Over the last few weeks I feel like I’ve been especially lucky. You see, I’ve been getting to watch the slow motion trainwreck that is becoming the Fashion Meets Music Festival. Initially planned as a grand festival celebrating the music and fashion culture that blooms eternal in Columbus Ohio, FMMF seems to be coming off the rails. Festival organizers are facing a huge community backlash and artists are slowly yet steadily dropping out of the lineup.
It all started when the acts were listed online. Let’s just say their selection of local artists largely had all the zest and flavor of a bowl of plain oatmeal. It wasn’t all bad of course, there were a few acts with fangs, and things seemed to be on track. I certainly wasn’t going to be buying a ticket, but at least the lineup didn’t bring bile to the back of my throat. Ah, but then the headliner was announced. Our fair city of Columbus would be graced by the musical stylings of none other than R.Kelly. And that’s about when all hell started to break loose.
It’s safe to say that the local artistic community received this news with all the joy and pleasure of Ralphie seeing his bunny pajamas in A Christmas Story. Yes, I know that Mr. Kelly has never been actually convicted in a court of law, but let’s just say that the evidence produced by journalist Jim DeRogatis has been particularly convincing. After reading his articles and interviews, I feel perfectly confident in stating that R.Kelly is a person of disgusting and disturbing moral character, and it seems a portion of the good folk in Columbus feel the same way.
Local musician King Bobby B demonstrates his love for R.Kelly and FMMF
I have watched the local social media outlets every passing day with more and more glee as the storm against FMMF has slowly reached gale force winds. It might have been all limited to internet outrage, until one act took the step to become the first pebble in the avalanche. While I’m not a fan of Damn the Witch Siren musically (I prefer my synth sounds distorted and bone crushing), I can’t fault them for their ethics. Their decision to drop off the festival was done with class, and it resulted in some of the first negative publicity for FMMF. Unfortunately for the promoters, they’ve handled this controversy with all the class of a high school dropout huffing paint in their grandma’s garage. Festival co-founder Bret Adams was quoted in the local Columbus Alive, saying there was no controversy in the decision to pick R.Kelly and claiming “We’re not the morality police.” Their recent Facebook posts have done nothing to dispel the idea that they’re missing the point completely.
Following this, Columbus’ hometown musical hit squad Saintsenca announced that they too would be dropping off the festival lineup. This was much more of a blow to the festival – in addition to recently signing to Anti Records and getting hype from Rolling Stone and NPR, Saintseneca are a gold standard of credibility when it comes to us locals. This is the band that has been regularly packing local punk basement shows for years. They were the ones pounding the pavement, playing on dirt floors with a garbage can for a drum, getting the audience singing along to songs that had yet to be recorded. Thus Saintseneca’s exit from FMMF, and their support of the planned counter-festival FeMMeFest, has stripped the FMMF event organizers of any pretensions they had of having legitimate, organic support from the Columbus art scene. It’s all over now, baby blue.
Media outlets that partnered with the festival are beginning to catch wind of the story and have begun to question their relationship with FMMF. Fashion designers who had planned on having their designs on FMMF’s runways are taking a second look as well. More news outlets are grabbing onto the story every day. With Saintseneca’s departure, the impetus for more musical defections is there. One question is now presented to the Columbus acts still on the FMMF lineup – Which side are you on?
More and more, FMMF looks like an attempt by Chicago businessmen to expand their empires into Columbus. The fact that “local” band OAR is headlining with R.Kelly and Michelle Williams seems like it has more to do with the acts all sharing management, rather than the connection OAR has to this city. Despite being surrounded by farmland in the heart of a heart shaped Midwestern state, Columbus is a cultured, modern metropolitan city and we don’t take kindly to to carpetbagging hucksters trying to sell snake oil under the cover of regional pride. Though the city may not have a national media spotlight to shine on the roaches and make them skitter away, that lack of attention is what has made our music scene so weird and vibrant, something proud and independent and worth defending. Right now, R.Kelly’s tickets just aren’t selling in Columbus. FemmeFest promises to be one long triumphant whoop of exaltation and a simultaneous middle finger to the Fashion Meets Music Fest. The city has spoken – Woe to those who would condone rapists for profit.