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The City Skies Electronic Music Festival and Events started on May 2nd and 3rd, 2008. Initially conceived as a one-off festival in Decatur showcasing electronic musicians from around the country (real electronic music performed live by humans is its motto), it has become a monthly event and a yearly festival held at the end of April/first of May. City Skies is the brainchild of Decatur resident and musician Sensitive Chaos, aka Jim Combs. We spoke to Jim via email and asked him about the City Skies phenomenon.

“The first City Skies Festival was really started when I sent an invitation to about 20 of my electronic musician friends to come to Decatur for my birthday and perform with me at my regular set at Kavarna. This was in late 2007. I expected one or two to accept. but all of them said yes, and oh, by the way, can I do a set, too? So I asked the folks at Kavarna if I could hijack a Friday and Saturday on their schedule for my little soirée.”

That first Festival was a great success and featured 16 acts including Richard Devine, Giles Reaves, Jan Pulsford, Tony Gerber, recompas, Random Rabbit, and Kevin Spears. The event drew performers and audience members from over 11 states. The entire festival was also netcast live on StillStream.com to an international audience.

Combs was asked by Kavarna owner Wystan Getz if he’d like to do an ongoing event, and in October of 2008, City Skies went monthly (usually the 2nd Saturday night of each month), typically with four acts on the bill, all netcast via StillStream. The 28th show will occur on November 13, 2010. City Skies also repeated the multi-day festival format in May of 2009 and April/May 2010, expanding to a Thursday night/Friday night/all day Saturday program.

“When we started, there seemed to be a big hole in electronic music performance venues in the Atlanta area. There were big dance clubs and DJs on one hand, and arts venues like EyeDrum on the other. My first Atlanta band TouchXtone (Creative Loafing Best of 2005 Local Electronic Act) luckily secured a monthly gig at Java Monkey from about 2003-2006. I saw firsthand that live electronic music could draw and keep an audience in a relaxed, sit-down environment. During the same time, I had also been performing at several electronic music festivals around the country, specifically the electro-music festival in Philadelphia and the Different Skies Festival at Arcosanti, Arizona. I started dreaming about an Atlanta electronic music festival, but either the venues were not conducive to what I had in mind or the cost was too prohibitive to attempt.”

“When I started my solo Sensitive Chaos band, I took on a host/sound engineer role at Aurora Coffee’s Songwriter Series and booked myself as the opening act. Putting electronic music side-by-side with alt-folk, alt-rock, rock, and jazz performers for those shows further reinforced that there was an audience for electronic music beyond the clubs and art galleries. When the Songwriter’s Series moved from Aurora Coffee to the newly opened Kavarna in 2007, I felt like I had finally found the right venue. When I sent my invitation to my friends to come play at my birthday party and got the phenomenal response, I stumbled into making that little dream a reality.”

“City Skies has been able to feature performers I consider to be national and international stars with major media exposure like Atlanta’s Richard Devine and Josh Kay, Nashville’s Jan Pulsford (Thompson Twins & Cyndi Lauper), Giles Reaves, and Tony Gerber, New York’s Richard Lainhart, and Milwaukee’s Paul Vnuk, Jr. We’ve also been able to give a supportive and consistent launching pad or a re-launching pad to a whole series of folks like Fader Vixen, Reklein, tay0, Randy Garcia, Zachary Hollback, Duet for Theremin & Lap Steel, Maui Threv, Indigovox, Kevin Spears, citizenGreen, Suicide Lane, Spy Magnet, Chris Wilfong, 84001, Mark Mahoney, Michael Peck. And the list goes on and on. We also showcased international performers Fractale from Paris, France and Modulator ESP from Nottingham, UK.”

“What I think is unique about City Skies is the diversity of performers and styles of electronic music. I grew up when FM radio would play Wendy Carlos next to Gino Vannelli next to Elton John next to the Beatles next to Tangerine Dream next to Yes next to Morton Subotnick. The common thread for me was how the synthesizers or studio effects were incorporated into the music. So City Skies will always be a mix of electropop, experimental, ambient, space music, Berlin School, progressive, house, technofolk, shoe gaze, jazz, world, drone, and something you’ve never heard before. Sometimes the program revolves around a common genre, sometimes a nice evolution of genres, and sometimes it’s just ninety degree turns all night long.”

“I’ve been sifting through all the recordings we’ve made of the performances over the past few years, preparing a playlist for our Holiday Party in December. A Best of City Skies playlist. What I realized or remembered listening to the recordings is how good the shows have been. I’ve enjoyed every show, but it takes listening to all of them to get a sense of how consistently good they are. Plus all those moments of magic that are off-the-charts great. I’m so privileged to get a chance to experience it.”

“I’m glad to see so many more venues for electronic music here in Atlanta than when City Skies started. I’d like to think City Skies was a little catalyst that helped energize the scene. We’ll keep going as long as there are bands that want to perform and have people show up to see them. It’s a pretty simple business model, but that direct connection between performers and fans is what it’s all about.”