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The most surprising thing about FWB Fest was that it felt like the kind of music festival that justifies the continued existence of music festivals. Thrown by the "DAO" ("decentralized autonomous organization") known as "FWB" ("Friends With Benefits," unaffiliated with either the movie(s) or the TV show(s) [???]) in the Southern California enclave of Idyllwild Arts Academy, FWB Fest superficially avoided all the things that make the modern festival-going experience a nightmare. The grounds were secluded but not remote; the canopy coverage of Idyllwild's thick groves shielded the crowds from the 90-100F day temps; aesthetic touches presumably provided by FORM, the production team that used to run the experimental art-music festival Arcosanti (on hold since 2020), transformed the forest into—
Let me be blunt: I spent the past weekend at "crypto's Woodstock," where a smattering of modern music’s avant-garde performed under the gently fluttering mushroom gill coverings in the sage-burned forests of inland southern California.
The only performers I caught who actually said "crypto" out loud were Yves Tumor, who put on their flattest deadpan to summon the members of "crypto camp" into the moat/pit surrounding the stage, and Charli XCX, who adopted a more bemused deadpan to ask her DJ set crowd, "Did everyone make a lot of money with crypto?"*
In the "moat"; Yves Tumor, FWB Fest 2023. (Photo by C.)
I am...not a crypto person. But when I got an invite for FWB Fest earlier in the summer, I went 1) "What the hell," followed closely by 2) "This lineup is kinda sick," followed by 3) "Oh, FORM's involved?" (The skinny on FORM is that they do boutique event production, specializing in ✧arté✧ music performances.) Over the weekend, some iteration of those three initial thoughts (perturbation, curiosity, appreciation) was in my head at all times.
Maybe some of the performers were in the same boat (moat). During the acts I caught** the banter level was low to non-existent. It wasn't as though the artists were hostile; if Lolla wasn't on the touring docket, I suppose their thinking was, why not take the chance to play in and for a strange new world? In a setting as (relatively) small as FWB's, where the main performance space was about the size of the smallest tent at Coachella, you're interfacing with a much more intimate audience.
Happy birthday Charli; Charli XCX, FWB Fest 2023. (Photo by C.)
With the exceptions of Charli and A.G. Cook and Caroline, whose circles intersect with some “main characters” in the crypto/3.0 music space, it really didn't seem like the FWB people were there For Music. Which makes sense because...they weren't. The orders of business for most of the attendees were to network and to have a g00d time (via USB swaps and foraging trips and other esoteric excursions 👽), meeting people they'd previously only known as usernames or avatars or whatever else people are using as Web3.0 identification in lieu of their physical bodies.
Oh. And to "touch grass." There were little yard signs, like the kinds they use for campaigning, around the festival grounds that straight up said, "TOUCH GRASS." The only official festival merch was a t-shirt that proclaimed, "I WENT TO FWBFEST 23 AND TOUCHED GRASS."
Because, just in case it wasn't obvious, the attendees of FWB Fest were Internet People. The conversations I eavesdropped on weren't completely inscrutable, because I too am Online, but any people dropping $400+ — which, to be fair, is a fairly middle of the pack ticket price these days for a multi-day music festival — to attend a long weekend crypto/blockchain/3.0 symposium in the woods are the kinds for whom the virtual world is their creative and, inescapably so, financial frontier. The "touching grass" signs aren't so much joking reminders as they are virtue signaling, with the virtue being that they're plugged into something that remains incomprehensible to most of the people who, say, touch grass in their daily lives.
FWB Fest was a nominally public but functionally private party that happened to have some killer house bands. It was a celebration for not just them, now, but for their collective-ish version of a utopian vision, which they hope will triumph over the many, many other possible ways our world could go.
"GPOY." (From Serial Experiments Lain, Yasuyuki Ueda, Triangle Staff, 1998.)
Possibly, the majority of the FWB audience treated the efforts of the performing artists as something other than the ambient soundtrack of their vertical supercut of "IRL connecting <3." Maybe someone leaving DJ AIDS-3D (💀) had their life transformed by Yves's always-bombastic rock show or Caroline's Vesuvian warbling (lovingly).
I certainly left Idyllwild with some new appreciations. A few highlights:
Charli and A.G. Cook are a really locked in DJ tag team. PC Music forever!!!
Since I've seen Caroline like...five or six times now, we left her set (a little too) early to get to DOSS. It was clear that they were still setting up — like, people were dropping off bottles for the bar as it was being built — but! The only other time I'd seen DOSS was when she opened for Yves last year at 1015 Folsom; Yves stuck around for her FWB set and, when she had some difficulties with her initial equipment setup, they stepped in and helped troubleshoot. It was a cute callback (to me, in my head).
And then DOSS played an absolute goblin mode set. I haven't heard that much Benny Benassi since my days of trawling frat row.
I've seen and heard Mary Lattimore's name in my audio orbit for some time now but my god...her performance, under the parachute clouds, which would lift and sway with the wind and further diffused the late afternoon light that'd splintered into dappling glory through the trees...I'm a convert. She was so genuinely thrilled to be playing her harp and sharing her art that her relentlessly positive energy beamed into me and dispelled my innate cynicism/hater instincts for a beautiful moment. Best set of the weekend, hands down.
Artist's rendering of Mary Lattimore sealing away my hater vibes. (From Cardcaptor Sakura, CLAMP, Madhouse, 1998.)
At the end of the day, my critical (as in training) observations aside, I love live music and the Idyllwild setting was pretty special. I'm bad about/at taking photos and videos of shows because 1) I'm not paid to be a photo/video journalist and 2) I'm short and 3) I try to lIvE iN tHe MoMeNt, but I'll be uploading some performance videos over the next couple of days at @RADIOLIO.live.
* I think I'm paraphrasing but she might've said that verbatim.
** Friday: Nick Hakim, Nosaj Thing/Jacques Greene, CFCF, Charli XCX/A.G. Cook. Saturday: Teen Daze, Mary Lattimore, The Dare, Yves Tumor, Caroline Polachek, DOSS.
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In "honor" of FWB Fest's mantra, I present a very special playlist...
💿 THE "TOUCH GRASS" MEGAMIX
(From Spirited Away, Hayao Miyazaki, Studio Ghibli, 2001.)
What started out as a casual endeavor turned into 123 songs that, loosely and/or imaginatively, invoke:
envoys from earth reaching toward sky / your fingers dancing between undone, bladed pleats / susurrus in magic motion / ah, the soft step / the yielding touch, the last impression / all silhouettes swallowed, unformed, and reborn
I listened to all 122 transitions to make sure they functionally "worked" (I've been told I have an obsessive nature), but this will be a perpetual WIP so the lineup will swell and morph. (I've already started putting together a list of artists I need to include.) But for now, as it is, "enjoy."
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLv4N3lascoyXAFjurYjhLsWC-d0-wxBgT
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Thanks for "listening." Stay tuned...!
🎶 xoxo Lio
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