I am Matt Thomas.

Zewtopia the Damned

April 24, 2007

There’s an interesting article in this week’s Lagniappe reporting that the company behind the recently-cancelled Zewtopia music festival in Mobile had more than just a checkered past—Langiappe writes:

When SoundStage Live first began promoting in the Port City, an anonymous e-mail circulated with a link to a 2004 St. Petersburg Times story outlining Giglio’s checkered past, which includes numerous arrests and stint in state prison in Florida. The story says Giglio “has been arrested two dozen times since 1993, mostly for crimes involving misappropriation of money. He has been fingerprinted for worthless checks, grand theft, forgery and credit card fraud in courtrooms from Pinellas to Hillsborough to Orange County, where judges ordered him to pay restitution in the tens of thousands of dollars.”

I am a fan of 92 WZEW—although their format sometimes drives me crazy, combining (good) alt rock and indie rock, including many bands otherwise-unheard on Mobile radio, with (terrible, overplayed) jam bands like Widespread Panic and their clones. I desperately want to see more good live music come to Mobile. However, I’ll readily admit I didn’t buy tickets to Zewtopia—just reading the band lineup bored me to tears. While there were a few interesting smaller acts scheduled to play, the “big names”—Gov’t Mule, Blue October, Little Feat, are bands I wouldn’t go see live if someone were paying me. Apparently, a majority of people agreed; despite bringing in over 3,000 attendees last year, this year’s festival had sold less than 1,000 tickets. That, combined with a beyond-shady producer, pretty much doomed this music festival from the beginning.

Here’s hoping that the Zew shakes it off and tries again next year—with better bands and an honest production company.