Snake Flower 2, Hemlock S.F., 6/18/09

But first, let’s talk about meSnake Flower 2

Things here at Lemon Session HQ have gotten seriously hectic with the Singles Club 2010 being announced and my entrance into show promotion here in the Bay Area. Between mailing dozens of records every day, and trying to find time to post fliers around Berkeley and Oakland, all the while being EXTREMELY lazy… it’s just left me with no time to do anything useful for this label.

So, onto doing something useful: Don’t forget to purchase a subscription to the Lemon Session Singles Club 2010. There’s still time to buy one, and economy be damned! — you can join for $12.* (Yes, that star means there’s stuff you should read at the bottom of this post that concerns money, mainly paying me money.) Click here to sign up.

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Unnatural Helpers & Tyvjk @ NoisePop, Cafe du Nord, San Francisco, 2/26/09

Unnatural Helpers + Tyvek = Awesome. Noise Pop = a total ripoff.

Unnatural Helpers 7" cover

Noise Pop is a bunch of bullshit. The company behind this stupid festival, Noise Pop Industries, makes a big event of having a few good shows, which should be happening all the time anyway. No, wait, what am I saying? It already does. A lot of these bands play the San Francisco Bay Area already, and pretty frequently — the show I went to featured two S.F. bands on the bill, one of which, the Oh Sees, was the headliner.

The show was my first Noise Pop show. I had two spots on the guest list because I wrote a preview for what-shall-be-an unnamed publication. I was forwarded an email from the publicist, or more specifically from a co-worker of the publicist (important later on) saying I had a +1 on the list for the show.

Around the same time, Dean, drummer for the Unnatural Helpers, gave me permission to record his band at the show. I’ve acquired more recording equipment over the years and this was a great opportunity to try it out so I planned on bringing my equivalent of a mobile studio to the show. (Thank god I had a +1, though I don’t think Rob, my guest, appreciated having to carry two 10-pound microphone stands around Market St.)

This led to me making my first mistake — actually looking forward to going to Noise Pop.

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