Features / Music

A lot has changed since The Fest began, way back in 2002. And while The Fest has evolved in that time, it remains focused on an independent, community experience as much as a showcase for live music. And, naturally, it's going to be impossible to express the comprehensive experience of … Read more

Scene Point Blank has covered The Fest thoroughly since its inception in 2002. The site has personally sent attendees to Fests 6-13, then 17-18 in varied capacity, and we’ve back for The Fest 20. Oh, and we shared some remote memories when shutdowns kept it from happening in 2020, too. … Read more

With a lineup of 300-ish bands playing throughout town over a 3-day period, there's a lot to discuss about The Fest, an annual celebration of punk rock that takes place in Gainesville, FL in late October. At FEST 21, the headliners included GWAR, Lucero, Dillinger Four, Thursday, Descendants, Tim Barry, … Read more

How do you sum up a 3-day weekend where you’ve spent approximately 36 hours watching live music and seen nearly 50 bands -- and also missed another 300? The Fest is a wonderful beast where you venue hop to catch up-and-comers, watch headliners outside on the big stage, and stumble … Read more

Normally the weekend nearest to Halloween is known for lots of parties and dressing up in costume (or attempting to dress in as little as possible). But this year Halloween took on a whole other demeanor with The Fest 7 once again taking place in Gainesville, Florida. Scene Point Blank … Read more

In nine years, Fest has grown into a pilgrimage, a verb, and something of a lifestyle. Besides the 200-300 bands in town, annual activities include excessive drinking, a lot of walking, sporadic meals, counting Mikey Erg bands, and seeing how many times Dave Decker will run onstage. Once again I … Read more

19 Things We Miss About The Fest 2020 has been hard. You’ve all read that a million times. But you’ve lived it too. In most years, for many of us, The Fest offers an outlet to get away from those doldrums. But a socially distant Fest is simply inconceivable. The … Read more

Here are the highlights, and a few lowlights as experienced by SPB at easily the best shows of the year: The Fest 6. The first band to leave me agape was Planes Mistaken for Stars. Priming the audience for the rest of the evening, they burned every calorie of energy … Read more

Felix Hagan & the Family play grandiose pop songs tinged with hints of musical theatre, classic rock, and jazz. Hagan's shows have been described as a whirlwind of show-off nonsense (in a good way!) with Hagan playing ringleader to a seven-piece backing band of highly theatrical, immaculately dressed, misfits. The … Read more

Earlier this year folk-punk troubadour Frank Turner released his sixth studio album, Positive Songs for Negative People. Recorded in Nashville with producer Butch Walker, the record is an attempt to capture the live sound of Frank and his band The Sleeping Souls while covering themes of longing, friendship, and resilience. … Read more

There is a place, once a year, where we can all come together, Fest with others who believe that only music has the answer, and then at the end, go back to our homes reveling in another amazing Fest and hoping that feeling of belonging can last to the next … Read more

The local Las Vegas music scene is unique in that all of the DIY musicians and songwriters are battling against the million dollar shows that happen every night at the billion-dollar casinos with hundreds of thousands of dollars of advertising budgets. It 's a David vs. Goliath situation 7 days … Read more

We asked our friends in Gloomy June to put together a guest list for us – a list of the six bands/artists they can agree on when embarking on a long drive together. Devin, Alexi, Jack and Ash run through their half-dozen favorites below, along with their standout tracks for … Read more

Hello, this is Kepi Ghoulie (formerly of the Groovie Ghoulies) and I have been asked to submit a number of Anti-Valentine songs, since I have been recording an annual audio Valentine for at least the last 15 years! With this year's Valentine release we come full circle with the first … Read more

Fear ['fea(r)]: noun; a distressing emotion aroused by impending danger, evil, pain, etc., whether the threat is real or imagined; the feeling or condition of being afraid. Horror ['ho-r e(r)] : noun; an overwhelming and painful feeling caused by something frightfully shocking, terrifying, or revolting; a shuddering fear. Whether it's … Read more

Scene Point Blank is proud to team up with Handmade Birds records to present an exclusive stream of Theologian's just-released EP, Finding Comfort In Overwhelming Negativity. More info from the label below. Lee M. Bartow is a revered pillar of the modern noise movement. He turned heads in the 90s … Read more

Sometimes you reach a point in your life when something inside of you just breaks and no matter what you do, you can't fix it. You hate your job, you hate your apartment, you hate the city you live in. I had currently reached that point in my life when … Read more

David Bowie, one could argue, is the most influential artist ever. I may get some shit for that comment, but he had done more to marry music, art, fashion, and theater into one arena than anyone before or since. His tendrils reach far into the fine arts world and everything … Read more

1 Devin Townsend – "Tall Latte" (Ziltoid, the Omniscient) Ziltoid is an impeccably funny album. Not only is the premise itself spectacularly silly (an alien destroys Earth because our coffee sucks), but Townsend peppers his humour throughout in the most subtle of ways, making the album an absolute delight to … Read more

1 Guns N' Roses - Appetite for Destruction Admit it: you love this album just as much as everyone else. And with good reason; GNR's debut Appetite for Destruction is a pretty fucking awesome album. It's the classic 80s heavy metal album, filled from end-to-end with nothing but sweet riffs, … Read more