Photo by Marianne Spellman
Seattle’s wildest musical bacchanalia, Pizza Fest, returns for its sixth annual marathon of garage-punk shenanigans and excessive cheese and crust intake August 6 to 8 at El Corazon, the Funhouse, and Chop Suey.
This year’s bill includes 22 local and national bands, including the Heaters Gooch Palms, Useless Eaters, Childbirth, Full Toilet, Gazebos, and Steal Shit Do Drugs (SSDD). The latter group features drummer Pete Capponi, who also is Pizza Fest’s big cheese. He says the main difference between this year’s event and last year’s is the increased number of touring bands. “I was actually contacted by agents months ahead of time,” Capponi said in an e-mail interview. “It’s nice to know we’re on a few people’s radar on a national level.”
“I always want to have a good ratio of touring and local bands,” he continued. “The problem is there are so many incredible local bands who ask or have offered to play. I wish we could have room for everyone, but I don’t want to make it more than three days long. A pretty good problem to have, I’d say!”
Capponi says the success of the 2014 Pizza Fest has allowed him and his associates to grow the event, while tackling the challenge of keeping its ramshackle charm as the attendance numbers increase:
This is the first year we’ve actively gone after sponsorship. (And were still looking, potential sponsors!) My friends Elaine Grabicki and Kitty Page put together our brand-new website and it looks amazing! Elaine has worked tirelessly on putting together spreadsheets and documents that my feeble mind would never be able to keep straight. She has created an infrastructure for the future of the fest so I’ll be able to work much more effectively. So I can spend more time on being creative with it and less time remembering where I put my car keys, so to speak. Also, we started working on it six months ahead of time instead of three, like usually. This was a very smart move.
Find more info on Pizza Fest here, and purchase tickets here.
