“Breaking: We have received a transmission that the enigmatic extraterrestrial known as Slugman, who first touched down in Tucson in the ‘90s, is returning bearing a cosmic olive branch…”
The first annual Slugfest, a local music, vintage and arts festival, coming to earth Oct. 17 at Tucson’s 4th Ave Coalition.
“He’s from outer space, dude,” said Trey Wilhite, Slugfest director. “And he’s coming back on Oct. 17 for a one-day cultural event, like a trading post of sorts. That’s kind of where the vintage ties in. We have our vintage vendors, but he’s the curator of Slugfest.”
For members of Tucson’s vintage scene, the festival name, or the director’s, might ring a bell. Wilhite is a well-known vendor who sells clothing under the moniker Attic Slug. But the Slugman-verse is a new and budding property, conceived during the initial planning of the festival, when the director landed on an “interstellar or space-related” theme and invented the mascot.
He then developed a comicbook-eque origin story, which probes beyond the surface of ‘90s subculture to a more profound theme of human perseverance.
“He crash landed on Earth in the ‘90s, and kind of found refuge amongst the skate parks here in the deserts of Arizona,” Wilhite said. “And yeah, he was hiding out and watching all these skaters attempt trick after trick, hundreds of times, with little success, and then they would land it and they’d be so stoked. And, like, back where he’s from, people just give up so easily on things.”
“So he was like, ‘wow,’ like there’s something about human nature and the spirit that is really intriguing for him. And then, along with that, him seeing the fashion of the ‘90s and the music of the ‘90s playing on boom boxes at those skate parks and shit, he was just enthralled with it.”
Slugman hasn’t been back to Earth since, and his upcoming peaceful-invasion will be a celebration of anything that elicits a “hell yeah.” Through a partnership with BLX Skateshop, a team is assembling a temporary skatepark to be demoed out by local skaters on festival day. There will be a variety of interactive art installations, live glassblowing by Sunset Glass Gallery, local food and beverage vendors, and vintage clothing and collectibles vendors.
The festival will showcase twelve hours of live music curated by Slugman himself, who has chops, according to Wilhite. The alien plays in his own five-piece band of intergalactic virtuosos, including “Cyborca,” a cyborg orca who simply shreds on the saxophone.
With his knowledge of all musical traditions, Slugman presents a lineup that only a globetrotting alien could dream up. Surf rock, punk and psychedelic jam band acts will play alongside folk, jazz fusion, reggae and South Indian classical music performers.
It’s pretty full spectrum,” Wilhite said. “So we have 12 bands, but I’d like to say we’ve hit at least 10 genres of music throughout the day.”
Through his festival, Slugman brings a vital message from deepspace: Slugman loves Earth, and so should we. That’s why, when planning the festival, Wilhite twisted the word “slug” into a new, acronymic mission statement: “Sustainable, local, unified gathering.”
“We like to keep as much as we can out of our local landfills, and promote sustainability at the forefront of our mission,” Wilhite explained. “Our art installations are all locally-sourced, repurposed, recycled, refurbished…. And then there’s the vintage clothing aspect. Sustainable fashion is huge.”
“Not that it’s unique to our festival, but I’d say that a good 70% to 80% of our festival footprint is kind of offset by all of these locally-sourced art pieces, our ramps for our skate park, signage. Everything from our banners, to our displays, to our merch is very DIY.”
In a nutshell: local music, local food, local art, local clothing, local skateboarding by local skateboarders, local people. All with an emphasis on keeping the earth alive.
“I think people are seeking more of the sort of hands-on, personal, local aspect of what makes a festival just more — what’s the word for it?— like, more impactful,” Wilhite said. “When it’s less of a big corporate money-grab, Ticketmaster, Stubhub type thing. Like it’s very, very one-on-one. You can meet me as the organizer and founder at the festival and hang out with me and not be like, ‘Oh, I need to get backstage to meet Trey,’ or something.”
I’m most excited to meet people and have this event that’s kind of like a childhood dream come true for me. It’s cross merging skating and me being a musician, so the music aspect, and then I love all art mediums, and obviously I’ve been selling vintage clothing for years. It’s really just tying in all of those passion projects of ours.”
