Festival goes to hallowed pop ground

International Pop Overthrow is going home.

As some 180 bands prepare to play the sixth annual Los Angeles festival over the next 17 days, promoter David Bash has announced plans to throw one of his pop parties in Liverpool, England, this fall. IPO Liverpool is currently scheduled to showcase 56 bands in seven days beginning Oct. 13 at the birthplace of Merseybeat, the Cavern Club.

“I’m having trouble believing it myself,” says Bash, 44. “It’ll be really something to do this at the place where it all started.”

Bash had mixed success two years ago when he took the festival -- which features lesser-known acts that hark back to the genre’s roots in the ‘60s and ‘70s -- to New York in the winter and Chicago in the spring. “We found New York didn’t quite have as strong a pop community,” he says. So this winter’s edition, an IPO East Coast, will be splayed over four consecutive weekends in Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York and Boston.

Is it too much pop? For critics who argue the festival’s size dilutes the product, Bash uses a baseball analogy: “There’s a lot of people in the Hall of Fame too, and just like at IPO you have your Willie Mayses and Honus Wagners, then you have your Rabbit Maranvilles and Earl Averills. I believe all these bands deserve to be here.”

-- Kevin Bronson