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#skoaradio 11/14/2015 liner notes

"Kibbe, aren't you posting these liner notes kind of late?"

I'm late to getting this up. Sorry. Clearly from the amount of posts I've done so far today I'm trying tog get caught up. It's a nice problem to have with 3 fire shows in a week being the root of not being able to get #content out on time.

Anyway, this is going to be the last time I put together a separate playlist for the show. That's right, from now on you'll have to scramble to pull the songs from a playlist that I'm going to be changing on the regular. This is mutually beneficial because it will force me to get these out sooner rather than later so you can snatch up the goodies I share with you.

Hope you're having a great weekend fam!

<3

kibbe!

Read these things and get smarter okay?

Feel free to grab this playlist, obvi.

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#skoaradio 10/24/2015 liner notes

artist rendition of my convo with Alex from Kingswood after I shut the mic off post-interview.lol

Hey fam!

Things refuse to slow down in SKOA HQ, but I'm not complaining! I wrapped up CMJ with a day in Aussie Heaven where we interviewed KINGSWOOD prior to watching them totally kill it. I can't believe how much fun I had. Kinda wish it had never ended tbh. Oh well. Time to prep for Brooklyn Electronic Music Festival, which is coming up super fast. I've got a couple of new tracks on this week's show. As always would love to hear your thoughts so @ me bb if you liked what you heard!

See you next week!

<3

kibbe!

THINGS I TALKED ABOUT ON THE SHOW THIS WEEK INCLUDE:

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#skoaradio 10/17/2015 liner notes - THE #CMJ2015 EDITION

#CMJSELFIE, basically.

 

GUESS WHO'S TIRED?

"I GUESS KIBBE"

YOU GUESSED RIGHT!

But in all seriousness, I am having a blast at CMJ 2015 this year and I can't believe all of these little band babies are going to leave me. #RUDE.

Anyway I'm too exhausted to be witty rn. I'm gonna go grab coffee before my first Pianos margarita of the day.

Until next week!

<3

kibbe!

 

UPDATE: Grab this week's mixtape on iTunes.


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[Night Out] OMG CMJ 2015 Day Four & Five: Controller, Slum Sociable, Good Morning, Methyl Ethel, Step-Panther, Pierce Brothers, Kingswood, Sui Zhen, Client Liaison, & SAFIA @ Pianos & The Delancey

Controller @ Pianos

The last 48 hours of CMJ were a total blur. My big brother came to town early before a cruise he was going on and since family comes first my venue hopping came to a screeching halt. Bro was a champ and helped me pick out the featured images in Day Three's post and got an exclusive first listen to the interviews I did with Good Morning, Jake Isaac, Jesse Ruben, BLXPLTN, and Magic Sword. I did manage to drag him out to Pianos go see my good friends Controller. He also got to finally meet Sprout! It was nice to have my two favorite people in the world in one room. We decided to cut the night short after Controller finished so I could rest up to go all out of the last day of the fest.

After spending the afternoon on Saturday with my brother I scurried over to The Delancey or as I will be referring to the day as "Aussie Heaven" (but really it was the Aussie BBQ). I soon realized as I was confirming which stages Slum Sociable and Good Morning were playing that I haven't been exaggerating all week when I've told people that Australia dominated this CMJ in a huge way.

I'd soon get some intel from Alex Laska, Kingswood's guitarist, about why it felt like I had been hit by a semi truck of awesome Australian music all at once. It never occurred to me that in Australia because it's such a huge country that's mostly populated along its coastlines that being a committed band is a hell of a lot more effort than anything anyone in the US could ever imagine. He explained that driving from one major city to the next could sometimes take at least up to 26 hours. We are spoiled rotten, my fellow Americans! That all said, Laska went on to say that because this is the case that the bands who want to tour are the ones who put in the time to make it worth their while so they're all very talented individuals. They're also very supportive of each other because they usually end up eventually all touring together. He really wasn't kidding when he said, "Every single band that's here deserves to be here." It was really great chat overall, I can't wait to air it next week on #skoaradio.

Kingswood getting their face-melty on @ The Delancey.

Post-my interview with Laska I saw the entire day completely differently. He was totally right, you could tell by the way the bands all interacted with each other that the community there was incredibly close knit. It was actually really refreshing to see bands watching each other perform. I know that's not a rarity here per say, but it felt more genuine and less obligatory. I'm sure that has to do with the abundance of bands that are at one's disposal here so the air is more competitive vs communal. That's really a bummer when you think about it. It'd be nice to find a way to swing that there. I guess maybe that has to happen state by state?

Anyway, the only bummer on Saturday night was when I had to call it a night and head home. After finally having a moment to befriend the Slum Sociable guys I tagged along with them going from stage to stage to see all their friends play. I finally got to see Methyl Ethel after Good Morning told me during our interview that I *had* to see them! I caught a total of 9 bands whilst in Aussie Heaven and I loved every single second of it. Glad to have caught Good Morning and Slum Sociable multiple times. Can't wait to get to know Step-Panther, Pierce Brothers, Sui Zhen, Client Liaison, and SAFIA better. Side note: Client Liaison is crazy in the best possible way. Really glad the Slum fam made me stick around for them. Kingswood was face melty. I'm really excited that I'm getting pulled back to gritty guitars to compliment all the synth-driven pop/rock I've been into lately.

I honestly can't think of a better way to end a CMJ than how I did. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to sleep for 72 hours and see how long until the caffeine withdrawal headaches go away.

Have a look at the photos from Day Four & Five in the gallery below. You can also have a taste of Aussie Heaven for yourself courtesy of this handy dandy Spotify playlist I put together.

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[Night Out] OMG CMJ 2015 Day One: Velise, Good Morning, Crooked Colours, Garden of Elks, Jake Isaac, Jesse Ruben

I decided this year that if I was going to have any sort of peace of mind that planning out my CMJ days as much as possible was a necessity. If day one was any indication of how all my pre-planning will pay off this year, I think this is going to be a really fun few days of music.

Day one was mostly a lot of things I took chances on without doing a TON of research beforehand. After grabbing my badge the first band of the day was Dallas band Valise, who of all the newcomers for the day I had listened to the most (and this was mostly because they got added to my research playlist earlier than the other bands and you know how I feel about shuffle). For haphazardly setting up and starting a little late, it was easy to tell that they'd easily kill at Pianos or Mercury Lounge outside of CMJ.

There was slight change to the days schedule. I'm not sure if it was a glitch in the CMJ app or human error on my part, but Holiday Mountain apparently weren't playing at Pianos anymore because I accidentally starting snapping Crooked Colours from Perth, Australia. Even after re-announced their name and I realized what was going on, their blend of melodic moody synth-rock made me stick around for a couple of songs. In fact, despite it officially being fall now I enjoyed their cover of MGMT's "Electric Feel" quite a bit.

I cut my time with them short to go meet up with my new Aussie best friends Good Morning for a quick interview before their set at Cake Shop. We had a nice chat about the Melbourne scene, records we were into, etc., all of which you'll be able to hear on this week's special edition of #skoaradio. Again, hadn't spent as much time with all the music I was seeing today as I had wanted, so I was happy to discover that they were

It's not a CMJ day without stressing yourself out by attempting to go back and forth between Manhattan and Brooklyn, so I decided to see what sweet Britches ("Britch" is a term I coined to call Shey which is a combo of British and bitch") were playing at The Living Room for the Music Is Great showcase thrown by the British Consulate.

First up was thrash pop band Garden of elks, who hail from Scotland in Great Britian (hence why music is GREAT, get it!?). Anyway, I noticed the singer/only member of the band kept referring to himself as we, which I noted on Instagram. I didn't learn until after the set that apparently about 48 hours ago the band was actually a trio but there was a falling out of sorts. Not gonna lie, what dude was able to pull together in the name of "the show must go on" was pretty impressive even if there were a couple of rough moments. I hope this is not the last we hear of this project.

Next up was the upset of the night, London's new national treasure Jake Isaac. I had briefly sampled him prior to heading out for the day and apparently he's been in my musical blind spot because a ton of my friends like him on Facebook already. Honestly though, anything you hear recorded won't be as good as the energy and pure charm that oozes out of his body. Accompanied by just a kick drum and his acoustic guitar, Isaac delivered a string of heartfelt tunes, one more powerful than the next. At one point he decided to experiment by leaving the mic and kick drum behind to perform in the center of the crowd, making a point to sing and strum in every direction throughout.

I can't recall the last time I saw an opening act at CMJ get begged for an encore, so I'm going to just say he's the only one I've ever seen get called back out for an encore. He selected what I thought was an ironic cover, Bonnie Rait's 1991 classic, "I Can't Make You Love Me". As he sang out that exact phrase I felt like any second the crowd was going to swoon back, "TOO LATE! WE ALREADY DO! YOU'VE ALREADY WON US OVER!" I know I was certainly smitten. So much so that I grabbed him as soon as I could squeeze my way through the people who lined up immediately to meet him once the crowd allowed him to finish. We had a nice chat on the rooftop of The Living Room. Side note: if you've ever wanted to hear me flustered by a new band and also unapologetically fangirly simultaneously, this week's #skoaradio is a must listen for this interview. He also said he was playing Rockwood the following night. I may have to duck out on Magic Sword a little early to experience that, although they may have to carry me out afterwards from all the swooning.

I ended the night by cabbing back to Rockwood Music Hall Stage 3 to be a good friend to my fellow sandwich lover Jesse Ruben, who I learned after our official interview doesn't really like Reuben sandwiches all that much. The songs were great, as usual. The banter in between was better than usual. Apparently there was a lot of coke in the bathroom outside of Rockwood Stage 3 and he just had to share how humorous that was to him. This marked his fourth CMJ performing. I feel like with the new music he's prepping to release to the masses coupled with slow build of opportunities he's been getting lately in the form of placements that he may grow out of his Rockwood home sooner than any of us might realize.

Make sure you check out this week's #skoaradio on TheEnd.fm on Saturday from 12pm -2pm EDT for the special CMJ edition featuring live interviews with as many of the artists that I saw this week as I can get to hold still for a few minutes. You can check out all the photos from yesterday via the gallery below!

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[NIGHT OUT] OMG CMJ 2015: Kibbe's Picks For This Week

It's that time of year again! You know, the one where I bounce back and forth between lower Manhattan and Brooklyn to see how many new bands I can fall in love with. I HAVE SO MANY NEW BAND CRUSHES YOU GUYS AND I HAVEN'T EVEN STEPPED FOOT INSIDE A VENUE YET!! *PRAISE HANDS EMOJI*

If you're out and about in NYC for CMJ, you can catch me attempting to attend all of the following events. If you can't be in NYC but want to follow along, you can add me over on Snapchat: heylookitskibbe (original amirite?).

If you see my smiling/exhausted face grab me and say hi!

TUESDAY OCTOBER 13TH

THURSDAY OCTOBER 14TH

THURSDAY OCTOBER 15TH

FRIDAY OCTOBER 16TH

**my brother is going to be in town Friday & Saturday so unless he wants to come out to stuff I'll only be out after dark :/ **

SATURDAY OCTOBER 18TH

Please enjoy a sampling of the bands I'm going to go check out via the playlist below!

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