This is kpbs midday edition. San Diego IND y fest is back. In a new location. This Saturday IND y fest nine debuts featuring bare hands and an impressive mix of styles from local and out of town artists. It also well as a rules the return of the co founder back in good health and great energy. Yesterday her and her band the masses visited the studios to chat about the fest and to play. Welcome. Thank you so much. Also joining us is alicia champion. The music director for the masses. Welcome. Thank you for having us The last San Diego fest was 2013, why not last year? We have recovery to do after fest 8. That was a challenging year. We had all kinds of factors, cancer happened, life happened, we had to regroup and scale down and we decided to move the festival. We went on the search and landed in our own neighborhood. Of city heights. Yeah. Just on that note for a minute more. Did you get a lot of people saying what is going on? No fest? We have done this before. We have transitioned, clayed locations. With are looking for another location. There have been years that we have taken that time to restructure the event. We did that as well when he first became moms. There wasn't a lot of that. People have -- I think become used to the the fact that it's usually yearly but sometimes we will skip a year. And what -- is it like to try to find a new venue, a new place that is really going to fit with the festival. You know it's funny that you ask that. What looking for this new home it was so simple. We just -- someone told us -- in our search last year that city heights is the most culture alley diverse neighborhood in the United States. It's a un designated spot that the un will send refuge es too many 457 languages are spoken. And we are all about celebrating diversity. So city heights was a no brainer. We are moms now. This is where our son is growing up. This is the area where -- he -- that he will experience in his life. We want to directly affect this part of town. And you fond a really special theater. To put on the fest. We did. The preforming annex which is right there in city heights, it's just beautiful. When we saw that we just thought -- we just have to do something here. And the design of the space is just begging for an event like this we feel and we are really excited to see it I can hear people say let's hear them play music. You will give us a sample of what people will be hearing at this year's fest. This is -- danielle and the masses. What will you play? The song harvest today. Great. [ MUSIC ] [ Music ] [ MUSIC ] [ MUSIC ] That was just beautiful. Thank you is much. The masses. With alicia. The music director for the masses. Played guitar. Maybe you can introduce the other members. I would love to. We have malia on bass. She is one of the most fantastic bass players in its world. We have so lucky to play with her. Then our friend, a guest jd, a solo artist. Fantastic in his own right here in San Diego who is joining us just for love today. Thank you so much. The reason that you are playing for us today is because we are telling San Diego about IND y fest which is come canning up this weekend. In addition to moving to city heights, there are some other changes in the ninth fest. It's on one day. Why is that? I think we grew a little bit to fast on 8. We felt that. We wanted to scale it down a bit for that reason. Secondly when we switch locations we always scale it down. People have to relearn that the event is still great even though we changed locations. We are all creatures of habit. We always scale down a bit. Do you know how many people you expect? It's always a bit of a crap shoot. The first time in a new location. We would like to see -- first of all we made the event 100% free for city height residents. That -- you know I hope that we have enough space for everybody. At our location now is almost six times smaller than at Liberty station. I would love to see a couple thousand come out and just fill that space but I would not be surprise fire department we have more. Tell us a little bit about this year's music line up? I can confidently say that fest 9 boasts our most diverse line up ever with the whole event kicks off with [Inaudible] we have never had marachi at the fest before and here we are in city heights. It's really important for us to honor the area we are in and so we are starting off with that. We have fantastic Latin music. We have Gutierrez. Riggio was a top eight finalist in the Mexico's version of the voice. Fantastic vocal talent. We have great jazz, Chris click will be playing. We hava playing rock R&B from an artist from la. We have blues from Texas. We have alternative pop from Alabama. We have unbelievable soul R&B from Minneapolis Minnesota. Cameron Wright who will join us for a special number in our set. I just -- so -- the list goes on. Pretty much any musical style that you enjoy. You can count on finding at San Diego IND y fest. And bare hands. Right. And the beautiful thing, one of the reasons we do this is that -- very few people only like one style of music. When you come to the fest our goal is to make it impossible for you to walk away without inspiration and I think that people find even -- before didn't think they liked Latin Musiq that they will be awed by how fantastic these artists are. That is part of our agenda. Besides that there is amazing nonprofits that year. Everywhere you look there will be something to see. I want to ask you to play again and I will judge just a moment. I want you to talk about the special theme. I think you -- touched on it in that first song. Harvest. Tell us about the -- the idea of trying to stop violence. The theme this year is rock to stop violence. This is -- very close to our hearts. We care a great deal about social justice and that has been sewn to everything that we produce. Now there is a new personal connection unlike anything we have got there that is through the birth of our son. We are raising a beautiful, young black boy in America and so, when we see what happens, the profiling, the racial profile that is still happening in our country it touches us in a way beyond even what we felt before. Which was a lot. When we say rock to stop violence we aren't just talking about racial violence but all kinds of violence. We address that in various ways throughout the festival. In our set we are really -- really touching on this issue. We are doing a special tribute to black lives matter and we -- you know we really feel empowered to do whatever we can while we are on in planet to make in better and we know we can. As I said I will ask you for one more song if you would. Call me sister. [ MUSIC ] [ Music ] [ MUSIC ] [ MUSIC ] Thank you to danielle and the masses. Diagnosis IND y fest nine takes place in start at city heights urban village. 3794fairmont. More information is at San Diego IND y fest.com. Be sure to watch the evening edition at five. 6:30 tonight on kpbs television. Thank you for listening.
San Diego IndieFest is back this year in a new location as it continues its evolution as the first exclusively independent music festival in the country.
City Heights will host IndieFest 9 on March 28. It features 50 musical acts including New York indie-rock band Bear Hands as a headliner. There will be three stages and an impressive mixture of styles from local and out-of-town artists.
Festival founders Danielle LoPresti and Alicia Champion live in City Heights with their son. They said moving the festival to City Heights Urban Village on University Avenue was a no brainer.
"City Heights is the most culturally diverse neighborhood in the U.S.," Champion said. "IndieFest is all about celebrating diversity and the elements that make our community unique and special. We're moms now, this is where our son is growing up. We want to directly affect this part of town."
IndieFest is collaborating with the City Heights Development Corporation to put on the event. This year's theme is "Rock To Stop Violence."
"This is really close to our hearts, it always has been. We care a great deal about social justice and that has gone into every IndieFest we've produced," LoPresti said. "But now there's a new personal connection. We're raising a beautiful young black boy in America so when we see what happens, the racial profiling that is still happening in our country, it touches us in a way beyond what we felt before, which was a lot, and so when we say 'rock to stop violence' we're not just talking about racial violence we're talking about all kinds of violence and we address that in various ways throughout the festival."
LoPresti will be performing with her band the Masses on Saturday.
Since it started in 2004, IndieFest has moved from Bankers Hill to North Park to Liberty Station. Organizers took a break in 2014 to focus on LoPresti's health.
"We had some recovery to do after IndieFest 8. We had all kinds of factors come in to play, life happened, cancer happened, so we had to regroup and scale down a little bit," LoPresti said.
This year's festival is pared down from IndieFest 8 at Liberty Station and will take place over one day instead of three.
IndieFest runs from noon to 11 p.m. Saturday at City Heights Urban Village. The event is free for City Heights residents. For ticket information, go to the IndieFest website.
