Main Street (Between 1st and 4th Streets)
Santa Ana, California

soundDowntown 2008 is a one-day music festival on Saturday, November 15, featuring a lineup of over 50 locally and nationally recognized bands, DJ's and performing artists at various venues throughout the Artist's Village of downtown Santa Ana.

Preferred advance tickets are $10 and general admission is $15 day-of. Event tickets will allow patrons to enter all local venues (some 21+) curated with entertainment. Venue capacity will range from 50 to 800, so suggested arrival times will vary. Advance tickets are now on sale at the festival website, complete with special parking information.

click here to purchase!!!
New Artists TBA!
Note: Some Performances are 21+
Please Check Schedule

Sponsored in part by the Downtown Santa Ana Business Council, OC Weekly, Karl Strauss Brewing Company, Yelp and Splitends.

Participating Venues:

The Crosby, The Yost Theater, Bistro 400, Grand Central Art Center, Festival Hall, Grand Central Art Center, Gypsy Den, Jason’s Downtown, Memphis Restaurant, Proof Bar, CSF Grand Central Center

Billing (More TBA):
Austin Hartley-Leonard - Bearded Baby - Blank Blue - Bobby Soul – Busdriver - Cheap Date - DJ Dan Oh - DJ Dan Sena – DJ J Hall - DJ Nobody - DJ Pubes - Faded Tequila Wormz - Flying Saucers - Free Moral Agents - Free the Robots - From Elsewhere – Inkblots - Living Suns - Look Daggers - Majic Bullet Theory - Mexican Institute of Sound – MODE - My Hollow Drum – Nalepa – Narodniks - No MSG - Nortec Collective Presents Bostich + Fussible - Nosaj Thing - One Way – Peanut - Protect Me – Satisfaction - Shepard Fairey - Sparrow Love Crew - Strange Fruit - Tea Long - Teton Songwriters - The Entrance Band - The Growlers - The Hattrix Project - The (International) Noise Conspiracy - Two Guns - Venus Infers - Zechs Marquise - Zutra


The historic—and historically progressive—Artists’ Village district in the city of Santa Ana gets into the groove this November 15, with the much-anticipated soundDowntown 2008. This day-into-night music and spoken word festival happens on Saturday, November 15, from 2pm-2am, featuring a lineup of 60+ locally and nationally recognized bands, DJs and performing artists hosted by more than a dozen of Santa Ana’s most famously intriguing landmark venues, all within a walkable radius of just a few square blocks in the downtown arts district. The streets of the area won’t be blocked off, instead audiences will be issued all-access passes that allow for a freeform, self-guided experience akin to a gallery walk, complete with printed programs containing maps and full schedules, and integrating the simultaneous performances to unfold within the vibrant nightlife of the neighborhood.

One of the Southland’s best kept cultural secrets, Santa Ana is a dynamic, evolving, and engaged arts community. The Bowers Museum, Orange County High School of the Arts, OC Weekly HQ, the revitalized Santora Building, the renovated Festival Hall and Yost Theater, dozens of independent galleries, and Rude Guerrilla Theater Company are just a few of the pillars of this naturally occurring culturati hub. The noted Grand Central Art Center with its small but salient regional museum vibe in the European kunsthalle tradition, and its edgy, ambitious programming, offers the quintessential example of the kind of cultural interplay soundDowntown 2008 is engendering, as it invites radio station KUCI to program a full night of local indie buzz bands inside its galleries, including some explosive special guests to be announced soon.



In fact, each of the dozen plus venues participating share not only the organizers’ love of progressive culture, but also their passion for the breathtaking architectural preservation and innovation that gives the community its compelling, eccentric, and almost literary flavor.



soundDowntown 2008 signals the return of Koos Art Center, whose presence laid the groundwork for Santa Ana’s cultural vibrancy, as founder and soundDowntown producer Dennis Lluy reopens Koos at the Yost, once a Mexican movie house and Vaudeville theatre, and who for soundDowntown host a bill featuring; the politically-charged, anthemic rock from Rick Rubin-produced buzz band International Noise Conspiracy; Nortec Collective Presents Bostich + Fussible, a collaborative effort in furhterance of dirty TJ techno; the Entrance Band’s psychedelic avant-freedom rock; and Free the Robots blend old-school/avant-garde hip-hop.



Meanwhile, down the block, Mexican Institute of Sound’s boundary and border-blurring indie electronica and rough-riding feel-good beach Goth from the Growlers take the stageFestival Hall; The Living Suns infiltrate the Gypsy Den with their psychedelic prog rock;Bistro 400 opens their patio to host DJ Bobby Soul and Secret Affair and Jason's throw their antes in with eclectic indie fare. Shepard Fairey aka DJ Diabetic, and DJ Pubes hold it down at the Crosby, an archetype of the lively college town coffee house offering books, art, music, food, drinks, and the kind of genre-blurring cultural fusion that defines Santa Ana society.



Among the most lively mash-ups of old and new is are the all-star spoken word jam by Hattrix Project, dancers, and music from the Magik Bullet Theory taking place at the Grand Central Art Center; DJ Nobody and Free Moral Agents at Memphis in the instantly classicSantora Building, kicking out the louder beats amid impressive surroundings that include three floors of art galleries; and Sparrow Love Crew’s soulful hip-hop and self-described “Ghettotech” draw dance-hungry crowds at Proof.

Official Website: http://www.sounddowntown.com/

Added by la-underground on October 30, 2008