Skipping Stones Records

We'd like to thank the support of the indiepop list! Many peeps came out, and although we've heard it said before, we didn't get out the name tags for Popfest!

We dedicate this post to you, the Popfest Peeps. I made a concerted effort to take as many peep pix as possible. Interspersed are some comments from the indiepop list. Enjoy!



"Thanks to William and Christine and Chris Mac and everyone else. MTS had a great time, I had a great time, and even though I was actually in a trance-like state during our set due to lack of sleep and overindulgence of Red Bull, the enthusiam of the pop kids kept me awake through the whole thing.

Locas in Love were a wonderful surprise as I hadn't seen them before. The Smittens axis delivered the goods as usual, with the Besties providing excellent guest work. I tried to take a picture of the french horn player's horn, but it came out badly. I wish I had been able to stay for the Sunday shows. I also wish I had been able to come to the Sat show before 10. I also wish I had cool horns, like satan, or the guy from Judas Priest.

Also, I liked Spouse, but as a former Northamptonite, I knew that already."
/Jed

Most of the band Dyrdin from Iceland:
Maggi, Einar, Maggi's girlfriend Anna and Sigrun:


"We're back from US, where we had an amazing time with lots of cool people! We got to play with The Besties, The Smittens, The Icicles, Locas in Love, Bunnygrunt, The Leader, Peter Dizozza the singing lawyer, The Metric Mile, Secret Shine and then some. We got to see the New England fall foilage which people travel from all over the world to see, got some real McDonalds that taste exactly like here in Iceland, got some small coffees that were huge, inched our way up Broadway on a shopping spree, met some crazy taxi drivers and battled angry german girls in hotel rooms. All in all a very nice time was had by all of us"
/Dyrdin



Colin signing everything for MichaelZ:


"1. Locas In Love are awesome. It is always fun when someone of whom you've never even heard turns out to be great. The wonderfully-maned lead singer also had the best line of the weekend: " asked if we were planning to engage in any terrorism or espionage. We ticked the 'no' box." His delivery was perfect. We talked briefly about how hard it was for German-only groups to come over here, and he was surprised that I knew who Die Sterne was. You could tell how happy he was to be there.

2. According to Magnus, there was some discussion about whether printing the descriptions of the songs on Dyrdin's CD would be a good idea or not. I assured him they made the right choice. He also told me Dyrdin translates as "The Glory," which unfortunately sounds like a bad Christian rock act. So I'm going to pretend I didn't learn that, and tell everyone it means "Puffins with Guitars."

3. Chris Mac runs a tight merch ship. And he seemingly knows every song on every release ever.

4. It seems a great number of list people were there. Perhaps if I posted more than once every two years, I would've known who some of you were. No matter, I'm normally pretty quiet and had a perfectly good time drinking my beers and absorbing the music.

5. William and Christine have put on a great event three years running and I hope they have the desire and ability to keep it going for many more. They deserve all the kudos I can muster. My only complaint...

6. Next time, Popfest should be in Easthampton, so I can get home to bed quicker. It took me at least twenty minutes to get home, brush my teeth, and climb into bed. Twenty minutes!"
/Matt


Sherri, Joe Weincis, Marta / Polar Bear Parade, Kevin / L'il Hospital, Ellen, James, Gus & Marisha / Polar Bear Parade:


"Musical highlights for me were Locas in Love, Butterflies of Love, My Teenage Stride, The Icicles and Palomar. I am an old school fan of the Butterflies of Love and it was a treat to see them again with Mark Mulcahy. Locas in Love are total sweethearts and fuckin rock to boot -- love the hair-do and attitude and polar bear badges (step off the polar bears, man!). We all enjoyed playing as well last night and wished we had worked out more songs, like our surprise Neil Young cover that we will pull out one day soon for all of you. Everyone sounded just fantastic, the sound quality in the room was very good. Christine and William do an amazing job with putting together the popfest NE. The two of them are such sweet, thoughtful, fun people." /Marisha

MichaelZ, Dave, Holly & Colin / Smittens, Kevin, Matt / Specific Heats:


"Highlights of the Popfest:
Locus in Love stage presence and banter, getting to playing a song with William, Rikky, Marissa and Kelly, the Snow Fairies, actually seeing all of my friend's AMAZING bands (I don’t need to list you all, you know you were all great), The New to Me bands (Locus in Love, Panda Riot, Polar Bear Parade, etc), Matpat's reverb and wardrobe, Bunnygrunt playing "Freak Scene", Kev, Mat and Frank chilaxing before the Lil Hospital set on stage, watching people trying to eat the giant slices of pizza from Meimio’s (sp) Pizza, and the fact the their wasn’t a bad band at the fest.

Lowlights:
If there was a lowlight, I guess it would have to be the bit about Kev killing and eating the Snow Fairies. That kind of bums me out, they were nice kids."
/DavidZ

Jen / Specific Heats, Christine / Skipping Stones Records, Kevin, Leigh & Patrick / Brother Kite:


"what everyone said: LOCAS IN LOVE were fucking great. it's the same
with la buena vida, even though i don't know german, i just really
seized hold of their sound. i guess i should say that i also loved
seeing the besties for the first time. lalalala, they're the besties!
also seeing songs from the brother kite's new album played live was
awesome ... secret shine played loveblind and that pretty much made the
whole trip worth it alone.

sooo..as you guys can see, I too had an amazing time and it was such a
treat to put faces to names. I met a lot of new popsters, but it was
super great to see old friends from all over the place." /Leigh

Matthew from CA, Brian & Rebecca / Panda Riot, Dave, Holly and Kevin:



"I probably would have driven there just for the merch table." /Nick


Soulseek tweefolks, including Tim from Alberta, Canada


"1) William and Christine deserve a massive round of applause for putting on a stellar show and Chris Mac for yeoman efforts at the merch table
2) maybe we should make nametags for the next one so first timers will know who everybody is. or maybe just get Neal Snow Fairies or Colin to do the intros, since they were so darn nice about it
3) Kardyhm got attacked by a giant moth (not confirmed)
4) it's really nice to be at a show where everybody is there for the music, not just as the "oh I have to be there to be seen for the hipster quotient points" so the people talking don't drown out the band
5) it takes a lot longer to get dressed in the AM if you're listening to the Besties' "Prison Song" at the time
6) driving back to the motel with the stereo blasting and everyone in the car singing along to "Gin and Platonic" "Forever And A Day" and "George Romero" rules
7) everybody that I met was totally sweet, and thanks to Joe Wiencis for hooking us up with some great sushi on Sunday." /MichaelZ


This is the ultimate pic! This was taken on Saturday night.
From the left - Colin / Smittens, Kate / Smittens guest french horn player, Annabel / Beauty Sleep, Rob Christiansen in the back, Aileen Popfest helper, and Locas in Love: Mauri, Stephanie, Benny, Bjoern and Nicholas:


"By the time the beautiful Besties we were scared straight of playing ourselves. Everybody was so great and well received that we were quite scared of failing. Utterly. All that couldn't prevent us from enjoying the Besties, however. The way the voices of Marisa and Kelly interacted reminded us of all that was great about that dog. and Rikky had his great rock-star-frontman looks to keep us from worrying about his guitar that kept cutting out. It was impossible not to have a good time while they played. Next up were The Smittens. Before we saw them we didn't know anyone or anything from Vermont, now we think it must be the coolest place ever. They had the Besties on stage for a couple of songs adding further prove to the assumption that they're just about infallible.
We were next and when Mauri started to play all fear evaporated. This was fun! You can see a video of our first song on a foreign continent here and a bit of in-between song banter here. We could see all the bands in our audience and everyone seemed to be having a good time and that was about the most enjoyable experience ever. We played a bit longer than previous bands because one of the later bands hadn't been able to make it in time and, even though we sung in a language that hardly anyone in attendance understood, people stuck around and cheered us on.

After the show we got about as many compliments as we gave to the other bands and all in all we've hardly ever felt as much part of a scene. People we'd never met before suddenly felt like friends and for everyone involved it was one of those nights that reassures you you're doing the right thing. Sometimes it's pretty hard to understand why some people don't play in bands, or write fanzines or release records or plan shows or any of those things that gets you in touch with the awesome people of this world.

After us Dyrdin from Iceland played a set that saw some ecstatic crowd dancing and some happily exhausted onlookers from Germany smiling at them from the back rows. At the end of the night it seems like everybody had bought some of everybody else's stuff and only knowing we'd meet a lot of these people a couple of days later in New York made it possible for us to even think of leaving.

And, admittedly, all the superlatives in the world could do justice to the great time we had in Northampton. So let's all hope there's another Popfest next year, because if there is we can all just meet there and let the good times roll."
/Locas in Love myspace blog



Neal & Jayme Snow Fairie with MichaelZ looking proudly on his signed album:

"... j mascis has really long grey hair and a cool looking dog ...
everyone in northampton is sexy ... everyone loves the german language
... chris mac can organize a merch table like nobody's business ...
indiepopsters are too shy but when it's so dark in bars you can't see
anybody anyway so what's it matter? ... playing a show with your new
drummer when the old drummer is in the audience is just wrong ...
everyone has an iPod ... shots of tequila are always a good idea ...
veracruza's burrito is better than bueno y sano's burrito ...
haymarket cafe has great coffee ... math and physics club are the best
band in america ... you will miss your picnic date if you stay in the
woods and there's no cell phone reception ... i'm stupid for
forgetting to drink at ye olde watering hole AKA the beer can museum
... locas in love looks just as good as they sound ... mat pat's
reverb is fucking unreal ... there is no answer to the question,
what's a better song "zombie song" or "saphire?" ... even though i
missed both surefire broadcast and lil' hospital's sets, I secretly
wish they would release a split 7" and end war, poverty, global
warming and bigotry forever ... rainbow vests make people happy ...
limited edition vinyl makes them happier ... last shows are almost --
but not quite -- as cool as first shows ... next year, someone should
really cover that jonathan richman song "new england" ... i still like
to dance ... THANKS EVERYONE! xo, neal"

Colin and Christine


Colin and William / Skipping Stones Records:



"I just had a fight with a rude crazy woman at the supermarket, I wasn't ready for that after such a great weekend." /Joe


Chris Mac, Christine & Matthew:


"the popfest was swell.

the weather was great and i got Night Of The Living Dead on DVD for $5
and Texas Chainsaw Massacre for $8.00, at that used record store.

dyrdin were especially ace.

i had decent burritos two days in a row and the elevens sold ENORMOUS
red bull and vodkas for only $5, so you can imagine who only slept
like seven minutes all w/e.

joe and i got to talk about prog rock without worrying about boring
the marchlist to tears, and he even tied my cape for me.

oh, and ellen gave me pumpkin spice pop rocks."
/brett


Charles / Math & Physics Club and William:


"Thanks a million times over to William & Christine for putting on such a fantastic weekend. It was incredible to see so much wonderful music and people in one place at one time. Being only "virtually present" for the most part, It's reassuring to know that the live indiepopscene is flourishing (and it's a tremendous personal treat to be able to get it in such big doses!).

For me, there were a number of new & lovely discoveries hidden among the treats I knew were coming. Some of the unanticipated gems that made my weekend even better than I could have imagined:
My Teenage Stride (I know, for my NYC peeps it is crazy that I never got to actually see them play before!)
Locas in Love (yay for German pop!)
Polar Bear Parade
Surefire Broadcast
The Specific Heats
Math & Physics Club
And, of course, a big shout-out to all the tremendously sweet and funny people who make going to pop shows such a nice experience. I miss you guys already." /k.

Matt / Specific Heats with Farfisa:


"What I learned at Popfest:
1. 2 dollar PBR is wonderful, but Jameson's and Ginger Ale is even better.
2. Making up is far easier when there is Pop involved.
3. I shall never tire of the Smittens.
4. Chris Mac is my hero.
5. Polar Bear Parade are my new fave band.
6. Less debauchery than last year = more fun ( at least for me).
7. How Kardyhm got her name.
8 Who needs sleep?
9. Locas in Love made me feel proud to be American
10. One word: Wiencis" /MichaelM

Kevin, all packed up and ready to go:


"my fave bands:
- Bunnygrunt
- Hands & Knees
- My Teenage Stride
- Math & Physics Club
- the Icicles
and of course, i really liked the Snow Fairies + the Besties + the
Specific Heats + the Smittens; but those guys are my friends........

and weren't the new Icicles songs so good? they seemed heavy.

further, I was pissed that the Snow Fairies didn't play "Spleens,"
which is probably the most inspired swan song ever. i was so angry
that i was compelled to find them. and kill them. and then eat their
body parts. like Jeffrey Dahmer.

and it was nice to meet people i haven't seen in ages or ever: Sherri,
Marisha, Joe, Michael Murphy, Zakes, Math & physics club (the team),
Sarah Gentile, Brett, Jed, Ghandi, William, Christine, Keira, Adolf,
Jess....
god, shut me up."
/Kevin

View all of our pix Here

posted by christine  # 2:46 PM