The first thing you notice is the clouds.
Hand-cut, cardboard shapes with still-rough edges dangle above The Crocodile’s main stage, hovering just above an array of instruments, amps, and lighting rigging. If you look close enough, you can just make out the zip-ties securing the whole thing together. It’s a peculiar sight, seeing something so DIY, so purely the product of human design above a platform that, at one point in time, held the likes of Nirvana, Mudhoney, and Yoko Ono (at the old campus, that is).
Yet this very juxtaposition is what defined the second installment of Belltown Bloom, a handmade, hand-cut, labor-of-love spectacular that combined Seattle’s DIY music culture with mainstream production value. The two-day festival — organized by La Fonda frontwomen Valerie and Veronica Topacio (for more on the Topacio sisters, check out this interview I did here) and produced by GiiiRLBAND Productions — kicked off the month of May with performances by over forty local and national female and QTBIPOC musicians.
The choice to include so many artists in such a short timeframe proved to be both a blessing and a curse. On one hand, such a variety meant that the likelihood of finding something that fits your tastes at any given time was pretty high. On the other hand, constantly dashing between The Crocodile complex and Belltown Yacht Club made it virtually impossible to make it to every set (and trust me, I tried). But it really didn’t matter all too much. You could plant yourself down at any given stage and be treated to an insanely good performance. In my time rushing between the stages, I caught quite a few sets, ranging from haunting harmonies (Ariana DeBoo, The Apricots, Maiah Manser) to echoey ambiance (Crumb, Power Strip), from singer-songwriter (Billie Marten, Avery Cochrane, Mia Day) to pure, bad-bitch rock (Biblioteka, Lemon Boy) along with pop masterpieces that I could easily be convinced were off the Top 40 charts (Instant Crush, La Fonda).
But it wasn’t the versatility of genres, nor the sheer number of performers that drew me to Belltown Bloom. Very rare are the opportunities where musicians of color and nonmale musicians are at the forefront of the scene, especially in a place that popularized the white dad-rock grunge band (despite Seattle having a very prominent history of Black music and culture, everyone likes to just collectively forget this part). Yet here was a bill made up entirely of underrepresented voices, presented in a way that didn’t boast about how it stands out in the scene, but rather how it celebrates community. This was a carefully curated event designed to give QTBIPOC artists a platform, to have their music heard and appreciated without being tokenized.
There were still a handful of incidents involving entitled men that I witnessed — one particularly prickly sound guy dismissed a female guitarist’s concerns about her sound levels (it only took about thirty seconds into the performance to realize she was quite obviously right), and another middle-aged male showgoer rubbed both of my shoulders with his hands as he slid by me during Crumb’s mainstage performance (a woman standing behind me witnessed the event, mouthing “Seriously?” and shaking her head as a sign of support). But those were the outliers. It was nothing compared to the typical female experience at a DIY Seattle rock show, where you might be quizzed on whether or not you should be there based on how actually into music you are, or risk being groped because you wanted to express yourself with your clothing. This was a safe space.
If Belltown Bloom is remembered as anything, I want it to be that. That the team behind this festival successfully created a space where underrepresented voices could not only be heard but exist comfortably as well. This was something the community had been needing for a while.
And I for one can’t wait for next year.