The Music and Art in Wright Park festival, an annual event that carries on the torch of Tacoma's original Music in the Park festival, has a lot to do with history. A LOT.

But it's also about Tacoma's future, and specifically its musical future. The seeds that have grown into the Music and Art in Wright Park festival sprouted here, so to speak - young men and women in Tacoma's blue-collar, underdog music scene that over time have become old(er) men and women in Tacoma's blue-collar, underdog music scene.  Their ethic, so quintessentially Tacoma, a mix of who-gives-a-fuck moxie and blind determination, permeates the yearly rock and art extravaganza - which this time around will go down Saturday, Aug. 21 at Wright Park.

In some ways (seeming subtleties that may be as important as the music itself) Music and Art in Wright Park is about passing on what makes Tacoma's music scene special. High schoolers with hair in their eyes plug in next to Girl Trouble and The Fucking Eagles. Tattooed moms and dads outfit their kids with gun range earmuffs and give them a rare, impression-forming glimpse into Tacoma's usually 21-plus sweaty rock club scene.

Generations mingle. Ideals are passed.

"One of the main reasons I do this, I don't know about everyone else, is for the kids," says Cody Foster, who along with Ken Johnson, Bennett Thurman, Roxanne Wolfe and Donna Herren, is responsible for this year's Music and Arts in Wright Park festival.

"Music shit kept me out of jail."

"Tacoma people are very, very hometown proud," says Reylan Fernandez, whose band the Dignitaries are on this year's Music and Art in Wright Park lineup along with names like Twink the Wonderkid, the aforementioned Girl Trouble and Fucking Eagles, Mico De Noche, Foster's C.F.A., Gold Teeth, Pioneers West, I Defy, Stone Axe and others. "This festival is so Tacoma. It's got a ‘Let's just do this' attitude."

Let's just do this

That "Let's just do this," attitude has been with the festival since the beginning, and it's been a necessity. Like most worthwhile endeavors in Tacoma, Music and Art in Wright Park, even back when it started as simply Music in the Park in 1993, required the hell or high water leadership of some of Grit City's finest - scrappy visionaries too stubborn to fail, or too hardheaded to give up. The very first Music in the Park bill, orchestrated mainly by Johnson and Thurman, who at the time was the man behind Wrecking Ball Records, featured Girl Trouble, Katie's Dimples, Portrait of Poverty and Spuj (among others). With Johnson running the Music in the Park ship from 1993 - '96, its notoriety slowly grew, and the festival ingrained itself as part of Tacoma's psyche. Even after Johnson moved on, letting the festival lay dormant for four years before Chris "Trashcan" Miller picked up the ball and produced three Music in the Park shows during the summer of 2001, there was something about this event that seemed different. It felt like an idea so pure it had legs beyond the endurance of its creators.

This was proven unequivocally by last year's successful Music and Arts in Wright Park festival, brought back by Johnson, Thurman, Foster, Wolfe and Herren after an eight-year layoff, to an amazing reception.

Music and Arts in Wright Park has become a part of Tacoma.

For good, it seems.

"The main reason I did it to begin with was to see if I could. I saw it as a challenge," Johnson told the Volcano prior to last year's event.

Apparently, Johnson and crew still enjoy a good challenge; this year's endeavor hasn't been without its hurdles. For one, putting on festivals in public parks- especially all-day rock fests with heavy doses of the hard stuff - is rarely easy, and always requires a lot of hoop jumping. Secondly, because it's a free event, the everyday locals making the festival go have had to scrap for sponsors in a bum economy, putting themselves financially on the line if things go horribly wrong.

Still, the "Let's just do this" attitude carries them. This is Tacoma, after all.

"My credit score is on the line with the community," jokes Foster. "Really, we should take a month and a half off after the festival and then start planning the next one. It sounds like I'm fucking with you, but I'm not. It takes a lot of time. My family pays the price."

One generation to the next

Speaking of family, and the overriding theme of Music and Art in Wright Park as a vehicle to pass on Tacoma's music scene ethos, it was Foster's teenage daughter, Alicia Kain, that helped get the youngest band on this year's Music and Art in Wright Park bill, Clearcut the City (a band fresh out of high school that has since renamed itself Cities Without Anchors). At Alicia's suggestion, Foster checked out a recent Clear Cut the City show in Seattle and decided the band has the energy, passion and blue-collar work ethic that epitomize what Music and Art in Wright Park is all about. A short time later, he asked them to play.

"We've always aimed for a mix of young and old," says Foster. "That's definitely part of it."

"Aaron (Heslip, the band's bassist) knew about it. (Our knowledge of the festival) mostly came from him," says Kieran Bronson-Doherty, one of Clear Cut the City's guitarists. "Now we're getting hyped for it."

With a sound hardcore enough to run with Music and Art in Wright Park stalwarts, Clear Cut the City (or whatever you call them) - whether they know it or not - is about to get a first-class introduction to the DIY drive that make this scene tick. So will anyone that shows up. This is one of the many beauties of the event.

If they plan on being a band in this town for long, these lessons - on display for all - are well worth learning.

"It's cool that it's still going, and it showcases a lot of bands in a place and during hours when people wouldn't normally be able to see them," says Fernandez, whose brother Lino, the Dignitaries drummer, will literally be only weeks removed from a scooter accident and multiple surgeries when the band plugs in at Wright Park. According to Fernandez, the Dignitaries went to great measures to ensure they were on this year's Music and Arts in Wright Park bill, resorting to "a little bit of begging," he tells me with a laugh.

When asked why, the answer came without hesitation.

"It's a Tacoma thing."

"It was really easy to get people excited about the show this year," says Thurman. "It's really interesting to see how many bands out there really wanted to come out and play for free."

While Clear Cut the City may not fully realize what they've gotten themselves into, or it's place in Tacoma's history, it really doesn't matter. What's important is that the festival's ideals, and the selfless acts of Tacoman-ism that went into making it happen, will have been communicated loud and clear, just by the band being a part of it all.

 "We do what we want. We're just there to have fun," says Clear Cut the Cities' Ian Jury.

They should fit right in.

Music and Art in Wright Park 2010

with Twink the Wonderkid, Girl Trouble, Clear Cut the City, The Speans, C.F.A., Stone Axe, I Defy, The Dignitaries, Good Gravy, Si Si Si, Pioneers West, James Hunnicutt, Lozen, The Fucking Eagles, Gold Teeth
Saturday, Aug. 21, noon to 7:30 p.m., no cover
Wright Park, 501 S. I St., Tacoma
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