The International Pop Overthrow is an American-originated music festival, devoted to power pop music and related genres. The festival is dedicated to bring classic pop music to the public, and is run by CEO and founder David Bash and Rina Bardfield. Although the festival has over the years featured several major label acts, such as Phantom Planet, Maroon 5, and The Click Five, Bash tries to maintain the grassroots feel of the festival by featuring primarily unsigned bands, and presenting them in a festival platform with similar minded artists.
Conception and evolution of the festival
The International Pop Overthrow Music Festival was created in December 1997. The name was chosen to pay tribute to Jim Ellison, singer songwriter of Material Issue, a power pop band from Chicago, whose 1991 debut album was entitled International Pop Overthrow. In August 1998, the first International Pop Overthrow festival was held in Los Angeles, featuring 120 pop and rock bands from Los Angeles, several other US cities, and 10 bands from five countries: Canada, Australia, Sweden, France, and the Netherlands. Over the next three years, its roster grew to include bands from countries such as Japan, Norway, Austria, Israel, and the United Kingdom. At the 2001 festival, during a panel discussion, it was suggested by several bands that Bash take International Pop Overthrow on the road. The first city outside Los Angeles in which the International Pop Overthrow Festival was held was New York, in December 2001, followed by Chicago in April 2002. The festival became international in 2003, when Bash was approached by Beatles historian, Jean Catharell, to hold the festival in Liverpool, UK. The festival has since become a yearly event at the Cavern Club, drawing unsigned pop and rock talent from around the world. The festival is now held annually in 16 different cities, and Bash continues to explore opportunities to take the festival to additional locales, with Spain, Japan, and Australia high on the list of possible future International Pop Overthrow locations. The International Pop Overthrow Festival has been held in several venues, such as the Cavern Club, the Troubadour, the El Rey, Spaceland, the Abbey, Schubas, Bottom of the Hill, The Rivoli, the Khyber, Arlene's Grocery, Kenny's Castaways, the Knitting Factory, the Middle East, the Railway, City Hall, and the Orange County Fair. The International Pop Overthrow festival has been recognized in an interactive exhibit at The Grammy Museum, as helping the power pop genre "persist into the new millenium." Artists who have played the International Pop Overthrow Festival include Walter Egan, Harmony Grass, Shoes, Off Broadway, John Wicks & The Records, The Rubinoos, The Cowsills, and Enuff Z'Nuff, as well as recent and current stars, such as Kara's Flowers, Phantom Planet, The Click Five, Jason Falkner, Seth Swirsky and The 88. The International Pop Overthrow Festival has been covered in numerous publications, including The Los Angeles Times, L.A. Weekly,The Chicago Sun Times, The Boston Herald, The Boston Globe, New York Magazine, The New Yorker, The Liverpool Echo, BBC Liverpool, SPIN!, Goldmine, Amplifier, and Billboard. In addition, Bash has been featured in a Sonicbids promoter profile, and noted Liverpool historian and BBC radio personality, Spencer Leigh, devoted several pages to the festival in his book, The Cavern: The Most Famous Club in the World. From 1997 to 2010, Not Lame Recordings released an annual CDcompilation featuring bands that have played in any of the cities which the festival has appeared. After Not Lame shut down, the website has continued releasing annual compilations of each year's participants.
