Diversafest will offer audience wide range of musical performers

By Gene Triplett

Published: July 27, 2007

Tom Green and Angie DeVore-Green want to put Dfest on the A-list.

To that end, the husband and wife team quit their day jobs to devote full time to growing their annual gathering of local and regional bands and music trade people from a neighborhood street bash to what it will be today and Saturday — a conference of unsigned and emerging artists and big-time homegrown and national acts performing on 13 stages in downtown Tulsa's Blue Dome District.

The "D” in Dfest stands for diversity, and Diversafest — as it is formally known — is living up to its name with music ranging from alternative rock to jazz and Americana, headlined this year by the Sooner State's godfather of classic rock, Leon Russell, and Oklahoma City's own Grammy-winning dealers in 21st century pop-schizoid splendor, The Flaming Lips.

"They're ambitious, which I'm always on the side of,” Lips leader Wayne Coyne said about the Greens. "They're trying to make it about Oklahoma artists as much as they can, and about bringing people to Oklahoma and showing people that Oklahoma isn't just cowboys and Indians and football and religious fools.”

Indeed, Tom Green hopes to someday make Diversafest as big as Austin's annual South by Southwest music conference, which showcases rising stars alongside established talent and puts music industry veterans together with struggling musicians in an educational setting.

From noon to 6 p.m. today and Saturday, this official Oklahoma Centennial event will offer panel discussions, a trade show, music clinics and mentoring sessions to enlighten working musicians and fans alike, all at the Downtown Doubletree Hotel, 616 W Seventh St. By night, from 8 p.m. to who-knows-when, Dfest transforms itself into a live music festival, with artists performing on outdoor stages and in 11 club venues in the Blue Dome District, between Cincinnati and Elgin avenues on the east and west, and W First and Third streets on the north and south.

In addition to the Lips (11 tonight, main stage) and Russell (10 p.m. Saturday, main stage), tonight's bill includes such live attractions as S hiny Toy Guns, Kevin Welch, Dios (malos), Stars of Track & Field and G reen Lemon, while Saturday's lineup features The Starlight Mints, The Format, Limbeck, The Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey, MC Chris and a very young outfit from Norman (ages 11-14) called Refuje — to name a few. There are 150 acts in all, and more than 50 percent of them have Oklahoma ties.

And you can see them all for the ridiculously low price of $20 — for both days. For $150, you can see the shows and attend the conference.

"We're not trying to reinvent that (South by Southwest) wheel,” Green said. "We're just trying to make a different model that fits an unmet need. That unmet need is emerging artists. Our panels — and everything we do with those panels — is geared for the unsigned and emerging artist.”

It all started in 2001, when Tom and Angie created Dfest to help their band, Ultrafix, win the Jim Beam/Rolling Stone Magazine Best Unsigned Band Contest. They assembled a mini-festival in a downtown bar consisting of a dozen local bands, rallied support and won the contest. But suddenly, the festival idea seemed more appealing than just working in a band. Here was a chance to help other struggling musicians attract industry attention.

The event has been growing steadily since, while Ultrafix has gone by the wayside, as has Tom Green's steady government job of 10 years, which he left in 2005 to devote his full time to the development of Dfest.

"Either we really roll the dice and try to make this a nationwide event, make a real impact and really go for it, or we go home,” he said.

Angie, too, has left her old court reporting job to go to work for Flaming Lips manager Scott Booker, who has become the Greens' mentor in organizing the festival.

"We just decided we were going to be more than just a block party kind of thing, just a street festival,” she said. "If we were going to be more than a kegger, I guess, we had to step up our game.”

The Greens' dedication and enthusiasm must be catching, because no less than the Tulsa Convention and Visitors Bureau and the Oklahoma Film and Music Office are now among their sponsors, and national acts are paying attention.

"This is going to be pretty exciting,” said Alabama-bred singer-songwriter Adam Hood, who specializes in southern blues and country. "For the price, I mean golly, you can't beat it. What, like $20 to see all those bands?”

Tulsa-born pop craftsman AM, who has licensed his recordings to film and television including HBO's "The Big Love,” will perform and share his trade secrets in a panel discussion.

"I have known about this for a while and have been really excited about coming back,” the Los Angeles-based singer said. "It's huge; it's really amazing. I actually played with The Flaming Lips at the Voodoo Festival in New Orleans in October, and I met and hung out with those guys. They're just the coolest guys. They're my favorite contemporary band. You should put that in the article, because they need to know that I'm a fan.”

Lips fans with a lot of extra spending money can also go on eBay and bid on the "UFO couch,” a custom furniture piece designed by Oklahoma artist Hugh Meade as a tribute to the band. Its vinyl upholstery design depicts an eclipse of alien suns and a hot-pink Naugahyde zodiac, embodying "the music and theatrics of the Flaming Lips.” The winner will be announced at noon Saturday at Dwelling Spaces, 309 S Detroit Ave. in Tulsa, where the couch is on display.

"If the couch is hideous and not comfortable, well, they did the best they could,” Coyne laughed.

Meanwhile, the voice of the Lips has been adding some dazzling enhancements to the UFO-shaped lighting truss that made such a brilliant splash at the band's Oklahoma City Zoo Amphitheatre show in September.

"They can really see something that's a futuristic ‘Wizard of Oz' sort of thing,” he promised. "It's going to be as fantastical as we can make it, akin to what we did at the Zoo.”

For Oklahoma City fans, let the Turner Turnpike be our Yellow Brick Road.

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