Rufrano, one of the artists to be featured Saturday at HUSTLE 2015. Photos courtesy of Casey Terrazas.
It’s no secret that Long Beach’s music community is bursting at the seams with rising talent, across the spectrum. That’s why some of the biggest players on the scene have teamed up to throw an unprecedented DIY (and free) music festival, which will pack as much diversity as it will talent over the three-day period next weekend, November 13-15.
HUSTLE 2015 will feature a motley crew of nearly 30 homebred acts from Porch Party Records, Long Beach Music Collective, Falling Mirrors Collective and Ghoulhouse Records — and a few guests from Los Angeles, including poetic legend 2Mex, a member of The Visionaries and Of Mexican Descent.
“We wanted the sounds of the festival to represent the different flavors of our city,” explained Casey Terrazas, the Porch Party Records founder who spearheaded the efforts for HUSTLE. “To book the bands, we met with the diverse groups in town who have a reputation for killing it in their own unique way, from hip hop to punk rock.”
The festival will kick off next Friday with a beat-infused opening party at Signal 1883, a new warehouse venue in north Long Beach, featuring the rising stars of the local hip-hop and DJ scene. Curated by local DJs Desirable D, Eusebio Akasa and Que Sera Fight Club’s resident host Yonatan Zeray, the night’s lineup will feature 2Mex, veteran hip-hop producer Omid Walizadeh, producer/emcee RahSpect, emcee Uhlife with producer NiceGuyxVinny of LA collective Soulection, rap duo Crimewave 5150 and The Natives, who released their debut full-length album on Porch Party Records last year.
Day Two kicks off at 3:00PM on the outdoor stage of Bixby Park, featuring Porch Party’s indie-singer/songwriter Rufrano and experimental future dance project Litronix, joined by SubPop’s Avi Buffalo. Falling Mirrors Collective, founded last year by Tokotah Ashcraft and Mike Reyes, will present sets from Fight Club’s house band Via Leaves, female electronic duo Bootleg Orchestra, progressive soul/funk outfit Bobby Blunders and horn-infused experimental group Furcast. In addition, nine local artists and photographers, including Yourintimatenoise and Lotus Culture, will showcase their work at Bixby Park.
Bobby Blunders will perform on Saturday.
“We have so many talented people in this city who are really on top of their game,” said Ashcraft, the Long Beach Music Council’s vice president, who last month celebrated her third year at the helm of the monthly live music showcase First Fridays for the Bixby Knolls Business Improvement Association. “It is already blowing up and changing constantly. I said it before, people are going to start looking more often to Long Beach for what’s next. Hopefully this is the start of something really beautiful.”
Saturday’s party will continue until midnight at 4th Street Vine, where Long Beach psychedelic shoegaze band Highlands will play its residency. They will be followed by Los Angeles band Drug Cabin and Porch Party’s Dustin Lovelis, who has been touring off his recent debut solo full-length album, Dimensions.
Day Three returns to 4th Street Vine for a full day of live music from Long Beach Music Collective and Ghoulhouse Records. LBMC, founded last December by Alex Hattick, will kick off the last day at 3:00PM with music from Hattick’s Hellgal, Crooked Squares and Boa Constrictors, all of whom are featured in LBMC’s fall compilation release, Fangs for Everything.
Closing out the festival is a heavy and hard-hitting roster from Ghoulhouse Records, including Assquatch (a new band from Paul Gonzalez, lead singer of Death Hymn #9), Sean Gospel and the Nightstalkers and a rare set from The Underground Railroad to Candyland.
Sean Gospel will perform on Sunday.
With that, HUSTLE 2015 will wrap up until next year, which Terrazas imagines will be “bigger and better.”
“[Hustle] — it’s what we do in Long Beach,” Terrazas said. “Our community is packed full of people working hard while developing their creative visions. We don’t have the unlimited resources as Los Angeles — we have to create our own scene. We want this weekend to be a nod to all the homies chasing dreams in the streets of hustle beach.”