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[ Friday, April 27, 2007 ]

Indie-pop, local bands headline Fallin' Back

Collegian Staff Writer

Penn State hosts its Movin' On festival tomorrow, but tonight Chronic Town, 224 W. College Ave., will host its own festival: Fallin' Back.

"This is like the people's choice music festival," Jeff Van Fossan, organizer of the show, said. "This is the complete antithesis of Movin' On in that it costs money, it's indoors and no one decided the bands except me. There will be smoke as opposed to smoke-free."

If you go
What:
2007 Fallin' Back Festival
Where: Chronic Town, 224 W. College Ave.
When: 7 tonight
Details: Tickets to the all-ages show will be $10 at the door. "Specially-priced" advance tickets are available at Chronic Town and City Lights Records, 316 E. College Ave.

Headlining the show will be the established indie-pop sextet The Spinto Band, which will be supported by five local acts that missed out on this year's Movin' On Battle of the Bands. Those acts are The Bullet Parade, another indie-pop group fronted by Van Fossan; The Minor White, a jazz-influenced folk-rock band; North, a sonically ethereal rock band; Jimi Jive, a blues-influenced alternative-rock band; and The Fiddlercrabs, a surf-rock band.

Van Fossan said the show got its name last year, when he booked a show that happened to be the same weekend as Movin' On.

Nick Krill, vocalist/guitarist for The Spinto Band, said the band will take time out of recording a new EP in Nashville to play the show.

"I feel like [the songs] are a little different," Krill said. "They're more interesting to me than our old stuff."

The band's new songs won't be the only different thing about the show.

The Bullet Parade, formerly a four-piece band, has recently added trombone/keyboard player Grace Byrne to its lineup.

"I missed having a horn in the lineup since [former member] Chuck Ramsey," Van Fossan said. "I feel more balanced playing in a five-piece band than a four-piece, just personally. We've kind of just tried it out last semester and it worked out really well."

Byrne, who is still in high school, said she dived into the band headfirst when Van Fossan asked her to join.

"I was a hookah lounge regular for a little bit because my friends hung out there," Byrne said. "He asked me to play a show with him without ever having played with them."

Van Fossan pointed out further differences about the show, saying that "the average reader probably wouldn't want to see these bands."

"It's a festival that skews more toward the active music fan, someone who goes out and buys records and keeps up with music," he said. "I think that's why a lot of people were upset about Movin' On, because a lot of people that care about music don't like a lot of those bands."


 



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