|
|
|
|
home
- generic info list
History
I could say it all started out as a way to use up twenty hours of bartered studio time but really it started way back in the mid-90s when I first started getting involved in the Portland arts scene.
Once upon a time there was this seed of an idea. It was an idea intended to please an audience. The idea combined the beauty of an open mic with the quality of regularly performing artists. It challenged rock bands to perform acoustically. It challenged acoustic artists to play a short set. It gave an audience a one after the other parade of amazing talent in a two hour time span. An experience not unlike opening gift after gift on your birthday.
The idea was dubbed an "Acoustic Slam" and it's first realization was as a grand opening celebration for the Mount Tabor Acoustic Room.
We did it again at the now defunct, Snake & Weasel about a year later.
This event is one of several installation "parties" dreamed up to support a "word of mouth" festival a few friends and I were trying to get started out at Horning's Hideout.
There was a group of wonderful people(some loved me, some loved music, some both and some I still don't know why) backing me up in this endeavor and we collectively called ourselves Sensory Overload.
Well, Sensory Overload went on an amazing ride that created 7 word of mouth unsponsored summer music and camping festivals where they didn't exist before.
These people created the best acoustic venue Portland has ever seen.
Remember the Yonder single mic show? i tell you it was pure, pure magic, it was.
We floated like the affluent and tried to go back in time a few times when we took the Portland Spirit out for a few cruises on birthdays, holidays, and a couple of Roaring 20's parties.
one time we floated with Floater on Halloween. Epic!
There's more. Gosh, we did so much. So many really cool people.
It all culminated in a huge beautiful festival that fell flat on its ass and left my partner and I about $50k in debt to friends and businesses.
I would still stack up Bob Horning's Hoedown as the finest lineup that Oregon has seen in a long time. Possibly ever. Seven hundred people got a show that 5000 were supposed to. A piece of installation art.
We are still recovering.
This is the first thing that I have done since. I wrote a website for Griff Bear. He gave me 20 hours of studio time for it. I turned it into this.
Dan Coleman
home
- generic info list |
|
|
|
|
|
