The Musical Box

eric meyers and joe harbison of the ford theatre reunion with model katie stillwell of the lexington collaborative fashion group will be part of saturday's boomslang lineup. staff photo by mark cornelison.

Sitting on the patio of a Knoxville restaurant last winter, Saraya Brewer took notice of what was unfolding around her. The streets were alive with something called Big Ears, a festival that championed concerts by new and veteran underground acts, performance works and interactive exhibits.

Then the idea clicked. Something like this could happen in Lexington. As a WRFL disc jockey for over five years, Brewer was already tuned into the music she wanted to bring in, not to mention a source of funding. Big Ears, in turn, triggered ideas for using multiple performance venues and offering bills that mixed prominent (though decidedly non-mainstream) artists with local performers.

And, to top it all off, there would room for a carnival.

Thus Boomslang was born. The inaugural three-day local festival gets into full swing today. By the time it concludes Sunday evening with the regional debut of the groundbreaking Brazilian tropicalia ensemble Os Mutantes, Boomslang will have played host to over 50 acts and performers at five venues.

“We started by putting together a list of bands we would love to bring to Lexington,” Brewer said. “Since RFL had the funding in the place to put on shows, we found it was actually possible to bring in bands like Os Mutantes. From there, more and more bands began contacting us. So it mushroomed into a much bigger baby than we first thought.”

Already interested in playing Lexington before Boomslang was solidified was Faust, the immensely influential “krautrock” ensemble known for mixing psychedelic and prog rock styles.

“I think a lot of people aren’t that familiar with these bands,” Brewer said. “But it is possible to be legendary and still be underground. Faust actually contacted us. Their agent really liked Lexington and wanted them to play here as opposed to any other cities that are close by. So that was the first big band that we secured.

“But we wanted to also include bands that were more up-and-coming and more popular with the younger indie scene. We wanted to introduce a lot of the younger crowds to the bands that are the predecessors but, at the same time, introduce crowds more familiar with Faust and Os Mutantes to some of the newer bands that are doing stuff that could be seen as being very similar.”

Peruse the full Boomslang lineup and you will quickly come to an event that perhaps defines the festival’s sense of artistic adventure, not mention its temperament. It’s called, quiet aptly, the Boomslang Carnival. It’s part music, part fashion show and part side show. Playing in the Buster’s parking lot on Saturday, the carnival stems from a project that teamed the Lexington band The Ford Theatre Reunion - a sort of vaudevillian punk ensemble that dabbles in, among other genres, gypsy jazz and brutish, brittle folk - with the Lexington Collaborative Fashion Group.

“We’ve been working for awhile with Sarah Jane Estes  from the Lexington Collaborative Fashion Group,” said Ford Theatre Reunion guitarist Eric Myers. “We started planning in the late spring to put on some kind of carnival in Triangle Park. Then Boomslang wanted to bring us on board, so all of this kind of grew from there.”

The carnival will unfold with music performances mingled with models donning displays of circus-style attire. But the real fun comes after dark. That’s when the sideshow cranks up with displays of fire eating, snake charming and blockheading.

The latter is the correct carnival term for the act of hammering nails into one’s nasal cavities. And what lucky soul has been assigned that task?

“Oh, that’s me,” Myers replied. “I love the aesthetic of all these performances - specifically the ones that are not illusion - like eating fire and swallowing swords. The reality is what fascinates me.”

“They haven’t needed much direction from me,” Brewer said of the carnival crew. “We just showed them the space they could use and they took off with it.”

Most everything else lands in Brewer’s lap. She said a mammoth volunteer crew helps. But logistics, schedules, last minute cancellations and, in a few joyful cases, last minute sponsors (like the Alltech Fortnight Festival, which signed on to co-present Faust) and band announcements (like the addition of the Boston post-punk band Mission of Burma to tonight’s bill at Buster’s), falls to her.

“I’ve been multi-tasking like I never have been in my life. On any given day, I’m dealing with 16 different aspects of the festival. But I think it will be so neat if Lexington can pull something off like this.”

Boomslang will be presented at various venues through Sunday. Single days tickets are $20; weekend passes are $50. For a complete schedule go to http://boomslangfest.com.