Q&A Number Three

"MUSICIANS HANGING WITH MUSICIANS"

This interview with Jeff Wallace was a little different because it was on the phone with him. I used my girlfriends iPhone because there is an application that allows you to record whole conversations and play them back. Instead of rushing and struggling to write everything down I had it on record and I could relax and talk to him a little. The combination of me bring friends with Jeff and me not really talking in formal interview language it was hard to pick out the parts that were worth writing down. So the editing to make it a presentable interview was tougher in this one. I asked the "Banana Phonetic" question because that is my brother's band and Jeff is good friends with all of them, and they played in the festival.


Q:So how did the festival go?

A:A huge success. Through ought the 6 hours 1500 people came. The aftermath of it was really good. People around town have been talking about it and our facebook page has gotten a lot of fans because of it, so overall it was good for MySecretBoston.

Q:Did u get everything out of it that you expected to?

A:There's always more. More press would have been nice, but at the same time we are competing with all these other websites so we can't really use them to get the word out. So yes absolutely it was everything we wanted, it was pretty ambitious for a new website and nothing went majorly wrong.

Q:How did banana phonetic do?

A:They are my friends obviously, but now my professional opinion is that they can hang. They hung with bands that make a lot of money doing it and they carried themselves, played an amazing set, and the crowd and other bands loved them; and some of the bands want to do more gigs with them. That's what it's all about: musicians hanging with musicians.

Q:How did u get all the bands?

A:The five bands that I got I've seen them all a bunch of times living in Alston and I said,"what the hell?" Local bands I knew personally. Jeff Robinson is the sax player for Duppy Conquerors, a sweet Marley tribute band that plays every Monday night at a bar in Somerville called precinct (one of my favorite spots, and one night I was having a beer and I asked him, "yo you wanna play a show?" and he said yes. Some were more official, those had performance requirements and can sell out the paradise in Boston, but if the price is right they will always play. Overall, the five bands that I got flowed together perfectly.

Q:Did you write about it?

A:I felt couldn't write a review because it would have been completely biased. I made sure people knew it was a success, but we beat the coverage to death and we didn't want to take it too far.

Q:Are you going to try and do another?

A:Absolutely. Immediately after we set up a meeting to see what we can do to make it bigger and better next year. For us it was a perfection situation, because all we needed to do was promote it and pick the music for the day. None of us really had any experience doing something like this and it went well so we are definitely trying to take it further. I can't wait to see it grow. Going in I was most excited about the bands. I spent days, weeks, months piecing together the lineup and there isn't a single band on there that I wouldn't vouch for. The best compliment I got was from someone in one of the bands who said, "Thank you for bringing all of us together." There was a strong sense of community amongst the bands who played and there were even a lot of people from bands who didn't play just in the crowd checking things out. Everyone was happy to be there.