July 3rd Free Indie Music Concert in Lexington

:: Saturday, July 3 ::
CD Central presents INDEPENDENT MUSIC ON INDEPENDENCE DAY featuring EMILY HAGIHARA, WHEELHORSE, SUMMER MELTS FASTER, ULYSSES, and THE ELEPHANTS @ Phoenix Park, corner of Limestone and Main 9:30am-5:30pm :: all ages :: FREE

The Fourth of July downtown has always been an iffy proposition for Lexington's hipsters. Sure, you can consistently count on MECCA to enliven the bland parade proceedings (last year they produced an Austin Powers dance routine complete with MANIC MICK JEFFRIES nearly passing out while portraying Powers and MARK SAVAGE 2K smoothly lip-crooning Burt Bacharach's "What the World Needs Now" from the back of a jeep). But, all in all, there's not usually much for those with an indie aesthetic to appreciate about the downtown J4 celebration.

That's changing. Last summer, CD CENTRAL had the simple-yet-brilliant idea to link the independent music they support in-store with the city's Independence Day celebration. The record store hosted its inaugural "Independent Music on Independence Day" stage in Phoenix Park with a full-day's worth of indie-artist performances by peeps including THE FEATURES (the lone out-of-towners, who in the intervening months
have been signed to Universal Records), BIG FRESH (anybody else remember Billy Petot clad in short shorts, tiny American flag in hand, doin that deliberate dance he do on the fringes of the bounce up-and-down party in the dry Phoenix Park fountain), and the late-great MAD SHADOWS.

This year, with help from co-sponsors THIRD STREET STUFF, FITZSIMMONS OFFICE OF ARCHITECTURE, THE DAME, and GUMBO YA YA, CD Central reprises the idea with an all-day, all-local lineup that runs the musical gamut and promises to carry us from (soon after) sun-up through sun-drunk to just plain drunk.

The music starts at 9:30am with last month's Nougat cover model, seductive folkster EMILY HAGIHARA, and continues with performances by WHEELHORSE (10:50-11:50am), the Apples in Stereo/Big Fresh spin-off ULYSSES (1:15-2pm), angular heroes of the all-ages scene SUMMER MELTS FASTER (3:30-4:30pm), and epic pop-throbs THE ELEPHANTS (who recently added Big Fresh's Jeremy Midkiff to their lineup 4:45-5:45pm).