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| Hockey Dad |
Doing Some Official Stuff
When I was in Austin last year, I made it a point to get out and start seeing bands before lunchtime. That often extended into the wee hours of the next morning. I decided to try and pace myself a little better this year and to maybe take advantage of some of the conference offerings. On Wednesday, I decided to head to a panel discussion called "How to Get Paid to Write About Music." THUMP editior-in-chief Emilie Friedlander moderated the discussion. Other panelists were Eric Sunderman (Noisey, EIC), Matthew Schnipper (Pitchfork managing editor), and Andre Grant (freelance).
Making money has never been a goal of CoolDad Music, so the panel wasn't as relevant to me as it probably was to aspiring music journalists; but it was interesting to get a bit of a behind the scenes understanding of how some of the publications I read on a daily basis select stories and writers. There was some discussion of "branded content" that I found kind of icky, but it's important to keep in mind that these are big, corporate entities who also function as ad agencies.
That done, I headed out for some BBQ before making my way to Stay Gold for the Cigar City Management / Nochebuena Party. That one featured lots of friends -- Sharkmuffin, High Waisted, Fruit & Flowers -- as well as a couple of acts I'd been wanting to check out for a while like DTCV and Australia's Hockey Dad. Also, there were really good margaritas.
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| High Waisted |
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| Sharkmuffin |
The two-piece Hockey Dad put a little bit more of an edgy spin on jangly, beach-inspired sounds... ...which totally works for me. DTCV were some pop, some post punk and just impressive. I almost left for a break during their set. Cigar City's Randy Ojeda convinced me to stay, and I'm glad I did.
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| Hockey Dad |
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| DTCV |
Fruit & Flowers' set was the highlight of the party. Not only were they as good as they always are, but the crowd also chanted twice for encores and were still shouting for more as the house music came up. It was a cool moment.
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| Fruit & Flowers |
From there, I headed back downtown to catch the set from Baltimore's Outer Spaces at The Main. I love Outer Spaces' A Shedding Snake, and Wednesday night's set was easily the best I've seen from the band. The sound was great, and Outer Spaces had enough time to hit most, if not all, of my favorite songs from the record.
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| Outer Spaces |
I was pretty spent at this point and started walking back to my hotel. I just took a glance at my phone and noticed that Spiral Stairs (former Pavement guitarist, Scott Kannberg) was going to be playing a set a block away. Kannberg and the band sandwiched new and old solo work between covers of Pavement's "Kennel District" and "Two States." A fine way to end another long day.
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| Spiral Stairs |
I don't even have any idea what I'm going to do today yet. It's all becoming a blur.
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