New Jan. 6: We’ve added Ted Leo and Thomas Frank! And there’s more to come – but act fast to get your tix.

Interchange does Pitchfork

There was a little bit of everything at this year’s Pitchfork Music Festival: Rain, heat, mud, music. And more than 1,000 newly-registered voters!

Thanks to our great team of volunteers who manned the Interchange booth and braved the crowd wielding clipboards.

Those volunteers did great work–and they did not go unnoticed. Here’s how Jim DeRogatis led his festival recap in the Chicago Sun-Times:

Though it’s unlikely that most of the 17,000 fans who attended each day knew it, the Pitchfork Music Festival originated as a small concert held by a local grassroots group called Interchange formed to register voters before the last presidential election.

Through its remarkable growth, Pitchfork has retained that activist spirit: Over the course of the festival’s fourth year at the West Side’s Union Park, 70 volunteers registered more than 1,200 voters from 34 states and the District of Columbia.

The Sun-Times also ran this photo, taken by Interchange’s own Dan Gilchrist (a volunteer veteran from all the way back in ’04):

Here’s another view of these fine if muddy young fellows:

Thanks again to all who worked, and to Pitchfork Media and the Pitchfork Music Festival for having us.

Interchange Festival 2008

We have an exciting year on tap. We’ll have a strong presence registering voters at the 2008 Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago in July. We’re planning a series of Interchange concerts to be held in Minneapolis in September. And we may have additional events to come.

See below for more on the 2004 Interchange Festival.

And stay tuned to interchangefestival.org for more information about our upcoming activities.

Interchange Festival 2004

Our successful four-day festival in Chicago in August 2004 sold out all its events, registered hundreds of voters, gained wide media acclaim and raised some $25,000 for a nonpartisan voter registration and mobilization program that in turn added 75,000 new voters to the rolls in the Chicago area.

Interchange 2004 events included:

• Tortoise, Diverse, Robbie Fulks, Town & Country and David Singer & the Sweet Science at the Hideout (outside/inside).
• Andrew Bird, Charles Bissell (Wrens) and the Vandermark Five at Schubas.
• The M’s and Bobby Conn at the Empty Bottle.
• Sage Francis, Eyedea & Abilities, Thaione Davis, Molemen, Psalm One, the Swiss Army, special guest P.O.S. and host Slug (Atmosphere) at Metro.

Plus:

• Record-shop in-store performances by Nora O’Connor (at Reckless) and the David Boykin Expanse (at the Jazz Record Mart) and a Chicago Cultural Center matinee acoustic performance by Dolly Varden.
• A special screening of “The Weather Underground,” with discussion by director Bill Siegel, at the Gene Siskel Film Center.
• Voter reg booths at damn near every record store in town.
• And more voter reg at the Milwaukee/North/Damen el stop and local shows by the likes of !!!, Oneida, Diplo and more.

See photos.