Homegrown III Music Festival Showcases Underground Artists This Weekend

“The idea of it being a festival of psychedelic music faded more to the background,” said Dan Shea, one of the festival’s presenters. “It’s anything and everything.”

This year’s festival is the largest yet, featuring more than 70 bands and artists -- over half of whom are from the Boston area -- who are “pushing the envelope, either with their philosophies in regards to their music or lyrics, people who are pushing boundaries with music itself...[and] music-makers and artists who are representing themselves through their music,” Shea said. “The power of individualism as expressed through the music is a driving force behind the kinds of bands we book.”

“This is the most bands ever, and hopefully it’s going to be the biggest crowd ever,” he said.

While there is no formal application process for bands who want to play the festival, Shea and other organizers cull the lineup from requests they receive from interested bands and those artists they’ve come into contact with throughout the year. Shea runs Bodies of Water Shows and helps put out the Boston Counter Cultural Compass newsletter, “so I’m constantly writing about music, meeting bands, putting on shows...[and] we’re basically coming into contact with tons of different music makers in many different ways,” he said. “I’m always on the lookout for new bands that maybe haven’t gotten press for one reason or another or have snuck under the radar.”

Shea highly recommended that attendees check out three of the festival’s national bands: White Fence, from San Francisco, whom he described as “kind of a psychedelic pop group [with] really great songwriting;” New York City’s Extreme Animals, “a very glitched-out and avant-garde sort of dance music duo;” and The Men, also from NYC, who are “very loud and...mixing punk and a lot of other styles of heavy music.”

Originally scheduled to take place at Fenway’s Fourth Wall Project, Homegrown III has been moved to Villa Victoria Center for the Arts in the South End (Friday and Sunday) and The Crane Room in Medford (Saturday) due to permit issues. Shea advised ticketholders to check the festival’s website for information.

“I’m totally happy with [the new venues],” Shea said, “[but], as you can imagine, having to change our venue within a month of the festival is not an ideal situation.”

About Angela -- It's "Ang," if you please -- or, alternately, Bill, Penny Lane, or (begrudgingly) Angus to some. I've been with TNGG since the site started and am now the TNGG Boston editor for Boston.com. I graduated from Boston University's College of Communication in 2009 and am a huge fan of live music, hockey, and Thai food. I'm also a bit of a klutz, but that's only because my mind and body are always going in approximately a zillion separate directions. Twitter: @amstefano988

Want more TNGG? Send us an email. Go to our main site. Follow us on Twitter @nextgreatgen. Like us on Facebook. And subscribe to our newsletter!