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indiepop-list@eskimo.com proudly presents:
POPFEST '97! (the event formerly known as tweefest) a bicoastal event  so, the popfest. well, it's been nearly a month (it's 06feb97 as i write this) since the event, and i've been ultra-lazy in writing anything about it. this seems odd as i spent so much time co-planning the thing. oh well, here goes... definitions first: the popfest (formerly called tweefest) has become a somewhat-annual event which is an outgrowth of the indiepop mailing list (see my music page for more on that). it began with the desire of many indiepop list participants to meet each other, and organizing a concert seemed the perfect way to do it, since music is our great co-interest anyway. the first tweefest was in may 95 in nyc, and the second in january 96 in d.c. (see pete's tweenet site for more on those events). i was kind of involved in these; i went to both of them and got the t-shirts made up for them too. the first 2 tweefests were really fun (even despite the 2nd one being held on the weekend of the infamous east coast blizzard of 96!); the bands were really great and the best part was meeting and hanging out with all of the people from the indiepop list whom i'd previously only known through email! so, around mid-october 96, a bunch of us nyc-indiepop folks were hanging out and thinking that maybe we should have another fest. and so popfest 97 was born. it didn't take long to hit our first mini-snag: turns out that some indiepop folks in california had the same idea as we did, and for the same weekend! this was soon smoothed out and it was decided to have concurrent popfests: the first weekend in california and the second in nyc. getting the bands lined up was a mostly easy issue -- lots of the bands (9 out of 12 for nyc) had at least one member on the indiepop list, so they were easy to contact and convince! so the planning moved along at a steady pace -- this was really fun for me although also a lot of work (i must say i have new respect for concert promoters big and small after this experience!). the week before the event was of course the most hectic; as we got down to the wire lots of small loose ends popped up. the witch hazel sound unfortunately had to cancel 3 days before the show...frantic calls were made and we were lucky enough to convince shoestrings to take the train in from michigan for one night to play the popfest! ,br> and when all was said and done, it was a great weekend. lots of indiepoppers from the list, and 12 great bands. the t-shirts looked excellent (we had the logo above in white on a blue shirt) and, thanks to ed from california and mike from nyc, we even had a bicoastal popfest compilation tape with 22 of the 24 bands contributing a song! (there may still be some of these floating around; contact ed at ed@shelflife.com or visit the world of shelflife for more info.) so that's my popfest story. check out the links below to some more popfest pages on this site, and also pete's twee- and popfests pages on tweenet.
06feb97 |