Organized Chaos

Andy Frasco wants everyone to wake up. He wants people to follow their dreams. And he's not afraid to crowd surf to a shot of liquor to accomplish that task.

He's living his own dream, after all, one concert, one mile on the road and one shot of Jagermeister at a time.

"We want people to be happy and be free," says the California native by phone a few days after a European tour that saw him play 15 shows in just more than two weeks. "You never know when it's going to end."

So while he has the energy, Frasco moves almost nonstop. A supposed day off finds him booking shows for December. He and his rotating group of backing musicians collectively called The U.N. are on pace to play 280 dates this year.

The keyboard player and vocalist started his touring career by cold calling 2,000 venues, often using an alias and posing as a manager of an up-and-coming artist named ... Andy Frasco. Maybe it wasn't that much of a stretch, because he worked in the music industry booking bands before deciding to go tour himself and see the world.

"I've traveled probably 400,000 miles, and slept on 1,000 couches. I still feel I haven't seen enough," he says.

Many of those miles were spent traveling in this direction. And many of those couches were in the homes and apartments of Fayettevillians. About six years ago, a friend told him about the city and booked him for a show in the Old Post Office building when it was a restaurant called Urban Table. Almost no one came to the show. But he felt a special energy here and kept coming back, playing at Smoke & Barrel Tavern and a few gigs at Tanglewood Branch Beer Co. Frasco then moved the shows to Sunday nights at George's Majestic Lounge, where he remembers telling venue booking agent Harold Wieties he would be thrilled to draw 200 people for a show. But he dreamed big, also telling Wieties he'd soon fill the venue.

Some five years later, he doesn't just fill the venue, he exceeds its capacity. Frasco returns this weekend for a two-night set dubbed "Frotastical in the Ozarks," taking its name from the bandleader's trademark hairstyle, a wild mess of an updo with tightly spun curls. The event takes place tonight with guests The Kris Lager Band and again on Saturday with guests Dirtfoot.

"They (Fayetteville residents) were the first people to acknowledge me," Frasco says. The townsfolk were quick to donate when his van broke down, and they were quick to do the same when he needed the money to pay for a fine when he was nabbed for possession of marijuana, he says.

Frasco also found inspiration in the city's music community, pulling in players such as guitar hotshot Kory Montgomery for many of his gigs. He credits what he learned playing here and around the area for altering his sound.

"I didn't fall in love with the blues until I went to the South. I just kept on inviting them (Northwest Arkansas musicians). Now I have a family," Frasco says. At least as much as he has anywhere else, even though California is still technically his home. Frasco says he has been saving up to buy a home in this community, too.

His current blend of barefoot blue-eyed soul, party rock and blues is captured on the album "Half a Man," released in early June on his own Fun Machine Records. Many of the songs have been previously released, but Frasco says this is the first time he's pulled a producer into the process. So he handed off "the top 11 songs I've created so far in my life" to see what would happen.

The theme of "Half a Man" comes from the personal growth the 26-year-old says he's made in the last few years and the maturation still to come. It's the reason he can crowd-surf to alcohol shots, like he did when he played to a massive crowd at the Bikes, Blues & BBQ rally. And the reason he works nearly every day to book gigs and advance his career. Speaking of crowd-surfing, and business, he'd like to set an official Guinness World Record for longest-lasting crowd surf during a performance at Yonder Mountain String Band's Harvest Music Festival later this fall near Ozark. He will need to crowd-surf for two consecutive hours, and he estimates the task will require 1,000 people, split into four shifts of 250 each.

And that's how it goes with Frasco -- equal parts serious planning and serious shenanigans, all in pursuit of his dream, a dream of making people remember theirs.