XOXO Fest 2018

Set up live gigs with each other, announce gigs you're playing around the country or whatever, talk about how the show went, post links to recordings, etc.
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XOXO Fest 2018

Post by Lunkhead »

XOXO Fest is a nerdy, techy, creative festival in Portland that ran for a few years that a few Song Fight participants went to (Jonathan Mann, Brad Sucks, JB, maybe more?). After the 2016 festival they announced they were taking a break. Now it's back, September 6-9. If you've been, what was it like? Anybody interested in going? Maybe we can put together a Song Fight contingent.
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Re: XOXO Fest 2018

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Ken's Super Duper Band 'n Stuff - Berkeley Social Scene - Tiny Robots - Seamus Collective - Semolina Pilchards - Cutie Pies - Explino! - Bravo Bros. - 2 from 14 - and more!

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Re: XOXO Fest 2018

Post by Lunkhead »

Oh yeah, derp, I forgot to include a link:

https://2018.xoxofest.com/

They haven't announced anything about this year's fest except that it's in Portland 6-9 September, from what I have seen. The Web site is a live video stream of artists drawing on a whiteboard wall.
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Re: XOXO Fest 2018

Post by fluffy »

I'd be interested in being part of an SF contingent. XOXO has always interested me but i only ever ended up hearing about it in retrospect.
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Re: XOXO Fest 2018

Post by Pigfarmer Jr »

I really want to go to SF Live or something like this. But the family is heading to Florida this summer so my travelling funds are kaput.
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Re: XOXO Fest 2018

Post by Lunkhead »

XOXO Fest 2018 registration is open and, and part of the lineup has been announced!

http://2018.xoxofest.com/

Registration is open for 10 days. Registration involves signing in with Twitter, then providing some details about what kind of creative endeavors you are involved in. They just want to confirm that folks who want attend are creative people who are actively making things, not verifying that you are cool enough (or so they claim).
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Re: XOXO Fest 2018

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Oh, and the cost will be $500 per person.
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Re: XOXO Fest 2018

Post by fluffy »

Wow, that's expensive... but I've submitted my survey anyway.
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Re: XOXO Fest 2018

Post by JonathanMann »

I spoke in 2014! It’s a great conference.
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Re: XOXO Fest 2018

Post by Lunkhead »

Video of Jonathan's awesome talk here:



I just registered. Erin did not though. Anybody else other than me and fluffy?
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Re: XOXO Fest 2018

Post by roymond »

I should attend for one simple reason: I knew not one name on the lineup.
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Re: XOXO Fest 2018

Post by fluffy »

Oops, I had 48 hours to buy a ticket on the 5th, and didn't. Guess I could reapply, but... nah. Too expensive for me right now.
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Re: XOXO Fest 2018

Post by Lunkhead »

Ah dang, sorry to hear you won't be there. I bought my ticket. I'm still not 100% sure I'll go, not sure how fun it'd be to go by myself and not know anybody, but the tickets are fully refundable till August 17th so I figured I'd buy it and see how things panned out till then.
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Re: XOXO Fest 2018

Post by fluffy »

Oh, looks like I still can buy one, it's just that it's only guaranteed for 48 hours.

But, still, feels like a lot of money for a thing I'm not sure how much I'll be into.
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Re: XOXO Fest 2018

Post by Lunkhead »

XOXO was amazing. I felt like I was in a very wonderful alternative reality full of nothing but nice, open, sensitive, smart, funny, creative people. I highly recommend it to anybody here if there is a chance for you to go in the future.

I thought I would mention some of the people that I met or found out about there. Some of these folks have been online a long time so are not going to be new to everybody, even though they were new to me.

The first one is Bill Wurtz, he is a musician/humorist/absurdist/visual artist/and more. They played a medley of his videos and I was floored by the musicianship and also how odd and hilarious they are. He hass very unique specific weird musical and visual styles.

This is a recent one which is now really stuck in my head.



These are two of his longest and most viewed videos:




Here's another good one more in the style of the first, rather than the longer more educational videos:



He has tons of videos that are 3-10 seconds long, too. It's kind of annoying to click and view each one individually on YouTube, maybe best to use a playlist or "play all" or something.

He was at the festival and they did a Q&A after this videos played. It was a bit of a trainwreck. It was hard to tell if he was just a shy person who felt uncomfortable being confronted with people who were gushing about his work and then asking questions about his process, or if he was a dismissive person who was rude at best or a jerk at worst.

You can find more on YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram:

https://www.youtube.com/user/billwurtz/featured
https://twitter.com/billwurtz
https://www.instagram.com/notbillwurtz/
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Re: XOXO Fest 2018

Post by fluffy »

I’ve been a fan of Bill Wurtz for ages and I’m happy to see him get more attention. Given the way he carries himself online I assume he’s just incredibly shy and introverted and doesn’t know how to handle the attention.
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Re: XOXO Fest 2018

Post by Lunkhead »

fluffy wrote:I’ve been a fan of Bill Wurtz for ages and I’m happy to see him get more attention. Given the way he carries himself online I assume he’s just incredibly shy and introverted and doesn’t know how to handle the attention.
Yeah, I was debating it a bit a couple other folks and was lobbying them toward giving him the benefit of the doubt. There seemed to be a fairly wide divide between the speakers/presenters, half/half folks from either end of the spectrum of comfort in front of an audience. I think he was just on the "not comfortable" side.
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Re: XOXO Fest 2018

Post by Lunkhead »

Another not new person who was also present was Graham Annable, a really amazing animator whose hilarious "Grickle" videos are part total absurdity, part David Lynch/Stanley Kubrick.

My favorite of his videos involve the character "Principal Skeleton":



I love that character so much I ordered a t-shirt of him.

Loads more great videos here:
https://www.youtube.com/user/grickle/featured

https://www.grickle.com/

He also did the art for a game "Puzzle Agent" some years back:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/31270/Puzzle_Agent/
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Re: XOXO Fest 2018

Post by Lunkhead »

These folks apparently were at XOXO in 2016. I didn't attend and they weren't present this year, but, it's something I just heard about while at XOXO 2018. This is a series of six amazing videos called "Don't Hug Me I'm Scared". Starts off cloying and cutesy, gets dark and disturbing. So good!



https://www.youtube.com/user/thisisitcollective/videos
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Re: XOXO Fest 2018

Post by jb »

Oh man I was SO OBSESSED with Don't Hug Me I'm Scared. As it went on it just started to blow my mind. It's amazing.
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Re: XOXO Fest 2018

Post by vowlvom »

It's so good. A friend of mine had a Don't Hug Me I'm Scared cake made for his birthday, and I'd definitely rank it among the best novelty cakes I've ever seen.
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Re: XOXO Fest 2018

Post by Lunkhead »

I've only watched the first two so far. I'm trying to space them out, they're pretty intense.

Another animator who was there was Victoria Vincent. I'm not exactly sure the best way to describe her style, but I really liked it. They played this piece of hers before she came out for a Q&A:



I liked this one a lot too:



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