This year would have been the eighth annual Freakout Fest, a sweet and sweaty weekend festival in Ballard hosted by Freakout Records. Because the pandemic is still in full swing, there will be no moshing or liquid light shows this year—but there will be music.

Instead of Freakout Fest, the Seattle-based music label will host Freakout Live!, a free weekly music series featuring acts from Europe, Mexico, and the Pacific Northwest. The series will officially launch this week on October 1 with Toulouse, France-based band Foggy Tapes bringing their "spaghetti surf" tunes overseas. Each session will be under 20 minutes in length, with new ones going live every Thursday at 8 pm for Seattle bands or 9 am for international acts.

Freakout's next few weeks are already planned out, with sessions from freaky Paris-based band Dee Dee & the Abracadabras and fiery local trio The Grizzled Mighty going live on October 8 and October 15, respectively. Freakout Live! also plans to bring on King Khan, Smokey Brights, Shaina Shepherd, and CDMX's Carrion Kids in the weeks to come. In addition to music, hosts Skyler Locatelli and Guy Keltner of Freakout Records will interview the bands, either in-person (from a distance) or through Zoom.

Check out their website for more information and give Foggy Tapes' "Here Come the Fog" a listen below. Here's to us all being together sometime (hopefully) soon.