Jake Chavarria and Steve Henson, who host the radio show Local Chaos, have been plotting and scheming to throw a local music festival that celebrates local music.
Heralded as North by North Central (NXNC), the rock festival on May 6 will feature Joe Bordenero and the Secret Colours, Royal Outsiders and Forgotten Tropics. Tucker Good, who works at the Union, said that Bordenero will be headlining because of his high energy sound. He also commented that the festival will have a ’90s underground rock feel to it. Lots of bands and short sets.
This is not the first time Chavarria and Henson have teamed up to book an event.
The duo got to book bands for a Record Store Day event at Orazio’s Pub, located in Naperville. Chavarria and Henson were tasked with finding a blues rock band and a punk band in order to fit the bar atmosphere. They commented that the biggest struggle they had was finding a public address (PA) system, a problem that ended up being solved by one of the bands bringing one and allowing others to use it.
Forgotten Tropics might know about sound problems as well. At a small concert at DePaul University where the three band members attend school, the vocals were consistently drowned out by the guitar. To be fair, the space appeared to be for more acoustic acts, such as the piano and acoustic guitar set that preceded the band.
Luckily for them there will be a more professional venue available for the event on May 6. Not only is the band’s sound taken into account for NXNC, performance aspects have to be pleasing as well.
The goal is to get “local bands that kinda do D.I.Y. shows and get them to an actual venue,” Chavarria said. Chavarria and Henson label Chicago’s music scene a melting pot. Any day of the week you can head downtown and find good music. Henson even goes as far to say the scene will explode into “a new music wave.”
Part of what they enjoy about the D.I.Y. bands is that there is no power distance from the fans and the bands. Henson shared a story about what he called the “coolest moment ever” when they went to see The Walters and got to talk with the lead singer after the show. Right as they were about to introduce themselves, on of the band members said, “Are you guys from Local Chaos?”
Correction: This story has been edited to correct the misspelling of Jake Chavarria’s name.
