Christian Costello has a brace protecting his left wrist. The 25-year-old filmmaker and photographer had some misfortune while taking photos of a band the other day, and he isn’t taking any chances. In his right hand, Costello is clutching a stack of 3-by-5-inch black-and-white, Xeroxed show flyers — but that’s no accident at all.
We’re in an Ybor City alley during a set break between bands playing a benefit show for a couple of local musicians and scene supporters. Costello has been booking concerts at various Bay area venues for the better part of a decade, and the flyers are promoting Lucky You Fest, the first-ever two-day festival he and friends have organized at Lucky You Tattoo in St. Petersburg. Nearly two dozen bands across the punk and hardcore spectrum are set to play the all-ages space on April 14-15, but Costello is quick to acknowledge that his fest can’t exist without shows like the one happening in the courtyard of popular Seventh Avenue restaurant The Bricks, or the concerts that other promoters like Chewy Hemphill and Rob Sexton are organizing at other venues and record stores.
OVARY ACTING
Photos: Miami's Period Bomb explodes into Lucky You Tattoo with DRUG and Piss Ghost — 05.04.17
“If this wasn’t going on, and I wasn’t able to see people, then the word can’t get out. It takes a community effort,” he says. Costello — whose warm demeanor belies the gruffy black-and-red beard on his face — seems happy to watch his small contribution to that community effort grow with each year that’s passed since his first band played its first concert when he wasn’t yet a teenager. “December 22, 2005, that was my first show. A couple months after is when I first played Transitions.”
The all-ages Transitions Art Gallery is located at Skatepark of Tampa. It has changed hands and names a few times over the years, but has once again adopted the Transitions moniker. At the time of Costello’s first show, the space was run by Matt Welch, who eventually let him try to book a show there. Costello tapped Pericles — a four-piece pop-punk shitstorm signed to New Orleans D.I.Y. label Community Records — to headline, but that unfolded very quickly. The Dominican Republic-based band broke up, and someone from a supporting act ended up with gall bladder problems. Costello remembers still having fun with the eventual piecemeal bill that took the stage, but the show flopped. Costello was chewed out by Welch, who made him cover the overhead for the venue.
EPIC TRANSITION
Tampa's Transitions Art Gallery stages welcome back show on April 28
“It was tough love at that point,” Costello recollects, adding that Welch explained that he needed to take it seriously, flyer and not waste anyone’s time if he wanted to book shows. “I am thankful for it because it kind of kicked me in the ass.”
It was probably better than the proverbial ass-kicking Costello was getting at school at the time, anyway. Costello’s mom was an active member of the National Guard who often had to leave home when disaster or war struck. She was in New Orleans for Katrina and took several trips to Afghanistan and Iraq.
“My home situation was interesting. I was staying at my cousin Craig’s house or other peoples’ houses, whoever was able to watch me while she was gone,” Costello explains. Couple that with the awkwardness that comes with being the only black kid at your middle school who listens to punk music, and you’ve got a nice little prepubescent social conundrum on your hands.
“It’s more normal in popular culture now, but when I was growing up that wasn’t the case. I would wear a certain shirt or something and I would get laughed at,” Costello says. He eventually had to change in and out of clothes before and after school to avoid being picked on. “Middle school is the worst because that’s when people are first realizing that they can be assholes.”
High school was easier; Transitions was a place Costello could escape to.
“There was no judgement, anything like that. Not just at Transitions, but all of the all-ages shows, punk shows in general. I gravitated towards it because I could be myself,” Costello explains. “It was definitely an outlet for me, especially playing music. I never had a therapist or anything, so being in bands was definitely beneficial that way.”
At Lucky You, where Costello has been booking shows since 2015, he gets to pass that on. Lauren Schuckel, whose band the Nervous Girls is playing the festival, also went to her first show at around the age of 11. She started at Warped Tour, but started to feel disconnected at the big shows. Schuckel — who used to take her mom to shows when she was a kid — said performing at Lucky You Fest is going to feel like a family reunion with all of her friends playing.
“The term ‘all-ages’ covers the whole spectrum,” Costello adds. Lucky You sees young kids, but it also hosts older people who are just getting back into being out at shows. “Whenever I see new people I get stoked. We try and book a diverse crowd and interchange them a lot. The younger the better, that’s the whole point, to get young people to come out.”
But what about a parent who might be leery about letting their quirky kid head out to a tattoo shop to see some punk music?
“Tell them both to come and see what it’s about. We’ve had plenty of times when I have seen kids bring their parents because they couldn’t come by themselves. When you see it, how safe it is, it all clicks.”
And if you can’t make it to Lucky You, then know that all-ages shows are happening at safe spaces, coffee shops and record stores across the area.
“There are a lot of people doing shows. We couldn’t have the success we’ve had at Lucky You if other people aren’t also doing stuff, helping us and donating time to work sound or work the door,” Costello says. “Even if we weren’t doing this, it would be happening somewhere.”
This article appears in Apr 12-19, 2018.
