Behind the scenes of MusicGNV’s AM/FM Festival, the eclectic Gainesville music community shines through. Between three music venues — How Bazar, The Bull and Loosey’s — MusicGNV kicked off an event Sunday that not only hasn’t happened in over a decade, but has fostered a love of music for many.
The three venues, which are all within walking distance of each other, invited a wide array of people in to enjoy the music of 25 music artists all day for no charge. Each venue ran on its own schedule, with artists’ performing times overlapping every hour.
The festival kicked off at 1 p.m. with a performance by Spirit Tramp at The Bull, a dream pop artist, which is a subgenre of alternative rock. Shortly after, hard-core punk artist Jade performed at How Bazar. Outside of Loosey’s, about 50 people sat at picnic tables, enjoying music drifting beyond the venue’s doors and snacking on food provided by local food trucks, Verde Spice and Frenchman’s.
The sounds radiating throughout the venues differed throughout the day, ranging from acoustic folk to hard rock music. Fans roamed freely as MusicGNV employees worked the event and volunteers promoted each artist with merchandise and photography.
Brandon Telg is the 35-year-old director of MusicGNV, a nonprofit grassroots organization that supports Gainesville’s independent music community. As the driving force behind the organization’s events, Telg controls its budget, social media marketing and grant programs. MusicGNV was founded in 2020 alongside Telg, Jacob Adams, Kevin Dowdell and Chelsea Carnes. Starting the organization during the pandemic caused its programming to change from what the founders initially conceptualized it to be.
“The rollout would’ve looked a lot different had COVID not happened, but it was a blessing in some ways to launch in that way, because we were able to be reactive,” Telg said. “We were able to develop programming that met people where they were at, and that ethos has carried us through today.”
Telg’s initial career interest comes from the theater space, but growing up in Gainesville, he discovered the city’s music scene by attending shows and connecting with musicians whose genres differed from what he usually listened to. Later on, he pursued a degree in stage management at the University of Central Florida, because the music community provided him with a sense of meaning. After returning to Gainesville post-graduation, he realized there was a lot more to the “vibrancy” and “beauty” of the music community than what he had seen before.
Telg saw Ricky Kendall and his band Jukebox Wagon live when he was a teenager, and the local folk group left a major impact on his life. Listening to the band’s music constantly, Telg saw Kendall’s artistry as “a gift to our community.”
“Seeing Ricky Kendall’s performances at different points in my life have been these lightning rod moments for me as a person [by] being able to say, ‘I am here now, and this is what’s happening in my life’,” he said. “These songs carried me through a lot of these different moments.”
In a full circle moment, Kendall played the final act at the AM/FM Festival on Sunday. As soon as Telg was able to feature Kendall in the festival, he worked to make it happen. Telg said he was excited to be able to include an artist whose music is important to not just him, but to a lot of people in the Gainesville community.
At 2:20 p.m. in Loosey’s, 47-year-old Marshal Patrick began to softly play his acoustic guitar and sing the first song of his set, “What Can I Do?” A warm ambience fell onto the stage from light filtering in from the windows as he powerfully plucked his guitar strings at a fast pace. Patrick, alongside Jose Peruyero and Dante Lima, formed the AM/FM Festival in 2010, because they wanted to integrate the many different musical cliques in Gainesville.
Over the course of two years, the AM/FM Festival was held five times. After being discontinued, the festival was brought back after Patrick’s friend, the owner of Loosey’s, mentioned the festival to MusicGNV director Telg.
“We had some core principles,” he said. “It had to be all local, had to be completely independent with a variety of the different scenes and had to be completely free.”
There always will be, and always has been, a wide variety and depth of great artists in Gainesville, Patrick said.
Lily McClarin, a 19-year-old UF studio art sophomore and volunteer for Gainesville-based music label Swamp Records, said she attends events like these because of the growing local music community. Excited to see indie rock band Trustfall perform, McClarin said AM/FM is a good way to meet like-minded people who have a lot in common.
“I definitely feel like every time I go to a show, I meet somebody new,” she said. “I think that’s the importance of it.”
Near the end of the long day, when natural light turned artificial and Ricky Kendall played “Open Arms,” the last song of the evening, MusicGNV employees, like Brandon Telg, watched the people around them in awe.
“As a person who went to concerts for many years, I think it’s still really wonderful that I get to help put on [these] shows. They’re so important to our community. I can’t wait to see who we get to work with next.”
Contact Autumn Johnstone at ajohnstone@alligator.org. Follow them on X @AutumnJ922
Autumn Johnstone is a freshman journalism/art student and a music reporter for The Avenue. When they're not writing, you can find them enjoying a nice cup of coffee at a nearby café or thrifting for vinyls. You may find their other published work in Strike magazine, Atrium magazine and Musée magazine in New York City.
