Art Riot Breaks Into Music Promotion

Culture | June 16th, 2022

By John Showalter

john.d.showalter@gmail.com

Sometimes unforeseen circumstances can cause things to go off track, but they can also present the opportunity for growth in a new direction. Such is the case with Art Riot in Moorhead, which began by publishing a magazine that showcased local arts, music, comics, fiction, and more, as well as printing t-shirts.

“Art Riot opened in 2013,” said Jordan Tepley, one of the current partners at the newly revamped Art Riot as well as an affiliate with Discontent Fargo, a smoking/vaping lifestyle store. “My father Tom was the original owner of the business. Back in 2019 he passed away and we took a little bit of a hiatus to get our feet back under us, and here we are in 2022!”

With its return from the interim, Art Riot has started a brand-new venture, but one still devoted to showcasing the talents of local artists: concert promotion. “At the time of this interview, we are providing custom t-shirt printing!” said Tepley. “We also make custom stickers and engraved goods. Concert promotion is our newest venture. It has been a lot of fun so far.”

The first show promoted by the rebranded Art Riot was on June 4th at The Aquarium, and featured local metal heavy hitters Void Rot, Phobophilic, No Divinity, and Vessels.

The next, on July 16th, also at The Aquarium, will feature Suffering Hour, Nothingness, Aberration, Maul, and Thrallfrost. “The July show has a really awesome lineup,” said Tepley. “If you like metal music there’s no way you’ll have a bad time watching any of these bands. We will be posting a blog post about the July show on our website.”

In order to promote these shows, Tepley has been collaborating with someone who is no stranger to music promotion in Fargo-Moorhead, Martin Beckmann. Up until recently, Beckmann was the event director for Radio Free Fargo, as well as hosting Locals on the 8’s over at the Great and Mighty 95.9. In his time with Radio Free Fargo he has probably put on at least 50 shows.

“I met Jordan years ago as I worked at Mothers and he at Discontent and I always knew he was legit, but it wasn’t until a recent job put us in close contact that we got to talking about doing shows,” said Beckmann. “I thought that Art Riot is doing something really cool and it would be awesome to reach out to the local music scene by putting on shows and then hopefully get them to come use the shop because it’s an awesome thing to have local.”

The idea of Art Riot promoting concerts got its start a few months prior to the first show with Void Rot. “Both of us love metal and remember a day when there was a pretty solid pipeline to great bands in other cities in the Midwest,” said Beckmann. “We wanted to recreate that. But don’t you fear, metal will not be the only thing we are doing. There are definitely some more mellow plans in the works as well.”

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YOU SHOULD KNOW

If you’re wondering where you can find out more, don’t fret. Our website just launched on June 10th! We will be sharing all sorts of information and updates there (www.artriotpromotions.com). We also have Facebook and Instagram pages that we post on regularly (artriotmagazine and artriotpromotions on FB and IG).

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