Edge Fest V: Back from the edge

The biggest surprise for Saturday’s fifth annual Edge Fest isn’t the Blue Mouse Theatre reunion, or that an artist from notable independent label Barsuk Records is on the bill.

It’s that the daylong music festival, which shakes the Yakima Valley Community College courtyard each June, is happening at all.

“There was a lot of surprise,” says 22-year-old Donovon Walton, YVCC Associated Student Body co-director for student programs and coordinator for this year’s Edge Fest.

“No one expected it to happen.”

Walton won’t necessarily say it was guilt that forced him to take over Edge Fest — “I don’t think it was that bad,” the soft-spoken Walton says with a smile — but there definitely was pressure to keep the popular event going after festival founder Jeff Murray left for college in Spokane.

So Walton did, with the help of several phone calls to Murray, who will be back to visit, and volunteer, this weekend.

Edge Fest runs from 1 p.m. to midnight Saturday and features local and regional punk, metal (a lot of metal), indie-rock, hip-hop and folk (much more than years past) bands playing on two alternating stages. Admission is $10, or $5 with at least three nonperishable food donations for the Northwest Harvest food bank. Monetary proceeds will go to help bring two women from Afghanistan to study at YVCC.

Returning to Edge Fest are Shook Ones, Adipose, Chokeout, Colin Spring, With A Bullet, Typical Ace, Grey Fox, The Lonely Forest, Behold, SadistiK with DJ Dominic, and perennial Edge Fest favorite Thee Letting Forth of Fire.

However, absent this year are longtime Edge Festers Feverclub (formerly The Look) and Optimus Rhyme. Feverclub had to cancel because of a scheduling issue; Optimus Rhyme is on a break while band members explore other projects.

Also, Thee Letting Forth of Fire won’t be closing out the festival as the experi-metal ensemble traditionally does. This year’s final spot is being filled by the reunion of Blue Mouse Theatre. (Not that there are probably any hard feelings. The two bands go way back and even split an EP.)

After jokingly mentioning a reunion show, Blue Mouse Theatre, the former Ellensburg metal band that often played The Zone and even the inaugural Edge Fest, sent an e-mail via Edge Fest’s MySpace asking to play this year’s festival.

“Of course, I had no idea who they were,” says Walton, who moved to Yakima just a year ago.

But Murray still has access to the Edge Fest MySpace, “and within a day I got a phone call from Jeff saying, ‘Book Blue Mouse, book Blue Mouse,’” says Walton.

While the reunion began as sort of a lark, now that the band has a gig and has been practicing, this might not just be a one-night-only thing.

“It’s really hard to tell,” says vocalist B.J. Kooy, who will also be playing bass. “We’ll probably enjoy it so much we might do it again.”

Newbies to the Edge Fest stages this year are locals Bad Habit, Fourth & Forever, Makings of a Massacre and Chad Bault, as well as Ellensburg’s Mon Marie and Seattle’s Guns of Nevada.

“I tried to mix it up as much as I could to appeal to a wide range of people,” says Walton, who received more than 60 requests from bands looking to play this year.

“As we got closer, they just started pouring in,” he says.

The latest addition is Seattle indie-folk singer-songwriter Rocky Votolato, who’s signed to Barsuk Records, the Seattle label that’s put out albums by the likes of Death Cab for Cutie, The Long Winters, Nada Surf, Viva Voce and What Made Milwaukee Famous.

Votolato’s latest effort, “The Brag & Cuss,” is a beautifully melancholy album with an alt-country tinge and tales of rough crowds, drinking, lovin’ and lonely highways.

Now paid for out of the YVCC Associated Student Body programming budget, Edge Fest was founded in 2004 by Murray, then a wild-haired 19-year-old YVCC student who simply wanted to throw a rock show that would benefit the Northwest Harvest food bank — and, perhaps, earn him a few cool points. He named it for 88.5-FM The Edge, the YV Tech radio station where he was then student general manager.

In that first year, Murray cobbled together eight local and regional bands ranging from hip-hop to jazz, Christian metal and emo, all playing on a wobbly stage.

In Murray’s opinion, it was terrible, but the good reviews kept rolling in. The next year he secured funds from YVCC and focused all his energy on Edge Fest, which expanded to include more than 20 acts on two alternating stages, similar to the Vans Warped Tour setup.

It drew about 800 music fans, brought in more than 1,000 pounds of food for the food bank and cemented itself as an early summer tradition committed to the spirit of independent music and the community built around it.

But as Murray headed off to Whitworth College in Spokane, the future of Edge Fest seemed bleak.

Enter Walton, a noticeable figure on YVCC’s campus with his long dreadlocks and multiple piercings.

Edge Fest was the first cool event he remembers going to when he moved here from The Dalles, Ore.

“It was pretty much like, I can’t let this stop,” he says.

So he didn’t. And there’s already a potential organizer for next year’s festival.

“We’re really trying to keep the legacy going,” says Walton.

* Find links to the bands playing this year’s Edge Fest and pictures from last year’s event at on.yakimablogs.com/music.