Mark Messerly has been a Cincinnati music fixture for well over a decade now, and has played at every Midpoint since its inception. This Saturday, he will be playing with Wussy at the Aronoff 5/3 WOXY stage. On the eve of Midpoint's kickoff, we spoke with Mark about the festival's history, and got some fascinating perspective on this Cincy festival.

How many years have you played MPMF?
Well, how many years has it been for MPMF? I've been in it every year, actually. For the first two years I actually played three different times with three different bands. I think I played with Messerly and Ewing, Type 27, and... I think I sat in with Clabbergirl. All those people are there, it's always been sort of a family reunion event. It's like our own little convention. I've always liked that about it. As far as Wussy's history goes, Chuck [Cleaver, formerly of Ass Ponies] and Lisa [Walker] did about four non-midpoint shows as duo, then I joined for a year. Dawn [Burman] joined a year later, and was at our first Midpoint show. She had just joined, though, so she stayed in the crowd. So, I guess that makes this year's Midpoint our 6th year there.

Do you have any fond memories or funny stories from all those years at Midpoint?
I think my fondest memory goes back to the first year. It was just this amazing thing to see those guys [Sean Rhiney and Bill Donabedian] putting that on. It was a complete leap of faith. It was the first morning, at the hotel where they were doing registration, and I went down to see if I could help. Pat Dinizio was the keynote speaker for the first year, which was pretty freakin' cool, and at some point Pat wanted breakfast. So Jen Kidwell and I got orders to "Go get Pat Dinizio breakfast," which was apparently six big burritos from Taco Bell. I remember handing Pat more burritos than I'd ever seen, thinking: "there you go, I hope he lives to the end of the weekend." So that's my favorite story, other than lots and lots of fun shows.

I hadn't realized you were such a Midpoint veteran.
Yea, I love it, the early years were just sort of chaos. I'm playing here, and I'm running over here to do a set. It was just fun, everyone trying to get set up all the time. It would just be this great week of music. Messerly and Ewing played our last show there before our break. We played to a packed house at BarrelHouse Brewpub. It was our last show, and it was really poignant. Some of the biggest crowds I've ever played to were at Midpoint. The crowds are really pretty damn good, and it's so nice to play to different faces. In this town, there's sometimes a finite group of people coming to shows. So any chance to play to a different crowd, you just take it. You can't deny that about midpoint.

After playing at SXSW, how similar do you find it to MPMF?
We've done it twice now. In the evenings, it's somewhat similar. In order of magnitude, it's much bigger. But as far as the evenings go, it's very similar. To be able to just walk from bar to bar and see different bands is really great. The thing that I find the most different is that SXSW starts at noon. Most bands play multiple times at SXSW, and if you have the time, you can literally start watching music from noon to two in the morning. Last time we played twice, so I only had one day to watch music. My day had Los Campesinos at noon, And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead at two, and by two in the morning, I could barely walk. It's much bigger, but as far as the whole "lots of bands and being able to go from bar to bar", it's similar. I think Midpoint's scale is entirely appropriate to Cincy. Though I would love to see something like SXSW's trade show on fountain square. I'd just run around getting free strings.

Is there a show you're really looking forward to this weekend?
I hadn't researched everyone yet, but the Rosehips on Friday are actually a Columbus band, and sound pretty great [Aronoff 5th/3rd Theater, Friday at eight]. I'm going to try, I'd really like to make it to that. On Saturday, I think The Headlights who are playing with us sound really promising. You know, with kids, my plans frequently change.

Or you could bring them along?
We've got a long way to make it to that, about ten years. They haven't seen me play in a while. I have been playing them the rough mixes of our new cd in the car, though, and they're starting to ask when they're going to see me next. They used to be a bit more "ho- hum" about it. Maybe we'll have to do an all-ages show.

Hopefully we'll have quite a Midpoint in ten years.
I don't see why we wouldn't. It made it through the bumpy first years, and so as long as CityBeat stays here I think people can expect it. Really, is there anything else being done in Cincy on this kind of scale?

Why do you think MPMF is good for Cincinnati?
I've been thinking about that. As far as the larger issues in how well it benefits Cincinnati, I really don't know about the image or money it brings in. But as far as the music stands, I think it's extremely important. Anyone that lives here knows that Cincinnati is in this amazing geographic position in the dead center of Midwest. Add to that an incredibly diverse and super cool music scene which I'd hold up to almost any major city. And yet, somehow we still get passed off. I'm not talking about people getting signed, I want us to be better connected to the artists. I'm sick of seeing these tours that pass by us. So when you get something like Midpoint, other bands come in, and hopefully take the shades of their eyes. I hope they'll think, "hey there's a lot of bands here I'd like to play with." And again, hopefully we'll become connected. It's ridiculous, have you seen the new room at Northside Tavern? They just put up acoustical treatment. That is just a phenomenal room for a mid-level band, and you've got Southgate House too. There's no reason we don't have great bands coming in every week. So that's my own selfish sort of look.

Well, we'd love to hear about the album. What's going on with it?
We finished tracking, and Chuck went in last Monday to rework some vocals. John Curley gave us the rough mixes afterwards, so we've got those now. We worked pretty steadily on it through the summer, and haven't done as many shows. It was a lot of fun, as much fun as I've ever had making a record. I know that Shake It would like to have it by the end of the year, and it's going to be hard to do that; but the actual record is moving along, which is great. It seems like this time, instead of honing it for a year on stages, we went in and tried a lot of new things. I like doing it this way, for the first time I'm not tired of an album halfway through making it. There's no title for it yet, but yea, we might actually have it out by the end of the year.

What should an audience member expect from your show this Saturday?
Well, it's a great venue. I got to play one show on that stage, for the CEAs, backing Greg Mahan. It was phenomenal. As far as us and what we're going to bring: we're basically going to play what the people want to hear off the first two records and some of our new stuff. It'll be sort of a grab bag of the three records. And if you've never heard us, I'd describe us as noisier, messier, louder, and sweatier. Everyone always tells us they prefer us live, so if you want to know what we're trying to do, come see us. It's meant to be an almost falling apart, passionate thing up there. Oh, and we're on the WOXY stage, and those guys are our favorite people. You can take WOXY for granted, because it's in Cincy, but they've given us a lot. So I'm sort of honored to be asked by them. And the fact that CityBeat highlighted all the other bands we're playing with, I don't think I'm going to be leaving that venue. It's going to be a great night.

You can catch Mark Messerly playing Saturday with Wussy on the WOXY stage in the Aronoff 5th/3rd theater. Also performing that night are The Mocks, of Monterrey Mexico, and Headlights, of Champaign Illinois. All three of the night's artists are CityBeat Critic's Picks. Find out more about Wussy at www.wussymusic.com. BuyCincy thanks Mark for his wonderful insight and contributions to this article.

BuyCincy MPMF Staff

Kurt, Sean, and Jordan will be reporting on this year's Midpoint Music Festival, and we've brought you some commentary from each about this year's festival.

Kurt
I am looking forward to Jake Speed, catching some jazz, and finding some new artists that I don't know much about. I think the average joe doesn't know a whole lot about Midpoint.  Events like these are great cultural events that you can only find in larger cities.  People will travel from all from all across the country for events like these, and it is a great way to show all that Cincinnati has to offer in local music.  There is something for everyone, I encourage everyone to come down and check it out.

Sean
Of course, I am looking forward to seeing Magnolia Mountain (Thursday, Arnold's at 11pm) featuring BuyCincy staffer Jordan Neff and the Koala Fires (Saturday, 9:30pm at Know Theater) featuring former BuyCincy staffer Dan Johnson. I think the Faux Frenchman look interesting, Pearlene is always a good bet, and I have heard nothing but good things about Say Hi. I am also pretty excited about the secret show (Saturday, Know Theater at midnight).  If I had to guess, I would say that Midpoint found a way to get the Heartless Bastards to play. But, maybe that is just wishful thinking.

I think Midpoint is one of the most important weekends for Cincinnati. All of the bars in downtown and Over-the-Rhine will be packed, live music will float in the air (something we could always use more of), and the energy and vibrancy that comes with a city with be present.

Jordan
I think I am most looking forward to barhopping. I think it will be a thrill to be able to drift through OTR and downtown and catch good music all along the way. So aside from the times I've blocked off for serendipitous shows, I'm looking forward to four shows in particular. Thursday will be my first time performing at MPMF, and I know the rest of the band (Magnolia Mountain) is extraordinarily excited about it. To top it off, The Tillers are playing before us at ten. Friday's going to have me drifting until The Hiders start playing at Southgate House. On Saturday, I'm excited to see Dan's band (The Koala Fires), and take the Scion Streetcar over to the WOXY stage to catch Wussy. Finally, I agree with Sean about the secret show, and perhaps if we will it, it will be.

I think Midpoint is tremendously important to this city. You'll notice this isn't a big band coming into town, nor is it a normal music festival. First of all, most of these bands are not nearly as accessible to see perform as the bigger acts out there. Secondly, it's not just them. 180 bands, just over half of whom are Cincinnati-based; this is our music scene's time to strut its stuff, which it's got plenty of. I really think that Cincinnati has this great cultural pulse going on, and I love that people are coming here to check it out. Finally, in Mark's words, "I'm selfish."