Revive festival returns in new location

By GUY D’ASTOLFO

dastolfo@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

Revive Music and Arts Festival will return for a second year Saturday but in a new location – on North Phelps Street, downtown.

“We always want to grow, and it seems like that area has the most nightlife population,” said Jim DeCapua, guitarist for the jam band Jones for Revival, which puts on the festival. “There is a flow of people there, and it’s close to the pulse of the culture center.”

Last year, the inaugural festival was on the B&O Station grounds, just across the river from downtown.

The Phelps Street site will give the event a block-party quality, with the stage backed up against West Commerce Street. A second stage will be inside Suzie’s Dogs and Drafts, which is on that block.

The main entrance will be at West Federal Street, but a secondary entrance will be at West Commerce. Admission to the all-ages event is $10. Fourteen bands – representing a variety of styles, from jam band to country, and indie-rock to ska to folk – are on the bill, including headliner Jones for Revival, 5 Elements, Vibe & Direct, Northern Whale, The Vindys, Demos Papadimas and his band, Jordan DePaul and 2 Days Until Tomorrow.

In addition to the music, several visual artists will be on hand, creating paintings during the performances.

There also will be vendors selling knick knacks, T-shirts, art, clothing, accessories and jewelry, as well as food and beer. Fire and hoop dancers also will perform.

DeCapua’s band is one of the busiest in town, and he was knee-deep in festival planning when reached for an interview earlier this week.

He said CDs of Jones for Revival’s new album, “Ee-mo-gee,” will be available at Revive.

“I’m very proud of this one,” he said of the release, which saw the band take a different approach to recording.

“We recorded it completely live,” said DeCapua. “After years of going to the studio, you have to do things in a creative way. Ampreon Recorder [where it was made] could have been a bar that night. Without a big budget, we said, ‘Let’s try to create an album that captures our live sound.’ We play so much better live anyway.”

The band played eight songs straight through during the recording session but didn’t separate them into eight tracks on the CD.

The album includes two previously unrecorded cuts, including “Dirty Words,” which is one of DeCapua’s favorites.

“It takes you on a journey,” he said of the album. “The last song is also brand new and has a powerful ending-track sound. It flows from start to finish as flawlessly as we could with our budget.”

After Revive, JFR will head to Colorado for a series of shows – it’s fourth trip to the Rocky Mountain state.

“It’s a good place for our kind of music,” said DeCapua.

Like Jones for Revival, Demos Papadimas and his band also is trying new things for their upcoming album.

The folk-rock quartet with a Mediterranean flair has been experimenting with sounds for the release, which is due in late fall. The act also has been laying down tracks at Ampreon, but at a more relaxed pace.

“We have a pedal steel guitarist, an organist and an accordion player coming in,” said Papadimas in describing the new sound.

A philosophical change is also at work in the way the band is taking its time in the recording process, which has now spread over the past 18 months.

“In the past, we’ve always rushed to capture the spontaneity of the moment, to get it out, and I would wish that we put a little more time into it,” said Papadimas.

The act was playing a lot of club shows from 2012 to 2014, usually four a month and with regular visits to Pittsburgh and Cleveland. But it has slowed down of late to concentrate on recording.

Backing up Papadimas, who handles guitar and lead vocals, is Ralph Rich, drums; Sandi Quotson, violin; and Nate Gelfand, upright bass. The act has been together in its present configuration for about a year.

Papadimas wrote all of the songs on the upcoming album, which strikes a sonic balance between the band’s live sound and stuff that can only be done in a studio. “You need a good balance of things that you can do on stage, and things that you don’t need to do on stage,” he said.

Some of the new songs will be released on vinyl 45s, but It remains to be seen whether the entire album will also be released on vinyl.

Papadimas and Co. are also in the process of shooting videos for several songs, directed by local fillmmaker and musician Chris Rutushin.