Modest Music Festival transforms downtown Moscow

Downtown Moscow transformed this weekend.

Main Street’s local businesses opened their doors to 40-plus artists this weekend for Modest Music Festival, allowing shops like Humble Burger, Bitterroot Tattoo, BookPeople of Moscow and more to transform into concert venues in just a few short hours.

Nate Wolff, Humble Burger owner and creator of ModFest, was a large part of this transformation.

Wolff said he had always wanted to create a music venue hybrid and it came true when he opened Humble Burger’s storefront with his wife, Hannah Wolff, and their friend Chris Aberle in 2015.

But Wolff still wanted more. In 2017 he decided to try his hand at a music festival, creating ModFest.

ICYMI: Modest Music Festival: Visualizing the artists

“I just really have always enjoyed watching live music — at this point, it’s something that’s a part of me — and it’s something that I would like to try and share with as many people as possible,” Wolff said. “Just because I think some of the more transformative experiences I’ve ever had have been watching somebody perform music.”

As the music was a transformative experience for Wolff, he said he wants the spaces to transform as well, with a quick setup and using what each space had to offer was important to Wolff.

Though not originally from the area, he has called Moscow his home for over a decade and wanted to make sure he kept Moscow in mind when creating ModFest.

Moscow is a home base for many of the artists — Bart Budwig, production manager for ModFest, is one of those artists.

Many of the businesses he’s frequented have hosted artists and Budwig has a personal relationship with many of them.

“There are local owners who let us take over their space for the community to represent different styles of music and different styles of businesses downtown,” Budwig said. “It means a lot having those interactions between local businesses.”

Wolff has known Budwig since he was 18 years old but they didn’t become close until recently.

Tristen Suquet, a Mikey’s Greek Gyros employee who worked ModFest, said the festival brings the community together and provides an opportunity for those in the community to meet people they otherwise might not have.

One of Book People of Moscow owners and manager, Carol Price, said Modfest is an opportunity to showcase different types of artistic talent.

“It’s just a good way to show support for creative endeavors in this community,” Price said. “That’s one of the things that makes Moscow such an awesome place is all the creativity, it’s a great place to be a writer or musician.”

While Price and other business owners were not involved in the selection process of the artists, Price said she supports the opportunity to showcase the talent.

“I wish I could talk about the bands, but I know nothing about them,” Price said. “I don’t know if it would be music I would enjoy, but it doesn’t matter because I feel the same about music as I do about literature, is that it takes all kinds of it and it’s important to have a really diverse amount of music. The more types and the more variety the better and everyone deserves to find their audience and I’m excited to be a part of that.”

Wolff said plans for ModFest include more visual art in the future.

The festival started to dabble in that area this year, with the readings at Book People and the handmade music stages backdrops.

Josie Spain, shop assistant at Bitterroot Tattoo, has helped coordinate ModFest at Bitterroot with the support of the owners because both experiences — a tattoo and a show — are art making and they want Bitterroot to be space for that community.

“We host shows kind of often,” Spain said. “The only tricky thing is it’s a tattoo shop, so you have to keep everything really sterile.”

Spain said she makes sure to move equipment out of the way and just keeping things safe and clean. Each year Bitterroot has had a tradition of metal/punk shows, which means watching out for moshing and beer.

“I have a lot of enthusiasm for any creative activities in town,” Price said. “Whether it be music, art, dance or anything like that. I try to do whatever I can to support those activities and those people.”

A large part of how bands are chosen per location is just scheduling, Wolff said.

Because many of the artists help with sound or are in another band, Wolff said he has to find a way to make that all work.

It takes a lot of planning too, as he said he already began planning next year’s ModFest — a month ago.

“I listened to all the bands that play. So, I like to try and figure out what’s going to actually work with the space, and what’s going to be most enjoyable for everybody,” Wolff said. “Both for the artists who are going to play there, and then also for the folks that are going to watch them and listen to them.”

Price said it is important to for creative events to bring in revenue to a town like Moscow.

“I know that people don’t think there’s a lot of economic activity associated with creative stuff, but it’s actually a huge economic driver in our community and in lots of communities, lots of rural communities,” Price said. “I don’t consider us rural, we’re a small college town in a rural part of the country, and the economic activity generated by artists is really important for rural economic development.”

But for Spain at Bitterroot Tattoo, it’s not about the money. ModFest can bring in more attraction and people who haven’t seen the space before, but they feel that it’s a part of their job to offer a space within the community.

While each business sells different things at their shops during ModFest, none of them get paid for offering up their space and it is done fully on a volunteer basis.

ICYMI: Sculptures of sound reside in the Prichard

Places like Mikey’s only sold local beer during the festival to keep revenue to local business.

Without the business, ModFest wouldn’t be able to work the way it does. Wolff said he relies heavily on volunteer support, not only from the business but for the setup of the show. Wolff has volunteer crews that come in and help set up each space a few hours before the show.

Each venue had a sound tech and stage manager and if there is a major issue at a location, then it falls onto the stage manager.

“That’s the thing I love is we have crews at all of the venues and there’s just like this flurry of activity,” Wolff said. “And then once things get going, it’s amazing how few issues we actually have.”

These businesses have their own schedule along with ModFest and Wolff does his best to respect each business schedule, while places like Mikey’s are still in the middle of dinner, ModFest has volunteer crews who can come and do the setup work for the shows.

And when problems do arise, the community helps them figure things out. This year Bitterroot ended up having a non-reschedulable tattoo appointment and Storm Cellar took over for them that day.

ModFest wouldn’t be possible without the volunteers who put it on, Budwig said. The joint effort put on by businesses and community members are what strengthens the appeal for the festival, Budwig said.

“This festival really happens because everyone agreed to make it happen,” Budwig said. “It’s beautiful. Because it’s not like a rich person or something that came in and wanted to make it happen. I’m really thankful for the bands, the volunteers and the businesses for putting this on for the community.”

Alex Brizee and Nicole Hindberg can be reached at [email protected]