Last weekend I met up at the Legong Gelato shop with the three dudes behind tomorrow’s No.Fest, an all-day, all-ages, and all-encompassing music festival featuring some of Portland’s best experimental artists playing at four alternative venues–including Proper Eats cafe and the Towne Square–in St. Johns. Unfortunately, my tape recorded decided to bug out about half way through the chat, and what I got sounds so shitty that I’m only able to present about a third of our conversation–three days late, to boot. I don’t know about you, but this sounds like a pretty rad way to spend the summer solstice and second longest day of the year.

Local Cut: How did the festival come about?

Sean Ongley: I thought of it, basically. I wanna have all these venues booked on the same day and get all of our friends to come out. I’ve been living here [St. Johns] for a year and I’m stoked about it I’m stoked about St. Johns and it’s hard to convince people that it’s a worthwhile place to visit.

Chad Ferguson: Sean approached me about what it would be like to do a festival out here and I’d helped do a couple shows at Proper Eats and it’s really awesome because all these people kind of converge out here and then we got Jeffery in on the mix.

Jeffrey Helwig: I found out about the festival from Ongley. Their was another festival called “the bizarre” that they had who had meetings in here [ed: Helwig owns Legong Gelato Bar] and it was kind of interesting to watch the process of putting it together. It became more obvious how easy it was to put something together. This neighborhood is kind of burgeoning, so it’s very localized and everyone knows each other—it’s easy to get people interested in something. It’s ripe, there’s enough people living here now to attract something different. St. Johns is starting to become this marker for festive things—the parade, the jazz festival—and we were thinking this could be one of the things that St. Johns could be identified for. It’s got this character and shadiness but you’ve got people coming out here more and more on their fixed gears.

Ongley: Jeffrey and I were talking about this earlier today. Even though maybe this is potentially gentrification type stuff we really don’t want that to happen. We don’t want this to turn into, like, Hawthorne [laughs].

The good news is, if you’re afraid of that, we’ll have an industrial collapse and we will all be broke.

Did you have to get the neighborhood’s okay for the event?

Helwig: Basically it was about asking what day we wanted to use the Towne Square, which anybody can use.

Ongley: And that was just an afterthought, too. We were just thinking Legong and Proper eats and then James from Proper Eats said “we can get you the square no problem” and we thought lets make it a real festival. That was just about three months ago to the day. Everything’s been kind of crazy.

Helwig: We ended up working through the virtual domain, and once people get wind of certain things, maybe a certain name droppable band, and everyone wants to get on board. Then you are just climbing through this whole wormhole of Myspace pages.

Was the whole thing based around the summer solstice?

Ongley: Yeah that was me.

Ferguson: Well, it’s the longest day of the year. Perfect for an all-day event!

Ongley: I think No.Fest is probably going to happen again and again. What I want with my five-year plan doesn’t necessarily have to involve No.Fest…but you never know.

Helwig: Something about a certain alignment, then you get a certain amount of the community already vibed to a solstice event, and then you get everybody to create a certain pattern and create a certain vibration of instruments….and then the mothership or whatever can happen at that point.

Ongley: I suppose what I actually was going to say was on the 21st we almost didn’t go with that date because KBOO was going to have their 40th anniversary party on that day. But nobody was really getting on board with their big block party concept so I just said “here, take this” and then they got on board as a co-sponsor.

How much of the festival will KBOO broadcast on air?

Ongley: From noon to 1 pm they’ll be broadcasting Cexfucx and then from 6-7 pm they’ll be broadcasting Fly Fly Fly Fly Fly. And then we’ll do some interviews, hopefully we’ll all be on there and then the youth collective will be doing stuff.

Helwig: Some people in the neighborhood might be doing some videos, just to do it, so there might be potential to archive some of this.

Ongley: We are talking about a CD, making a compilation. As long as the recordings turn out well then we can release them. Almost a statement of historical record.

Are you guys planning on having any non-musical events? Might be a good way to draw people in.

Helwig: Hopefully the bookstore will be a lot more multimedia, a couple installations and this guy who does a circuit-bending workshop.

Ongley: We wanted to make sure that every artist in town knows that they can come and sell their art.

Was it part of the original plan to make the fest all-ages?

Ongley: I made a new years resolution not to intentionally book myself in any bars. I’ve broken that for maybe Valentine’s. I’m really tired of playing in bars, frankly. You’re treated like shit.

How did you come up with the name No.Fest?

Helwig: My friends were brainstorming names and someone suggested No.Fest and I thought that was kind of perfect. It’s not so obvious and could really mean anything.

Ferguson: We wanted people to say “what does it mean?”

Helwig: Number, to no, to north, to noise…It’s kind of like a variable. You leave it open for the person to figure it out. It kind of seems to run with the theme. Also it’s quick and easy. And it’s not quasi-mystical or something.

Ongley: And I think next year it’s going to be called “No.Fest new farts.” Actually I just made that up right now. I can already see the poster.

Links: No.Fest
KBOO
Legong Gelato Bar
Proper Eats

Photo: The Corner of Philadelphia and Ivanhoe in St. Johns