Skipping Stones Records

Ahhh. Day off.

ACK! Popfest first day!!!!

I think I was pretty set as far as getting things ready. We probably should have packed up the backline earlier, but it didn’t take that long. The car rental place called us about the mini-van that we rented. I had forgotten that I had said that we would pick it up at 12 noon. We went over to pick up the van and had some difficulty figuring out our insurance coverage. The staff person was really nice and we had a pretty pleasant experience at the Enterprise in Waterbury, CT. Luckily we got a big van, not a Dodge Caravan, but a Ford “Freestar,” which we immediately nicknamed the “Threestar.” It was red. Damn I wish I got a picture of that! Here’s a fake pic:


I made the obligatory stop at Connecticut's fine chain of supermarkets, Stop & Shop, to obtain the obligatory snacks that Chris Mac had requested. Hey, it worked out great, as I will outline later (about the snacks, I mean). Locas in Love has an excellent interpretation of the Stop & Shop experience on their Locas in Love myspace page.

We packed everything up into ONE VEHICLE and left at 4pm. The drive was hell, with Columbus Day weekend traffic and everything, but we dealt with it and got there just in time at 6:30pm. It usually takes just a little over an hour. We drove home every night after the Popfest. Last year we stayed at the Motel 6 in Chicopee, which is nothing to write home about, and it took us almost 45 minutes to get there. So we saved a little dough and drove home. Although I didn’t sleep much, even in our own bed, it was nice to wake up to good coffee every morning.

The staff were already there at The Elevens in Northampton, MA. Bruce was behind the bar and he let us in. Bruce is an amazing soundman and a generally great guy. More kudos go to Don & Lisa.

William and Chris loaded in the stuff and I proceeded to organize myself for the night. Our helpers were Aileen, Stephanie and Joe. We had to take cash at the front and watch the back for weirdness (stay tuned).

A week earlier, Ponies in the Surf let us know that they couldn’t get there in time to play first on Friday. We replaced them with a guy who goes by the name of The Juliet Kilo. Unfortunately he was stuck in traffic and did not arrive until 9pm. We had already let people in and a steady stream of 3-day-passers were there, as well as the other bands. David from The Juliet Kilo promised to set up quick, but he had a DVD projector and had a lot to set up. He didn’t go on until 9:20pm which made our entire night’s schedule completely off. We probably should have told him that he couldn’t play, but would that have been right, after he had endured several hours of traffic from Boston?

Beauty Sleep had a nice set and played pretty well, considering that they were playing with a new bass player. Palomar really rocked and Rachel got in quite a bit of bantering. At one point someone in the audience yelled, “YOU ROCK!” She said, “Great, you just jinxed us.” So out came the reply, “YOU SUCK!” to which she endearingly replied, “Thanks!” Three girls on guitars, one guy drummer. That oughtta be interesting. The definitely gave Dale a hard time when he didn’t start some songs soon enough! Palomar:


Local band Spouse came up next. We’ve known lead singer Jose Ayerve for many years and he’s such a nice person. He made it to the show, even though he was on crutches! Jose also runs Pigeon Records and in the past, has been the tour manager for the Pernice Brothers. At about that moment, William, who basically spends the entire night setting up bands and frantically getting people on and off the stage, told me that we were way behind and had to cut back. We didn’t want to cut any bands that had come from far away, so we made the decision to cut Spouse a little. The repercussions were felt later when local flag-wavers from masslive.com wrote a scathing review about how bad we are as organizers. I guess they didn’t get the big picture that it’s not about Massachusetts bands, or New England bands, but bringing bands from all over the world to a little town called Northampton. Yeah, the local band took a punch for the greater good and Jose said he would've done the same thing.

Jedediah Smith and his brother Dakkan played the most amazing guitars in My Teenage Stride. Every year this band keeps getting better and better. Their new bass player, Marta, began a Popfest trend of 1) bands with female bass players and 2) bands with female bass players who play Rickenbackers! Marisha Chinsky, formerly of The Consultants, sang on their last song, a Belle & Sebastian cover. Marisha joined her former bandmate, Brett Whitmoyer, who plays drums in MTS. Jed is a really swell guy. Later he told me that he enjoyed the fact that his band only had a very short time to play. It made the whole set “count” that much more. It goes to show, some people can work better under pressure!


The Icicles (Joleen singing, above) were as charming as ever. Tonight they had on their matching swirly-pink fabric outfits, all in different styles. Joleen on keys and Gretchen on guitar are just so sweet. I think that someone on the indiepop list called their new songs “heavy,” which they are, but in a wonderful spaced-out kind of way, like twee Stereolab! Hey, check out their new website, too, it's way cute!

Butterflies of Love featured Mark Mulcahy on second vocals. They had just come back from playing the Fortuna Pop festival in London. They were totally rocking!