by Jacob Espinoza
Octopus Entertainment started doing Local Showcases at the Crystal Ballroom earlier this year with the intentions of giving local bands a platform to perform in one of the cities largest venues.
“The goal is to open the doors to all-local bills, something that the Crystal Ballroom has never done before. With a cheap ticket and four solid local bands, these showcases will hopefully become a regular thing for Portlanders.” said Brooklyn Baggett, founder of Octopus Entertainment.
On July 27th the Crystal Ballroom will host Water & Bodies, The Days The Nights, and Crash Engine.
Water & Bodies used the momentum behind two EPs and a west coast tour behind a Kickstarter Campaign that funded the creation of their full length album “Light Year” earlier this year.
“Water & Bodies are wonderful to work with. They are talented, professional, and handsome-as-hell seasoned veterans in the music industry. They make my job easy and I love the team we have – a team that will soon take over the world,” said Brooklyn.
Thanks to Aaron Guitar Player for taking a moment to chat with We Out Here on his way to practice last week.
How’s it going?
Going good. How are you?
Doing good, I appreciate you guys taking the time.
No prob.
Tell me about the band. How did you guys get started?
It’s kind of a long story, but the short story is that we’re kind of leftover parts from another band we all use to play in. And we’ve been playing music together for probably ten years. And we probably switched things up about two years ago.
Your album Light Year came out in February. I saw you funded that through Kickstarter. How was that?
Yeah, Kickstarter is sort of a fan funded website. It’s a great thing just in general. No matter what you’re doing. It’s awesome and was a great experience.
And you have the show coming up at the Crystal Ballroom. Can you tell us a little bit about that?
It’s going to be our first time playing at the Crystal as well as some of the other Portland band’s. We’re playing with some really awesome Portland bands so we’re excited about that.
Nice. Octupus Entertainment seem to be doing a good job showcasing a lot of Portland bands.
Yeah. I think Brooklyn is pretty amazing at finding good bands and getting them out there. Is an all-around great networker and has a lot of great ideas.
How long have you been working with them Octopus Entertainment and Brooklyn?
I think since last summer-ish. So about a year.
So did they help out with the Kickstarter campaign and everything?
Yeah for sure.
What kind of roles did they end up taking on for you guys?
She helps with booking and management side of things. A lot of the stuff that can get kind of daunting for the artist to keep track of all the time. We still take care of a lot of it ourselves but she just always has ideas out there for us for shows and different opportunities.
Any new music coming soon?
Yes. A couple of us recently moved, and we ended up getting a new practice space. I’m not sure if it’s just the summer or the move but creativity has just been flowing like crazy. We already have close to a full album worth of material written or at least partial written.
I couldn’t tell you when we’re planning on recording any of it. That’s still kind of up in the air.