Wallace Puts On the Local Show at Jump the Shark

When most of us were 17, we had trouble just getting ourselves out of bed in the morning. At that ripe age, Rylan Talerico has not only recorded a rock solid debut under the name Wallace with The Hubbubery EP, but he has also organized a music festival, the Local Show, planned for this Saturday night at Jump the Shark. "I'd put together a couple shows before, but I wanted to escalate things," the Lighthouse Point resident told New Times. "If you go to an average local show, it's barren. There's a punk-rock attitude and we love that, but we wanted more. We wanted to have a DIY attitude, but with a level of care, sophistication, and design you see at an arena or theater show."

Talerico called up some of his favorite local bands in Kids, SunGhosts, Raggy Monster, and Vincent Mango to fill up the musical lineup along with his band, Wallace. But he was just as concerned with the Local Show's visual aesthetic. "We designed a cool merch table, and we hired a great lighting company to light up the stage. We really want this to feel like the best parts of big shows and little shows."

Talking to Talerico on the phone, you would never guess he was a homeschooled high school senior. Listening to his confident The Hubbubery doesn't betray his young age, either. The songs, he said, came out of experimentation. "I'd played drums in other bands, but I started fiddling with a guitar and singing in my garage. I didn't know what to do with the recordings. I named it after my middle name, Wallace, when I released it."

The six-song EP on which he played all the instruments has a lo-fi/hillbilly/rock 'n' roll sound reminiscent of the White Stripes. "I love old blues music like Son House and Robert Johnson and old country music. There's a lot of truth in that music. It seems earnest and honest. I loved that and wanted to bring that honesty to alternative music."

After releasing the EP, he decided to turn Wallace into an actual band, enlisting Coral Springs High School students Matt Schneider, Gavin Sobel, and Max Landis. "We've got this Local Show Saturday," Talerico said about Wallace's future plans. "We've got a couple other shows through September, [and] then we're going to work on recording. We have enough songs to do a full length, but it might be another EP. We just want to release more." All that work ethic and musical talent is putting a big hole in the cliché that youth is wasted on the young. 
 
The Local Show with Wallace, SunGhosts, Kids, and others. 7 p.m. Saturday, August 6, at Jump the Shark, 810 NE Fourth Ave., Fort Lauderdale; 954-667-4126; tickets cost $7 via eventbrite.com.