Celebrating the power-pop guitar-rock genre, the first International Pop Overthrow festival was held in Los Angeles in 1998 and become an annual event. It quickly expanded into a year-round pop empire of additional “satellite” festivals in other cities. This weekend, IPO founder David Bash hosts his first Cleveland IPO festival with 14 regional acts from Pennsylvania, Michigan and Ohio — and a decided Cleveland focus. Bash says the identity of International Pop Overthrow is formed by “melodic rock and roll.”
“Over the years, I’ve expanded the parameters of the kind of pop
that we use, [but] no matter what subgenre a band might fall into, if
they don’t have melodic integrity, I wouldn’t have them at the
festival,” he says.
In L.A. and elsewhere, Bash usually uses smaller venues and multiple
clubs. Past IPO events have featured as many as 180 acts, so you’d
assume there would be many concerts held simultaneously at different
venues.
“No, no, I don’t believe in that,” says Bash. “It’s always one show
at a time. The first one in 1998 was 10 days, [and] the festival has
since run as long as 23 days. But I wanted bands to have the
opportunity to see all the other bands if they wanted to. Plus,
I wanted to see every band, so there’s a little selfish
motivation. Since I book all of the bands for the festival, I know
ahead of time that I’m going to like them. So, I certainly want
to be there. And I want them to know I’m there watching,
especially those bands who traveled a ways to get to L.A. or wherever
we’re doing it.”
Bash is clearly an insatiable, infatuated music geek who loves
discovering new bands and supporting them. Bash cites some MySpace
discoveries for the Cleveland festival, like Celebrity Pilots.
“I really loved their harmonies,” he says. “They had a very strong
sense of classic pop melodies, like McCartney and the Byrds, with a bit
of a modern spin and some fuzz in there too. Good Touch Bad Touch had a
quirky vibe that I really liked.”
Bash also drew from his extensive power-pop background to pick bands
for the Cleveland show. ” I’m a huge fan of [Bill Fox’s band]
the Mice,” says Bash. “His solo albums on SpinArt had a totally
different, folky sound, which I also dug quite a bit. To have him at
the festival will be a really big thrill for me.”
Also at the top of Bash’s “big Cleveland thrill” list is a one-off
performance reuniting Paranoid Lovesick, a fixture in Cleveland’s 1990s
music scene.
“Paranoid Lovesick actually played the very first year of IPO in Los
Angeles,” he says. “I was a fan of the band, and I had known [PL
guitarist] Rick McBrien through e-mail and I think one of the AOL
tape-trading trees, which shows how long ago that was. It was so great
to meet him and the rest of the guys, and then he tragically passed
away a few years later. And now, Paranoid Lovesick is doing a reunion
show for IPO Cleveland. Even though Rick’s not there, the rest of the
band is certainly able to carry on. I think it’s going to be wonderful.
Plus, they’re going to be releasing some CDs at the show of previously
unreleased material, so that should be cool.”
Having Paranoid Lovesick play brings the festival full circle, which
Bash couldn’t be happier about.
“It just kind of keeps everything connected,” he says. “Throughout
my life, I’ve always had this thing for connecting one world with
another world. One of the things I love is to be able to come into a
city — having never been there before, having no connection
whatsoever to the local scene — and be able to galvanize that
scene and bring them together under one roof.”
This article appears in Nov 11-17, 2009.