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If you see writers at a 2,000-person music festival, chances are they’re there to cover the performances. If you see Jay Babcock, editor of Arthur Magazine, he’ll be running the show. Arthur is sponsoring Arthurfest, a two-day festival to be held Sept. 4-5 at Barnsdall Art Park.

The three-year-old music and counterculture publication also runs a mail-order label called Bastet, giving it a history of direct involvement with the music industry.

“It’s a weird moment in culture,” said Babcock, a UCLA alumnus who graduated in 1992 with a bachelor’s in political science. “It’s very hard for bands to get on the radio, to get in festivals. ... (The groups performing) are a lot of our favorite bands. I want to see them play. ... No one else is making a festival where they all get to play at the same time.”

Curated by the magazine’s editors, the festival spans a fair variety of genres and generations, ranging from Yoko Ono and 85-year-old bluesman T-Model Ford to contemporary rock acts such as Sleater-Kinney and Spoon.

Several of the performers have direct ties to the magazine – T-Model Ford writes a column, as does Thurston Moore of headlining band Sonic Youth. Many of the Bastet artists will be performing, including Six Organs of Admittance and Josephine Foster, who were featured on a compilation released by the label in 2004 titled “Golden Apples of the Sun.” Rather than take on the critic’s traditional role as an observer, Arthur regards its mission as one of advocacy.

“One of the secrets of American underground culture or counterculture is that it cannot survive on its own,” Babcock said.

“There simply isn’t enough money for it to sustain itself, for the artists to be able to do their artwork and for the critics to be able to have the time to be critics. I see Arthur as an incubator. To a degree that’s not cheerleading or coddling, but trying to find the artists who are delivering or who have some potential, and to bring them forward and give them encouragement.”

The seeds of Arthurfest were planted at the annual South-By-Southwest industry conference, where Arthur sponsored a showcase featuring Dead Meadow and Wolf Mother, which will be returning this weekend to perform at the festival. Along with the help of Mitchell Frank from Spaceland Productions, the idea for an “Arthur night” in the magazine’s Los Angeles home base sprang to life around a tour by editor favorites Sunburned Hand of Man and the Magik Markers.

Soon they were going down their wish lists, bringing in traditional folk groups, edgy punk rockers and psychedelic ensembles alike to share the two stages.

One major pick was the recently reformed Olivia Tremor Control, an integral part of the Athens, Ga., “Elephant 6” collective that also included Neutral Milk Hotel and the Apples in Stereo. The musical community that the members of Olivia Tremor Control grew up with is part of what drew them to Arthurfest.

“I saw that Josephine Foster was playing, and she’s great. Jason Ajemian, her upright bass player is one of my good friends. He sat in with Circulatory System here in Athens and we played shows with his jazz groups and stuff,” said John Fernandes, a multi-instrumentalist in Olivia Tremor Control and his current band, Circulatory System.

“When I saw she was playing, I got really excited. We’re coming in the day before so we can see all the other bands.”

Arthurfest is an attempt by the magazine to create a friendlier festival, one where the focus is on a community enjoying itself rather than what Babcock calls “the flash and the buzz” of a mega-festival such as this spring’s Coachella.

Babcock hopes that the two-day event will help round up the magazine’s readership, which is spread across the country. Beyond the magazine’s musical bent, gathering the community may be an opportunity for dialogue on other subjects.

“It’s not just music – they have a lot of political discussion (in the magazine), and I was pretty turned on by that, to be involved with them, because they have a lot of the same ideas we support,” Fernandes said.

Whatever Arthur is able to accomplish this weekend, Babcock hopes the magazine’s work on Arthurfest can help make a difference for the artists and fans involved.

“What we’re doing, it’s like talking to poets and doing poetry reviews and saying ‘How can you review poets and also sell them?’” Babcock said. “This world is so small that you need to do everything you can to keep this poetry going.”