HOCO Fest 2018

  • Max Pearl travels to Arizona for one of the US's most forward-facing festivals.
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  • Independent music festivals in the US are a rare breed that must be protected at all costs. It might be difficult for someone from Europe to understand how tough we've got it. From the Balkans to Scandinavia to the Iberian Peninsula, there are grassroots events with the kinds of excellent lineups we Americans are lucky to get maybe six or seven times a year. This is why I flew out to Tucson, Arizona at the end of August for Hoco Fest, a long-running event that hired a new booker last year with a refreshingly weird agenda. When I first saw this year's lineup it seemed a little random, mixing wholesome family acts with hype headliners like Lil B and Andrew WK. But sprinkled throughout that were DJs and live acts such as Dean Blunt, Debit, M.E.S.H., Marshstepper, Mhysa, Riobamba and Will DiMaggio, to name a few. Taking place over five days and a few different Downtown venues, it struck a balance that you don't often find in the US: an interdisciplinary, international lineup of uncompromising music in the comfort of a small regional scene. Dean Blunt was fun on Thursday night at Hotel Congress, the festival's main venue and namesake, a haunted historical site that doubles as a nightclub. Blunt always performs behind an impenetrable wall of fog, usually illuminated by white strobes so you can only make out his silhouette. He also turns off the air-conditioning and cranks the heat, which I used to think of as a way of abusing the audience, but now I think of as a way of making them pay attention. For most of the show he did his slightly-off-key singing over acoustic guitar recordings, which had a disorienting effect—it wasn't clear if he was fucking with us or not. At one point he covered "Anthrax" by the British post-punk band Gang Of Four, rounding out its spiky contours and giving it an aura of lithium-induced calm.
    The Arizona duo Marshstepper were also on-point. Their live set reminded me, at times, of Shackleton, Alec Empire and even The Bug, with its blitz of screaming and synth drones balanced by quieter moments of only drums and bass. A little after 1 AM on Saturday morning, Marshstepper member Nick Nappa played a grittier solo set of rhythmic noise at an afterhours spot with no bar and no booze allowed. Matt McDermott's recent profile of their label, Ascetic House, was part of the reason I wanted to come out and see the Arizona scene for myself. These guys played a total of three shows throughout the weekend in different bands and configurations, including their hardcore punk group, Destruction Unit, who played at an all-ages rock bar on Saturday night. (Almost all of Hoco Fest's shows were 16-plus to enter, if not all-ages.) Debit, from the Mexico City crew NAAFI, and M.E.S.H., cofounder of the Berlin club night Janus, took the afterparty home to 5 AM on Saturday morning. Debit played a set of syncopated, drum-heavy techno that was so cohesive in terms of sound palette that it almost sounded like a live set. Her taste is influenced by the Mexican rave genre tribal guarachero, and you could hear it in the rhythmic flourishes, though her set never tipped over into full-on tribal tracks. M.E.S.H. has an equally unorthodox approach to techno, one shaped more by grime and sci-fi club aesthetics, with lots of dextrous mixing and cutting on the faders. By the time I left, the venue had filled, then emptied, then filled up again with a mix of queer punks, hippie ravers and kids who just wanted a place to keep on partying. I rounded out my weekend with a motel pool party on the highway in South Tucson, which, given the 101°F desert heat, was the only way to justify going outside before sundown. When I pulled into the parking lot, the Future Times artist Will DiMaggio was playing disco, funk and smooth R&B to a swimming pool full of the previous nights' artists. Those who weren't splashing around were mostly pale punks dressed in black, drinking cheap Mexican beer, which made it feel like some kind of anti-Ibiza. It was a nice way to spend an afternoon, and a testament to the relaxed family vibe that distinguishes Hoco Fest from other festivals on the US underground circuit. Photo credit / Jeaninne Kaufer
RA