Local artist shares experience coordinating music festival

Sebastian Wagner, bassist for The Wooly Bullies, recently shared his views on Cleveland's Music Scene with "The Cauldron."

Wagner was co-curator of July's Wonderful Fest, an explosive, two-day fest garage and punk music at Now That's Class! and Beachland.

Cauldron: How does one in the pulse, like yourself, respond to my accusations: that there is depressed support for Cleveland artists in the music scene?

SW: This is a hard question to answer without sounding like a dick. It almost seems like there are tons of different "scenes" in Cleveland. People are "clicky" and into different things. A lot of them aren't that much different than others, but someone might not give it a chance if it's not in their comfort zone. Does that make sense?

Cauldron: In Cleveland's  "clicky" scene, Wonderful Fest managed to be successful. How successful was it?

SW: It was the first time most of us involved put together an event of that size and we learned a lot from our mistakes. I don't have exact figures for attendance or money made. Well, there was no money made on our end, we actually lost a little money with band guarantees. No big deal, we stood to lose a lot more than we actually did.

Cauldron: In its venerable success, and on behalf of Cleveland music lovers, we hope it happens again. I consider your band, The Wooly Bullies bearers of the true punk torch in Cleveland. What can we look forward to in your band's future?

SW: We're almost finished with our new record. It's on Total Life Society Records. We've recorded about 15 songs at Cleveland Audio, and we're excited to finish it.

We'll probably do a cassette version and Midwest trips: Chicago, Milwaukee, Madison, K-Zoo, Detroit, maybe Nashville.

As for shows, we're playing the 71st Door on Sept. 4, the Zombie Walk at the 5 o'clock on the 24th in the afternoon and a Halloween show Oct. 28 at the Euclid Tavern.