This Friday Bi-Fi Records will take front and center stage as the Maintenance Shop hosts the record label/recording studio’s showcase at 7:30 p.m.

Friday’s showcase will be Bi-Fi’s second; it also had one in August at the Botanical Center in Des Moines. It will also be somewhat bittersweet for co-founder Aaron Hefley. Besides the opportunity to show off the label’s talent, Hefley’s own band, Pookey Bleum, will be playing one of its last shows.

“I’m excited; I’m ready to call it quits,” Hefley says. “Not saying that there isn’t more that we could have accomplished with Pookey, but it just got hard trying to keep up with it.”

The show will feature veterans of Bi-Fi, including Pookey, Kathryn Musilek and Organ Donor, plus some of the newer additions to the independent label such as Keepers of the Carpet and Frankenixon. The showcase will also serve as a record release for last year’s Veishea Battle of the Bands winner, Poison Control Center.

Frankenixon just joined Bi-Fi at the end of the summer, according to Hefley, but it is already raising quite a few eyebrows in the area with its blend of rock and jazz.

“Frankenixon is probably one of the best new bands to come out anywhere in the country,” says Darryl Moton, music director at 88.5 KURE. “Their 5-song EP is in my top 10 albums of the year.”

“I have seen them a couple times now,” says Keepers of the Carpet guitarist Pete Smith. “I’m really impressed with them, their singer just has a stupendous voice and they write some really good songs.”

Besides getting to see the entire Bi-Fi lineup in one night, concert patrons can also expect some surprises. Hefley and company plan on incorporating what he calls a “circus atmosphere” to the show complete with sideshows during the concert.

According to Hefley, the Des Moines showcase got a good response, but he expects Friday’s to receive an even better one, since it’s in Ames at the M-Shop. And if anyone deserves a great response, Moton says, it’s the crew at Bi-Fi.

“As a label Bi-Fi has definitely helped promote local music,” Moton says. “And I think that the showcase is going to be very valuable to people who don’t know what the hell Bi-Fi is about, and it’s going to take this excellent new music that all of these bands are creating and smack people in the face.”