Today we’d like to introduce you to Matt Baum.
Matt, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
Terminus Retrowave is a music collective and monthly concert series I initially started up in 2019 to help grow Atlanta’s retro-inspired music scene. Atlanta has one of the largest and most vibrant artist communities in the US for synthwave/retrowave, a genre of electronic music that pays homage to ’80s New Wave, combining old analog synthesizer instrumentation with more modern production techniques, Even so, Atlanta’s never really had a dedicated synthwave-focused music promoter, meaning that many of our local artists weren’t being properly presented with opportunities to support relevant touring national acts on their way through Atlanta and leaving many local synth fans completely unaware that Atlanta even had a local synth scene.
Over the last several years of touring as solo 8-bit chipwave act Watch Out For Snakes, I’ve had the chance to work with promoters in other cities like San Francisco and Portland, OR, which have have been able to establish mature synthwave scenes by consistently hosting their own events. I saw an opportunity to adapt their models to our scene here in Atlanta to create a more defined Atlanta synthwave brand, Terminus Retrowave, that could draw new national acts to perform in Atlanta, provide our local artists with the chance to perform alongside them, and unite local synthwave fans with our Atlanta artist community. While the focus is primarily on synthwave/retrowave, I place a high value on diversity and inclusion and purposefully try to book acts from adjacent genres like chiptune, vaporwave, industrial, and EBM. Ultimately, I want Terminus Retrowave to be a home for everyone that performs electronic music in Atlanta.
Terminus Retrowave shows occur the first Thursday of every month at Star Community Bar.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
No surprises here – COVID and the subsequent quarantine have been the biggest challenge for Terminus Retrowave as it has been for the rest of the entertainment industry. I was poised to kick off Terminus Retrowave in March of 2020 with a show at Drunken Unicorn headlined by Nashville electronic artist Makeup and Vanity Set. I’d also already set up lineups for our April and May shows, but ultimately had to cancel all three shows. As quarantine progressed, I looked into taking Terminus Retrowave virtual with concert livestreams, but didn’t feel like I’d be able to offer something unique from what other concert organizers were already doing in that medium.
Sadly, as quarantine began to lift, Drunken Unicorn made the decision not to re-open, which meant that I had to find a new venue to partner with. What made finding a new venue doubly difficult was that I wanted to establish a regular monthly cadence so I not only had to find a venue that had availability, but also had availability on the same night each month. I also had to think through how we were going to conduct events safely in a post-COVID world. Luckily, around the same time that I learned that Drunken Unicorn was not re-opening, I linked up with Tyler Lyle of The Midnight, who in turn introduced me to the owners of Outrun Brewing in Stone Mountain. I was also able to connect with the team at Star Bar, which had recently re-opened under new ownership.
Starting in August of 2021, we were able to re-launch Terminus Retrowave as a first Thursday of the month concert series at Star Bar with special outdoor events at Outrun Brewing. Both my partnerships with Star Bar and Outrun Brewing have been fantastic so far and given the relative success of our events so far, I’m already talking with each venue about we can collaborate more going forward.
Another major challenge has been solo coordinating all these shows while maintaining my own tour schedule, but I’m grateful that multiple members of the Terminus Retrowave artist collective such as Seersha have stepped up to help me with various show logistics.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I’ve been producing 8-bit chipwave, a blend of old-school Nintendo video game instrumentation and ’80s analog synths, as solo artist Watch Out For Snakes since 2015, but only began performing live with this instrumental project in 2018. Because my music is a unique blend of chiptune and synthwave, I’ve had a lot of diverse opportunities come my way, playing large synth events like Neo LA’s Outrun the Sun (Los Angeles), Neon Rose Fest (Portland, OR), Turbo Drive (SF), Synth Valley Stream Fest (virtual) and Echosynthetic Fest (Atlanta), as well as prestige chiptune/video game music events like MAGFest (Baltimore), BitGen Gamer Fest (Baltimore), and MAGWest (virtual). Much of these live opportunities are also probably due to the heavy emphasis I place on live performance. I’ve always enjoyed connecting with live audiences and my energy on stage draws heavily from years playing in hardcore and punk bands. One of the reasons I’ve performed on stage with a keytar since 2003 is because I enjoy being untethered and not having a wall of synths separating me from the crowd. I love dancing around on stage and feeling that reciprocal energy between me and my fans.
As for the music itself, both of my full-length albums focus thematically on loss, but also the idea of discovering strength in one’s own perceived weaknesses. These themes are rooted in my own personal history negotiating various health issues, the loss of family members, and relationships. I love all of my work because it’s a true reflection of who I am and it’s rewarding to me when others are able to find their own meaning in my music.
Where do you see things going in the next 5-10 years?
At the rate that things are going and the reticence we’re still seeing toward vaccination, it’s hard to see a time when we’ll actually be free from COVID and its effects. I think the industry is just trying to find ways of keeping the music going and enact safety protocols that will help simultaneously prevent the spread of Coronavirus and set everyone hesitant about attending live shows at ease. For our part, Terminus Retrowave is partnering with Star Bar to enforce vaccination and mask protocols, but I think across the live music scene, promoters are going to have to get increasingly creative about how they approach events in order to convince show-goers to return to live music. I think the next 5-10 years are going to largely be the live music business trying to get back as much as possible to the old normal.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://terminusretrowave.com | https://watchoutforsnakestheband.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/terminusretrowave | https://www.instagram.com/watchoutforsnakestheband
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/terminusretrowave | https://www.facebook.com/watchoutforsnakestheband
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/TerminusRetro | https://twitter.com/watchoutforhsss
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/watchoutforsnakes
- Other: https://watchoutforsnakestheband.bandcamp.com | https://open.spotify.com/artist/4YfuCTKTW5IKTnffVXAUXp
Image Credits
Geoffrey Smith
