Last year, the rooftops of Henotic were rocked from Mammoth Cave Fest, a live music extravaganza of elephantine proportions. It’s back for 2010, so I got in touch with maestro Paul Lawton to learn more!
This is the second time around for Mammoth Cave Fest. Tell us about it.
Last year was a pretty important one as far as the Lethbridge music community – studios opening left and right, local bands popping up left and right and getting signed (latest – Fist City who got picked up by Cleveland, Ohio’s Deadbeat Records, a great/storied punk rawk label), so we decided to celebrate last may by holding a giant party – Mammoth Cave Fest. That was such an astonishing success that we knew then and there that we would make it into a yearly event.
This year, we decided to team up with friends we made in Calgary (Sled Island) and Edmonton (Aaron Levin, who runs the weirdcanada.com website and who shared a common vision with his Wyrd Fest in Edmonton that was held last fall and which featured Myelin Sheaths and The Moby Dicks). Last November (post Wyrd Fest I), Aaron and I decided we should try and combine our two festivals, helping to both offset the costs and to help lure touring bands to come to Alberta (with the promise of three nights in a row of full houses). We got Sled Island’s Zak Pashak on board to help with Calgary and we spent the next few months assembling some of Canada’s very best fringe music acts.
