For the last two years, Horsebites (aka Richard Minino) has created the official logo for The Fest. Along with running his own design company, Minino has provided album covers for bands like Dead To Me, Strike Anywhere, and New Mexican Disaster Squad. Below, he gives us the dirt on how he hooked up with Tony Weinbender and The Fest crew. Enjoy.

I was lucky enough to do the art for the Fest 6 last year and it was a really great learning experience on how to brand a music festival. I thought I did a pretty decent job last year and I wanted to top it for this year’s Fest. Tony Weinbender told me since it was Fest 7 and it started on Halloween that he wanted the art to have something dealing with gambling (i.e. lucky #7) [along with] a Halloween feeling.

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Our friend Jeremy Silveira sent us a clip he just finished that showcases a brand new song from I Am The Avalanche called “Brooklyn Dodgers.” The song will be found on their new full length coming out later this year. Click on the image above or here to view the high quality video.

Jeremy also let us in on some updates from the filming of The Fest 6. “The video group I work with, National Underground, that did all the filming at The Venue during The Fest 6 is about to go fully live with the new website. There is some stuff from Fest 5 that is already available. Once everything is set we will have the Dead To Me, Smoke or Fire, and American Steel footage up first with more coming out every other week or so.”

For now you can check out the site for the forum and video profiles on Planes Mistaken for Stars, Glass and Ashes and Haram.

Jeremy also wrapped up some filming with Gallows, Cancer Bats and This Is Hell. Expect to see those clips surface soon.

Down in Florida, I had a chance to catch up with guitarist/vocalist John Baizley of Georgia-based-shred-fanatics Baroness. John is also the talent behind album artwork and merch designs for the likes of Daughters, Torche, Kylesa and more. The band’s performance at the Fest VI was definitely the highlight of my Friday night. The crowd at Common Grounds swayed in front of the stage with raised fists in the air, as they lost themselves in the music. Pure, raw emotion is what defines Baroness’ music; a feeling that most artists never quite achieve, especially those in the “metal genre.” Definitely expect the band’s profile to continue to rise in the ‘08.

I feel you guys are on a few different genre lines. You’ve got a punk and a metal fan base and you are getting a lot of recognition in the indie world – Pitchfork gave you a great review – how do you feel about that? Are those different fan bases showing up at the shows or is it still a metal crowd?
John: It’s actually never really been specifically a metal crowd. It’s always been sort of a cross-genre crowd coming out to see us ever since we first started. I think most of the typically metal kids coming out now is sort of a new thing for us. The early tours we were doing were almost exclusively with punk and hardcore bands. That’s the world we come from. Continue Reading

We can’t stop listening to Paint It Black’s New Lexicon at LNWF home base and this video does a great job of capturing PIB’s live performance .  Shot by Jeremy Silveira, you can see PIB  performing “Pink Slip” and “Atticus Finch.”  The video also catches the band asking the fans for infinity plus 1 stage dives as previously reported.

Check out clips from No Trigger and The Ergs at The Fest 6 after the Jump
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Here is the final installment of our Fest VI wrap up. Here we go, here we go, here we go!

It’s been said that Sunday is the hardest day to play during the Fest weekend. Everyone, for the most part, is hungover and/or tired and it definitely starts to show on that final day. Exhaustion aside, I think it’s pretty safe to say that everyone was ready to go out with a bang.

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