Butch Walker rules

Sometimes we ask bands the question "If someone is hearing your band for the first time, would you rather their first impression be listening to your album, or seeing your live show?"  Sometimes there's an obvious answer, sometimes they have to think about it.  I saw Butch Walker last night for the second time ever, and I decided that he's definitely someone you need to see live.

I can't say enough good things about Butch Walker.  Maybe I'm just trying to make up for being late to the party, since I really only started listening to him a couple months ago.  There's just something about his live show that sounds simultaneously intimate and bigger-than-life.  He played Webster Hall, and I was standing pretty much all the way in the back of the balcony, but it still just felt like we were a bunch of people in a room hanging out, and some of them were playing music.  At the same time there are songs that, when they're played live, there's not really a way to describe it except to say that they sort of fill up your heart.

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that if I had to choose only one song to hear performed live for the rest of my life, I'd be satisfied to choose Butch Walker playing "The Weight of Her." (I don't know under what circumstances someone would make me choose that, but play along.  And since you asked, my runner up might be Envy on the Coast "Sugar Skulls" or The Graduate "Justified".)  Back in November when we were setting up for our interview with Butch at the Blender theater, they started sound checking The Weight of Her and I stopped what I was doing to watch sound check on the monitors downstairs because that song is too ridiculously good live.

As an encore, Butch leaped off the stage and dragged his mic to the middle of the venue and sang Hot Girls in Good Moods from the middle of Webster Hall while partying with the crowd. Unbelievable.  Such an absurdly good show.

Friday night I went with Maggie and Sarah (who shot most of our Warped Tour stuff, and now works at Newsweek.com on an awesome webseries called "The District," among other things) to see Vinnie and Mike from I Am the Avalanche play acoustic solo sets at Angels & Kings.  So good.  Check out Mike's solo stuff HERE and go HERE to find out about more shows like this.

Belated '08 Wrap-Up

I'm terrible at those wrapping-up-the-year lists that people make, top 10 songs/albums, etc. Usually I end up putting fall releases higher on the list than they ought to be, just because I'm listening to them at the time I'm writing the list. I can, however, do a pretty decent concert wrap-up. I probably spent atleast 20x more on shows than CDs last year, anyway, so it seems appropriate.

I went to 76 shows and saw 135 different bands (and saw 86 bands for the first time).

I saw these bands atleast 5 times:
I Am the Avalanche, You Me and Everyone We Know, Four Year Strong, Lannen Fall, Socratic, The Graduate
I saw these bands atleast 3 times:
Farewell, Forever the Sickest Kids, A Loss For Words, Danger Radio, Every Avenue, Hit the Lights, Holiday Parade, Just Surrender, Mayday Parade, Paper Rival, Paramore, The Scenic, This Is Hell

Top 5 shows this year:
1. Inklings Birthday Party (The Graduate, Socratic, Lannen Fall)
Imagine that you're watching one of your favorite bands, and you and pretty much everyone around you are completely shmammered and shouting along to every word (and those that aren't are thanking you for introducing this band into their lives). Also you put on the show. I think Naomi and I spoiled ourselves a little with this show.
2. The Starting Line final hometown show (w/ Bayside, Four Year Strong)
Not only was this definitely the best Starting Line show I've ever seen, it was one of the best shows in general. I hadn't seen them play The Drama Summer since the first time I saw them back in 2002.
3. Long Island Warped Tour
Maybe it's cheating to list a festival tour, but sooo many bands killed it at this date.
4. Butch Walker
I'd never seen him, or really listened to him much before this, but he is to Naomi what Michael Jackson is to me. The first 20-30 mins of his set were acoustic & piano songs, which were unbelievable, and the rest of it was full band, and all those songs sounded HUGE. This is what musicians need to aspire to...and it doesn't hurt that he's one of the most sincere & laid back people we've worked with for Inklings.
5. Four Year Strong/I Am the Avalanche/This Is Hell/A Loss For Words tour
We saw this tour twice in California-- once at the Knitting Factory, once at a Veterans Hall. So different, both shows so solid.

Band I travelled the most/furthest for this year: You, Me, and Everyone We Know
Technically this should go to FYS/IATA/AL4W because we saw them in California...but YMAEWK gets it because I saw them 6 times, but not once in NYC. Also because of the pain-in-the-ass transportation issues coming home from most of those shows...like when I got home from our first shoot with them at 3:30am to find out I locked myself out of my apartment (I slept on the couch at work for an hour until Naomi took me in to sleep on her couch), or the time when there was no EZpass in the car we'd rented to go see them with The Dear Hunter and they tried to charge us an extra $100 for returning it late. Good times.

Best venue I went to in 08: The Electric Factory (Philly)
Worst Venue I went to in 08: Vibe Lounge (Long Island)-- aka Death Trap. I would like this place to get shut down asap...I always feel like I might die every time I go there, plus every band sounds TERRIBLE there. I worry that now that the Knitting Factory's gone/moved, MORE bands will play there :(


2009 has started off a little slow for Inklings, but have no fear, things will be picking up immediately!

Updates!

So, I realize I never actually wrote anything about day 4 of Warped Tour. It was over a month ago, but my memory is eerily sharp so I might still write a blog about it.

We have probably about half of our Warped Tour videos posted so far. If you haven't checked them out yet, head to the video player for interviews, Warped trivia, a look into the lives of tour managers, plus a whole lot more. Lots more coming as well, so keep checking back.

We went to a bunch of shows the last week or so. Last Thursday we headed out to my all-time least favorite venue, Vibe Lounge on Long Island (or as I like to call it "the death trap." Normally I wouldn't feel the need to say anything negative about a venue, but I'm pretty sure within a year this place will be the site of one of those club fire stories where kids die at a poorly staffed/overcrowded show. Seriously.) We went to see Socratic, along with Thieves & Villains. Thieves & Villains will be playing a show with The Graduate in a couple weeks that we'll be heading to Chicago for.

Saturday we posted a new interview with You, Me, and Everyone We Know, then drove to School of Rock in NJ to see them. It was the last night of their tour with The Dear Hunter. Last-night-of-tour shows are always a lot of fun, and this was no exception. Also we'd never been to School of Rock before, I liked it except for the fact that it was a bit of a sauna. All the bands got up onstage near the end of The Dear Hunter's set-- video here.

Last night we headed to School of Rock (again) for a last-night-of-tour show (again), this time for The Hush Sound tour. We shot our interview with The Cab right at the beginning of the tour, but couldn't stay for the show that night so I was glad we got to catch the tour before it ended. We missed The Morning Light, but we did get there in time to catch Steel Train. I've seen them a bunch of times and they're always fun. Their Mamma Mia sing-along cover was pretty great. I hadn't seen The Cab before-- they definitely have some of the catchiest songs I've heard this year. Not that I didn't enjoy the bands playing their own songs, but my favorite part of the show was The Hush Sound/Steel Train's 8-tambourine cover of the Jackson 5's "I Want You Back." I've been listening to Michael Jackson since before I was born (seriously) so I'm partial to any MJ/Jackson 5 covers. The more, the better.

We've got a lot coming up BESIDES the rest of the Warped videos, so stay tuned...

If you feel like helping people, check out the links below:
You, Me, and Everyone We Know Van Explosion Recovery fund (read about it here)
Get You, Me and Everyone We Know free Denny's food
Jet Lag Gemini trailer theft info

YMAEWK

I feel like I've spent the weekend with You, Me, and Everyone We Know. Friday and Saturday were a big edit-fest to finish up their interview & acoustic performances, and then today I headed to Starland ballroom to see them play with Just Surrender, Rookie of the Year, and approximately 29 other bands. (also, the first sentence I wrote sounded funny in my head, but just looks creepy now that I've typed it.)

For the record- Starland ballroom: not so easy to get to. Their website makes it sound like a breeze, but it required a 40 minute subway ride to Penn station, an hour train to Jersey, and then an $18 cab ride to the venue (then reverse all that to get home). Whatever, now I've learned not to go there unless I can dupe someone into picking me up at the train and chauffeuring me to the venue. The show itself was pretty sweet. I thought that You, Me, and Everyone We Know were pretty solid when I saw them at Bamboozle, but tonight's set probably blew Bamboozle's set out of the water.

As I mentioned, all the stuff we shot with You, Me, and Everyone We Know is posted on Inklings now, so go check it out. If you think that the spider that crawled onto Ben's arm in the middle of Do It Again was distracting, I will tell you that it doesn't come close to the random guy who almost walked into the shot while they were playing Dirty Laundry (the first time.) A guy was riding his bike by, and decided to come check out the huge tree/bush that the guys were sitting in front of. We were literally in the middle of shooting an acoustic performance when the guy walks up maybe 5 feet from Ben and Ryan, and leans over to read the plaque behind them. I got really confused, but they kept playing so I kept shooting. After the guy walked away, Ben lost it and we ended up starting the song over. It was by far the weirdest thing that's happened during one of our shoots. Naomi missed the whole thing because she was so focused on getting good shots. She was very confused when everyone just burst out laughing and they stopped playing.

In any case, if you are one of the (estimated) 4 people who actually reads this blog, and you somehow have not already heard You, Me, and Everyone We Know, go do yourself a favor and download their EP. Seriously.

It's been a long day. I don't think I've ever been at a show for more than 6 hours when it wasn't Warped Tour/Bamboozle.

I think this week I'm going to see Goldfinger for the first time since I was 17. I'm pretty excited.

Later!
-Carrie

GRACIAS ... MERCI ... DANKA ... GRATSI

As Carrie said below, I will also have a more coherent blog after another coffee...OR a nap.

I can't thank everyone enough for coming out. The night was already complete with amazing performances by Lannen Fall, Socratic, and The Graduate. I can't tell you how much we appreciate all of those guys for playing and celebrating with us! It was so awesome to have my mom, brother/donation man, Bethany, roommates, upstairs mates, work friends, Carrie's bro and friends, Amena, Matt, Alex, Josh, Sean, Jamie, Carmelina, Pat, Bruuuce, and every single person who came. It was a wonderful way to celebrate 1 year! OK, so maybe a few too many soco & lime shots....ehhh nahh.

Happy for real birthday to my mom...Love You! (She rules!) Looking forward to posting the pictures in a few!

Carrie...oh yeah thank you for showing up too...and being the shit.

Here's a picture of my favorite part of The Graduate show:

as usual - lots of love,
naomi

THANK YOU

Thank you so so much to everyone who came out to the show last night to celebrate our birthday with us. We had a BLAST, and all the bands were amazing. Thanks to all our friends/roommates/family (Naomi's mom and brother, and my brother made it out for the occasion) for hanging out and dancing with us.

It was our first foray into the world of show promoting, so needless to say the day was a little hectic, but everything came together and the show ran pretty much on time. I apparently took a whole lot of pictures, which I'll be posting on our myspace soon.

I'm still in the process of waking up, so I'll probably have more coherent thoughts in a little while. If you liked Socratic last night, you'll love the interview with them that we'll be posting in the next day or so.

I'll leave you with some kind words from competitive eater Crazy Legs Conti, who we invited to the party but was unable to attend:

Carrie and Naomi,
Thank you for the invite and congrats on your one year birthday! That cupcake should be the size of 52 regular ones.

I will miss out on your party due to the rigors of the competitive eating circuit. Eater X and I will be doing back-to-back contests in hot dogs and strawberry shortcake this weekend. I will raise my 1st pound of strawberry shortcake in your honor (and then hopefully eat nine more pounds for my personal best in the dessert discipline). Consider that an omen - inklings.tv needs to be around for a decade.

Enjoy the party I hope its a night you'll never forget, but might not remember (open bars tend to do that to me).

Eat All You Can,
Crazy Legs Conti




-Carrie

"Beer is my gum."

Last night, by some twist of fate, Naomi and Sue and I made it in time to catch The Graduate's whole set at their free Knitting Factory show. We dashed in at 7, expecting to catch the last 2 songs, but as a pleasant surprise they hadn't started yet.



Sometimes we try to be cool at shows, so we don't sing along or dance or anything...last night was not one of those nights. We were rocking out like morons, and I think I actually hit Naomi when they played Justified. We discussed it later, and we don't think that anyone cares about any band succeeding as much as we care about The Graduate succeeding.



We went to say hi to some of the guys after the show, and Max informed me that someone had put the inklings acoustic version of Sit & Sink on youtube...I checked it out today, and it turns out that it actually has more hits on youtube than it's gotten on our own website. I just posted newly re-edited versions of Sit & Sink, and also Monty Are I's Between the Sheets video. The sound should be a lot better, and it looks nicer, too. Check it out!

Then, who should we run into at the Knitting Factory, but other friends of Inklings, Tokyo Rose! As it turned out, they were playing in the Tap Bar later, so we caught up with them and stuck around to catch their set. There was more dancing, more good music and more good times.

The Graduate was raffling off a brand new guitar, and Naomi actually ended up winning it!...but by some shady turn of events, it got stolen while we were watching Tokyo Rose. Knitting Factoryyyyy! (you can't see this, but I'm shaking my fist.) It's a real bummer, Naomi and Sue and I were going to start a band! (Sue plays bass, and I have a tambourine shaped like a star.)

In other Inklings news, we have a new collaboration that we're super excited about! We're going to be launching a west coast branch to the site, with photographer Jered Scott. His pictures are awesome, so we're psyched to have him doing some text interviews and taking some sweet pics! Tonight he caught up with MxPx and Lakes, so keep your eyes peeled for that stuff to surface on the site sometime soon! Also, it gives me and Naomi an excuse to go to California to shoot something and say what's up to Jered...New York gets cold in the winter.

Stay awesome.
-Carrie