What Would You Do?

By Sarah Dahnke in Arts & Entertainment on Apr 27, 2007 8:13PM

With the recent news that Intonation Music Festival will not be held this year, there’s been speculation of what exactly David Singer and company will be doing to bide their time. When we spoke with the Intonation crew last year, they emphasized that what made their festival different than the influx of outdoor festivals in the Chicago area was the diversity of the lineup, combined with the fact their festival happened before the Chicago summer got hot as balls.

This year, they’re over it. We corresponded with Singer via email this week, and he said Intonation is indeed alive and well, despite its lack of a summer festival this year. “We are indeed scheming about other stuff, but its all top secret right now,” he said. He made sure to point out they have been running a music program for kids out of Association House for over a year, where Mike Simons (one-third of the Intonation venture) is a teacher, and they look forward to doing more with the Rock for Kids charity.

He continues:

We'll miss Intonation this summer too, but there are just too many similar things happening (some of which haven't been announced yet). We want to do things that are totally unique, and we're figuring out what that means ...

What exactly does that mean? Between the Pitchfork fest’s 1-2 punch of every indie band you were supposed to have liked this year combined with bands you can’t miss (Sonic Youth, anyone?) and Perry Farrell’s festival basically hitting you over the head with the “something for everyone” approach, how do you curate a completely unique musical experience in this city? If you were Intonation, what would you do?