Make Music Pasadena reflects city’s emerging music scene

On South Raymond Avenue, a cozy recording studio overlooking the Art Center College of Design’s south campus and steps away from the Metro Gold Line is luring musicians to Pasadena.

Eric Lilavois, owner of Crown City Studios, designed it that way. Shelves full of books, records and even board games frame plush couches. A kitchen with an abundance of natural lighting is equipped with bar stools and coffee.

“When I was younger and walking into studios, it was super intimidating,” he says. “It was super important to us for it to be a comfortable, creative space. It’s a huge asset for bigger bands, because they can hide out here and do their thing.”

On June 16, some of Crown City’s own will perform at the city’s fifth annual Make Music Pasadena, a free 12-hour festival with more than 30 pop-up stages and 100 bands. The event, put on by the Old Pasadena Management District and Playhouse District, boosts a lineup that includes buzz bands like Cults, Grouplove and Dengue Fever.

Make Music borrows inspiration from Fête de la Musique, a Parisian music festival now in its 30th year. Hundreds of countries around the world have emulated the festival, but Pasadena’s differs because it emphasizes up-and-coming bands and includes community elements, says Kershona Mayo, director of event production for Old Pasadena.

Mayo combed music blogs and attended as many shows as she could to find artists for the festival. She says she wanted to include “Coachella bands” as well as bands that haven’t toured for years. Canadian artist Grimes (Claire Boucher) and French singer Soko (Stéphanie Sokolinski) are just a couple of the foreigners invited. A choir made up of students from the Los Angeles Braille Institute will perform at First United Methodist Church of Pasadena.

Mayo says there is a “big DIY” component to the festival.

Colorado Boulevard will be shut down. Musicians will play on street corners, outside bookstores and in alleys. Pasadena Art Buses will transport attendees for no charge between stages.

“You can literally come here with no money in your pocket and have an entire day filled with music,” says Josefina Mora, a marketing director for Playhouse District who organized the event with Mayo. “You name it, it’s here.”

The local artists who’ve been invited to play are happy to get exposure. Elliott Caine, a South Pasadena resident who owns an optometry practice in Highland Park, will play trumpet and flügelhorn in a quintet outside Vroman’s Bookstore.

Caine, who has played at big and small venues from Highland Park to Japan and released an album last year titled “Hippie Chicks on Acid,” says he wants to see more community music festivals in the Los Angeles area. “I think it’s beautiful,” he says. “Music is really uplifting for people.”

Some performances will not be planned.

“Usually, what ends up happening, we have some performers just showing up,” says Mora. “Last year, a group called the Mormons just walked the streets and played music.”

“We hope people will venture out and not just stay in one area,” she adds.

The whimsical European manner of Make Music, with no tickets or reservations required, lies in stark contrast with popular large-scale festivals in the states that charge hundreds of dollars per person.

The Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in Indio sold its 2013 presale tickets for $349 each. Bonnaroo in Tennessee and Lollapalooza in Chicago sell three-day festival passes for slightly under $300.

The long-running Sunset Junction Street Fair, which began as a similar community-focused free event in Silver Lake, was canceled days before the festival was slated to happen last year when promoters failed to pay the city of Los Angeles $141,000 in permit fees.

Free or low-cost music festivals are important to provide access to people who can’t afford to make the trek to the desert, says Lilavois.

“In a sense, it provides something Coachella doesn’t,” he says. “There is a lot of world music and a lot of local acts that you won’t discover at Coachella. You get the pride of saying you were there way back when.”

Lilavois says the festival marks a growing trend in artists migrating to the Pasadena area.

“You’re going to see a boom in the artist community in Pasadena,” he says. “I certainly feel it and see it happening in the studio.”

Echo Park has the Echo and Echoplex; Silver Lake has the Satellite and Silverlake Lounge. What Lilavois really wants to see, he says, is the city to have its own music hub. “As far as a sizable music venue, there’s nothing here,” he says. “I hope we’re right around the corner.”

Lilavois started his music career in the city. He attended La Salle High School with Ryen Slegr and Jose Galvez, who went on to form the band Ozma in the ‘90s. He remembers the first musical piece he produced with Galvez: a Mass.

“I was complaining to the music director how terrible the music was at Mass,” he says.” And he said, if you can do it better, you do it. So I had to put a band together and do it.”

Now Crown City is presenting Ozma, whose last album, “Pasadena,” featured the Colorado Street Bridge as a backdrop for the cover, at the festival. “Our philosophy here at the studio is to provide a creative, very open environment,” he says. “It’s a similar philosophy that Make Music has, just bringing all types of different music into the arena and exposing people to it.”

Make Music Pasadena

Where: Downtown Pasadena; Headliner stages at 115 E. Colorado Blvd. and 23 S. Madison Ave.

When: June 16, 11 a.m. to 11 p.m.

Info: All ages, free admission. Pasadena Art buses will run for free between stages.

Full program: www.makemusicpasadena.org/program.html.