Every summer, I look forward to the East End Block Party to catch locals acts and enjoy everything that Downtown Santa Ana has to offer. This year was just as fun as the last and I finally got to see some artists I have been wanting to see live for a while.
The two main stages that I frequented the most were the Chucotown music stage and the East End stage. Some of the other stages along 4th street included the OCML at the Frida, The Feel Good Collective at the Yost, and The Feels on 4th and Bush street.
Along with the music stages, there were also many vendors selling clothing, records, art, jewelry, and food.
Over at the Chucotown stage, I saw garage rock and punk bands like Ariel View, La Muerte, Blivet, and Los Hurricanes. Like always, there were plenty of moshing and circle pits in the crowd
Throughout the day I strolled through 4th Street to take a look at the live art, the breakdance tent, the pop up record stores, and vendors. Of course, no visit to Santa Ana is complete without getting Mexican food so I had lunch at my go-to, Taquerias Guadalajara on 4th and Spurgeon.
I didn’t want to miss out on seeing Santa Ana locals, Apollo Bebop, so I made sure to make it to the East End stage right on time.
I also got to catch Jay Taj, the Erick Yung & Daniel Jamezzz Experience, and Hopsin.
At the end of the day I returned to the Chucotown stage for Los Hurricanes. I saw them play the same stage last year, only this time they were headlining and had a bigger crowd. They also had the craziest set!
Interview with Konsept and East End Block Party founder, Tyson Pruong
On Sunday June 2nd, I caught up with Tyson Pruong, founder of Konsept and East End Block Party, at 4th Street Market in Downtown Santa Ana to talk about his project, the music, and the art scene in Santa Ana
Could you tell us how your project started?
East End Block Party started six years ago; it was our way of bringing a free music festival and free musical experience to the people of Santa Ana, and it was something that we really wanted to be a huge experience, not just local acts, but also pretty well known acts as well, to bring that attention to the locals.
How was the transformation from the beginning to now?
It’s been a lot more difficult because in the beginning it started as a group of people, and they ran their whole areas, now it’s me running the entire festival. It’s been a lot trickier. Obviously, the level of talent has gone up, as well as the amount of people that attend the event, so it’s always tricky because you have to keep these people intrigued and wanting to come back each and every year. So, doing the same thing over and over, people are going to be like “oh this is going to be the same thing as last year.” This year we did something different, we built a skatepark area, we’re working with big artists to do pop up events, and we have different vendor areas. We’re trying to make it an experience and interactive event.
Now, do you all have music backgrounds?
We have the art collective, Konsept. That was based on the same thing. The block party was the big festival that we did, so we took everything we learned from the group and put it into the big project
Can you tell me about that other team members and their background?
We have a lot of different team members from all over the place, not just with my team. Fernando here, he’s the art director so he’s in charge of booking all the live artists, he’s an artist himself. Daniel Park, he’s helping out with production, and he’s from Garden Grove. The collective of people are from all over the place, but we feel like it’s a good batch of people that are good at what they do and are coming together for this community because they’re a part of it.
What makes Santa Ana unique from the rest of Orange County? What made you choose to have headquarters and your festival here?
I’m from here! Born and raised in the city. I always wanted to provide for the people in my city, so it was all about doing it here. A lot of the people here are open to those kind of things They’re open to music events, they’re open to art events, they’re open to fashion events because that’s our community. There’s a bunch of studios in this area so there’s already a lot of music lovers and music makers, so it’s really important that we do it here. Also the East End Block party, the name is from the East End, so we’re in the East End district right now, and so some of the budget is from all of the tax money that all the businesses here pay. It goes into a marketing budget and we use that money to put on this festival.
Before East End, what was the music scene like here?
Dope! It was booming. We weren’t the only ones doing festivals here. We had Music Sounds Good, we have the Yost Theater, obviously. The music scene was really generating here so there were still a lot of local acts that were just doing stuff in bars or during art walk, and we still do that stuff too. I think the music culture definitely boomed, and now it’s way more established here in Downtown Santa Ana.
Outside of East End Block Party, what other events do you curate?
So we’re in charge of the art walk in Downtown Santa Ana. Last night we had five events so I was running around everywhere. Everything from art shows to music showcases to club events. We had another artist being featured at a local bar. We even have art in here [4th street market] that every month we switch out for artists to be able to display their work.
How long has the art walk been going on for?
The art walk has been going on before I was born! I remember coming here as a kid, and I knew that I wanted to be a part of this community. I used to just come to the art walk, enjoy it, see art, and I became an artist and musician myself, and that’s what made me want to start Konsept. Ever since we started Konsept we’ve just been booming.
In the beginning, was this more of a hip hop centered project that eventually evolved into including more genres?
Nope. I’ve always loved all genres. Even back then when we were doing our bar events, the events would be multi-genre. You would see a hip hop artist go on, and you would see a band, a producer, a dj, and you would see all these different vibes at one show . Our goal was to always plan and mashup artists we felt deserved to be recognized. I was really selective about who I booked too, because I wanted to make sure it was a vibe. It didn’t matter what genre they were, it just had to flow good for the event, for the people to be like “hey, we’re not here because we like one genre, we’re here because we love music.”
So the scene is doing really well right now, but what kind of things to help the scene would you like to see?
I want to see more! I feel like I shouldn’t be the only one doing this, I’m not saying that I am, but there’s a lot of great people, a lot of great talent that are doing what we felt built the foundation of being able to host events in the area. When we got started, there was not enough opportunities down here in Santa Ana. Whatever shows you did were pay-to-play. Whatever art shows you had, they were charging you. They took a good percentage of your profits and I wanted to provide something free so we ran with that system, we started doing bar events. People started doing bar events and ran with that system, and now there’s a lot of people here doing it. There’s a lot of people here doing it better than I ever did. It evolved in a positive way, and I feel like everyone should always feel like they should have the opportunity to throw a festival like this. Just be smart about it, know the right people, and hopefully it could open up more doors for people to be able to do ths. That’s how I feel about what needs to happen. And we have a lot going on here, we just need more.
I started going to local shows about five years ago and I feel like there’s been a lot of more doors open for alternative rock bands
It’s just cool too to see more things happen. There used to be gatekeepers. People that hog the space for themselves or just didn’t care about people, they just wanted to make money. But now it’s all DIY. Everybody really is DIY, they’re really about that life, and that’s what I meant to say earlier, just do it. That’s kind of cliche, but that’s how I got started. I just woke up one day and said “i’m going to throw a music festival,” and I did it. I think everyone should still have the same mindstate and just meet the right people to help you put that together and don’t be afraid of failure. If your first one wasn’t good, then make up from your mistakes, and try not to make them again, and learn from them. My first music festival was in this building. It was completely empty, it was like a warehouse, and the landowner was like, “I’m going to give you the space, here’s some money, do whatever you want.” And I got sponsored by Red Bull, I got sponsored by Carven, and I had all the walls painted with murals by locals artists. I had vendors there, and we had like over twenty acts. That was 2013, probably.
Is there anything else that you would like to plug in or announce?
Appreciate the community and everybody that put in work to put this together. We’re able to do this every year and for free for everybody, as long as it stays peaceful and chill, and nothing crazy happens. We’ll keep having it more every year and letting it grow.
