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PAUL:

Today's show is a celebration of all things local, from an iconic arts and culture hub to a special citywide celebration on June 1 and 2.

Hey, it's Paul Wolf for the front-row seat to conversations on culture from Jackson, Mississippi. We call our podcast Soul Sessions. It's the people, places and events that make the city with soul shine. On today's episode, Philip Rollins, DJ Young Venom, is the owner of Offbeat Downtown and Kim Lewis,

Visit Jackson's destination development manager. Philip is here to talk about his store's 10-year anniversary and to join Kim to talk about 601 Jackson Day. And we won't keep you, Phillip. I know this is a big weekend at your shop. Yeah?

PHILLIP:

Yeah. Offbeat is turning 10 May 17 and we are just doing what I'm calling like a 12-hour kickback. Just a customer appreciation day where we are just going to have DJs and musicians playing and spending throughout the day. We have special sales. We're doing a raffle for an autographed Cedric Burnside record. We'll be giving away some brand-new records courtesy of Warner Brothers Music. We also are doing a collaboration beer with Fertile Ground called Splash Page. It's a citrus Wit. It'll be limited to 300 cans.

And we also have a screen printed poster designed by Quinn Mobley—goes by Quinn Mob. He's done some art in the shop and we showed his artwork here before. It's being hand screen printed; it'll be about 30 bucks and it's limited. It'll be numbered and signed and limited to 300 pieces. And we also have a food truck as well throughout the day. This is going to be a lot going on and something for everybody to do.

PAUL:

Philip, did you ever imagine a decade ago that you'd be sitting here right now?

PHILLIP:

I kind of did… maybe? No, not really. Cause I really just wanted to have a what people are calling the third space where people hang out, be themselves, buy records, buy comic books here in the city.

PAUL:

Yeah. It really has become that kind of third place for so many of your regulars. Philip, you are celebrating and collaborating with us at Visit Jackson to plan 601 Day. Kim, how did this event come about?

KIM:

Last year was actually Phillip who brought it to me and he pretty much said this is something that other large cities are doing. It creates community pride. It gives people, you know, a way to get involved. And it made perfect sense for us to do it at Visit Jackson. And the plan is obviously for us to do this every year. Last year, it was a little bit longer with June 1 falling on that Friday. We did Friday, Saturday and Sunday events. This year we are focusing just on June 1, which is Saturday and then Sunday as well. So we can really put more time and effort into a shorter amount of time.

PAUL:

And we're celebrating local.

KIM:

Absolutely. The businesses, the events that they hold for the community, you know, some of the events during that weekend we have put together and created. Other parts of the weekend, we're just supporting events that were already going to happen. I mean, we know that there's definitely not a shortage of things to do in our community. And this was just another way to kind of package it all together, create one or two new things, and then just support the other things that are going on.

PAUL:

Phillip, I know you see 601 Day as important to not just your business, but to the entire city.

PHILLIP:

For me, for 601 Day and 601 Weekend, it's really about, you know, showing the people of Jackson about the community that Jackson has and everything that has with events, but also even with their own neighborhood community. So when I proposed it to Kim, I had envisioned it to be, you know, anybody anywhere in the city can do whatever they want for 601 Day and 601 Weekend, whether your neighborhood is doing like a cleanup day for that Friday or Saturday, or you're having like a picnic or movie night in the neighborhood. And it's something as small as that to something as big as the skate jam or Magnolia Markets, the bar crawl that will be happening in downtown. Those are also big events.

People always ask me how it benefits my business, but when the city is doing great, the business does great. And when people are out downtown, it's better for me. I'm focusing this year on a big stance on the skateboard community since they lost their DIY skate park late last year. So, we're doing a skate jam. I don't even sell any skateboard products or anything like that, but I've always been an avid supporter since the early 2000s as a DJ. And it's, you know, it's a very hip hop and very punk thing to do, but these kids and these guys, they are actively out in the city, and wherever they are at, they clean up the areas that they and don't leave a mess and stuff like that. So it's actively doing some stuff to beautify the city as well as being active here inside the city.

PAUL:

It's community pride in more ways than one. Kim, Phillip has mentioned a couple of the items, the skate jam that he's hosting and the Magnolia Sunset Markets. Fill us in on all the details for 601 Day.

KIM:

Yeah, so we're going to kick it off…you know, Phillip at Offbeat is one of our planning partners. We've also worked with the Jackson Run Club. Hal and Mal’s has been a great part of putting this together last year and this year… Magnolia Sunset Market. So, we'll kick off Saturday, June 1, that morning with a run with the Jackson Run Club. And they do a weekly run anyway. It's something that they always do, so we incorporated that to be on our Saturday morning to kind of kick off that weekend. We are working with Fertile Ground, and they're going to use that Saturday afternoon to kick off their summer cookout series. So that's a new event that they're bringing to that area, and that Saturday, June 1, will be their first event underneath that series. So, we're working with them, and then Briarwood Art Center is doing an event there as well. It's something that they've done before, but this time it's going to be an even bigger, you know, celebratory event. So we will do those events in the morning and then that evening, we'll do the downtown cocktail crawl. You may remember we did this in Fondren to kick off Jackson Restaurant Week and it was a huge success. Both the restaurant and the attendees, everybody loved it. So, we wanted to bring that same idea to our downtown. We were able to partner with several of our downtown restaurants and bars and kind of split it up into two areas so we can promote like a walkable experience. Sunday morning, we are going to focus on everything brunch that we have here in Jackson. Our 601 booth will be set up at Hal & Mal’s that morning. And not only will we be there to promote, but we will also be promoting all of the brunch spaces in Jackson. And we will end Sunday with Phillip's event.

PAUL:

Two big weekends for Jackson. Offbeat's anniversary, May 17 and 601 day, June 1. Philip, what can we learn from these celebrations?

PHILLIP:

Celebrating local communities in the city, it gives people a sense of pride. A lot of people still haven't explored the city in full is what I've been learning. And, you know, when we have host events like these, it definitely helps out not just businesses, but also the museums as well too. It gives people like, ‘Oh, I don't have to go to another major market for this. I don't have to take a three or six-hour drive to somewhere else when we have all this cool stuff that we have happening here’ from the stuff that goes on at Hal & Mal’s, Martins, to major events like this, the Book Festival and everything else like this. These are things that people look forward to when people are coming from out of town to be a part of.

KIM:

Absolutely, we've learned - I mean, one thing we have definitely learned is that the community of Jackson, a lot of times people don't realize what's in their own backyard. So events like this give us that opportunity to showcase that. Hal & Mal’s: I mean, there isn't a single night I don't think that they don't have multiple events going on in there. And that's just one example. I mean, we know the number of restaurants and attractions we have in Jackson. It's insane. People don't realize those numbers either. So this gives us an opportunity to, again, showcase those events. But, instead of showcasing them to outside visitors, which we normally do, working for the tourism bureau, but it gives us a chance to talk to our neighbors and the community around us and remind them of what we have right here in the city.

PAUL:

That's Philip Rollins from Offbeat and one of the planning partners for 601 Day, along with my colleague, Kim Lewis. If you're listening to this episode on its release day, May 17th, well, don't miss out on the Offbeat anniversary. It's going on right now. And if you did miss it, there's still plenty of time to plan to experience 601 Jxn Day, June 1 and 2. We'll put a link in our show notes so you can learn more.

Soul Sessions is produced by Visit Jackson, the destination organization for Mississippi's capital city. Our executive producers are Jonathan Pettus and Dr. Ricky Thigpen, and I'm our managing editor. Do you want to know more about all the great work that we do to help make the city shine? You can find that at visitjackson .com.

I'm Paul Wolf and you've been listening to Soul Sessions.

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