Radio & BlackRadioIsBack.com crew!
We just came back from a great weekend in Durham, NC for our second year of covering Moogfest.
For those who are not familiar with this particular music festival, Moogfest is a celebration of the legacy of Bob Moog, the visionary engineer who pioneered the analog synthesizer and other technology tools used by artists like Stevie Wonder, David Bowie & plenty more musicians folks rock with to this day.
The four day event consisted of a lot of musical performances (from a nice mix of indie to mainstream music artists in various genres, including up-and-comers like Sudan Archives from Stones Throw Records, festival favorites like Flying Lotus and long-time vets like DJ Premier, Animal Collective and Talib Kweli - and that's a VERY small sampling of folks who performed), interactive workshops, panels, film screenings, visual & audio interactive art exhibitions and more.
Moogfest is unique in the aspect of being on the East Coast (Durham for us in the D.C. Metro was just about 4 hours away to travel to) and being actually relatively affordable for the average person to roll out too as a semi-niche mid-range festival (general admission gets you into a hell of a lot in four days and VIP is basically you being about that serious music creation & producer life with additional synthesizer building sessions, special parties in between to chill and more).
The way the music festival scene is going with these events either getting co-opted by huge corporate companies (which has made some lineups feel like cut-and-paste jobs of the same artists in rotation, meaning you're not going to get many chances to discover anyone new & interesting to add onto your personal playlists) or a tad TOO arrogant coasting off of Fumes of Dope Festivals Past while giving at best meh content to consumers (too may heads to name), it's dope to attend a gathering like Moogfest where the passion for music is reflected with everyone who is attending, including the artists.
The chill vibe in Durham is pretty awesome as well, with the city being really accommodating to all of the Moogfest activity going on in it's various downtown venues, a solid food scene (hit up Dames' Chicken and Waffles if you go down there and thank me later) and not (at least yet, fingers and toes crossed) trying to run people's pockets with hotel room prices for folks coming out of town.
It's a perfect setting for the semi-nerd contingent that would roll down to this event to check out music performances, learn about music creation & business, care about the world beyond a stage, sip on something (insert your drinks of choice here, with or sans booze) and just relax being amongst like minded folks who are WAY more about actual music at a music festival than trying to be hip & more concerned about getting on the 'Gram with fashion and whatnot. If this sounds like your wave, Moogfest is for you!
Check out what went down at this year's Moogfest (and to stay on point with 2018 Moogfest announcements) via their official website at http://www.Moogfest.com.
For more a LOT more photography from this year's Moogfest from DJ Fusion than the prime pictures from this article, check out the official FuseBox Radio Photography page (http://www.FuseBoxRadioPhotography.com) and our official Flickr Page.
Enjoy checking everything out and be on the look out for the official Moogfest FuseBox Radio Broadcast special (full of music from the artists who performed during the weekend + an mini-audio review) via your podcasting apps of choice soon!
Pie Face Girls
Mykki Blanco
Omar Suleyman
Hannibal Buress
Talib Kweli
Bearcat
Peanut Butter Wolf
Moogfest Guitar Center Pop Up Shop
Sudan Archives
ZenSoFly
DJ Chela
KING
DJ Premier
Flying Lotus