The 2015 Huntington Music and Arts Festival continues with their pre-party events Thursday night at a V-Club show curated by West Virginia based record label, Twin Cousins Records. The festival was founded by local musician, Ian Thornton.

The show features the bands William Matheny and the Strange Constellations, Nights and Weekends, and Coyotes in Boxes.

“Obviously some of the folks we’ve worked with, some of them we haven’t,” said Dave Mistich, Twin Cousins co-founder and self-described co-curator. “Some we’ve worked with in more capacity than others.”

The curated night marks twin brothers, Dan and Dave Mistich, return to Huntington. The two co-founded the label in response to what Dan Mistich describes as a “prolific music scene” at a previous HMAF.

“It’s not like we weren’t having these conversations before,” Dave Mistich said. “But they started to materialize a lot better and more quickly mostly due to the environment Ian Thornton’s created. It’s certainly a concentrated version of stuff that’s happening anywhere and everywhere all the time.”

“It’s really hard in some ways to match Ian’s enthusiasm,” Dan Mistich said. “It’s good to be paired with people like him who bring a lot of experience and passion to a project, so it’s definitely special.”

The headlining act for the showcase is William Matheny and the Strange Constellations, which features HMAF founder, Thornton, playing the bass, as well as Bud Carroll on drums, and Adam Meisterhans of Morgantown rock band, Rozwell Kid, on guitar.

“William Matheny is, in my opinion, one of the greatest songwriters in West Virginia at this point,” Dave Mistich said. “He’s a killer guitar player and he’s a musician’s musician. I can’t say enough about him.”

Matheny returns the praise to Dave and his twin brother and label co-founder Dan.

“They’re working really hard,” said Matheny. “They’re doing all of the right things, I expect nothing but great stuff from them. I love any sort of affiliation I can have with those guys.”

Also appearing is a new lineup of Bud Carroll’s Nights and Weekend featuring brothers Corey and Cody Hatton from Of The Dell on guitar and bass and Jeffrey McClelland of The Dead Frets on drums.

Returning to Huntington to round out the show is now-Nashville based indie rock band Coyotes in Boxes.

Nathan can be contacted at [email protected].