a TigerRAWk Film

Monday, June 10, 2019

A TigerRAWk n Roll Summer: Audiofeed 2018

2018 marks the sixth year of Audiofeed Music Festival in the wake of Cornerstone. The first year after Cornerstone, I attended five different festivals. It seems that some people took the charge given by Tobin Bawinkel to take Cornerstone home with them and ran with it. Each year though, these smaller festivals dwindled down. This year, the only festival we attended was Audiofeed.

I used my Canon Rebel T6 again this year so I knew there would be some of the same issues with the yet to be resolved 12 minute limit situation. These occurred on the full sets I filmed of As Cities Burn and Dödsmarsch. Elphie gave a nice helping hand in capturing the Flatfoot 56 set on her iPhone 6. I realized in the middle of the As Cities Burn set that I needed another memory card so mid set I had to abandon my camera with my friend Ryan Getz (from Tuned Up) so I could run to where I had my belongings stashed to get another memory card. While I switched cards, I tried to film using my iPhone 8 but I started a few seconds late.

Before the festival, I had to somewhat reassemble my tripod because I had inadvertently taken some of it apart and I think I was still trying to make some adjustments with it the first day causing some of my footage to be quite shaky. I am frustrated by that. I also wasn't too happy with how the footage of the Destroy Nate Allen clip turned out. I can't recall if I switched to the smaller lens or not but if I didn't I really should have. I feel the quality improved as the festival went on so there's that.

I used Motion 4 to create the opening titles, end credits, and to create an animated map for the travel between Chicago and Champaign Urbana. I only added one song into the soundtrack, "Summertime" by Mae. It was a song I've wanted to include into one of these trips for a while and it felt like it fit this time and perhaps was appropriate with Mae coming back with new music in the coming year. I worked through a lot of the footage that was not live clips to determine if I needed to add anymore soundtrack and made the decision to just stick to this one song. After working through the full sets I created opening titles to go along with them as well. For the YouTube uploaded files with the "music video" style information text and the date/location stamps, I just used the text tool in Final Cut Pro to save some time.

https://youtu.be/V9CtKdvN7As
I decided that for the "teaser trailer" this year I would take the entire project and speed it up so if you can keep up, you will see everything in that short time. I got the idea when watching the end credits of some goofy movies on Netflix titled VHS except they didn't speed it up as much as I did and they did it in reverse as though the tape is being rewound where I have it running forward at 2000x.

https://youtu.be/1EA01UaPzGE
We booked the Lincoln Lodge again for Audiofeed but we ended up leaving Stein at home with Kathleen to babysit him. He appears a bit sad in the video clip as we leave him behind. As we prepared the leave the night before, we got to experience a little bit of the holiday with fireworks blasting around the neighborhood and so I got a little clip of that. The early access day for Audiofeed fell on the Fourth of July which made for lighter traffic on the highways. As we pulled out of the neighborhood, we noticed one side of the street was blocked with a bouncy house and there were others along the way. We were able to get out of the neighborhood and made pretty good time to Champaign Urbana.

https://youtu.be/YfQzr5pZWGs
It was quite hot so once we got into our hotel room and situated our things, Elphie decided to stay and I went over to the festival to see Glenn Kaiser play his Christmas in July set at The Asylum and hear what he had to say. Skot Shaw of Leper joined Glenn for a couple songs. I captured "Silent Night."

I returned to the hotel...Elphie and I had planned to go to Meijer to get a few items for cooking at Audiofeed but when I got back in the car it would not start. It seemed like the battery died even though I had just driven it back from the festival grounds. We searched nearby restaurants and decided to eat at Windy City Express about a block away. It had Chicago style street food. I was very frustrated by the car situation. After we ate, Elphie decided it was too hot so she returned to the hotel room and I walked back to the festival carrying my camera gear.
I stayed around the Asylum for the rest of the night to see my friends who had sets to play throughout the evening. I got there in time to see The Uh-Ohs and captured the beginning of their set. Harry Gore followed them up and I captured "Holly Jolly Christmas" from his set. Shaun Hays was doing some chalk art throughout the day, auctioning it with the money going to the Uganda mission he works with. I also captured Rabbi Rock with Harry Gore on guitar and XIII Minutes doing "Mary Did You Know?" The Christmas in July celebrations ended with Leper and I captured "What Child Is This?" It was good catching up with friends throughout the night that I pretty much will only see during Audiofeed due to the distances we live apart from each other.. During the editing process, I realized that the microphone on the camera captures everything so there's occasional greetings with friends in the midst of the live clips of the artists. After the music ended, I hung out with Josh and Anastasia for a little bit as they put up flyers for their other sets that they would be playing. Donna and Mike Sheehy gave me a ride back to the hotel so I didn't end up having to walk.
I woke up to rain on Thursday July 5th which made me feel a bit slower on getting myself ready to go. I eventually took a shower and drank some coffee then walked over to the festival grounds to start the first official day of Audiofeed. It was another hot one. There was potential of having someone check the car and see if we could get it started again. Believing it was possibly just a battery issue, that would hopefully not take too long to fix.

https://youtu.be/ReWANDUa6nY

https://youtu.be/YAs-eoA1qeE

https://youtu.be/Q_QRaryKjus
I arrived on the festival grounds and headed over to Sanctuary to see Desiring Dead Flesh. The first clip I got was interesting due to condensation that had collected on the camera lenses from having them sitting in air conditioning then bringing them out into the near 100 degree heat! I ended up capturing Parallel Universes after clearing the fog and cleaning off the lenses. Then I captured a clip of "Johnny" by The Prettybads and "A Father" by Gaffer Project at Black Sheep. Both of these are cool, new(ish) to me bands. It was my first time seeing The Prettybads, though I had heard about them and I enjoyed what they do. I have seen Gaffer Project a few times in the last year and also enjoy what they do. Both bands are duos with very different sounds.

https://youtu.be/LoDlkOHDw9E
Storm clouds were gathering so I got some footage of that and headed into the Asylum to see The Uh-Ohs and captured a shot of another piece of Shaun Hays' art. I captured "SkullCreep" by The Uh-Ohs. I think it was after The Uh-Ohs got over that Mike Sheehy drove me back to the hotel to try to figure out what was going on with the car before the rain hit. It did start raining a little bit but we got out jumper cables and tried to jump it. That did not work but Mike had an idea that maybe hitting the alternator might start it. Before trying that though, he had me put the car in neutral and pushed it back a couple feet and had me try to start it again. It worked! Then the rains really came down. I checked to see if Elphie was ready to leave the comfort of the hotel yet but she wasn't. I drove the car back to the festival and waited out the torrential downpour in the car and left it on in hopes if the battery was the issue in any way, that it would have enough time to charge.

https://youtu.be/19xva3hYggY

https://youtu.be/zYkhnqbxAQg

https://youtu.be/ezZND0bsk8Q

https://youtu.be/gdGBpsJ-tew
Once back on the grounds and once the rain let up, I went down to Sanctuary again to see 2Minute Minor and captured "Unite The Crew" with Charity Taylor doing guest vocals. I made my first visit to the Radon Lounge to see 6'10 and captured " 'Nam." I went back out in the rain to Black Sheep to catch some of Narrow/Arrow then over to the Family Zone for Destroy Nate Allen. It was close quarters...because of the rain, folks huddled under the small canopy and the doorway of the nearby building. I thought it might make for an interesting clip so I started filming but how I was holding the camera, I could not see the quality of what I was capturing. I think I was still using the longer range lens. The failure to switch to the smaller lens made for the footage to not be very clear at all and really is pretty poor. I captured "Loving You Means Everything From Me" which I think was the opening song.

https://youtu.be/rcGWJjEuoqI
I went to the Grave Robbers tent to relax a little bit and start grilling some food. I got the grill ready to cook but heard something interesting coming from Black Sheep and so I went to check it out. the band was Staghorn and what I saw reminded me a bit of The Psalters mixed with Deadhorse so I began to capture video of Staghorn, getting almost 5 minutes of the end of their set. This is a band that captured my attention and I would be looking into them more. I missed a chance to buy merch while they were present at Audiofeed so I will have to order it online.

https://youtu.be/d591b0a0unk

https://youtu.be/NCHPvs1f8ZA

https://youtu.be/S6DLvZGnyos

https://youtu.be/zXpkQH3Pk6Y

https://youtu.be/NHEyH8QN4NM

https://youtu.be/_uL2vlCOypw

https://youtu.be/8Rvtlg-bT6I

https://youtu.be/be-khHcmSU8
As my food cooked, I went into the Asylum to see Insomniac Folklore and captured "The Scariest Thing In The Dark" then I ate my food and wandered around a bit. I caught a newer tune from Comrades at Black Sheep before returning to Sanctuary for Bub Walker And The TombsTones. I returned to Black Sheep and captured "Open Letter" by My Epic. I prefer not to repeat the same song by the same band year after year but I missed most of the rest of the set and was left with "Open Letter" which is a great song...I just wish I hadn't caught it two years in a row. I went to the Radon Lounge to see Carriers, a new band put together by an old friend from Cincinnati, Curt Kiser. I talked with Tobin Bawinkel in there for a bit...he happened to wander in so we had a few moments before I went back out to see Silent Planet at Black Sheep and captured "Northern Fires." As I made my way to Sanctuary again, making a quick pit stop at the restroom, I captured a couple minutes of footage of Theater of Magic at BurningTown. It was interesting. Back down at Sanctuary, Leper was closing the night. I captured "Where Is Thy Sting."

After the music ended I was hanging with Sean Huncherick and witnessed Silent Planet get their van stuck. I was reminded of the DvD that The Chariot put out of their first tour and so we got to talking about how they had to unload the entire van and trailer to get out. Fortunately, that was not the case for Silent Planet and they were able to get unstuck and on their way. The Bradshaw's drove me back to the hotel at the end of the night. I left the car parked near the festival grounds in case there was a problem again. I figured it would be easier to get help with it parked there than having to have someone come to the hotel.
Friday July 6th, was a cooler day. I woke up and got myself ready to go to the festival grounds again and took the short walk over. My car remained where I had left it so I went into the Grave Robbers tent to stow away my things while I ventured around the festival grounds.

https://youtu.be/eUpyVpKHh-I

https://youtu.be/0kkPlcZqAqg

https://youtu.be/u_mwmK-gIyg
I started out at Sanctuary to see the last performance by Parental Petulance. I captured "Creepin' While You're Sleepin'." I went over to BurningTown to see the end of Kevin Schlereth's set and captured "Table" as well as his explanation for the song. I returned to Sanctuary to catch a bit of Exegesis before heading up to the Black Sheep to see Must Build Jacuzzi.

I went inside the Grave Robbers tent to take a little break. Guy Allen was in there as well, sampling the bug treats that were available.

https://youtu.be/qOs97fFMo48
I went back out to the Black Sheep stage where Heartside Hooligans were performing then went over to the Front Porch to see "Riot Spray" play a special set (really, it was a 2Minute Minor alter-ego so that they could play the impromptu set...apparently those in charge were trying to keep bands who had played on stages from taking the impromptu spots). I ran into my old Deadhorse pals Brian and Rachel and chatted for a few moments before going into Radon Lounge to see a little bit of TurtleDoves then came back out to catch the end of Analecta on Black Sheep. Brian, Rachel, and I caught up some more afterwards then I wandered around a bit before watching some of State Parks on Black Sheep as well.

https://youtu.be/tK6BuJwsSz8
Elphie had messaged that she was on her way and I went to the BurningTown tent to see Insomniac Folklore. I captured "Kill A Baby Save A Tree." I noticed that there was a memorial set up to a recently passed member of the Audiofeed community near the BurningTown tent.

https://youtu.be/6qfFDKPEF-Q
Elphie had arrived at the festival so I found where she was then I went back into BurningTown and captured "Heaven" by Good Saint Nathanael. Just outside of BurningTown on the edge of the food court there was what appeared to be a large mouse playing guitar and I assume it was supposed to be singing but I couldn't hear vocals though there was a microphone.

https://youtu.be/AvF-CfbtalE
I went to Black Sheep to see Listener while the sun set behind the stage making it hard to watch. I captured "Seatbelt Hands."

https://youtu.be/YAVCE14-j8Y
Afterwards I went to the Asylum to see Leper since they had been moved up to play earlier. Apparently due to the noise the night before, Audiofeed had to operate under a new sound ordinance for the rest of the weekend which meant the schedule had to be revamped somewhat. I saw the start of the set then I left to go to Sanctuary to see Death Therapy. I am glad I left when I did as I only caught the end of the set. I captured "Slow Dance (with Death)" before returning to the Asylum.

https://youtu.be/nr4sTJPjWDc
Back at the Asylum I captured the end of Leper's set with the song "Holy".

https://youtu.be/lE77hEk0tA0
I stopped by Black Sheep to see So Long Forgotten. I captured "The Wind Ran Out Of Breath" and I watched most of the set before going to Sanctuary to see some of the Dark Valentine set. I captured "Vegetable before making a walk to the Front Porch to see October Bird Of Death and capturing "Fire In Those Eyes." October Bird of Death was one of the casualties of the newly appointed noise ordinance. Instead of playing the last spot at the Sanctuary, they had to bump someone off the Front Porch to play their set. It ended up being a fun set and maybe they were able to reach a larger crowd due to the gathering of people waiting for As Cities Burn to take the Black Sheep Stage.
1. Bloodsucker (pt 2)
2. Thus By My Lips Your Sins Are Purged
3. Terrible! How Terrible For The Great City
4. Goldmine
5. Admission: Regret
6. Contact
7. Into The Sea
8. Made To Pretty
9. Clouds
10. Sheepdog ’84
11. This Is It, This Is It
12. One:TwentySeven
13. Of Want And Misery The Kills
14. The Widow
I decided to capture the entire As Cities Burn set because it had been quite a long time since I last saw them. I saw them on the Underoath farewell tour and it always seemed that As Cities Burn was never a certainty to continue so I figured this might be my last chance. As I mentioned in the opening paragraphs, I realized that my memory card did not have sufficient memory to capture  the entire set. I had left my bag with spare batteries and cards in the Grave Robbers tent but no one I knew was nearby to ask if they would watch my camera while I ran to grab the bag. Ryan Getz came near mid-set so I asked him if he minded keeping an eye on my camera while I ran to get what I needed. Thankfully he obliged. While I switched cards, I tried to quickly switch to my iPhone without missing a beat. I did miss a second or two. I faded it back to the Canon footage in the editing process. During Of Want And Misery That Kills I hit the 12 minute limit so I had a split second gap as well. For the summarizing project that documents the event, I took a clip from Contact with Cody explaining his thoughts on writing the song and having doubts while in your faith. It was a great set and it was awesome to see these guys back at it. I will need to pick up the new album and hopefully catch them on tour as well this year.

https://youtu.be/3l2hFrEQ_3Y
When As Cities Burn finished their set, I quickly headed over to the Asylum and I captured the very end of Pelennor Fields covering Leper's "Take What You Want From Me." This was another casualty of the new noise ordinance as this set was planned to be after midnight. I had hoped to see more from Pelennor Fields. It is sort of a "supergroup" of Christian goth acts with members from Grave Robber, Leper, Relesser, Autumn's Decent, Dark Valentine, and Rackets And Drapes.

Since everything ended early, it left amble time to wander around the grounds and hang out with friends in the community. I was able to introduce Elphie to Brian and Rachel of Deadhorse before they headed out for the night. In the Grave Robbers tent, more bug eating occurred...this time with Tyler and Adrienne of Insomniac Folklore.
As I made my way to the festival grounds on Saturday July 7th, Cindy happened to drive by me. Apparently she booked a room in the hotel next door so I got a ride into Audiofeed! I took my things back to the Grave Robber tent again and headed out and about for one more day.

https://youtu.be/G75qtQI9i-4
In the Family Zone, The Uh-Ohs were playing back in their Elvish outfits. I captured "Headphones" as well as Stewart dancing along while flyering.

https://youtu.be/paeIP7m2Yww
In the Radon Lounge I caught some of Red Sweater Lullaby. It seems I may have gotten too close to the sound system. I took the car to the gas station to fuel it up for the return trip home in case, again there were troubles with the car. It started up fine again so I took advantage of the situation. I picked up Elphie from the hotel as well so she didn't have to walk to the grounds.

https://youtu.be/j3MNT7G5FM0
Back at Audiofeed, I captured Good Saint Nathanael playing "Coming Unglued" while he spoke on the subject of "Christians Hurting Christians (Death by 1000 Cuts)" in the Asylum. I included a bit of his talk as well.

https://youtu.be/W_oqBmGbBSM
After listening to Nate speak, I caught Church Tongue on the Black Sheep Stage and as I was headed toward Radon Lounge I saw large bubbles in the Family Zone so I captured those as well.

https://youtu.be/gPCLeTckqYY
In the Radon Lounge, I caught the end of Max Simmons' set then I caught a few more hardcore sets at Black Sheep while also wandering the merch area and picking up some new vinyl. I captured clips from Conveyer, New Heart, and Strengthen What Remains. After gathering the vinyl I purchased, I stowed it in the Grave Robbers tent and checked out the Goth Prom with DJ Fatal Claw in the Asylum. Elphie came in for that as well and we figured out what to eat for dinner from the vendors.

https://youtu.be/h75IY2P8bbs
I captured a clip from Dan Smith playing solo on the Black Sheep. I got some of his banter and "Tattoos And T.V." then captured "Strength Within" by War Of Ages. I ended up getting grilled cheese from Guy Allen's booth. Before going into the BurningTown tent I happened to see Elphie try out the pogo stick and captured it on film.

https://youtu.be/txE0BzFZk2g
In the BurningTown tent I captured the beginning of the set by Brother Red Squirrel. I eventually cut it off because I wanted to see some other sets as well since everything was so constricted with the new ordinance in effect. I went over to see a little bit of Project 86 on Black Sheep and captured "Evil (A Chorus of Resistance)" before heading into the Asylum to see some of Grave Robber.

Throughout the week of Audiofeed in the Asylum there was strict crowd control rules enforced including a "firelane." It was fairly harmless other than the person enforcing these rules would take it a bit far and shove folks out of the way if he felt they were in the "firelane." It also was believed that at some point a child had been trampled when a mosh pit occurred though that was never verified. Even so, while Grave Robber prepared to get on stage, from the sound booth Bill Fanum announced that those who were sitting ought to move back because it would get "rowdy" during this set. Grave Robber opened their set with "Into The Pit" and with it a circle pit commenced. The enforcer of the strict crowd control rules tried to stop the circle pit by trying to obstruct it only getting himself bumped and knocked around instead. Then he decided to get on stage while Grave Robber was performing which isn't such a good idea because the costumes make it hard to see for the band members. Anyway, he asked them to get the crowd to stop moving and only had his water bottle knocked from his hand instead of something worse happening. I happened to be filming at the time. Because I believe I had already posted a video of "Into The Pit" from Audiofeed, I kept filming and captured "The Evil Dead" which was when the unexpected visit to the stage occurred. The entire #Firelane situation was silly to most of us so we poked fun at the situation. I included here a quick glimpse of the drawing I had made about the situation that sparked controversy in the days that followed Audiofeed. More on this written below.
1. Dargavinter
2. Our Flags Held High
3. Bitterness
4. Scandinavia
5. Dödsmarsch
6. Painful Lessons
I left the Asylum for Sanctuary to see Dödsmarsch. While they set up, I set up my Swedish and Danish flags, attaching them to my tripod. I captured the full set, sacrificing watching the Flatfoot 56 theme show this year due to the new noise ordinance. I did not want to miss this for the culture of my heritage and due to all the members not necessarily always being available so it's not known when I would get to see Dödsmarsch again. For the project documenting the entire event, I used a clip from "Our Flags Held High."

https://youtu.be/3PlZ6zqTrUI
Set List:
1. Pastapocalpse Intro
2. Chinatown Jailbreak
3. Penny
4. Loaded Gun
5. Ty Cobb
7. The Rich, The Strong, And The Poor
8. I Believe It
9. Knuckles Up
10. Hoity Toity
11. Brotherhood
12. Stutter
13. Winter In Chicago
14. Same Ol’ Story
15. Hourglass
16. We Grow Stronger
17. I’ll Fly Away
18. Amazing Grace
Due to the noise ordinance and the condensed schedule, I was down at Sanctuary for while Flatfoot 56 did their theme show called Pastapocalype. Elphie did me a huge favor in filming it for me. I made it in time for the end of the set with "I'll Fly Away" and "Amazing Grace." Probably due in part to the condensed schedule, there seemed to be less activities than usual for the theme show but I included "Brotherhood" with its pasta wall of death in the project documenting the whole event.

https://youtu.be/b_BpeFfi4fg
I went to the Asylum to see if anything was going on. The plan as I understood it was for the REAL Boy Band to still play and it looked a bit like something might be coming together but nothing was happening yet. In the Grave Robber tent, someone's birthday was celebrated with song but I have no idea who it was. I took a few things to the car then went back into the Asylum and captured "The Twist" by the REAL Boy Band which included Ben Aldrich this year (he did a little twist as the song was being introduced) along with Skot from Leper, Tyler from Insomniac Folklore, and Bill from Happy Little Day backing Harry Gore. You also will hear some banter regarding Rachel doing the twist. I captured the song with a few audience members twisting along.

Our Late night hangs continued and we migrated to the Road Dog Cafe Hospitality area for the remainder of the night.
https://youtu.be/Pwf2e_LIlHg
On Sunday July 8th, we loaded everything back into the car from the hotel. Thankfully it started so we checked out then decided to go back to the festival grounds to see who was still around. We ended up hanging around for several hours and seeing most everything taken down and loaded out by the time we left. We got to talk to friends for a while and catch up more with them We didn't have a real big deadline to get back so we felt free to do what we wanted. I checked on the car from time to time to make sure it wasn't getting too hot due in part to the vinyl I had purchased. I helped mama Linda load up some things in her trailer then when we headed out, we ran into Jim. When we asked what he thought about Audiofeed going forward he said he always hopes for a next year which made me feel good that there would be another Audiofeed to attend despite some rumors made to the contrary.

We ended up driving to Taco Bell for lunch then detoured to the east to Meijer in Highland, Indiana to get groceries before going home to find a very happy Stein.

The ongoing jokes regarding #FireLane that begun as a result of the Asylum's fire lane situation and its absurdity continued on Facebook. One thought was to make a t-shirt about it. I drew up a little cartoon which brought on a little bit of heat from some parties. The jokes weren't intended to ridicule, insult, or belittle the person. It was drawn to emphasize and highlight the absurdity of the situation...which was a situation that could have been remedied early on by those in charge of the tent and ministry if they would have chosen to act upon it. I figured the drawing might push some buttons with some people (and I had a good idea who those people would be) but most people realized where I was coming from and I believe that there was some healthy, good discussion that came from it, at least. While I know intentions are one thing, some times the way something affects another person is outside of those intentions. My intention was not to offend or hurt but if the person is hurt or offended by the drawing, you have my sincerest apologies and given the chance I would do so in person and I would do what is in my power to make it up to you.


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Additional soundtrack is "Summertime" by Mae.

Footage filmed using a Canon Rebel T6 and iPhones 6 and 8 by Elphie and Joel A. Swanson. Titles and animations created using Motion 4 on a Macbook by Joel A. Swanson. Edited using Final Cut Pro on a Mac Mini by Joel A. Swanson.

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