Midpoint Music Festival

Tuesday, September 22nd:

With the help of U-Haul and Red Roof Inns, RethinkPopMusic, The Vanguard, Ambassadors, The Aviation Orange, Eastkoast and Hank & Cupcakes left NYC and headed to the heart of the Midwest in 3 U-Hauls, 2 band Vans and a truck to play the Midpoint Music Festival.

Wednesday, September 23rd:

Our first stop was Columbus where we set up shop on The Ohio State University campus for some street performances to promote our show that night at The Summit.

After passing out 1250 fliers and 5 hours in the sun we packed it up and headed to The Summit for the first gig of the tour. (Video Content Coming Soon)

Thursday, September 24th:

Early in the morning we headed south to Miami University. At 70 miles an hour and using the factory stereo as a monitor we recorded a live track in the back of the van featuring The Vanguard’s Luciano Rovner on Keys, Ben Foxx on Protools, The Aviation Orange’s Alex Beninato on electric guitar and Eastkoast on the mic. While the track is far from a hit, we got a great cut and plenty of video footage of the process. (coming soon) Ben was so excited that he started mixing the track when we stopped for lunch.

Unfortunately, the weather prevented us from any street performances so we took to the basement of an abandoned frat house for some old fashion fun.

Luckily we had Ben to corral the troops and record an acoustic track because a certain CEO was a bit “sleepy”.

After our basement recording session we headed to The Balcony to do what we do best… perform. Despite butting heads with the venue’s “audio engineer” who was a cross between Santa Clause and a ZZ Top roadie we played to a packed house and took FULL advantage of college priced drinks (2 bucks for a 32 ounce beer).

Once again feeling quite “sleepy” we skipped staying overnight at the abandoned frat house and went to Red Roof to rest up for the big Midpoint Music Festival performance.

Friday, September 25th:

We finally make it to Cincinnati for Midpoint Music Festival’s RethinkPopMusic Showcase. To be completely honest, we were all shocked by the turnout. With well over 200 people through the door we could hardly believe our eyes. The crowd was amazing, the bands all played the best sets I have ever heard and the genius that is Ben Foxx made them all sound incredible.

I want to genuinely thank everyone who made this tour possible. The love between all the artists was insane and RethinkPopMusic is no longer a company, but a family. You guys are great and things are only going to get better! We will be sure to let you know when the video content is ready!

And the winner is…

Freelance Whales! RethinkPopMusic’s first ever “Put Your Music Where Your Mouth Is” showcase can only be described as an absolute success. All the bands; Julia Barry, Freelance Whales, Shoe and The Glorious Veins were incredible, however it was the Freelance Whales who edged out The Glorious Veins with a score of 136 to 134. Thanks to shoe from coming all the way from Detroit and getting the crowd dancing like no one else did all night. Also, if you haven’t heard Julia Barry live you are missing out. She has an exceptional voice and her skills on the keyboard impressed everyone, especially Casey from The Ambassadors.

A huge amount of gratitude is owed to our fantastic judges:

Laura Miller – MTV U
Sami Jarroush – RockItOut! Blog
Dan De Lara – AsianManDan.com
Ben Foxx – RethinkPopMusic
Greg Hewes – RethinkPopMusic

Here’s a video of Bob Berman introducing the judges:

Full HD footage of all the bands performing will be available soon…

This event would never have been a success if it weren’t for the amazing staff at Crash Mansion. Thanks to Stephanie and Mindy who made this idea a reality. We can’t wait to officially launch RethinkPopMusic at Crash Mansion on September 17th.

Here are some pics from the evening:

Soundcheck

Judges Table

Julia Barry

Freelance Whales

Shoe

The Glorious Veins

A very special thanks go out to our RethinkPopMusic artists The Vanguard, The Ambassadors and The Aviation Orange who were all in attendance to see who would accompany them to midpoint music festival. Here’s a pic of the back of The Aviation Orange’s heads!

We still have one more competition set for August 7th at Cameo. RSVP

TONIGHT TONIGHT TONIGHT

Come out tonight for RethinkPopMusic’s first “Put Your Music Where Your Mouth Is” showcase. Open bar from 8-9 and only 5 buck with RSVP

Performances by:

8pm Julia Barry
9pm Freelance Whales
10pm Shoe
11pm The Glorious Veins

Appearances by:

Bob Berman – RethinkPopMusic
Dan De Lara – AsianManDan.com
Laura Miller – MTV U
Sami Jarroush – RockItOutBlog.com
Ben Foxx – Producer/Engineer
Gregory Hewes – RethinkPopMusic

Members from The Vanguard, The Ambassadors and The Aviation Orange will be in attendance.

RethinkPopMusic Announces Lineup

Here is the lineup for our Aug 7th showcase at Cameo

8:00pm
Finding Fiction (NYC)

9:00pm
Sydney Wayser (NYC)

10:00pm
The Narrative (NYC)

11:00pm
Kingsfoil (York, PA)

Judges:

Dax Martinez-Vargas – MTV U
Nikki Bagli – 3rd Ward
Jeremy Berman – MyDailyThread
Ben Foxx – Producer/Engineer (The Vanguard, Interpol, Death Cab, The Ambassadors)
Bob Berman – Founder of RethinkPopMusic

Siren 2009

Siren 2009 started out with a nice ride from Bushwick to Coney Island in Ben Foxx’s convertible. As we were listening to The Vanguard’s new EP the sun was shinning bright and a nice breeze was coming over the water. We get to Coney Island around 1:30 and unfortunately missed The Blue Van’s set (more about them soon enough) but Ben ran into his good Penthouse Pet friend.

We had a “couple” drinks in the VIP tent at the Main Stage before heading over to the Stillwater Stage to catch my good friends Bear Hands.

These guys have come so far since I smoked with Dylan on the street outside Hugs in Williamsburg three years ago. The set was incredible until…

Not to say Das Racist was “bad” but a soundcheck to make sure the mics were loud enough would have been nice. However, a soundcheck probably would have given the Siren folks the ability to nix the cameo. Regardless, Bear Hands was far and away my favorite set of the day.

After Bear Hands we headed back to the tent for more drinks and elbow rubbing. The next set we caught was Frightened Rabbit.

They may have been a bit more interested in the audience than we were in their set.

After Frightened Rabbit we headed backstage at Stillwater to catch up with Bear Hands. Unfortunately, Bear Hands was not the most popular band due to Das Racist cleaning out everyone’s liquor. Bear Hands was sharing their tent with The Blue Van and this is where things got interesting.

After debating Kings of Leon and the total clusterfuck that is the music industry we started chugging 96 proof rum and Jack Daniels. I ended up giving one of the guys the “Gentrify Your Borough” shirt right off my back and without hesitation he put it right on. Remember, it was 90 degrees all day and I am quite the sweaty guy… hahaha.

If you have not listened to The Blue Van get your head out of your ass. Their new album “Man Up” is incredible guitar rock straight from Denmark. These guys make great music, don’t take themselves too seriously and I can’t wait to catch their live show.

As night fell on Coney Island their was only one more act to see… Built to Spill. While not overly impressive, mostly due to the poor vocal levels on the Main Stage, it was amazing to see such a legendary act from 5 feet away.

Overall, Siren was a blast, Bear Hands played the best set and The Blue Van is my new band to watch. Now I am off to the Jelly Pool Party….