The Man Behind Not Brooklyn Fest and Manic Productions

This is all Ed here, but he's way too lazy to even copy and paste something he already wrote. I know, it's impressive. He wrote this piece for The Recorder, so we'll give you a peak here and link you over to save some space. Enjoy.

While you have read his or his company’s name, most of you don’t know who “Manic” Mark Nussbaum is or what exactly he does in the scheme of the Connecticut music scene. Recently, he announced that Manic Productions, along with WXCI 91.7, will be putting together a two-day festival, which headlines with Cursive and Dead Meadow. Along with the two headliners, there are a dozen or so local and national acts.

Edward Gaug: Can you give us the short history of Manic Productions and how it came to the position it is in now?
Mark Nussbaum: Sure, originally I was the [merchandise] person for the Flaming Tsunamis and I would help them out at shows, selling their merch and then some of the dudes in the band started Kill Normal Records, which I’m sure you are somewhat familiar with. I started helping Andy and Ethan book those shows and promote those shows. Eventually, I got interested in trying my own thing out. It just kind of snowballed from that, booking more and more shows, trying to book bands I’m really interested in.

Gaug: Can you remember what the first show you booked by yourself was?
Nussbaum: I did a show at the Arts Barn (Madison, Conn.) back in April of 2002 and it was River City Rebels, Grover Dill and this band Slackjaw, another local band.

Gaug: More recently you have been doing shows with Chinese Stars and Why? and now you have two bigger bands like Cursive and Dead Meadow as a part of your upcoming Not Brooklyn Festival on April 18 and 19. How has working with bands changed now that you’ve been doing this for almost six years?
Nussbaum: It’s much easier talking with bands, ‘cause you have to learn as you’re going. You need to know what you have to do to make bands happy. The experiences are pretty much the same working with a smaller band or a bigger band. They are both on the road trying to play shows.

Gaug: Speaking of Not Brooklyn Festival, you have two days of music lined up at Heirloom Arts Theatre in Danbury, how did you get the idea for the festival and what are you hoping to accomplish when all is said and done: is it promoting the locals bands you have playing, promoting the new venue or getting some exposure for the company?
Nussbaum: Jay, who owns the venue, told me the radio station (WXCI 91.7 FM) contacted him to put together a day or two of music for what is now a festival. We had done a couple shows there before, like Melt-Banana and No Age and a few others, so he asked me to jump aboard. I have never done a festival before and what better way to do it than at a new venue and splitting it with someone else, doing it by myself would have been way too much work. I basically started contacting bands that I like and thought would do well here. For accomplishments, we definitely want to get as much exposure as possible to the local bands, that’s why we put a lot of bands from New Haven on, which I’m really excited about. Also, we put some Danbury bands on there because the show is in Danbury. We are trying to get the locals exposure, but it also helps promote our company, it helps promote the venue as well and the radio station has real ly been helping us out.

Gaug: Earlier, I brought up the name of the festival, Not Brooklyn, and I have been trying to field that question to everyone I talk to about the shows. So what is the actually story with Not Brooklyn?
Nussbaum: Well, I was sitting in my living room and my roommates and I were trying to think of a name. We came up with the name Not Brooklyn Fest because I had just lost a few shows to Brooklyn and that’s why we chose Brooklyn. It also goes to show people that things are happening outside of major markets like Boston and Philly and Brooklyn. Things are going on in Connecticut and we want bands to be aware of it. Even people in Connecticut complain that they always have to travel out of state to see good shows and that’s not always true. People don’t really take the time to do research and that’s why we promote our shows so much, to try to get the word out. There definitely could be more going on around here and that’s what we’re trying to do overall; get things happening in Connecticut. We could definitely move to a bigger city and get more shows, but we really don’t feel the need to. I’ve grown up here my whole life and I want to stay where I’m needed.

You can check out the rest of the interview here.