SOS - Support Our Scene Music Festival

                                                 


                                                                                

SOS

Support Our Scene

Music Festival

 

Carl Abila is a believer in the power of music to soothe pain, evoke passion and instill the spirit of love. From his spectacular rise with Silverspork to Black Flower Blossom, Abila has always landed with his feet on the ground. He seems to have a gift for developing great bands, unstoppable juggernauts filled up with talent and heat. Abila is a rock solid guardian of the flame, an eternal promise of better things to come. It is in this spirit of giving that Abila has found the eight fold path and brought hope to so many vets, regular folks who’ve led extraordinary lives.

 

 

Tell me about the project you have going.

 

That would be the music festival Bay City, Michigan, Saturday, August 29, 2015 which is a veteran’s drive, and all the proceeds are going to the VA Hospital of Saginaw.

 

Do you have a connection to the veterans?

 

I do have family that have served in the military. We’ve committed in Bay City to try to do this once a year. We’re going to see how the first year goes. We’d like to make it grow. So yeah, it’s something that we feel strongly about.

 

I think we all do. Will this include money that may go to helping vets with PTSD or other physical ailments, problems?

 

It’s going to help the wounded that are less fortunate essentially around our own area. We want to give back, to try to help, especially the vets that are homeless. I just don’t think it is right that veterans who serve our country are homeless and without medical care. It’s shame. It should never happen. These people have sacrificed so much for our country. I can’t express it enough. I do have some family in the service, and it’s a non-stop battle, even at home which is very unfortunate, especially when you get done with battle, you have to battle on your own stomping grounds, so to speak.

 

So in this event, music is the food of love. It can heal, and so you’re going to have a lot of music at this event. Can you tell us about that?

 

Well it kind of goes hand-in-hand with the term SOS. Mid-Michigan and the whole area for that matter has a lot of talent over the years music has always been the most important part of my life. I want to keep it going somehow. What I want to do is make a bigger, better scene, if at all possible.

 

You’ve been part of that through Silverspork and Black Flower Blossom. You’ve even had your own venue in Bay City so you’re one of the true believers. Do you see it that way?

 

Absolutely. I don’t think there’s any success without failure. I don’t think there’s any success without trial. I think you get up again and keep on doing it until you get it right. Everybody does. That’s just part of life. You can’t let it beat you down too much to where you don’t want to try at all. I have gotten to that point at times, but’s music actually that keeps me going.

 

You continue to flourish with Black Flower Blossom. They must be an integral part of the event. Could you talk about the current status of the band?

 

We’ve had some recent member changes so we’re trying to make that project grow as well. There’s a lot of bands I’ve worked with that have been around for a while, they’ve been around the block and have really great music to offer. Jay Burk is now on bass. I play guitar, Carl’s on drums and Melissa May from the former Thunder Chickens group on vocals

 

 Can you give us the line-up?

At this point we are the headliners. The rest of the lineup includes;

Filter International Outlier Fields of August, Pencilhead, Everyday Ghost, H&R Rustic out of Detroit and the Kincaids. These are bands that have been around a long time. I want to have these guys back for one great show, and this is a great time to doit. We have the opportunity for everybody to get back together and just have us a good rock show.

 

Where is it taking place?

WenonahPark in Bay City. Now there’s going to be a band shell there, bands, vendors with food and memorabilia, Hunter’s, Groovy Tattoo out of Bay City will be attending, Brooklyn Boyz Pizza. There’ll be all kinds of food and goodies, all kinds of merchandise for fans.

 

What groups of servicemen did you contact in order to get this together? 

 

Well initially we were going to somewhat surprise the VA Hospital, you know, walk over and give them our proceeds, but it was Vincent Christensen out of the Saginaw VA Hospital that, you know, we were starting to work together on this. I think that we would like to do it every day. He was our main contact to, you know, get something rolling.

 

You care, and when you say what you’re going to do something, you do it. You’re able to say things plainly and lay it out there and be succinct and elegant at the same time.

 

Yeah, I try. Like I said, sometimes it’s scary but you adapt to risks after a while and all you can do is try and you can only go up and if you’ve got to crawl up, that’s the only way you can go. If I can give back to our community somehow doing music, that’s plenty for me. For our first year we’re going to concentrate on music. But we will have Brooklyn Boyz Pizza, Steve’s BBQ, and we’ll probably have elephant ears and cotton candy and that type of thing as well.There will be alcohol, 21 with ID obviously, and we’ll have sodas and water and that kind of stuff.

 

 

What time of day does it start, and when does it end?

The show starts at 4:00, and it will probably go on until 11:30.

It will be outside and there’ll be two stages inside

We haveads that have already started running on Z93, you can look us up on Facebook on Facebook.com/SOS.MI. We have an official website SOSMI.com, and we’re also on Twitter. Indie Spot is one of our sponsors and they’ll be recording the event.

 

 

Tickets are $20 in advance and $25 at the gate.