[Update: Due to an injury sustained by their shared drummer, Bathe and Garrrow had to drop from the lineup. Soul Press and Nepotism will play in their stead. The updated schedule is listed above.]
Columbia deserves a Music Crawl.
Free Times’ annual music festival hasn’t been seen since 2012, but in its heyday, it attempted to provide a live mixtape of the best things happening on local stages, a club-based change of pace from the outdoor block parties that are prevalent in our city.
Since that last outing, Free Times has gone through some changes, but our insistence on highlighting great Midlands music hasn’t wavered. On Nov. 10, we’ll reaffirm that commitment by reinstating Music Crawl, hosting 21 acts on one night in four Vista venues.
Though the festival has previously included regional touring bands, with this first year back we decided to focus exclusively on the local music scene, attempting to showcase a wide cross-section of what this area has to offer. Leaning on advice from a committee that included representatives from local blogs SceneSC and But I’m Not a Critic Though, local radio stations WXRY and WUSC, local metal promoter #ColumbiaRules, and Love, Peace & Hip-Hop, the team behind the annual Hip-Hop Family Day, we assembled what we humbly believe is one hell of a lineup.
There will be happy returns — recently reunited, the taut and propulsive post-rock trio Death Becomes Even the Maiden will play one of its first shows since Music Crawl 2012 — and beloved stalwarts — Columbia rap OG Fat Rat da Czar, conceptually rich folk-rock shapeshifter The Restoration, and the endlessly uplifting indie pop crew Those Lavender Whales will all play. There will be boundary-smashing collaborations — the live debut of electronic musician Tyler Digital and soulful singer Mario McClean playing music from this year’s excellent Pillars; the thunderous, twisting indie rock quartet ET Anderson backing the transfixing R&B artist Niecy Blues. And there will be some truly extreme experiences — the paralyzing, grindcore-as-doom metal chaos of Bathe, the acid-dosed electro-rap of Autocorrect. And there will, of course, be superlative rock bands — the emotional rumble of Dear Blanca, the swampy garage tantrums of Boo Hag, the slanted-and-twanged catharses of Barnwell.
This Crawl is for all. Join us.
Tickets available at free-times.com/musiccrawl.
