The days are longer, the air is warmer, and the pollen is proliferating, so you know what that means: festival season is upon us. In the coming months, people will be traveling out-of-state to festivals like Coachella, Bonnaroo, Lollapalooza, maybe even Furnace Fest. But let’s face it, traveling is hectic and weekend festival passes are expensive. What if you could see amazing local and regional artists performing right in your own backyard?
Wonder no longer, because Couch Fest, the alternative music and arts festival created to cultivate and expand relationships between Mississippi creatives and our regional neighbors, is returning for its fourth year on Saturday, April 19th. While it won’t be in your backyard, per se, it will be in the backyard of Urban Foxes from noon until 10pm. This year’s lineup features bands from right here in Jacktown (as well as elsewhere in Mississippi), Alabama, Louisiana, Tennessee, and Missouri, as well as local artists and writers – including your old pal here at JXN UNDERGROUND – selling their wares. There is also a pre-party Friday, April 18th.
Recently, I spoke to Greg Moorman, one of the festival’s organizers and guitarist for Jackson band Surfwax, to get the history on Jackson’s best kept secret.
Couch Fest started as a way to bring together the bands Surfwax toured with following a regional tour in 2022. “We saw it as a way to grow
the regional scene and maybe encourage more people to come through Jackson in the future,” Greg said of CF1, “And it’s still kind of that same mentality, really.” After a bigger tour and more friends made along the way the following year, CF2 came together. “[That] is when things really clicked. It featured a much bigger lineup of bands and artists and was the first to take place in the backyard.” Since then, Greg has handled booking the bands, Seth McCan, drummer for Surfwax, handles the art pop-up, and Cody Cox, owner of Urban Foxes and the connected event venue The Heights, handles the business side.
Something that I have realized when talking to bands from Jackson is that they love to talk up their city’s music scene when touring out of state, and for good reason. It really is something special, and when out-of-towners journey down here to perform, they echo those sentiments. There’s been many occasions when I’m talking to a traveling band and they’re pleasantly astonished that there is not only an alternative music scene here, but that it is so vibrant, and Couch Fest is a reflection of that. “There’s a ton of wonderful people here I wouldn’t know if it weren’t for the fest and booking shows,” Greg said. “I just hope the bands and artists from Jackson will link up with those coming in from around the region and take their work to those scenes. We have so much talent in this city and they need to go spread their vision and creativity with our neighbors.”
Although Couch Fest has grown in attendance each year and has the potential to be a pretty big event, the organizers want to keep the homey feeling it has. “We kicked around the idea of adding a ‘big name’ to Couch Fest III and moving the fest to North St. to accommodate a larger crowd,” Greg said, “but we quickly decided that’s not what this fest is about at all and went back to the yard where we’re comfortable; we like comfortable.”
Couch Fest’s neighborhood block party vibes are also solidified with the organizers’ commitment to not charging bands or artists to be at the festival. “Our biggest thing with the art pop-up is to never charge a vendor fee,” Greg said. “We would never make a band pay to play and we’d never charge an artist to set up.” Because of that, it really has preserved the feeling that started it all: friends coming together to enjoy art and creativity.
Although the collaborative effort of putting together a festival like this is fun, it also has its challenges – chief among them being that given this is a one-day festival, there are only so many slots for bands to play in. “I hate telling people ‘no’, so we don’t really do an open-call type of thing that a lot of festivals do,” Greg explained. “With that said, if you’re reading this and have never been invited to play – message me on Instagram (@surfwaxms) about next year as soon as you’re done with this article!”
As mentioned before, this year will feature a new free pre-show in the front yard of Urban Foxes featuring locals Weakhearts from noon-1pm as well as a pre-party from 6pm-10pm featuring locals Die With Nature and Sentasia, The Narrows from Memphis, and Cody Cox as DJ DadChap spinning records. Another new feature of CF4 is the closer – in previous years, it has been Surfwax, but that spot has been given to local favorites Smokies this year – “One, because we love what they’re doing and two, because they’ve absolutely earned that spot,” Greg explained. “There’s a killer wave of young bands rising up and we want to support that in any way that we can. We hope in the future to see more bands in their early years play the fest and bring friends they’ve made throughout the region to our backyard.”
As for next year, Greg says there’s nothing they can say as of now, but that “Couch Fest V will definitely be a thing and as always, it’ll be at Urban Foxes.”
He added, “None of this would be possible without the help of volunteers, sponsors, our sound team and the local bands and artists that welcome our neighbors and those that support Couch Fest by attending and promoting the event. We’re just super stoked we get to be a part of this thing, a random text-convo with Cody while sitting on the couch at the band-house has turned into something really special.”
This year will be my first year at Couch Fest, and although I was planning on going anyways just to attend and enjoy the bands, I was very honored to be reached out to by Seth to participate in the art pop-up. I’ve never participated in a festival of any kind before, so preparing for this has been an exciting and new experience. I’ve toyed with the idea of having printed out versions of my articles as zines for some time, and now I get to do it. By the way, if you aren’t able to attend, I’ll be putting any leftovers I have in the Landmass Library, the zine distro that is situated right on the porch of Urban Foxes. Also – making zines is pretty fun. Being able to thumb through little printouts of my writing makes it feel more real than reading it on my website, somehow. Once all this is said and done, I’ll definitely be writing more.
JXN UNDERGROUND 