South Oakland Fest bands hope to revive local music scene

Thirty years ago, Big Sean would not be the only live act coming to Oakland… South Oakland Fest

Saturday, March 24

The Hideout

7:30 p.m.

All ages/21+ to drink with ID

$5.00

Thirty years ago, Big Sean would not be the only live act coming to Oakland in the spring. A large group of local and national acts made their rounds through the neighborhood, stopping at bars and clubs in the area.

This Saturday, The Hideout will host South Oakland Fest, an event featuring a set of four local indie bands — Dazzletine, White Like Fire, Sleepy V and Matt Koenig — in an attempt to resurrect a once-thriving Oakland music scene.

The Oakland community had a very popular music scene during the ’80s and ’90s, but as the neighborhood evolved, many of the formerly booming venues began to lose followers.

Manny Theiner, the organizer of Saturday’s event, remembers when Oakland residents frequented places such as Club Laga. Previously located in the space of the present-day IGA and upstairs apartment complex, Club Laga hosted many bands in its heyday.

“Imagine [the IGA supermarket] as a 750-capactiy club with dancing and live music every night,” he said.

Other venues have also been turned into more mainstream corporations. T-Mobile replaced The Beehive, another past location for bands, and several record stores that used to inhabit South Oakland closed their doors.

For some time, Oakland was the center of Pittsburgh’s music scene. It was where everything happened, from shows to house parties, until the beginning of the ’90s, Theiner said.

But today, bands often don’t even play in local houses as they did in the past. Chesterfield Road and Neville Street both used to have houses where local bands would play regularly. A house self-titled the Peach Pit, located on the Boulevard of the Allies, was even home to a punk collective.

The show at The Hideout is now an attempt to allow bands once again to play in a venue in the South Oakland neighborhood.

Gene Vercammen, a Pitt student and acoustic guitarist for the band SleepyV, hopes that the show at The Hideout will increase the number of successful shows in South Oakland. Though this first show is his main focus, it is also a way to spread word about the South Oakland music scene.

For Vercammen, South Oakland Fest essentially strives “to test the waters of the 2012 South Oakland neighborhood and make known its potential for fostering an indie music scene,” he said.

Blake Clawson, a guitar player and harmony vocalist from the band White Like Fire, thinks Oakland has the potential to reinstate a viable music scene but needs to gain more support and organization. He hopes that South Oakland Fest will open the eyes of bar owners who could offer a venue and attract the student population.

Vercammen agreed, and summed up the declined music scene in three points.

“Lack of organization, presence of faction and [difficulty] getting the attention of the students,” he said.

Both musicians’ bands play regularly with the Garfield Artworks at venues in Bloomfield, but the somewhat-distant community does not always attract a large student population.  And with tens of thousands of students, Pitt could definitely create a crowd.

“They are divorced by distance from the 30,000 college students,” Theiner said of venues outside student hubs.

Students do not often cross this sort of “geographic divide,” he said. Closer neighborhoods like the South Side have become more of a music hub in recent years as a substitute for Oakland.

Clawson believes this weekend’s show offers a good opportunity for students to see the bands that usually play in other parts of the city. The Hideout, which is within walking distance from much of Oakland, does not require use of the bus and transportation system that venues in other Pittsburgh neighborhoods do.

“It’s the core of entertainment: being able to witness live music from the four bands on the bill that don’t get to play in Oakland a lot,” Clawson said.