THIS FRIDAY, the third annual SubZERO Festival takes over South First Street in downtown San Jose, highlighting vendors, street artists, bands, art galleries, roving performers, high-tech projects, installations and yarn bombing, complete with a yoga studio, a coffeehouse and countless other cultural creators all savoring the mini–Burning Man joie de vivre from 6pm to midnight.
There will be dancers in the street, moped clubs, clowns, people on stilts, local artists hawking their wares and wears and perhaps even San Jose City Council members dining outside at Eulipia. The recent cosmetic relandscaping of South First facilitates the interconnected experience even more.
Conceived in 2008 by Anno Domini’s Brian Eder and Cherri Lakey as a subculture component for the 01SJ Art Biennial, which originally took place in June, the SubZERO of today is no longer affiliated with 01SJ (which unfolds in mid-September). It is now an offspring with an entire life of its own as part of South First Friday. Basically, instead of pouting and complaining that nothing was being done to showcase the vast array of imaginative subcultures thriving between the cracks of San Jose, Eder and Lakey conjured up a street festival to accommodate many of them and even got the city and the Downtown Association to collaborate on the convoluted quagmire of the permitting process. That said, most of the high jinks are offered up for scrutiny on the website, www.subzerofestival.com, but allow me to spill the goods on just a sample of what will go down on this action-packed evening in paradise.
Native San Jose DJ-mashup aficionados, the Bangerz, will collaborate with San Jose Taiko on a piece during Taiko’s set on the main stage. (See story on page 18.) In fact, they are probably rehearsing as you read this. Also taking the stage will be Tsigoti, who absolutely deserve your attention at 6:30pm. They combine abrasive noise-rock with kick-ass musicianship and a creepy circus piano component, all of which rivals anything Touch and Go Records released in the ’80s. Pianist Thollem McDonas, a San Jose native gone worldwide, was recently invited to record an album with Mike Watt of Minutemen and Firehose fame—a mighty fine accomplishment.
And that’s just some of the live music, only one particular element of the entire shooting match. A hodgepodge of other creative endeavors will comprise the rest. Empire Seven Studios, normally located in Japantown, will get a chance to display its stuff in one booth. Folks from the Art Ark Gallery will bring a fabricated ark featuring shadow puppets. Both of these galleries usually inhabit the outer regions of downtown, so they don’t always reap the benefits from the regular First Friday events. During this one special occasion, they will bring their operations to South First Street.
And speaking of South First, all down the length of the street—from Original Joe’s to the now 30-year-old San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art—vendors, booths and a sordid mishmash of activity will transpire for six hours. Mopedhead, a local camaraderie of beat-up moped riders whose logo is a takeoff on the band Mötörhead, will stage a beauty contest. Genevieve Hastings will display the Wondrous Traveling Trailer that she converted into a moving piece of art. It houses an interactive postcard station, suitcase sculptures with videos and more. Shorty Fatz will exhibit its custom lowrider bicycles, 100 percent handmade in San Jose. SHARE San Jose will stage an open improvisatory jam with electronic sound generators and MIDI devices—all designed for anyone who wants to jump in. There will be drawing lessons, homemade T-shirts, an improv dance troupe and more.
I won’t go as far to say there’s something for everyone—because one person last year complained that the streets were dirty—but gauging by how much the event is geared to surpass the previous hoedown, it might come closer than you think.
SubZERO Festival
June 4, 6pm–midnight
All along South First Street, San Jose
