Diversity in Music Tastes Good

By Melina Paris, Music Columnist

Music Tastes Good is a music and foodie festival representative of Long Beach’s diversity.

In 2014, Joshua Fischel, the promoter and local musician who is curating the festival, began to assemble the team of passionate locals. They partnered with KCRW and will present Music Tastes Good in downtown Long Beach from Sept. 23 through 25.

Part of the musical concept in curating this festival is to say “Here’s Long Beach,” said Fischel, who took a break from ongoing preparations to talk with me about his vision for the festival

“We’re trying to represent every Long Beach community, from Cambodian to Latino to African American to LGBTQ,” he said. “That’s what Long Beach looks like and that’s what our fest looks like.”

Meagan Blome, who became Fischel’s assistant in February of 2015, joined our conversation and immediately seconded the mission.

“The diversity in our lineup was definitely intentional,” she said. “We wanted that melting pot. In festival culture, you’re seeing more and more festivals each year but you’re seeing a lot of these niche fests that cater to a specific demographic and we knew that that wouldn’t make sense for Long Beach. It’s really about community and about Long Beach.”

As an example of the planning that’s gone into Music Tastes Good, Fischel contrasted the festival’s inclusion of women with “lots of fests [that] are notorious for not having a lot of women artists — especially headliners.”

‘It’s usually something like 10 percent,’ he said. “About 40 percent of our bands have at least a woman in it. In no way did we say, ‘We’re going to book this band because there’s a woman or because there’s a minority or a gay man,’ but we we’re very conscious of it.”

With everything from rock, to punk, to jazz and hip hop on the lineup, Music Tastes Good may well be a music fest vanguard.