The Song Fight Bulletin Board

You are right, Lunkhead. Let JB chime in.

And yes Fluffy, we still have drums and one owed show at Sidewalk.

I am so jet lagged I should be posting in fdrink.

Who'd be host in Austin?

Seems like we have a paucity of responses to the survey.

Need to drum up more enthusiasm for this event.

Somebody do something.

JB

jb wrote: Who'd be host in Austin?

Yo.

jb also wrote:
Seems like we have a paucity of responses to the survey.

Need to drum up more enthusiasm for this event.

Somebody do something.

JB

I agree that 13 responses isn't very good, and there just doesn't seem to be a ton of enthusiasm on any side this year, for whatever reason.

JB, can you or Spud put an entry for this in "Song News" on the front page? What about announcements via the Song Fight groups on Facebook and Google+?

How would making an announcement help? A bunch of Songfighters have shown interest in this year's live show.

I think what we need is some serious proposals.

Niveous wrote:How would making an announcement help? A bunch of Songfighters have shown interest in this year's live show.

That didn't strike me as correct. I was curious as to why you and I would have such different impressions about this discussion so far, so I went and counted. Between this thread and the previous "brainstorming" thread, sixteen people have chimed in. Thirteen have gone so far as to vote in the poll. This doesn't strike me as a high degree of participation as compared to previous years, but it's entirely possible that my expectations are unreasonable. For contrast, see this thread about Song Fight Live 2012: http://songfight.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=7976

What's different about this year?

I think what we need is some serious proposals.

There are three proposals on the table I'd consider "serious," including my own. What are your criteria for a "serious" proposal?

My criteria for a serious proposal is more than just saying "we can do this in my city".

For example:
If Songfight 2013 were to happen in NYC, BenK is the booker there and owes us a show, so we could use that venue. I also have previous workings with Goodbye Blue Monday, The Firehouse Space, and the Bohemian Beer Garden, so we could always inquire at those venues as well. We can also rent out any of the various smaller NYC parks during the summer if we wanted to do a more picnicky type of gathering. NYC has three major airports that can be utilized (LaGuardia, JFK and Newark) and an extensive system of trains for easy travel. We have a local drumset for such shows and I'm sure that the locals could more than likely scrounge up some other instruments as well.

What do you have over in Austinin terms of venues, travel, instruments, etc.?

FYI, I posted the link to this thread on Facebook and Twitter.

I wasn't planning on actually inquiring about availability of venues until it was confirmed, but here are some of the venues I'm considering:

http://www.kickbuttcoffee.com/ - Kick Butt Coffee
They have a busy booking schedule, but my wife works directly for the owner, so we'd have preferential treatment in booking.
They offer a variety of food, coffee, alcohol, and the like. They're an all-ages venue. There's a well lit stage area and sound system, and a sound technician they work with on a regular basis (we'd have to hire him, but he's familiar with the venue).

http://spiderhousecafe.com/ - Spider House / 29th Street Ballroom
Again, it's a busy booking schedule, and we don't have the advantage of knowing the owner, but 29th Street Ballroom is a beautiful space with a full bar and great acoustics for a concert like ours. No food onsite, but it's in the service-industry-dense University of Texas area, so there are a lot of affordable restaurants in walking distance, and they let you bring food in. Again, it's all-ages.

http://austin.eater.com/places/north-au ... ailer-yard - North Austin Trailer Yard
If you want to try something completely different from our usual, we could set up on the outdoor stage here at NATY. There are five food trailers that set up permanent shop here, and they're always looking for music entertainment, so it shouldn't be difficult to secure the venue. All ages, and a pretty good amount of foot traffic for an audience. Another upside is that it's within walking distance of my house, so you'd have easy access to a relatively quiet rehearsal space. The downsides are unfortunately obvious: outdoors in summer in Texas, plus the only bathrooms onsite are Port-a-Potties.

http://www.strangebrewaustin.com/ - Strange Brew
Further south than the other choices, for those who want to be closer to the famous South Congress Area. Good food, coffee, wine and beer, but no hard liquor. All ages. There's a whole "lounge" side set up for events like ours. A day at this venue would probably look a little like our event in Spokane back in 2008.

http://whipin.com/music/the-stages/ - Whip In
Again, farther south, just a few blocks from South Congress. Used to be a convenience store, now it's a full-fledged Indian Restaurant and music venue. Wine and beer, but no hard liquor. Really gorgeous interior space, good acoustics. I don't personally know the booker, but if we give them 4-5 months notice, we can probably secure a night. All ages, and it's kind of a local hot-spot, so we'll probably have a good audience if we book here.

My wife had some ideas about other venues we could contact, which I'll post in a little bit.

Musical resources: I have several guitars, a mandolin, a ukulele, a bass, a banjo, an accordion, and a few different keyboards. I'm also considering borrowing a pickup truck to haul my full digital piano over to the venue for one or both nights if we have it here in Austin. I only have one amp, sadly, but I'm counting on others who are local to bring some of their equipment to the table.

Speaking of which... Other Song Fighters: We have DJ Ranger Den, Marcus Kellis, and WreckdoM local (plus Erik, aka 15-16 Puzzle, but he hasn't participated in anything Song Fight-related in a while). I don't want to specifically volunteer any of the other locals for anything, but maybe they can chime in about what instruments they can offer. I don't own a drum kit, so if nobody else local is able to provide one, I'll look into renting or buying one, as Niveous did two years ago in Brooklyn.

I'm voting for New England, I can try and help with some loaner PA equipment and also have access to decent video rigs.

I'm on the NH/MA border on Rt 93, about 30 minutes from Manchester. Depends on the actual dates involved so I'm in town for it.

Boffo Yux

I think with the kids I'm unlikely to be able to make it this year, but I'm watching the thread in case I can propose something.
-bill

Atlanta's pretty rad...

I also owe my buddy a trip to NH, so could swing that. Austin is fine but I wasn't wild about it as a city. San Fran is expensive, as is NYC.

...but I haven't done Songfight in years, so who cares, haha! (But if sfl were in atl or nh, I'd def go and do the live fight!)

Niveous wrote:How would making an announcement help?

***Bjam reappears***

I stand corrected.

Hey Bjam. Missed ya. Hopefully you and Mr. Sparkles can make it to one of the shows.

Bjam!!!!!!!!!

Hey, Bjam! Might we see you return to the fold?

when are we thinking of having the event? I am not sure how much or when I'm going to be in town over the summer.

ps. Niv asked about travel. For public transport in Austin, we have taxis (expensive) and a bus system. Jon lives up north, with the venues he mentioned being fairly spread out in the city. All were accessible on bus routes I believe, but would take time to navigate around. It's best to rent a car or carpool and impractical for visitors to ride busses if they aren't staying in one area or don't have rides, imo.

RangerDenni wrote:when are we thinking of having the event? I am not sure how much or when I'm going to be in town over the summer.

If Austin is chosen, I will insist upon the event being held at some point in August. There's not enough time to plan it any earlier, and due to the number of Fighters who are also teachers of some sort, September tends not to work very well.

This is also the reason I'd like to come to some kind of resolution on this ASAP.

Denni also wrote: ps. Niv asked about travel. For public transport in Austin, we have taxis (expensive) and a bus system. Jon lives up north, with the venues he mentioned being fairly spread out in the city. All were accessible on bus routes I believe, but would take time to navigate around. It's best to rent a car or carpool and impractical for visitors to ride busses if they aren't staying in one area or don't have rides, imo.

I did take care to make sure that the venues were all on or near bus routes.

I'm assuming a two-night schedule, which probably means two venues. I wouldn't want to pick two that were very far apart, specifically because that would make arrangements very difficult for people coming in from out of town. The bus system works pretty well if you're staying in one general area of the city, but I could envision a scenario where someone books a hotel room downtown, has to go up north to Airport Boulevard for Kick Butt for one night, then down to Manchaca for Strange Brew for the second night. Doing that trip by bus would be a fool's errand, and it wouldn't be fun even in a car. I hope to avoid putting you guys in that situation.

(For reference, here is a map of the distance between the two venues. Google Maps is routinely overoptimistic about how quickly it will take to get places when you take I-35, so on a weekend it's best to just double the given transit time.)

In fact, I would usually recommend not staying downtown, but I hear that the new train system is working really well. As it happens, there's a MetroRail commuter stop not far from Kick Butt, and I'm sure it would be easy enough to get a volunteer driver (myself, if necessary) to shuttle people back and forth between their various public transit stops and the venues.

I still recommend that you rent a car if you can budget for it, but the public transit situation isn't quite so dire as Denni makes it out to be.

I voted for Austin partly because I'm interested in going there, but mostly because I think Jon would be a pretty damn good host, as he's already showing by his perseverance.

Generic wrote:Hey, Bjam! Might we see you return to the fold?

I now live like 15 minutes away from JB so... perhaps? If SFL is somewhere awesome, I'll at least turn up and do a livefight. (Although, sadly, Mr Sparkles made his way to the great guitar heap in the sky a while ago. I was rocking a Martin D15 for a while and now have no guitar for the first time in 15 years. Weird!)

All things considered, I think New England (at least the way I can comfortably arrange it) is probably better for a smaller Regional event, which I would still like to pursue. My vote goes to Austin.

roymond wrote:Jim, being a star and all, can call the specifics for performances in NH. I'm happy to host rehearsals/jam in the barn deal in Putney, VT. But he's farther North than I am (~2 hours).

...and then jimtyrrell wrote:All things considered, I think New England (at least the way I can comfortably arrange it) is probably better for a smaller Regional event, which I would still like to pursue. My vote goes to Austin.

Seems like the people who would be hosting New England aren't interested in making it the big annual event. So, given the time constraint, unless someone strenuously objects, I'd like to begin making arrangements for Austin this summer. Speak now or hold your peace!

^^^ Jon

I vote for Madison.