NMScene

2. Uncertainty Principle

I had been traveling extensively for the previous six months before my departure to Detroit. I had gone on road trips all over the west; Los Angeles to a warehouse party. Denver three times to Club Beta to hear a variety of DJ’s play. Las Vegas just for some tomfoolery. Indio, CA, to attend the Coachella music festival, and San Fransisco to participate in the Bay to Breakers marathon/march. Any weekend that I thought I could get away from this state, this city, I have. Getting away from this place, and the situations I have found myself in here, has in a lot of ways changed the person who I once was. I would detest coming back to boring old Albuquerque, a small city in a large, empty state, boring, dull on every occasion. This was a mistake by myself that I will not make again.

The Detroit electronic music festival, called DEMF my many of the attendees, has been in operation since may of 2000. The first four years of the festival, held in downtown Detroit’s Hart plaza overlooking the Detroit river and facing southward towards Canada, were free and brought in upwards of 1.7 million people for the first three years of the event. Staffing problems, management changes, and lawsuits, however, led the event off course. In 2003 there was a drop in attendance by more than half down to 630,000 along with a name change to Movement. In 2004, it dropped even further as it was the first year that the event organizers began charging to get into the festival, 25$ for a full day pass. Attendance dropped again to 150,000, and still struggled to break even in costs. 2006 saw the worst attendance numbers of the festival, barley seeing 41,000 people paying to get in. It was estimated that in 2009 upwards of 80,000 people were in attendance but this has not been substantiated yet.

2009 saw 57 acts spread over four stages inside of hart plaza, with the addition of a truck with a small sound system featuring a few drum n’ bass acts that were not advertised. In contrast almost 90 acts played on five stages in 2008, and 48 acts in 2006, which was also the worst year in terms of attendance. Because all four stages run congruently with each other it is quite impossible to hear every act play their live set, and one often has to choose between acts that they love and down time where none of the acts is worth their time. This happened several times during my experience at this years festival, much to my dismay, and to my group’s. Most dj’s sets lasted around an hour and a half to two hours in the early part of the day and up to three hours for headliners on the main stage in the evening.

The main stage (conveniently called the Vitamin Water Main Stage, thanks to vitamin water being a major corporate sponsor of the event along with Red Bull) sat within the large amphitheater built into Hart Plaza, which also sported the best sounding system. This amphitheater gave the event a much needed epic feel to the entire production. There was plenty of space to dance on any tier of the Amphitheater which meant that almost everyone had space to do anything with the exception of peak times in the evening when navigating up and down the stairs did get a bit tricky at times. A large LCD screen just below the DJ booth thankfully gave the name of each dj that was up so that there was no question who was going at any time.

A second stage (the Made in Detroit stage) sat underneath the entrance to the event and to the right of the main stage, which I have to admit gave a very omnious feel that I really did like. Unfortunately the sound from this stage was not nearly as good as any of the other stages and the strange shape to the space and concrete walls only worsened the fact. Getting in and out of this stage required either finding one of the very well hidden routes that fed directly into the space from the periphery of Hart plaza, or going straight down near the main entrance to the main stage.

Two other stages sat to the left and right of the main stage. The Beatport stage sat to the far left and had its sound system turned away from the venue across the river towards Canada. On the second night as we left back to our hotels via the people mover/train Detroit has, I noticed a major street tunnel entrance moved traffic directly under this stage. The engineering must have been really solid because I never once felt or heard traffic flowing below us.

The fourth stage, the Red Bull Music Academy stage, sat a ways away from the other three. It was right next to a step pyramid structure in the plaza that kind of acted as an above ground seating/amphitheater structure which kind of divided itself from the other stages. This would prove to be my favorite venue for the duration of the trip, as all of the acts that I thought stood out and were the best ended up performing at this stage.

Between all of these stages was organized both a food court and the typical festival shopping mall experience. Vendors sold shirts, stickers, countercultralish wares found at most festival venues. Food was a bit pricey considering the price to get in. Cheep beers (bud light) cost 7$, which I thought completely ridiculous especially when better beers at coachella in California were a dollar less and had 30% more for your dollar. Red Bulls were 5$ and mixed drinks at the hard to find bars were 11$. An overall rip off that made us eventually sneak in our own alcohol that we purchased on a venture into downtown on the second day. I bought a 2$ orange on the first day there but that was only because up to that point I had only eaten bloody Mary’s in the airport along with a few nachos. Food ended up being my biggest single expense for this entire trip, which isn’t saying much. The best deals were found outside of the festival in Greek Town and small sandwich shops around town, when you could find them. Overall my experience with keeping myself feed, hydrated, and buzzed was super negative and if i ever go back will have to come up with a solution for. Even renting a car with someone in my group and driving a few miles down the road to a store would have ended up proving a better deal than the prices we ended up paying.

Because I was dealing with a migraine for the first day of the trip and starting to develop some sever jet lag from partying in San Fransisco the weekend before, I did not end up making it to any of the many after parties, which is where a ton of dj’s who weren’t booked for DEMF were playing. From what I could tell from my friends experiences only one or two of the after hours parties ended up being enjoyable for them. Many of the events were not as good as they had hoped, or filled with very weird vibes. The one night i did try to venture out, I ended up walking over to an event that was being held inside a Hotel down the street from ours. As soon as I got there some of the angriest, hardest techno was being belted out at about 4am, and it had the effect of driving me away quickly. I was told later that the vibes inside that venue were extremely sketchy even for a hotel, and i’m glad I listened to my instinct and turned around and left back to the hotel for some much needed rest.

From the Front Lines: The Detroit Electronic Music Festival, pt 1
TURNING and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
-Willam Butler Yeats

Destinations are often a surprise to the destined.
-Neil Gaiman

From the Front Lines: The Detroit Electronic Music Festival

A tale of two coasts

I have spent my life exploring the western half of the United States. Growing up in New Mexico, and traveling every year across the mountains of Arizona and deserts of California to the west coast, I have never known anything but small rural towns, massive, open spaces, incredible growth, and bustling mega cities that didn’t exist fifty years ago. I am a child of the west. The west always offers a new day, a new hope for something better and bigger, a idealized life that anyone could win through hard work or luck. This is what my country has offered me for my entire life. Purple Mountains, endless beaches, epic skies, safety, security, and hope.

Music, always took up the assumptive cloak of speaking towards that bright future we are all guaranteed, that pursuit of happiness that was laid before us with every desert sunrise, every new toy or idea or beat that accompanied it. Its an inevitable march forward towards the brighter tomorrow, escaping the dark past and the things that haunted it.

Traveling to the eastern half of this country came as both a culture shock and eye opener as to what this entire country is all about. Of course I’d seen it all on TV and in movies about the situation parts of this country has been in for the past thirty or forty years, but you don’t really get to understand it until you’ve actually been there, just how desperate and depressing of a place many of the cities of the east have fallen into. A false bravado, still trying to charm the remaining unlucky and unmotivated fills the air, covers the stink and decay rotting away underneath.

Music, then, became something i could have never realized it was speaking. Techno beats that once were heard by these ears in places dark, middle of the night and shrouded by mist, leading us to somewhere new, somewhere just below the bright level of reality to a slightly skewed version, telling our collective tail of hardship that is the price to pay for our sunny, better tomorrow, became the tail of the collective woe, the realization that we have become dependent on the machine, abdicating our creative rights for a paycheck, sucking the masters dick for just a little bit more money until we have to pay the rent, get our next fix, gamble away our future.

The music wasn’t a tail of joy anymore, rather, its become a tail of woe. Of decay. Of the false face on the rotting interior, the truth that in many places in this country like many places across this planet, people sold their humanity and in return got the fake front of a better tomorrow. Instead of speaking towards a beat that leads us in a new direction, revitalizing the core thing that is within all of us that makes each day better than the last, its speaking the same, tired beat that many musical genres have repeated; the realization that we have conformed to the machine, that we have yielded our hearts to the mechanical dryness because our hearts were to heavy a thing to burden our minds with any more. Instead of embracing the fact that our hearts burn with as much pain as they do with joy, we lobotomized the pain away and told our minds that the joy was in the repetition, the machine.

Oscillation 2008 came to a close this weekend, and left me with the usual feeling of some postpartum depression that usually comes with doing something huge and then seeing it finish up. While this was the most challenging Oscillation in years, it was also my favorite, I’d have to say.

I arrived at the Cell Theatre around 1 on friday, along with Markus, our sound master. I had already been to two Walmarts earlier, and been loading gear out into my car for the whole morning. Upon getting into the Cell, I found that we had a stage, but it was too long and shallow to accommodate what we do - so I had to bug the Cell’s stage man, Jared, to add another riser on. Then it was onto the sound load-in, which was not as magnanimous this year as it was last, but still a lot of gear. We were finally throwing speakers and cable up around 3pm or so, and then dealing with the usual, “Where is that AC hum coming from?” and “Is this cable broken?” issues that always happen when you’re busy like this.

Sound got set up nicely, our plasma screens went up for visuals, Basement Films set up shop to broadcast propaganda, and we were rolling. The night opened with Chem.Star, whose set I actually missed entirely, because I was dealing with many other things (as is par for the course with this production). As the night went on, things went well, but I’ve never seen so many tech issues back to back to back - sound issues, cables lost or forgotten, mics that wouldn’t work, all manner of things - and we ended up about 20 minutes behind schedule. Luckily things got back to where they should later in the night, and the Diverje set went well. The Echoing Green closed the night with a PHENOMENAL set, it is a real pleasure to have them out playing.

After friday’s end, Kenny and I went to the Agency to check out the DJ sets going down, and even at 1:45am, were pleased to find a HUGE crowd at the Agency. Things were going off, people were having fun, and it was going quite well. I spent some time there, and didn’t get into bed until around 4am - so, I slept about three hours.

Woke up saturday morning and had to go to three Radio Shacks and one Walmart to pick up the gear needed for our circuit bending and contact mic workshops, as well as a charger for my phone, as I couldn’t find mine, and my phone was dead. Not good when you’re the Director of a festival, and likely to get calls all day.

I finally got to the Agency at about 11:30, meeting Kenny and Jim of 512 software, and began the setup of tables, sound, projector and etc. for the workshops. The workshops were great, lightly attended, but seriously awesome. A group of people got to make their own Contact Mic instruments with Raven Chacon, and then got a look at Circuit Bending (which was great, nothing like glitching out a speak n’ spell), and finally everyone got a look at Numerology by 512.

I was near to passing out by the end of these workshops, so I was forced to get something to eat and sit down for a few at The Cell. Luckily, everything was already set up from the previous night.

Saturday started off much better, with an awesome set by Mala In Se - it sounded so good I thought a CD was playing at first - a testament to Markus and this awesome band. Geoff’s guitar added some wonderful range to Mala’s sound, and with some Drums and Steve’s Keyboards, this was one of my favorite acts of the night. Things progressed well, and on time, from there. I didn’t get to see everyone, but I did catch Tripping Dogs, Kenny’s Industrial act from over 15 years ago - this was the most amazing set of the night. True, old-school industrial sound, Guitars, noise, and a drum machine, and two guys dressed up in military Regalia and masks kicking ass. I cannot tell you how great this was.

The night closed up with Vertigo Venus (and one of our best sets yet), and the venerable Industrial powerhouse The Strand from Arizona - closing things off right. The house was packed, the room was hot as hell from everyone, and the energy was great. I could not have asked for more.

We loaded out sound and everything else, and finished around 3:30am. Not too bad, for a giant production such as this.

Inbetween sets, Keif from Basement Films dropped some knowledge on the crowd with obscure film on 16mm and educational bits on music. It was wonderful. Truly something I liked adding to the festival.

Dr. Thunder (Trace) dropped awesome visuals all night, with some lovely content he worked up for the bands. He has a very good future in visuals for himself, I have to say.

DJs Verablue and Xibabalola dropped old and new school industrial inbetween, keeping the heads interested.

Nancy of Burlesque Noir and Krissy kicked ass stage managing, keeping things on time. Thank you!

Kentifyr MC’d the whole event and actually got to see bands, for once. You my friend are a lovely person - thank you for your Kind words to Kenny and Myself, and for doing all you do.

Bethany watched merch, and kicked ass on that. We had a lot of volunteers who ruled their jobs as well, especially my lovely GF Molly on door and the lovely Rachill, without whom our door would not have been as solid as it was.

Thank you to Adam of Spork Films, Adric for taking pictures and promoting, Betty for promoting like crazy, Sparky, Jess, Sara, Geoff, Jason (Alphawolf), Jason Wolf, all the bands, DJS, all the volunteers, and anyone I am forgetting. Without you, we could not have made this happen.

I’m probably still forgetting a lot, but I have to say; this Oscillation was the best yet. It had the most challenges, whether is was dealing with drama due to our website, or losing people scheduled to do things, etc. - but it came together and went off. We made it happen no matter what, and it was due to the fact that so many people helped make it happen. The Agency, The Cell, and all our friends, thank you! We got out nearly 5,000 flyers in less than a month, and the promotion went off - we didn’t even have a very big spread in the Alibi, or any other publication, this time - but it proved that you just have to be persistent and say, “This is going to go off, dammit”.

There’s a lot of photos, video, and such out there, so we’re not done yet. I think I want to take some of Oscillation (with the blessing of those involved) in the direction of being slightly more educational - the Workshops showed me that there are people interested in learning what this music is, and how it actually has shaped much of the world they see. I think that I could do some great things with more workshops inbetween, and work that into Oscillation over the years.

Wow, I just said years. Well, what can I say? We have a hard time giving up on anything… it’s why, no matter what, I still love so much of what I have here in New Mexico.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

September 12, 2008
THE OSCILLATION ELECTRONIC MUSIC FESTIVAL ENTERS ITS EIGHTH YEAR!
(ALBUQUERQUE, NM) Fwank!Productions, Ohmni, Dark Beat Productions, www.Burque.info, Grandma’s Music, Music   Go Round, Five12 software, Basement Films, The Agency, The Cell Theatre and DSBP Records are pleased to announce the eighth annual Oscillation Electronic Music Festival.  The Festival will take place over three days, October 10-12th, at two Albuquerque Venues; The Cell Theatre (700 1st st. NW), and The Agency (111 4th st. SW).  Oscillation is the longest running festival of it’s kind in New Mexico.

Showcasing virtually every genre and sub-genre of electronic music and the bands and musicians who make it, this year’s Oscillation is sure to be the best yet, with a diverse Talent lineup of live music at The Cell Theatre October 10th and 11th, featuring:

The Strand (Industrial music from Chandler, AZ), The Echoing Green (the very popular nationally known Synthpop act who calls Albuquerque home), Leiahdorus, The Booty Green, Raine Vivian, Vertigo Venus, Diverje, Audiobuddha, Luperci, The Late Severa Wires, Mala in Se, The Nanoelement, Amplab, Noir Effect, brian botkiller, Tripping Dogs, Black Guys and Chemstar, as well as DJs Verablue and Xibalbalola.

In addition to the live music, DJs will be hosted at The Agency following the live music on October 10th and 11th, and 12th. Some of New Mexico’s most talented DJs will be bringing their unique styles for listeners to groove to, including IllKid, Justin O’Brien, Justin George, LevelHeded, Adem Joel and others.

This year’s Oscillation also introduces a new, exciting ingredient - workshops!  Three electronic music workshops will be held at The Agency beginning at noon on Saturday October 11th:

-    Circuit Bending with Ehren: exploring the world of Circuit Bent instruments and sounds, participants are invited to bring a battery operated sound maker of some kind for a chance to learn how to make sounds with a little soldering.  Or just come watch and listen!  Circuit bending is the practice of taking items such as Speak N’ Spells and turning them into tools of sonic creation.
-    Contact Mics with Raven Chacon: Raven Chacon is a multi-talented experimental musician and sound designer, and will be discussing the creation of instruments utilizing contact microphones.
-    Experimental music composition with Numerology Software by Five12, Inc.: Local software company Five12 will be showing off Numerology, their groundbreaking music creation software set to change how music is composed.

Ticket pricing for the festival and its events will be as follows:

-    $25 Full Festival Pass: Admission to Oscillation events at the Cell and The Agency.  By far the best value, this all-inclusive pass gives the festivalgoer the full experience Oscillation has to offer!
-    $15 night pass: $15 passes are good for admission to one night of entertainment at the Cell Theatre.
-    All other events are $5 (Workshops/DJ events at The Agency).

Presale full festival passes will be available online at www.oscillation.info.

All ages are welcome at Oscillation events.  Oscillation is a %100 drug and alcohol free, safe and positive event.

Dr. Thunder and Basement Films will provide visuals both nights at The Cell.  The event will be videotaped by Spork Films, and will broadcast on the Internet at www.oscillation.info via streaming audio and video.  DJ Kentifyr, voted Albuquerque’s best DJ for two years in a row, will host the event.

In addition to the live music and action, Grandma’s Music, Music Go Round and local record label DSBP records will be giving away software, music, and more over the course of both nights.

Because lineups are subject to change, the Promoters encourage those interested to visit www.oscillation.info for full and up to date information.  We look forward to seeing you for our eighth year of Sonic Independence!

###

“A Rat Year is a time of hard work, activity, and renewal. This is a good year to begin a new job, get married, launch a product or make a fresh start. Ventures begun now may not yield fast returns, but opportunities will come for people who are well prepared and resourceful. The best way for you to succeed is to be patient, let things develop slowly, and make the most of every opening you can find.”

Yes, another few months since i’ve had it in me to comment about anything occurring here in the Enchanted Land. For me, and for many of you, too, this really has been a year of Renewal. From the end of long lasting personal relationships to the hard work of meeting new people and forging new relationships, this year has been unique in many ways.

Coachella was the way that i started off my summer. I went alone and had an amazing, almost transformitive experience. It was almost like the kind I had at local outdoor events like Junebug, but in a different way. As the year progressed, it became clear that the way that those of were used to having our social interactions has changed fundamentally. Clubs that had been around for ten years have closed their doors. Outdoor events that were destined to be massive in their scope were closed down a few short hours into them. Production companies have been crushed by the law and now everyone is afraid to go out, especially if the dreaded “under 18″ crowd is present.

Walking down central a few Friday nights ago my friends and i ran into a few of the kids who had just been kicked out of club 7 after APD and Bernalillo county sheriffs officers raided the club in a attempt to find the owners and workers red handed distributing drugs to its patrons. Instead they found a club filled with the almost out of high school crowd half naked and supplying their own drugs. Instead of a bust worthy of re election, an embarrassed Marty chavez and his Party Patrol Goon Fun Breaker Squad wasted hundreds of thousands of tax payer dollars busting their own children in a culture that went from exploring the mind and the meaning of existence to exploring their own hormones. The sad debacle turned into a which hunt which is still going after the owner of the club for “building code violations” and minor liquor license offenses that occurred months prior.

After siting back and watching the drama unfold from the next door Blackbird Beauve, I could only sadly giggle at the situation. Law Enforcement seemed to be just as sadly ignorant as the children dressed in lingerie were. Albuquerque kids, who had been given *something* to do besides the goody goody events that their disconnected adult taskmasters deemed “fun” looked frightened and freaked out. The law enforcers present ejected children who had basicly no clothes on into the street, then proceeded to wreck the interior of club 7 looking for what they thought was some kind of drug production/distribution facility.

Ridiculous and Idiotic dont even begin to describe what both law enforcement thinks going on and reality.

I have to be honest, its hard for me to get too worked up about the entire situation. In a few short days i’ll be heading to Burning Man in northern Nevada. Unfortunately, however, I know that im going to have to come back to reality and watch, sadly, at what Albuquerque is turning into.

There was a point a few years ago when I was happy to be living in this city. It seemed like for the first time that we were on the track to becoming a *real* liveable city like san fransisco or chicago, and not another carbon copy of the Phoenix and Las Vegas suburbs, but clearly this is not the case.

Somewhere along the line this place started to become stunted. Crime is through the roof as transients are allowed to wander the streets, shipped in from other cities and dumped here to panhandle all day long. I was robbed at gunpoint while walking into a pizza place just last november, my ex girlfreind had her car window shot out, and another freind had her car broken into and her brand new radio and ipod ripped out of the dashboard.

Affordable homes are still a dream for anyone who wants to live less than 20 minutes from anything in town, otherwise you’re doomed to a carbon copy home an hour away on the edge of the high desert or doomed to live into an ever expanding ghetto stretching from tramway in the east to coors on the west side.

As sour as the situation in this city sounds, I always believe that there is an opportunity to grow and change the course that we are collectively on. Change is never an easy thing to make happen. Fundamentally, our culture in Albuquerque needs to grow in every way possible: Economically, culturally, socially. We need to start taking action at the polls in local elections: Start voting and think about the kind of person you’re electing. Realistically, who gives a crap if the person you’re electing has the D or R label next to their name? If they act like a facist and are a part of the democrats, do you really want to vote a person who hates fun, and bends over backwards to bust it while the city is awash in crime to be in charge of things?

I sure as hell don’t.

I participate in elections because i believe the people i elect are there to serve me, not to tell me what the fuck I can do on a Saturday night, and where I can do it. Like most of you i am a grown adult and can make my own choices.

Think about this year, this year of renewal, hard work, and activity, and then envision what you want to see Albuquerque look like in the next year, the next five, and the next ten. Think about where things are today and how they got here. It isn’t until you see a vision of what you want, like safe, secure venues where anyone can go to hear the music they enjoy and drink the drinks they want, or see themselves living in a safe and friendly city that has open and progressive values along with solid economic and educational opportunities that we will be able to allow these things to happen.

On Friday I made it out to Hunab Hookah for a little bit to catch some of The Acids and Basses electro jam, with guest F/M from Santa Fe.  Trippy, Ambient and experimental, quite enjoyable to just sit back and listen to.  F/M consisted of two technicians, Martin Back and Frank Rolla, a lute, two macbooks and a contraption which I will name the “random paddle”, a large standing instrument with many wooden paddles jutting from it, and small motors which randomly would cause a hammer mallet to play one of these paddles.  Think Japanese ambient, with some folk rock intertwined.  Acids and Basses, making use of 512 Software’s (located right here in Albuquerque) Audio Sequencing software, Numerology, makes ambient soundscapes great for film or just cooling out to.  It’s that kind of music that you don’t hear in your head until you hear it being played, and then you realize it’s always there, you just might not know how to channel it out.  An enjoyable night, followed by one sad bit of news; it is my understanding that Hunab Hookah will be closing at the end of July.  I never got to spend too much time at Hunab outside of Throwing Spark_Gap there for awhile, but I did enjoy the place when I was there.  It’s very hard to make a Hookah Lounge last in Albuquerque, I would imagine.

Then, last night, I re-opened Spark_Gap at The Agency, with the intention of continuing its tradition of live electronic jamming and IDM.  Well, it was half there.  We opened the night with a set by I Heart Teo ,  A young DJ from L.A. who has made his way out here, who dropped an hour set of heavy electro, and did very litterally blow me away. Myself and Clint had set up our rigs on stage, and were waiting for some of the other players to come, which unfortunately didn’t happen - and so Spark_gap turned essentially into an hour and a half long set from myself with backup by Clint.  It was fun, but it wasn’t what I had planned.  I had to have something to give people who came out (about 11 of them, including the ever vigilant Adric, to whom I am eternally grateful), so I thought that it made the most sense to just throw a set.  There was a little jumping around, which was good, but it certainly wasn’t an improv electro night.

So, what would I do differently?  Well, I think I won’t have a stage next time.  I don’t think it’s fitting for spark_gap to have a tall stage, unless I have some featured artists - which is the other thing I’ll do differently.  I don’t think I can keep the improv jam thing going right now.  If I can’t get a consistent number of players out to play (and I’m totally understanding of that, Saturday is also not a good night for something like this), I can’t really do an open jam.  So, I think I plan to have one DJ, one featured act, and perhaps anyone who wants to jam, in the next Spark_gap, and play it up as a dance party with some improv jamming.  I’ll have to see how it all plays out, I’m still learning with this thing, but I want to keep it going.

I also have to say thanks to Trace for coming out and throwing visuals for the night.  He very literally helped me to make the night 100% better.  Without visuals I really would have felt deeply failed at this outing, but having the bouncing lights on the giant white wall of The Agency really helped out.  Seriously man, thank you.

So, that, as they say, is that.  I wasn’t entirely happy with last night, I will say that, but the moral of the story is to look at what you’re doing and figure out what you need to do differently.  I’m seeing some of that, so I’m going to work on it, and as with anything, I’m going to take whatever help I can get for it, because I simply can’t do all this stuff on my own.

I just got back from the Agency’s Record Swap, and I had a lot of fun at it. It was nice to walk in and see quite a few people at tables with their big boxes and stacks of vinyl set up, as well as record players, books, and various other wares for sale. Raven Chacon of SickSickSick distribution was there, with his mass of noise and experimental music in tow, as well as my friend Adric and his many boxes of vinyl. I walked away with about 15 new records, and I know I need to go down there next time with my own stuff to sell.

Which, speaking of which, this is a great venue for bands to come sell their music. Because it’s not the flea market, people are actively searching for music, so your chances of selling are much better. I encourage musicians to consider coming out for the next swap, which will be the 2nd sunday of every month.