Draft:David Bash

David Bash with his brick on The Cavern Wall of Fame

David Bash is the founder and CEO of The International Pop Overthrow Music Festival, which is currently held annually in 10 cities around the world, including Los Angeles, San Diego, Chicago, Boston, New York, Toronto, Vancouver BC, Liverpool UK (at The Cavern Club), Copenhagen, and Stockholm. The festival is dedicated to bring classic pop music - music with the kind of strong melodies and catchy lyrics that tend to stick in your head and make you feel good - to the hearts and minds of the mainstream public. Although the festival has over the years featured several major label acts, such as Phantom Planet, Maroon 5 (under their previous incarnation, Kara's Flowers), and The Click Five, Bash tries to maintain the grassroots feel of the festival by featuring primarily unsigned bands, and presenting them in a festival platform with similar minded artists, where they will be appreciated by both the festival audiences and by each other. True to this grassroots ethic, Bash personally selects all the artists and is a fan of their music, something the bands tend to recognize and appreciate. Each year, Bash produces a CD compilation on the Omnivore Recordings label featuring bands that have played in any of the cities in which the festival has appeared.

Early Life and Formative Years

Bash came by his love of pop music at an early age. Born in Poughkeepsie NY on September 2, 1958, Bash grew up listening to 1970s top 40 radio on stations like WABC AM and 99X FM. He made the transition to album oriented radio in 1975, with stations like WPLJ FM and WNEW FM. By the time of his graduation from New York University in 1981, with a BA in journalism, Bash had amassed a collection of 4000 LPs and 1000 45s. In 1982, Bash moved to Los Angeles CA. The following year, he went back to college at The University of CA Irvine; in 1984, he received a BA in psychology. He remained at UCI for graduate school, entering a PhD program in cognitive psychology, but in 1990 decided to leave with his masters degree, and embark on a teaching career. From 1990 through 1998, Bash taught psychology at various community colleges, including Cerritos College, Cuyamaca College, and Camp Pendelton.

Pop Music Journalism and The International Pop Overthrow Festival

Throughout this time, Bash maintained his strong interest in music. By the early 90s his record and CD collection had grown to almost 8000 items, and included many obscurities from international artists not generally known in the US. By the mid-90s, Bash had discovered pop music fanzines, such as Yellow Pills and Audities, and started writing music reviews and articles for both publications in 1995. Over the next few years, he also wrote for Discoveries, Goldmine, Amplifier, and PopSided magazines, and penned the liner notes for various re-issue CDs, such as The Toms (on Not Lame Recordings), Wanna Meet The Scruffs?, Sweet and Lovely: The Best of Nino Tempo & April Stevens (Varese Sarabande), and the 3 disc set Magic Time: The Millennium/Ballroom Recordings (Sundazed).

From his writing of CD reviews, Bash got to know unsigned bands from all over the world. Many of these bands expressed a strong desire to play in Bash's home town of Los Angeles, so in December of 1997, Bash decided to create The International Pop Overthrow Music Festival. The name was chosen to pay tribute to Jim Ellison, singer songwriter of Material Issue, a beloved powerpop band from Chicago, whose 1991 debut album was entitled "International Pop Overthrow." The name was also chosen to communicate Bash's desire to overthrow what had become mainstream radio sounds with classic pop music stylings. In August of 1998, the first International Pop Overthrow festival was held in Los Angeles, featuring 120 pop and rock bands from Los Angeles, several other US cities, and 10 bands from 5 foreign countries, including Canada, Australia, Sweden, France, and The Netherlands. The festival was a tremendous success, and over the next three years, its roster grew to include bands from countries such as Japan, Norway, Austria, Israel, and The United Kingdom. At the 2001 festival, during a panel discussion, it was suggested by several bands that Bash take International Pop Overthrow on the road.

The first city outside Los Angeles in which The International Pop Overthrow festival (or IPO, as it had affectionately become known) was held was New York, in December of 2001, followed by Chicago in April of 2002. Each new city that followed added both a cache of strong local talent, and provided opportunities for bands from other cities in which IPO was already established to play in front of an appreciative public. The festival truly became international in 2003, when Bash was approached by Beatles historian, Jean Catharell, to hold the festival in Liverpool UK. The festival has since become a highly anticipated yearly event at The Cavern Club, drawing some of the best unsigned pop and rock talent from around the world. Bash and the festival were recognized with a brick on The Cavern Club Wall of Fame in May of 2024, joining the esteemed company of legends such as The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. The festival is now held annually in 10 different cities, and Bash continues to explore opportunities to share his love of pop music with both avid fans and the as yet unconverted masses by taking the festival to additional locales, with The Netherlands, Spain, Japan, and Australia high on the list of possible future International Pop Overthrow locations.

The International Pop Overthrow festival has been held in several world-renowned venues, such as The Cavern Club (Liverpool UK), The Troubadour (Los Angeles), The El Rey (Los Angeles), Spaceland (Los Angeles), Bottom of The Hill (San Francisco), The Rivoli (Toronto), The Khyber (Philadelphia), Arlene's Grocery (New York), Kenny's Castaways (New York), The Knitting Factory (Los Angeles and New York), The Middle East (Boston), The Railway (Vancouver BC), Schubas (Chicago), The Abbey (Chicago), City Hall (Denver), and The Orange County Fair (Orange County CA).

Artists who have played The International Pop Overthrow festival include luminaries such as Walter Egan, Harmony Grass, Shoes, Off Broadway, John Wicks & The Records, The Rubinoos, The Cowsills, and Enuff Z'Nuff, as well as recent and current stars, such as Kara's Flowers (now known as Maroon 5), Phantom Planet, The Click Five, Jason Falkner, and The 88.

The International Pop Overthrow festival has been covered in numerous publications, including The Los Angeles Times , L.A. Weekly, The Chicago Sun Times , The Boston Herald, The Boston Globe, New York Magazine, The New Yorker, The Liverpool Echo, BBC Liverpool , SPIN!, Goldmine, Amplifier , and Billboard. In addition, noted Liverpool historian and BBC radio personality, Spencer Leigh, devoted several pages to the festival in his recent book, The Cavern: The Most Famous Club in the World.

Personal

In 2019, Bash moved with his wife, Rina Bardfield, to Reseda, California. Bardfield helps with the selection and scheduling of artists for the festival, writes many of the artist descriptions for the festival, and helps with compiling the track order for the International Pop Overthrow compilations.

Bash currently writes music reviews and the occasional article for rockandrollglobe.com, and his column, Bash On Pop, which appears on the International Pop Overthrow Website.

For the past three years, Bash has co-hosted a video podcast called Material Issues, with his good friend Mark Hershberger. The podcast has featured celebrity music guests, as well as luminaries from other fields. Material Issues airs every Wednesday at 3PM Pacific Time.

Bash intends to continue to run The International Pop Overthrow Festival until he is unable to do so, or until IPO's brand of pop music once and for all gets into the hearts and minds of the mainstream music listener...whichever comes first.