Talk to musicians in Anchorage, and you'll hear one name come up over and over: Fatguy. They'll tell you he's "the guy." The guy you wanna talk to. The guy with the answers. If Anchorage's music scene were a mob movie, Fatguy would be the Godfather.
For his part though, the man himself shies away from the Cosa Nostra comparison. Fatguy -- whose real name is Jon Marté, but who goes by and seems to prefer the moniker he uses as a DJ for KZND 94.7 FM, better known as alternative rock station The End -- is far from a longtime Alaskan. He's been in the state less than two years, but in that time, he's established himself as a unifying force in the Anchorage music scene.
Fatguy may have a latter-day Brando physique, but he's no mumbling Godfather -- his sharp DJ's diction prevents that. He's an amiable guy, and he looked tired on the day I met him, with good reason. It was his 33rd birthday, and he'd spent the night before at a concert at Chilkoot Charlie's, featuring local bands The Hoons, T.I.A., and Kill Tango. So let's just say he had plenty of fluids nearby when I met him in Eagle River, where he was broadcasting his show remotely from a video game café called The Crave. Huge flatscreen TVs lined the walls, hovering three feet from the faces of customers playing XBox, the glow of the screens flickering on their faces. It was eyestrain heaven, a worst nightmare for any concerned mother.
Fatguy sat down in front of a paused game of Madden and picked up a laptop with a microphone running into it. He told me it's a mic originally for the game Rock Band, modified as an audio mic. A thick wad of tape was wrapped about halfway down the cord.
I've seen a lot of people slip into DJ mode, and it never seems normal. The pitch and timbre of Fatguy's voice changed, he got louder, and he invited listeners to join him at The Crave and challenge him to some video games.
Fatguy was born in Hawaii and raised in Sacramento, Calif. He's been a DJ since he was 16 and has seen the radio business change significantly in that time. His passion for radio, and for music in general, is apparent. He sang in a hardcore band in Biloxi, Miss., but he says it "didn't pan out."
"I always found that my talents lied on the other side, with DJing, or being a program director, or managing bands. I was a lot more talented on the management side," he said. "I've worked all over the country. I started in Sacramento. Memphis, Little Rock, Jacksonville, Boise, Salt Lake City. Just ... going where the jobs are. Kind of a gypsy."
He came to Alaska by way of a pop station in Muscle Shoals, Ala.; he wanted to get back into rock, so he applied for an open position at KZND.
"The thing about being a DJ," he says, "is that you go in thinking it's for the chicks and the personality and being cool, (but) those people fail. Bottom line is, if you're in it for any reason other than the love of the music, then you are not going to last in radio." Unless you love music, he says, people will be able to tell you're merely faking it, and you won't succeed.
Fatguy's love for music comes through not only through his DJ work, but in the way he nurtures local talent in Alaska. After he arrived in August 2009, he said, he didn't get actively involved in the local scene right away, "just trying to get my feet wet in the market." That changed when he saw longtime Anchorage indie-alternative rock act The Hoons and started learning the history of local artists from Alaska -- bands like popular mid-to-late-2000s acts Delmag and Jeb and still-successful homegrown rock act 36 Crazyfists.
The caliber of musicians didn't surprise him. "One of the reasons I wanted to take this job," he said, "is because I knew there was probably a really good collection of musicians here. And the reason why is because the best market I've ever been in for local music was Salt Lake City, because they were just so repressed, and they were looking for an outlet to vent their frustrations, and they turned to music."
So Fatguy took a calculated chance on the Anchorage scene, betting that the isolated nature of the state was able to spawn good music as a way to keep busy in the dark winter months. And the bet seems to have paid off. He's built close relationships with local artists and production companies, everyone from indie-acoustic songstress Marian Call to production company Family Tree Presents, which is presenting national metal act August Burns Red Thursday at Chilkoot Charlie's.
Perhaps the best example of Fatguy's investment in the local music scene was the A&R Showcase that he helped put on April 3, featuring 10 bands playing for representatives from record and music publishing companies -- the first of its kind in Alaska. Again, the investment seems to have paid off for at least one local band.
"The record labels told (local indie band) LaVoy that they need to move to L.A. and New York immediately," Fatguy said. The downside to any Alaska band finding an audience, he added, is that they inevitably have to leave the state.
"Unfortunately," he said, "the big step (for a band to succeed), and it sucks for us, is that they have to move out of here. Because you've gotta be able to tour, and it's not financially viable to tour from Alaska as your home base." He points to successful Anchorage-grown acts like Portugal. The Man and 36 Crazyfists, both of whom moved out of state before finding widespread success. And the tradition hasn't ended.
"The Hoons are moving to Portland in October," Fatguy tells me. "They're gonna try their hand at getting on the road."
But the A&R showcase provided a big leap forward in the Anchorage music scene, if only because it represented a previously-unmatched collaboration among local artists, especially indie and alternative artists, a relatively new addition to the metal and rock scene Anchorage has traditionally had.
This was an intentional goal of Fatguy's. He's been pushing away from the traditional "Battle of the Bands" format that has been a staple of Anchorage's music scene. He does note that Battle for Warped Tour is an exception, because of the tangible reward of winning that competition.
"I've turned down five or six battles," he says. "I would rather showcase our artists instead of having them compete against each other. (A battle) accomplishes a lot for the clubs, the promoters, and nothing for the bands." He says that battles can cause jealousy and resentment between bands, "stuff that can be avoided."
"I just think the scene has been there," he said when I told him how his name comes up in music circles around town, "but there hasn't been a champion for it. I never wanted to be any kind of figurehead. I didn't want be that Mafioso ... I just wanted to be a part of what they were doing, because it makes me feel special (in the scene), and it makes the station special."
Contact Ben Anderson at ben(at)alaskadispatch.com.