My experience with "Musikfest"...a blast from the past.
It was a typical Sunday night in Provo, UT in the spring of 2001. The streets were practically empty, aside from the evening house calls from college students. My BFF Sarah and I cruised in "the LaSab" to an undisclosed location searching for this "Musikfest"thing going on that a friend of ours had told us about and invited us to. All I knew was that I was supposed to bring my "favorite song" on cd or bring some type of music that was new, undiscovered or "weird". Well, as my memory serves me...I can't remember what song I brought to Musikfest that night...but what I do remember was...
Being initiated into a "secret club" by putting one arm around a giant cardboard Spock, and in my other hand holding a large psychedelic mushroom candle for 45 (plus) minutes, while trying to rattle off answers to questions thought up by fellow musikfesters (in which the answers were usually the names of all of Larry's exes (Brooke or Sweet Caroline), my own name, or different ways to say Craig T. Nelson) and then repeating the oath "Basket of Chips, John Tesh, John Stamos, Craig T. Nelson, The Skulls (duh DUH)" and other random things. After you had to go through the arduous task of being initiated, you were able to play the song you brought for all to listen to. Don't worry, you only had to go through initiation once (thank goodness), and then when some other "weirdo" wanted to share music at Musikfest they had to be initiated and now I was in the crowd asking the questions. And this went on week after week until the fall of 2002.
Now, does that sound weird? Why yes, yes it does. Maybe that is what intrigued me so much about this group of people. They were different, interesting, quick witted, sarcastic and just plain funny. I love the weird- I always have. I am just drawn to people like that. But of course being weird isn't bad- cuz I JUST LOVE IT! I have always LOVED music and this was a way to be able to hear NEW music (up and coming bands), current music and reminisce with some old tracks too! My weekly dose of music was always something to look forward to and spend a few hours enjoying.
There are so many people I have to thank for one of the best experiences of my life: Sarah, Ryan "Larry", Greg "63", Kent "Kentilicous", Corbs, Chip, Mark "Grizz", Diego "Penny", Jeremy Timothy "JT", Fotsch, Liz, Shawn "I will lick anything", Micah "The Alpha Male" or "Meatball", Courtney "Cobb", Dale "Big Gay Dale", Shane "Big Daddy Curran"& Sharon "Shar" Curran, Jacob, Natalie, Justin, the wookie, Haas, roommate bullet biker Dave, cousin Johnny, "Don't Butt in front of me" Eileen, "shooting fireballs out of her eyes" Jenn and probably countless others whom I never really got to know!
Nowadays (as of September 2011), since most of my friends are scattered across the U.S. we have found other ways to continue Musikfest! Mostly using multimedia like google groups, websites like: yousendit.com, mediafire.com and megaupload.com we are able to send songs or albums within minutes! And now seeing the great new things come about, like Spotify, Cloud and Dropbox. What a great way to keep in touch with the people I love.
