CHUMS Band Together for Fest

"We figured out that if we started a club, we could take advantage of University resources," said senior Jeff Bollinger, who, with junior Ben Rogerson, helped CHUMS become an official student organization last spring.

CHUMS is sponsoring its first event tonight, an eight-band benefit festival at Go! Studios featuring hard-core rock acts.

The show is part of this weekend's Students United for a Responsible Global Environment Conference, and proceeds from it will benefit the Student Environmental Action Coalition.

Rogerson and Bollinger began planning a music festival last semester, but after encountering the red tape involved with using a University facility looked to local clubs instead.

"I pretty much spent the entire summer trying to get bands to play," Bollinger said, mainly through e-mails, the CHUMS Web site and Internet postings. "We did a kind of open call for demos to give us a better gauge of what's going on in underground music."

"We tried to get in contact with a lot of the big bands from the Southeast hard-core scene, with varying degrees of success," Rogerson said.

In the end, CHUMS enlisted eight bands from five states, including Washington, California, Virginia, South Carolina and Florida. The headlining band, Washington's Botch, is "pretty popular, as far as metal bands go," Rogerson said.

Other bands include Waifle, Submerge, the Killingtons, the Disease, Measured in Grey and the Victoria Principal.

They all fall into what Bollinger defines as underground music - "stuff that's typically not on major labels" - and align with CHUMS' main interest in forms of underground rock.

"Personally, most of the stuff we listen to is lots of hard-core metal and punk," said Rogerson, adding, "That definitely doesn't mean Korn or Limp Bizkit."

SEAC members will speak between acts at the benefit and distribute materials relating to their causes.

The event shares some values with SEAC and SURGE, Rogerson said, citing Botch, a vegan band.

"The principles behind most of the bands and most of the people who go to these shows coincide with SEAC and SURGE. They just listen to Phish and we don't," he said.

After paying the venue and transportation expenses for most of the bands, the rest of the proceeds the event earns will go to SEAC.

"We just figured that if we're going to have this giant fest, it would be best to benefit someone," Bollinger said.

While Bollinger said a few people have expressed interest in joining CHUMS' ranks, for now just he and Rogerson are running the show.

"There's a small population that's interested in the same music we are, and we'd like to get to know them," he said.

And if this event goes well, both said, CHUMS will look into sponsoring more in the future.

"The success of this one will determine how many more activities we do," Rogerson said. "We'd be really open to trying to do another show or benefit in the spring, but that's all depending on how this goes."

The Chapel Hill Fest to benefit SEAC will be held tonight at Go! Studios. Tickets are $8. For more information, visit http://www.unc.edu/student/orgs/chums.

The Arts & Entertainment Editor can be reached at artsdesk@unc.edu.