Several bands came together to perform at the Garage Rock Revival Concert, organized by local booking, promotion and artist collective, Channel Frequencies. Co-founder and Event Coordinator Will Murphy said events like these aim to keep the house show scene alive in San Luis Obispo.
“One of the main goals from the beginning has been to get people into the house show and keep the underground scene alive because going to see bands at a bar always sucks,” Murphy said.
Murphy, also the lead singer in rock band Suburban Dropout, along with other local artists, were searching for a place to cultivate heavier rock sounds outside of typical house concerts.
“You couldn’t really put a punk band before a surf rock band and have us like, ‘blahhhh’… so we had to organize our own shows and that kind of blossomed into Channel Frequencies,” Murphy said.
Graphic communications junior Kendra Roberson attended the show to see one of her friends perform, and was surprised by what she saw. “People were crowd surfing, people were mosh pitting, so it was definitely unexpected from the energy of the crowd,” Roberson said.
Murphy also said that a key part of Channel Frequencies is to support lesser-known bands in a larger format, and he hopes to give emerging artists in SLO what he wishes he had when he was starting out.
“I really wanted to create an open space because of that, for other bands to flourish,” Murphy said. “Because it felt like for a while there was really only one house that was throwing shows, and if you didn’t already have like 500 followers or something, they wouldn’t let you play.”
Many college students, including Roberson, use shows like this to discover new music and support local artists. “There are so many different bands and it’s really hard to know who to listen to or what bands you like unless they all have a spot to go and listen to a bunch at once.” said Roberson.
Channel Frequencies is planning more events for February and March. Information for upcoming shows can be found on their Instagram.
