This Denver music festival is creating activism with folk punk

Compost Heap IX isn’t just another pile of killer bands, but a grassroots movement built up by local DIY movers and shakers over the past decade centered around community and advocacy.

The ninth edition this week — Friday, July 17, through Sunday, July 19, at Seventh Circle Music Collective — features 36 bands, including headliners Ceschi, from Connecticut, and Austin ska punks Hans Gruber and the Die Hards. There are also 16 Front Range acts. Get a taste of this year’s performers by listening to the recently released “Compostilation 9.”

But the volunteer-run fest is bigger than its lineup, as it serves as a benefit for two Denver organizations: Harm Reduction Action Center and Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition. Others tabling at Compost include Housekeys Action Network Denver.

“All the money that we raise from ticket sales or donations, or anything, all gets distributed to the bands that perform or donated to causes we care about,” says co-organizer Micah Butler.

Butler is part of the Worm Food Record Collective, a nonprofit started by a handful of forward-thinking musicians back in 2016.

“It’s a group of friends who were all musicians and in bands and cared a lot about activism and raising awareness against oppression,” says Butler, who plays in local acts Doom Scroll, Helga Pataki, Dead Work and Chatterbox and the Latter Day Satanists, as well as Michigan punk crew Rent Strike.

By touring the country relentlessly, Butler built a network of like-minded friends who were more than happy to take part in Compost Heap from the jump. Even now, still through an application process, Worm Food looks to bring in bands that are inspired by leftist ideologies.

“That’s how we tried to pick the bands from the start,” Butler explains. “It’s way more focused on what they talked about or what they cared about or who the people were than necessarily what genre it was.”

At this point, most groups come from the folk-punk scene, which has given the festival its own vibe amongst the DIY circuit.

“The reputation precedes the application now a lot of the time,” says co-organizer Cody Winters, who’s also a member of Grinning Death.

Having an outlet and a space to congregate has always been crucial, but now it feels even more so.  

“It’s more important now than ever. The world is obviously an atrocious hellscape. There are so many different things that we can do,” Butler says. “There’s a diversity of tactics, but music is like communication. I feel like I’ve seen more change and understanding through music than I have through other tactics.”

Winters fell in with Worm Food a few years ago by attending the annual Compost Heaps and appreciates that aspect the most.

“Community-wise, my favorite thing about Compost is you’re seeing all these people again that you only see there,” Winters says. “Literally, you only get to see these people at this fest. It’s like you come to Compost to regroup with your Compost family.”

Butler couldn’t agree more.

“I feel like music is super important in those ways, but music brings those people together to talk and exchange ideas,” they conclude. “Finding common ground about the other types of things that they care about and the other types of things that they want to see happen around them or within their communities. It brings people together, not just for music, but other types of action.”