New festival aims to revive an all-ages, underground music scene in Anchorage

On the darkest day of the year, hundreds of people are expected to celebrate at an all-ages underground music festival in downtown Anchorage this Friday and Saturday.

The festival, aptly named Dark Daze, will feature 24 mostly local bands, about a dozen Alaska artists and an opportunity for people to find community and celebrate alternative music amid Alaska’s waning daylight hours, said the event’s co-organizer, Anchorage musician Deven Lind.

“This week is typically one of the worst weeks for people in Alaska, just because we get 3 1/2 hours of sun a day. You go to work, it’s dark. You get out of work, it’s dark,” said Lind, a member of the rock band SunDog. “With Dark Daze, (we) aim to reclaim that, make it something that can be celebrated, something fun and community-driven.”

His band’s label, Dog Yard Records, is producing the event at a new Anchorage venue called Club Nyt Lyt on Fifth Avenue. The event will be alcohol-free, and staffed with a safety team trained in de-escalation.

The festival’s aim is twofold. First, it’s part of a larger effort to bring back all-ages music spaces like those that Lind, 27, grew up with in Anchorage.

“When I came up … there were options for bands (and attendees) under the age of 21 to play,” he said, listing off since-shuttered venues, including Anchorage Community Works at Ship Creek, and the Fiesta Room near First Avenue. Other age-inclusive, dry venues closed even earlier. In 1998, a popular all-ages music venue called Gig’s Music Theatre closed in downtown Anchorage. Anchorage teens at the time told news reporters that Gig’s was the only place for them to go, and without it, they had lost a major social outlet.

As age-unrestricted venues in Anchorage have become endangered in the last decade, Lind said he’s been inspired to recreate the community spaces of his youth. He’s also doing it when the help of 17-year-old event co-organizer Robbie Raychel, who said the desire for music spaces that welcome teens in Anchorage is huge.

“People my age, and under 21, there’s definitely a thirst for shows,” Raychel said in a phone interview after a calculus final.

He grew up with his father’s live music scene in Fairbanks, and when he couldn’t find the same spaces in Anchorage, he started reaching out to venues to create it. That’s how Raychel partnered with Dog Yard. “Every couple of months, there’s a basement show or something. But nothing consistent, like a big party everyone is invited to.”

Raychel said people his age are hyped for Dark Daze. Organizers are expecting 500 people each night, with a large margin of those folks in the 16-21 age group, Lind said.

“I think this is going to be something that’s going to stick around for a while,” Raychel said of Dark Daze.

Dark Daze organizers said they hope to infuse venues with the “hardcore punk” alternative music scene that doesn’t otherwise find an easy home in Alaska.

Metal, hard rock and indie musicians who blend genres generally represent a small portion of performers at Alaska music festivals, rather than a critical mass, Lind said. Dark Daze hopes to flip the script on that.

“You’re not going to see Heel at Salmonfest,” Lind said. “You’re not going to see Veiled Morbidity at the Girdwood Forest Fair. Setting up an experience for people to go experience these types of genres is very important. It’s about making music … that is spontaneous and experimental and fun, versus making music because there’s a set of rules.”

Two bands will be traveling up from Juneau: The Rain Dogs, a band that defines their genre as “sad girl pop punk,” and Radiophonic Jazz, a Black and Tlingit hip-hop duo.

Some bigger performers include Anchorage “hometown heroes” Animal Eyes, a psychedelic rock band who relocated to Portland years ago, and Medium Build by Nick Carpenter, an indie pop musician who got his start in Anchorage in 2016.

Carpenter — who moved to Anchorage when he was 18 and experienced the limitations of a music scene largely relegated to bars and basements — said that Dark Daze might be some Alaska kids’ first time hearing experimental music that defies genre.

“When I first moved to Anchorage, it was like you were either in a folky sort of train hoppin’ band, or you were in, like, a metal punk band,” Carpenter said. “There were a lot of people in this middle ground making softer music, but they didn’t really fit into any of the scenes in Anchorage. If you can go experience somebody doing some funky-ass music that you’ve never heard, your life is better for it.”

Organizers are hoping that by removing age restrictions and alcohol from the event, they can re-center the focus on the heart of alternative shows: the community they’re built upon, and the music.

“Everyone has more fun when you go to a show to hear music,” Lind said.

There will also about a dozen local vendors selling their art at the venue, including Raychel’s upcycled clothing he makes at AK Scribble Skrat.

“As an artist and a small-business owner, I wanted to merge these two communities together,” Raychel said. “So I started reaching out to other artists, and now we have a little artist alley market that’s going to be set up at the show at the same time.”

On the whole, the Dark Daze music festival is about celebrating the darkness, but also the light.

“It’s the victory of like, you made it through the darkest days, and now we’re going into hope,” Carpenter said. “The sun is coming back. January can be grim, but you know that tomorrow is a longer day than it was yesterday.”

For tickets to Dark Daze, visit darkdazemusicfest.com. Tickets range from $35-$45, and the shows start at 6 p.m. Friday and 2 p.m. Saturday.