Co-founded in 2019 by three New York music industry veterans and longtime friends, former Lorimer Beacon head Mike Bell, Kanine Records‘ founder and label head Lio Kanine and Kepler Events‘ founder and Dedstrange Records co-founder Steven Matrick, The New Colossus Festival has featured an eclectic collection of several hundred handpicked, emerging and buzz-worthy indie bands and artists from the US, Canada, the UK, the European Union, Australia, and elsewhere.
New Colossus by design has taken place about a week or so before SXSW with the idea that the festival would serve as a pre-SXSW stopover that would give the acts in each year’s lineup an opportunity to get exposure in the influential New York market, while filling a void in the city’s festival calendar.
The festival’s fourth edition took place earlier this month, and much like the preceding editions, showcases took place at some of the Lower East Side’s most renowned independent music venues, including Mercury Lounge, Berlin Under A, Arlene’s Grocery, Bowery Ballroom, The Bowery Electric, Heaven Can Wait, Piano’s, and a few others.
On the festival’s last day, I caught Snotty Nose Rez Kids, an acclaimed First Nation Canadian hip-hop act out of Vancouver, play a rowdy and impassioned set Piano’s. I was able to catch up with the act for a very quick portrait session outside.
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