One of the biggest champions of the local music scene in Louisville was the late Sean Bailey who formed Louisville MUSICulture in 2011 to help promote musicians with his social media expertise, blogs and other productive ways.
To honor his legacy, his brother Evan Bailey, is hosting what he hopes will be an annual event to celebrate Louisville music called the Louisville MUSICulture Fest at The Whirling Tiger on Friday, May 10. Some of Louisville's finest will be there with Air Chrysalis, Sydney Sleadd & The Swarm, Isolation Tank Ensemble and Tender Mercy.
We asked Evan to tell us more about Sean, his legacy, and how the festival came to be:
Well, my sweet brother, Sean, passed away on March 19th of 2023 due to liver/kidney issues and then a bout of pneumonia at the very end. In addition to being an amazing drummer and playing in bands with me growing up, he became an even more integral part of the Louisville music scene in that he became a customer favorite at Ear-x-tacy where he worked for 8 years and then started up Louisville MUSICulture shortly after the store closed in 2011.
LMC was created to prop up local bands/musicians and to help give them a voice and an outlet. In addition to creating daily detailed content for his popular LMC social media pages (30,000 followers across FB, IG and X) he would go show hopping every single weekend (usually 3-4 shows a night) to show his support and champion the bands he was giving free advertising for on his sites. He would take photos of the bands playing live and then post them later on the LMC pages. So many musicians and club owners got to know Sean during this time that he and LMC garnered enough attention to land him as the cover story of the Leo in January of 2014. Even a featured segment on WAVE-3 at one point too.
Even though not exactly music related, it is worth mentioning that Seany was one of THE kindest, most gentle, loving souls you could meet and that’s another reason he resonated with so many and folks gravitated towards him. He hosted events at Headliners and was one of the judges for multiple years at the Louisville Music Awards as well.
LMC started to slow down in 2015 and 2016 due to other things going on in Sean’s life and then he moved to Colorado in 2019. Even being 1200 miles away he still was able to stay engaged with some of Louisville’s music output as Sonablast Records social media guy and he could work remotely. He did that until he became ill in December of 2022. So yeah, the Louisville MUSICulture Fest is to honor my brother’s amazing legacy and all the positives he brought to our flourishing scene. Hopefully, it will become an annual event and very likely an all day fest next year.
Evan recently did a video and song for Sean and spoke with WFPK's John Timmons which you can see here.
