By Patrick Kabot
Last week I had the pleasure of sitting down with Trey, Obuasi and Nicholas from What’sit Records, the producing, booking and event-managing wing of the Dose Me group that’s taking over Orlando.
So the last event you guys put on was “The F.T.P. Party”, tell me a bit about what went down there.
Trey: Well the whole purpose of The F.T.P. Party was to pay for a ticket that me and Ob’s band “We’re All Gonna Die” got while we were on tour. We were basically like ‘well fuck, what are we gonna do now? Let’s throw a big bad ass party’. We had a bunch of rock ‘n’ roll bands come play and it was pretty cool ‘cause we made a stage for the first time.
Obuasi: It was a lot of fun until the cops came [everybody laughs]. What we really liked about F.T.P is that we had a lot of bands and local artists from the underground scene come out and had such a large group of people come enjoy what we put on.
There’s definitely always a strong sense of community at you guys’ events.
Trey: Something we hear a lot is this philosophy of ‘Fuck Florida, let’s get out of Florida’ and that’s just so negative. It’s like Ghandi said “Be the change you want to see in the world” you know? If you have the mindset that everybody sucks and you move somewhere else, you’re just gonna be somewhere else still thinking that everybody sucks. Change starts in the community and we really believe that.
Obuasi: At the end of the day what we value the most, is the people.
That’s definitely evident, I see cats coming through that only had a couple bucks they could donate and you guys let them in no problem.
Obuasi: Yeah! You know if you want to give the last couple of bucks you have just to see the show how could I turn you away? We just want a big happy family enjoying the vibes.
So let’s hear about the Bamboo Jamboo
Trey: That’s a huge story in itself. It was at Bamboo Art and Wellness center in De Leon Springs, Florida earlier in the month. I went last year and thought it was the most beautiful thing and I asked Josh who sets it up if they needed help staffing and we jumped right on board. Josh was excited to have us working with him and gave us a chance and it was great. Everything went smoothly, everybody had a great time. We definitely proved ourselves and got so much positive recognition from everybody. An attendee actually came up to us and told us that he hasn’t seen a festival ran so well since his Grateful Dead days.
Obuasi: I didn’t even know anybody there and everyone was just so friendly. There was this awesome little kid Elijah who kept coming up to us all week and wanting to help us.
Trey: That kid was awesome! Him and his mom lived on the property and he was like eight years old. He was tagging along all through out the weekend and was like “Hey! You guys need help?!”. He jumped on stage with the band S.P.O.R.E and started wailing on the drums [everybody laughs]
Nicholas: You hear birds and monkeys all weekend around there, it’s really peaceful.
You guys do a thing called “The Weekly What’sit”, what’s good with that?
Obuasi: When we first started getting into the recording aspect of the business we thought it would be cool to film them, do an interview, shoot the shit and throw it up on our Facebook page.
Nicholas: It’s really cool, there’s definitely a personal vibe to it. The bands always really enjoy it.
And so what’s next for What’sit?
Trey: On November 8th we’ll be working with Diatonic Records to set up a show at The Haven.
Obuasi: Yeah! We’ve got a bunch of good talent coming through there. Planetary Funk Machine, The Happy Campers and S.P.O.R.E that played at Bamboo Jamboo.
Trey: Also, we’re gonna be working with I Hate Radio a lot as well. Definitely check those cats out. We’re covering the art scene as well with the extremely talented John James who represents Warlock Designs.
These guys are definitely cool people and their events are by far my favorites in Orlando. Check out What’sit Records on Facebook and keep up with all of their events and all the good stuff these cats put on their facebook page.
Patrick Kabot is a longtime East Orlando resident, graduate of Timber Creek High School, and is currently enrolled at Valencia College studying Jazz Guitar Performance. In his spare time, Patrick enjoys making and performing music, hanging out with his dog Slash, and improving upon his musical skills.
