Ypsi bands’ reverence for Hamtramck, “sweaty, sardine-packed” dive bars and the spontaneous/mischievous Blowout Music Festival..

This is the music scene’s spring training, their opening day and world series rolled into one keyed-up goose case of a music festival. This, the largest local music festival in the nation, heats Hamtramck into a hotbed of zigzagging MusicHead trick-or-treaters, shuffling over typically-icy and pot-holed terrain, filling up on marked-up watery beer and checking off their “must-see” lists of bands from amongst the hundreds of performers slated and set into more than a dozen different venues.

Blowout. (Line up and schedule info here http://www2.metrotimes.com/blowout/default.asp)

Ypsilanti and Ann Arbor have their own big Summer Festival(s), along with Ypsi Fest, Mittenfest, Totally Awesome Fest and the occasional YpsiFlea hootenannies – but how do Washtenaw’s music members feel about (or prepare for) this Detroit-hosted shindig?

Ypsi’s Matt Jones (http://www.myspace.com/mattspainting) doesn’t hold back: “I am absolutely in love with the Blowout.” But, he quickly elaborates, “Mostly because I am in love with hamtrammck…whether I know how to spell hamtrammck is another matter.”

If approached and navigated effectively by the ambitious music fan, Jones said, “Blowout can thus be a completely enchanting experience…”

“Walking down all those darkened streets to the really sort-of-out-of-the-way spots…” one not only gets the chance to see some fresh, highly talented and unexpected new favorite bands, “but you get to see a lot of the regulars of that town’s bar scene, meet the staff, hang with 65-year-old dudes and ladies in the back room having pool tournaments, who probably come there every night of the week and can’t figure out why the place is so jammed all of a sudden with kids with mustaches and ‘50’s era spectacles…”

Something like that is refreshingly (if weirdly) endearing. “And,” said Jones, “it’s nothing like we get in Ypsi…”

For this writer, singer/songwriter Timothy Monger (of Great Lakes Myth Society and Timothy Monger State Park – http://timothymonger.com/) puts it best… (and how could he not, after gigging 11 out of previous 14-to-date-Blowout-hostings), when he said that, unlike most festivals, this one “feels really spontaneous and mischievous.”

One year, for Monger, GLMS’ slot fell on his (and brother Jamie’s) mother’s birthday – and it happily “turned into this epic family pub crawl…” Adding: “Each venue is an adventure.”

Tipsy traveling from narrow block to block aside, there’s sonic adventures to be had by just standing in one spot, in any venue, as any one night’s span of entertainment can run the gamut of styles. Singer/songwriter Misty Lyn Bergeron (of The Big Beautiful – http://mistylyn.bandcamp.com/) notes: “…my favorite part is that they seem to pay no attention at all to genre—when booking bands together in a venue.” (Each venue, a dozen or more, hosts four-bands-per-night, for five straight evenings).

Misty and the Big Beautiful, one year, played with Johnny Headband (http://johnnyheadband.com/) and Cuddleslut (http://www.myspace.com/xcuddleslutx ) (the former rocking synths and tearing off shirts, the latter sporting tutus, while covered in blood). “…and the crowd was just as colorful,” said Bergeron.

From Jones perspective, its confounding (and again, refreshing) to see how many people are out and into it, packed into venue to venue, while in Ypsi, he feels, bands can often receive the same crowds. “Honestly,” he says, “I dream of getting some more Detroit peeps out to the shows, here…”)

Exuding his characteristic charm, Jones incants, “I love the dive bars…” and how fun it is to see them packed. “I always fantasize about playing dive bars, packed to the gills. That’s harder to do in reality. Playing is one thing. Getting the three people in (those dive bars) is another.”

But Blowout is not quite reality. “I set up in a space as big as my living room,” says Jones, “and the place is stuffed with people, up in your face, beer all over the place, drunks tripping all over your cables, trying to get to the bathroom…which, in some venues, is charmingly located behind the stage…, and you push your way through… You either take the whole package and love all of it (not to mention the shitty soggy snowballs pelting you from the doorways of the Belmont) or you gotta stay home.”

For most, it seems the biggest draw is the curious charisma of Hamtramck. “A great, weird city,” Monger says, “very essential to Michigan with a spirited and bizarre citizenry of urban bohemians, grizzled U.P.-esque characters and other wonderful types…that I just don’t get to hang out with in Washtenaw or Lenawee.”

“I got nothing but love for the Blowout,” said Bergeron. “So what if they dind’t let me play last year?”

For singer/songwriter Anthony Gentile (of JWPP – http://www.reverbnation.com/jwpp), its something he looks forward to, whether or not his band is booked. The bearded sparkplug is fronting a new group, Lizerrd (http://www.facebook.com/Lizerrd), who made it onto the line up, while JWPP did not. That ain’t no thing, Gentile muses, staying sensitive to (and, as always, maintaining thick solidarity with): the numerous other bands that didn’t make it.

Miffed is one word that would put it lightly – and anyone scrolling Facebook updates could see that these spots are, if nothing else, coveted. Maybe it’s just for the recognition, or maybe it’s for the hopes that this will break your band…(rather, I mean that as, your band’s big break…)

Did you make it? Not make it? It’s a source of tension and awkwardness, swagger and spite. For younger up-and-coming bands, Gentile said, this can be “real validation,” while for the sophomores of the scene its just another badge of honor. But, having curated the Ypsi Fest for half a dozen years, Gentile has particular empathy for the organizers/promoters of this behemoth, knowing that handling something like this has to, at the end of the day, “take real passion.”

If one of his bands made it and the other did not…it doesn’t mean one ends or gets disavowed – “Both bands move on regardless…”

Just like every opening day, every world series, “…there’s always next year.”

Line up here – http://www2.metrotimes.com/blowout