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Thursday, July 13, 2017

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com ARTS

An Interview with Festival 
Organizer Nick Mavodones 

Having been raised in Portland, 

Maine and having lived the bulk of 
his adult life in Burlington, Vermont, 
Nick Mavodones III is finally right 
where he belongs — or at least where 
I think he belongs — in Detroit, 
Michigan, as the general manager of 
up-and-coming venue El Club.

Located 
in 
Mexicantown, 

El Club opened in the Spring of 
2016, Mavodones being hired in 
November later that year by club-
owner 
Graeme 
Flegenheimer. 

“(Graeme) used to come to the venue 
I managed in Vermont when he was 
in middle school,” said Mavodones, 
“he ended up becoming friends with 
everyone at the venue and over the 
years we’ve just stayed in touch. He 
just called me Labor Day weekend 
and was like, ‘Hey do you think you’d 
want to move to Detroit?’ And I was 
like, ‘I don’t think so, man.’”

So what changed? Mavodones 

came out to Detroit for a couple of 
days to help with shows and check 
out the scene. After he returned to 
Vermont, Flegenheimer kept on him. 
“I talked to all my friends and I was 
like, ‘ah shit maybe I should try to do 
this.’” So two months later, the day 
after Halloween and shortly after 
his 15th job anniversary at Higher 
Ground — a music venue in South 
Burlington where he will be dearly 
missed — he hopped in his car and 
moved to Detroit.

Despite the quick turnaround, he 

was pleasantly surprised in Detroit 
when he found that he would be 
working with a couple of people 
he had previously worked with in 
Vermont. It also just so happened 
that his best friend from college had 
roomed in Portugal with one of the 
club’s other managers for a time. “I 
had a few familiar names to come 
into it. But everything’s been sweet; 
it’s been fun!”

Since his arrival in Detroit, 

Mavodones 
has 
been 
working 

on envisioning an installment of 
Waking Windows — the festival-
slash-booking-company that he runs 
with four other friends — in El Club’s 
space. Recently, the venue has hosted 
a couple small festival-like events 
which, Mavodones says, “gave us a 

little better idea about how we could 
better utilize the space.” Now, only 
eight months into Mavodones’s time 
at El Club, Waking Windows Detroit 
has become an immediate reality, 
with headliners of Mount Eerie, 
Whitney, Dâm-Funk, Moodymann 
and Car Seat Headrest as well as 20 
other acts.

Waking Windows as it is today 

originally 
began 
with 
a 
blog 

Mavodones started over 10 years ago. 
During his time at Higher Ground, 
he started putting on shows — 
“house shows, gallery shows, proper 
shows” — and his blog eventually 
metamorphosed into a booking 
promotion company. That company 
evolved into another entity and two 
years ago he and the friends who 
operate the company changed the 
name to Waking Windows. “We’ve 
done seven of them in Vermont, 
two in Portland, Maine, with the 
third one coming up in September,” 
Mavodones said. The most recent 
iteration of the festival in Vermont 
was held early May, where they 
had “185 acts over three days and 
something like 12 stages.”

But the festival didn’t start that 

big. Eight years ago, a friend of 
Mavodones’s who was involved in 
the local jazz scene put on the first 
and only “Other Music Festival,” 
a 
more 
experimental, 
weirder 

alternative to Jazzfest, which was 
happening at the same time. This 
original curator formed a band 
and moved out of town, leaving the 
festival to Mavodones and another 
friend. The two both worked at 
Monkey House at the time, a small, 
endearing bar and music venue in 
Winooski, Vermont, a city that had 
recently undergone some serious 
redevelopment. As a result, the city’s 
storefronts were mostly empty.

The next year, in putting on the 

festival, Mavodones and company 
used this emptiness to both their 
advantage as well as that of the city. 
“We talked to the realtors and we 
talked to the cities, and they were 
letting us use all these storefronts for 
free, to showcase music to get people 
to come to the town and potentially 
move in there,” he explained. This is 
where most of the idea for the name 
“Waking Windows” came from; it 
was the idea that they were literally 
waking up these empty storefronts 

for weekends at a time and hopefully 
longer. “We were taking overall 
of these empty spaces and then 
turning them into either galleries 
or performing spaces or reading 
rooms,” Mavodones said.

The other inspiration for the 

name, Mavodones noted, came 
from “a list of bands that were 
coming through the Monkey 
House, 
and 
there 
was 
one 

that had ‘walking’ in the title, 
like ‘walking something’ and 
someone thought it said ‘waking.’ 
So 
we 
were 
like, 
‘Waking 

Windows.’” The important bit, 
though, is that Waking Windows 
has always been a serious practice 
in community development, and 
will ideally continue in that same 
vein in Detroit.

I am especially hoping that 

Waking Windows will help have 
a lasting, positive impact on 
Detroit and, more specifically, 
Mexicantown 
because 
when 

the 
venue 
originally 
opened 

Flegenheimer got no insignificant 
amount 
of 
kickback 
from 

the community for being an 
agent of gentrification in their 
neighborhood. 
Their 
worries 

were legitimate, but Mavodones 
held that Flegenheimer and the 
venue as a whole has been doing 
more, especially recently, to be 
involved in the community in a 
positive way.

“Graeme maybe didn’t reach 

out to everyone he should have,” 
when 
originally 
opening 
the 

venue, Mavodones said, “but I 
think It’s always tough for folks 
coming in, that aren’t from an 
area, to gain the trust or gain 
the connections that make it 
worthwhile 
for 
everybody. 

I think there are still lots of 
conversations to be had.” Even 
now with the club’s recently 
successfully funded Kickstarter 
project — the Vernor Cafe, which 
will add another dimension of 
community to El Club with retail 
space, practice rooms and an 
additional, smaller music venue 
— there are plans to have the 
construction work done by local 
crews.

‘Hug of Thunder’ 
an album of hits

MUSIC INTERVIEW

Broken Social Scene are a rarity 

in contemporary music: They’re 
a 
supergroup 
that’s 
actually 

incredibly good. Sure, we’ve seen 
decent supergroups emerge in 
recent years, but none have been 
as influential as this Canadian 
collective. All members, including 
the brilliantly talented Kevin Drew 
and Leslie Feist, unite and combine 
creative endeavors in the most 
complementary way. BSS has had 
up to 19 people in its ensemble, and 
all contribute just 
enough 
without 

stepping 
on 
one 

another’s creativity 
and 
individuality. 

After a seven year 
hiatus, they return in 
top form.

Hug of Thunder 

comes as a surprise 
for fans who thought they would 
never hear another BSS album. 
Thankfully, those fears were put 
to rest earlier in May, though 
after a series of performances 
last year, the announcement 
wasn’t 
overwhelmingly 

surprising. Following their 2010 
release Forgiveness Rock Record, 
Hug of Thunder is a warm and 
uplifting 
addition 
to 
darker 

times. And even though their 
political leader is less orange 
and more progressive than ours, 
even Canada could use some BSS-
induced optimism that we all 
love them for.

“Sol 
Luna,” 
the 
album’s 

instrumental 
intro, 
reminds 

me a lot of “Capture the Flag,” 
the intro to their ambitious 
magnum opus You Forgot It in 
People. But whereas “Capture the 

Flag” fades gracefully into “KC 
Accidental,” immediately after 
“Sol Luna” we’re hit with a quick 
burst of energy with “Halfway 
Home.” And this sets up Hug of 
Thunder quite well, considering 
the album maintains a surging 
pace for most of its 52 minutes. 
“Halfway Home” in particular, 
however, stands out as being 
especially triumphant, a lot like 
a musical embodiment of a post-
tennis match victory celebration: 
not in-your-face but still full of 
emotion.

Yet, Hug of Thunder avoids 

the melodrama and eccentricity 

that 
basically 

launched the more 
commercially 
successful 
Montreal-based 
Arcade 
Fire. 

Unlike the (dare 
I say overrated) 
aforementioned 
Quebecois 
band, 

these Ontarians rely on their 
own songwriting abilities to fill 
a track rather than grandiose, 
pretentious 
arrangements. 

Take “Protest Song,” a neatly 
structured pop song with plenty 
of 
musical 
complexities. 
It 

features a wall of sound with 
layers of guitars and effects, 
but never feels bombastic. Not 
actually a real protest song, its 
lyrics are cryptic yet powerful. 
She sings “You’re just the latest 
in a long list of lost loves, love,” 
harrowingly cutting lyrics that 
would curse any ex into months 
of gloom. “Protest Song” delivers 
what we’ve come to expect from 
BSS and is some of their finest 
work.

WILL STEWART

Summer Managing Arts Editor

SEAN LANG

Daily Arts Writer
ARTS & CRAFTS 

Broken Social Scene members perform with glee 

Something to 

Tell You

HAIM

Polydor Records

MUSIC REVIEW

Read more at MichiganDaily.com
Read more at MichiganDaily.com

