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The Midnite Collective, mapped onto California. Other states not to scale.

Maps of the Midnite Collective

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Los Angeles is known as one of the epicenters of entertainment, where artists go to “make it” in their industry of choice. Most nights of the week, metal bands try to succeed on the Sunset Strip. They see these labels, venues and concert promoters in LA as vehicles for success. At metal’s osnet, the genre depended on tight-knit urban scenes to exist.

Ryan Avery’s Midnite Collective has turned that idea upside the head. He stages the city as a showcase for SoCal’s crop of heavyweight riffslingers. Midnite Collective bands gather every year in Long Beach for a weekend festival Midnite Communion, the fourth incarnation of which has just been announced (details below).

But where do those bands go on the other 51 weekends of the year?

Pick any label. Go to their website and click on their roster of bands. You will find a list of names or, at best, a panel of tiles with photographs and logos. That’s one way to look at a label, but it leaves out important information like scope.

Avery is one man, but his label’s reach spans hundreds of miles from the Inland Empire to San Luis Obispo, to the Complex in Glendale, or Brick by Brick in San Diego. His outliers live as far away from LA as Italy. If the Midnite Collective represents a scene, it is one that escapes proximity and other metropolitan amenities. The epicenter does not hold.

—Avinash Mittur
—Maps by Madison Klarer

The Midnite Collective, mapped onto California. Other states not to scale.
The Midnite Collective, mapped onto California.
Other states not to scale.

These maps omit new signees Haggatha from Vancouver, Canada, and Grime from Trieste, Italy.

The Midnite Collective bands mapped in greater detail on Southern California.
The Midnite Collective bands mapped in greater detail on Southern California.

Photos of Midnite Collective bands by Diana Lungu

Midnite Communion IV will be held on the weekend of November 11 in Long Beach, California.

Friday, November 11
at Que Sera, 8pm [21+]
Invdrs
Keeper
Trapped Within Burning Machinery
Communion & Cloven

Saturday, November 12th
at DiPiazza’s, 4pm [18+]
Cough
Minsk
Hell
Damad
Fistula
Haggatha
Fister
Deathkings

Sunday, November 13th
at Alex’s Bar, 12pm [21+]
Destroy Judas
-(16)-
Funerary
Behold! The Monolith
Aseethe
Teeth
Un