Weekly Audio Podcast about the Live Music Scene – Reviewing Shows, Festivals, and Culture.
I’m gonna keep this post short.
It’s myself and PhanArt. He’s been on many a TWoL before. We talk about his recent trip to Hangout Fest and my trip to the Googa Mooga. We run through your voice mails. There’s some deep analysis re: Phish tour > tickets, the poster show, and tweetups. Lastly, no Steve/Pete TWoL would be complete without all the necessary Bisco updates. What does this mean for you? Laughter. Tears. Awkward moments.
Thanks for listening, see you on tour.
- Steve
Festival Review
5/19/2012
Prospect Park, Brooklyn
Words and Photos: Steve O.
“An amusement park of food and music” was erected this weekend in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park. TWoL was lucky enough to score tickets to both days of the fest’s inaugural run. Expectations were high considering this was the brain child of Superfly Presents, the company behind Bonnaroo and Outside Lands. Prep was pretty easy Saturday morning, considering the park is in walking distance of #TWoL Studio BK and the weather was objectively perfect. All we needed was some cash, our IDs, and sunscreen.
The gates opened at 11am but we arrived at the park just before 1pm. Entry was easy at this time and we did not wait more than a minute to have our ticket scanned from the Eventbrite iPhone app. Once inside, our first order of business was to get a beer. Our crew of about eight headed over to the nearly empty craft beer tent, excited to try a new brew. Unfortunately, it wasn’t that easy. Detour 1: needed to get an “over 21″ wrist band. Detour #2: needed to get “GoogaMoola” (a credit card type thing) as the craft beer tent was not accepting cash.
Lines for both the wrist bands and Moola cards were quite long, which was demotivating at this early hour. Even worse, we learned that the ID check tent was out of bands, and that the Moola’s tent’s computer system was down. Were were able to find a rogue ID checker who had us banded in no time, and we 86′d the Moola cards and went to the beer tents that accepted cash. With the card system down, the festival switched over to a ticket system. Again, these lines were long and not worth the effort, IMHO. The cash beer stands had a decent selection, with choices like Captain Lawrence Liquid Gold and Peak Organic Summer Session. Prices were only slightly inflated over standard Brooklyn fare at $7-$8.
Now by this point, the grounds were about half full, and there were about 20 min lines forming at all the beverage stands and the choice food stands. The crew chose to go with the “divide and conquer” method in order to meet our initial beer and food quota. I grabbed a Chihuahua Dog from Crif Dogs. The line was short, and therefore well worth the 7 bones. The only other food I grabbed from the fest was a Sloppy Joe from Dickson’s Farmstand Meats. There was no real line when I walked by, so for $5, I got my Joe on. Tasty, and it provided some needed afternoon nourishment (read: beer stabilization).
I wish I had more to report on the food front. As the clock struck 3pm, the park was probably at capacity and lines for all cash services were longer than I was willing to deal with. The general consensus of our crew was that it would be easier to get food from any of these vendors home stores. Most of the restaurants featured at Googa Mooga live in Brooklyn or Manhattan, so not worth the time and festival tax to try more than the above mentioned delicacies. That said, we actually got in one of the pizza lines, but opted to leave the festival and just get a pie delivered to us at a friend’s apartment in Park Slope.
On the music front, I don’t have much to report either. There were two stages and I spent some time at each. Sound was vibrant, the grass was soft, and all the people were friendly. I was only familiar with Holy Ghost! and The Roots, both of which I missed out on due to our early departure. I don’t feel particularly remiss about this, as entry was free and I have seen these acts before. Had I paid to get in, I would have probably stayed, and I’m sure this review would be largely different.
It seems to me that the free admission and high capacity led to some of the problems for Googa Mooga. Less people, less lines, less waiting = better experience. Unlike most festivals that draw on the artist lineup to sell tickets, this was more about the beer, wine, and food, which was just a chore to obtain after a while. I imagine that the Extra Mooga experience was not marred by long lines. The $250 upgrade provided a secluded experience, with free food and booze and extra activities and music. These tickets did not sell out, which isn’t too surprising, as that is, in my opinion, a relatively steep upgrade. Had it been $250 for the whole weekend, I imagine it would have seen a lot more takers.
On a positive note, the overall vibe was great, the event was child friendly, and they even had a bike valet. There were plenty of ATMs and bathrooms, neither of which ever had lines. The grounds were in great shape, and litter of any kind was hard to find. Police were present though seemingly unneeded. Everything was easy to navigate and they allowed for re-entry.
As I get ready to head to the park today, I will change my plan of attack. With me will be a Nalgene of water, my “Over 21″ wristband that is still intact, enough cash to score two beers and the expectation to only grab one food item. The weather is beautiful again and excitement is high for Hall and Oates.
Cheers,
Steve
(Sunday review and other anecdotes on the next episode this Tuesday)
This week, Steve and I were joined by a special guest from the Midwest, Josh Korin. After some brief housekeeping news (hint: keep your eyes peeled for more blog posts and written content from TWoL in the upcoming months), we dove right into the breaking news of the day. The initial artist announcement for Jamcruise 11 was announced today and features moe., MMS&W, and funk galore.
Next, Josh filled us in on UMbowl III, which happened last Friday night in Chicago. He was in attendance and gave a glowing review of the event. Check out his official review here. There’s also some great audio and video floating around for those who missed the show.
Next we did a quick ticket check for Phish tour legs 1 & 2. If you need tickets for nTelos, Jones Beach, or Bill Graham, hit up cashortrade.org, otherwise regular old Ticketmaster will do you. We also got a nice voicemail from the Wanee Festival, with a rave review of Buddy Guy. Now that festie season is starting add our number to your phone: 419.NO.WOOKS. We wanna hear from you!
We also gave you a rundown of upcoming festivals that we haven’t covered yet:
And finally we left you with a quick rundown of our recent EOTO and Punch Brothers live experiences. As always, thanks for tuning in everyone!
Rage on!
Katie
Show Review
4/20/2012
Words: Katie
Pics: Steve O.
It’s not often that a concert occurs exactly where and when you want it to. This past Friday, 04.20.12, at the Roseland Ballroom, however, the EOTO show did just that for me. On this hippie holiday, one of the biggest party nights of the year for some, the super dark, packed dance floor was the perfect atmosphere for EOTO’s intricate beats and state of the art light show.
Drum roll please…..the second leg of Phish summer tour 2012 was finally announced today and we honestly aren’t sure what to think of the schedule. The long awaited announcement held some new surprises with the key word being new. Phish is playing 6 venues and 1 state that they have never played before. They’re also starting the second leg the same way the first began, with an appearance at an indoor venue. Tupac and Dr. Dre would be proud cause California is definitely getting some love. Tour kicks off in the LBC on a Wednesday night, not sure how well this show will sell. On the other hand there is a 3 night run at the Bill Graham Auditorium in San Francisco that is the TWoL pick of the tour for the only hard tickets.
The long standing Phish trivia question of what states has Phish never played has been reduced by one, Oklahoma is finally getting some love. TWoL is calling out the Oklahoma City show as the sleeper show of the tour. The venue is call the Zoo for christ sakes, how can Phish not throw a crazy show after waiting 28 years to play the state and then playing a venue called the zoo? One word for any hippies heading to the Oklahoma show or the Birmingham, AL show…careful. Law enforcement tend not to take to kindly to brahs and sisbrahs wooking out in that part of the country. To get a more in depth look at the venues check out this comprehensive overview that Hidden Track put together.
Now for some non-Phish news. Emilie recently went to see Furthur in Boston and while their playing was a little lackluster overall it was a great venue and good times were had by all. In untz news Conspirator is back on tour so if you’re ready to get your flat brim kicking check out their tour schedule.
TWoL will be taking next week off unless some ground breaking news happens. Make sure to leave us a voicemail with your lot reports and we’ll play them on air. Also please fill out our poll this week and let us know your plans for 2nd leg of Phish Summer Tour 2012.
-Nick
Hey, kids! This week yields a h3tty dose of bro with Steve squared going all Type II, nailing the transitions, and bringing you the news you need.
Both hosts had a healthy dose of music this past weekend, with UNO at EOTO/Shpongle and Toonces checking out PGroove. The shows were h3tty and the crowds were young. Way young. EOTO and Shpongle are touring pretty heavily right now, with dates together and also doing they own thang. PGroove has a few shows left before they hit festival season. All and all, we had a good time at both shows and got pretty in depth with the reviews. Don’t miss out.
Next we transition to some of our favorite, and what should be your favorite, things. Here’s the rundown:
-Our friends at GlowStickWars are having a bitchin’ Back to Tour Sale, with 20% off everything. That includes a few brand new, reusable items. Save money, save the earth, make it rain. And enter to win a 3-Day pass to Summer Camp while you’re at it.
-Umphreaks with tickets will be elated to hear that the UMBowl III ballots have been unveiled. Go on and get your vote on for your favorite 1st Quarter All Request Set songs and the 4th Quarter Raw Stewage Set jams. Check out the ballots this way.
-Have you ever seen a documentary for Phish heads by Phish heads? Maybe So, Maybe Not. That’s the title of a forthcoming movie by filmmaker Noah Wilderman. It’s about who Phish phans really are. We can’t really recall a movie about Phans before, so let us know if we’re mistaken. It could be memory loss due to our old age. You can check out the trailer here and we’ll have a review once the film is released.
-On Monday, Gathering of the Vibes released their initial lineup. Holy guacamole it looks sick! Dead rumors are sure to abound with all members in attendance and there’s plenty of great bands packed on to the bill. Toonces will be there, will you?
We all know UNO loves a ticket check, even a half of a ticket check. That’s what you get this week because nothing has changed since last week. NOTHING. Leg 2, anyone?
Lastly, Steve and Steve breeze through a couple of quick notes on festivals down south. Way down south. TWoL is happy to announce they will be at Mayan Holidaze. UNO is dedicated to bring you the live coverage you crave and promises the most epic end of the world face time convo ever. Mentally prepare yourselves. Jam Cruise has begun the prebooking for next year’s floating festie. We recommend you get on it. At the very least, throw your hat in the ring for four free passes courtesy of Magic Hat. Or don’t … this way we have better chances of winning 
That’s all for this week. If anyone knows how to play Zombie/Wook/Alien please let us know. We just can’t remember. Must be the old age.
-Toonces.
This week’s episode is jam packed with information about this summer’s happenings. First, we bring you a ticket check on all the leg 1 summer Phish dates. Basically, nTelos and Jones Beach are sold out but everything else is still up for grabs.
Next, we tackle all the Festie updates from the last few weeks. Check out the full episode for details and our take on the following festivals:
We also had three great lot reports this week. Thanks as always for calling in. The number is 419.NO.WOOKS. We wanna hear about your shows!
Finally, we discussed our weekend in Richmond with co-host Toonces where we saw Railroad Earth and Sons of Bill. And check back next week for reviews of Strangefolk at Brooklyn Bowl and Shpongle and EOTO at the E Factory.
Until then, rage on everyone! Peace.
Katie
Tons of stories to cover this week, let’s get right into it!
First and foremost, Phish tickets go on sale tomorrow morning! If you got screwed in the lottery, and from the looks of the twitter updates we’ve seen you didn’t, hop on tomorrow bright and early. One thing to note is that SPAC tickets will have a 3 day “package” ticket you can go for on LiveNation. Good luck to all, and remember if you wook out and oversleep it’s your damn fault you didn’t get those h3tty pavilions brahs. Don’t say that TWoL didn’t try and help you out with the heads up!
If scalping is your thing Phish.net had a great recent post about how to obtain scalper software at the low low cost of about 4k. Personally I think we should get some of us together pitch in and buy the software, get great seats, sell them to our friends or put them on Cash or Trade, and beat the scalpers at their own game. Time to stop bitching and do something about the problem. Leave us a voicemail and let us know if your interested in pitching in. 419-NO-WOOKS is the number.
In other Phish news 2/17/90 has been posted onto youtube and includes almost 2 hours of footage. If you’ve got some time to kill we recommend checking it out, remember it’s 1990 in the video so the quality is what it is but it’s been remastered so it looks pretty damn good for being that old. Check it out!
If you’re into drinking beer and who isn’t, you need to check out this cool new service that allows you to tweet a beer to a friend and paypal the money to cover it. We thought “hey we like beer” and “hey this is pretty cool” so we decided to include it in this weeks episode. Have fun tweeting and drinking!
Moe.down is celebrating their 13th festival and can you believe there’s been 13 of them? We were kind of taking back there has been so many but I guess time flies when you’re jamming out. The are returning to their original location of Snow Ridge, NY this summer. If you got the means and the ways we recommend you check out Moe.down!
So somehow we stumbled across this site called ThisIsMyJam.com and thought it was interesting. It’s similar to Spotify in you can create a playlist but the premise for this site seems to be that your play list is only one song? Not sure what else the site is all about, feel free to check it out and give us feedback if you like, don’t like, or if you know more than we do.
Rock n’ Roll Resort is going on again this year and it looks like Sphongle is headlining. Steve and Laura went last year and had a good time, the venue has changed this year so we’re not sure how that will affect things but it’s sure to be a good time if you’re into the untz.
We had a few great voicemails this week, thanks to those that took the time to leave us a lot report. Remember to give us an update on the shows you attend and tell us about the scene! Thank you to all our listeners we really appreciate your support, we’ll see you next week on lot!
Nick
Happy Phish tour announcement week kids!! It’s the most wonderful time of the year besides, well, tour itself.
But first, a big congrats to TWoLer Stuart White, winner of our Aura Music Festival ticket giveaway. Stuart won a pair of tickets to this festie, being held down in FL March 9-11. Remember to follow TWoL on Facebook and Twitter and keep your eyes peeled for upcoming ticket giveaways and you could be our next big winner.
As I’m sure all of you heard, Phish summer tour leg 1 was announced in typical Phishy fashion yesterday, on Leap Day, with a hilarious and only slightly disturbing video detailing Fishman’s pre-tour training regimen. The tour includes stops at many of Phish’s favorite stomping grounds like Deer Creek, Alpine Valley, SPAC and Jones Beach. There is also some kind of mini-festival stop in Atlantic City (don’t forget your Maltese Falcon). You can request tickets through PTBM until Monday, March 12th. Listen along as we discuss each stop, the flow of the tour in general and TWoL’s plans for the summer.
Also in this episode we discuss Ticketmaster’s new iOS app, released just in time for Phish on-sales. In more ticket news, Bonnaroo and Phil Lesh had some major ticket debacles in the last few weeks. And in festival news we talked about the All Good and Mountain Jam lineups.
And of course, we heard your voicemails. Including perhaps the most epically crude voicemail that TWoL has ever received. Don’t miss this one! And don’t forget to call in and profess your love to us (or to just leave a plain old fashioned lot report) at 419.NO.WOOKS.
Finally, tune into the Gametapes Forum tonight. Join in to listen to and discuss 7.10.00 set II.
Good luck on your ticket requests and let the countdown to summer tour officially begin: 98 days ’til Worcester!
Katie
Big news of the week is the long awaiting first wave of artists announcements at Bonnaroo. Heavily rumored headliners Radiohead, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Phish were kangfirmed. This year there is a ton of camping, ticketing, and food options. One new thing is the Groop Camping, and no that’s not a typo it’s actually spelled with two O’s to play off the festivals’ name, Bonnaroo. If you’ve got a ton of friends we suggest you look into Groop Camping, it’s closer to Centeroo and a guarantees you camp next to your friends no matter when they arrive. Nick is planning on going and of course he will be going VIP RV so he can stay wook free! TWoL recommends you do the same! Also don’t forget tickets go on sale this Saturday, Feb 18th at noon EST.
Keeping with the festival news the AURA Music Festival is going on outside of Orlando, FL on March 9th-11th. TWoL will be giving away a pair of tickets to the festival. Follow us on twitter, @thisweekonlot and post that you would like to go to the @auramusicevents. And / or you can follow us on Facebook and leave a comment on the post from this episode. We will randomly select a winner by 2/27 and announce on the show the next night.
In Phish news this week there hasn’t been any tour dates announced (save Bonnaroo) but there was some new merch on the Phish Dry Goods site. You can now purchase Fishman dress inspired iphone and imac skins and hardcases. Steve just bought a iphone case and swears he won’t get this one…but I’m betting it shows up at his doorstep sooner than later.
This week we are asking our listeners to call in and leave us messages about Bonnaroo. It can be anything, thoughts about attending this year, previous Bonnaroo stories, advice, etc. The number is 419-NO-WOOKS so make sure to program it in your phone!
Thanks to everyone for your support, we’ll see you next week on lot!
-Nick
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