Kellams: The Momentary in Bentonville will host the AUXARC Record Fair Sunday, Sept. 20, from noon until 5 p.m. Robert Bishop, event coordinator at the Momentary and previous host of the KUAF Vinyl Hour, visited the Anthony and Susan Hui News Studio to speak with Ozarks at Large's Sophia Nourani about the upcoming record fair and to catch us up on his work in Bentonville.
Nourani: Robert Bishop.
Bishop: Yes.
Nourani: Back at KUAF.
Nourani: You're not a stranger, though.
Bishop: No, no. I had a few good years here.
Nourani: We had a few good years here. Yeah, well, you're around sometimes. You're still, maybe not the host of the Vinyl Hour, but you're a friend of the Vinyl Hour.
Bishop: I'm a friend of the Vinyl Hour. I think I'm still a spiritual guide for the Vinyl Hour. I produce from afar, maybe.
Nourani: Yeah, I like spiritual guides.
Bishop: Collaborator.
Nourani: Yeah. You and Meletus are.
Bishop: Meletus, yeah. And I come in at night with him sometimes and we chit chat and listen to records and hang out in the studio in the basement.
Nourani: Records.
Bishop: Yeah, records.
Nourani: We're going to be talking about records. Before we get to that, though, where have you been? We know where you are, but what have you been up to?
Bishop: Well, I've been working at the Momentary.
Nourani: Yes.
Bishop: And I went from here working on music shows to there working on music events. And so now I'm kind of programming, I would say, a mix of concerts and like community collaborations and events that, maybe it's not a show, but music is involved in some way.
Nourani: Pretty spectacular stuff. I think you brought some Fayetteville to Bentonville.
Bishop: I would go as far as to say that was the whole goal. I'm only really, truly programming for Fayetteville because that's where my heart is. And I think that's where a lot of, Bentonville has its own scene, but I think a lot of the music scene is still really here, where all the kids are. We want the locals to get on stage. We want to bring cool acts for the locals to see.
Yeah, it's been nice being up there. One specifically that I have coming up is a record fair, and it's going to be my second year doing it. I've also kind of done, we have a momentous music festival and I work with the vendor market there. I've done a handful of food and music pop-ups. So yeah, music is the through line, but we're finding ways to experience it in different ways.
Nourani: That's kind of also the mission of the Momentary, in a way, is to intersect art and other forms of.
Bishop: Creativity, art and food.
Nourani: Hey, 100%. And you've been doing that. But we're here to talk about a record fair. Tell us about that.
Bishop: Well, I've named it officially. And I'm kind of paying homage to the French explorers that showed up here back in the day and didn't quite know how to pronounce the term that was being used at the time, which was Ozarks. And so they spelled it A-U-X-A-R-C. And so I thought that would be kind of fitting because I'm thinking of like the way a stereo is, there's the auxiliary there.
Nourani: Yeah.
Bishop: There's the electrical arc. So yeah, this is going to be my second year. I'm going to have tons of record vendors from all over the region. I've got some from Kansas City, Oklahoma City, Tulsa, Little Rock, Eureka Springs, Hot Springs. I'm adding some more. But it's going to represent kind of like the Ozark record collecting community.
We're also going to have open decks for any DJs, any vinyl DJs who want to come and play.
Nourani: Super cool.
Bishop: We'll have food trucks, we'll have memorabilia, we'll have vintage clothing sellers. It's going to be Sunday, Sept. 20, noon to 5 p.m., and it'll be five bucks to get in. And then you can just shop your little heart out.
Nourani: Yeah. Well, there's a lot of stuff to look from. And this is going to be in the RØDE House at the Momentary.
Bishop: RØDE House at the Momentary. It'll be a Sunday and I expect to have really good foot traffic. We have two new exhibits open. We have that Lucy Sparrow felt store, which is so cool. I mean, come up and just walk through it. It's like being in a Walmart in your dreams that's been made of felt.
Nourani: So surreal.
Bishop: And then we have the Chuck Ramirez. He's a photographer.
Nourani: I believe he's from San Antonio.
Bishop: Yeah, he's a Texan. Yeah. Hey. Yeah. I mean, come check out the exhibits. Come shop the show. Lots of people from all over the region. All kinds of records. I think it's going to be really fun. And I hope that it grows.
Nourani: Yeah. Cool. Where can people find tickets and get more information about this?
Bishop: You can go to our website, which is themomentary.org. And the best way to navigate it is to kind of go to the calendar and then you'll see it, Sept. 20. And I mean, if you want to buy a ticket online, you can, but it'd probably be easier just to show up day of. There's no real capacity issue and you can just buy a ticket at the box office.
Nourani: Cool. Well, thank you so much for coming, Robert.
Bishop: Well, thanks for having me. Always a pleasure.
Kellams: Ozarks at Large's Sophia Nourani speaking with Robert Bishop, event coordinator at the Momentary and friend of KUAF, about the Momentary's upcoming Ozark record fair taking place Sunday, Sept. 20, from noon until 5 p.m. More information at themomentary.org.
Ozarks at Large transcripts are created on a rush deadline and edited for length and clarity. Copy editors utilize AI tools to review work. KUAF does not publish content created by AI. Please reach out to kuafinfo@uark.edu to report an issue. The audio version is the authoritative record of KUAF programming.
