Today’s game plan:  Resolve the conflict in my Fun^3 Fest schedule.  Somehow I managed to listen to most of the Orange Stage artists in between bouts of infant rage (I am beginning to understand why the day care I used to work at didn’t take kids under 6 months).  Seriously, it would be a good day if I could get the schedule done, tame the rage in Ms. Crankypants, and find a pair of brown leather boots that fit my 13.5 inch calves.

So, I didn’t find boots,  I managed to reduce the rage, and I figured out most of the my schedule.

My Friday depends on how soon I can get back from the office, change, grab my stuff and bike down to the park (Downhill almost all the way).

• Step one: Orient myself with the park and get to the Blue stage in time to hear Car Stereo Wars.
• Park exploration and maybe catching Jim Ward on the Orange Stage.  I hadn’t heard of him before and I had a chance to listen to some of his stuff this afternoon.
• Cloud Nothings on the Orange stage.  Another recent discovery.
• At this point I will know if I am hanging at the Orange stage for the long haul (Heartless Bastards, The Thermals, Black Joe Lewis, Okkervil River, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, and Passion Pit) or attempting to split my time between Orange, Blue, and a splash of Yellow (Heartless Bastards, Thermals, Upright Citizens, Franki Chan, Black Joe Lewis, Big Freedia, Spank Rock, Reggie Watts, Clap Your Hands, and Public Enemy.)    If the stages are spaced like last year, or the media pass allows you access to a path free of sheeple, I think I can pull this off.

Saturday’s Schedule needs work.  There are a lot of early afternoon bands that I don’t know.

• T-Bird and the Breaks on Blue
• Joy Formidable on Orange
• Dan Deacon on Blue then camping out on Orange (Ra Ra Riot, M83, Girls,  and Lykke Li)
• Back to Blue to finish the night with Major Lazer.

Sunday may be a light day.

• Le Butcherettes on Orange (another recent discovery).  I may stay for Asobi Sesku or leave and come back for We Were Promised Jetpacks and Mates of State.
• Now for the tricky part.  If all is right with the universe, I will get to see Ted Leo and the Pharmacists, Architecture in Helsinki, Del the Funky Homosapien, Flying Lotus and Diplo.  If  Blue and Orange are too far apart, I am skipping Architecture in Helsinki and going straight to Del and camping out at Blue until the end of Diplo.
• I am skipping the festival closers.  I wasn’t impressed with Odd Future.

After surviving another bout of infant rage (Thanks, Scout) I think Fun^3 Fest will be a breeze. Bring on the inconsiderate hipsters who dare to mosh to shoegaze.

They launched a mobile app.  Sadly it is not for Android users. I will be using my grid schedule on Google docs.

Apparently the  app features:

• Complete band listing for festival and aftershows along with custom user schedules
• Users able to filter by day, stage, and time
• Mobile ticket purchasing
• Complete band bios and links
• A custom Taco Locator [I would like a good beer locator or a clean port-o-potty locator]
• Fully integrated Instagram functionality.  Please tag your photos from FFF with #funfunfunfesttag photos to be featured in app feed
• Transportation maps for parking, shuttles, bike valets, bus routes
• Fest maps with directions to mechanical bulls, wrestling rings, comedy tents, food, first-aid, and rock and roll
• Complete information area with FAQs, directions, hotels, contact info, and more

The fest is 9 days away and I am still figuring out my game plan.This weekend I will load the little backpack up with the usual survival gear.

Useful Festival Gear:
Very few people are prepared for an all day outdoor festival. Granted, there are a few unallowables. But still, that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t pack a few things.

• A medium size bag to carry all your stuff and free swag (your friend may or not be willing to be your sherpa). M and I usually carry small backpacks.  Ladies, please avoid the oversize handbags and go with something low profile that will not bang into other people while you are dancing it out.
• Tissues – also useful when the port-o-potty is out of TP
• Hand Sanitizer, moist towlettes, wet wipes and/or face wipes.  The dust made me feel dirty, like Pig Pen.
• Visine/Eyedrops-  Sooo much dust.
• Sunscreen- There will be less shade at Auditorium shores.
• Sunglasses- for sun and dust.
• Earplugs – who wants to lose their hearing?  They are especially useful if you want to get up close to the stage. I prefer the reusable swimmers earplugs. I bring disposable ones too, it is a good way to make friends.
• Camera – with extra memory and a charged battery (nothing professional unless it is your job).
• Cash – The ATM might run out of money.
• Empty water bottle – staff might prevent you from taking in water, but they can’t stop you from bringing an empty bottle. You can usually find a water fountain or restroom to fill it up.
• Coozie- Most of the time the beer chicks are somewhere in proximity distributing them. Never when you need them though.
• Chapstick
• Sweater/Sweatshirt- It’s good to dress in layers. By the end of the night you will be glad you packed it. I usually stick a hat in my bag for that reason.
• Bicycle-Good luck finding parking otherwise.
• Walking Shoes- Go practical before cute.  You will be standing long hours and you will have more ground to cover this year.
• Bandanna or kafiya to wear around your neck or to cover your face if it is dusty.
• Grid schedule: Seriously. If you want to make the most out of the fest, you need to block out your time

Transportation
Seriously kids, parking near the Fest is not going to happen.  South of the river around the fest and the parking garages that are close are being used by Palmer Center and Long Center’s events that weekend, so they will NOT be available. DO NOT PARK IN THE BOULDIN CREEK NEIGHBORHOOD UNLESS YOU LIKE BEING TOWED.

• Bikes – Organizers promise plenty of bicycle parking on site.  I will be biking to the Fest.
• Public Transit/Park and ride- If you can not walk from your parking area, or bike, or choose not to, please consider our FFF Fest shuttle service.  Details are on the web site

It’s official.  I quit my job.  My next year will be spent working with infants and hipsters while I try to figure out what exactly is next.

I spent the day with the infant (aka Scout). Since I wasn’t sure what life with a 6 week old would be , I had a light schedule.  Find health insurance, research  bands for Fun^3  Fest, and develop my price list for Frock On.

Thanks to Austin Bloggy Limits, I had Spotify playlists to work with (because infants don’t care about their caregivers deadlines).  We started with the Blue Stage. I have to go back and listen to a few of the bands since Scout decided to have a few fits of rage during the day.  My picks so far include: T-bird and the Breaks (there was a little dance party to their album “Never Get out of this Funk mid-afternoon), Public Enemy (as much as I love Passion Pit, I think that they would approve of me seeing Public Enemy instead),  Dan Deacon, Spank Rock, Big Freedia, Del Tha Funky Homosapien, and Rakim.

I updated the schedule based on today’s research and my other preliminary picks.  Tomorrow I will listen to the Orange Stage.  I don’t plan on researching the Black or Yellow stages.  I plan on checking out Reggie Watts and maybe Henry Rollins on yellow.  Other than that, I plan on being glued to Orange and Blue (fingers crossed that they are next to each other again).

M and I are busy as hell these days.   Luckily the release of the Fun^3 Fest schedule coincided with my night  off.  I can get some planning done.

Here is the grid schedule for the daytime stuff.  As a dyslexic person I can’t deal when people send me lists that look like  the one that arrived in today’s email. Now that I have a grid, I can see a few conflicts.  I hope the stages aren’t spread out too much.  The perk of Waterloo Park being so small was that I could hop between stages in a minute or so (depending on the how thick the crowd was).  (more…)

In the last few days I went to a fashion show, a documentary screening, and the ballet.  Most of which was free or at a discount.

The fashion show- Wednesday I took time out of my evening to check out the Fabricker pre-sale event and  Savanahred’s fashion show.   I had to set an alarm to make sure I left on time but it was definitely worth it to support a local designer and the glimmer of hope that is a new fabric store in Austin.

The documentary- It has been a while since I went to an AFS screening. Thursday night I went to see Thunder Soul.  It played SXSW a few years ago but I missed it.  Jamie Foxx picked up the project so hopefully it will see a decent nationwide run.   I treated myself to dinner and a movie.

The ballet-  I heard about Ballet Austin’s Mozart project on the radio yesterday and completely dropped the ball on procuring tickets. I lucked out as a surfed Facebook this afternoon.  Someone had an extra matinee ticket.   The project involved 3 acts: Classical, Updated, and Remixed.  Graham Reynold’s section was my favorite, musically.  But the DJ Spooky remix section was a multi-media explosion.

I think I spent a grand total of $7 ($21 if you include my dinner).  Not bad at all.

Yes, we grumbled about the move to Auditorium Shores.  Yes, we are concerned about the expansion and potential diluting of the brand. But did that stop us for buying early bird tickets?  No! Did it stop us from buying Friday early-bird passes? No! (Well M and 2.0 passed on those because they are being responsible tax payers and going to work that day.  I have decided to take a well earned day off).

Now that the preliminary grumbles are over, I can focus on the awesome.  1. Auditorium shores is much closer to my place.  I can bike there. 2. Friday’s list of bands is AWESOME! Passion Pit, CYHSY, Heartless Bastards, Public Enemy, Spank Rock, Big Freedia (I hope she is better by then), Franki Chan, and  Reggie Watts.  Dear Scheduling Gods,  Please do not put all of these bands on at the same time.

What’s on tap for Saturday and Sunday?  Girls, Ra Ra Riot, Joy Formidable, Neon Indian, Dan Deacon, Rakim,  Donald Glover, Architecture in Helsinki, Mates of State, We Were Promised Jetpacks, Diplo, Del the Funky Homosapien, and Henry Rollins.  I should also make plans to unglue myself from the stages to check out the amenities.

As we get closer I will put the grid schedule together and give you a list of essential things to pack.

It’s that time of year when a mysterious allergen makes us all feel like crap.  It happened to 2.0 last year this time.  Sadly, it was me this year.  I felt fine earlier in the day.  I made some roasted red bell hummus with smoked sea salt to take to M and 2.0′s new place (Fancytown).  We snacked and had a few beers before going to Stubb’s to see Thermals and Matt and Kim.  We made it to Stubb’s in time to get a good spot (near the parents of the sea of underage kids).  Then two songs into the Thermals set, I started to feel sick.  Then it got worse.

I started having flashbacks of the Middle East show last year.  It started the same way.  Blackouts, dizziness, nausea…  I was not going to be sick. I got sick at two shows last year.  There would be no puking in 2011.

I am not sure how I did it, but I managed to stumble towards the alley of port-o-potties.  After that I found myself some water and texted M to let her know where I was.

I spent the rest of the show in the back  (with a pretty awesome view but I still felt like crap).  The Thermals were great.  Sadly, I can’t say the same for Matt and Kim.  I am glad they are making money but I miss their old sound.  This stuff sounds overproduced.  Or maybe I’ve just outgrown them.

I am a little behind schedule on posting this.  Yes, M and I were there.  No, it was not a crazy night.  We took it easy and enjoyed the show.  We all laughed at how ironic it was that we were  listening to the band rant about the Suburbs taking over while we watched them perform with a perfect view of the sprawl (and a Dillard’s).

This will probably be my first and last show at the Backyard.  The parking and the sound are in need of serious improvement.

I wasn’t sure about the set list after the show but I listened to it on my ipod at work the next day and made it so much more sense. Take another listen.  Look at the photo (imagine a view of the mall in the distance).

1. Month of May
2. Rebellion (Lies)
3. Neighborhood #2 (Laika)
4. Haiti
5. City With No Children
6. Rococo
7. Intervention
8. Suburbs
9. Suburbs (continued)
10. Suburban War
11. Keep the Car Running
12. No Cars Go
13. Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)
14. We Used to Wait
15. Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)

ENCORE
16. Ready to Start
17. Wake Up
18. Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)

Photo c/o Austinist by Pooneh Ghana

Look at the photo (imagine a view of the mall in the distance).

Cross your fingers that they will play a secret show during ACL.

I managed to make it to the very last night of the Fusebox Festival. Reggie Watts is amazing. He also wins the award for the best mad scientist afro.

REGGIE WATTS: IMPROVISED DECONSTRUCTION from Ronen V on Vimeo.

This was year 7 of volunteering my way to platinum. I I took 2 weeks off from work and this time around I stayed at my own place (Yay for living close to downtown!).

(You should go back and read the daily recaps. I put this stuff out on the internet for you, little readers)

Total # of bands: ~11 Theophilus London, Foster the People, Noah and the Whale, Portugal. the Man,  Charles Bradley and the Menahan Street Band,  TV on the Radio , Ellie Goulding, Smith Westerns,  Matt and Kim,  J. Roddy Walston and The Business,and Wanda Jackson.

Total # of movies: 19 ( the Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye, Little Deaths, Documentary Shorts,  Being Elmo: A Puppeteers Journey, Super,  Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop, Greatest Movie Ever Sold, Narrative 2, Medium Cool, Something Ventured,  El Bulli: Cooking in Progress, Fambul Tok, Blacktino, Hesher, the Other F Word, Our Day will Come, A Matter of Taste: Serving up Paul Liebrandt, Outside Industry: The Story of SXSW, and PressPausePlay.

Total $ spent: ~61 tips, 2 dinners and a Go Local card.

Carbon Footprint: I biked at least 58 miles (from my house to downtown is about 7 miles round trip).  The car was used once during the two week period (I was lazy and drove to the Alamo Lamar).

And now for the Rants/Raves (mostly rants though). (more…)