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I’m starting my staff pick this week with no real plan… I guess it’s just going to be a per-zine / brain dump-style piece because I’m not equipped for too much else. Right now the planning is going hot and heavy for Sorry State’s big anniversary weekend. I think all the major pieces of the puzzle are in place: the travel is booked, the bands have somewhere to stay, and venues and equipment are sorted. So, fingers crossed, all systems are go for the actual shows. However, because I’m terrible at making life easy for myself, I planned a bunch of extra stuff that is still coming together.
The biggest of these is the goodie bag that everyone who bought a weekend pass will receive. I doubt many people even noticed we told them they’d get a goodie bag, and even fewer people have expectations about what might be in it. But I want it to be fucking awesome. The original idea came about because it’s Sorry State’s birthday and I heard somewhere (I may be making this up) that nowadays at kids’ birthday parties, not only does the birthday kid receive presents, but every kid who attends the party also gets a goodie bag full of knick-knacks. I took this idea and ran with it, but of course left it until late in the fest planning process, so now I’m trying to pull everything together under a tight deadline. Friday afternoon I had a scare that the actual bags wouldn’t arrive on time, but I decided to put aside my anxiety and not worry about it this weekend. The universe rewarded that attitude, and I had a message in my inbox Monday morning saying the printer can make the deadline. Of course, nothing is final until I have them in hand, but it’s a big relief.
To digress even further, I took a much-needed few days off from fest planning this weekend to go down to Atlantic Beach, NC and celebrate my friend Mike’s birthday. Mike is the fucking best. If you’ve been to Raleigh, you almost certainly know him… he’s one of those people who is always down to help friends. When we put out the call that we needed places for bands to stay during the fest, within minutes my phone was ringing with a call from Mike offering to house as many punks as he could cram into his place. Mike is also a total music gear nerd, and he’s providing part of the backline bands will use all weekend. His generosity will ensure every band sounds great.
So, this weekend, my wife Jet and I took the quick trip down to Atlantic Beach to hang out with Mike and a solid crew. Jeff was there too, and given the season, there were many horror-themed 80s hair metal music videos blasting on the house’s TV. Besides doing normal punk party stuff, we also spent some time on the beach, went to a tiny record store that had way too many records I wanted to buy, and went to a seafood festival on the waterfront that had lots of great Eastern NC people watching. I love going down to the coast in the fall when it’s less crowded and the weather is milder, and doing that with a bunch of homies was even better. I felt bad, though, because I was exhausted after burning the candle at both ends the entire previous week at Sorry State. I’m sure I wasn’t as much fun as I would have liked to have been, and I also kept falling asleep. I fell asleep on the beach, watching TV, in the car… pretty much everywhere. But at least now I feel rejuvenated and ready to lean into this last stretch of event planning. Huge thanks to Mike for the welcome breather, and to the whole crew who made for an awesome weekend.
Since it wouldn’t be a staff pick without mentioning some music, how about if I reveal a component of the goodie bag? I have a lot of love for everyone who is coming to our anniversary party, and what does an emotionally stunted record nerd do when they want to express their feelings? They make a mix tape, of course! I thought it would be a nice memento to have a tape with a song by every band that played. Since a lot of the bands are people I talk to regularly, I knew some of them have upcoming releases they are working on and I bugged them to let us preview a new track on the tape. Everyone was stoked on the idea and a good chunk of the tape is unreleased tracks. Last week, the mix tape was pretty much all I listened to as I selected songs for it and went through draft after draft of the track listing to get the flow just right. You’d think I would be sick of it after listening to it on repeat all week, but even after I sent off the master to be duplicated, I kept playing it. It’s a pretty awesome tape, and since the bands on the tape are the same bands playing the fest, I think it’s going to be a pretty awesome fest. Now I just have to keep my fingers crossed the cassettes arrive on time. It’s going to be right down to the wire.
Oh, and please don’t write us asking for a copy of the tape (or anything else in the goodie bag). We only made enough for the people coming to Raleigh for the weekend, and we want it to be a special thing just for the people who made that effort. We know it’s not possible for everyone to attend, but all the music on the tape will make its way into the world eventually.