Music fans who like an ample dose of ear-splitting guitars and pummeling double-bass drumming will get their fix at the Dead Leaf Festival, which takes place Saturday at Center Stage in downtown Muncie.
The event, now in its fourth year, is sponsored by Fallen Leaf Productions, a Muncie-based non-profit group that organizes a trio of annual festivals and promotes other local music events.
Fallen Leaf Productions president Nathan Reece said that his organization formed to give the local music scene what he perceived as a much-needed lift.
Since 1999, the organization has generally put on three concerts a year: the Dead Leaf Festival in January, the Budding Leaf Festival in April and the Fallen Leaf Festival in August.
"It started in a time when Muncie was really lacking in local talent, because growing up, I remember Muncie was kind of like a mecca for really good musicians and bands, but there was a little lull, a drop, and it looked like people stopped caring about [the scene]," he said.
"So that's when we came up with Fallen Leaf Productions, and our first festival (Fallen Leaf Festival), and it was a big success. At the time we started, we were actually making up bands just to play this," Reece said.
The success of the Fallen Leaf and Budding Leaf Festivals encouraged Reece to add another concert to the yearly schedule. Since the existing two events rarely featured hard rock or metal acts, the Dead Leaf Festival was conceived to provide an outlet for local bands of the heavier persuasion.
"I have a lot of friends in metal bands, and I kind of grew up watching a lot of those bands that are on our lineup," Reese said. "There wasn't very much of a chance for metal in town, because there's not very many bars that feature hard rock or metal bands."
Dave Dalton, the drummer for the local metal band Legion, said that music venues weren't receptive to heavy rock during his group's early days.
"I think these days, it's easier for a harder band to get a gig, but back in the early days, when Legion first started, we didn't stand a chance," Dalton said. Legion will be among the performers at Saturday's concert.
"There was definitely no way we were going to get in playing the kind of stuff we do, but now we play pretty much anywhere we want," he said. "It's a lot more acceptable, commercially, I guess."
At the time of Dead Leaf's conception, Reece said he felt that bands playing music based on distorted guitar riffs and intense vocals were often shunned by members of the local music community.
"I hate having seen that there's a discrimination against hard rock and metal, so that kind of inspired the Dead Leaf Festival, to give that kind of music the spotlight."
In addition to the lineup of hard rock bands, local artists and craftspeople will get their chance to show off their wares at Dead Leaf Festival, Reece said.
"We try to say that it's not just a music festival, but that it incorporates all art," Reece said. All of our vendors are local, indepently-owned businesses. We don't get corporate sponsors or any of that stuff, and it all has to be local, so we try to stick with that."
Last spring's Budding Leaf Festival was cancelled on the day of the show, after county authorities deemed that the event's site, a private residence, was inadequate for the hundreds of people expected. Fallen Leaf Productions lost money as a result, and therefore couldn't afford to hold the Fallen Leaf Festival in August 2004.
In spite of that setback, Reece said his organization still has high hopes for the Dead Leaf Festival, the only of the three festivals that is held indoors. Due to the comparatively less-expensive accomodations of Center Stage (as opposed to the other events' venues, usually the county fairgrounds), Reece said that Dead Leaf generally makes the most money of the events that Fallen Leaf Productions coordinates.
"We're making our comeback with the Dead Leaf Festival, and we knew that we could get away with that one financially," he said.
None of Fallen Leaf Productions' workers gets rich from the organizations' ventures, Reece said.
"Pretty much any money that is made goes back into the company for putting on festivals," he said. "For the past five years or so, we've been putting our own money into these festivals, in the hopes that we make enough to actually pay our rent."
One of this year's Dead Leaf bands, Necrophagus, will be playing their first show after being on hiatus for over a year, according to drummer Scott Ruble. Necrophagus are scene veterans, having formed in 1993.
"We never actually broke up or anything, but everybody's schedules were conflicting with band time, so we just had to take a break from it," Ruble said.
Necrophagus' members were itching to get start performing again, and the timing proved ripe for them to stage their reemergence at Dead Leaf, Ruble said.
"Everyone was getting that hunger back to start doing it," he said.
Ruble, who also doubles as the vocalist for Legion, said that the good attendance at Dead Lead Festival offers bands an opportunity for significant exposure.
"Last year, there were over 300 people, and hopefully this year there'll be more," he said.
Dalton said that the Dead Leaf Festival offers a yearly chance for his band to connect with their Muncie-area fans and friends.
"For us, it's nice to kind of bring everything back home again; To [play Dead Leaf Festival] once a year is kind of nice for us to touch base with all our local friends...and basically just have a good hometown show."
"We look forward to it all year, every year, and it's going to be a good time."
Read More
Three Air Jam teams take home the win
October 12, 2012Nineteen teams shimmied, shook and flipped for a sold out John R. Emens Auditorium on Thursday night during the 25th annual Air Jam.
Bill Clinton Speaks at North Central High School
October 12, 2012Former President's Speech Could Have Effect on State Senate Race
