By Emma Bracken
As a college town, Fayetteville is alive with young people looking for fun and community outside of school. The local music scene seems to be their perfect anecdote. Local bands are rapidly gaining popularity, and students themselves are becoming the face of the scene. Two student-led bands, Mongolian Firefight and Squash Garden, just sold out a show at the coveted George’s Majestic Lounge, Fayetteville’s classic spot for live music.
Mongolian Firefight is composed of singer and guitarist Cole Clark and guitarist Shepherd Dollahon, accompanied by drummer Peter Kohring. They consider themselves a blend of different subgenres of rock, as their individual tastes create a wide spectrum of music to draw from. Some of the artists they are most inspired by include The Smiths, the Jimi Hendrix Experience and Mac Demarco.
Squash Garden includes a menagerie of members with changing roles as they shift through their setlists. The band includes singer Presley Janes, singer and drummer Landen DeWolf, guitarist and drummer Luke Riley, guitarist and tambourine player Prezley Strait, bassist Michael Kaufman, singer Julian Cohenour, with occasional saxophone by Jackson Bennett.
As quickly as their roles change, so does their genre; in one Squash Garden show, you can expect to hear anything from alternative indie, to rock and roll, to country music. To them, the traditional boundaries of genre are a limitation, and much of their power as a band can be attributed to their freedom to experiment.
With more exciting shows on the horizon, these bands are two of the many talents emerging from Fayetteville and shaping a new generation of music.
“It feels really tight-knit,” DeWolf said. “Everyone is informal competitors, but there’s no disrespect or hatred. It’s a kind of help system, with tips and advice from everyone else, like a melting pot of different ideas, cultures, and backgrounds.”
The blend of genres, styles, and personalities that make up the student-led local music scene uplift each other rather than conflict.
“Everyone seems to know each other, even managers and people who work at the bars. Not everyone is out to get each other– we haven’t had a bad experience yet,” Strait said.
The live music scene is building grounds for community, not just within the crowd but between the bands and the people who put on the shows. Music is special in this way; it takes many hands willing to work together to bring these shows to life. Unlike streamed music, the spirit of live performances offer something that cannot be captured by listening to music alone.
“When you’re playing live it’s on the spot, spontaneous, learning on the fly. It’s an important skill to develop as a musician, and people get to see the stage presence and the energy which is lost in a streamed song,” Kohring said.
Audiences seem to connect with spontaneity, because there is something more real there than a perfectly polished performance that doesn’t stray from its rehearsal. Both bands believe strongly in the sanctity of playing their music to and with other people. Squash Garden reminisces on their win at the University of Arkansas’s Battle of the Bands competition last November, during which they learned the importance of stage presence and interacting with the audience.
“Before, we mostly just hungout and played together. It came out of necessity, when we signed up for Battle of the Bands we knew we needed that stage presence to win it. So we went in the opposite direction of what we’d been doing. We just did whatever we wanted on stage and were goofy,” Riley said.
“That was probably my favorite memory performing,” Janes said “Seeing people’s reactions to us, before and after. It was completely different.”
College life can be monotonous, as we move through the motions of assignments, work, exams, and overcrowded bus rides. Coming together in a dimly lit bar or a backyard is an escape, both for musicians and audience members alike.
“When you’re performing you’re forced to focus on what you’re doing. I struggle with this everywhere else, but when playing music, that’s where all my focus goes,” Kohring said.
When the connection is made, it’s shared by those onstage and off. The magic is felt when everyone together decides to let go of stress, embarrassment, or distractions and just be present in the moment, focused on nothing but the music.
“We take the music seriously, but being able to have fun as well brings another element to it,” Riley said.
“The best part is everyone that comes to the shows, we love seeing how much fun you’re having and getting to interact with the crowd, seeing everyone happy,” Strait added.
Although both bands shared it can be difficult to balance their academic workload with making music, it seems to be undoubtedly worth it for all of the members. Whether we are the fans buying the tickets or the artist putting it to paper, music is and always has been a form of escapism, community, and freedom for people. While much of the music industry is made up of expensive, elaborate, and fantastical performances, there is something special about the local music scene, especially here in Fayetteville. When you go see a day show or buy a $8 ticket to George’s, you’re supporting artists who do what they do because they love it.
“Rock kind of died after the 90s. We’re trying to revive it. I want Sunset Strip to be a thing again, but in Fayetteville,” Janes said. “Lots of people are working on making Fayetteville a better place for music. I think I’ll come back in 15 years and it’ll be big.”
Both bands have upcoming shows that you don’t want to miss:
Soon you’ll be able to grab a ticket to see Mongolian Firefight at Goerge’s Majestic Lounge on April 9 at 8 p.m. Squash Garden will be playing at Smoke & Barrel on Feb. 23 at 9 p.m. with another local band, Ozark Riviera. They will also be making an appearance at Fayetteville’s pop music festival, “FayPop,” March 17 among a list of other local bands.