Mosh Pits and Stage Dives

Reau Kummer, founder the California Central Coast booking and art collective Channel Frequencies, opens up about creating safe spaces for music lovers to come together, up and coming bands to look out for, , and how Channel Frequencies became the go-to booking and promoting collective in region.

San Luis Obispo, USA

What is Channel Frequencies?

Channel Frequencies is a passion project/booking and arts collective/quarter life crisis, founded by Reau Kummer, with current members of Will Murphy, Adrian Vincent Rosas, Mo Overfield, Fred Miller, Jade Honey, and Reau still leading operations.

How did it begin and why?

I grew up in the Central Coast (born in Santa Barbara, went to high school in San Luis Obispo), and there was seemingly nothing for anyone in high school to do, other than going out in the middle of nowhere and smoking weed and shotgunning a few beers…or getting caught up with a coke dealer that’s 13 years older than you. There really are not many wholesome activities around here, and overdoses are statistically more common than other metro areas with this level of “affluence”. I always wanted to do something other than this, as there was nothing for anyone in the middle to lower class to do other than get into considerably dangerous trouble. There was a music scene of sorts, but it was gatekept and strong armed by the college radio scene, and the local scene was all thrash and metalcore at the time, so not too much diversity.

After moving back from a short stint in Dallas last January, I was homeless, living out of my car in the Central Coast area for a solid 4 months. I still had some familial connections, but none strong enough to get me fully on my feet. This led to a lot of free time and a lot of mobility, going between Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo for live music whenever and wherever I could.

Around this time, the Isla Vista scene was on the tail end of their extremely popular “band show” runs (what we call a house show, or just… a show…) and San Luis Obispo was gaining traction with their alternative scene, growing immensely more popular as the months progressed. As I met members of bands and became really close with them, I realized, especially in college towns, there is no “management”. Most bands exist as a blip in time, in one region, with passions and desires to, at least during the time they are in the Central Coast, be able to play the surrounding areas and not just the local bars and house shows. The amount of effort and “marketing” (ugh) to retain your members and actually develop a foothold in your region is endlessly tiring, and for most, undoable. This leads to a lot of phenomenal music and live experiences being lost to time.

Some may argue that is the beauty of it, however if I can further make it an option to continue past the local scenes while also supporting ours, that is probably my main focus. On top of that, within 2 months of being within both the SLO and IV scenes, I was offered housing, both temporary and permanent, and was immediately surrounded by loving, caring, wonderful people. A lot of scenes have big issues with gatekeeping, but this stretch of California is extremely welcoming.

Do you remember your very first show? What was it like?

Yes! Our first show was a prototype of what I wanted to do in terms of promotion of both scenes. It was a house show right next to campus in SLO, and I brought Field Daze up from Isla Vista, and Earthship and Krooks were my two local bands. Scheduling issues led the lineup to shift slightly, originally planned for Earthship open, Field Daze middle, Krooks headline, but switched to have Krooks open, Earthship play middle, and Field Daze headline. Thanks to the local draw of both Krooks and Earthship, the out of town band grew an established fan base in San Luis Obispo.

I sourced everything that show through my friends, including the house, sound equipment, backline, lights, and somehow a smoke machine. I was still extremely new in the scene at the time, and people I would go on to have lasting friendships with were the ones bringing odds and ends, power cables, cookies, etc and random people running the merch booths. In total we sold 317 tickets, charging $5 at the door.

There were a million things that can be said I got lucky on, however it was truly the support of everyone even peripherally involved. I met my current roommate through this show, and that’s how I became not homeless! It set such a high standard for how I would like things to go: for the bands, for me, and for the people coming to enjoy the music. Having a mosh pit in a dirt backyard to the point where so much dust is kicking up that you can’t see the person in front of you, then getting crowd surfed to a Crust Bucket cover is definitely a top 5 favorite memory for my first show.

How has Channel Frequencies grown since then?

Since then, we have established ourselves as the go-to local and DIY booking and promoting collective in San Luis Obispo, and hoping to expand further to Santa Cruz and Ventura. We accomplished a lot of our 12 month goals within the first 6 months, such as working with other arts collectives like Free the Youth, which led us to co-promoting Shabang’s Battle of the Bands SLO concert, and MC’ing the Santa Barbara one. Since then, we’ve worked with fantastic booking/management and arts collectives as well, such as Stray Booking, Wavzine, and of course the wonderful folks over at Shabang. Definitely looking to work with as many people as I can possibly manage without burning myself out too hard.

It might not be much, but growing over 1000 local followers when you are not the band itself can be challenging, and I have worked on bringing people in to revamp the image of our social medias, as that is primarily where the scene exists, however that is changing fast. Unfortunately, social media numbers are your biggest ticket to credibility outside of your own region, but there is a sense of pride that I definitely recognize a lot of these people when I’m checking their tickets from their Instagram DM’s asking me for the address to the show. The engagement and effort to find new and good live music is at an all time high, it seems.

What have been some struggles you experienced while running Channel Frequencies? What have been some positives?

Definitely has to be when a show doesn’t turn out the way you want it to in terms of crowd size, or when you can’t send a band home with more than just gas money because you’ve sunk $1000 into the show and need to recuperate the at least some of the costs so you can pay your rent. I think pretty much everything else is a positive.

Sometimes I have to be an ass at the door but I am very strictly NOTAFLOF. But you can’t advertise that, because people will take advantage of it, but if someone comes up to me or dm’s me and says “Hey, I spent my last gas money on getting here and need it to get back home, can we work something out?” So long as the venue is fine with it, and it’s under my control, just go on in! I want to find that balance of being able to pay bands for what is actively a job, and also not gouging for ticket prices when what we’re supposed to be doing is the antithesis to Ticketmaster and Livenation. Hell, we freaked out when we charged $20 for a charity show, but that completely sold out before the opening band was done playing! There’s always gonna be those little things to bitch and moan about but at the end of the day, as long as I can keep that aforementioned balance, and also keep a roof over my head, I am ecstatic.

Looking back, which shows have been the most memorable?

9/29/23 Veteran’s Hall, 11/05 Grange Hall, 2/17 Channel F HQ House Show, and obviously the first house show we did. The Vet’s Hall show sold around 800 tickets. Very much at capacity in a massive building. Paid out the bands astronomically well, and for the sheer amount of people that were present and our unpreparedness for that, there was only one minor injury and it was preexisting! Don’t go into a moshpit with a healing dislocated knee. We learned our lesson from that and designated safety volunteers for our big shows that I wasn’t able to be everywhere all at once for, and since have not had any issues.

Grange Hall was my first collaboration show with Free the Youth, and Tristan Padron of Santa Cruz. This show featured bands that had been on my playlists for years, (Mom Cars, Trestles, and Career Woman) and was my first time officially booking Couch Dog, and was by far one of the best sounding and cohesive lineups we’ve had. Unfortunately it was on a Sunday, however we still had an incredible turnout for unfortunate timing.

The Channel F HQ House Show was a show me and my roommates hosted in our TINY. TINY living room. It was so packed we had to take an air out break. We had Excuse Me Sir, Lizardsmouth, Universe, and Suburban Dropout as secret openers. We had a whiteboard that people drew random stuff on, and decided to make that a staple for house shows going forward. Little tokens and memorabilia people could leave behind, and not the other way around. I love the idea of venues being marked by the people that have been there and truly enjoyed their experience.

How would you describe the music scene on the Central Coast of California?

Lots and lots of moshpits and stage dives for bands you wouldn’t quite expect to have those kinds of reactions. Massive hardcore scene in Atascadero and Five Cities area. Ventura and Santa Barbara area is still big on the indie sleeze and garage rock and punk. There is a blossoming hardcore scene in Santa Barbara led by Santa Barbara Hardcore. Santa Cruz loves surf rock and hardcore (see Scowl and Trestles). Extremely thriving folk and psychedelic scene in the entirety of the Central Coast, from Ojai to Santa Cruz. Huge alternative/indie pop/surf rock scene in SLO proper, and the shoegaze bug has bitten the whole county. Grunge and Shoegaze are definitely taking over.

As with most fall seasons, as people graduate, it will be exciting to see who comes and replaces the bands who moved away, because Couch Dog, Plywood Love, Juniper Honey, and Honeyboys all graduated or moved away from the area; there are definitely multiple slots to fill and an eager crowd to see them.

Amazingly, everyone has been accepting thus far - of me, of bands, of everyone else. We haven’t had any issues where we’ve had to ban people from our shows due to inappropriate behavior, racism, sexism, etc and we do take those instances very seriously. So I would say the scene is super healthy and responsible for it being a DIY scene.

Which bands in the scene should we look out for?

Flip the Phaze, Excuse Me Sir, Couch Dog, The Framers, Radiation Invasion, Lizardsmouth, Blair Gun, Two Seam, The Let Downs, Krooks, Manners, Tiny Plastic Everything, Field Daze, Typewriter, Universe, and Dead Chicken are all bands that come to mind. Some may not be precisely from our region but play enough in town to have their own crowd in SLO. (some bands have been left out due to inactivity/uncertainty on if they will stay as their current iteration, otherwise I would recommend every single one of the bands we’ve worked with, top to bottom)

What's next for Channel Frequencies?

Whew. Ideally, over the next year, solidify our promotion strategies as to not rely on individual band’s pull as much, and have our own draw. My goals are always higher than where I’m currently at, and even though we have a healthy group of people that will always come out to shows, I would like to make that hundreds strong. We’re looking into building up our coffers a bit, to afford bigger and better shows and maybe even shell out the booking fee for some signed acts, and have some of those aforementioned bands open for them. We want to throw some sort of festival soon, but want to make sure it’s done right in every avenue. I would say, more of the same over the next year, with better organization, bigger bands, better shows, and more accommodations for bands and fans alike. Definitely want to look into expanding into the entire Central Coast area.

I want to end this by shouting out Adrian Vincent Rosas, Will Murphy, Tristan Padron, Jade Hoey, Fred Miller, Mo Overfield, Jack Butler, Chris Marston, Field Daze members, Couch Dog members, Lizardsmouth members, Andy Sherar, Ben Grossman-Thompson, everyone who’s house or venue we’ve utilized, everyone who’s ever given us a spare IEC or quarter inch, anyone who has given a second of time for this project to help run doors or merch. I could not have done any of this without the village it takes to circumvent the issues that constantly arise with event production. I’m sure I’m forgetting people, but rest assured I cherish and appreciate every ounce of help and support I’ve gotten along the way.