The Adapta Fest is happening at the Hungry Brain (2319 W Belmont Ave, Chicago) November 3-5th and is curated by Bill Tucker, the owner of the independent record label,1980 Records and Tapes. Tucker who is an artist, musician, filmmaker, event curator and photographer say’s his label is "a minor label for major music" and he, along with his staff, makes all of their cassettes in house and all of the covers by hand. “It's all about sharing great art and music” say’s Tucker who’s 1980’s Records & Tapes will be releasing it’s 71st installment on Friday night at the Hungry Brain during the Fest. We caught up with Tucker to discuss the festival that is happening this weekend at the Hungry Brain!
Chicago Jazz Magazine: Tell us about 1980 Records & Tapes and how the collaboration with the Hungry Brain came about.
Tucker: 1980 has been working hard on throwing a festival. I wanted to have a big festival called Party Timessss 1986 that integrated Free Jazz and some of the more louder rock bands the label has released music with over the past 10+ years but most venues weren't interested in more the amount of bands I wanted to book. Hungry Brain offered us 3 nights and we restructured the fest into two. I've seen some of the more excitingly challenging music and art in this space and I'm looking forward to working with them.
Chicago Jazz Magazine: What is the significance of the name of the festival?
Tucker: Adapta came from my subconscious in a way. As I was deliberating ideas with the rest of my co-workers at the label it's something that naturally just flowed out. I had no real understanding of why. After we agreed on this title I realized that I was something that caught my eye. I was in physical therapy for the past year due to a torn ACL and Adapta was the brand of many kinds of medical equipment. So in essence that's the easy answer, but trying to make sense of why I determined it's because we're plugging in. We're a strange label filled with many different styles of music that is pretty niche and doesn't really get above ground easily. We're in a sense plugging into the Hungry Brains long history of curating amazing music and putting some of our unheard musicians on this stage to share their amazing work to larger audience.
Chicago Jazz Magazine: Tell us about the experimental artist series.
Tucker: Experimental Artist Series was/is something I started booking back at Fill In The Blank art gallery in Lincoln Square about 8 or 9 years ago. Throughout the years I host an event anywhere from once a month to every 6 months. Touring artists from around U.S. have played including but not limited too: Jeb Bishop, Jamie Branch, Tim Daisy, Wilson Shook, Fred Lonberg-Holm, Julia Miller, as well as noise artists like Ten Thousand Miles of Arteries, Wild Gone Girls and City Harvest Black. We had our 20th installment of the series last summer and have no plans of slowing down in the new year. Our main space has been The Annex of Beans and Bagels on Rockwell for the last 10 events and hope to hold that space as long as possible as DIY spaces can generally have a short shelf life in Chicago.
Chicago Jazz Magazine: How did the lineup for the festival get determined? Is there any special significance to having these particular musicians all performing together on one festival?
Tucker: When the idea of having a large festival fell apart I split the artists up so that the ones that were more on the Experimental/Free Jazz/Improv and acoustic singer songwriter angle that would fit well at Hungry Brain. Curation was easy for me because everyone who is playing is someone I know and has released something on the label, played at the experimental artist series or other diy spaces with me, or is someone I am interested in releasing a cassette of.
Chicago Jazz Magazine: Who is the executive director of the festival?
Tucker: I don't know if I could call myself an executive director but I am the curator.
Chicago Jazz Magazine: What performances should people who might not know the musicians be sure to attend and why?
Tucker: This fest is full of creativity and alive with new sounds. Be sure to catch the whole event. This event is free and we are hoping that it brings out some new listeners who can hear some amazing music that sometimes rarely is seen live.
Visit HungryBrainChicago.com for more information on the Adapta Festival.