NordicSoul

DJ Nordic Soul (aka Sean) is the laptop member of the all synthesizer band SynthClub in which we both play. Reggie introduced us when we were forming SynthClub. I didn’t really get to know Sean until the last few months. I now count him among my musical heroes for a few reasons:

1. he’s the organizer of the highly influential Decibal Festival, the Northwest’s premier electronic music festival
2. he’s a producer and performer of electronic music as well as an electronic music editor for a digital music company
3. he has the best punk-tronic philosophy I’ve run into in years

Last week SynthClub played a show in Seattle at LoFi. Two people showed. The gig was awesome. Sean and I had time to chat for once. He explained that he booked this year’s entire Decibal Fesitval entirely through MySpace and over email, essentially going direct to the artists he wanted (that he otherwise wouldn’t have access to) and avoiding inflated management and booking agent fees. Not one contract was signed. It was all booked through trust.

When confronted by the venom of booking agents that “do this for a living!” Sean aptly responded that he has a day job so he can afford to run a cutting edge festival, book the music he wants to book (not the music he has to book) and make the music that is important to him. In essence, his art and promotion of other people’s art through Decibal is free of normal music industry business contraints. Leave it to the slave mentality of music industry people to try to squash a festival in it’s infancy that they’ll be lining up for in 2006 and beyond.

This is all a way of saying I support Sean and everything he’s doing right now. Decibal Festival will rock again in 2006 because Sean will again be puttting tens of thousands of his own money on the line (earned at his day job) to build a festival that he believes in … from the ground up. Hope to see you there!

Rock on Sean. Rock on DJ Nordic Soul.