The 2nd Annual OJ All-Day Festival has expanded this year to two days and an insane amount of acts. Not your average mega-fest, this one will take place May 24-25 in the cozy confines of Cake Shop, one of the last vestiges of the DIY spirit in the East Village of New York, a combo coffee shop/record store/basement club. While it wouldn't work for your Coachella-styled acts, the hard-scrabble Cake Shop stage should be perfect for the 33-count managerie of new freak folk and indie acts that are scheduled to appear. Jeffrey Lewis, Roger Manning, Prewar Yardsale, Dream Bitches, Paleface, Schwervon, Toby Goodshank, Huggabroomstik and the bravely named Faggots are some of the featured acts. The fest—also a release party for the new compilation, Olive Juice Music: Volume 3—will include a clothing and book exchange as well. Olive Juice Music formed as an artist collective in 1999 as a way to start a truly indie label and website, and is now run by Matt Roth and also encompasses a recording studio, distribution catalog and virtual community center for a close-knit group of alternative, New York-based performers. The collective is attempting to craft a new template for the DIY record label. The artists in this festival play in each other's bands, help write each other's press releases, design each other's fliers, build each other's websites and even help book each other's tours. Olive Juice prefer to call it DIT—Do It Together. It may sounds classically idealistic, but it's also an interesting attempt to try something new in the changing face of whatever the "music biz" is today. "Aside from the high quality independent talent that it showcases, what makes the OJ All Day Festival different from all the rest is that it exists around a real music community,'" says Roth. "All of the work that goes into putting on the festival, from the poster design to the website to the press release, even the catering and some of the sound is done by musicians performing."
