ADVERTISEMENT

    Parking Lot Blowout’s Fifth Birthday Bash

    Would you think I’d gone mad if I told you coolest place to be this weekend is at a five-year-old’s birthday party?

    ADVERTISEMENT

    What if I told you we’d traded in the pony rides, creepy clowns, and frosting-crazed children for eight kickass local bands, a truck full of Pabst Blue Ribbon, and a parking lot full of the coolest people in this fine city?

    Parking Lot Blowout is not only a happenin’ rock and roll bash, it is THE annual fundraising event for Columbus Music Co-op’s Musician Assistance Program (CMAP), and it’s happening this Saturday, July 10th in the Surly Girl parking lot. Through CMAP, CMC provides assistance to local musicians experiencing health-related financial hardship. CMC also acts as an advocate for local musicians and strives to sustain the Columbus music community through live music events, workshops, and networking activities. Although CMC was originally the brainchild of local music fan Erin Moore and good friend and Columbus musician Jess Faller, CMC’s board has grown to include Ben Chenoweth, Laddan Shoar, Liz Lessner LaRue, Shirley Tobias, and Jerry Dannemiller. For the past four years, CMC has invited hundreds of their closest friends, family and local music fanatics to the Surly Girl Saloon parking lot for a day of music and fun. I recently caught up with my awesome friend and CMC’s Executive Director, Erin Moore, to get more of the scoop on this year’s party.

    Lauren Wilson: Was there one particular situation that prompted the founding of CMC or just knowledge of a general need?

    Erin Moore: There wasn’t a particular situation other than Jess and I wanted to work on a project together and I really wanted to give some “meaning” to my local music obsession.  My brother Brian, who drums for Brainbow and before that Tiara, was a giant influence and is the reason I love local music. I met Jess through him and she joined his band.  The CMC was born really late at night after Jess and I got to talking. We were like…we love Columbus, Jess is a musician, and I have a nonprofit background so let’s combine those and see what we came up with. And that’s how the CMC was born.  We just knew we wanted to support the local music community. Then hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans the next year, and we kept hearing about New Orleans jazz musicians that didn’t have any health insurance or help during that tough time. We thought that a lot of musicians face health insurance issues here in Columbus too, so maybe we can help that way. And that’s how the idea for the Columbus Musicians’ Assistance Program came to be. We modeled it after MusiCares, which is run by the Grammys and is a national musicians’ assistance program.

    LW: How was the idea for the Parking Lot Blowout born?

    EM: This is a funny story.  I was taking Jess out for drinks at Surly Girl, and the week before my brother Brian and I had been on the cover of the Alive for a “Siblings of Rock” story. Liz Lessner recognized me and was like “are you guys the Columbus Music Co-op?” We said yes and she said “I’ve been wanting to meet you!”  We set up a meeting to tell her about who we are and what we do, and she and her brother, Thom Lessner, had this idea to do a big parking lot party with art and music.  Liz thought it was a great match for our organization, and we said yes!  Thank goodness we did. Surly Girl is our biggest sponsor, and Liz went on to join our board when we formed one. The amazing thing is that we now spend several months planning the Parking Lot Blowout and we did that first one in about 6 weeks!

    LW: The lineup this year is super impressive and even includes a reunion of The Gibson Brothers after twenty years. How did this lineup come to be?

    EM: We knew we wanted a big line up for our five-year birthday. We asked the New Bomb Turks to play last year and they couldn’t, so we had “pre-asked” them to play this year. We also knew we wanted Scrawl. Marcy Mays from Scrawl has always been part of the Parking Lot Blowout team, and we’d always been planning to have them for the five-year birthday if possible. Then there had been some message board discussion about getting The Gibson Bros. to reunite. We all kinda thought “oh wouldn’t that be nice,” but our new board member Jerry Dannemiller (who works at the Wexner Center and plays in Moviola) made it a reality. We really cannot say thank you to Jerry enough. It took months of constant asking and prodding, and he made it happen.  Jess and I brainstormed some of the other bands, and our board helped brainstorm too and that’s how we came up with the line up. We have fewer bands this year than we normally do, so the bands can all play longer sets.  It was fun to have our board members involved. We would occasionally meet up at shows or report back on who we thought would be a good fit.  I will say that booking is really hard because so many awesome bands want to donate their time and we only have so many slots. It is truly humbling to see the generosity of the Columbus music community.

    LW: Parking Lot Blowout is always a huge undertaking. How many people…vendors, volunteers, etc does it take to make this event happen?

    EM: It takes about 200 CMC staff/board members/band members/volunteers to make it happen.  Most of those are day of event volunteers and band members. Although, Jess and Carmen Owens from Surly Girl and do a lot of the behind the scenes logistics, our whole amazing board has been part of the event…fundraising, working with the bands, and volunteering the day of the event. CMC is 100% volunteer-run too…from the staff and board to all of our event volunteers.  We also had about 30 amazing sponsors this year too who all make it happen. I constantly think that I am the luckiest girl ever to get to work with so many awesome local organizations and small businesses.

    LW: What’s your fave part of Parking Lot Blowout? What’s your fave PLBO memory so far?

    EM: My favorite part each year is when Jess and I get to grab a minute together, dance backstage, and just kind of enjoy the festival for a minute.  It’s funny; most years we are so busy I very rarely get to watch a lot of the bands. But this year I hope to catch a little of every set.  My favorite memory so far was probably the year Brainbow played. I got to stand down front surrounded by my best friends and my 2 other brothers as we watched Brainbow turn out an excellent set. But every year has been amazing and special.  Fun fact…I hardly got to attend any of the first Blowout because I was diagnosed with mono two days before.  I went down, saw Tiara play their set, and then had to go back to bed. That year was really hard because Jess and I worked so hard on planning it and didn’t get to celebrate together. There were a lot of tearful phone calls that day.

    Fear not this year my friends, CMC’s leader will be at full-strength Saturday and in the parking lot with her awesome crew giving you one of the best parties this summer. If you see her red hair and her big smile, be sure to stop and say hi and thank her and CMC for everything they do for music and for Columbus. This city sure wouldn’t be as rad without them.

    As for the nitty-gritty party-day details, the shindig starts at 2pm sharp. Get there early because you aren’t going to want to miss a single note. Oh, and admission is free before 5pm and $5 from 5pm until close. It’s totally an all-ages blowout, but do bring your ID and make sure you’re 21 if you plan to drink. And drink up you should, because all food and beer sales go right to CMC and the CMAP fund. Oh yeah, and those bands…here’s the amazing line-up…

    • 3:00pm Old Hundred
    • 3:45pm The Randys
    • 4:30pm Fat Girls by the Snacktable
    • 5:15pm Sweatheart
    • 6:00pm EYE
    • 6:45pm New Bomb Turks
    • 7:45pm Gibson Bros.
    • 8:45pm Scrawl

    If you absolutely can’t make it (although you really, REALLY should), check out the CMC webpage at ColumbusMusicCoop.org on Saturday and watch the show streaming live from the comfort of your couch. Oh, and you’ll want to bookmark that site too so you can always be up to date on the cool stuff CMC is doing. Be sure to follow CMC on Twitter at @colsmusiccoop and on Facebook too.

    See ya in the Parking Lot!

    Lauren Wilson is a featured writer for Columbus Underground and all comments, suggestions, requests, and boozin’ invites can be forwarded to [email protected].

    ADVERTISEMENT

    Subscribe

    More to Explore:

    Photos: Sleater-Kinney at Newport Music Hall

    Long-running alt-punk pioneers Sleater-Kinney returned to Columbus on Wednesday...

    More Than Music: Making Friends with Dom Deshawn, Joey Aich & OG Vern

    I attended my first Dom Deshawn show in December...

    Photos: GROUPLOVE at KEMBA Live!

    Alt-Rock five-piece GROUPLOVE brought their infectious bounce-around songs to...

    Concert Preview: Sleater-Kinney at Newport Music Hall

    Little Rope is the 11th studio album from veteran...

    Beat Bazaar Creates New Space for Columbus Producers

    On February 23, The Kutt Record shop filled with...
    ADVERTISEMENT