Vogville Launches Festival to Feature Vancouver Bands

With the month of February upon us, love is all around, and though some of us may be flying solo this year, there's always room for the love that will never leave us: music.

 

It's that love for music combined with fierce independence that was the driving force for Jonathan Fluevog of Vogville Recording. Fluevog broke away from the fashion fame that surrounded his family (yes, his dad is John Fluevog of Fluevog shoe fame) and co-founded his first recording studio years ago in a Vancouver basement. Today, that passion has led to the launch of Vogville's Day & Night Festival, which takes place on February 19, 2011 at the Vancouver Alpen Club and features a dozen local bands including Los Furios, TV Heart Attack and Run the Red Light, just to name a few.

In a recent phone interview, Youthink had the chance to talk to Fluevog about the beginnings of the Vogville brand, Vogville's Day & Night Festival and his unique, refreshing approach to the field of musical creation.

YT: Coming from a very fashion-oriented family, what was it that really drew you into the music industry rather than following directly in your father's footsteps?
JF: Well, besides my dad making shoes, my mom was a fashion model in the '60s. There's even pictures of her with The Beatles and Pink Floyd, which is crazy. So when I was a kid, I would go to a lot of fashion-related things with her and from a young age I sort of knew about, like, the little man behind the curtain - the smoke and mirrors of it all. The music industry was a pretty exciting place when I was young because you could be in a bar band and get picked up by a label and the next thing you knew you were famous. It actually seemed easy! Write a few songs, get good at your instruments and 'wham!' the sky is wide open for you. Fashion was always around me, and I had a chance to see the good sides and the bad sides. Music was a way for me to find my own place in the world without falling into what was already around me or could be just given to me. I have always been fiercely independent and have worked hard to create my own identity, so when I started my studio, I started it with a loan for $30,000 and I built it up into what it is today over years and years and years of hard work.

 

YT: What kind of an experience do you hope concert goers take away from the festival?
JF: A sense of community. All the bands are banding together, and a lot of the bands have been absolutely fantastic, from Los Furios saying, "Hey, if this doesn't go anywhere, don't even worry about paying us. We get what you're trying to do here." This isn't about making a profit or making a buck. I'm not going to make money off of this festival. I've told every band, if this festival actually makes any money, I'm going to give you all the money, anything is yours to keep (laughs). Something I also really wanted to talk about a little bit is Quest Outreach, and what they do basically is they take food and they distribute it to low-income families. I contacted them and asked them to be a part of this festival because that really means a lot to me in a community sense.

YT: How does the process differ and compare from launching a recording studio to launching Vogville's Day & Night Festival?
JF: It's different, but then it's not at all that different. You need a solid team behind you, and that was the starting point for Vogville, and that's the same for the Day & Night festival. Dave Webber from WebberVision has been absolutely amazing in treating the look and feel of the festival with all of the design work and he also came up with the Vogville logo years ago. Cole McKinnon was really intrumental in working with me in finding artists to play and he's really connected and he's really ambitious. Also, having Sarah Goodman from Vancity Goods to garnish sponsorships has been fantastic.

YT: You credit your father - shoe designer John Fluevog - for instilling in you the ambition to do what you do. What memories growing up really stick out as having shaped your work ethic?
JF: I think the biggest is always knowing that my dad had more fame than fortune, and no matter how close he came to closing shop and going broke, he's never given up. He hasn't always had this business that's been amazing and profitable. Most of my youth, I remember him struggling. So it's a lot like this festival. It's a big risk for a lot of people and it's not going to make money for me. My father has always taken large risks. When everyone says, "You need to do shoes that are more contemporary and not as unique," my Dad says, "You know, Jonathan, I think I'm going to do some even crazier shoes!"

YT: You say one of your goals right from the start was to focus on the quality of music production ahead of a acquiring a star-studded roster. Do you feel like that's something that's absent from a lot of producer's mindsets in the industry nowadays?
JF: Well, I always knew that if you're doing work that stands out, it's going to get noticed. Of course there's a lot of other factors, but essentially, the seed of that thought is what helps set you apart. Right now, I can't say we have a real lack of focus on quality with producers. We have some amazing producers in our community. Working in my studio even is Paul Shatto, who's worked on seven No. 1 hits in the country in the last year that's come out of Vogville. Then we have Warne Livesey that was in with the Matthew Good record for the past seven weeks. So we have a lot of people doing a lot of really good work, so I can't really generalize it and say people aren't doing great work.

 

YT: What do you feel sets Vogville Recording apart from other recording studios in the area and has given it the distinction of being ranked among one of Vancouver's finest studios?
JF: Anyone can buy a grizzly amount of gear and start a studio. What makes it unique is the people behind the gear and how they feel when they're in the studio. Vogville is home to so many engineers and producers in our community. From country to metal to ska from rock to pop to industrial music, we have a lot of diversity. The studio itself has a truly unique vibe, from Victorian upholstery to Indian rugs. It's a place where if you took away the gear, you could really spend an evening with friends and just have a great time there and that's different. When you walk into Vogville, you're walking into a place you can make your own, so you're the star, not the studio.

 

YT: How does it feel to be recognized as BC Country Music Association’s 2010 Studio of the Year?

JF: It was absolutely amazing! I had no idea the studio would win over studios that have been around much longer and are worth a lot more money. Like I said, I started with a $30,000 loan and the studio didn't happen over night. It's taken years to build it piece by piece to what it is today. To win that award truly meant a lot to me and my wife, who's always believed in me and always been behind me no matter how broke we've been. It's truly meant a lot to producers and engineers who have been working out of the studio too because they're able to go around and tell everybody Vogville's a great studio and that the owner really takes care of business. It doesn't have the prestige level of the other studios and it never has, so the award was a really validating moment for me. 

YT: After the launch of the Vogville's Day & Night festival, what do you see as the next step in expanding Vogville Recording in the areas of musical events and artist management?
JF: The Day & Night Festival is really the starting point for a lot of things Vogville. I currently manage a band called The Light Machines, and I'm looking at adding more bands to my roster for that. I'm also working on a film that will document The Light Machines for three years. It'll be really interesting to follow them and see what happens. What I'm going to be doing coming up is putting on a monthly show that's gonna feature three local artists, and that's going to be in various venues around town, and the first one is going to be premiering in the first segment of the documentary on The Light Machines.
The other thing I'm going to be doing coming up is a one day, one song kind of idea, where a band will come out to Vogville with a film crew and we'll film them recording in one day, one song, from top to bottom. During that time, the band will also be interviewed. The band will just talk about what's going on. I'm also going to have their management out there, and their producer, publicist and booking agent, and we'll have these people talk a little bit about the band and what they do. A lot of people have an idea that just because a band's talented, they just get out and that's how you know about them, but this whole team behind them is the only reason most people know about most bands. So that's really what I want to do.

 


For more information on Vogville Recording or Vogville's Day & Night Festival go to www.vogville.com/. Tickets for the Festival are available in store at Zulu, Scratch, Neptoon and Red Cat record stores. To find out how to get involved with Quest Outreach food exchange - an organization dedicated to assisting low-income indivduals with access to low-cost groceries - visit www.questoutreach.com