Music is Art Festival plays on at America's Fair
by CHRISTINE A. SETLOCK Intern

Robby Takac

After much controversy, the Music is Art Festival will move to the Erie County Fairgrounds in Hamburg from 9 a.m. to 11 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 11 for Music is Art at The Fair.

The festival brings together a diverse spectrum of music and dance and is the brainchild of Goo Goo Dolls bass player and Western New York native Robby Takac.

The event came under scrutiny in previous years by the Allentown Village Society due to its close proximity with the Allentown Art Festival and was not given permits this year after a series of meetings with Buffalo City Hall.

"It was a hard fight for me," said Takac during a phone interview while on tour. "It was tough because we really love the (Allentown) festival. That's my neighbor hood."

The new location in Hamburg will feature performances by the lead Takac band, Amungus. Takac will be on a Goo Goo Dolls tour in Japan, but will perform with Amungus through live satellite and a combination of multi-media.

The festival will also feature about 40 bands, including performances by local rock bands Agent Me and Nancy's Candy.

Among the dance lineup are Nu Studio, Janet Reed and Dancers and Ilya's Bellydancing, performing a variety of dance acts from hip-hop to jazz.

"The true nature of this event is that there's hundreds of local people performing in one day," Takac said.

Takac added that the art festival drew art-minded people and that America's Fair is certain to provide a wider audience spectrum.

"It's gonna be different," he said. "It's not in the middle of downtown. This is going to bring a piece of downtown someplace else for a day, so it's going to be an exper ience."

The Music is Art organization began as an Allentown recording party outside the former Chameleonwest recording studio on Franklin and Allen Streets, but has expanded to include a variety of community programs.

One program, Music is Art Live at the Center, is a collaboration between MIA and the UB Center for the Arts that gives musicians an opportunity to do a professional recording in a coffeehouse setting, in addition to being aired on WNED.

The program brings exposure to new artists from a variety of music genres and has won four Telly Awards, a national recognition that honors local, regional and cable productions.

"It's student produced and professionally mentored," Takac said. "The idea of bringing art, music and dance into one event turned into a television show."

MIA has also been involved in a "Music in Action" seminar, which educates people on compact disc creation, including basic song writing and promotion.

Takac's Trackmas ter/Chameleonwest recording studio is now located at Franklin and North streets, where the Goo Goo Dolls plan to record their next album in Buffalo.

It is undecided whether America's Fair will be a permanent home for the MIA festival.

"I wouldn't want to venture," said Chameleonwest spokesman Alan Baumgardner. "I imagine they will see how well it goes and do a sort of evaluation after."

Takac said that it's unusual for so many different styles of music and dance to be brought together in one venue at the festival.

"We take this oddball mix of music and artists and thrust them into the mainstream," he said. "When you do, cool things happen. It's really amazing to watch some of the relationships that develop. That's what we try to nurture throughout this whole thing."