For two decades, The Glenwood Avenue Arts Fest (GAAF) has presented a free, weekend-long arts festival featuring 120+ artists, open studios, and live entertainment on two outdoor stages. This year White Mystery curated a lineup of 30+ live bands and a focus on an inclusive experience for guests with disabilities.
White Mystery
“Music and art are intertwined, and Glenwood Avenue Arts Fest is a perfect example of where the two creative forms meet.”
Monarchy Over Monday
“Music is art, everything around us is art, everything influences our art.”
Coyote Man
“Our music is instrumental and takes the listeners imagination on a journey to different emotions.”
Ovef Ow
“One of the most energizing and rewarding aspects of making music is the way it opens up opportunities to collaborate with artists of different mediums.”
Wild Earp & The Free for Alls
“Music is art (yes even country western music), and our music is just a way to try to make sense of and give added significance to the human condition. We love to use different media to create and inform the world of the band and the characters, from concept albums to radio plays to coloring books. Art exists in a conversation with reality, and that’s especially true in how we perceive the American West, our country’s history, and its relationship to country music. We’re having fun within that conversation, and are trying to be responsible with how we use it.”
Clickbait
“Art is what fills in the spaces we leave in our music. The audience adds what they want to hear, we just provide the skeleton of dance music.”
Bev Rage & the Drinks
“As a queer band, we aim to push boundaries in our music, live show, costuming, and audience interaction. It is all influenced by our individual art, and pieced together into a big ol’ loud gay mess. An artistic mess with a vision, though.”
Funkadesi
“We are inspired by art, where culture, identity, and belonging are all at play. Expression of our full humanity is at the core of our music.”
Tierra Roja
“Art is part of our culture, when arranging our music we often bring pieces into perspective from Mexican Artists. “
Tamarie T and the Elektra Kumpany
“Art influences my music greatly, I feel like my music is what a painting would look like transformed into sound. Music is a vibrational form of art.”
Bianca Shaw
“I feel as if I’m painting a vivid picture through music for my audience. Art helps refresh my perspective around topics, with visual art I receive messages that inspire me to create a new form of art through music.”
Tinkerbelles
“People are starting to figure out that experiences are worth more than possessions. The experience of art is more valuable and when you know that you incorporate it into everything you do.”
Tommy Carroll’s Calculated Discomfort
“The arts highlight alternative and better futures for the world that I want my music to soundtrack.”
Plastic Crimewave Syndicate
“I am a visual artist primarily, with a degree in Painting, so i always think of sound as textural and creating a mood, like the best visual art does–and the best art of any type takes you to another place completely.”
Waltzer
Stories with sounds and colors inspire me to write, because those are the only stories I understand. – Sophie Sputnik”
Duke Davenport
“Art imitates life imitates life imitates art. Is it even art when it’s your life? You be the judge.”
Cass Cwik & the Small Gas Engines
“We derive our music from early folk and rock and roll roots to the more improvised sounds of the Grateful Dead.”
Osmium House
“(Visual) Art is influential for our music because it is a vessel to help convey the aesthetic of our music! Visual art sets the scene for musical voyages!”
Joanna Connor Band
“The passion and honesty of America’s greatest musical gift to the world, and all popular music of the 20th and 21st centuries and the expressiveness of my chosen instrument- the guitar, are all vehicles that communicate my humanity and life experience to the works at large.”
AIR CREDITS
“Air Credits is a band that exists in multiple timelines, their music is influenced by the art of every generation, even the ones that haven’t happened yet.”
The Polkaholics
“THE POLKAHOLICS are a Chicago band that plays a high-speed collision of polka and rock ‘n roll!”
Urban Rhythm Band
“Diverse group of musicians from Haiti Philippines and Africa with American Indian influence our music style.”
For two decades, The Glenwood Avenue Arts Fest (GAAF) has presented a free, weekend-long arts festival featuring 120+ artists, open studios, and live entertainment on two outdoor stages. This year, Miss Alex White & Francis White are booking all 32 bands for the Chicago-based street festival. Attendees view and purchase handmade artworks directly from the creators. The Fest brings free live music, performances and art demonstrations — along with street food and craft beer from local merchants on the cobblestone streets of the Glenwood Avenue Arts District in Chicago’s historic Rogers Park neighborhood.
The 20th annual Fest will take place the weekend of August 20-22, 2021.
Seattle’s Freakout fest will hold its ninth edition this fall from November 11-14 at venues Tractor Tavern, Salmon Bay Eagles Club, Sunset Tavern, Conor Byrne, Hotel Albatross, Caffe Umbria, and CC Filson. This year’s lineup includes garage rock icons The Seeds, Matthew Dear, Seattle sludge greats Big Business, Cedric Burnside, Liz Cooper & The Stampede, reggae vet Clinton Fearon (The Gladiators), The Mystery Lights, Triptides, White Mystery, Vacant Lots, and more.
This year, Freakout has partnered with Mexico’s NRMAL Festival to curate a lineup of Latinx artists, including AJ Davila, Colombian electronic artist Cerrero, as well as Petite Amie, Margaritas Podridas, Myuné, Par Ásito, Carrion Kids and Los Honey Rockets.
Freakout is also highlighting Seattle’s Black rock scene with performances from Shaina Shepherd (who is signed to Freakout Records), The Black Tones, Beverly Crusher, Black Ends, King Youngblood, Marshall Law Band, and and Urban Heat.
Tickets for Freakout 2021 are on sale now and you can check out the full lineup, and listen to the official playlist featuring this year’s acts, below.
FREAKOUT FEST – 2021 LINEUP Cedric Burnside Liz Cooper & The Stampede The Seeds Big Business The Mystery Lights Matthew Dear Jamie Wyatt Levitation Room Clinton Fearon Acid Tongue The Vacant Lots Jarv Dee White Mystery Triptides Shaina Shepherd AJ Davila No Joy The Shivas Manatee Commune Smokey Brights Cerrero The Schizophonics Petite Amie Thee Sacred Souls Ohtis ZOPA (feat. Michael Imperioli) Michael Rault Evolfo The Grizzled Mighty Margaritas Podridas Pearl Charles Los Esplifs The Black Tones Hooveriii Beverly Crusher You Said Strange Monsterwatch Shadow Show Urban Heat PROVOKER Mala Suerte Death Bells Terror/Cactus Carrion Kids TeZATalks Tres Leches Par Ásito Black Ends Myuné Sebastian Adé King Youngblood Talaya. & Brandon Marsalis Los Honey Rockets Nathan Nzanga Jenny Don’t and the Spurs Chris King & The Gutterballs Caitlin Sherman Tennis Pro Biblioteka Stephanie Anne Johnson & The Hidogs,Warren Dunes Bird Language General Mojo’s Wild Powwers Spirit Mother Smoker Dad BOLERO! Boy Deluxe GLENN (ILLFIGHTYOU) Reposado The Copper Trees
As host of the Northwest music show, Eva Walker made this mix locals-heavy, with artists you need to know! She also sprinkled in some of her non-local favorites, both old and new. Artists include Beverly Crusher, Danny Denial, P.R.O. and more.
Eva Walker is the host of Audioasis, every Saturday from 6-9pm PT on KEXP.org, the KEXP app, or 90.3 FM in Seattle.
Our available The Weekly Mix podcasts see over 100,000 downloads collectively per month, with an individual podcast receiving over 10,000 downloads, mostly in just a week’s time. Our podcasts are available on most podcasting aggregators, as well as on KEXP.org and RSS feeds.
Using the skills she learned as an undergraduate DePaul student, Miss Alex White has turned her band, White Mystery, into a sustainable music business through which she and her brother, Francis White (left), produce outdoor festivals, consult for artists and mentor music business students.
“As industry leaders, it’s our responsibility to learn all of the Vincentian, ethical lessons that I feel DePaul does a really good job at emphasizing in the MBA program—that people in money decisions aren’t just data.”
— Miss Alex White (BUS ’07)
In 2008, Miss Alex White (BUS ’07) made a pact with her brother, Francis White, to commit full-time to their newly formed punk band, White Mystery, for the next 10 years.
Throughout the next decade, the sibling rock duo fulfilled that pact by living and breathing music 24 hours a day. To date, White Mystery has played more than 1,000 shows on three continents with music icons including Iggy Pop, Garbage, Mavis Staples, Patti Smith and even Sir Richard Branson; appeared in a national Levi’s Jeans ad campaign; performed live on the NBC late night TV show, “Last Call with Carson Daly”; and self-released 10 records – all without a manager or publicist. White partly credits her band’s success to lessons she learned in the DePaul class, Effective Business Communications, that she took as an undergraduate business student with Associate Professor of Marketing Joel Whalen — lessons that include how to properly introduce yourself and market your business to others.
“I use the lessons from Dr. Joel Whalen’s class every day,” White says. “So many times you’ll receive an email from somebody and it’s just a too-long-to-read autobiography about the person’s experience and the reality is that a lot of business people in music and beyond receive dozens and dozens of emails every day.”
Using these skills, White has turned White Mystery into a sustainable music business through which she and her brother produce outdoor festivals, consult for artists and mentor music business students.
Now, White has returned to DePaul to earn her MBA with a concentration in Real Estate Finance & Investment. She juggles school with a full-time job as the senior market and experience manager for Do312, a virtual Chicago network that helps people discover happenings in Chicago, and side gigs that consist of spinning records for clubs and parties, writing a column for High Times magazine and working on freelance consulting projects that have been featured in Forbes magazine.
As music fans across Chicago and beyond mourn the loss of live music, the industry has been left wondering what comes next. In our 8th month of the Pandemic, everyone from musicians, to fans, to venue workers have felt the devastating effects of these unprecedented times. Though the network of live music has come to a halt, the community of caring, generous, motivated Chicago creatives continues to uplift and support one another. situationchicago, created by Trey Elder of the Quiet Pterodactyl non-profit, has become a shining example of the resilience of the music community. Featuring 25 Chicago musicians, this project is a massive collaboration of creative energy aiming to support local venues struggling during the Pandemic. “The situationchicago project was a direct response to the pandemic and the unknown closure times of our venues. 2020 was originally supposed to be events-driven for Quiet Pterodactyl, so when those events were cancelled, it just felt right to brainstorm to see what else we could do to help the music community in it’s time of need. “First to close, last to open” is a phrase that summarizes the current state of music venues, theaters…anywhere people gather indoors to enjoy the arts…and it’s not looking good that they will be able to re-open anywhere close to functioning capacity soon.”
Available via Bandcamp, situationchicago has created a 25 track vinyl record with 100% of the proceeds going directly to the venues needing it the most. From Jeff Tweedy, to Rick Wilson, to OK Go, this record supports a meaningful cause on top of being an awesome compilation of the city’s music. “We wanted to represent different music styles and parts of the city, as well as a variety of “bigger name” and local, up and coming, amazing talent that Chicago has to offer. Some we already had personal connections with, some were recommended by the music venues that are also a part of the project, and others were just artists we had appreciated from afar. All of the artists were excited to be able to give back to these venues they all know and play (have played) in. Smaller, local venues are the lifeblood of where artists develop their craft, and many of Chicago’s venues have been supporting the diverse scene here for decades.”
Upon speaking with featured artists Girl K, Rich Jones, and Miss Alex White of White Mystery, it seems these artists were equally as passionate about the mission as Trey was when he created situationchicago. Rich Jones speaks to situationchicago saying that “It resonates because it’s us using our music as a way to sustain many of the venues that have hosted us over the years. Also pretty cool to have a collection of songs featuring multiple generations of artists, many of whom myself and others are indebted to in regard to the groundwork they laid for us to have what we enjoy today.”
