This Eastern Nevada music festival is back—in a new locale
Lucky fans of national and international indie rock witnessed a killer three-year run of shows in the tiny town of McGill, from 2022 to 2024. Artists such as Blonde Redhead, the Old 97’s, Mercury Rev, Ladytron and Dinosaur Jr. were on the bill at Schellraiser, a festival organized and founded by music fan and rural Nevada resident Rudy Herndon.
After taking a year off to find new digs, the festival is back with Schellraiser Presents Humboldt Hideaway, which takes place Friday and Saturday, May 29 and 30, at City Park in Wells, about 125 miles north of McGill. There are no Reno-area bands on the bill, but local musician Spike McGuire will be the host on both days.
This lineup features the hip-again styles of shoegaze and indie pop. The first day of Humboldt Hideaway has a great 1-2-3 punch of loud indie rock that particularly piqued my interest: veteran bands Swervedriver and White Denim, as well as newer group Hotline TNT.
The second day features the more melodic, near-pop wing of indie rock and is headlined by quality artists including Woods, Isobel Campbell, Camera Obscura, and Ivy, which Herndon said is one of his favorite bands.
“Just booking Ivy in particular was a real coup for us,” Herndon said. “They’ve been on hiatus now for 15 years, and we’re going to be one of the few shows they are doing anywhere this year.”
Herndon said he held on to the Schellraiser name for brand awareness and to keep the rural Nevada nomenclature intact. Those first three fests took place on the Schell Creek Range in McGill, an area where Herndon said his family has owned property for decades. Similarly, Humboldt Hideaway is named for the East Humboldt Mountains and Humboldt River, both near Wells.
Herndon said that after significant money losses in the first three years, he took a year off from festivals to scout a new location. He said Wells fits the bill to bring feeder communities closer to the fest, including music fans in Reno, Sacramento, the Bay Area, western Utah and southern Idaho.
“One of the things that brought me to Wells was the hope that we could build our audience,” he said. “We’ll have plenty of room to grow without becoming a mass-scale event. We want to retain the qualities and characteristics that make us special.”
Part of the appeal of a smaller-scale festival includes being able to see some of the musicians up close as they attend. Herndon gave an example from 2023: “Someone could be standing in front of the stage and look off to their right, and there’s J. Mascis from Dinosaur Jr. also checking out the band. It’s kind of surreal. I’ve heard that word thrown out a lot, to see all of these really well-known or even legendary figures in the indie and alternative music scene show up at one place for two or three days in such an isolated area.”
Herndon recommended that potential festivalgoers get tickets early to avoid higher prices at the event itself, and to line up lodging options close to Wells, which has just one hotel.
“If people are going to be coming from the Truckee Meadows or Sacramento and the Bay Area, I’m encouraging them to look at hotels in Elko, which is 45 minutes west of us. For people who are interested in camping opportunities, they should also look into those as soon as they can. Wells is, I think, located in one of the most beautiful spots for camping anywhere in Nevada or the West, with the East Humboldt Range and the Ruby Mountains just minutes away.”
To get more details on the festival, visit www.schellraiser.com.
Max pumps up the Volume on his band’s latest album
Many Reno residents may know Max Volume from his years as a DJ on rock stations such as KDOT and his current longtime home at KOZZ. But they may not realize that Volume is a singer/guitarist/songwriter who has released four solo and four group albums in 25-plus years.
Volume (real name: Glenn Bailey) released his latest album, Ramsdell, in April, and it includes a group of seasoned local rock musicians: guitarist Vince Gates, bassist Mike Bellione and drummer Eric Olivas. Gates is currently in The Floyd, has owned a music store and studio in Carson City for many years, and was in Crushstory. Bellione was a member of Keen and Arch, while Olivas has played with Keyser Soze and Redcel.
Needless to say, the bands mentioned here are “among many others” for all three musicians, and Volume has known each of them for decades now. He was even in a project with Bellione about 30 years ago.
After this version of the group played around the city more in 2024, Volume said he wanted to get a batch of songs down in Gates’ studio, Play Your Own Music.
“I think with every group, there’s a friction and a compromise,” Volume said. “I think with Vince and Eric and Mike and I, we all have egos, but we left them at the door to just make music together. It was just one of the most magical times I’ve ever had playing with people. We really love what we’re doing.”
For 18 months or so, the band traveled to Play Your Own Music in Carson City to record the 10 songs on Ramsdell. Volume said the back-and-forth journeys on Highway 395 were worth it.
“Vince was really instrumental in the shape and the color of this record, and what kind of character each song would have,” Volume said. “And I gave him complete latitude: ‘Vince, you are the producer, so you have carte blanche to make these what you hear in your head.’”
The songs on Ramsdell were all written in different years, from 2001 to 2024. Volume said he wanted to revise some songs from his previous albums because of his current band’s talent.
“These are my best songs by the best band I’ve ever worked with, because cohesively we are all one force,” he said.
Ramsdell includes songs like “Trollman,” which Volume said is dedicated “to all the beautiful kids who took their own lives or hurt themselves because of bullies online.” Another song, “Reno Nevada,” was written because Volume said he noticed “a lot of songs about Reno, but not many are very nice. This is about the snow and the mountains and happy stuff, about how cool Reno is.”
This version of the Max Volume Band is hoping to play more this coming year, including still-to-be-determined album release shows in Reno, Carson City and Tahoe. Volume said that Bellione has retired from work and moved to Belize, so in his place is Ryan Hall, known for his years in bands such as Cranium and Keyser Soze, in which he was a bandmate of Olivas.
“Mike will always be a part of the band when we do some recording, but for now, we just want to get this music out there,” Volume said.
Volume is also continuing to work at KOZZ, and he wants to eventually complete a book about his time as a DJ and a musician.
“People keep asking me, ‘When are you going to retire?” Volume said. “Well, I don’t like the word ‘retire’ for me. Alice Cooper gave me a lecture once about, ‘When you retire, you expire.’”
Updates on Volume and his band can be found on his Instagram page.
Restless Romantics calls it quits
One of the city’s best newer indie-rock bands, Restless Romantics, has decided to split up, playing its last show on May 8 at the Holland Project.
The trio of Jarod Duffy (guitar), Tristen Quintero (bass) and Kevin Draper (drums) had been together since 2023 and played often at venues like Lo-Bar Social and Pignic. They also released an EP, which is still available through Bandcamp and on streaming sites.
Draper said the group—part of a mini-revival of emo-influenced indie in Reno—also had leanings toward punk and melodic alternative rock.
“Each of us has brought our own influences into our playing, which I believe has helped us to craft a unique musical style that we are incredibly proud of,” he said.
Restless Romantics is ending because Draper will be moving to California later this summer. He said the band wanted to finish it up at Holland, one of its chief venues for shows.
“We thought that it would be a good opportunity to go out with a bang and celebrate what we have been fortunate enough to do here,” he said.
Draper said that all three musicians plan to keep playing in other groups, and Duffy is currently playing sax in the funk/jazz group Phat Mark. Draper said that he and his bandmates were grateful to be a part of the Reno scene during their time in Restless Romantics.
“We have gotten to play with so many awesome bands, and we are so grateful that we had such a welcoming and encouraging experience here,” Draper said. “More than anything, I love just getting to play the drums with great people, so I couldn’t be happier with what we have accomplished and the legacy we are leaving.”
Have some news to share?
Is your band splintering? Is it just getting started with a debut show? Are you a solo performer with some music on the way? All of these scenarios—and many more—could be part of this twice-a-month column on Reno music. To let me know the skinny, email me at markearnestwriter@gmail.com, or make me your social media pal on Instagram.