This Friday, April 17th at 5:00 pm, fourth-year Bix Weissberg is putting on Bixfest, one of the most ambitious student-run musical events in recent Oberlin memory. “Bixfest is an apocalyptic union of musicians from across the Obie-sphere. They’re united for one common purpose: to celebrate ME.”
On a breezy Monday afternoon, I sat down on the side steps of Talcott for a banter-filled interview with Weissberg that was just as tongue-in-cheek as the concept for Bixfest itself. For his 22nd birthday, Weissberg has assembled a diverse array of musical acts to play at his house from 5:00 pm to 5:00 am. The program includes plenty of DJs, folk groups, indie and punk bands, as well as more chameleonic acts such as Clio3, the jazz-hyperpop-rap fusion project of jazz piano major Clio Grant. “This is going to be outstanding act after outstanding act of a musical caliber that hasn’t yet been featured on this side of the Mississippi. Part of the beauty at the heart of Bixfest is that neither I nor anyone involved really know half of the artists playing. I know them personally, but I don’t know what kind of act they’re going to put on.”
More outlandish picks for a house show include the Arts and Sciences Chamber Collective performing Brahms, as well as ’Round Midnight, Oberlin’s jazz and folk a cappella group. Ironically, ’Round Midnight will be playing ’round 8:00, assuming that the festival runs on schedule, which it almost certainly won’t. “I was intent on getting an a cappella troupe to perform because I’d like to juxtapose the wholesomeness of their act with a more gritty one, which is why they’re being followed up by False Spring. You never thought you’d see False Spring again. If the ghost of Owen Neaman makes an appearance, that’d be funny, but they’re probably subbing him with some other guitarist. I mean, what’s an Oberlin concert without a little False Spring?”
After False Spring’s set at 8:30, Bixfest will move from Weissberg’s yard into his house, as to decrease the likelihood of the cops shutting the party down. He estimates that there’s a 40% chance that one of his neighbors contacts the Oberlin Police Department or Campus Safety, though he’s “talked to each of them individually,” and is doing his best “to establish cordial relations so that they’ll find reason to tolerate the noise to a certain extent, and if they do have a problem, they’ll come to us instead of calling the cops.”
After the last DJ set, Weissberg will perform the “Bixie closing set,” a two-and-a-half hour multimedia performance art piece, featuring “a lot of smells” and “a lot of jumping and not much else.”
Weissberg came up with the idea for Bixfest after wanting to have a collaborative concert between the Obertones and his punk band Waste, for the same reason that False Spring are playing right after ’Round Midnight at Bixfest. Waste wasn’t available to play, but he wanted to host a similar event. His birthday was coming up, and the more he thought about it, the more he realized, “what is a birthday except a chance to be outrageously egotistical, ridiculously self-centered, to direct everyone to do or to enjoy an activity that you want to put on? I’m not going to sit here and pretend like my birthday is just going to be some occasion for the general masses. It’s for me, put on by me, for my enjoyment.”
When he’s more serious, Weissberg gets to the heart of why Bixfest is the way it is, before dipping right back into hyperbole. “I like to juxtapose acts. My goal is to put on a concert highlighting the diversity of acts here, and to have it run smoothly. My hope is that this event will live in infamy, and that Bixfest will continue to be held ten, twenty years from now, when I’m long gone. I’m about to graduate, and there’s a first year named Bix, the only other Bix I’ve met in my life. I secretly hope that they will be inspired by my effort, and that they will host Bixfest for the coming couple years, and that the cycle will repeat with more Bixs.”
There’s a decent chance that the show gets preemptively shut down, and it’s all but guaranteed with the number of transitions between acts that the festival will be running far behind schedule, but Weissberg is “trying to lean into the chaos, and embrace the uncertainty of the whole event.”
Weissberg asks me to film him doing a skateboard trick to be included with the preview, and I happily oblige. Before I start recording, he knocks over a glass mug, which shatters on the pavement. We stand silent for a moment, then he shrugs it off, fails his first attempt at the trick, fails again, then gets it good enough on the third try. It’s emblematic of the spirit of Bixfest, and ultimately, Weissberg himself.
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