Welcome to the second part of my interviews from this past weekend’s first-ever Free Press Summer Fest. I caught up with Brian Arthur, the main driving force of the truly excellent underground music venue/art space/sock monkey museum Super Happy Fun Land, as he was taking a break from jovially haranguing people into doing puppet shows. Read on.

Brian Arthur: Likes Ween, puppets. Dislikes are few and far in between.

JM: So who are you looking forward to today?

BRIAN: I’m interested to see Explosions in the Sky. We’ve had maybe about 100 bands play at Super Happy Fun Land who’ve listed them as an influence, so I’d like to see what they’re about.

JM: Who’ve you seen today that’s really slobbed your knob?

(Note: I had just heard that B L A C K I E has a brand-new song called “Lou Dobbs Slob on My Knob” and that particular phrase was resonating in my head. Rarely have I so thoroughly regretted a choice of words. Brian seemed to take it more or less in stride.)

BRIAN: Well, I’ve been doing my puppet booth most of the day… I caught a couple songs by I Am Mesmer and Octopus Project, but I dunno… I see a thousand bands a year, so to really slob my knob… It takes a lot.

JM: “Jaded” might be the wrong word, but… You see a lot of music.

BRIAN: I see a lot of music. Even the stuff I really like, y’know, I’m really into weirdo, eclectic kind of stuff. If they’ve got puppets, great. Usually the bands I like are into having accouterments like that, or costumes or whatever. And I like Ween. Ween really slobs my knob.

JM: … Alright. So you’ve been running a booth here, what’s that been like?

BRIAN: It’s been great, really easy… We’re used to running a stage in front of Mango’s for the Westheimer Block Party, but over here we didn’t have to set up the sound system or manage the bands or anything, so that’s nice.

JM: And it’s a puppet booth?

BRIAN: Yes, it’s a DIY puppet booth. I hope it gets on YouTube or something, we’ve had about 40 or 50 puppeteers so far today. We have some puppets and a bullhorn and I heckle people in the crowd until they come up and perform a puppet show.

JM: Magical. What have your crowds been like? A lot of familiar people, or are you seeing a lot of new faces?

BRIAN: It’s an interesting mix of both. It’s different than the Block Party, there’s a different… There’s a totally different vibe.

JM: Which do you think you prefer, the Block Party or Summer Fest?

BRIAN: I don’t know. It’s kind of like apples and oranges.

JM: Do you like apples better than oranges?

BRIAN: Uh… Y’know, again, that question… Sometimes I like apples, and sometimes I like oranges.

JM: I can’t argue with that.

After that I ran back into my beloved VIP tent to soak up some air conditioning and chat for a bit with hyperkinetic, perpetually smiling Cop Warmth / Somosuno drummer who goes by Zlatan. I knew that wasn’t his real first name, but that’s apparently all I knew. Note to anyone who wants to conduct an interview with a musician: if you’re going to fuck up on the most basic of facts, be sure you’re at least interviewing someone extraordinarily warm and friendly like this guy.

Fernando/Zlatan: The nicest guy you will ever see lay waste to a drumkit

JM: Okay, I’m here with Francisco of Cop Warmth –

FERNANDO: It’s Fernando.

JM: Shit! Really? I’ve been calling you Francisco for like five years!

FERNANDO: (laughs) It’s cool, man… People call me Francois all the time.

JM: I get called Jeff a lot, I mumble my own name and then let people go with whatever they heard. Shit. Okay, I’m here with Fernando from Cop Warmth. What did you think of your set?

FERNANDO: It was awesome… B L A C K I E wrecked it. We put it down for Chemical City, always… The sound guys were kind of mad at us or whatever, but I thought it was a good set.

JM: There was probably a lot more climbing on the PA than they’re used to.

FERNANDO: Yeah, the guy even said at the end “Wow, I did not expect that” or something. He seemed stressed out.

JM: You guys don’t play a lot of afternoon sets on big outdoor festival stages.

FERNANDO: Nah. It’s so hot right now, y’know? I wish they’d done this in the fall, or the winter...

JM: Well, you can’t have Summer Fest in the winter.

FERNANDO: I guess… I dunno, what if they had Summer Fest in the winter and Winter Fest in the summer?

JM: That’d learn ‘em. You mentioned Chemical City earlier… It seems like 80% of my favorite local bands are from Pasadena or La Porte or Baytown. What’s with that area? It seems to breed really crazy, fucked-up, great stuff.

FERNANDO: If you go to different parts of Houston, there’s kind of like all these little scenes everywhere, but us… Where we grew up, there’s nothing to do but listen to music and hang out with your friends, there’s nothing else but chemical plants and stuff. We’d always drive down here (inside the loop) and watch bands and stuff, then we come back home and it’s like, man, we’ve got to get our stuff together, we’ve got to show everyone what’s up over here. You know? It’s just that drive to go out there and do it.

JM: I think it’s working. Anything else?

FERNANDO: Man… It’s too hot right now. It’s really good, but… It’s too hot.

JM: Alright, thanks Fernando. Or Francisco, if I want to keep fucking up.

FERNANDO: (laughs) It’s whatever, man. People call me all kinds of stuff, people call me Zlatan, or my middle name, Giovanni… I’m a human, I can go by any name.

Click here for part one, and be sure to check back for the rest tomorrow. Good stuff? Good stuff.