[00:00:01] Speaker A: He was born on a Saturday in 73 he loves park rock music. Finding the 13 cabin in the desert rock on the beach guitar with a short wind radio back his motherfucking Andy scolding look at motherfucker cause here he comes Andy scrolling, wearing his orange hat.
[00:00:27] Speaker B: Welcome to unsigned 518. I am here with Louie and Wolfgang. Right, I got that right.
[00:00:33] Speaker C: Yeah, you're good.
[00:00:34] Speaker B: And it's only been like two minutes, and I didn't forget your names. Look at me go. And the festival that you're doing is AP live. AP is Avril park. Correct. And I guess what we're gonna do is, you know, you guys literally just got here five minutes ago. We've never met. We never really discussed what we were gonna do. So, like, the joy of what this is is that as I discover what you're putting on, you're letting me know what you're doing. Everybody that is listening is going to get the same information and know what's going on. So I guess, I don't know who wants to take the lead, but tell me a little bit about the AP live festival and when it is and what's going on.
[00:01:14] Speaker C: Sure. So, AP Live is this festival we organize over in April park. And it started out as just Louie and I. We went to high school together.
We kind of started to recognize that there was a lot of musicians, not only in our graduating class, but just around the area, and we wanted to take advantage of that a little bit. So last year, we put together a little music festival in the park right across from our old high school. And it was all just people we knew. We were just calling people like, fuck, he has a band, let's give him a call. And so this year, we're trying to expand it a little bit, really kind of bring it into its own. And so we have a bunch of musicians from all over the capital region coming in August 17 for an all day festival. And we're doing it in partner with this community center. So it works as a fundraiser for them because they do a lot for the arts and a lot for music. So we're trying to give back to the community because, yeah, at the end of the day, it's a community event, you know, to promote music and the arts.
[00:02:18] Speaker B: And so this is the second year, then?
[00:02:21] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:02:21] Speaker B: And have you noticed, like, a huge amount of growth from the. From the first year?
[00:02:26] Speaker C: Yeah, I think so. So last year we started a little bit late, so it was hard to get, you know, like vendors or food trucks or things like that because it's late in the season. You know, they have their schedule set for the summer, right in, you know, March. They're ready to go. So we're out there in June, like, hey, you guys free this Saturday in August? It's like, no shot. They're free. So this year, we started planning and advertising it way sooner, way earlier in the year, so that we could get a little bit more buzz. Cause last year was a pretty good turnout. I mean, what do you think?
[00:02:57] Speaker D: Like, 250? About 250?
[00:03:01] Speaker C: Yeah. 250 people. Just word of mouth mostly. And social media presence. Very little.
[00:03:06] Speaker D: We didn't even have an instagram at that point.
[00:03:08] Speaker C: Yeah. Nothing dedicated to it. So, you know, this year, we're hoping for a better turnout. We're hoping that, you know, we get a few more people and.
[00:03:16] Speaker B: What's the lineup?
[00:03:17] Speaker D: Yeah, I mean, so this year, we're lucky to have about. I think we're at 13 or 14 performers.
[00:03:23] Speaker B: Oh, no shit.
[00:03:24] Speaker D: So it was definitely a lot more than last year. Right now, the way we're planning on doing it is having a sort of two stage kind of setup where we'll have more bigger bands in terms of size and sound in general. The larger pavilion stage, which will be kind of our a stage, and then also a separate section, not too far, like, within the park, where it's more of a b stage set up for singer songwriter, like, acoustic, smaller acts, which was really cool. And I'm glad we did that, because now we're able to get local musicians, like, within our town, some younger kids that are going out, starting to play open mics, getting into guitar, whatever, have them on that be stage. And so that's really good. I think in terms of lineup, what we have on day of, I know we have definitely passing grade. We have 1001. Couple of local bands we happen to be a part of.
And we have the Trojan horns. They're a really cool horn section, five piece horn band out of Troy.
Who else do we have?
[00:04:32] Speaker C: Tops of trees.
[00:04:33] Speaker D: Tops of trees. All right.
[00:04:35] Speaker B: Yeah, they've been on the show.
[00:04:36] Speaker D: Yeah, tops of trees. We have. They're really good guys over there. We have Billy and the great western postal Service. She's a cool, cool kind of country band. We're excited to have them there.
What else we got? We have a band coming from Ithaca.
[00:04:51] Speaker C: Yeah, that. Betula.
[00:04:52] Speaker D: Betula.
[00:04:53] Speaker C: And they do, like, alternative rock kind of stuff.
[00:04:55] Speaker D: Oh, funk action, too, I believe. Yeah. So, I mean, there's a great variety. I mean, there's a bunch more, you know, singer songwriter kind of style. Things we have going on as well.
[00:05:03] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, that was the other thing with expanding it is last year was just stuff that we played and stuff that our friends had played. So it's like, by getting, like, yeah, an eight piece funk group or a horn ensemble or a country band or singer songwriters that try and just expand a little bit, give something for everybody to listen to.
[00:05:22] Speaker B: And, like, logistically, obviously, putting on a festival, you know, you're talking about food trucks, you're talking about vendors, you're talking about all these bands and different stages. And, I mean, even just saying, like, horns and horn sections, that adds another.
[00:05:36] Speaker C: Layer of logistics that was a headache.
[00:05:38] Speaker B: To think about on the sound and, like, how big of a team are you working with?
[00:05:44] Speaker C: So it's us two and another good friend of ours. His name is Zach. He does all the sound stuff. He's our sound director.
[00:05:52] Speaker D: I like to say we departmentalized this thing, so, yeah, it'd be Wolfie. We call him head of operations in the sense that he's. You want to tell him what you do a lot of times with all the sponsors?
[00:06:05] Speaker C: Yeah, I just. I keep in contact with all the businesses because, yeah, it's a community event, so we're trying to get, you know, local businesses, local organizations. It's for a community center. So it's like, there's a lot of, you know, just keeping in contact with them, some paperwork with the town, you know, making sure that we're allowed to do all we're supposed we're going to be doing there that day.
And then Louie, he takes care of a lot of the art and artist connection stuff. So he's the one that's kind of organized and put together this whole set list of bands, and he does all of our graphic design stuff. So the posters that you'll see, the business cards we hand out, the banner we're gonna have, it's like, that's all him. And, I mean, even from last year, it's like, not only are we learning as event organizers, but we're also learning a lot in that end where it's like, you can see where the stuff that he was making last year, the stuff this year's leaps and bounds ahead.
[00:07:01] Speaker D: Thank you.
[00:07:02] Speaker B: I commend you on taking that step and getting it started, because when you're doing something of that magnitude, obviously it's overwhelming, but there's going to be so many pratfalls and things that go wrong that you didn't think of to just plow forward and do it.
That's how you accomplish shit, by literally just being like, just do it. Because now, second year, think of how much more prepared you are than last year. Think about it. By the time you're on, like, year ten, you're just gonna be like, ah.
[00:07:36] Speaker C: Hopefully we're out of it by year ten.
Yeah, we've got people doing it for us. Our name's still on it. We're the headliners.
[00:07:43] Speaker B: You're just chilling.
[00:07:43] Speaker D: Yeah. I also wanted to mention. Yeah, you said we have Zack. He does all the sound stuff, whether it's getting contact for all the sound system stuff or mixing or.
[00:07:57] Speaker B: Stage plots.
[00:07:58] Speaker D: Yeah, exactly. He's been doing schematics and the mics and all that stuff he's been on. And then we got one more guy. His name is Nick, and we like to call him the head of construction. Cause, I mean, we've had to build some stuff for this. I mean, this is. He's got the most exciting stuff going on. I mean, we all work on it. We all have our hands dipped and everything, but he keeps all the stuff at his house. So this year, we were able to get our hands on this seventies Hammond organ with a Leslie speaker that was built into it. Right. And, you know, we all love that sound, that classic, like, organ sound on everything, you know? And we gotta get it. And so we got it, and we're getting it on, and the Leslie just doesn't work. So we have to rip it all apart and resolder all these wires to make it actually work. And we finally got. Got it to work, which was so exciting. And then we painted it white, put our, like, brand colors on it. And now that's just an organ that's gonna be on stage.
[00:09:00] Speaker B: That's awesome.
[00:09:00] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:09:01] Speaker D: What else? We did drum riser.
[00:09:03] Speaker C: Yeah, he built a drum riser. And, yeah, he makes fun of us. Cause sometimes we'll be moving a little bit slow. It's like, oh, that. You know, the vendors haven't gone back to me yet. Or Louis, like, yeah. Working on the banner. He's like, man, I'm fucking set. Drum riser's built.
[00:09:14] Speaker D: Drum riser's been sitting in the back by the shed for, what, three weeks now?
[00:09:19] Speaker C: Dude, your job was one day.
[00:09:22] Speaker B: And when you have, like, the. The way that the day will work, you know, you have the two stages. Do you have it, like, all scheduled out where it'll be like, basically when one, you know, when the main stage ends, kind of the acoustic stage will start and back and forth like that.
[00:09:37] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:09:37] Speaker D: So, yeah, go ahead.
[00:09:39] Speaker C: What we're trying to do is so we have a lot going on during the day. The event goes from twelve to ten, I believe. So during the day, we have vendors and food trucks and things like that. And during that, we're gonna have, yeah, just a tent and a few pas set up for acoustic sets, you know, small ensembles, two, three people, and just to keep people's attention. And then around 03:00 we'll start the main stage, and there's a few sets where we're gonna need a little more time, you know, setting things back up. Like I said, you know, eight horns. We're gonna need about five more mics on stage for that. So it's like, all right, we need a little time for that. So we're gonna have again, you know, another smaller group come on for the b stage, you know, play their set, and by the time they're done, we'll be ready for the next main stage set, you know?
[00:10:25] Speaker B: And so when, like, this year, did you start? You know? Cause again, you said last year you were late. It was, like, June or whatever, and you still pulled it off, which I commend. But, like, when were you actively working on, you know, how long have you been actively working on this one?
[00:10:41] Speaker C: I mean, since we stopped the last one. Yeah, the lights went down, like, all right, next year, let's think about it. But I think the first time we sat down with the board at that community center that we work with was probably maybe January.
[00:10:58] Speaker D: You think January? Yeah, I mean, I know in terms of, like, the poster, I've been, like, sketching stuff and drawing stuff up since, like, last winter.
[00:11:07] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:11:07] Speaker D: You know, just thinking about.
[00:11:08] Speaker B: Right.
[00:11:09] Speaker D: So it's been. I mean, process and, you know, it's.
[00:11:11] Speaker C: It's always gonna be, like, last minute. We're like, fuck, we need this thing and this thing and this thing, but, you know, we're trying to take as much weight off of that as possible, you know?
[00:11:20] Speaker B: And how many vendors do you have?
[00:11:22] Speaker C: So that's the other thing. We're still, you know, taken in. We have, like, a vendor contact form that we've been given to everybody just to get a list. But I think right now we have, like, six to eight lined up for sure will be there, but we're still looking for more. You know, we want to get a real shake down street, little shakedown street in the middle of this. This park, this public park.
But, yeah, we have eight vendors doing things. Like, there's this health and wellness and herbal remedy place that is in our town, and they're going to set up a little pop up to sell essential oils and candles and teabags and things like that. And then we have some more, just handmade goods, crochet baskets, things like that. Because, again, we want people that can, you know, can really tell you about what. What they're selling. You know, they've made it. They've. They've put time into whatever's on their table. You know, we have a few, like, garden, like, farm stand kind of thing.
And then for food trucks, you know, you start local. So it's like, we work with this. This guy over. We actually, Louie and I, we work together at this sub shop in our town.
And a good friend of ours that works there, his name's Kyle. He. Him and his brother in law run a food truck. So that was the first name we put on the list. You know, eats with Emmett. Yeah, eats with Emmett. They've been great. They've been committed to this since last year.
[00:12:47] Speaker B: Nice.
[00:12:48] Speaker C: It's funny. They were gonna come last year, right? So, like I said, we started late. It was hard to get food out there. Our local Kiwanis club, they were nice enough to set up, like, you know, burgers and hot dogs, which was great. I. They sold out. But we really wanted to get Kyle and Scott, his name is. We wanted to get them out there with their truck. And he was all about it. He was like, oh, give me some lists of, like, the names of the bands. I'll try to make, like, food center around the names. We're like, I mean, you don't have to do all that, but, yeah, sure, man. And then last minute, he's like, yeah, I'm sorry, I'm double booked. And then Kyle was still like, you know, I'll try to make it out there with the truck. Just me breaks his foot the day before. So, like, you're all right, man. We'll see you next year, right?
[00:13:29] Speaker D: This year we're locked in with them.
[00:13:31] Speaker C: Yeah, they're gonna be there.
[00:13:32] Speaker D: Should be a lot of fun. Who else we got?
[00:13:35] Speaker C: So we just spoke to the other day. We got in contact with this, like, bubble tea truck.
They do the. They have, like, a food truck night over in Wineskill every Wednesday. So they've been doing that this year. And this is their. The other event that they. They booked for the name. I think it's Aki. I think it's either Aki or. Yeah, maybe aki t. Probably.
[00:14:00] Speaker D: Yeah, it's like a big, big green.
[00:14:02] Speaker C: Oh, you can't. You can't miss it.
[00:14:03] Speaker D: But, yeah, I mean, what else we got? We. That. And we're still. I mean, we're still.
[00:14:07] Speaker C: We have a restaurant over in our town's crossroads. They're gonna be catering. So.
[00:14:12] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:14:13] Speaker C: Just trying to get more things out there for people to come see. Even if, you know, they might not be that tapped into the local music scene. They may not be like, oh, shit, tops of trees is playing. Gotta get there. But they might come for. They might pass by the town park and see a bunch of food trucks and tents up and they might stop by, you know.
[00:14:31] Speaker B: Yeah. And I mean, the musical, you know, keep people there.
[00:14:34] Speaker C: Exactly.
[00:14:35] Speaker B: You know, the. The crowd or the commotion might get somebody's attention. But, like, when they're there, you know, who can resist some food trucks and some music, right?
[00:14:43] Speaker C: And that's the other thing is, like, to get in, it's all free. Like, the music's free, obviously, food trucks and vendors. You gotta pay for whatever buying. But, you know, it's.
[00:14:53] Speaker B: But it's a non ticketed event.
[00:14:55] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:14:58] Speaker D: And I think it's really cool that every performer that's performing is, like, coming for free to help raise money for this community center, which is really, really cool.
[00:15:08] Speaker B: Yeah. And that's something, you know, that you don't see a ton in a lot of other, like, you know, and I say it all the time, and obviously I'm biased to, like, this area, the five one eight music scene. But, like, I see that more than anything. Like a benefit, you know, a benefit needs to happen and bands will be like, yeah, I'll volunteer my time.
[00:15:26] Speaker C: And I mean, like, you know, it's corny, but, like, a rising tide raises all ships. I mean, I'm sure you corny at all.
[00:15:33] Speaker B: That quote actually was on the very first episode of this. This show. 518. Yeah. Did you do your research? No, but the very first episode, that was, like, the general consensus. I mean, like, that's what happens. It's not corny. I love that.
[00:15:47] Speaker C: Exactly. I mean, you know, it probably better than anybody. I mean, just seeing all these people, like, creative, like, artistically minded people just try to, you know, get some people out to see some music. It's. You don't see it a lot of places. And that's, you know, we're trying to take advantage and you take advantage of.
[00:16:02] Speaker B: That going out to support other bands.
[00:16:05] Speaker C: Right.
[00:16:05] Speaker B: Like, a lot of the times, you know, in some scenes, it may be a little more competitive, you know, less venues to play at. People are bought, you know? And here, like, you know, I go to enough shows, and every single show that I go to. I'll be like, oh, yeah, that's so and so from that band, and that's so and so from that band, and that's so and so, you know, like, they come out to support.
[00:16:26] Speaker D: That's cool.
[00:16:26] Speaker B: Each other. And, like, so I expect that'll probably happen at this one as well.
[00:16:30] Speaker D: I also want to mention this year, we've been trying to do a lot more with art as well. So we've been in contact with our local high school, which, I mean, now they're out, but before we got in contact and got them to share some of our forms, like, we have one for artists that are interesting and displaying, because we're gonna have an outdoor kind of gallery setup where local artists can either display or sell some of their work, ranging from, what? Paintings or handmade pottery things, all things like that. And so we've been able to get some local artists interested in displaying, and we're still open to more as well. So that's another thing I want to mention, which I'm really excited about.
[00:17:11] Speaker B: So one more time. What day is the. The event?
[00:17:16] Speaker C: So it's August 17.
[00:17:18] Speaker D: Saturday.
[00:17:19] Speaker C: Yeah, it's a Saturday, and it's going all day. So it's 12:00 to around 910 o'clock, just, you know, until they kick us out.
[00:17:26] Speaker B: Right.
[00:17:27] Speaker D: Butler park in Avril Park, New York.
[00:17:30] Speaker C: It's on Gettle Road. You really can't miss it. It's.
[00:17:32] Speaker D: Right.
[00:17:33] Speaker C: It's directly next to the. Yeah, the Averill park high school.
[00:17:37] Speaker B: Right on. All right, so before we go, you know, we will come back and talk a little bit more, but I actually want to play a tops of trees song to kind of get the folks stoked. And I know tops of trees would. Would be cool playing the song, and if not, you know, whatever. But anyway, this is gray ghost tops of trees, and then we'll be right back.
[00:18:04] Speaker A: Where are you? Come out today boo boo where are you? Come out to play Boo Boo, where are you? Come out today hey, boo it's been such a long, long time since you knocked upon my door I've been thinking about you lately have you found a the world has in store?
Hey, boo when we were just children we'd run around the neighborhood we thought you were the ghost of Maycomb county how could we know your heart was pure and good?
Boo boo, where are you? Come out to play, boo boo, where are you? Come out today boo boo, where are you? Come out today boo boo, where are you? Come out today hey, boo, I never said thank you for all the gifts you put in that tree.
I learned there's much more to. To a person and what you hear and what you see.
All that we heard were just lights.
I was too young to realize.
Now that I know, all I can do is cry, cry, cry, cry.
Boo boo, where are you? Come out to play.
Boo boo, where are you? Come out today.
Boo boo, where are you? Come out to play.
Boo boo, where are you? Come out today.
Boo boo, where are you? Come out today.
Boo boo, where are you? Come out today.
Boo boo, where are you? Come out today.
Boo boo, where are you? Come out, where are you?
[00:21:09] Speaker C: Come out.
[00:21:09] Speaker A: Play where are you?
[00:21:13] Speaker C: Come out of days.
[00:21:15] Speaker A: Boo boo, where are you? Come out of the place.
Boo boo, where are you? Come out today.
[00:21:26] Speaker B: That was gray ghost tops of trees. And of course, you can catch tops of trees at AP live festival. And Louie and Wolfgang want to thank you so much for making the drive up here to let me know about the festival, for letting me let my listeners know about the festival. I think it's a really cool thing. I love the fact that the word community kept coming up a lot, that you're bringing people together, and it's a huge undertaking. And I commend you for taking on that, I guess, responsibility, because someone's got to do it for this shit to happen, and it's not easy.
I applaud you for that. But again, before we go, is there anything else that you want to add, maybe where people can find you or.
[00:22:11] Speaker C: Yeah. Well, first, I'd like to say thank you.
[00:22:14] Speaker D: Thank you so much.
[00:22:17] Speaker C: It's really nice to see all these different people and organizations and bands coming together and putting a lot of trust and faith in us. I mean, we're both 19.
This is our second year doing this. It's easy. Just kind of brush it off. And I. To see that this many people have faith in what we're doing and, like, you know, trust us to. I mean, even just to trust the town, trusting us to rent out a public park like that, it is really nice to see. It's really encouraging that people are interested in the music scene and the art scene, willing to give people like us a shot to put someone on like this.
Thank you to Louie, and thank you to our good friends, Nick Rogers and Zach Ryan for helping us put it on.
You can find us on Facebook and Instagram. It's AP live festival, right?
[00:23:09] Speaker D: Just AP live festival.
And we also have our links in our Linktree, so you can find our vendor contact forms, your artist contact forms, email. So everything's within one link on our linktree. But that's AP live festival, Instagram and Facebook.
[00:23:25] Speaker C: Yeah, and we're still looking for vendors and artists. Right now we have our lineup for the actual show, all the actual bands. But, I mean, if you. If you are interested, we're gonna be. Hopefully, you know, God willing, we'll do it next year. But, yeah, I think that's. That's all from us.
[00:23:41] Speaker D: Yep. Thank you so much for having us. Really appreciate, and we hope to see you there.
[00:23:45] Speaker C: Yeah, it's great.
[00:23:46] Speaker B: Well, all right, cool. So, Louie and Wolfenhe, gang of AP Live festival. I am Andy Stullin. This is unsigned 518. We'll see you on the road.
Unsigned 518 is produced and hosted by me, Andy Scullen. New episodes are available every week wherever you stream podcasts. If you'd like to help support the show, please like and subscribe wherever you are listening. Or you could buy me a
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Take care of one another, and I'll see you next week. Bye.
