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Do Yourself a Favor and Go to an Island in the North Carolina Mountains for Harvest Records' Transfigurations Festival

Transfigurations II will be like little else you've ever seen.

Harvest Records is a music shop in North Carolina that sells records, CDs, and tapes. Beyond that, their second official music festival, Transfigurations 2, is happening at the end of this month and you should definitely go to it. Beyond being just a brick-and-mortar record store in Asheville, Harvest is well known throughout the land for bringing artists off the beaten path to perform in their home town—a quick look at the list of shows they’ve pulled in and promoted over the years is an inspiring lesson and proof that you can in fact, DIY. I spoke with Matt Shcnable (co-owner of Harvest Records) about where music festivals come from, what they are, and how to get all your favorite artists to come out for a big party.

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Noisey: Why is your festival called Transfigurations?
Matt Schnable: Well, the five-year point after opening the store is when we did the first Transfigurations festival it was a kind of pivotal moment for us because we paid off our loan from when we opened up the shop. We got a bank loan to open the store and for us it was an evolution to a new phase of the store’s existence where it was like, “Oh my God. We don’t have a big chunk of debt that was always there.”

And now you’re here with this huge lineup for Transfigurations 2, what’s the story of that evolution?
We we’re just doing what we were doing. The reason that we started booking shows was because we were like, well, if we want to see certain bands we’re going to have to bring them out here. So, we took the bull by the horns and thought, alright, let’s get the bands we like and that we sell and we know our customers will like to see come and play. We did quite a few shows here in the shop and later at the Gray Eagle which is just about a 550, 600 capacity and then another place that was about a 250, 300 person room. Later we found a warehouse space and did some shows at this place called The Wedge, which was basically a concrete room.

I’m trying to find a band that’s not on this list of shows you managed to pull over the years.
We are on the route of a lot of touring bands but we had to push to get them out here, we told them: we swear to God, there will be people here! You know what I mean? At the beginning, we had some contacts. Me and my business partner, Mark Capon, we went to college together and we worked at a radio station where we put on a music festival and were involved in bringing bands to town. So we had some experience and contacts with booking agents and bands. Basically, we had some connections to bands that we loved and we tried to bring them here to town and throw a party.

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There’s a pretty crazy range of music on this lineup. Pete Swanson, but then there’s Lee Fields and then there’s Mudhoney who I personally haven’t heard anything from since the highly formative soundtrack to the movie Singles.
That’s been the drive. It’s a reflection of what me and Mark are into and our staff and the town. A good chunk of these bands we’ve done stuff with in the past. When you look at it, it’s like you have intense electronic noise stuff and then you have then this legendary soul guy, and then you’ve got just straight rock and roll. And then you’ve got a folk legend like Michael Hurley. All these different things… That’s the store’s vibe. We’re into all different kinds of stuff. Let’s just represent as much as we can but curate it in an interesting way. Even if people don’t know the artists or whatever, that’s the goal: turn people onto stuff. The goal is to not have all these names that you immediately recognize and be like, “Oh, this is so comfortable and safe because I know all these bands.” There’s a level of trust in us and what we present. We’re not going to waste anybody’s time, you know?

So, this is happening on an island? An island… in North Carolina?
Yeah. So this town, about 25 minutes northwest of town, called Marshall. It’s pretty much one main street. In 2010, the population was 900 people, it’s super small. An old high school’s there, now it’s artist’s studios, still at the high school. There’s a main center of the building that’s a gymnasium/auditorium with a baseball field on it, swing sets, etc. It’s kind of like park vibes, you know? Anyways, we did one show out there. People were so psyched. It was beautiful. You’re on a fucking island, then you look up and there are mountains. It’s just beautiful.

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Does this island have palm trees?
No palm trees. We have to get some imported. The biggest show we ever did was actually held in Marshall a few years back. Marshall’s where the festival culminates on Saturday.

What’s the structure of the performances? It looks like it’s all one at a time?
If there is overlap of (of which there will be some) it’s just five to ten minutes, but there’s an indoor stage and outdoor stage so there won’t be any real overlap. I understand a million bands play at festivals and so you’re going to have overlap. Sometimes you buy a ticket for the weekend and it’s kind of like, “I like all these bands and I want to see them all but I can’t…”. We try to get the right amount of groups where we could pack it with music but also have it so you could see them all.

I feel a bit like your festival might mainly go out to the people who already know what you do. But say there was somebody who didn’t know who you guys were at all, what would you say to them?
I guess one of the things that I really like about the festival is that, of course, say there’s a few big acts on the lineup and so people may opt for a weekend pass, and that’s awesome. But we’re not trying to pull anything. We’re not trying to force people to have to shell out and go for them. Maybe they just have fifteen bucks and they want to go see this one particular performance? We’re psyched on that and so we offer one-off tickets. But really, the whole idea is that we want people coming out, being involved, checking stuff out, getting turned on to something new. If it’s just one show, that’s totally cool. You have some bands that you don’t recognize and some you do, but at the end of the day, we also hope people just find good new music, to get beyond the whole “Okay, I’ve been spoon-fed this band seven billion times. I’ll check that out” and onto “I know a couple of these bands, I’m just going to listen to a bit of each and decide for myself if that sounds good to my ears or not.” There will be some stuff that people get psyched on, not just monster bands that are playing everywhere all the time, but other bands that are just endless; some of the greatest bands on earth. And I can’t emphasize enough how it’s going to be next-level beautiful here. Go to a swimming hole and do a hike. Marshall is a place that has beauty and charm that’s just incredible and I think that people coming from more urban areas on the East Coast will find how refreshing it will be to be on this island. Put your feet in the river.

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